Why James Forrestal opposed creating the Secretary of Defense
I would like to emphasize, as far as my opinion is concerned, and I offer it in all humility, that there are no easy solutions […]
James Forrestal
The Pentagon’s first comptroller was against merging the armed forces
In 1972, Jerry Hess interviews Wilfred McNeil, the Department of Defense’s Comptroller for the first five Secretaries of Defense: HESS: What were your views on […]
Financial managers: the “garrison in the conquered city” of the Pentagon?
The principal antagonist of the Joint Chiefs within the central defense organization was the Comptroller. Like the JCS, however, his office afforded an excellent illustration […]
The extreme wisdom of duplication in military acquisition
We enter a scene at a Congressional hearing in April 1944 — just months ahead of the D-Day landings — where top defense officials were […]
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 […]