Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1947-09-10
Unified Procurement
To Be First Target Of
New Defense Set-up
By John A. Giles

A unified system for the pur-
chase of supplies and equipment
for the armed services will be
the first unification target of the
Nations new Department of Ma
tional Defense, it was learned
today.
Most Of the necessary adjust
ments in unificat ton, an Official said,
ARE expected to require two years
or more, but a unified procurement
system, given great impetus by war
time experiences and presidential
prodding since that time, is expect
ed to take much less time"
He refused to make any estimate
of possible savings under unified
procurement and added that it
might be difficult to calculate saw
ings, even after such a system be-
came fully effective, because chang
ing conditions such as labor, trans
portation and the like made COM
parsons difficult.
Sees Major Economies.
However, there is no doubt that
efficient and co-ordinated procure
ment will be one of the major econ
omies of the new national defense
setup," he said. There will be no
examples of competitive bidding
(among the services), etc, such as
has been the case in the past"
st frc "a cGe ~ ~
unified military establishment will
be to draft set of master war plans
to replace the system under which
each of the armed forces has devised
its own and sometimes conflicting
strategy, defense planners said
They recalled the disclosure by
Secretary OF State Marshall while
still Army Chief Of Staff that even
under the urgency Of World War II
arguments within the Joint Chiefs
of staff compelled inadequate COM
promises on strategy.
Under conditions which existed
before the war. the Navy and the
Army, together with the air arms of
those services, prepared their own
alternative plans to be followed if
various war situations arose.
Responsibility for Three Units.
Under the new system to be placed
in effect, chief responsibility for the
preparation of strategy involving
the use Of the Army, Navy and Air
Force. separately or jointly, will rest
with three divisions of the national
defense structure. They are the
Security Council. the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, composed of the chiefs of staff
Of the three services plus the chief
Of staff to the President, and the
joint staff, working force of 100
offcers from each service doing the
analyses and preparation Of studies
for the joint chiefs.
The new National Defense De-
partment will actually come into
being sometime after September 20,
when James V. Forrestal becomes
the Nations first Secretary of Ma
tional Defense.
Under the new super" secretary
is the Munitions Board, which actu-
ally was reconstructed in August
1916. On October IA, 1916, Presi-
dent Truman, acting in the light OF
wartime experiences. gave the board
authority to assign to either the
Army or Navy or jointly the power
to purchase common use items"
Program Under Way.
Under the newly passed National
Security Act of 1s47," the board is
composed of a civilian chairman
Thomas J. Hargrave, former presi-
dent OF Eastman Kodak-and an
under or assistant secretary from
each OF the three military depart
ments. 1t is almost in complete
charge of procurement of supplies
and can recommend assignment of
purchase responsibilities, plans for
Standardization of specifications
and for alloca ton of purchasing
authority of technical equipment
and common use items on the basis
of single procurement" Much of this
program already is under way.
The board already has set up
three types of procurement:
"Single"-under which one service
buys for all in a particular commid-
ity field.
"Joint'-where the services set up
q joint equal-member group or COM
mittee to make certain purchases
Gross" - where collection of
buyers are located in the same
building and work together.
Certain Purchases Assigned.
Already the Munitions Board has
delegated to the Army the procure
ment OF food, lumber certain ord
nance in which that service has the
predominant interest, and certain
construction materials. The Army
thus makes all armed force pur-
chases in these fields.
To the Navy, the board has dele
gated the sole power to buy coal,
marine life-saving equipment, ord
nance material in which it has tnS
predominant interest and certain
construction materials.
The best example of joint Army
and Navy purchasing is in the med
lcal field, where the Joint Army
Navy Medical Procurement Agency
in New York actually has stand
ardized more than IS per cent Of
all armed service medical equipment