REF ID:A42905 

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W'-"t.J~ 

J.)f 

• By Walter Lippma 

Ikeand~hePentagon--~--~~~~~~--~~--1 

AT LONG LAST, on Thursday evening in Baltimore, General Eisenhower began to talk 

seriously about the subject he 

knows the best-about the planning and the operation of the 

military establishment. Early 

in his speech he made it clear 

enough, witltout going very far 

into the matter, that he knows 

where is the root of the trouble. 

'",I'hose civilians who should 

exercise authority in military 

matters, .. said the General who 

may be the chief civilian, "feel 

hesitant because of their lack 

of specialized knowledge and 

experience. In a threatened 

emergency Congress is reluctant to question the demands 

of the military." This could be understood to ~ay that, being a General of the 

Army with specialized knowl· 

edge and experience, he would 1 not ·he hesitant about exercising the kind of authority ov.erthe. Pentagon that President 

Truman and Secretary Lovett 

do not now exercise. That, I 

feel confident however, is not 

the whole or the most import.ant part of what he means. If 

it were, if being a General he 

felt he knew how to fix every- thing, he ·would not be propos-

' in'g to "create a commission of 

the most capable civiHans. in 

our land to restudy the opera: 

tions of our Department of De· 

fense." · · 

Marshall, when he was the 

civilian Secretary of De(ei;ise, perforlJl~d a great service in 

fixing the over-all prin,_ciple of 

the policy of our rearmament, 

but his warmest admirers would 

admit, I think, that he did not 

exercise himself, or help the 

President to exercise, an ade· 

quate civil authority. 

The real trouble in the system as it is now organized is 

that the civilians at the top 

have to get all their military information and all their military advice from the very men over 

whom, in law and in principle, 

they are supposed to exei:cise 

supreme authority. It is the 

business of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff to advise the Secretary of 

Defense and the President on 

what to do about the Navy, the 

Army, and the Air Force which 

they themselves command, · 

G'f-ll 

THIS MEANS that everyone concerned is in an impossible position. Can the chief of ·any ~rvice advise the Secretary of 

Defense to reduce the appropri· · ation for his service in order to 

increase the appropriation for 

another service? The unhappy 

man has to live the rest of his 

life with his fellow officers. He 

has tc be the advocate of his 

service, not the objective planner · of the national military policy. 

As a result, "the civilians who 

"" should exercise authority in 

THE FACT of the matter is military matters" are almost 

tliat, .as the military establish· helpless, even if they are themment is now organized, no one · selves, bY. training, profession- in the top civilian posts-the al soldiers. They are helpless 

President the Secretary of De· because there are no men to 

fense, ar:d the three service whom they can turn for inde· 

secretaries, is in a position to pendent information and exexereise authority in military pert advice on what is best for 

matters. The reason they can- the national defense as a who)e 

not exercise authority is not be· -as distinct from what is best 

cause as individuals they lack for the.special and vested interspecialized military knowledge ests of each of the three 

and military experience. Gen. services. 

THIS CRUCIAL point is th 

main , theme of the extraord 

nary address which Dr. Va 

nevar Bush delivered at th 

Mayo Clinic in Rocheste 

Minn.,. on Friday evening. N 

one, in or out of uniform, is be 

ter qualified than is Dr. Bus 

to speak about military pla 

ning in the Pentagon. He ha 

been working over the su 

stance of this address for 

long time,· and I venture to sa 

that there has been no mor 

important or illuminating di 

cussion of the problem of ho 

to establish a wise and effe 

tive control of our enormou 

military establishment. 

It is difficult in a brief sum 

mary to do justice to Dr. Bush' 

recommendations-not to mak 

them sound simpler than the~ 

are and less thoroughly studied 

than they have been. But the 

gist of what be recommends il 

that "the Joint Chiefs of StafJ 

is the senior military plannin§ 

agency. Its sole duty, as a body 

should be to advise the Secre· 

tary of Defense and to recommend action to be taken by him 

or by the President • • • 11 

should not itself exercise com mand directly or indirectly." The whole duty of the Join1 

Chiefs would be to advise th1 

civilian authorities. They woul< 

have no duties, no rights and 

no powers of command ove1 

the services themselves. 

Although Dr. Bush does. no1 

say so, his proposals carry with 

them the idea that an officet 

who was appointed to the Join1 

Chiefs of Staff would probab]Ji 

not go.,back to a command ill 

his ser\.ice. He would be ratheI 

like a Senator who was appoint- ed to the Supreme Court-ex· 

pected to be out of politics, in 

his case out of service politics, for the rest of his life. 

(Cop1rl1ht, 1952, New York Hera.Id 

Tribune, Inc.)