Evening star., 1949-02-27
Advocates or JUDGES?

majority of the Hoover Commission
studying Government reorganization is
reported to have reached the decision that
our three Secretaries of Army, Navy and
Air Force have hampered rather than
helped the ideal of service unif1cation. A
minority of four, including Mr.. Hoover,
would retain them in their present status.
The debate is a recurrence of old argu-
ments pro and con uniflcation before
Congress adopted the present law. But
the majority of the Hoover Commission,
which wants the status of the Secretaries
changed to that of Undersecretaries, re-
porting directly to the Secretary Of De-
fense, has the benefit of experience under
the present set-up to bolster its arguments
for change.
1t is probably true that the Secretaries
Of War, Navy and Air Force have made
themselves the vigorous advocates of the
branches of the services they represent,
rather than judges who assist the Secre-
tary of Defense in reaching an objective
appraisal of national defense needs-re-
gardless of what branch of the service
might suffer in standing as a result of
such an appraisal.
Last year, when the seventy-group Air
Force became a controversial issue, Sec
retary Symington went direct to Congress
and gave his views in opposition to those
of Mr. ForreStal as Secretary of Defense
1t was wholly proper that he should do
this, for that is what the law contem-
plated when it outlined the defense organ
ization as it is. Mr.. Symington went to
Congress with the knowledge and consent
of Mr.. Forrestal and it would have been
wrong for him to do otherwise, as long as
he was convinced that his action was taken
in the interests of national defense-aS
he was.
The question, though, is whether the
existing arrangement will ever work out
to the best interests of the people of the
country. The Hoover Commission majority
has evidently reached the conclusion that
it will not; that the civilian heads of the
three services must in the end owe their
allegiance to the Secretary of Defense and
the President, as umpires over conflicting
points of view, and abandon their roles as
the champions of competing interests. Mr..
Hoover's minority is represented, in reports,
as fearing the loss of traditional civilian
control of the military should such change
in status Of the Secretaries takes place by
making them Undersecretaries reporting
directly to the Secretary Of Defense.
When they become available the argu-
ments behind these conflicting points Of
view will be re-examined with interest,
in the light of experience thus far under
unihcation. In one way or another, how
ever. Congress will doubtless insist that
its own members, as well as the Secretary
of Defense, continue to have free access
to all the conflicting points of view within
the services and will hesitate to make any
change which hampers such access. While
the President and his Secretary of Defense
will be the umpires, insofar as the
executive branch Of the Government is
concerned, Congress will continue to regard
itself as the ultimate umpire of money
to be spent and policies to be pursued in
national defense. And Congress, OF course,
represents the ultimate civilian control
over the military.