Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-12-26
GeneroIissimo RISING
From u. S. Army Seen
Observer Says Unions to Fight
Merger Because of This Fear
By David Laurence

Merger Because of This Fear
By David Laurence
President Truman revealed q great
deal more than his concept of merged
War and Navy Department in his recent
message to Congress. He revealed also
his concept of the Presidency and he
becomes the first President OF the
United States to be ready in effect to
abdicate the post Of commander-in-
chief of the Army and Navy created by
the Constitution. He says:
1.-THE President, as communicative
chief, should not personally have to CO.
ordinate the Army and Navy and Air
Force. With all the other problems be-
fore him, the President cannot be ex-
pected to balance either the organiza-
ton, the training or the practice of the
several branches of national defense.
He should rely for that coordination
upon civilian hands at the Cabinet
level"
The President did not say hand" but
hands which would give the impress
sion that he used the term as one does
on the farm where hand Is one person
and hands" means two persons Yet,
in the same message he advocated that
only one civilian hand" should sit at
the Cabinet table. He is opposing the
idea that the Army Air Forces and the
Navy should each have a civilian hand"
at the Cabinet level.
3-Man Job.
Obviously, a President should not
have to be concerned with "the training
or the practice of the several branches
of the national defense" because this
is really military or naval or air force
task; but it certainly is the duty of a
President to be concerned with the
balancing" of the different organiza- :
tons. 1t looks, for instance, as if the
budget for the military and naval and
air arms may be anywhere from a
fourth to third of our annual Federal
outlay, and this is an important enough
problem to delegate at the Cabinet
table, not to committee of one, but
to a committee of three consisting of
the Secretaries for Army, Navy and Air.
The President then gives a rather
curious explanation of what the re-
sponsibility of cabinet appears to him
to be. He says:
THE cabinet is not merely a collec-
ton of executives administering differ
ent Government functions. 1t is a body
whose combined Judgment the President
uses to formulate the fundamental poll
cies of the administration. In such q
group, which is designed to develop
teamwork and wisdom on all subjects
that affect the political life of the
country, it would be inappropriate and
unbalanced to have three members rep
resenting three different instruments Of
national defense"
"Unbalancing" Questioned.
If the President really means that he
relies on the combined Judgment" OF
his cabinet which now consists of 10
members and would consist of II in the
event that Secretary of Air were
added, how is it possible for three de-
Tense secretaries to unbalance a cabinet
that consists of eight other cabinet
members whose combined Judgment"
presumably would be ample to outweigh
the three defense secretaries, even if,
perchance, the matter came to a vote of
to 8? Would not a vote of to /
be more unbalanced if only one secre-
tary represented all the armed services?
3 Mr.. Truman gives the impression that
even in time Of peace the job of COM
mander in chief would appear to be
beyond the capacity of the elected leader
of the people. President Lincoln, Presi-
dent Wilson and President Roosevelt
didn't find it so, even in time of war.
Mr.. Truman seems to favor set-up in
which there shall be the American
equivalent of generalissimo. He
wants chief of staff to command all
the armed services. He says that the
post should be rotated every two or
three years, which is a concession to the
limitations of one man in understand
ing branch of the services in which
heswas not originally trained.
An Army Generalissimo.
But Mr.. Truman says that lin time Of
a war emergency declared by the Con-
gress," the chief of staff could stay on.
But If an Army man happened to be
chief OF staff, would it be efficient to let
him retain command in the event of
possible naval war such as was fought
against Japan? If change were sud-
denly made, on the other hand, and
Navy chief of staff appointed, would the
Army be satisfied and cooperative? In
the war just ended no Navy man was
ever permitted to exercise complete COM
mand over Army, Navy and Air Forces
in the Pacific or Atlantic fact which
has often been overlooked.
If Mr.. Truman gets his plan, it GER
tainly would seem that there will be
generalissimo and that he win be an
Army man. This is one reason, Incl
dentally, why union labor will fight the
plan to the last ditch, because union
labor would not care to see delegated to
one man, who is not elected by the
people, the constitutional powers Of
commander-in-chief. Likewise, all the
peace and church organizations which
have disliked the Army's ideas on COM
pulsory military training are likely to
line up strongly against the merger for
Tho coyoo reoeo,,