How OSD, feeding on its growth, became a separate empire

I mention this point at the outset because, from shattered illusions that mere passage of a unification act would produce a military utopia, there has sprung an equally illusory belief that the present shortcomings will immediately disappear if only more and more authority is conferred on the Secretary of Defense, and more and more functions put into his office, and more and more people added to his staff.

 

I do not share this view. To some extent that theory permeates the amendments proposed in the bill before you (S. 1269). I suggest that great care be exercised lest the Office of the Secretary of Defense, instead of being a small and efficient unit which determines the policies of the Military Establishment and control and directs the departments, feeding on its own growth, becomes a separate empire.

That was the estimable Ferdinand Eberstadt reflecting on the National Security Act of 1947 which established the Department of Defense. He did not believe that the SecDef should be engaged in routine administration of defense policy, including the transfer of military personnel and functions. He saw how his friend and first SecDef James Forrestal became broken during his short tenure due to the difficult politics, dying just a few days after this statement.

Eberstadt instead recommended that the SecDef be given complete power over the budget, which should be reoriented from inputs (organizations and objects of expenditure) to outputs (military programs). With the program budget, the SecDef can establish program policies which the services would execute. Congress agreed, and implemented the “performance budget” in the 1949 Title IV amendment.

Source: National Security Act Amendments of 1949. Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services United States Senate, Eighty-First Congress, First Session on S. 1269 and S. 18943. March 24 – May 6, 1949. United States Government Printing Press, Washington: 1949.