President Proposes Single Department For National Defence

Northern Advocate, 20 December 1945, Page 5

President Proposes Single Department For National Defence

til a.m.) WASHINGTON, Dec. 19. Basing his recommendations on lessons learned during the war, President Truman, in a message to Congress, urged' (1) The setting up of a single department of national defence charged with full responsibility for armed national security and consisting of armed and civilian forces within the War and Navy Departments. (2) Appointment of a civilian who ts a member of the President’s Cabinet as head of the department with the title of secretary. (3) Three co-ordinated branches, one for the land forces, one'Tor the naval .forces and one for the air forces, the navy to retain its own carrier-ship and water-based aviation. The President further proposed that there be a chief of staff of the national defence department, and that he, with the three commanders of the co-ordinated branches, constitute an advisory body to the Secretary for National Defence and President. LONG-TERM JOB The plan must be looked upon as a long-term job presenting many diffificulties, but in the comparative leisure of peacetime, and using skill and enterprise the staff and field commanders who brought victory should start immediately to achieve the most efficient instrument for national safety. One of the lessons of the war was that there ljiust be unified direction of land, sea and air forces at home as well as in theatres of operations. The United States did not have this when attacked and certainly paid a high price for its absence. AMERICAN AIM The United States adopted the prin- j ciple of a unified command for operations early in the war, but there was not a comparable unified direction or command in Washington. The United States’ aim in the maintenance of lasting peace was shown in its efforts to establish the United Nations Organisation, but all nations, particularly those which had felt the heel of the Nazis, Fascists and Japanese, knew that a desire for peace was futile unless there was also enough strength ready and willing to enforce that desire. “We must assume that another war would strike more suddenly than the last and directly at the United States,” he said.

“We cannot expect to be given the opportunity again to experiment in organisation and way of teamwork while fighting proceeds. “If there is ever going to be another

global war, it is sure to take place simultaneously on land, sea and in the air with weapons of greater speed and range and our comfiat forces must work together as one team, as was never required in the past.’?