Evening star., 1946-04-15
Room Enough But Topheuvy


merge the armed forces is a vehicle
designed in the commodious propor-
tions of an omnibus, so that every
body can have a ride The seating
arrangement is unique.
There is bench for the advocates
OF merger -under-one-man. Here will
be found the omniscient Secretary of
Common Defense, his Chief of Staff
OF Common Defense (outranking
everybody else who wears a uniform)
and his own staff and a retinue COM
posed of an undersecretary and four
assistant secretaries.
: There is another bench for the ad-
vocates of autonomy in the services.
Here we find the Secretary for the
Army with the Commanding Gen.
eral, United States Army; the Secre-
tary for the Navy. with the Chief Of
Naval Operations and the Secretary
for the Air Force, with the Com
manding General, United States Air
Force.
There is still another bench for
those who believe in coordination
through the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Joint Staff Of the armed forces
will be seated, reading from left to
right: Chief of STAFF of Common De-
Tense; Commanding General, United
States Army; Chief of Naval Opera
tions and Commanding General,
United States Air Force.
There are also seats on top of the
bus, for the advocates of co-ordinat-
ing on a larger scale. An independ-
ent agency, known as the Council of
Common Defense, will be composed
Of the Secretary of State, the Secre-
tary of Common Defense and the
Chairman of National Security Re-
sources Board, with the President of
the United States as their presiding
officer. This council will have the
services of an executive secretary
and staff and will also include a
Central Intelligence Agency, with a
director and staff, and National
Security Resources Board, with a
chairman and staff-all independ-
ent of the Department of Common
Defense.
The Subcommittee on Unifcation
OF the Armed Forces, which has sub
mitted designs and specifications for
this interesting vehicle to the Senate
Military Affairs Committee, obvi-
ouSly was anxious to incorporate as
many as possible of the different
schools of thought on the subject,
while taking the view itself that
"Only by vesting clear and final
powers of decision in one man, under
the President, can we in the future
avoid the conflicts, Implications, de-
lays and waste which marred an
otherwise outstanding war record -
The result appears to be that while
there is the form of one-man con-
troll, the substance is coordination
So why the one-man control? The
machinery for one-man control is so
elaborate that the one mans func-
tions necessarily would be confined
to those Of an Oracle, expected to say
eyes" or "No" on questions of policy
presented for his final decision. He
would not have time to do much
else. If he guessed right every time,
he should have more compensation
than the suggested $4,000 a year.
But actual experience under unified
control, in Germany, for example,
indicates that one-man decisions,
when wrong, can be much more costly
than all the delays. etc, attributed
to divided command in this country
during the war. One cardinal mis-
take was the tendency of one man in
Germany to neglect vital measures
in one of the services because of his
intense preoccupation with others.
The same sort of mistakes can be
made by other sole arbiters, given
"clear and final powers Of decision" !"
Merger legislation under one man
is probably dead duck anyhow. But
before starting with the Army and
Navy, now suffering more from the
indecision of a politically minded
Congress than from divided COM
mand, why does not Congress itself
try merging it's own four committees
on military and naval affairs under
one supreme chairman? That would
be relatively simple. Yet how many
members of Congress actually believe