Evening star., 1943-07-07
Nation Needs Simpler
Government Structure
Major Eliot Proposes
'Wor Cabinet Of Experts
As Arbiter Of Disputes

W.T. SuOtHSt Ot 6APeItS
As Arbiter Of Disputes
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.
This Is the fourth OF a series OF
articles dealing NTH American prob
lens OF ,0ar organization and leader
ship
We have seen in the preceding articles
OF this series how the increasing COM
plexity of modern war has made 1t i'm
possible for commanders to exercise their
functions without the assistance of
highly trained, well-organized and
thoroughly competent staf1s.
In yesterdays article we began to ap-
ply these time-tested principles to the
problem OF national leadership, the
leadership of the whole Nation at war.
This problem is simple in a totalitarian
state because the organization of that
, state Is based on such leadership in time
of peace. If democracies are to prove
their right to survive, they must find an
adequate solution for this problem in
time of war, and means for transition
from their normal status to the emer-
gency status in which responsibility be-
comes centered, for the period OF the
emergency, in single commander in
chief.
Applying these lessons and principles
to the task now confronting the Presi-
dent Of the United States, we find that
he requires a general staff, or perhaps
we had better call it war cabinet, of IL
men. Three OF these deal with the ele-
ments Of national action-foreign af-
with the means by which that action is
taken-manpower, food, production,
Transportation, internal security. There
are three others which cannot be defined
under either of these headings, but af-
feet both-finance, economic warefare
and information.
To begin with. the whole of the ac-
tivities OF the executive branch of the
Government should be brought under
one or the other Of these departments.
The whole structure should be so SIM
pli1ed that there would be absolutely
clear-cut lines Of authority and re-
sponsibility. Each head of department
should be able to hire, fire, reorganize,
transfer. and, in general. be the boss of
his particular activity. He should be
responsible to the President alone and
all of his subordinates, without excep-
tion, should be responsible to him alone,
or to their superiors in intermediate
n iftv nyynr ~f
functions, disputes. and all uncertainties
which cannot be worked out between
the department heads Immediately con-
cerned should become the care of the
whole II, sitting as war cabinet for
that especial purpose. Probably it would
be necessary to have a special co-ordi-
nator for the five home front" depart
ments, just as in the Army a deputy
chief of staff may be charged with GER
tain particular responsibilities. For this
task on the national scale, the position
OF the Vice President OF the United
States Is admirably adapted
The next and vital step Is to organize
these ii men into war cabinet as
working unit. Such a cabinet would be
unlike the general staff of an army In
that its members would be both staff
officers and executive officers, but in
the highest echelon of national command
there is no escaping the principle that
responsibility for the formulation of pol
Icy cannot be divorced from responsible
ity for its execution. The members of
the war cabinet must have both a COL
lective and an individual responsibility
responsibility for advising the Presi-
dent, as body, on matters Of high policy.
and the responsibility for executing the
Presidents decisions, taken as a result
OF that advice, in their individual capaci-
ties as heads Of executive departments.
The guiding principle should be: The
cabinet advises, the President decides.
the executive departments carry out the
decisions.
1t is vitally important that the war
cabinet should have a well-established
and well-recognized position, that it
should not be a vague and f1uctuating
group OF presidential advisers called into
the White House at the Presidents pleas
ure, but that all its members should have
legally established cabinet rank, that it
should meet at fixed times under the
Craftsmanship of the President, that it
should have permanent secretariat to
carry on its business and liaison officers
to keep 1t in touch with Congress. It's
work and the status OF its members
should be SO we'll known that every citi-
zen could, without hesitation, fix the
responsibility for any particular activity
or failure on the part of Government.
The leadership of great Nation at
war Is not simple task In these DAYS
OF total war, it has, in fact, become
extremely complex. A direct and per-
sonal exercise of the function of COM
mand is beyond the powers of any single
human being, however gifted, even in
the higher subdivision of modern army
and far more so in the Nation itself.
(copyriEht. 1e43. N. Y. Tribune, Inc)