Souers 1949

NATIONAL DEFENSE AND DEMOCRATIC
SOCIETY: A SYMPOSIUM*
I. NATIONAL SECURITY IN AMERICAN
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
JOHN D. MILLETT
Columbia University
Traditionally, American public interest in national defense has been sporadic,

alternating between short periods of intense concern and longer periods of
general indifference. Except for World War II, the only sustained military effort
since 1789 was provoked by internal strife. American manpower ended the stale-
mate of World War I, but our participation was neither lengthy nor economi-
cally intensive.
We often forget that one of the first purposes motivating the Founding
Fathers was to "provide for the common defense." Six of the eighteen clauses
in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, defining the legislative authority of
the new federal government, deal with military matters. It was no accident
that in the early issues of the Federalist John Jay and Alexander Hamilton
should have dwelt at length upon the defense requirements of the American
states.1 Properly, Hamilton was concerned also to demonstrate that under the
proposed constitution the military would be subject to the civilian authority.
As he put it,2
"Independent of all other reasonings upon the subject, it is a full answer to those who
require a more peremptory provision against military establishments in time of peace, to
say that the whole power of the proposed government is to be in the hands of the represen-
tatives of the people. This is the essential, and, after all, only efficacious security for the
rights and privileges of the p'eople, which is attainable in civil society."
The new republic soon perceived that it enjoyed a fortunate geographic im-
munity from the European wars in which the colonies had participated before
1776. There was a flurry of military preparation during John Adams' adminis-
tration, and the "war hawks" succeeded in inducing Congress to declare war
on Great Britain in 1812. The ensuing land campaigns were prosecuted with as
little success as preparation; only Jackson's postwar victory at New Orleans
provided any military satisfaction to an otherwise dismal record.
Favored by the peaceful turn of European politics, the United States then
settled down to a long period of tranquility interrupted only in 1861 by our own
internecine strife. But the Union was no sooner preserved than the North dis-
banded its great military might in order to concentrate upon the rapid indus-
trialization and exploitation of a continent. We had no need to maintain large
* Planned and arranged by Fritz Morstein Marx, Washington, D. C.
1 2
See Nos. 2-9, 11, and 26-29. No. 28.
524
NATIONAL DEFENSE AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY 525
armies; our military requirements were satisfied with small garrisons through-
out the West to protect an expanding nation from the Indians. The Civil War
Navy survived on a limited scale.
Only in 1898 did the United States emerge as a world power. Against a deca-
dent European country, our short, victorious war was primarily a naval achieve-
ment. Both facts were readily apparent to Theodore Roosevelt, who rightly
came to be regarded as the maker of the modern American Navy. Our "first
line of defense" became our sea frontier, and American military thinking was
oriented toward war far from our own shores. It was unrestricted submarine
warfare that involved us in World War I, although it is doubtful whether we
could have been indefinitely indifferent to the power struggle in Europe. Be-
tween 1919 and 1939, the American Navy remained the primary element of the
nation's defense; but national politics was again preoccupied with domestic
matters, mainly economic. Once more there was no need for any large land force.
Events since 1939 are familiar.
II
The "one world" of post-1945 has confronted our nation with strange cir-
cumstances. Our political life for the first time threatens to be dominated for a
protracted period by concern for our national security.
The emergence of the United States as a world power must be attributed
primarily to two factors: a large continental area richly endowed with natural
resources, and technological development providing greater material posses-
sions than those enjoyed anywhere else in the world. These, moreover, are the
very factors which today make a nation potentially powerful as a military
force in world affairs. We can no more abandon our military position than we
can give up the automobile, the radio, the steel mill, or the research laboratory.
Yet our transformation into the world's most powerful nation came so sud-
denly that politically we are still trying to grasp its implications. Neither our
past experiences nor our existing political and administrative institutions have
prepared us to cope with the issues which now surround us.
For convenience of discussion, the problem areas of national security policy
may be summarized under six headings: the nation's strategic objectives and
means; actual as against potential defensive strength; the burden of national
security measures upon our economy; assurance of continued technological
advance; administrative organization to recommend and execute security
policies; and finally, civil-military relationships. Here it is possible to do no
more than suggest the importance of each general subject.
Strategic Objectives and Means. Our principal aim is peace. There is nothing
in our political experience or tradition to suggest that we have any territorial
ambitions. And while we have spoken glibly in the past about "making the
world safe for democracy" and "spreading the advantages of the individual
enterprise system," our prevailing political or economic philosophy does not
encourage foreign expansion. The solutions to the economic problems of our own
peculiar and indigenous capitalism will undoubtedly be sought internally, not
externally.
526 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW
President Truman's statement on January 5, 1949, at the opening of the

Eighty-first Congress was simply a reaffirmation of many previous declarations
by political leaders in the United States. First, he asserted that "our domestic
programs are the foundation of our foreign policy." And then he declared:
"The heart of our foreign policy is peace. . . . Our guiding star is the principle
of international cooperation. To this concept we have made a national commit-
ment as profound as anything in history. To it we have pledged our resources
and our honor."
But such concern for peace is coupled with our determination for national
survival. For us, the two are synonymous, although we often fail to recognize
the fact. When we profess our desire for peace, we are saying only that we have
no goals beyond our national boundaries to be achieved by military force. But
we need to understand clearly at the same time that we hold equally to the
objective of preserving our national status, even by the use of military force.
Hence the central international issue of our time lies in this question: What
measures are necessary to maintain our national existence? Public policy begins
with an identification of the threats to our national position and a determina-
tion of the strategic essentials required to insure the maintenance of our exist-
ence.
We regard the Soviet Union as our principal menace. We are confused as to
whether the dynamic elements of Soviet policy are based upon a concern for
national survival, expanding ambitions for power, or an ideological fixation
which refuses to accept any different social and economic system in the world.
But, regardless of motivation, we observe external acts whose import is threat-
ening.
From this situation emerge various problems. At what point territorially do
we recognize a direct threat to our national safety? Is our frontier today the
Atlantic, the Rhine, the Elbe, the Epirus Mountains, the Dardanelles, the Per-
sian Gulf? Is it the middle Pacific, the far Pacific chain of islands, or the Asiatic
mainland? Do we have a single frontier or a series of moving frontiers? If we
have a series of moving frontiers, when and how do we recognize an act of aggres-
sion against us?
In a troubled world, geography acquires new importance. After the fall of
France, President Roosevelt was much concerned about Africa. He saw the
geographical limits of the Monroe Doctrine necessarily expanded to the west
coast of the "dark continent." It was not accidental that in November, 1942,
American forces alone attacked at Casablanca, while an Allied force sailed
into the Mediterranean. In the Pacific, all during 1941, the most troublesome
political issue was whether our government was to regard Japan's seizure of
Hongkong and her move into the Malay Peninsula and the East Indies as
hostile acts. The President and his advisers felt certain that Japan's action
should be resisted by force. But how were the American people and their Con-
gress to be persuaded? The Japanese accommodatingly included Hawaii and
the Philippines in their attack.
Today, we face these same issues on a larger scale. If the Soviet Union were
to invade and occupy Norway, do we have to go to war to preserve our own

national existence, regardless of an Atlantic pact? If the Soviet Union attacks
Turkey, is this a threat to the United States? These are not easy questions to
answer, partly because of strategic uncertainties and partly because under our
governmental system we usually make such difficult choices more or less un-
predictably upon the basis of the excitement of the moment.
Our strategic position geographically is greatly complicated by another obvi-
ous factor. Communist infiltration and seizure of power in a country is different
from Soviet external aggression. But how different? And is the first any less a
menace to our continued national existence than the second? Generally agreed
as we are upon "self-determination," will we be less ready politically to recog-
nize potential strategic danger if, for example, Communists should seize power
in France? These very complexities tempt some to fall back upon an unassail-
able and "objective" identification of national menace—direct attack upon our
own land frontiers. But when we are, ready to defend ourselves in North
America only, we shall probably have lost the war.
If we decide to promote buffer areas between us and the Soviet Union, we face
vital issues of means. In general, the questions are of two types. First, do we
want to commit ourselves to support countries of friendly disposition to our
own cause by economic assistance, military assistance, the dispatch of our own
armed forces, or a combination of all three? Prior to the Atlantic Pact, to a
large extent the exigencies of public policy have concentrated upon economic
assistance, with only incidental attention to military assistance, notably in
Greece and Turkey. Our troops are stationed, with minor exceptions, only in
Axis territory which we have occupied—Western Germany and Japan. Despite
the emphasis on economic aid, few of us realize, for example, how large a part
American agricultural production has played in furthering our strategic ends.
Confronted in peacetime by the prospect of unusable and unsalable agricultural
surpluses, we have been exporting butter instead of guns in the hope that the
nations thus benefited will find ways of strengthening their own defense
against the dangers of Soviet aggression or Communist infiltration.
Secondly, in supporting buffer areas, are we indifferent to the type of local
regime? Are we concerned only with the geographical factor? Provided that a
state is strategically situated for our own defense, do we automatically afford
it economic and military assistance? Do we shut our eyes to the internal power
system of that state, if only its rulers profess to love us more than the Russians?
What are our obligations to the ideals of a "free" people? In finding the means
to protect ourselves, do we merely try to combat hostile force with our own force?
Or do we strive also to bolster the cause of material and other benefits for the
masses of other nations? Because our officials could no longer stomach the cor-
ruption of the Kuomintang regime in China, we slackened our support. Perhaps
that decision does us more justice than our record in Greece. Shall we then
embrace Franco's Spain?
Finally, what sources of information—how extensive and how competent
an intelligence network—must we maintain as a nation to ascertain foreign
intentions and dangers? All these questions barely begin to outline the great
public issues which confront us today in deciding our strategic objectives and
means.
Actual as against Potential Defensive Strength. The Civil War was eventually
won by the North because of its industrial and manpower resources. But it
took a long time to translate potential military strength into campaign success.
In World War I, we discovered that it was possible in a little over a year to or-
ganize and partially to train some four million men in the armed forces, while
getting needed production of munitions took longer.3 Fortunately, our British
and French allies could provide the American Army in 1918 with heavy guns,
ammunition, airplanes, and other specialized military equipment.
The lesson of this experience was not forgotten. When the National De-
fense Act was amended in 1920, section 5a was inserted providing that the as-
sistant secretary of war should assure "adequate provision for the mobiliza-
tion of materiel and industrial organizations essential to wartime needs." This
was the beginning of so-called "industrial mobilization planning" in the United
States.
With the Nazi attack on the Lowlands and France in May, 1940, the first
step taken by President Roosevelt was to activate the Advisory Commission
to the Council of National Defense to begin immediate preparations for assist-
ing the Army and Navy in procuring needed weapons. The Lend-Lease Act of
1941 did more than provide aid to nations resisting Fascist aggression; it called
for further expansion of American productive resources to increase the output
of war materiel. When Pearl Harbor brought us into the war, this country had
enjoyed at least eighteen months of partial economic mobilization. That prep-
aration enabled our armed forces to begin offensive operations on a limited
scale nine months later; it was another twelve months before we were really
ready to launch sustained attacks upon the enemy. Time is the key to effective
utilization of productive resources for direct war purposes—provided, of course,
a nation possesses the raw materials, plant, technology, and manpower in the
first place.
Many military strategists remind us that in the last two wars the United
States was distant from the initial point of conflict, was not immediately at-
tacked, and so was afforded time in which to begin active preparations for de-
fense. Next time, they say, the United States is likely to be the first object of
attack in order to prevent this nation from having time to mobilize its industrial
resources for prolonged warfare.
Others believe that present and foreseeable means of warfare would not en-
able the Soviet Union, for example, to strike effectively at the United States
itself, but if bent on aggression that country might quickly overrun all of
Europe. In the time it would take us to mobilize for war on the model of World
War II, the Soviet Union would be able to increase its own strength consider-
ably. By the time we were ready for large-scale effort, the task before us would
3
See America's Munitions, 1917-1918, a report of Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secre-
tary of War and Director of Munitions (Washington, 1919).
be overwhelming. So this group, too, argues that the United States must be
better prepared for immediate military action than at any time in our history.
In his message to Congress on January 5, 1949, President Truman ex-
pressed the nation's general purpose in these words: "Until a system of world
security is established upon which we can safely rely, we cannot escape the
burden of creating and maintaining armed forces sufficient to deter aggres-
sion." In the light of this policy, government planners must then answer two
questions. The first is: How large, and how well equipped, must the immediate
armed forces of the nation be in order "to deter aggression"? The second is:
What "stand-by" equipment, plant, and materials must the country maintain?
These, again, are not simple questions. Is a 70-group air force now more
likely to deter aggression than a 48-group air force? How large an Army and
Navy must we now have to fulfill our strategic decisions? The size of existing
forces raises problems of equipment. Is the primary purpose of a 70-group air
force to provide an immediate defense force, or is it to keep a combat aircraft
industry in existence to meet future needs? Similar questions must be asked
about the Army and Navy. Should our armed forces buy tanks and build air-
craft carriers even if there were no immediate personnel to man them? How
far is it feasible to keep certain munitions plants in existence for quick opera-
tion, even when not actually producing? And how extensive must be our stock-
piling of raw materials?
Economic Burden of National Security. The questions posed thus far lead im-
mediately into a third and more complicated set of policy issues. Americans
should ever be mindful of Hamilton's observation that "the extent of the mili-
tary force must, at all events, be regulated by the resources of the country."4
The federal government's budget for the fiscal year 1950 as proposed by Presi-
dent Truman on January 10, 1949, provides 14.3 billion dollars for our armed
forces and 6.7 billion dollars for international programs and commitments, in-
cluding relief and reconstruction. This is about one-half of the total budget,
and amounts to eight per cent of probable total national income.
Whether we like it or not, our country is confronted with the necessity for
careful planning in its economic affairs. We can carry the burden of continuing
large-scale economic and military measures for our national security only
upon appropriate adjustment in the pattern of private and public spending.
Rationing of scarce basic materials, various forms of price control, expansion
of productive plant, export controls—all of these subjects are discussed in the
President's Economic Report of January 7, 1949. Each relates closely to our
present national security program. Yet as a nation we are still far from com-
prehending clearly the economic implications of our security requirements.
Continued Advance of Research and Development. Now that our knowledge of
physics, chemistry, and even biology is being translated on a major scale into
mighty weapons, the security of the nation must depend increasingly upon
progress in basic research and application of new knowledge to actual imple-
ments of defense. In the past, apart from incidental contributions to research,
4
The Federalist, No. 28.
530 THE AMEBICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW
we have not endeavored through the instrument of government to guide the

nation's scientific and technological developments. Concern for our national
security no longer permits such an attitude.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 begins with a basic statement of national
purpose emphasizing "the paramount objective of assuring the common defense
and security." The National Security Act of 1947 directs a Research and De-
velopment Board "to prepare a complete and integrated program of research
and development for military purposes." This means that government itself
must be used to insure that on a national scale we do not lag but constantly
advance in basic knowledge of the physical world and in application of that
knowledge to the needs of our national security.
On the one hand, basic research broadens man's insight into the physical
universe. The number and competence of scientific personnel must be such that
we constantly advance in general knowledge, expecting much if not all of this
knowledge to have practical application for our material well-being. The pro-
posals for a National Science Foundation, for example, rest upon the proposi-
tion that our society must give new and purposeful encouragement to training
in research and to the pursuit of various scientific inquiries.
But this is only one part of the problem. General scientific knowledge must
be applied to the development of specific military equipment with new and
greater possibilities of effective use. In fact, much general scientific knowledge
undoubtedly arises from inquiry into specific military problems, such as super-
sonic flight, rocket artillery, and jet propulsion. The proportion of scientific re-
sources to be devoted to military efforts and the interchange of scientific data
from military experimentation to general research thus pose basic governmental
problems. Moreover, both scientific and military personnel must be prepared to
determine when research and development have reached the point where new
military equipment shall be used by troops, and when experimentation shall
continue in the hope of obtaining still more effective equipment.
Organizational Problems of Policy-Making. It has become traditional in our
political life to try to solve any acknowledged national problem by creating
an administrative agency. The task of defining purpose and method in detailed
terms is thus transferred from the legislative to the administrative arena. As a
people, we have great confidence that somehow our administrative institutions,
subject to popular, presidential, and congressional restraints, will develop
"answers" to our most fundamental national problems. This practice is evi-
denced in the steps already taken to create new organizational forms with which
to meet our postwar security problems.
One example will suffice. Experience in World War II demonstrated that our
armed forces could not be divided into compartments, but that land, sea, and
air forces must be effectively united in accomplishing military objectives. The
National Security Act of 1947 tried to provide an organizational framework to
apply this lesson. Only gradually have we come to realize that the solution thus
far achieved under the act was less than perfect.
Many of us are lulled into a happy belief that merely because organizational
outlines have been drawn up, national policies need no longer be a public
concern. That various new organizational devices have been prescribed since
1945 gives no assurance that our national security is now provided for. Problems
under discussion within administrative agencies are still public problems, and
approval of both basic policies and the scope of operations must continually
be sought and given through political processes. Then, too, organizational ar-
rangements for the development of public policy may require alteration.
Certainly the National Military Establishment under initial arrangements
has not succeeded in resolving ambiguities in the respective roles of land, sea,
and air forces. When the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff met
at Key West in the middle of March, 1948, newsmen hastily concluded that
grave developments in Europe were their concern. The truth was less exciting.
The subject of discussion was how to settle Army, Navy, and Air Force contro-
versies about their duties, especially in utilizing air power. A new organization
in itself is no solution to a fundamental public problem, and alternatives of
organizational arrangement are themselves a public issue. Defense organization
will continue to give us much concern in the years ahead.
Civil-Military Relationships. Finally, We shall hear much in our discussions
of national security about the subject of civil-military relations. In his letter
explaining why he was not available for the Republican nomination, General
Eisenhower no doubt expressed a generally accepted sentiment when he spoke
of "the necessary and wise subordination of the military to civil power."
Problems of civil-military relationships emerged in two important settings
during World War II. In the first place, at various times in the heat of contro-
versy between the War Production Board and the procurement authorities of
the War Department, the Army was accused of wanting to "take over" control of
the economy. While there was little substance to these charges, disagreements
persisted on policy and procedural matters between the WPB and the Army.
Yet the basic division of responsibility was never challenged. The Army bought
military supplies directly; the WPB determined the total volume of that
procurement and expedited its delivery. Cooperation and adjustment in this
arrangement were indispensable, and not always so freely given as was desirable.
Secondly, the great demands upon America's scientists to assist in developing
the weapons of World War II brought forth a whole new experience in relation-
ships. There were times when the scientists regarded officers as obtuse and
obstructionist; there were times when military men regarded scientists as
impractical and temperamental.8 Security considerations often competed with
the scientist's concern for exchange of data, and with his greater regard for
professional recognition than for monetary compensation.
A conflict between military and political leadership over strategy was less
evident in World War II than in World War I. On September 28, 1944, Prime
6
As one student has written, "It is to be hoped that in any future emergency the Serv-
ices will not be hampered in even a few cases by men in key positions who have a blind
spot where cooperation with civilian scientists in a civilian organization is concerned."
Irvin Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for War (Boston, 1948), p. 167.
Minister Churchill told the House of Commons: "In this war there have been
none of those differences between professional and political elements that were
such a large feature of the last war. We have worked together in perfect harmo-
ny." If some of the memoirs published since 1945 qualify this statement, they
do not refute the generalization.
Some complaint has been voiced in the last four years about the military in
various high governmental positions. Not only did the war years afford officers
broad experience in large-scale administration of governmental affairs, but also
since the war the military services have provided one of the most important
sources of top career men in government. Military personnel have played a large
r61e in government recently because they were often the only experienced per-
sons able and willing to fill high public positions. Instead of criticizing military
encroachments upon civilian administration, it is time we worried more about
general government salaries and personnel practices, in order to build up the
supply of civilian top career people.
But in a time when national security is such a principal aspect of our political
life, we face a vital challenge in denning the role and competence of the profes-
sional military, while simultaneously utilizing their abilities to the fullest, and
in promoting mutual confidence and collaboration between civilian authority
and military leaders.
in
That the issues here outlined are in no way overstated is evidenced by the
large number of important state papers on these subjects which have appeared
in the past three years. If we ignore the writings—many of a high order—of
publicists, of political and military figures, and of others, there remains a body
of official documents covering a wide range of topics. It must suffice to do no
more than refer to them.
In the field of scientific research, one must name Vannevar Bush's report to
the President, Science—The Endless Frontier (1945), and the reports of the
President's Scientific Research Board, the first of which is entitled Science and
Public Policy (1947). On organization, we have the two Eberstadt reports,
Unification of the War and Navy Departments and Postwar Organization for
National Security, a print of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs (1945), and
National Security Organization, prepared for the Commission on Organization
of the Executive Branch of the Government (1949). The report of the Presi-
dent's Advisory Commission on Universal Training, Program for National
Security (1947), is one of the best statements thus far formulated on the subject
of national security as a whole. Then there are the two aviation reports—that
of the President's Air Policy Commission entitled Survival in the Air Age (1948),
and that of the Congressional Aviation Policy Board, National Aviation Policy.6
Finally, the basic documents underlying the European Recovery Program
should be noted.7
6
Senate Rep. No. 949, 80th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1948).
7
These are the General Report of the Committee of European Economic Cooperation
All of these official documents are government planning papers of great

importance in the study of national security problems.
IV
One pressing concern today is the danger that our governmental machinery
and our public discussion will fail to maintain a balance among all of these
great issues. None of them is susceptible of isolated consideration and decision.
Each must be examined in depth, to be sure. But all must be considered in
combination, too. National security is, in the first instance, a problem of balance.
Secondly, as a people we are now to a larger extent than ever before dependent
upon our political representatives and administrative leaders to understand
these issues, to come to decisions, and to review results. Those outside the
government may—even must—ask embarrassing questions and press constantly
for answers. In turn, political and administrative officials will no doubt welcome
extensive popular discussion, both to increase the comprehension of the diffi-
culties they confront and to encourage action. Yet, in a society rich in diversity
and individualistic tendencies, it is disturbing to contemplate how much of
our future welfare, and even our future existence, must now depend upon the
wisdom of one group—our political representatives and our administrative
leaders.
How else can we make certain of that wisdom except by ever-expanding
public debate of these vital national issues? Here is one of the great needs of our
time. Yet it is uncertain whether a democratic society such as ours, made up of
diverse, conflicting, widely differentiated, and innumerable constellations of
political and economic power, can concentrate sufficient attention and preserve
sufficient unanimity to insure proper consideration of our security problems.
National security is the business of all of us today. But are we politically organ-
ized to make it such?
Thus far, Stalin and the Communists have been considerate of our needs.
The blockade of Berlin, intransigence on the peace treaties, constant political
agitation in many countries, violent verbal attack—these have been great
contributions to American national unity and public concern for our security.
It is a fortunate situation which correlates the need for national security with
external pressure. Should the Communists relax the pressure—as they well
might for tactical reasons—one wonders what would happen to public interest
in our security preparations.
There is yet a third great consideration for our attention. Is adequate prepa-
ration for national security—with all its domestic implications—incompatible
with the free play of democratic political processes and ideals? And who
possesses the insight to answer so grave, so complex, a question?
One wonders whether prolonged and large-scale defense efforts through the
(1947); the report of the President's Committee on Foreign Aid, European Recovery and
American Aid (1947); National Resources and Foreign Aid, the report of the Secretary of
the Interior (1947); and the Impact of Foreign Aid upon the Domestic Economy, a report by
the Council of Economic Advisers (1947).
instrument of government will bring subtle, gradual, but far-reaching, alterations

in the power structure of our democratic system. And is there any purposeful,
rational way to avoid such change? Are we likely to impair the prospect of
greater material benefits for ever larger numbers by devoting a sizable proportion
of our production to national security? If great changes are likely to occur in the
incidence of political power in our society, if the "promise of American life"
to the individual is to be appreciably dimmed, then it is safe to say that our
concern for national security may also bring with it the diminution, and perhaps
even the eventual extinction, of American democracy.
National security has become the most important single concern of our polit-
ical life. It will thus impose itself upon policy-making, public administration,
and the functioning of the economy. It should be no subject for petty juris-
dictional controversy either within the government or without. It demands our
best thinking on a scale never before essayed.
II. POLICY FORMULATION FOR

NATIONAL SECURITY
SIDNEY W. SOUEKS
Executive Secretary, National Security Council
I
The National Security Council, created by the National Security Act of
1947, is the instrument through which the President obtains the collective
advice of the appropriate officials of the executive branch concerning the inte-
gration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national
security. An outline of the genesis of this new governmental agency will indicate
in part its present role.
Even before World War II, a few far-sighted men were seeking for a means of
correlating our foreign policy with our military and economic capabilities.
During the war, as military operations began to have an increasing political
and economic effect, the pressure for such a correlation increased. It became
apparent that the conduct of the war involved more than a purely military
campaign to defeat the enemy's armed forces. Questions arose of war aims, of
occupational policies, of relations with governments-in-exile and former enemy
states, of the postwar international situation with its implications for our
security, and of complicated international machinery.
In the postwar period, the pace of events and their distressing direction
sharpened the need for the creation of a mechanism to enable the executive
branch to act quickly and judiciously in the face of problems involving our
security and cutting across practically all fields of governmental responsibility.
A step in this direction had been taken in 1944 in the establishment, by agree-
ment among the Secretaries concerned, of the State-War-Navy Coordinating
Committee. SWNCC—recently reorganized as the State, Army, Navy, Air
Force Coordinating Committee (SANACC)—which made a significant con-
tribution on the interdepartmental level toward coordination of policy, particu-

larly with respect to the surrender terms and initial occupational policies for
Germany and Japan.
In 1945, Mr. Ferdinand Eberstadt, in a report for then Secretary of the Navy
James Forrestal concerned primarily with the unification of the armed forces,
proposed a number of statutory agencies, one of which was the National
Security Council. The report cited the fact that the British had improved their
high-level policy coordination in the field of national security through the
creation in 1904 of the Imperial Defense Council, now known as the Defense
Committee. This proposal for a National Security Council was subsequently
accepted in principle by the President and incorporated in his recommendations
to Congress, which formed the basis for the National Security Act.
In the preamble to the act, Congress stated that its intent was "to provide a
comprehensive program for the future security of the United States" and "to
provide for the establishment of integrated policies and procedures for the
departments, agencies, and functions of the government relating to the national
security." The National Security Council provides the means for such integra-
tion.
"National security" can perhaps best be understood as a point of view rather
than a distinct area of governmental responsibility. Picture a three-dimensional
composite to represent national policy as a whole, within which national security
constitutes a distinct segment. The three dimensions of the segment are domestic,
foreign, and military policies, respectively. In this sense, national security is
less than the whole of national policy in time of peace. In war, it may expand
to become identical with national policy.
II
Against this background, the nature of the National Security Council may
be understood in some perspective. Its members are the President, who is
chairman, the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Army, the Navy, and the Air
Force, and the chairman of the National Security Resources Board. Through
the Secretary of State, considerations of foreign policy are integrated into the
Council's advice to the President. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries
of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force bring in the military viewpoint. The
Joint Chiefs of Staff make their views known through the Secretary of Defense.
The chairman of the National Security Resources Board, whose membership
includes most of the other members of the cabinet, brings the domestic aspects
of national security to bear upon the Council's problems. Other members of the
cabinet participate in the Council upon the President's invitation when any
item under consideration directly affects their departments. The Secretary of
the Treasury now sits regularly with the Council, at the request of the Presi-
dent. Thus the structure of the Council, with the President as chairman and
with limited membership, reflects its functions. Although the whole cabinet is
indirectly concerned with national security, restricted membership and attend-
ance permit a focus at the highest level on this aspect of the President's respon-
sibility.
Both the cabinet and the Council are parts of the President's immediate
official family. As such, their use and operation in any particular instance are
subject to the President's personal discretion and judgment. In fact, in excep-
tionally important matters, the President has on occasion sought the advice
of both the entire cabinet and the Council. The Council's activities therefore
are a supplement to, rather than a substitute for, the functions of the cabinet.
At present, when our national security is dependent primarily upon effective
foreign policies, the Secretary of State assumes the leading role in the Council's
affairs. Under these circumstances, the Council serves largely as a mechanism
which ensures that our foreign policies are consistent with our military capabili-
ties and our domestic resources. Participation by the civilian heads of the
military departments, under the leadership of the Secretary of State, also
furnishes a means for gearing our military establishment to our foreign and
domestic policies, while enabling us to present a suitable military posture to
any prospective aggressor.
The law states that the Council's function is "to advise the President with
respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating
to the national security." It should therefore be clear that the Council itself
does not determine policy. It prepares advice for the President as his cabinet-
level committee on national security. With complete freedom to accept, reject,
and amend the Council's advice and to consult with other members of his
official family, the President exercises his prerogative to determine policy and
to enforce it. This staff concept, which is frequently overlooked, preserves the
constitutional rights of the President, since the cabinet members and other
executive officials have authority to determine national policies only as he
delegates authority to them. The conduct of foreign affairs, for example, the
Constitution vests in the President, not the Secretary of State. As for the mili-
tary, the President again, by the Constitution, is the commander-in-chief of the
armed forces.
Interdepartmental matters which, even though related to national security,
can properly be resolved without reference to the President, the Council seeks
to avoid. Furthermore, the Council has no responsibility for implementing
policies which the President approves on the basis of its advice. The respective
departments traditionally have carried, and continue to carry, this operating
responsibility. Once a policy is determined, the departments are notified;
thereupon they establish the programs and issue the necessary orders to military,
diplomatic, and other officers.
The National Security Act specifies that the duties of the Council shall be:
"(1) to assess and appraise the objectives, commitments, and risks of the United States
in relation to our actual and potential military power, in the interest of national security,
for the purpose of making recommendations to the President in connection therewith; and
"(2) to consider policies on matters of common interest to the departments and agencies
of the Government concerned with the national security, and to make recommendations
to the President in connection therewith."
The Council has assumed the first of these two duties as its main job and has
accordingly directed its staff to undertake a long-range program of reports

covering all important world areas and problems in which American security
interests are involved.
in
So far, with respect to the Council's membership and its relationship with
the President, only the basic structure has been described. The rest is provided
under the Council's statutory authority to form a staff headed by a civilian
executive secretary.
A word might be said here about the personal position of the executive
secretary. He is appointed by the President and used by him as an administra-
tive assistant. The executive secretary, an anonymous servant of the Council,
operates only as a broker of ideas in criss-crossing proposals among a team of
responsible officials. His proper functions demand that he be a non-political
confidant of the President, and willing to subordinate his personal views on
policy to his task of coordinating the views of responsible officials. As a staff
assistant to the President, he maintains the President's files on Council business
and briefs him daily on the progress of work in hand. The Council's files, of
course, will remain for future administrations. They will provide another basis
for continuity in national security policy, which has formerly been missing.
The Council's small staff, of which the executive secretary is the head, is
housed in the Old State Department Building, next to the White House. It
is organized into three general groups: staff members, secretariat, and consult-
ants. The division is kept flexible to permit interchange of duties whenever
desirable.
In organizing the staff, an effort has been made to steer a middle course be-
tween two undesirable extremes. If the personnel were entirely composed of
permanent Council employees, there would be a tendency to reach "ivory
tower" conclusions out of step with operational developments. On the other
hand, if the personnel were solely officers detailed from the participating depart-
ments, unavoidable turnover might cause a loss of continuity. The staff, there-
fore, is a mixture of these two types.
Each department or agency represented on the Council has detailed one of
its best officers to work on the staff. Because the Department of State is princi-
pally responsible for foreign affairs, it has also assigned a senior Foreign Service
officer to act as captain of this team, a position called "staff coordinator." Each
of the departmental staff members works out of the office of the chief policy
or operational planner in his department. Consequently, the Council's staff
has ready access to the best facts and opinions available in each department.
In addition to these officers, a small nucleus of career personnel is being
carefully selected both to supply continuity and to take the national or over-all
point of view. The same group also serves as a secretariat in performing the
usual services for the Council. In the interest of economy, however, straight
administrative and housekeeping services for the Council are obtained through
the appropriate branches of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is under the
direction of the Council.
538 THE AMEHICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW
The third part of the Council's staff is comprised of representatives desig-

nated by each Council member to advise and assist the executive secretary in
the conduct of Council business. Commonly referred to as "consultants," these
are the chief policy and operational planners for each department. They have
been Mr. George Kennan and subsequently Mr. George Butler for the Secre-
tary of State, Major General Gruenther for the Secretary of Defense, Lieut.
General Wedemeyer for the Secretary of the Army, Vice Admiral Struble
for the Secretary of the Navy, Lieut. General Norstad for the Secretary of
the Air Force, and Mr. Fahey for the chairman of the National Security Re-
sources Board. Further links with responsible officials at the consultant level
are obtained by the inclusion, as observers, of Rear Admiral Hillenkoetter,
the director of Central Intelligence, and Mr. John Ohly, special assistant to
the Secretary of Defense.
The staff of the Council has been authorized to initiate appropriate studies
for consideration. This has been done for a number of problems. Usually, in
such instances, the State Department member of the staff is requested to submit
a first draft. Each staff member is called upon not only to represent fairly the
opinion of his department or agency, but also to take the national point of view
necessitated by a report to be put by the Council before the President. The
staff, including the consultants, therefore offers a means whereby the responsible
departments and agencies can collaborate easily and effectively in generating
new ideas and constructive proposals.
The Council has also engaged special consultants from time to time for
specific projects. These are usually qualified individuals outside the government
service. An example is a group which the Council has designated to survey
intelligence activities.
The budget request for the total expense of the Council for the fiscal year
1950 was $217,000, as compared with $200,000 appropriated for the fiscal year
1949. The full staff, clerical, messenger, and professional, is at present 31,
approximately half of whom are currently on detail from the participating
departments.
iv
There have been a number of approaches to the problem of how the Council
should work. The sole touchstone for Council business, persistently relied upon,
is that only those matters will be considered on which a presidential decision
is required. Such a criterion is simple to state, but sometimes hard to interpret.
Everyone is inclined to feel that his particular problem is so important that the
President should consider it.
As a discussion forum, the Council has met a number of times; for example, on
the Berlin situation. At such meetings, occasionally with the President present
and with field officers like General Clay reporting, the Council has discussed
developments, noted the course of action proposed by one department or an-
other, and made recommendations to the President which he approved forth-
with. There will undoubtedly be continued occasions for the Council to meet
like this, without the formality of papers and preliminary briefing.
A good part of the Council's business has been undertaken at the request of
one member or another. The Department of State may be faced with a difficult
negotiation and ask the Council to recommend a position to the President. One
of the defense departments may need a policy to guide a field commander in
the face of an acute problem or in its military planning. Or a department not
represented on the Council, like the Department of Commerce, might propose
that the Council consider the bearing on national security of one of its problems
and advise the President accordingly.
Still another procedural variation in the handling of Council business points
up both the leadership of the Department of State and the flexibility of the
Council's operations. The Secretary of State on several occasions has forwarded
to the Council statements of current foreign policy toward one country or
another. Such statements have been purely of an informative nature to Council
members, with no action requested. Other members have felt free, however,
to raise questions with reference to such statements. Several such documents
have been discussed at Council meetings, with subsequent concurrence in them
by the Council and the President.
Meanwhile, the staff has been working steadily on its long-range agenda,
under which a series of area, country, and subject reports are being prepared.
This schedule naturally is interspersed with current issues, but the latter are
not allowed to sidetrack the long-range program. Advances are being made in
both directions simultaneously. When completed, the whole series of reports
will form a basis for a balanced and consistent conduct of foreign, domestic,
and military affairs related to our national security and our present role of
world leadership as well.
v
Council reports are so written as to arrive at a logical development of a
proposed course of action. They are framed in such a way as to be an immediate
and lasting guide for all who may need it. Beginning with a succinct statement
of the problem: "To assess and appraise the position of the United States with
respect to country or subject . . . , taking into consideration United States
security interests," there follows an estimate of the situation in terms of objec-
tives, commitments, and risks. The estimate includes considerations of foreign
policy, military capabilities, and domestic resources. Frequently, the Central
Intelligence Agency contributes a special intelligence estimate.
After an analysis of alternative courses of action, together with the possible
reactions to each, the report concludes with the proposed policy in appropriate
mandatory language suitable for the President to approve. If the proposed
policy warrants it, the report calls attention to the fact that new legislation will
be required. The executive secretary then adds a cover note where relevant
facts are given about the origin and development of the report and its proposed
manner of implementation. Perhaps this sounds rather complicated. Actually,
the reports usually fill less than ten double-spaced typewritten pages. The
proposed policy decisions in the conclusions normally run to no more than a
few brief paragraphs.
Under present conditions, Council papers normally originate in the Policy

Planning Staff of the Department of State. Sometimes the Secretary of State
may approve these papers before transmitting them to the Council, in which
case they go directly on the agenda for the next Council meeting for the im-
mediate attention of the other Council members. Usually, however, they are
forwarded as working papers to the Council's staff without commitment of the
Secretary of State to a firm position, pending the integration of the views of
the other members.
Such a working draft of a report is circulated to the Council members for
information and simultaneously referred to the staff for the preparation of a
report. The staff meets to analyze the facts and to reconcile differing views and
opinions. Occasionally, representatives from agencies not represented on the
Council are invited to assist. In several instances, technical experts outside the
government have been called in for advice.
The staff report agreed upon is then sent to the consultants. These, it will
be recalled, are the chief policy and operational planners in the member depart-
ments. They consider the report, perhaps amend it and concur in it, still
without committing their respective departments through any formal or voting
procedure.
Upon concurrence by the consultants, the report is circulated to the Council
members themselves and placed on the agenda for the next Council meeting.
For reports which have strategic military implications, the Secretary of Defense
obtains and circulates the comments of the Joint Chiefs of Staff prior to the
meeting.
At any stage in the preparation of a report, the executive secretary, at the
President's direction or on his own initiative as a member of the President's
staff organization, may refer a draft paper for advice and comment to another
member of the President's staff organization. Included for such references might
be the director of the Bureau of the Budget, the Council of Economic Advisers,
and other assistants to the President generally recognized as part of the White
House Office or the Executive Office of the President at large. Depending upon
the subject and the circumstances of the problem under consideration, such
additional advice might be considered first by the Council itself, in which case
the Council would inform the President of the other agencies which had partici-
pated in the formulation of the report. In certain matters, the President might
prefer to receive the Council's advice purely from the viewpoint of national
security, and subsequently seek the views of other members of his staff organi-
zation. In any event, through daily briefings of the President, and through close
personal contact with the President's staff organization, the executive secretary
assists in appropriate coordination as the President desires.
At the Council meeting itself, the members discuss and act on the report on
the basis of briefs prepared by their respective staff aides. When they are in
Washington, the Council members themselves regularly attend. The only
other attendants are the director of Central Intelligence as adviser, the director
of the Joint Staff, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and an assistant to the Secretary of
Defense as observers, and the executive secretary and his assistant.
The President does not attend regularly, in order that the other members may
have a free discussion without the premature expression of the President's
personal views. The fact can readily be appreciated that if the President were
to say at a Council meeting, "I think thus and so," this would tend to dis-
courage an easy exchange of views on the issues.
In the absence of the President, the Secretary of State, as senior cabinet
member, presides at the meetings. If the Secretary of State is also away, the
Secretary of Defense presides. Meetings usually last about two hours; for, in
spite of all the staff work that has gone into the preparation of a report, normal-
ly at no stage have the Secretaries themselves been committed. Thus they are
left free to give and take among themselves.
VI
On the basis of the Council's action, the executive secretary forwards the
report agreed upon to the President, together with the views of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. If the report is one which the President has followed through its prelimi-
nary stages, he often approves the paper the day after the Council's action.
On particularly broad or new proposals, he will take more time for study,
analysis, or consultation with the full cabinet or other advisers.
His approval includes direction for the implementation of the policy arrived
at, of which all appropriate departments and agencies are notified by the
executive secretary. Where necessary, the implementation calls for the drafting
of new legislation by the departments concerned, which is then coordinated
interdepartmentally in the usual manner by the Bureau of the Budget before
it is submitted to the Congress. Occasionally the Council is specifically directed
to review a given policy after a certain period of time. To provide integrated
execution and to keep the Council itself out of operations, the President has
developed the practice of designating one department head as the coordinator
of all implementation. This is normally the Secretary of State, because foreign
affairs are usually the major element, and it is natural therefore that the State
Department should quarterback the timing of action as well as public pro-
nouncements. Furthermore, the Council itself has adopted a procedure which
provides for periodic reporting back to the Council on the progress of imple-
mentation. The Council expects thereby to provide a channel for the con-
sideration of subsequent questions of major policy that may arise as policies
are put into operation.
All this procedure looks as if it might be time-consuming; and it rightly is
so, wholly in the interest of due consideration of the various elements that
comprise the formulation of basic policy. However, whenever the government
has been faced with a need for speedy action, the Council, because of its flexible
organization, has been able to move accordingly.
On one occasion, the military chiefs requested urgent action on a significant
program of assistance to a foreign government. Equipment had to be supplied
immediately in order to strengthen our own strategic security position. From
the time of receipt of the request by the executive secretary to the time of
approval by the President of the Council's action, exactly one week elapsed.
In this brief interval, an extensive staff job was done.
This, then, is the mechanism which in a brief report produces integrated
advice to the President on national security. The President, in reading such a
report, can see at a glance the problem that evoked the paper, the factors taken
into account, the course of action proposed, and where the responsibility for
execution will lie.
VII
As of early April, 1949, the Council had taken over 200 distinct actions.
While some of these were short-range decisions, others included long-range
policies or a whole series of carefully outlined alternative courses in the event
of various contingencies.
Actions included the approval of a series of broad directives for the Central
Intelligence Agency, which the National Security Act established under the
Council. The Central Intelligence Agency, the eyes and ears of the Council
and the President for intelligence relating to national security, fulfills its
function through periodic and special written reports, as well as by regular oral
intelligence presentations on the part of the director of Central Intelligence at
Council meetings.
The Council's actions have been taken at over 40 meetings and by informal
memorandum approvals. The normal schedule calls for two meetings a month,
with special sessions as need arises. There have been, of course, some diver-
gencies of opinion during the consideration of various subjects. However, while
no requirement exists for unanimity, recommendations from the Council to
the President have almost always been unanimous; and of these recom-
mendations, the President has, with only one or two exceptions, approved all
without unusual change or delay.
Because of the necessary security classification of most of the Council's
advice, and because such advice has no validity until approved by the Presi-
dent, little can be said specifically—here or in any other public discussion—of
the current problems which the Council has under consideration or the policies
which it has recommended to the President. This should not be interpreted,
however, as an indication that the Council's formulation of policy is isolated
from public debate, or that it offers an opportunity for irresponsibility. Each
member of the Council is the statutory head of a responsible government
agency, and as such is subject to the influence of public opinion. The Council
is, and can be, no more than the product of interplay among its members.
No new agent without accountability has been established with the power to
influence policy. And in this connection it is well to repeat that the Council
is merely the adviser of the President. It is the President, as the chief executive
elected by the people of the United States, who is the maker of policy within
the range of his constitutional responsibilities.
In summary, it can be said that the National Security Council, in the space
of two years, has developed in the sphere of national security an increased
sense of coherence, of teamwork, and of direction. While much remains to be

done, at least there is now a place for coordinated consideration of our security
problems. With its potentialities, the Council offers evidence of our ability to
change our governmental structure in democratic fashion in order to meet
changing conditions without departing from traditional principles. A strong, yet
flexible, organism has been created to serve our needs during the coming years
of doubtful international equilibrium.
The National Security Council should not be considered a panacea for all
our international problems, many of which are not directly related to national
security. It supplements the various departments having responsibilities in
this field, since the Council's advice represents the collective wisdom of the
responsible cabinet members and their staffs. Moreover, the Council does not
and cannot obviate the necessity for efficient conduct by responsible depart-
ments of domestic, foreign, and military affairs related to national security,
based upon policies recommended by the Council and approved by the President.
On the other hand, the most efficient conduct of these affairs will not safe-
guard our national security unless all departments concerned are striving to
achieve the same clearly defined and well understood objectives. The formu-
lation of such objectives is the fundamental role for which the National
Security Council was created. As a result of the opportunities which the Council
affords for comprehensive discussion and subsequent integration of the views
of all responsible departments, the policies approved by the President on the
Council's advice provide practicable objectives toward which those same de-
partments can strive on a cooperative basis. The National Security Council is
proving itself one of the most valuable means devised within the framework
of our democratic institutions for protecting our national security and for
safeguarding international peace.
III. THE NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT

WILLIAM FRYE
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense
I
The purpose of a military organization is to fight and win wars. This dictates
its form, creates its methods, explains its nature. A military organization must
be flexible in structure, but inflexible in discipline. It commands, and it must
be commanded; but it also leads, and must be led. Its orders must be at once
peremptory and persuasive, its authority unquestioned but openminded, not
rigid.
It creates and uses a science of force and power, a machine of destruction;
but it is not itself a machine, or mechanical. It calls upon every resource of
the human intellect and heart, and its proper use is more an art than a craft
or a science. For it is a synthesis of the ideas and emotions of men, and its
greatest strengths and worst flaws are imponderables.
Required as it is to bend and shape its members to a single ultimate brutal

purpose, a military organization might be expected to develop in them more
efficiency of force than breadth of idea. Yet awareness and understanding of
economic, social, and political problems beyond the scope of their professional
skills are frequently found among American officers. It should be obvious,
moreover, that discipline and authority—firm discipline and single responsible
authority—are the inescapable methods of control. Without them, a military
organization is useless in war and a menace in peace.
Existing for a single purpose, such an organization can, of course, generate
in its members a belief that its own is the noblest of human purposes, so that
war becomes a thing desirable in itself, and the destiny of the state to grow in
power under the guidance of its warriors. Few American military men have
embraced militarism, however, perhaps because the fear of militarism natural
to a democratic and individualistic people not only has operated to keep the
military organizations firmly under civilian control, but has inculcated in all
generations of American soldiers and sailors the knowledge that they are the
servants of the public—that they are answerable, in their single-mindedness,
to the many-minded civilian and social purposes of the people.
But the public's fear of militarism has hampered the organization of the
American military establishment since the republic was founded. That fear is
perhaps more conscious and more vocal now than it has been at any other time
since the debates on the Constitution. Unfortunately, it has worked even more
strongly to prevent a proper military organization in the twentieth century
than it did in the eighteenth, because the fear has nourished while the under-
standing of the nature of militarism, and particularly of its structural devices,
has diminished almost to the vanishing point.
The concentration of power, and the authoritarian control of it, are inescap-
able in a military establishment. The people's problem, so long as military
establishments remain necessary for their safety, is to separate things military
from things militaristic in their thinking. There is always a latent political
danger in a military establishment, as there is in any well organized and disci-
plined social group. But that danger is increased, rather than diminished, by
adoption of the superficially attractive and promising method of splitting the
internal control of the estabishment. Moreover, the purpose of the military
establishment is injured, because it loses its efficiency as a fighting force; the
public safety has less protection, and at greater cost.
This is not to say that command and administrative authority cannot be
decentralized to functional segments of the establishment. On the contrary,
delegation of powers is necessary to develop efficiency and flexibility. The rule
here is that the powers must be delegated in the executive sense, not conferred
by separate statutory creation. For only if the directors of segments are answer-
able to the central single executive for the discharge of their partial responsibili-
ties can he be held accountable for the whole establishment.
It is relatively simple to devise an organization for a military establishment
which will do well those things essentially civilian in nature—construction of
barracks, design of ordnance, procurement of aircraft, purchase of supplies,

shipbuilding, fiscal control, and the like. It is vastly more difficult to make
certain that all of these activities are directed toward the ultimate end of mili-
tary purpose. And yet, unless this end is served, the establishment is a failure;
for, after all, a military establishment is not a business but a weapon, not a plow
but a sword. The test of it is not its appearance in the scabbard, but its cutting
edge.
The problems posed by these considerations have never yet been solved in
the United States, and in all likelihood never will be_solved completely; for the
inescapable imperative of effective military organization is single responsibility
and complete authority, which require continuous adjustment to the demo-
cratic imperative of civilian control. Unhappily, within the military establish-
ment the organizational imperative collides also with established patterns which
have the weight of tradition and the strength of vested interest to throw against
any proposal for change.
II
The most significant change in the American military structure since World
War II is that achieved by the National Security Act of 1947, which created
several new agencies, both military and non-military, including a third military
department, and brought the three military departments together in a single
National Military Establishment.
The purposes and the functions of the National Security Council and of the
National Security Resources Board are discussed elsewhere in this symposium.
The National Military Establishment, the third major agency created by the
legislation of 1947, is a loosely knit grouping of executive departments (Army,
Navy, and Air Force) and staff agencies charged with planning and policy
determination affecting all three (War Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Munitions
Board, and Research and Development Board), the whole presided over by a
Secretary of Defense. It is not a "Department of Defense"; is not, in fact,
an executive department at all. The Secretary of Defense is designated as the
civilian head of the military establishment, but specifically denied a military
staff. He is charged with "general" direction, authority, and control over
the three military departments, but deprived of administrative authority to
exact compliance. He is required to present a single military budget, but with
the heads of his subordinate departments granted specific authority to appeal
his budget decisions to the President—which means, in effect, to the public.
The fear lest one man be given too much power operated to give him too little.
It probably will astonish even a casual student of administration to learn that
some very substantial gains have been made under such unpromising conditions.
Four new organizations—or, rather, one new organization and three organi-
zations with new statutory bases—are to serve as the principal staff agencies
of the Secretary of Defense, along with the three (civilian) special assistants
provided by the act and the growing offices which they head. These organi-
zations are the War Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and the Joint Staff), the
Munitions Board, and the Research and Development Board.
All of these are planning and coordinating groups at the policy level. They are
not bperating agencies—that is, they do not train troops, command combat or
service units, buy equipment and supplies, or otherwise engage in the direct
management of the armed forces. Implementation of the policies approved by
these groups is left to the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
The War Council, topmost of the policy groups within the National Military
Establishment, consists of the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force,
the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Air Force, and the Chief of Naval Opera-
tions, presided over by the Secretary of Defense, who has the power of decision
in the Council's discussions. It meets biweekly, and its sessions frequently are
attended by officials of other agencies of the military establishment, or even of
civilian departments if matters on the Council's agenda make their presence
desirable. The chairman of the Munitions Board and of the Research and
Development Board, the Secretary of State, the chairman of the National
Security Resources Board, the director of the Joint Staff, and others, have
participated from time to time in the War Council's meetings.
It is difficult to point to specific "actions" of the War Council, yet few if any
of the important steps taken by the National Military Establishment or its
component departments and agencies during the first two years of unification
were decided upon without extensive and vigorous discussion in the Council.
Such basic studies as those of the ad hoc committees on civilian components
and on service pay resulted from the Council's determination of areas in which
thorough study was needed to prepare a base for unified solution of problems
affecting all the armed forces. Legislative proposals of first importance to be
submitted to the President and to Congress, and the priorities to be given the
various recommendations, are explored by the Council before a decision is
made. So far-reaching a decision as that to establish the Weapons System
Evaluation Group, which provides for the first time a means for assessing objec-
tively and scientifically the relative value of different systems of attack and
defense, could hardly have been made if there had been no War Council to
overcome the differences, between alert and strong-minded men with single-
service responsibilities, on the wisdom of submitting their varying and even
conflicting strategic and tactical concepts to independent analysis and judg-
ment.
The United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was created in view of the
American-British decision to establish the Combined Chiefs of Staff. This
decision was made during the military staff conference in Washington, De-
cember, 1941-January, 1942. JCS became the United States representatives
on the Combined Chiefs of Staff; there JCS was in large degree the counterpart
of the already existing British Chiefs of Staff Committee. In addition, JCS
also became the principal agency for coordination between the Army and the
Navy, in this respect absorbing and expanding the functions of the Joint Army
and Navy Board which had been in existence since 1903. Despite the inherent
weakness (caused by the autonomy of the two services) of a group without an
authoritative chairman and operating only by unanimous agreement, its success
NATIONAL DEFENSE AND DEMOCEATIC SOCIETY 547
was so impressive that it was perpetuated as a statutory agency by the National

Security Act.
Its members are the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Air Force and the Chief
of Naval Operations, and also the Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief "if
there be one." It is served by the Joint Staff of 100 officers drawn in approxi-
mately equal numbers from the three services, and headed by the director of
the Joint Staff, who may be a general or flag officer from any one of the three
services, but must be junior in rank to the members of JCS.
The province of JCS is military strategy. It must determine the basic missions
of land, naval, and air forces; assess the probabilities, under varying conditions,
of their ability to perform these missions; and prepare its strategic and logistic
war plans accordingly. These plans—translated into broad terms of force require-
ments in armies, corps, and divisions; in fleets and task forces; in air forces,
air divisions, and wings; together with the timing of their employment—are
then sent to the Munitions Board for a careful determination of their logistical
practicability.
The method here is for the Munitions Board to send the respective portions
of the plan to the three departments, which establish the detail of the require-
ments, down to the last man in uniform and the precise number of rounds of
small-arms ammunition. This mass of detail comes back to the Munitions
Board, and there is translated into ship tonnage, machine-tool totals, tons of
copper or of steel, plant capacities, armor-plate sums, man-hours of labor,
transportation loads, electric-power demand, aircraft-fuel requirements, and
so on. Assuming a Munitions Board determination at this point that the job
is possible, there still remains the question of whether it is possible without
serious repercussions on the civilian economy; and that question is put to the
National Security Resources Board, which fits the projected military demand in-
to its own assessment of total national demand and total national supply.
Here, at last, the Joint Chiefs learn whether they have planned realistically
in the light of economic limitations.
This incredibly complex and intricate problem is the primary responsibility
of JCS, but not the only one. Grand strategy is more political than military.
Strategic plans will vary, not only with varying assumptions as to possible
enemies, but also with varying assumptions as to probable active allies; and
the questions of allied staff and command arrangements have to be explored
thoroughly. JCS must give military advice to the Secretary of Defense, the
President, and Congress on military assistance to foreign nations; on the size
and type of forces deemed desirable or advisable if the United Nations calls for
military help; on military missions to foreign powers; on the military implica-
tions of regional security pacts within the UN framework; and on a host of
other problems. None of these are minor except in relative terms, and all but a
few originate in that realm of high policy where the attitude of the United
States as a nation toward the rest of the world is involved. In addition, JCS
must formulate the joint training and education policy for the services.
The Munitions Board is an enlarged and strengthened extension of the old
Army-Navy Munitions Board, given statutory basis and some important

statutory functions, such as direction of the program of stockpiling strategic
and critical raw materials. It has a chairman appointed by the President, and
its members are the Assistant Secretary of the Army, the Under Secretary of
the Navy, and the Under Secretary of the Air Force. It has a staff, headed by a
military director and organized on functional lines. Broadly, it is responsible—
either by statute or by direction of the Secretary of Defense—for policy-plan-
ning in the whole field of materiel, procurement, production, and distribution.
This includes the military aspects of industrial mobilization planning; over-all
industrial mobilization plans are the responsibility of the National Security
Resources Board.
Some indication of the complexity of the work of the Munitions Board was
conveyed in the discussion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It might be added that
the Munitions Board is engaged in assigning to the various procurement services
for emergency or war use the known capacities of several thousand existing
industrial plants; in monitoring the compilation of a common catalogue of
supply and equipment items by the three military services; in directing the
preparation of joint and identical procurement regulations; in supervising the
maintenance of a reserve of surplus war plants and machine tools; and in bring-
ing about simplified procurement practices through a system of single procure-
ment assignments, under which one of the three military departments buys
all equipment of a given type for all user services.
The Research and Development Board, successor to the Joint Research and
Development Board of World War II, has a civilian chairman appointed by the
President, and six members, each of the three military Secretaries designating
two. The National Security Act gave no guidance on the qualifications of the
members, who have in fact been officers. It would appear desirable to reconsti-
tute the membership so that it would consist of an Under or Assistant Secretary
and one officer from each of the three military departments. Then, as in the
case of the Munitions Board, the decisions of the Research and Development
Board would be shared by the civilian executives directly responsible for
implementation.
The job of the Research and Development Board is, not to engage in research,
but to formulate policy and prepare an integrated program of research and
development for the National Military Establishment. This involves allocating
responsibility for specific programs and making recommendations to the Secre-
tary of Defense for coordination of programs being conducted by the Army, the
Navy, and the Air Force. The Board keeps the military establishment advised
of current research trends. It is expected by its studies and its watchfulness to
assure that constant progress is made in all militarily important research
fields. It is responsible also for formulating the policy of the National Military
Establishment on research programs outside the Establishment, and for advising
the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the impact of developments on strategy and tactics.
While much of its highly secret work is necessarily concerned with such dramatic
weapons of the future as guided missiles, the Board is equally concerned with
the increase of knowledge of human psychology and behavior, and with such
prosaic subjects as communications and transport. It has a considerable per-
manent staff, and it also employs, by means of "panels," the talents of experts
in many fields on a part-time or occasional basis.
in
The three departments of the National Military Establishment administer
and command the military forces, the general nature of whose organization and
operations in combat is sufficiently known to require little discussion here. The
organization of the Navy Department, however, differs radically from that of
the two other departments; and there are certain dissimilarities between the
latter, although their organizations are essentially similar.
The Navy Department is composed of the Office of the Secretary of the Navy,
the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Offices of the Civilian Executive
Assistants (the Under and Assistant Secretaries and the Administrative
Assistant), and the bureaus and offices headed by the Naval Technical Assist-
ants, including the Headquarters, United States Marine Corps.
The Secretary of the Navy exercises policy control over the Naval Establish-
ment, aided and advised by the Chief of Naval Operations, who is his naval
command assistant, and by the Civilian Executive Assistants, who are respon-
sible for business administration and producer logistics. The Civilian Executive
Assistants are located in the chain of control, functioning in their own right;
and the Naval Technical Assistants (Judge Advocate General, Chief of the
Bureau of Ships, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Chief of the Bureau
of Ordnance, Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, and so forth)
represent an administrative level not found in either Army or Air Force depart-
mental organization. They are technical advisers to the Secretary, the Civilian
Executive Assistants, and the Chief of Naval Operations, (CNO) in their
special fields; but they also manage and control their field functions and special
activities in the Shore Establishment, being answerable for these functions to
the Civilian Executive Assistants and through them to the Secretary, but not
to the Chief of Naval Operations.
In effect, this divides the naval function at the shoreline, in the tradition of
the Admiralty Office which took shape in the England of Samuel Pepys. CNO
commands the fleet and determines its requirements, but the management of
things ashore is outside his direct responsibility. There is considerable evidence
that this organization results in more efficient management of the essentially
civilian function of producer logistics. But its military weakness is indicated
by the temporary extension of the authority of CNO in time of war in order to
shift emphasis from business management to military efficiency.
Although now permitting much closer coordination and control, this organi-
zation, in its general outlines, is not unlike that of the War Department prior
to 1903. In the old War Department, there was a sharp division between tacti-
cal and logistical functions. The Secretary of War exercised control over troops
of the line, to the extent that he exercised any such control at all, through the
Commanding General of the Army. He supervised procurement and services

through the chiefs of the bureaus—Adjutant General, Commissary General,
Quartermaster General, and others—who were known as the "general staff."
But no single officer or military staff coordinated the independent operations
of the bureau chiefs, or fitted their collective measures to the needs or plans of
the line forces.
The almost complete collapse of this organization during the Spanish-
American War led to adoption of the General Staff system for the War Depart-
ment in 1903. Elihu Root, Secretary of War, persuaded Congress to abolish
the post of Commanding General and the autonomy of the bureaus, substitut-
ing a Chief of Staff as the principal military adviser to the Secretary, responsible
for supervision, coordination, and control of both line and staff under the direc-
tion of the Secretary. The Chief of Staff was assisted by a small "General
Staff," without command or administrative responsibility or authority, but
acting as an investigating, a supervising, and particularly a planning group.
The staff consisted of officers detailed temporarily from both combat and service
units.
This is not the place to review the stormy history of the War Department
General Staff. It is enough to say that the idea and the intent have survived
to vitalize the military end-purpose of the entire Army and the War Depart-
ment, and to carry over into both the Department of the Army and the Depart-
ment of the Air Force the central aim of combat effectiveness and the principle
of central responsibility and authority exercised through a single chain of
command.
As organized now, the Department of the Army consists of a top layer of
civilian executives—the Secretary, with an Under Secretary, and two Assistant
Secretaries, who exercise delegated powers of the Secretary. Directly under
the Secretary, and responsible to him, is the Office of the Chief of Staff, composed
of the Chief of Staff, the Vice Chief of Staff, two Deputy Chiefs of Staff (one
for administration and the other for plans and combat operations), the secretary
of the General Staff, the Chief of Information (legislative liaison, public infor-
mation, troop information, and education), and the Army Comptroller (finance,
budget, management, and statistics).
The chain of command extends through the five General Staff divisions under
their directors—Plans and Operations, Personnel and Administration, Intelli-
gence, Organization and Training, and Logistics—to the technical and adminis-
trative staffs and services and the Army Field Forces, zone of interior (domestic)
Army Areas, and Overseas Commands. Below the General Staff at the depart-
mental level is the Special Staff—Historical Division, Judge Advocate General,
National Guard Bureau, Executive for Reserve and ROTC Affairs, Civil Affairs
Division, and Inspector General. The administrative staffs and services—
Adjutant General, Provost Marshal General, Chaplains, and Special Services—
are grouped under the jurisdiction of the director of Personnel and Adminis-
tration; and the authority of the Secretary and the Chief of Staff over the
technical staffs and services—Chemical, Signal, Medical, Ordnance, Engineers,
Transportation, and Quartermaster—is exercised by the Director of Logistics,

whose procurement and industrial planning responsibilities are discharged under
the supervision of one of the Assistant Secretaries.
The administrative and technical services, organized vertically as corps or
branches of the Army, are survivals of the old War Department bureaus.
The absence of this vertical organization of such services in the Air Force is
the most notable difference between the Army and Air Force staff systems.
There are other differences too. Free of the statutory designations of duties and
powers, as well as traditions, which have limited change in the Army staff, the
Air Force has organized the general staff system on more functional lines.
Clustered around the Chief of Staff, the Vice Chief of Staff, and the Assistant
Vice Chief of Staff, through whom the Secretary exercises his control of the
Air Force, are a group of offices outside the chain of command. They include
the (advisory) Air Board, the Inspector General (including Air Inspector, Air
Provost Marshal, and Special Investigations), and the Scientific Advisory
Board. Reporting directly to the Chief of Staff are the Comptroller and three
Deputy Chiefs of Staff—for Personnel, Operations, and Material. Their level
corresponds generally to that of the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff in the Army,
although the latter have no functional organizations under their specific
direction.
Grouped functionally under the Comptroller and the three Deputy Chiefs
are the directors of 19 staff offices, which occupy the level of the five General
Staff divisions in the Army. With the aid of this staff organization, the Chief of
Staff of the Air Force exercises command over the eight continental commands
of the Air Force and the six overseas commands (the latter, of course, being
tactically under command of the appropriate theater commander). Theoretical-
ly, the orders are those of the Secretary through the Chief of Staff. But in actual
usage a very practical view prevails, and the authority of the Chief of Staff
is exercised directly by his deputies and their subordinate directors in the
areas of their assigned responsibilities.
IV
Well or badly organized, with proper or improper emphasis, there does exist
in the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force the means of control
of the power which resides in the military forces they direct. Great power is
there, and it is essential to the general welfare that it be controlled, and firmly.
Just as it has been difficult within each of the services to establish firm central
and civilian control while preserving that military energy for which the forces
exist, so—and to a greater degree—it is difficult to establish the control neces-
sary over all three departments in a single military establishment. Just as
service bureaus have struggled with combat commands for the real power—
information and money—within a single department, so the three departments
will struggle with each other for the main portion of the total power to be distrib-
uted within the National Military Establishment.
If this struggle were merely a vulgar scramble for appropriations and prestige,
it might not be too difficult to end it by the apparently simple expedient,

frequently recommended, of "knocking some heads together." But it is not so
simple a thing as a struggle to maintain or enlarge a bureaucratic empire. That
motive may be present, but it probably is seldom conscious. The contenders
normally are high-minded men, of considerable ability, of great professional
learning and skill, who happen to believe that they are right in their own views
of strategic, tactical, logistic, command, and administrative purposes and
methods.
The meaning of war, the nature of war—these do not change. But the methods
of war change frequently, and in the present era they are changing, or appear
to be changing, rapidly. The development of new weapons, the advances in
technical development, the possibilities of chemical and biological agents as
weapons, the use of nuclear fission for military purposes, improvements in
aircraft and submarines, guided missiles, increasing knowledge of psychology—
all these have induced a large amount of self-examination in the military forces
and considerable debate on the conduct of war, including the roles and missions
of ground, sea, and air forces.
A multitude of factors enter into a decision assigning one of the basic missions
of modern war to a specific military organization. Such decisions must be made
on an endless number of problems, that of land-based or carrier-based aircraft
for strategic missions being merely one of the more dramatic instances which
happens to have caught the public's attention. Up to now, however, it has been
necessary to decide them without trustworthy examination of all of the factors
bearing on the problem. It is to determine these factors, to supply a solid basis
for judgment, that the Weapons System Evaluation Group (WSEG) has been
established. Created initially under the joint control of the Research and De-
velopment Board and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it has passed eventually to the
sole supervision of the Joint Chiefs, for the obvious reason that its purpose is
strategic evaluation.
WSEG will be advisory only, without command, administrative, or planning
responsibilities or authority. It may initiate studies, but must give priority
to studies requested of it by the Joint Chiefs, the Research and Development
Board, or the Secretary of Defense. Its problem? The validity of any system
of attack or defense, existing or proposed, after thorough examination by
experts, both civilian and military, of all questions involved in its use.
Assume the perfection of a long-range guided missile of great accuracy carry-
ing an atomic warhead, which is one of the prophesied horrors of the future
so cherished by the Sunday Supplement writers. What raw materials are
required to produce it? How much time? How many man-hours of labor?
How much plant area, what type of plant construction, what machine tools?
What would be the electric power requirements, or other fuel demand? What
storage facilities would be needed? What transportation would be involved—•
raw materials to plants, first fabrication to sub-assembly facilities, to final
assembly, to storage, to launching sites? What size and type of crew will handle
and launch the weapon? What special skills will be required for crew members,
and are these skills sufficiently available in the population? How much crew
training, by how many instructors? What would be the launching mechanism,
and what requirements would be involved of the kinds listed here? What would
be the psychological effect upon neutrals of the use of such a weapon? What
would be the effect on the enemy—what destruction to be repaired, morale to
be restored, hatred to be encountered after victory?
All these and still other factors are involved in the assessment of a weapon
system; and it is the job of WSEG to give the National Military Establishment
the basis for determining whether to develop existing systems, adopt new sys-
tems, or rule against them. The scientific method is being applied to techniques
of war-making as well as to weapon-making, and the establishment of WSEG
is unquestionably the most significant development in military planning since
the National Security Act brought the military departments together in a
single agency.
Substantial progress has been made in many other areas too. The most
intensive study of all aspects of the military problem has been initiated since
unification became effective. Never before have the questions of personnel
policy, of administrative method, of the organization of forces, of economic,
fiscal, and budgetary matters, received such thorough examination, both by
officers and civilians of the military establishment itself and by experts brought
in from within and without the government, on the establishment's initiative, to
study and recommend.
v
The initial organization of the National Military Establishment was faulty,
but any other organization must of necessity have been arbitrary. This, no
doubt, is what former Secretary Forrestal meant by his frequent reiteration
that true unification is a process of "evolution, not revolution." The ad hoc
committee has been used freely in the new establishment. If its use is ipso facto
a confession of the inadequacy of the permanent staff and the existing organi-
zation, it nevertheless can supply the basic studies to provide a foundation for
the eventual organizational solution.
Thus, the device of the ad hoc committee has been employed to bring forth a
comprehensive study of the use of the reserve forces; to plan the more efficient
use of medical facilities and the inter-service exchange of medical services;
to draft a comprehensive civil defense program; to reconstitute the Industrial
College; to correlate Army, Navy, and Air Force policies on Selective Service;
to make a complete study of the military pay systems and produce a uniform
pay-scale for the services; to draft a uniform and modern code of military justice
for the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Personnel policies are basic to the success of the military organization, and
in no other area is there less uniformity among the services. Most basic of all is
the supply of manpower, which both conditions, and is conditioned by, the type
of armed force to be maintained. The United States is committed against the
maintenance of large standing forces which can be supported only by conscrip-
tion. The national policy is to keep the regular forces small, and organize and
train reserves in such fashion as to give them a reasonable degree of combat

readiness against a potential Mobilization Day. A "citizen army" system can
be implemented effectively only by universal military training, however, and
this essential step toward a truly democratic military system is one the country
thus far has been unwilling to take.
Historically, democratic peoples have relied on techniques instead of massed
men for victory, have sought the edge of superiority in improved weapons
instead of greater numbers. Historically, every improvement in weapons has
brought a need for more, not fewer, men. Moreover, no developments achieved
or in prospect eliminate the need for navies or the need for ground combat
forces, not to mention the vast numbers of service and supporting units for
naval, land, and air combat organizations. Unless the political nature of war
has changed, and war has become a mere contest in destruction with no purpose
or meaning save obliteration, there still are restraints on the exploitation of
technical advantages in weapons. Men, if they will fight wars, will die in them,
and die in contact with the enemy. They still will invade, they still will occupy
the lands of a defeated enemy, they still will repair as best they can the physical
and moral ravages of armed strife. The method of war is destruction, but its
purpose still is to persuade.
Persuasion is, in turn, the true basis of discipline in democratic military
organizations. There may have been a time in democratic states when small
forces, composed of volunteers, could be molded by a peremptory discipline
without explanation. If that ever was the case, it is not the case now, and has
not been for many years. There must be discipline, and the man in uniform
must respond without question to peremptory command. But he must under-
stand the need for the compulsion, and accept it—he must be persuaded, in
other words, that the discipline is not arbitrary, but the carefully calculated
means to an end. The more readily he accepts it, the better his chance to survive
the ordeal and share the victory.
This approach to the problem of discipline and morale in a democratic nation
lies behind the many programs initiated by the armed forces to broaden the
knowledge of their men, increase their understanding of the social, economic,
and political forces at work in the world, provide more and better facilities for
rest and recreation. Radio, motion pictures, service magazines and newspapers,
correspondence courses, instruction classes, discussion periods—all are employed
to make certain that the necessary regimentation for the techniques of war does
not exceed its purpose and submerge the individual dignity of the man in uni-
form.
Nevertheless, for all the emphasis on social and political understanding, on
a new approach to discipline, on a broader view inculcated in the "military
mind," armed forces remain organizations whose primary purpose is to fight
and win wars. The problem is to generate military power and energy in them,
and to control that power.
An organization with obvious defects and flaws, the National Military
Establishment, despite its structural shortcomings, has provided the basic
studies which can guide an effective military department. The ground has been
prepared, and the building can start. It is clear that the Secretary of Defense
must have authority over the entire establishment, and not merely "general"
but specific authority. It is clear that he must have a military staff, that strategic
and logistical planning must be pulled together—to talk of strategic planning
apart from procurement and logistics is, in this industrial age, to indulge in
semantic nonsense.
The authority which was carefully divided in the original act must now be
consolidated. If the time has not come to permit the Secretary, by administra-
tive order, to change the basic structure of any of the armed forces, it still is
imperative that his unquestioned authority over the forces be recognized.
The responsibilities assumed by the Secretary of Defense are terrible in their
implications; without authority, they are intolerable. A military house divided
will not withstand a test of its stability.
IV. ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION

RALPH J. WATKINS
Director, Office of Plans and Programs, National Security Resources Board
Provision for national security requires planning in many fields—military,

technological, political, and economic. Planning in the economic field is of
special importance. The sustained striking power of our armed forces would
depend to a large extent on our economic preparedness and on the speed and
effectiveness with which the economy could be converted to war production.
Economic mobilization involves the marshaling and coordination of the
nation's resources as an integral part of a total war effort. It means the con-
version of thousands of factories from the production of civilian goods to the
production of essential war items. Machine tools and other industrial equip-
ment must be reconditioned and new machinery made and installed for the
production of airplanes, ships, tanks, and guns. Facilities for the production of
essential war-supporting products and services must be expanded, and the out-
put of non-essential products must be curtailed. Allocations, priorities, ration-
ing, and conservation measures must be imposed to assure the effective utiliza-
tion of manpower, materials, production facilities, fuels, power, and communi-
cation and transportation services. These and other wartime measures must be
accomplished with a minimum disruption of the civilian economy, lest they
destroy the sources upon which the effectiveness of economic mobilization in a
democratic nation depends.
In wartime, the actions and decisions of the government must necessarily
control or influence what work people perform and the pay they receive, what
plants will be built, what will be produced and consumed, and the prices at
which goods shall be exchanged. Economic mobilization thus constitutes a
major challenge to the free enterprise system. It involves an extensive sacrifice
of traditional freedoms which can be justified only because this temporary
sacrifice is essential to survival.
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aoNaios avoixnod Nvoiaawv
American experience with economic mobilization during World War II

has provided a vast fund of knowledge, the meaning and significance of which
have yet to be fully studied and understood for future guidance. A number of
things, however, are already clear. Mobilization plans must be flexible, and
subject to continual revision in the light of changing technology, strategy, and
domestic and international conditions. They must provide for a smooth transi-
tion of the economy to the needs of war. Duplication in the activities of control
and procurement agencies must be avoided. Provision must be made for ex-
tensive democratic participation in the development of plans. There must be
widespread understanding of the nature and basic objectives of economic
mobilization.
While mobilization in World War II placed a heavy burden on the economy,
it did not require the full use of all our economic resources in support of the
war effort. Indeed, the level of aggregate civilian consumption at the peak of
war production, in 1943 and 1944, exceeded that of 1939. Another war, however,
might involve a greater demand upon our material and human resources. The
United States might be compelled to assume a more dominant role and to
furnish a larger portion of the equipment and supplies needed by its allies.
Our geographical position no longer provides protection against large-scale
loss of life and productive capacity from air attack. It is of the utmost im-
portance, therefore, that we have available well articulated and up-to-date
plans for mobilizing on short notice our armed forces, our government, and our
entire economy. It is important also that those segments of the economy that
cannot be quickly mobilized in the event of war be held in an adequate state
of preparedness in time of peace.
in
It was such considerations that led Congress, in the National Security Act of
1947, to establish the National Security Resources Board.1 The Board's re-
sponsibility is that of developing and coordinating policies and programs to
assure the effective mobilization of our resources in case of war. More specifi-
cally, the Board is charged with the function of advising the President about
the coordination of military, industrial, and civilian mobilization, including
advice on policies and programs for the effective use of manpower and of
natural and industrial resources; for the unification of resources mobilization
activities of governmental agencies in time of war; for the strategic relocation
of industry, government agencies, and essential services; for the accumulation
of stockpiles of strategic and critical materials; for the determination of po-
tential requirements for, and supplies of, manpower, materials, and facilities;
and for the stabilization of the civilian economy in wartime.
The National Security Resources Board (NSRB) is strictly a planning agency
1
The Board was created under Section 103 of the National Security Act approved July
26, 1947. Certain specific duties relating to national defense have been assigned to the
Board under three other statutes: the Rubber Act of 1948, approved March 31, 1948; the
Selective Service Act of 1948, approved June 24, 1948; and the Federal Aid Highway Act
of 1948, approved June 29, 1948.
advisory to the President. The Board itself consists of a chairman appointed

by the President from civilian life, with the consent of the Senate, and the
heads or representatives of departments and agencies of the government desig-
nated by the President to serve as members. Present membership consists of
the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce,
and Labor. Since the Board has no operating functions, its staff is relatively
small; as of June 1, 1949, it consisted of about 290 full-time and 40 part-time
employees. Career government employees, particularly those with experience
in mobilization agencies of World War II, form the basis of the permanent
staff. Business men, industrialists, and experts in specific fields are employed
largely on a temporary or loan basis. The organization of the staff is designed
to assure effective achievement of the broad and important mission assigned
to the Board. The following offices have been given responsibility for mobiliza-
tion planning: Plans and Programs, Organization and Procedures, Production,
Transport and Storage, Human Resources, Economic Management, and
General Counsel.
The Board's wide range of advisory responsibilities requires maintenance of
close working relationships with other government agencies, particularly those
concerned with security problems. Authority for cementing these relationships
was provided in the National Security Act, under which the Board is to "utilize
to the maximum extent the facilities and resources of the departments and
agencies of the government." In addition, the President has directed that other
agencies shall, upon request, furnish the Board with information, reports,
statistics, and other data, and make studies and investigations of matters
bearing upon national security.
Close cooperation is maintained with the other presidential staff agencies:
the National Security Council, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the
Bureau of the Budget. The chairman of NSRB is by law a member of the
National Security Council. The Board participates with the Council in the
appraisal of the objectives, commitments, and risks of the United States in
relation to its actual and potential military power. The Council of Economic
Advisers has provided the Board with advice on economic trends affecting
mobilization planning, especially in the fields of economic stabilization, and
has sought the Board's views on the magnitude and implications for the econ-
omy of national security programs both current and projected. The Board
cooperates with the Bureau of the Budget in matters of joint concern, such as
analysis of security programs in the budgets of other federal agencies, review
of organizational arrangements for execution of security programs, and exami-
nation of proposed legislation. Collaboration with the Bureau of the Budget
and other presidential staff agencies affords opportunity for synthesis of emerg-
ing policies and programs.
Close working relationships are maintained also with the National Military
Establishment. Cooperation is particularly close with the Munitions Board,
responsible for the military side of industrial mobilization. Agreement has
been reached between the two boards on most aspects of their respective re-
sponsibilities. Arrangements have been made for collaboration in dealing with
problems of mutual interest, and coordinated use is being made of industry

advisory groups and committees. NSRB has assumed responsibility for certain
activities heretofore carried out by the Munitions Board, including development
of an over-all mobilization plan.
In accordance with the National Security Act, NSRB utilizes the facilities
and resources of various departments and independent agencies. It works
closely with groups outside of the federal government—business, labor, agricul-
ture, the professions, and state and local governments. Individual experts and
advisory committees provide the Board with a background of specialized
knowledge and experience essential to sound planning.
In the brief period since NSRB was established, much of its effort necessarily
has been devoted to building an effective organization, recruiting personnel,
formulating basic assumptions and guiding principles, and developing programs
of research, as well as handling current security problems which could not be
deferred. As to its main task, the Board looks upon economic mobilization
planning as the process of estimating the requirements or needs of war, of
appraising the resources or means available to meet those needs, of measuring
deficiencies, and of determining the steps necessary to balance needs with
means.
IV
The scope and complexity of the statutory functions of the Board have re-
quired the formulation of a set of general principles for the guidance of its
staff. These may be summarized as follows:
1. Resources mobilization planning must be closely coordinated with strategic
planning. We must know what sort of war is envisaged in terms of strategy in
order to plan intelligently for resources mobilization. It is equally true that
strategic planning must rest on parallel economic mobilization planning. Eco-
nomic limitations which cannot be overcome obviously call for an adjustment
of strategic plans. Fortunately, this fundamental requirement for parallel
planning has been recognized by Congress, which designated the chairman of
NSRB as a member of the National Security Council. It has been further
recognized through the staff liaison established by administrative action be-
tween NSRB and the strategic planning agencies.
2. Resources mobilization planning must comprehend total national resources.
In an age of total war, all the resources of the nation—manpower, materials,
facilities, tangibles, and intangibles—must be marshaled. Our society places
supreme value on human life and on the dignity of man. A corollary is that
wherever possible the burden and cost of war must be shifted to material
things.
3. Resources mobilization planning must attach equal importance to essential
military requirements and to the essential requirements of the war-supporting
industrial and civilian economy. The two are equally essential. Neglect of either
imperils the other.
4. Resources mobilization planning must embrace detailed and continuous
balancing of changing requirements against resources. The fundamental factual
basis on which the judgments of economic mobilization planning must rest
consists of detailed estimates of resources and requirements. This entails con-

sideration of the factor of change.
5. Economic mobilization must beflexible.The controls which are necessary
in total war to direct available resources into essential war production must be
so designed and so administered as to take advantage, to the maximum degree
possible, of the flexibility and efficiency inherent in our system of private enter-
prise. Likewise, economic mobilization must be flexible to meet changing con-
ditions and unforeseen situations.
6. Economic mobilization planning in peace and economic mobilization in war
must be subject to predominant civilian control. All the precepts and traditions
of a democratic society support this principle. It is particularly important in
the face of prolonged international tension.
7. Economic mobilization planning must take into account the national welfare
in peace—prewar as well as postwar. Mobilization planning must take into
account the limitations imposed by our resources. Absolute security is unat-
tainable. Repercussions on the economy must be carefully weighed, not only
in the prewar stage, but in the projected postwar stage as well. Likewise,
mobilization planning should seek to harmonize its objectives and measures
with the needs of a sound peacetime economy. For example, plans for strategic
relocation of plant must, wherever feasible, be tied to the observable peacetime
trend toward industrial decentralization and de-urbanization.
8. Economic mobilization planning must be integrated planning. Planning in
all areas of resources mobilization must be consistent, must rest on uniform
assumptions, and must conform to an over-all pattern. Economic mobilization
planning must include more than a series of projects. It should result in the
unfolding of a program which will enable the United States to make a speedy
transition from peace to war, and to provide the means by which the output
of the economy for war needs can be sustained at the highest possible levels
during a war period.
v
Mobilization planning, by its very nature, must be a continuous process, to
assure continual adjustment to changes in strategy, tactics, and the weapons of
warfare, in technology in the international situation, and generally in our
dynamic, free-enterprise economy. That process, however, must yield a flow
of end-products to serve (a) as a basis for recommendations on the steps which
should be taken to improve the readiness of the country against the contingency
of war; and (b) as a basis for plans for a rapid mobilization of our resources
in the event of war. The end-products may be stated under seven categories.
1. Resources and Requirements Balance Sheets. Fundamental to a program of
resources mobilization planning is the constant balancing of supply and re-
quirements—materials, finished products, components, facilities, fuels, power,
transportation, manpower. In order to know what steps to take in mobilization
planning, we must know the continuing relationship between resources and
changing mobilization requirements in an age of technology.
As one example of planning in the resources-requirements field, NSRB, in
cooperation with the Munitions Board and the Departments of Commerce,

Interior, Labor, and State, is conducting a test of the economic feasibility of
the strategic plans prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Munitions Board
has submitted to NSRB preliminary estimates of the military requirements of
those plans for certain key resources—steel, copper, aluminum, petroleum,
manpower. The civilian departments named are submitting similar estimates
of essential civilian requirements, together with estimates of available key
resources. These data, when analyzed by the NSRB staff and the staffs of the
cooperating agencies, will enable the Board to advise the President whether the
general level of requirements called for by the strategic plans can be met
within the limits of the resources available.
Undoubtedly, there will be cases where the total requirements for some
specific resource will exceed the potential supply. In such cases, it will be
necessary to make adjustments in the proposed civilian or military use, or
both—or to lay plans for making the resource available in greater quantity.
Resource limitations that cannot be overcome will, of course, call for adjust-
ment in strategic plans. Out of this feasibility test will come also a measure of
the economic magnitude of a war effort, to serve as a guide to mobilization
planning.
As a further example of planning in the resources-requirements field, a sur-
vey is being made by NSRB, in cooperation with 21 federal departments and
agencies, of the country's resources in relation to the requirements during the
fiscal year 1950 of the several national security and security-related programs.
Interdepartmental committees are compiling balance sheets of total require-
ments—security and other—and estimated availability for each of 35 basic re-
sources, including certain metals, agricultural products, and manufactured
items, in addition to manpower, transportation, electric power, and fuels. The
results will serve as guides to national policy. For example, they will indicate
to what extent our physical resources will set limits to security programs; to
what extent these programs can be accomplished without controls; and to what
extent controls may be required to assure completion of the programs. The
survey will also provide the factual background for current measures of econom-
ic readiness. As another activity, the staff is developing a comprehensive
system for balancing resources with mobilization requirements in time of war.
2. Economic Readiness Measures. One of the end-products of mobilization
planning by NSRB consists of recommendations to the President as to the
steps that should be taken now, or over a period of time, to lessen our vulner-
ability and to strengthen our position. Among these readiness measures may
be mentioned, as examples, the following: (a) measures to increase resources,
and measures to maintain high capacity wherever essential to preparedness,
such as increasing our power-generating capacity, our capacity to produce the
basic metals, our exploration and development of minerals, and our capacity for
fuel production; (b) measures to stretch resources, through substitution, re-
design of equipment, pooling of machine tools, power interconnections, and
other means; (c) measures to decrease vulnerability, such as relocation of
industries and vital services, dispersion of plants, duplication of key facilities,

and breaking of transportation bottlenecks; (d) stockpiling of critical and
strategic materials; and (e) building up plant and equipment reserves and
machine-tool reserves.
3. Framework of Economic Policies for an Emergency. One of the statutory
responsibilities of NSRB is to advise the President on programs for the effective
use of all resources and for the stabilization of the civilian economy in time of
war, including adjustment of the economy to war needs and conditions. These
objectives require a framework of policies which cut across many areas of
activity. Into such a framework must be fitted the various programs required
to carry into effect resources mobilization.
These basic policies relate primarily to the fundamental necessity for allo-
cating resources in order to maximize a war effort. Out of the underlying
allocation policies stem the policies and programs for such matters as produc-
tion and materials controls, price control, rationing, fiscal affairs, manpower,
housing, transportation, agriculture, and foreign economic operations.
4. Mobilization Plans for Industries. The planning process includes the
preparation and continual revision of plans for harnessing the resources of
appropriate key industries and readying those industries to meet the needs of
mobilization. Included among these end-products are plans for coordination
of procurement; for allocation of productive facilities; for conversion of pro-
ductive facilities to war work; and for construction of needed facilities.
5. Controls, Methods, and Procedures. Bringing all of our resources to bear
upon total war cannot be achieved without recourse to those minimum man-
datory controls required to direct resources into the channels of war pro-
duction. All our resources in time of war must be directed toward turning out
the amounts and kinds of goods and services which would enable the American
people to throw against an enemy their maximum military and economic
strength. It is, then, a task of resources mobilization planning to develop in
time of peace the controls, methods, and procedures for doing the things that
have to be done in a war emergency.
6. Mobilization Legislation. In such an emergency, NSRB must be prepared
to advise the President about legislation, executive orders, and regulations
designed to effect those policies and programs which mobilization planning has
indicated as essential. Experience in two world wars has made clear that the
peacetime powers of the executive branch do not suffice to meet the needs of
resources mobilization in time of war.
7. Organizational Plans for an Emergency. A specific responsibility of NSRB
is to advise the President on policies for unifying in time of war the activities
of all federal agencies concerned with resources mobilization. These proposals
must flow out of the detailed program planning in the various subject-matter
fields.
VI
The statutory establishment of a civilian agency to advise the President on
coordination of military, industrial, and civilian mobilization is a milestone in
the history of our national security organization. It reflects the broadening

appreciation of the importance of the economic aspects of warfare, and of the
necessity of peacetime planning for resources mobilization as well as for military
mobilization. Establishment of NSRB as a permanent agency in the President's
staff organization, independent of the National Military Establishment, re-
flects the principle that coordination of planning for resources mobilization is
properly a civilian responsibility, and one that must be discharged on a high
level.
The philosophy of mobilization planning, both military and economic, rests
on the premise that a state of preparedness is one of the means of lessening the
likelihood of an attack upon us, and at the same time one of the means of in-
creasing the likelihood of winning a war if we are forced into one. In the uncer-
tain world in which we live, we can with prudence do no less than take appropri-
ate steps to improve our economic readiness and lay plans for the rapid and
effective mobilization of our resources in the event of war.
It must be clear to all the world that the American people are not preparing
for war. Only an aggressor nation that has made the decision to wage war can
direct all of its energies toward preparation for war. A free society, on the other
hand, can plan only for those measures held necessary for mobilizing its re-
sources in the event of war. Nor does the conscious national decision to plan
against the contingency of war carry any implication whatever that war is
inevitable or even probable.
On the contrary, it is abundantly clear that the fundamental program of the
United States is one of planning for peace, not war. Despite the allocation of
half of the federal budget to national security programs, it must be emphasized
that our national effort is overwhelmingly dedicated and directed to the re-
quirements of a peacetime economy and a world at peace. In this connection,
the national security programs of more than $20 billion must be compared with
a gross national product in excess of $250 billion.
The importance of democratic participation in the development of plans for
resources mobilization is evident. Wide participation serves to assure the
soundness of plans as well as the public support essential to their acceptance
and implementation. It is vital that the people understand the philosophy
underlying the development of mobilization plans, the reasons for readiness
measures, and the probable impact of these measures upon the economy.
Twice in one generation, our lack of preparedness was interpreted as evidence
of weakness, and thus served as an invitation to aggression. Today, under the
mandate of Congress, enacted in the National Security Act, America seeks
to stay strong as a deterrent to aggression. As a presidential advisory agency,
NSRB helps to attain this national position. Acting in the light of advice from
NSRB and other agencies, the President makes his recommendations to
Congress. The ultimate decision as to what steps shall be taken in the interest
of national security, including the extent of the authority to be granted the
President, is reserved—as in all matters of basic policy under our constitutional
system—for the elected representatives of the people.

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NATIONAL DEFENSE AND DEMOCRATIC

Traditionally, American public interest in national defense has been sporadic,

President Truman's statement on January 5, 1949, at the opening of the

to invade and occupy Norway, do we have to go to war to preserve our own

we have not endeavored through the instrument of government to guide the

All of these official documents are government planning papers of great

instrument of government will bring subtle, gradual, but far-reaching, alterations

II. POLICY FORMULATION FOR

tribution on the interdepartmental level toward coordination of policy, particu-

accordingly directed its staff to undertake a long-range program of reports

The third part of the Council's staff is comprised of representatives desig-

Under present conditions, Council papers normally originate in the Policy

sense of coherence, of teamwork, and of direction. While much remains to be

III. THE NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT

Required as it is to bend and shape its members to a single ultimate brutal

barracks, design of ordnance, procurement of aircraft, purchase of supplies,

was so impressive that it was perpetuated as a statutory agency by the National

Army-Navy Munitions Board, given statutory basis and some important

Commanding General of the Army. He supervised procurement and services

Transportation, and Quartermaster—is exercised by the Director of Logistics,

it might not be too difficult to end it by the apparently simple expedient,

train reserves in such fashion as to give them a reasonable degree of combat

IV. ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION

Provision for national security requires planning in many fields—military,

American experience with economic mobilization during World War II

advisory to the President. The Board itself consists of a chairman appointed

problems of mutual interest, and coordinated use is being made of industry

consists of detailed estimates of resources and requirements. This entails con-

cooperation with the Munitions Board and the Departments of Commerce,

industries and vital services, dispersion of plants, duplication of key facilities,

the history of our national security organization. It reflects the broadening

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