Page:Legislative History of the AAF and USAF.djvu/61

 �This Page Declassified lAW EO12958 pay them, then give the armed services no more than one-third of the remainder of the funds provided m the national budget. This, as Mfilis noted, made no allowance for the fact that the necessities of defense and foreign pohcy might impose the,r own imperative demands If ths was President Truman's budgetary pohcy, it goes a long way to account for the severe cutbacks the Air Force program suffered n 1945-49. Fortßslat and Patterson and their aides held several conferences in which broad areas of agreement were formed between the Army and Navy. They agreed on a Counml of National Defense (Natlonai Se- curity Council), a Central Intelhgence Agency, a Military Munitions Board, and continuance of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Patterson did not press the point of a single chief of staff. The main disagreement was over the powers of the Secretary of the new milltaw establishment and the desire of the Navy to retain full departmental status wth cabinet rank for its Secretary. The Navy would have preferred for the Army to integrate eta own air arm as the Navy had done, but it reluctantly assented to a separate Department of Air. The Navy was definitely opposed to giving up control of its land-based planes or permitting any hmitations to be placed on the Mannas and their functions in ampbnbious warfare. On 4 June 1946, Mr. Truman held another conference with Forfestal and Patterson, and the military and naval chiefs. Forres- tal's opposition to the Army plan, which called for a single Chmf of Staff and a sin- gle Secretary wth extensive powers, was based on his fear of the great power such officials would exercise and his desire to keep the Navy a separate service as chs- tinguished from a mere subordinate branch of a vast department. He did, however, want to improve the national defense orgamza- lion and to discharge his responsibilities to the President as a member of his cabinet by gohug along with him as far as he could  President Truman finally decided the s- sue by releasing a letter to the chairmen of the military and naval affairs commit- tees of the Senate and the House in which he laid down a 12-point program for unifi- cation. The twelve points were as follows: 1) a single Department of Natrenal Defense under a "Cabinet Secretary"; 2) Three co- ordinate services; 3) An Air Force which was to be on a panty with the Army and the Navy, and was to have the responsibihty for all the mihtary air resources of the United States with the exception of ship, corner, and water-based aircraft essential to naval operations, aircraft of the Urnted States Marine Corps, and land aircraft es- sential to the Navy for internal adminis- tration, ar transport, and training pur- poses; 4) preservation of the Marine Corps wth all its prerogatives; 5) a Council of National Defense wth a chairman of Cabi. net rank; 6) a National Security Resources Board; 7) the Joint Chiefs of Staff were to formulate stratgeic plans, integrate mill- taw programs, etc.; 8) the War Department demand for a s,ngle military Chief of Staff was to be abandoned; 9) a central intelh- gence agency to be set up; 10) a centralized agency for procurement and supply; 11) a single agency to coordhate all military research and development for the services; 12) a single agency to integrate all the military education and training of the serv- ices. 4 The Secretaries of War and Navy had agreed on eight of these points. Three of them were contrary to the Navy point of view. The Navy favored a much looser type of unification than that set forth by Mr. Truman in point L It wanted  retain full Department status for the Navy with Cabi- net rank for its Secretary rather than to have the subordinate status of a coordinate service department assigned to it in point 2. The most damaging aspect of the 12-point program in the opinion of the Navy was the decision in point 3 to assign to the Air Force (at least by implication) land-based planes for naval reconnaissance, antisub- marine warfare, and the protection of ship- ping.* Finally the decision in point 4 to retain the Marine Corps with all of its pre- as ß firal deoisio because the Navy considered it absolutely eeossary to otatn control of this tyß of aotivlty, 'hl question wag finally sell;led at the Key XVezt raaetirg tn March 148 with the decision that it was a primary /unction of the Navy to be responsible for 9Jr reconnaissance, onttsttbmarine warfare, ad the pro,eaSton or shipping, This deei0n was zmbndied in an official directire pproed hy the hief Execu- tive (See MeCledon, Untfieafion, App. G p 19) THIS PAGE Declasstried lAW EO12958
 * orretal could 11o acept p)in 3 of he 12poin prognl