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D- MOESER
n the early days of the McNamara Era, Secretaries of the respective services tended to fsemble the figurehead of a ship—
Wspirationally out in front, tnaking no waves ut constantly being inundated by unforeseen State Ten seas. And then along came Paul Nitze, left, who changed both the job of Secretary of the Navy and Robert S. McNamara’s perception of the job.
From the 18th century onward, the Secretaries of War and Navy were part of the President’s Cabinet. In 1947, the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and the newly-created Air Force became military department heads subject to the authority, control, and direction of the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense. In 1949, the service secretary lost his seat on the National Security Council. He gained a role in the operational chain of command as executive agent for unified and specified commands in 1953, but he lost it again in the major Eisenhower reorganization toward greater unification in 1958. Thereafter, his formal role limited him to a managerial responsibility for organizing, training, and equipping Army, Navy, or Air Force units for service in the unified combat commands. He retained the right of direct access to the President and Congress "on his own initiative, after first informing the Secretary of Defense.” His informal role in both executive and operational matters, however, varied widely.
When Robert S. McNamara became Secretary of Defense in 1961, he viewed the service secretary as somewhat anachronistic. Roswell Gilpatric, head of a Kennedy pre-inaugural task force, recommended abolishing the office—as had the Symington Committee in I960—and Gilpatric became McNamara’s deputy. Yet circumstances forced McNamara to recognize an important function of the service secretary in a wholly unanticipated role. With a preconception of both his own activist role and a relatively passive role for subordinates, a "whiz kid” was not in the plan for the services. Unification of the military side of the Department of Defense was not in his interest. Contrary to the implication of the 1958 reorganization, McNamara centralized only the managerial or business side of
DoD; he was content with patronage appointments over the services, to facilitate control on a divide-and- conquer principle.1
The McNamara system invaded the bone and marrow of service functions and brought internal difficulties when Assistant Secretaries of Defense short- circuited the statutory authority of the service secretary. Sanctioned in the law as "aides and military assistants” for the Secretary of Defense, the McNamara assistants soon became a de facto general staff of 1,600 civilian and military officials. Under the prevailing climate of opinion, the service secretary seemed headed for extinction. Two major issues helped change the trend, however: the TFX aircraft and the nuclear-powered carrier.
The first major development program in the McNamara era, the TFX or F-1U, predated McNamara. In early I960, SecDef Thomas S. Gates had approved development of a new carrier-based fighter plane for the Navy; the Air Force had originated the TFX, its own new fighter, with a separate mission and design. President Eisenhower deferred to Kennedy his commitment to major new weapon systems, and Gates halted both projects late in I960. In February 1961, McNamara decided to develop three structurally identical aircraft which would satisfy the tactical fighter needs of the Army, Navy, and Air Force on the principle of "commonality,” soon to become a commonplace in DoD language.2
The Director of Defense Research and Engineering
(DDR&E) concluded that the four-service requirements were incompatible, however, and recommended two separate programs, one for the Army and Marines, one for the Navy and Air Force. Eight months later, the majority of aeronautical experts in the Navy and Air Force agreed that an effective common airplane for the two services was not technically feasible either.
The latter conclusion was approved by Navy Secretary John B. Connally, Jr., and Air Force Secretary Eugene M. Zuckert, but McNamara did not consider this realistic and ordered the two services to compromise. The design compromises proved unacceptable to the Navy, and on 31 May 1961, Connally wrote McNamara concurring in the concept of a bi-service fighter but objecting that the compromise design was "too large and expensive and we neither need nor want them on our carriers.” If the plane had to be, Connally added, the Navy should be the service responsible for its development to insure that the final design would be suitable for carrier operations.
McNamara rejected both arguments; on 7 June 1961, | he chose the Air Force, with requirements for 86% of the total production, as program manager for both services. Within a matter of days, Connally appealed the McNamara decision on the basis that the dual service version would require major modification to the attack carrier deck structure, to catapults and arresting gear, and was infeasible even with modification in the Midway-class (CVA-41) hull. The smaller wing area of j the carrier version reduced the lift/drag ratio and increased its fuel requirements, further increasing takeoff weight. Excess size reduced the number per carrier; excess cost reduced the total number procurable; increased hazards to deck personnel were involved, as was reduced reliability. (Connally himself was not without qualifications in these judgments; he served on board the USS Essex [CV-9] in World War II). As a result of hard negotiating throughout the summer by the two services, the program was near a stalemate by late August. _ 1
McNamara, too, was in a difficult position. He originally wanted only one tactical aircraft for the four services, had been forced to concede that two were necessary, and now faced the unpleasant prospect that there might well have to be three. His reaction was swift. If the two services could not agree, he would do it for them. He instructed DDR&E to establish guidelines for the joint program. His directive of 1 September 1961 to Connally and Zuckert ordered development of a joint TFX aircraft and spelled out that "changes to the Air Force tactical version of the basic aircraft to achieve the Navy mission shall be held to a minimum.” Both decisions caused acute anguish to Connally, and the naval aviation leadership. On 1 Octo-
er 1961, requests for proposals were issued to bidders, onnally already contemplating the Texas gubernatorial resigned at this point and was succeeded by Fred
In the ensuing four sets of bids, military experts s owed an early preference for Boeing, which had carted a year ahead of General Dynamics in meeting e variable-geometry wing challenge. At midpoint, 0fV962> Admiral George W. Anderson, Jr., the Chief aval Operations, was convinced that chances for successful bi-service plane were remote, and he opposed further efforts in this direction. Both Korth and Uc ert recommended to McNamara that the two competitors be given three more weeks to solve the Navy’s problems.
^cNamara saved the principle of commonality by 1 orizing last minute changes to meet Navy de- ^ands, and on 9 June 1962 he concurred in the orth-Zuckert recommendation. On 21 June 1962, the r orce Council, with concurrence of Navy members, seci ed in favor of the Boeing plane and agreed that °urce selection was not an issue. Both Korth and ^uckert agreed. Anderson and Air Force Chief of Staff k Urtls LeMay recommended that Boeing be selected, gUt. two service secretaries recommended both °eing and General Dynamics be allowed to continue t.C n'ti°n of designs.3 In the fourth bidding competi- n> the evaluation group worked directly with both nipetitors, and both companies produced what the lces agreed were acceptable designs. Military analysts Sreed that the Boeing designs were superior, offering 0re airplane for less money. The four service evalua- 1,°ns> the Pentagon Source Selection Board of top irals and generals, and the military operators unani- °usly recommended Boeing.
On 21 November 1962, the announcement of a $439 g1 10n prototype contract award was made, not to ch°eing hut to General Dynamics. Shock waves of §rin, surprise, and cynicism reverberated through the Pentagon. The contract was little more than earnest had*1^ ^°r r^e ^ar£est aifcrah contract the United States fiv CVer unc^ertaI<:en- The supporting document, a page memorandum of justification, was signed by jyjC amara, Korth, and Zuckert. Senator John L. Sub C^an Arkansas, chairman of the Permanent committee on Investigations, claimed that the doc- incT^- WaS errors’ both technical and factual,
lio 4 tWO simpie arithmetic totalling $54 mil- Anderson and LeMay professed astonishment, er 1 ^°urs before the commitment went to Gen- wh' ^nam‘cs> Senator McClellan requested a delayer lch was refused—in order to conduct an inquiry, new^ Connally anc^ Konh were Texans and the plane (now called the F-m) was to be built
primarily in Fort Worth, Secretary Korth in particular was thrust into a very difficult position. He was still active with his bank, Continental National, from which General Dynamics had obtained a recent $400,000 loan. Secretary Korth insisted before the Senate that as "a man of integrity” he was not influenced by these considerations, and he was eventually cleared, but the position of the SecNav was extremely awkward. Strong domestic political implications favored the Texas firm. Texas had gone to Kennedy in I960, but the President badly needed to increase his support base. That support base was not forthcoming willingly from the newly- elected Governor Connally. President Kennedy was also directly interested in the TFX. Early in the contest, McNamara sent Secretaries Korth and Zuckert a single sentence memorandum: "I have told the President that we propose to discuss with him our recommendations
regarding the final award of the TFX contract before the contract is let.” Before the fourth round of proposals had been evaluated, McNamara had told the President that "it looks as if General Dynamics would be chosen.” Eight days before the announcement was made, he visited the White House to tell the President of the pending decision.
General Dynamics was facing serious economic trouble; production of the B-58 bomber was phasing out, and it had taken a severe $425 million loss on commercial jets. McNamara claimed firmly that socio-economic factors were not involved, nor was the influence of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. In the McClellan hearings, McNamara identified the grounds for his choice: that Boeing was using titanium in its plane which was risky and might interfere with the ability to meet contract dates; the General Dynamics proposal appeared to conform more closely than Boeing’s to the overriding ideals of low apparent development risk, more realistic
22 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 1975 cost estimation, and in particular, more commonality. The General Dynamics F-111A (the Air Force version) and F-iiiB (the Navy version) were 83.3% interchangeable, only 60% was common in the Boeing design.
Before the contract was signed, McNamara explained his reasons to Senator McClellan for deciding on General Dynamics. The Senator appeared satisfied but clearly had to make at least a show of protest if only to allow interested parties on his committee (such as Senator Henry M. Jackson of Boeing territory in Washington) to justify their positions before their constituents. The President was both interested and influential but, as a matter of fact, no decision made by McNamara was more exclusively his own than the TFX. The support of both the service secretaries in his decision was an unanticipated bonus, but it brought their relations with the uniformed military into serious question.
In a policy issue, the secretaries of the military departments act on the advice of military leaders and are responsible and authorized by law to make procurement decisions. They must make sure that the military advice does not take away freedom of choice. The military System Source Selection procedure in use in the TFX case made the secretary’s authority more apparent than real, with little more than rubber stamp approval of the military recommendation; the process gave him a decision rather than advice.5 It not only evaluated alternative sources but selected a source for a weapon system; the title of the committee stated as much.
If the secretary were to exercise his statutory power to choose other than the source recommended, the re-evaluation could do little but delay the whole procedure. The figurehead position of the secretary is indicated by the testimony of General LeMay that "in twenty-three development decisions in which I had participated under the System Source Selection procedure [all prior to McNamara and the TFX case], the Secretary had never overruled any of the recommendations that had been presented to him.”6 In addition to reducing his initiative, it also pressured the secretary to accept decisions based on perspectives not necessarily coincident with his own. Problems of the national economy, even domestic political issues, are a legitimate concern of the civilian leadership, much less so of the military leaders. The service secretary is concerned more than the military leaders over the total size of the national defense effort and its effect on the domestic economy. It is he who strives to maintain the balance among parts of the program. Under the McNamara system, it was he who tried to measure the relative military effectiveness that respective outlays would purchase.
The TFX case, therefore, was a landmark contest in
military vs. civilian domination of procurement decisions. McNamara was deeply committed to joint development and each of the four separate recommendations of the military hierarchy on the TFX was examined critically by both the service and Defense secretaries. Partly for lack of time, partly because of the neat certainty of acceptance of the military recommendation, few military leaders had even read the fourth phase report on which the final decision was made. The Source Selection Board members did not receive the 400-page, highly technical report until the morning of the day they made their decision.7
When Secretary Korth made his choice, he was aware that Admiral Anderson and General LeMay found little to choose and certified that both designs would meet military requirements. They both recommended Boeing, partly because Boeing promised more than it specified in the way of development, which augured for a superior product eventually. Because "development risk” in new and untried systems (such as thrust reversers for tactical use) might add to the cost both in dollars and delay, both Korth and Zuckert favored the more conservative design. The military view naturally was to exceed the requirements; the civilian view to satisfy the requirements. Based on
nical advice from the civilian staffs, and in the
1 er perspective of their offices, both service secretaries
uPported the McNamara choice of General Dynamics.8 1
The new role of the service secretary—and a significant change from the McNamara preconception—came . 0ut as a result of the TFX competition. McNamara asltlally saw a strong, analytical type of service secretary
a tallying point for service loyalties and hence a visive threat to his own full exercise of authority, emanded a head for figures on his own staff; he thgS C°ntent wTh a figurehead on the service staff. In case, McNamara realized that the source selec- , Process on major procurement contracts diluted e civilian authority and control, and he was deter- ^U’ned to alter it. He signaled his intention to ^ ngthen the power of the service secretaries in these cisions, an action he would hardly have conceived year prior.9
erl ^ecretar*es Connally, Korth, and Zuckert were prop- the ,t0ncernec^ with the Defense budget, its effect on , ornestic economy, the balance among parts of the tj ° e Defense program, and the relative military effec- thtnCSS resPective outlays would purchase. In
M MTFX Cnsis they WCre success^u^ in convincing wC amara of the need to strengthen their power in eap°n program decisions.
e construction—or perhaps the fate—of the aircraft shrner’ particularly the nuclear-powered version, further b aPeu the role of the service secretary in his relations ^0t wuh the uniformed services and SecDef. Mc- p amara seriously questioned the future role of the CVA. aruT^ answers to his inquiries on 28 June, 4 August, najj 20 October 1961 were unsatisfactory. Worse, Con- / y himself concluded that after the Enterprise
^'65) there should be no more nuclear-powered car- Co^ ^ veterar> of carrier aviation in World War II, thcn-Hy was major speaker when the Enterprise joined C eet *n November 1961. He chose the occasion, J^gly,to emphasize that "his” Navy had no plans uud any more. Almost simultaneously, McNamara ce led plans for a second nuclear carrier and recom- h’ ^ 2 non'nuclear version a few months later in
ls fst complete Defense budget.
^ Contrary to general belief, the recommendation for ■ „ Carr*er in the McNamara statement to Congress— statUenced by the Cuban Missile Crisis—was a well- c argument for the use of sea-based air power, Qj.r aPs the best made to any Congress by a Secretary Co e^ense-10 At that time the Navy itself was neither vi need nor convincing about the carrier or her
°pulsion system and was still a long way from taking up its mind g y
Th •
e recommendation for a non-nuclear-powered car
rier had the support of the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations for two reasons, money and a continuing ambivalence within the Navy about nuclear power for surface ships. The Chief of Naval Operations wanted a carrier immediately and was willing to accept conventional power. McNamara was prepared to back a recommendation either way. Partly because of primitive technology in the surface reactor and partly for a no less primitive planning-programming-budgeting system in the Navy staff, the cost of the nuclear carrier, "one-third to one-half more” appeared exorbitant. On 8 April 1963, however, apparently indicating that the Navy had finally reached its decision, Korth and CNO Anderson released a joint statement that "All major naval vessels of 8,000 tons or more are to be built henceforth with nuclear engines.”
The Secretary of Defense rejected the Navy decision and suggested cost-effectiveness criteria by which the Secretary of the Navy was to be guided in his further studies. He asked the Navy to work with his Office of Systems Analysis in pursuing these studies but rejected the subsequent Navy study also, without supporting data, again to the embarrassment of Secretary Korth and the professional Navy. Compounding Korth’s difficulties over the TFX, appeal on the carrier was fruitless and the secretary announced his resignation. Paul H. Nitze was promptly announced as his successor, effective 1 November 1963.
Navy Secretary Nitze had supported McNamara against Korth and the Navy in the October 1963 decision on the non-nuclear carrier but almost immediately upon assuming office, endorsed a statement of Navy plans to retain 15 carriers until 1970. In April 1964, McNamara forced the Navy to give up its CVA role in the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), the common nuclear targeting plan initiated by Secretary of Defense Gates and implemented by Nitze himself several years earlier. In the budget hearings the following February (1965), McNamara repeated his judgment that only 13 carriers were justified; Nitze testified a week later that 15 would be the minimum required.
Throughout his service as SecNav, Nitze defined a role which frequently placed him in the middle of moderate-to-serious disagreement with either the admirals or the Defense leadership, and occasionally with both. Part of the difficulty was the obstinate start the Navy—more so than the Army and Air Force—had made in adjusting to the new managerial philosophy. Nitze was quite successful, however, in choosing those issues in which he would challenge the position either of Defense or the service, and his role as Secretary of the Navy was defined accordingly.
24 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 1975
McNamara and Gilpatric, after less than a year in office, softened their views that the secretaries were divisive obstacles to progress, but there could be no turning back to the days of separate services under a paternalistic Secretary of Defense.
McNamara’s successors were in no way bound to follow the activist pattern he had set. But the pattern of structural changes to the Department of Defense could not be set aside. A new and complex middle management role emerged in personnel, procurement, logistics, training, research, and development. The functional conflict with the Secretary of Defense resolved itself with key responsibilities on each side. The service secretary emerged not as a special pleader for a service viewpoint, not self-identified with service programs, but with a special perspective in coordinating Defense policy which could not be fulfilled by an Assistant SecDef. He advises the Secretary of Defense and serves as an intelligent advocate of service interests at the Defense level—a job which a military chief or a Defense official could rarely discharge as effectively.
The military chief enjoys a special relationship with the secretary which would hardly emerge were his immediate civilian superior on the Defense staff. "The system” may make the DoD official too often a natural adversary, whereas the service secretary is able to preserve his own unique perspective, serving as an effective check on both the Defense and military views.
The role of the secretary, as a consequence, appeared to be more stable and challenging at the end of the McNamara era than it had for many years prior. The question remains as to whether the gains can be preserved under varying conditions of future leadership on both sides. The changes were fully recognized by McNamara. The secretaries appointed before the TFX and nuclear carrier crisis—John Connally, Elvis J. Stahr, Jr., Eugene Zuckert, Fred Korth—were largely political animals; his subsequent nomination of individuals such as Paul Nitze, Harold Brown, and John McNaughton as sendee secretaries clearly indicates how much his own thinking had changed. One can only conclude that the early decisions contributed considerably toward strengthening the service secretary in relations both with the military arm and with the Defense Secretary.
A graduate of the Naval Academy in 1939, Captain Schtatz established ^ a distinguished record in the submarine force. A veteran of service in • OpNav, the Joint Staff, and SecDef (ISA) staff, he is a graduate of both | the Naval War College and the National War College. Holder of a Ph.D- from Ohio State University, he is widely known as a writer on foreign policy and national security affairs. Following retirement from active duty in 1968, Captain Schratz joined the University of Missouri as Director of j International Studies for the four-campus system. From 1973 until June of , this year, he was a member of the joint White House-Congressional Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy. He is now with the Brookings Institution as a visiting scholar.
1The Navy posed an additional problem of preventing the admirals from undercutting his authority via a traditional end run to a sympathetic ear in the White House. Over strong White House opposition, McNamara chose John Connally, the least enthusiastic Kennedy supporter in government.
2The origin of commonality is attributed to Calvin Coolidge. "If the military really must fly,” he asked, "why can’t it buy one machine and take turns using it?”
3Korth statement, TFX Hearings, v. 6, p. 1399.
4Newsman Henry Trewhitt claims that his scorecard shows the decision to have overruled the judgment of one admiral, five rear admirals, five generals, six lieutenant generals, four major generals and literally hundreds of lesser rank. McNamara: His Ordeal in the Pentagon, (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 139; for itemized list see Robert J. Art, The TFX Decision: McNamara and the Military (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1968) p. 3f.
5Memorandum DDR&E to Deputy SecDef on Bidding and Source Evaluation Procedures, 18 August 1962, in TFX Hearings, v. 5, pp. 1295-96.
6 TFX Hearings, v. 3, p. 698.
7TFX Hearings, v. 3, pp. 650-52; Eugene M. Zuckert, "Has the Service Secretary a Useful Role?” Foreign Affairs, April 1966, pp. 473-74.
8 Knowing that McNamara favored General Dynamics and only too well ^ aware of the diffidence between McNamara and Admiral Anderson during the Cuban Missile Crisis only a few days before, it would have been extremely difficult for Secretary Korth, in a nearly equal choice, to have pressed the Anderson recommendation on McNamara with great enthusiasm solely to keep harmony within the Navy family.
9 Art, TFX Decision, p. 108. There is direct proof of McNamara’s dissatisfaction with the System Source Selection process and the role of the Secretary in the process. The Defense Industries Advisory Council, formed by McNamara in June 1962, held its first meeting in the fall of that year to ■ consider ways of giving the civilian secretary more control over Air Force development programs. See TFX Hearings, v. 5, pp. 1299-1300 and 1321-1331.
10See Hearings, U. S. Congress, House Committee on Armed Services, Military Posture Hearings, 87th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1962). See also Hearings, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, and Paul R. Schratz, "The Nuclear Carrier and Modern War,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1972, pp. 18-25.