Mr. VINSON. I just wanted to raise it because we are trying to have every law written just the same. But it is all right with me. General COLLINS. Yes, sir. Mr. KILDAY. Don't you think we probably made a mistake in the other instances? Mr. VINSON. Yes; we probably did so. You know I have got whipped around to where I have to try to write for these three services laws all alike. I never wanted to do that, but it is all right Mr. KILDAY. My recollection is when the Air Force bill was here this matter was never discussed. It slipped through here without our knowing what we had done. Mr. VINSON. The Air Force bill was never here. Mr. KILDAY. That is right. Mr. VINSON. The Air Force just broke away, in the other committee here, the Committee on Expenditures. The Air Force has never had its day like the Department of the Army now. We should probably some time in the future have the Air Force up here. Mr. KILDAY. Of course the bill went to the wrong committee. General COLLINS. Yes, sir. Mr. VINSON. I just wanted to raise that question. Mr. VINSON. Now, Mr. Chairman, let us take a recess until Monday morning. Mr. COLE. I am just wondering, along that same thought you have raised, if the statute should not impose upon the Chief of Staff some concurrent responsibility with the civilian head with respect to the adequateness of our Military Establishment and to meet our national requirements. As it is now you have no statutory responsibility. General COLLINS. Yes, sir. Mr. COLE. The only affirmative responsibility as I read this section rather hurriedly, is where you advise the Secretary on what the staff people have determined should be done. You are an adviser. That is the only affirmative thing. General COLLINS. I think some language could be worked out, Mr. Cole, which might make a genuine contribution along the lines you have just said. We would be very happy to see what we can do along that line. Now, actually, the Congress at various times has specially charged the Chief of Staff with certain responsibilities. For example, in the early days of the lend lease a law was passed which required that the Chief of Staff of the Army, and I think the Chief of Naval Operations also, would personally certify as to the validity of the surplus condition of equipment. I still do that. That law has never been repealed, Congress specifically placed that responsibility on the Chief of Staff of the Army, and I think at the same time they placed a similar responsibility on the Chief of Naval Operations. Mr. VINSON. That is right. But- General COLLINS. Certainly I think you have a good point, that perhaps the Chief of Staff ought to be given a mandate Mr. VINSON. That is right. General COLLINS. And that in no sense conflicts with the subordination of the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Army. It is Mr. VINSON. For instance, the statutory responsibility of the Chief of Naval Operations is to see that the fleet is ready for war. fixed by statute as a responsibility. Now the point raised by Mr. Cole is there is no fixed responsibility upon you as the Chief of Staff of the Army. General COLLINS. I think you have something. Mr. BLANDFORD. You could use the same language that is contained in the Navy law, Mr. Chairman. Mr. VINSON. In other words, I think the law should be fixed to put certain responsibility upon you. You are the head professional man of the Army, and yet the statute puts nothing upon your shoulders of a similar character that it does on the other chiefs. General COLLINS. And I think that can be done without necessarily giving the Chief of Staff a command status. Mr. VINSON. Then you see, when this committee calls you before it, well, you say, "I am not the man you talk to. You go talk to the Secretary. He is the man." We want the military to talk to. Mr. COLE. Or, "Go talk to the G-2." Mr. VINSON. That is right. General COLLINS. Actually I assume the responsibility. There is no question about it; I have the responsibility, morally and in every other way. Mr. COLE. But if this were by law imposed on your shoulders, granting that you possess the fullest measure of sincerity and conscientious effort, if you had that added burden by law, you would be just a little more conscientious. General COLLINS. Yes, sir. In other words, I think it is a question-we will have to work the wording out, because if you do this specifically then you may have to change some of the responsibilities of the Secretary of the Army, I don't know, because you cannot have two people responsible for the same thing. We have given such broad authority to the Secretary of the Army here that if you now give certain specific authorities and responsibilities to the Chief of Staff maybe you will want to remove some of the language concerning the Secretary of the Army. Mr. VINSON. It is the responsibility of the Chief of Staff to see that certain things are in existence and certain things are being complied with, and we are in a state of readiness. Now, you see, as it is you have no responsibility except that of a faithful and efficient officer trying to discharge your duties. What we want to do is put some responsibility on somebody where we can pin-point him. We all have got used to the words "pin point" up here. We want to be able to pin-point responsibility. Mr. KILDAY. And we have to get into a full discussion of civilian control, again. Mr. VINSON. No, it does not conflict with civilian control. There is complete and absolute civilian control in the Air Force. Nobody can dispute that. It is absolutely there. The Secretary of Air runs it under civilian control. But there is a responsibility upon the Chief of Staff in the Air Force and upon the Chief of Naval Operations that is not on the shoulders of the Chief of Staff of the Army. Mr. KILDAY. Then you must give him corresponding authority You are talking here of giving the Chief of Staff the responsibility without the corresponding authority. Mr. VINSON. Well, we will think about it. General COLLINS. Suppose we take a shot at some language, Mr. Kilday, and see if we can work it out with your staff, the staff of the committee here and Mr. COLE. Let me just throw out this thought for you to consider in your deliberations. General CoLLINS. Yes, sir. Mr. COLE. Under the unification law you as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are given the opportunity of coming to Congress to tell us anything you want to. But the law does not say that you have any responsibility in that respect. It is not true on the Navy phase of it. The head man there who serves on the Joint Chiefs has a statutory responsibility imposed on him to keep his military machine in readiness. So he, very properly, I think, might feel impelled to come to the Congress, even against the wishes or the approval of his civilian boss, to report to the Congress in any respect where he feels that the Military Establishment has gone rusty and is breaking down. That, I think, is a wholesome thing to have. Civilian control, to my mind, does not mean that the man who is the Secretary of the Department is the only one to exercise civilian control. Mr. VINSON. Let me read this: It shall be the duty of the Chief of Naval Operations to command the operating forces and to be responsible to the Secretary of the Navy for their use, including but not limited to their training, readiness and preparation for war and plans therefore. Now that is a statutory requirement on the Chief of Naval Operations. He has to be responsible for that. I think the same thing ought to be put upon the shoulders of the Chief of Staff of the Army. The Chief of Staff of the Army ought to have that additional responsibility put upon him. Of course we are trying to give you more authority than you are asking for, but it is a good thing to do. Mr. KILDAY. We will adjourn until 10 o'clock Monday morning. (Whereupon, at 12: 10 p. m., the Subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at 10 o'clock Monday, March 6, 1950.) ARMY ORGANIZATION BILL MONDAY, MARCH 6, 1950 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met at 10 a. m., the Honorable Paul J. Kilday (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present, representing the Department of the Army: Gen. J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff, accompanied by Maj. Gen. Clark L. Ruffner, Col. Kilbourne Johnston, Col. Archibald King, and Lt. Col. G. Emery Baya. Mr. KILDAY. The committee will be in order. ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION OF SECTION 204, "DUTIES OF CHIEF OF STAFF" When we adjourned on Friday, we were considering section 204, I believe. I do not think we completed it. Mr. BLANDFORD. We read section 204, Mr. Chairman. Mr. KILDAY. Yes; we had read it and were discussing it at the time we adjourned. It was a question of some language perhaps being submitted with reference to the responsibility of the Chief of Staff. General COLLINS. Yes, sir. We would like to defer that until we have had a chance to work that over a little bit further. I think that the Secretary has written you a note. Mr. KILDAY. That is correct. General COLLINS. Stating that, while he is out of the city temporarily, he would be glad to come back if the chairman wishes to have him come back at any time on this bill. Mr. KILDAY. We understand. General COLLINS. My suggestion is, Mr. Chairman: Since our men have not been able to wind this up with your Staff, that we defer action on this until we can submit to you some language. Mr. KILDAY. Very well. General COLLINS. Which will meet the purposes of our discussion last time. Mr. KILDAY. The Secretary wants to be heard on the proposed language. General COLLINS. Yes, sir. Mr. KILDAY. He will be gone for 2 weeks, I understand. Mr. VINSON. In the memorandum dealing with that question, you raise the question as to whether or not any language would be constitutional. Now I want to call your attention, for consideration, that both in the Navy and in the Air Force we did, whether constitutionally or not, prescribe they should exercise a certain kind of command. Now, see if it can be worked out whereby the same kind of language can be applied to the Chief of Staff of the Army. General COLLINS. Right, sir. That is what we are working on, sir. Mr. KILDAY. Is there anything further on this section? Mr. BLANDFORD. Mr. Chairman, one point, and that is the language in section 204, is "Except as otherwise prescribed by law, by the President, or by the Secretary of Defense." If you are going to change your language as you did in your previous section to "subject to the provisions of the National Security Act as amended" or "except as otherwise prescribed by law", the committee might want to consider striking out from section 204 the language "by the President, or by the Secretary of Defense", to be consistent with the previous change. Mr. VINSON. Of course, under the National Security Act, there are no prescribed duties for the Chief of Staff of the Army. Mr. BLANDFORD. There are no prescribed duties here, either. General COLLINS. It does not prescribe duties for him really as Chief of Staff of the Army, but as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think that is what was had in mind when that reference was made, Mr. Vinson. Mr. VINSON. That is right. Of course, it would prescribe duties as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but no duties as Chief of Staff of the Army. General COLLINS. That is right. Mr. VINSON. All right. Mr. BLANDFORD. What is the necessity, then, for the language "Except as otherwise prescribed by law, by the President, or by the Secretary of Defense, the Chief of Staff shall perform his duties under the direction of the Secretary of the Army"? Mr. KILDAY. That goes all through the bill; doesn't it? General COLLINS. That same terminology is used right through the bill, in many, many places throughout the bill. This is not the only place. You will find it recurring. We have already run across it several times in the bill. Mr. BLANDFORD. My point, General: I have a note that we agreed to strike out that language in a preceding section, some portions of it. General COLLINS. I didn't think so. Mr. KILDAY. We discussed it, but did not agree to do it. Mr. BLANDFORD. I refer to section 101 (a). It is with relation to the Secretary of the Army that the subcommittee had raised the question. And I have made a note of it, that the language would be changed to "subject to the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 as amended"-striking out the language "Except as otherwise prescribed by law, by the President, or by the Secretary of Defense." Mr. VINSON. Substitute in lieu that? Mr. BLANDFORD. "Subject to the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 as amended." There is a different connotation there, as there is here, of course, in the Chief of Staff section. Mr. VINSON. Of course, I suggested that somewhere in the bill we put in that everything in it is under the National Security Act. General COLLINS. Right. Mr. KILDAY. I believe it was mentioned that it might go in the saving provision. |