of the Secretary of Defense, identifying the issues upon which there is no agreement.

And finally on page 22, he speaks of:

A man who is sitting over them directing and driving the business.

I might just add, Senator, that I know of, in my whole list of acquaintances, no man with whom I would be more hopeful of reaching an agreement than with Secretary Forrestal. I think he knows this subject better than anyone I know, and I know of no more reasonable man.

The CHAIRMAN. As I get the picture, you are substantially in agreement with Secretary Forrestal's testimony, and I might even say w th the bill; but what you have done is to take Secretary Forrestal's philosophy, and take the bill and scrt of weed out the chaff from the wheat and get the weak places out of it and strengthen those weak places and tone it down where there is too much strength and authorit, to give real point and purpose to the Secretary of Defense's state

ment.

I don't see where there is any difference between your philosophy, basically, and that of Secretary Forrestal.

Mr. EBERSTADT. I wouldn't think so, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And what suggestions you have made really are in line with the generalities of the Secretary's statement and you pin them down to specific recommendations, is that right?

Mr. EBERSTADT. I would think that was correct.

For example, Secretary Forrestal rendered a report of the first year and a half of operations, and that report covers objectives in this bill.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right.

Mr. EBERSTADT. Neither that report nor the Hoover recommendation nor our committee's testimony and the recommendations involves this suggestion in section 3, but I think I would be greatly surprised if Secretary Forrestal and I were not completely in agreement, and that is why I took the liberty of asking the Senator in what respect he thought we differed.

Senator HUNT. As I listened to the Secretary's testimony the other day, and your testimony this morning, there is a line of agreement between them.

However, I seem to get this point, that the Secretary of Defense should have a little more absolute authority. You have taken the opposition, that you must be careful not to concentrate too much authority in that position, and I thought if we could get a common language in the bill from the two of you, it would be very helpful to us. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hunt, I think you have a good point. Suppose we could get our staff to take the recommendations of Mr. Eberstadt and put them into real language and then submit those recommendations of Mr. Eberstadt's both to Mr. Eberstadt and Mr. Forrestal and they would be in concrete, amendatory form and you might find that they are pretty well in agreement on them, and with a few changes they might be brought into complete agreement. I think we might do it.

Senator HUNT. It would relieve the members of this committee of a lot of responsibility.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you take care of that, Mr. Mudge?

Gentlemen, we are getting close to 12 o'clock.

Senator BYRD. I would like to make an observation, if I may.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. EBERSTADT. May I say, Senator, on the question of power of the Secretary, there is not the slightest difference between Secretary Forrestal and myself. I may not have made myself clear. I am in favor of clarifying his authority, but I am not in favor of giving excess authority and above all, I am not in favor of a measure which creates the vagueness surrounding his authority to a greater measure than even at present, and I think on the question of the powers of the Secretary, we would have no debate whatsoever.

Senator BALDWIN. May I observe-I am glad you asked that question, Mr. Eberstadt, because when Secretary Forrestal was here, I picked out section 3 and said to the Secretary, "Do you consider that this is the main section in the bill? Is this where you have got the real gist of the whole thing?" And he said it was. Now, Mr. Eberstadt takes the point of view that you don't need section 3 at all. I don't say that there is a difference in their philosophy about the thing. They indicated Mr. Eberstadt here is in agreement with Mr. Forrestal, but apparently there is quite a grave difference as to the possible approach to accomplish the same thing, and I think that is why we have to do some work on this particular bill.

The CHAIRMAN. If we can get Mr. Eberstadt's recommendations focused into amendatory language that is specific, we can submit it to Mr. Forrestal and say "Here. You fellows generally look at this thing alike. Are you in agreement on this procedure to carry it out?" Maybe we can narrrow the matter down in that manner. Did you have something, Senator Byrd?

Senator BYRD. Did your committee recommend any changes in the legislation affecting the National Security Resources Board?

Mr. EBERSTADT. We recommended a series of things there, Senator. Most of it was a clarification of the situation and the position of that Board. I do not remember offhand which ones were legislative and which were administrative.

I think I could tell you in one moment.

Senator BYRD. That is not included in this bill, I don't believe, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. EBERSTADT. We recommended, Senator, on that point-that Congress should take some action by way of passing stand-by legislation for mobilization.

It is a matter of deepest concern to those familiar with the subject that even now we have no emergency mobilization plans. We have been through this thing twice, the second time apparently with more agony than the first time. There is no reason in the world why those plans should not be gotten ready and put out.

Senator BYRD. Do you mind, Mr. Eberstadt, giving the committee your opinion as to the importance of this Board in our defense program?

Mr. EBERSTADT. Well, when you considered the bill, you characterized this as second in importance only to the National Security Council. I am not sure that the difference between the two, in importance, is great; but, the need for an organization of this sort was so tremendously patent in both of the last two wars, that it

seemed wise to set it up, so that we would have some plans; and, the need is not only from the point of view of mobilization plans, the need exists every day. We are straining our economy, not only to take care of our civilian demands, but we are carrying a national security demand of enormous character, such as the ECA, the recent Turkish aid, and now we will be carrying aid under the North Atlantic Treaty, or Atlantic Pact. We are spending very substantial amounts, and properly, for atomic energy and our military budget is of huge proportion.

Now, those things have repercussions on our civilian economy, which is substantial, but not impregnable.

This Board should be occupying itself with consideration of the impact of those programs. One would think that discussion of those plans with this Board before they are advocated would be appropriate. That is what the Board was created for. Where these questions impinge upon a series of departments, the Board is a very convenient place to lay out a harmonious pattern so that one department will not be pulling this way and another department pulling that way, but the achievements of the Board today are not impressive.

Senator BYRD. But, you regard it as one of the most important arms of our national defense?

Mr. EBERSTADT. I know of no more important one.

Senator KEFAUVER. May I ask a question?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, Senator.

Senator KEFAUVER. Mr. Eberstadt, I notice in the Commission's report to Congress, February 1948, page 16, recommendation 2 (d) that the majority of your Commission recommended that the positions and titles of the Secretaries of the services be changed and that they be called Under Secretary for Army, Under Secretary for Navy, and Under Secretary for the Air Force.

The chairman and three other members of the Commission dissented from the findings.

Do you wish to make any statement in regard to your attitude about recommendation 2 (ď)?

Mr. EBERSTADT. I will make a remark off the record, first, then a statement for the record, if you desire.

(There was discussion off the record.)

Mr. EBERSTADT. We considered that question carefully, Senator, and our report to the Commission deals with it.

We considered an apparent incongruity between the position of Secretary of the three military departments and the Secretary of Defense; but, after weighing all the considerations, we concluded that it was advisable too that these men should continue to have the title of "Secretary" but they should be put clearly under the orders of the Secretary of Defense, because one of our objectives was to release the Secretary of Defense of routine burdens, and of other burdens up to the point where he had to take care of the matters himself.

Congressional appearances on matters of no major importance still would precipitate toward the Secretary of Defense whereas if there were a Secretary of the Army, Navy, or Air Force, he could thoroughly and adequately meet that.

Public ceremonies would precipitate toward the Secretary of Defense, and be an additional burden.

Furthermore, the stature of the man that you could get is important. It might be, of course, that you could get a better young man as an Under Secretary or Assistant Secretary, but those are huge jobs. These people are dealing with a million men apiece, and that is a tremendously important job, and with billions of dollars, and it is not wise to minimize the importance of these positions.

The only argument in favor of it was that by reducing them to Under Secretaries, you might fortify the discipline of the Secretary, but we thought that that could be handled, No. 1, as a matter of law, to put them clearly and definitely under the Secretary; and No. 2, as a matter of personal loyalty in the selection of the Secretaries. That is a close question.

The CHAIRMAN. Does that answer your question?

Senator KEFAUVER. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to say to the committee, that I have written to the three Secretaries and only one so far has answered, Mr. Symington, and in his letter he expresses a general approval of the bill.

I have not heard from the other two.

Now, I would like to ask the committee, and I do so ask the committee, what other witnesses have you in mind?

To answer my own question, I thought I would ask the three Chiefs of Staff to come up here jointly, General Bradley, Admiral Denfeld, and General Vandenberg, and have the three of them come up at the same time and really testify more or less simultaneously.

If we hear from the Secretary of War, and the three Secretaries, and we hear from the three Chiefs of Staff, together with Mr. Eberstadt and Mr. Forrestal, I believe that we will have, when we get to the final analysis, and receive the answers that Senator Byrd and others have requested, about enough information to do business on, and we have got a lot of other bills to go forward with.

I would like to get the opinion of the committee as to whether or not, if I find the time when the three Chiefs of Staff can come, if they feel that will be sufficient in the way of developing information for us to proceed without further witnesses.

Senator SALTONSTALL. I would like to——

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, Senator.

Senator SALTONSTALL. Robert Patterson, and possibly John McCloy, because as I understand it they have a little different point of view, and I think we ought to make our record just as complete as we can. I do not think they need to give a long statement.

The CHAIRMAN. I wonder if we could not find out, first of all, by getting in touch with them whether or not they have any specific recommendations to make, or whether they are in general accord. It seems a pity to take a busy man away from his job, unless they have had a chance to study the whole thing, and unless they have a point of view. Now, what is your thought, Senator?

(There was discussion off the record.)

The CHAIRMAN. I will be glad to have as many witnesses as you want. I think you have all shades of opinion right now, to a large extent. You have the opinion of the man who is just going out, and Mr. Eberstadt, who has certainly been identified with this thing a long while, and if you get the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the three Secretaries, you would have a pretty formidable array.

(There was further discussion off the record.)

The CHAIRMAN. I will ask the clerk of the committee to send copies of the bill to Mr. Patterson and to Mr. McCloy, and tell them, at the request of the committee, we would like to have them read it over and either give us a statement in writing or come personally to testify before us, according to how deeply they feel about it.

Will that be satisfactory, Senator?

Senator SALTONSTALL. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. And, we would like to have the answers to those letters, if they will be good enough to do so, by the end of this week. Senator SALTONSTALL. And in the form in which they can be incorporated.

The CHAIRMAN. They will be used as a part of the record.

I will get in touch with the three Chiefs of Staff, and try to find a morning or afternoon when we can get the three of them together, and get their opinions on this bill and what they suggest.

Now, the most important we will be waiting on, Mr. Eberstadt, will be the budget proposition that Senator Byrd raised, so if we can help you, or if our staff can help you to ferret out with the budget people anything you want, or anything else that we can do, we will be glad to assist. Our staff here will be glad to do what they can to help you, and please feel free to call on them at any time.

We want to thank you again, deeply, for the great interest you have taken in this, and for the philosophy you have expressed, and for the specific suggestions you have made.

I think you have stimulated our thoughts on the matter tremendously, and because of your testimony, I feel confident, without flattery, that we will have a better bill than we otherwise would have had. Mr. EBERSTADT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator BYRD. I want to join in what the chairman has said.

(Thereupon, the committee went on with the consideration of other matters.)