to the Secretary of the Army as we have indicated, for purposes of coordination we have made him also have a concurrent responsibility to the Chief of Staff. He occupies the position, the Comptroller, that is

Mr. VINSON. I understand.

Secretary GRAY. Comparable to that of a Deputy Chief of Staff. I would like not to destroy his authority in the Organization by limiting it to two.

Mr. SHORT. We do not overlook the fact that the Army is the biggest branch numerically speaking.

Mr. VINSON. Of course, we agree with General Bradley that the Chief of Staff should have some voice in connection with the money. Secretary GRAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. VINSON. Which is a little bit in disagreement with the establishment of the position of Comptroller. So as far as I am concerned, if it meets the views of the Chairman, if you think it should be not more than three deputies and not more than five assistants, why I have no objection.

Secretary GRAY. All right, sir.

Mr. VINSON. But I do think it ought to be fixed by statute, the number.

Secretary GRAY. Right, sir.

Mr. KILDAY. That would be one Chief, one Vice Chief, not to exceed three Deputies, and not to exceed five Assistants.

Mr. VINSON. Yes.

Mr. KILDAY. Would that be satisfactory?

General COLLINS. Right, sir.

Mr. VINSON. Mr. Chairman, let us find out what No. 4 means— "The officers prescribed in sections 206, 207, and 208 of this Act"let us see how many you have in there.

General COLLINS. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KILDAY. That is on page 47 of the bluebook.

Mr. VINSON. Let us see now.

General COLLINS. I think maybe Colonel Baya can answer the specific question. I don't have the number of Army officers on duty in all of these technical services.

General COLLINS. I can give you a break-down. We have in the offices of the Chiefs of the Administrative Services about 300 Army officers, in the offices of the Chiefs of the Technical Services, 800; in the Special Staff, 300; in the General Staff Divisions, 800; in the offices of the Chief of Staff, the Comptroller, and the Chief of Information, 300; and in the offices of the Secretary, Under Secretary, and Assistant Secretaries, 100. That is a total in the Department of about 2,600.

Mr. VINSON. Now these services: one is headed by the Chief of Engineers, one by the Chief Signal Officer, one by the Adjutant General. They are set out on page 46 of the bluebook.

General COLLINS. Right, sir.

Mr. VINSON. Those are the "Officers prescribed in sections 206, 207, and 208 of this Act." You will have a Chief of Engineers

Mr. KILDAY. In sections 206 and 207 you have 13 officers.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Section 208 is unlimited.

Mr. KILDAY. 208 is unlimited. It is on page 56 of the blue book.

General COLLINS. Yes. 208 prescribes the Deputy and Assistant Chiefs of the Services. In the offices of the Chiefs of Services prescribed in sections 206 and 207, we have the number of officers that I gave you awhile ago. There are about 300 officers in the offices of the Chiefs of the Administrative Services. Those are the offices of the Adjutant General, the Provost Marshal General, and the Chief of Chaplains. There are about 800 officers in the offices of the Chiefs of the Technical Services. Those are the offices of the Chief of Engineers, Chief of Ordnance, Quartermaster General, Chief Signal Officer, Chief Chemical Officer, Chief of Transportation, and Surgeon General. Those numbers include, of course, the Deputy and Assistant Chiefs of Services.

Mr. VINSON. Is there any provision in this bill of any limitation? In other words, you can build up these different services. Take the Chief of Engineers. You can assign as many as you desire to do so. The same thing applies to the Chief Signal Officer; is that correct? General COLLINS. That is correct.

Mr. VINSON. There is no limitation.

General COLLINS. Right, sir.

Mr. VINSON. Is there any limitation in the statute today; how large they should be?

General COLLINS. Not that I know of.

Mr. VINSON. Is there any limitation as to the rank of officers assigned?

General COLLINS. Only in the top echelons; that is all.

Mr. KILDAY. There is one question I wanted to get to before we quit this morning. The last sentence of the section we are considering is that "Part of the Army Staff may be designated the Army General Staff."

General COLLINS. That is right.

Mr. KILDAY. Now, what part? The existing law limits that to 102 officers, outside of the Chief and Deputy and the five Assistants. General COLLINS. That is right.

Mr. KILDAY. It is limited to 102 officers.

General COLLINS. This is, again, one of those flexible provisions, Mr. Chairman, which would authorize the Secretary of the Army to do just what he has just done eliminate an entire division of the General Staff here in Washington.

Mr. KILDAY. How many now constitute the General Staff?
General COLLINS. The General Staff here

Secretary GRAY. Are you talking about total number of officers or how many divisions? Are you talking about the total number of officers assigned to duty there, sir, or

Mr. KILDAY. The number who constitute the General Staff. Now, under the original concept of the General Staff, you had your Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, and five Assistant Chiefs.

General COLLINS. That is right.

Mr. KILDAY. And then not to exceed 102 officers above the rank of captain.

General COLLINS. That is right, sir.

We have now, today, in the Office of the Chief of Staff, which includes the Vice Chief of Staff, the Comptroller, and the Deputy Chiefs of Staff, 300 officers. And we have in the General Staff divisions, 800.

We have a total here now which you might say would be doing true General Staff functions of 1,100.

Mr. KILDAY. That is the same 1,100 you counted up awhile ago? General COLLINS. No, sir.

Mr. KILDAY. That is another one?

General COLLINS. It just happens that the numbers come out identical. We have in the offices of the Chiefs of the Administrative Services and the Technical Services, 1,100. That is, by chance, that the numbers happen to be the same. They are not the same 1,100.

not the same 1,100.

Mr. KILDAY. But some of them are.

General COLLINS. No, sir.

Mr. KILDAY. None of them are counted twice?

General COLLINS. No; no duplication there.

Mr. VINSON. Isn't there some limitation on how large the General Staff shall be?

General COLLINS. There is in the National Defense Act now a limitation on numbers, but that is not in effect at the moment because of the War Powers Act. We are organized and are actually functioning under the War Powers Act at the present time.

Mr. VINSON. Then, in peacetime, there will be no limitation under this bill?

General COLLINS. If this were enacted there would be no limitation.

Mr. VINSON. Heretofore there has been a limitation fixed at onehundred-and-some-odd.

General COLLINS. That is right, sir.

Mr. SHORT. Do you want that? General, do you want that?

General COLLINS. I think no limitation is a very desirable thing to have, Mr. Short, in order that the Secretary of the Army, depending upon what the circumstances are, can organize the Staff with the proper numbers. Awhile ago you said that we were asking for authorities in peacetime that we have during wartime. There have been conditions in peace

Mr. VINSON. This is permanent law.

General COLLINS. Yes, sir. But in periods of stress and strain in peacetime

Mr. VINSON. But you would not take advantage of the stress and strain at this moment to enact a permanent statute for peacetime; would you?

General COLLINS. We think that there should be sufficient flexibility so that in some other time of stress and strain if the Secretary needed more assistants here in Washington he could bring them to Washington.

Mr. VINSON. Well, why shouldn't there be some limitation? Why shouldn't there be some limitation as to size, in peacetimes, of the General Staff? Now, the statute fixes it in peacetime to 100. In wartimes it is flexible. Now you want to get away from the limitations and you want it flexible so you can build it up just as large as you see fit to do so.

Secretary GRAY. Mr. Chairman, are you talking about a limitation on the Department of Defense or limitation on the Department of the Army?

Mr. VINSON. This bill relates to the Department of the Army. I am talking about the Chief of Staff, the Vice Chief of Staff, and the Deputy Chief of Staff, and Assistants, and all those that work with him constitute, as I see it, the Staff-the General Staff-of the Army. Secretary GRAY. There is no such limitation in the Air Force or Navy, Mr. Chairman.

General COLLINS. And there hasn't been in peacetime in either of those other two services that I know of.

Mr. KILDAY. Of course, you detailed a lot of men who were not actually on the General Staff.

General COLLINS. Frankly, Mr. Kilday, we were forced to do it to get ready for this war. Now we had a period of tension prior to this war that dated back, beginning actually back in about 1939, and we frankly had to detail officers "with" "the General Staff in addition to those "on" the General Staff. What we are asking now is, very frankly, so that we don't have to take these circuitous moves to accomplish the essential business of the Government.

Mr. COLE. Let me give you a word of advice, coming from a poor and lowly Congressman that has this observation about a General Staff concept. If you folks down there would just forget the word "staff" and "general" and call it something else, you wouldn't have anywhere near the trouble you are getting about staffing your people. General COLLINS. Well the term "general staff," Mr. Cole, has nothing to do with a general in the Army.

Mr. COLE. And my evidence to support that statement is the fact that there is no limitation on the personnel in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. I fancy if they had come down and called that a Chief of Naval Staff and had built up that thought in the mind of Congress, they would have had a limitation, too, but they did not do it. So, I am throwing it out to you. It may not be worth a thing. But, if I were coming down here and wanted the authority to get the personnel to do a job that Congress has given me to do, I won't use the word "staff" and I definitely would avoid the expression "general staff" and call it something else.

Mr. KILDAY. Gentleman, the House is in session. We will have to adjourn until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

(Whereupon at 12 noon, the subcommittee was adjourned to reconvene at 10 oclock, Friday, March 3, 1950.)