Establishing the Secretary’s Role
James Forrestal
Special Study 1
Jeffrey A. Larsen and Erin R. Mahan
Historical Office
Office of the Secretary of Defense
JUNE 2011
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
Cover Photo: James Forrestal sworn in as the rst Secretary of Defense by Chief
Justice Fred Vinson on September 17, 1947. Top ranking civilian and military
ocials witnessing the ceremony include: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, John L.
Sullivan, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Senator Stuart Symington, Major General Alfred
M. Gruenther, and omas J. Hargrave.
Source: U.S. Army photo. Truman Library, used with permission.
Cover Design: OSD Graphics, Pentagon.
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
Establishing the Secretary’s Role:
James Forrestal
ii
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role
James Forrestal
Published for the Historical Office
Office of the Secretary of Defense
by National Defense University Press
June 2011
Special Study 1
Jeffrey A. Larsen and Erin R. Mahan
Series Editors
Erin R. Mahan, Ph.D.
Chief Historian, Oce of the Secretary of Defense
Jerey A. Larsen, Ph.D.
President, Larsen Consulting Group
iv
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied
within are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the
views of the Department of Defense, the Historical Oce of the Oce of
the Secretary of Defense, Larsen Consulting Group, or any other agency
of the Federal Government.
Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.
Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission,
provided that a standard source credit line is included. e Oce of the
Historian to the Secretary of Defense would appreciate a courtesy copy
of reprints or reviews.
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
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Contents
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi
Background: e Limits of the U.S. Military
in Foreign Policy Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
e Impact of World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
National Security Act of 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Early Trials and Tribulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Developing a Concept of National Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role
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Foreword
Former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown recently quipped in
an interview with the Historical Oce of the Secretary of Defense
that “in most Secretaries of Defense, there is a Secretary of State
inside striving to break out.” at foreign policy consumes a
large portion of the Secretary of Defense’s time is not surprising—
especially from the vantage point of the early 21
st
century. Without
some notion of foreign threats and challenges, the Secretary and
his sta would operate virtually in the dark when considering such
crucial and contentious matters as the scale and scope of research
and development for new weapons, the procurement of equipment
and supplies, the allocation of resources among the Services, and
the general size and readiness of the Armed Forces. Although the
foreign aairs aspect of defense policy and management did not
typically receive much public attention in the early decades of the
Department of Defense, it has certainly become an omnipresent
factor that cannot be ignored. Today more than ever, foreign aairs
goes to the very essence of defense and military policy.
e Cold War inspired and inuenced the growth and evolution
of the Secretary of Defense’s role in foreign aairs. Occupying a
position created by the National Security Act of 1947 to further
unication of the military Services, the Secretary of Defense joined
the President’s Cabinet at a time when the Soviet Union was
becoming the overarching concern of American foreign policy. Cold
War national security problems would remain paramount for the
next four decades, dwarng and subsuming nearly all international
issues. For the Department of Defense, the superpower conict
had boundless consequences. Not only did it drive the growth of
military budgets and the expansion of weapons acquisition projects,
but it also provided the conceptual framework for the development
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
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of military strategy and tactics, the cementing of friendships and
alliances with other countries, and the extension of American
military power on a global scale.
Yet to view the Secretary’s job as a product of Cold War politics
alone is to overlook why Congress and the executive branch
both pressed for creation of the position in the rst place: to
assume the managerial burdens that a large and unied defense
establishment with postwar international obligations was expected
to generate. And at the time, the types of threats that dominated
U.S. thinking had less to do with the potential danger posed by
Soviet communism than with avoiding a repetition of the recent
experiences of the 1930s and World War II. Well before relations
with the Soviet Union turned sour, it was clear that the United
States was destined to take a larger and more active part in world
aairs. It was to help the President cope with similar situations
in the future that Congress gave him a deputy in the form of a
Secretary of Defense to exercise unied “direction, authority, and
control” over the Armed Services.
While the dangers of Soviet communism have passed, threats
posed by nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, ethnic and
religious violence, environmental pollution, illegal drug tracking,
long-term low-intensity conicts in Southwest Asia, and other
problems over the horizon will continue to focus American
attention on events abroad. e role of the Secretary of Defense in
foreign aairs is unlikely to diminish in the years ahead and could
very well increase in the face of a more varied array of dangers and
threats from abroad. Historical analysis helps put these problems
in perspective.
is rst series of studies by the Historical Oce of the Secretary of
Defense emphasizes the Secretary’s role in the policy process—the
interaction of individuals and institutions—and how the position
evolved between 1947 and the early 1990s with the collapse of the
Soviet Union. e study presented here is by no means meant to
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
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be a comprehensive or detailed look at the Secretary’s involvement
in foreign aairs. But as a member of the President’s cabinet and
the National Security Council charged with managing the largest
and most complex department in the government, the Secretary
of Defense routinely participates in a variety of actions that aect
the substance and conduct of American aairs abroad. More
inuential at some times than at others, the Secretary of Defense
has consistently been a key gure among the President’s senior
advisors. But the role and impact of the Secretary of Defense,
unlike those of the Secretary of State, are little studied and less well
understood.
is series of special studies by the Historical Oce begins an
ongoing eort to highlight various aspects of the Secretary’s mission
and achievements. We begin with a nine-part series on the role of
the Secretary of Defense in U.S. foreign policymaking during the
Cold War. is series began as a book manuscript initially written
by Dr. Steven Rearden, author of e Formative Years, 1947–1950,
in our Secretaries of Defense Historical Series. I wish to thank Dr.
Jerey Larsen for his eorts in turning this previously unpublished
manuscript into the rst of a series of special studies on the Secretary
of Defense. anks also to OSD Graphics for designing the cover
and formatting the special studies series, and to the editorial team
at National Defense University Press for their support.
We anticipate that future study series will cover issues surrounding
weapons of mass destruction, the special relationship with the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the economics of defense,
and other topics. We invite you to peruse our other publications at
<http://osdhistory.defense.gov>.
Erin R. Mahan
Chief Historian
Oce of the Secretary of Defense
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Executive Summary
When James Forrestal became the rst Secretary of Defense in
September 1947, he had no sta, no organization chart, no manual
of procedures, no funds, and no detailed plans. e only guidance
he received regarding his role in U.S. foreign policymaking was
phrased in generalities in the newly passed National Security Act
of 1947. It would be up to Forrestal to set the precedents that
successor Secretaries would follow. His interest in foreign policy
and ensuring that the defense establishment had a say in that policy
would set the course for decades to come.
As a former Secretary of the Navy during a world war and a student
of history, Forrestal realized that the American military’s role in
foreign aairs had always been ambiguous. Despite a history of
military separation from policymaking, the emergence of the United
States as a world power toward the end of the 19
th
century brought
pressure on the government to give the military a larger and more
distinct voice in foreign aairs. By the end of World War II, there
had emerged a policymaking environment substantially dierent
from anything the United States had experienced before. e war
had thrust the military into the forefront of the policy process, and
the coming Cold War seemed destined to perpetuate the military’s
inuential role in American politics and foreign policy.
Not everyone agreed, however, that this was necessarily a good
development. Generalized fears of militarism inspired eorts to
ensure civilian control over the U.S. defense establishment. e
issue was the extent to which military leaders should be included
and in what form of representation. is matter, as well as the
question of Service unication, led to the compromises found in
the National Security Act of 1947, creating the new position of
Secretary of Defense overseeing the military departments. One of
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the leading spokesmen for continued Service independence had
been Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal. President Harry S.
Truman may have tapped him to be the rst Secretary of Defense
to co-opt him into the compromise solution adopted into law.
Forrestal was able to push his concept of a National Security
Council (NSC) with the President, but the two of them did not
agree on its need or purpose.
Implementing the National Security Act would have been a
challenge under any circumstances, but doing so at a time of a
vast postwar demobilization, conversion to a peacetime economy,
and increasing international tensions that accompanied the rise of
a new Soviet threat made it even more dicult. Forrestal became
more and more involved in foreign policy decisions during this
period, despite a small sta. To provide a united position on U.S.
political-military policy, he found it important to maintain close
relations with the Secretary of State. A seemingly endless series
of crises abroad, rising international tensions, and concern over a
domino eect from Soviet expansionist tendencies all had one thing
in common: the potential to involve the U.S. military at a time
when its capabilities were stretched to the limit. is led Forrestal
to focus on correcting two major problems: military readiness
and the need for a comprehensive and systematic plan of national
security that would bring foreign policy and military planning into
closer harmony. Determined to establish a rational basis for the
distribution of funds to the military services, he regarded the NSC
as the proper place to make that determination.
Forrestal viewed himself not merely as another executive department
head, but rather as a coordinator with government-wide interests
and responsibilities. He took seriously the charge he received from
the President to serve as his principal national security advisor. As
the rst Secretary of Defense, he established procedures still in
use today, and he championed the establishment of an integrated
national security strategy reecting both foreign and defense
policy. e President, however, did not agree with Forrestal’s view
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
xiii
of the NSC as a “super-cabinet.” Truman wanted a Secretary who
would enforce discipline among the Services, operate the Pentagon
as eciently as possible, and not wander too far into other arenas,
including foreign policy, which he considered a secondary function
of the job. Although he respected Forrestal’s ability, Truman was
openly at odds with him over key issues such as the running of the
NSC, military spending, custody and control of atomic weapons,
and policy toward Palestine and China. e more they disagreed,
the more apparent it became that Forrestal’s departure was only a
matter of time. Forrestal resigned in March 1949.
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role
1
hortly after being named the country’s rst Secretary of
Defense on September 17, 1947, James Forrestal conded
his doubts and misgivings to his friend Robert Sherwood. “is
oce,” Forrestal said, “will probably be the greatest cemetery for
dead cats in history.”
1
He was referring mainly to the enormous
administrative chores he was likely to face, ones larger and
more complex than those confronting any other member of the
President’s cabinet. But he also had in mind the burden of global
responsibilities that would inevitably accompany the position.
Chief among these would be advising the President on providing
the necessary military support for the nation’s foreign policy. With
troubles threatening in Italy, the Middle East, Korea, and Central
Europe, and with relations between Washington and Moscow
deteriorating, the job confronting Forrestal took on an added sense
of urgency. Foreign aairs, though perhaps not a specic part of his
duties, would indeed loom large during Forrestal’s tenure and for
every Secretary of Defense thereafter.
When Forrestal became the rst Secretary of Defense, he had no
sta, no organization chart, no manual of procedures, no funds,
and no detailed plans. ough he expected—indeed, intended—to
take an active part in foreign policy, the only guidance on what
his role might be was his own intuition and the recently passed
National Security Act, which stated nothing, general or specic,
about the role of the Secretary of Defense in foreign policy. It
would take time and experience to clarify his responsibilities in this
as in other areas of his new job. Although Forrestal would see some
of his expectations fullled, he would experience no small number
of surprises as well.
2
S
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Background: e Limits of the U.S. Military
in Foreign Policy Formulation
One of the main problems Forrestal faced—a problem he knew
well from his service as Secretary of the Navy—was that throughout
American history, the military’s role in foreign aairs had always been
somewhat ambiguous. For the rst century or so of the country’s
existence, because of the Founding Fathers’ concern to exercise
close civilian control, the military rarely involved itself in matters
of foreign policy except in wartime or when directed to do so by
the President. e emergence of the United States as a world power
toward the end of the 19
th
century brought with it pressures to give
the military a larger and more distinct voice in foreign aairs. Much
of the impetus for doing so came from imperialists who considered
military power the key to America’s future in a world increasingly
dominated by competing empires. Serving as Assistant Secretary
of the Navy in 1897, eodore Roosevelt declared, “Diplomacy
is utterly useless where there is no force behind it; the diplomat is
the servant, not the master of the soldier.”
3
During the war against
Spain a year later, imperialism triumphed and left the United States
in possession of a far-ung empire, stretching from Puerto Rico in
the Caribbean to the Philippines in the Western Pacic. America’s
emerging status as an industrial power at the turn of the century
meant that the United States was a force to be reckoned with in
international politics. With proliferating interests overseas and
colonies to defend, something had to be done to bring policymaking
and military planning into closer harmony. e initial step in this
direction was the creation in 1903 of the Joint Army and Navy
Board, the rst interservice strategic planning body in U.S. history.
Its chairman and dominant inuence until his death in 1917 was
Admiral of the Navy George Dewey, hero of the battle of Manila
Bay during the Spanish-American War. Under Dewey’s oversight,
the board generated a series of color-coded contingency war plans.
4
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
3
e Joint Army and Navy Board never lived up to the expectations of
some of its more ardent supporters that it would provide integrated
strategy and policy. During Woodrow Wilson’s presidency,
sentiment in the White House and Department of State was often
antimilitary to the point of disregarding the Joint Board almost
entirely. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, a near-pacist,
roundly condemned any military involvement whatsoever in
foreign policy, declaring at one point during a are-up of tensions
with Japan that “army and navy ocers could not be trusted to
say what we should or should not do till we actually get into
war.”
5
Although President Wilson never went quite so far, he was
uncomfortable dealing with the military and kept foreign policy
under exceedingly close personal control, sometimes even typing
crucial correspondence himself so as to preserve condentiality.
U.S. intervention in World War I required that the Armed Forces
take on added responsibilities, especially in coordinating the war
eort with the British and French allies. But with the return of
peace and the swift demobilization, the military reverted to its
accustomed role.
6
e interwar years saw little change in this situation until external
events again applied the necessary stimulus. By the 1930s, it was
clear that with the world political situation deteriorating, the
United States might soon nd its relative isolationism untenable
and have to become more directly involved in world aairs. e
passage by Congress of the Neutrality Acts notwithstanding,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt gradually distanced himself from
America’s traditional policy of noninvolvement and moved steadily
closer to a stance of collective security aimed at containing German
and Japanese aggression. is in turn revived interest in the need
for closer coordination of strategy and policy and led in 1938 to the
creation of the Standing Liaison Committee, composed of the Under
Secretary of State, the Chief of Sta of the Army, and the Chief of
Naval Operations. However, the committee met irregularly, had no
support sta, and conned its activities mostly to the exchange of
information, not the development of recommendations. Although
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
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useful to a point, the Standing Liaison Committee fell well short of
being able to provide the coordination of policy and strategy that
would soon be required. But it oered a portent of the type of
institutional mechanism that would provide for military insertion
into foreign policy decisionmaking.
7
e Impact of World War II
Pearl Harbor dramatically underscored the lack of American
preparedness. Not only did it point up America’s vulnerability to
surprise attack, it also exposed serious aws in the military command
and control network and in intelligence-gathering and analysis.
As part of his response to the emergency, President Roosevelt in
January 1942 replaced the Joint Board with a stronger body of
senior Service ocers, the Joint Chiefs of Sta (JCS), to oversee
the planning of strategy on a unied basis, to provide liaison with
the British, and to act as his principal wartime military advisory
council. In addition, as a “supporting agency” for the Joint Chiefs,
Roosevelt authorized creation of the Oce of Strategic Services
(OSS), a broad-based intelligence organization that would go on
to prove remarkably successful at combining political research and
analysis with propaganda, subversion, and commando operations.
8
roughout the conict, Roosevelt’s priority of defeating the Axis
meant that for the most part, wartime strategy and foreign policy
were nearly one and the same. While the Department of State marked
time until the end of the war, when presumably its authority and
inuence would return, Roosevelt and the JCS huddled together,
mapping out strategy that would aect not only the course of
the war but also the peace to follow. War aims were conned to a
generalized statement of principles in the 1941 Atlantic Charter and
the avowed objective, agreed to at the 1943 Casablanca Conference,
of settling for nothing less than “unconditional surrender.” Hoping
to avoid a repetition of President Wilson’s unfortunate experience
with the Fourteen Points, Roosevelt refused to make promises of a
peace settlement that he later might not be able to keep.
9
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
5
e prosecution of war and necessary coordination with allies also
exposed the armed Services to an intensive education in the realities
of international politics. In contrast to their British counterparts,
whose involvement in administering the empire had honed their
political instincts, U.S. military ocers had scant experience in
foreign policy. With little or no formal training in international
aairs, career professionals learned much of what they knew from
earlier tours of duty overseas. Intent on prosecuting the war, they
found it frustrating and counterproductive when U.S. allies did
not seem to have the same goals, or when they appeared more
interested in what the Americans considered diversions—hence, the
rude awakening that General Dwight D. Eisenhower had in North
Africa in having to negotiate with rival French factions, and the
continuous sense of futility that dogged General Joseph Stilwell’s
eorts in China in trying to persuade Chiang Kai-shek and the
Nationalists to become more active in the war against Japan.
10
Larger problems lay over the horizon. e most signicant were
those connected with the development of a coalition strategy that
needed Soviet as well as British agreement, and the formulation,
however tentative, of postwar occupation plans for the defeated
Axis. In preparation for the latter, the Allies late in 1943 authorized
the creation of a European Advisory Commission (EAC),
headquartered in London. e U.S. delegate, Ambassador John
Winant, naturally looked to Washington for instructions, although
it was not until November 1944 that his superiors established
an organization, the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee
(SWNCC), to provide the guidance he needed. With a permanent
support sta and working subcommittees, SWNCC was the closest
entity yet to a truly interdepartmental policy planning body.
Considered a major step forward by all involved, SWNCC served a
dual purpose—not only did it recognize the military’s involvement
in foreign aairs, but it also gave the Department of State access to
military planners, especially the Joint Chiefs.
11
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SWNCC’s early activities, however, produced mixed results. e
committee’s most important initial task, which was to draft a
directive for the occupation of Germany, was promptly taken over
by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who used his
friendship with the President to lobby for harsher postwar treatment
of the Germans than either the State or War Departments seemed
inclined to mete out. But as the war neared an end, Roosevelt began
looking again to State for advice and recommendations. By the
time of the Yalta Conference in February 1945, State had recouped
much of the inuence it had lost to Treasury on German policy. But
on April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died, taking with him whatever ideas
he may have had for a peace settlement and throwing policymaking
once more into question.
12
It was left to Roosevelt’s successor, Harry S. Truman, to bring the
war to a successful military conclusion. And since Germany and
Japan were both slated for military occupation, it followed that the
authorities in the Pentagon would be involved in foreign aairs to
one degree or another for some time to come. Yet as World War
II drew to a close, not everyone agreed that this was a proper or
desirable course for the country to follow. Many, including President
Truman, looked askance at what they saw as a looming threat of
militarism and went to considerable lengths in the immediate
postwar period to assure and safeguard civilian control in two
important areas: unication of the armed Services and control
of atomic energy. But as a practical matter, there was no longer
any question of excluding military spokesmen from policymaking
and foreign aairs. e issue was instead how far they should be
included, and in what form of representation. A more than vague
notion that the Armed Forces were inuential in foreign aairs was
evident. But which institutions, policies, and practices would be
needed to support that involvement was far from self-evident.
13
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
7
National Security Act of 1947
After World War II, the ongoing debate over the military’s role in
foreign policy became inextricably entangled with the question of
Service unication. Although the war had repeatedly demonstrated
the need for and value of unied direction and civilian control
of the armed Services, it left them divided over how these lessons
ought to be applied. Indicative of the prevailing uncertainty was
the ensuing postwar controversy over Service unication, which,
by and large, revolved around the relative merits of two competing
plans. e rst, developed by the War Department, advocated
a single Secretary of Defense presiding over a closely centralized
defense establishment modeled on the Army’s general sta
structure. e other, a Navy plan, stressed increased coordination
in policy and planning, while leaving the military departments
largely autonomous. e resulting compromise, enshrined in
the National Security Act of 1947, incorporated distinct features
from both plans but essentially established a confederation of the
services, known as the National Military Establishment (NME),
which drew more inspiration from the Navy’s model than from
the Army’s.
14
e leading spokesman for the Navy view was its civilian Secretary,
James Forrestal. A successful Wall Street investment banker in
private life, Forrestal came to Washington in 1940 to help President
Roosevelt in the prewar mobilization eort. From that point on, he
dedicated his life and career to public service, with a passion for
national security aairs. His main objection to the War Department
plan was that it made insucient allowance for preserving the Navy
Department’s unique assets and proven contributions to national
security. In particular, he thought it would threaten the continued
independent operation of both naval aviation and the Marine Corps.
He was also deeply distressed that it did not fully address what
he saw as other urgent problems arising from the often haphazard
management of resources in World War II and the absence of
any top-level mechanism for politico-military coordination and
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policymaking. With the United States increasingly involved in
international aairs, Forrestal deemed it imperative that there be
“a mechanism within the Government which will guarantee that
this Nation shall be able to act as a unit in terms of its diplomacy,
its military policy, its uses of scientic knowledge, and, nally, of
course, in its moral and political leadership in the world.”
15
In October 1945, with the Army’s proposals already on the table,
Forrestal gave Congress an alternative plan for reorganizing
the Armed Forces. Broader in scope than anything the War
Department had put forth, the plan Forrestal endorsed drew heavily
on the ndings of a special Navy-sponsored study group headed
by Ferdinand Eberstadt, a former business partner, Princeton
classmate, and friend of Forrestal’s. Under the concept Forrestal
recommended, unication took second place to the need for a
general tightening of government-wide coordination for national
security on a more permanent and far-reaching basis than anything
yet tried. e military departments would remain separately
administered entities, but they would concert their eorts through
an array of interservice and interagency boards and committees.
Sitting atop this structure would be the National Security Council
(NSC), composed of the President as ex ocio chairman along
with the government’s most senior executive ocials, acting as
a kind of board of directors to provide overall policy guidance.
By way of comparison, Forrestal frequently likened the NSC’s
role to that of the British Government’s Committee on Imperial
Defence. As Forrestal described it, the NSC would provide “formal
organizational ties between the Department of State and the military
departments,” and, at the same time, become the mechanism
for “new and appropriate organizational forms fostering other
relationships . . . vital to the preservation of our national security.”
16
Critics, including members of Truman’s White House sta and
analysts in the Bureau of the Budget, saw numerous aws in this
arrangement. Two complaints they voiced were that it would
give the military an inordinately strong voice in policy, and that
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
9
it could lead to a usurpation of presidential power and authority.
What Forrestal wanted, they contended, was a British-style cabinet
government, in which policymaking would be the responsibility of
a handful of senior ocials making up the NSC. Reactions from
the Department of State were similar. Indeed, as Secretary of State
George C. Marshall saw it, the proposed NSC would “dissipate
the constitutional responsibility of the president for the conduct
of foreign aairs” and “inaugurate a critical departure from the
traditional method of formulating and conducting foreign policy.”
Unlike the Navy’s proposals, the War Department’s unication
scheme made no mention of institutionalizing a military presence
in foreign aairs and was therefore generally preferred by the
Department of State.
18
Despite reservations, Truman eventually accepted the need for
an NSC, perhaps to make Service unication more palatable to
the Navy. Going a step further to win that Service’s support, he
also named Forrestal Secretary of Defense when Congress in July
1947 completed work on the National Security Act. Even so,
Truman chose Forrestal only because his rst choice—Secretary
of War Robert Patterson, who strongly supported unication—
turned down the job, electing instead to return to private life.
While Truman endorsed the general idea of the NSC, he withheld
judgment on how much he would actually use the council or
participate in its deliberations.
19
us, despite a genuinely sincere eort by both men to reconcile
their dierences, Truman and Forrestal remained basically at odds
over the NSC. Given the President’s attitude, Forrestal assumed
that if the NSC were to function at all, it would have to function
as part of the National Military Establishment and be physically
located in the Pentagon. Truman, however, sided with his White
House counsel Clark Cliord and others on his sta who thought
the NSC should be entirely separate from the defense establishment
and under the White House.
20
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For executive secretary of the NSC, Forrestal persuaded Truman to
appoint Sidney W. Souers, a St. Louis businessman who held the
rank of admiral in the Naval Reserve. Souers had been on Forrestal’s
intelligence sta in World War II; after, he served briey as director
of the Central Intelligence Group, the immediate forerunner of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Forrestal likened the executive
secretary’s role to that of a “buckle,” forming a link between the
military and civilian policymakers, probably with the expectation
that Souers, because of his previous associations, would gravitate
toward the military point of view. It did not turn out that way.
Instead, Souers, who was Truman’s condant, made it clear from
the beginning that he would act as liaison between the NSC and
the President. Souers viewed his responsibilities as brieng the
President on a daily basis, reviewing intelligence, and presenting
policy options of the executive departments. While subsequent
special assistants for NSC aairs would not be nearly so reticent
about oering advice, all would agree that their primary role was as
intermediary for the President.
21
Although Forrestal had to accede to the President’s wishes on the
operation of the NSC, he did so reluctantly and with a premonition
of future friction. “It is apparent,” he recorded in his diary as the
National Security Act was about to take eect,
that there is going to be a dierence between the [Bureau of
the] Budget, some of the White House sta and ourselves on
the National Security Council—its functions, its relationship
to the President and myself. I regard it as an integral part of
the national defense setup and believe it was so intended by
the Congress.
22
Debate over the NSC to some extent clouded a larger and more
fundamental issue: the role of the Secretary of Defense in national
security matters and foreign policy. Although Congress in framing
the National Security Act devoted considerable time and attention
to discussing and dening the Secretary’s duties, its main concern
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
11
throughout the debate was the Secretary’s power and authority over
the military in such areas as budgeting and eliminating waste and
unnecessary duplication of eort in research and development,
procurement, logistics, and other functions. Everything else
Congress captured under a catch-all provision, Section 202(a),
that made the Secretary of Defense “the principal assistant to the
President in all matters relating to the national security.”
23
Exactly
where this language came from is unclear, but it obviously reected
Forrestal’s belief—an outgrowth of his opposition to unication—
that executive-level coordination, rather than management and
direction of the military, should be the Secretary’s rst concern and
the new law’s central purpose.
Extending this line of thinking a step further, Forrestal hoped
that his main duties as Secretary of Defense would revolve around
running the NSC and its associated bodies and coordinating
the development of high-level policy, leaving day-to-day defense
administrative matters to the Service secretaries. Yet as Forrestal’s
chief biographers note in this regard, it was not long after the act
took eect before he began to realize that he had made “a central
and costly misjudgment.”
24
Not only did it prove impossible for
Forrestal to divorce himself from the details of running the defense
establishment, but he also found Truman resolutely opposed to any
bureaucratic changes that might impinge on the chief executive’s
constitutionally mandated responsibilities for policymaking.
Early Trials and Tribulations
Implementing the National Security Act would have been an
imposing task even in the best of circumstances. at it fell to
Forrestal at a time of exceedingly unsettled conditions, both at
home and abroad, made his job that much more dicult. e
great demobilization of the Armed Forces that had fought and won
World War II was ocially over by 1947, but the problems the
military faced of readjusting to peacetime were just beginning. In
addressing the needs of reconversion, President Truman set three
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
12
priority tasks: to stem ination, to balance the federal budget, and
to reduce the public debt, which had been swollen by wartime
expenditures and borrowing.
25
Although defense expenditures
remained relatively high by prewar standards, it was clear that the
almost free access to and control over resources that the military had
enjoyed during the war were things of the past. With money again
becoming tight, Forrestal faced the dicult problem of having
to decide how and where to allocate limited funds for maximum
eectiveness. Moreover, with less money available, Forrestal also
had to contend with growing friction and competition among
the Services as they endeavored to stake out claims to roles and
missions that would legitimize their importance and thereby help
to protect their budget shares. Adjudicating these rival claims
would be, as it turned out, one of the new Secretary’s most trying
and least rewarding tasks.
26
Coinciding with the readjustment to peacetime was an almost
steady increase, from 1945 on, in diplomatic tensions between
Washington and Moscow. As reaching agreements and settling
problems with the Soviet Union became ever more dicult, Truman
and most of his senior advisors grew skeptical of Soviet intentions.
With memories of the interwar years still fresh, they feared that
they might be seeing a repetition of the expansionism recently
practiced by Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan. In
these circumstances, it was becoming apparent that a toughening
of policy aimed at demonstrating that the United States had no
intention of resorting to the ill-fated appeasement of the 1930s was
only a matter of time.
27
at demonstration came amid the crisis precipitated in February
1947 by Britain’s announcement that it could no longer aord to
support Greece or Turkey against Soviet-directed politico-military
pressures. e ensuing 4 months witnessed a veritable revolution
in U.S. foreign policy, starting with Truman’s plea to Congress in
March for the Greek-Turkish aid program, and culminating in
June with Secretary of State George Marshall’s oer, in his Harvard
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
13
commencement speech, of large-scale assistance to help Europe
out of its economic ruin and political turmoil. Taken together,
these initiatives—the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan—
established the cornerstones for the doctrine of containment, the
basic strategy behind American policy and attitudes toward the
Soviet Union for the next four decades.
28
Among the President’s advisors, Forrestal had the reputation
of being one of the most strident critics of Soviet behavior and
one of the most persistent in urging Truman to adopt a tougher
stance toward Moscow.
29
But as Secretary of Defense, he soon had
his hands full with matters other than foreign policy. e freshly
minted National Security Act had established a welter of agencies
whose functions and organization still needed much sorting. Lest
bureaucratic anarchy reign, Forrestal, as a principal sponsor of
the new system, felt personally obliged to intervene and provide
leadership, at least through the dicult start-up stage. Although
Truman had, in eect, declared the internal workings of the NSC
o limits to Forrestal, the Secretary of Defense found he had
enough to do in organizing and shaping the new National Military
Establishment. As he told the Finletter Commission in November
1947, he wanted to sta the NME and its associated bodies with
“intelligent, ecient people who will all know the major plans
and policies.”
30
Finding such individuals, of course, took time
and patience, draining his energy and attention from other, more
substantive concerns.
A further limitation on Forrestal’s ability to inuence foreign policy
at this time was the bare minimum of sta assistance available to
him. As Secretary of the Navy during and immediately after the war,
he had had ready access to a huge bureaucracy that included some
of the most talented minds the country had to oer. But during
the unication debate he had told Congress that, in the interests
of preserving Service autonomy, it would be counterproductive for
the new Secretary of Defense to surround himself with too many
aides and assistants who might pry too deeply into the military
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
14
departments’ aairs; a small sta, he contended, would suce.
Accepting this advice, Congress gave the Secretary of Defense
none of the organizational support or perquisites common to other
executive departments, but chose instead to limit him to three
special assistants with vaguely dened powers and authority. e
men Forrestal named to these positions—Marx Leva, to advise on
legal and legislative matters; Wilfred McNeil, who oversaw the
budget; and John H. Ohly, who took care of “all the rest”—were
indeed gifted and dedicated public servants. But the tasks at hand
quickly proved more than they could handle by themselves.
31
Of the three, Ohly’s job was at once both the most encompassing
and the most directly involved in foreign aairs. If a problem was
neither legal nor budgetary in nature, it probably wound up on
Ohly’s desk. Much of the work was routine, relating to sta and
clerical help for the NME’s numerous interservice committees and
boards. But it also involved the supervision of special studies, military
assistance policy, and liaison with the NSC, CIA, Department of
State, and other agencies. Ohly’s organization quickly expanded
from a small coordinating oce into a defense-wide clearinghouse
for politico-military aairs, the forerunner of the important and
inuential Oce of International Security Aairs of later years.
32
Forrestal’s own activities at this time were no less hectic and varied.
In addition to overseeing unication, he set about purposefully
to establish new relationships with old friends outside the
defense establishment, especially at the Department of State.
One aim, growing out of his activities as Secretary of the Navy,
was to increase the military’s knowledge and awareness of ever-
changing conditions abroad. As an example, Forrestal made an
eort to include one or the other of State’s two most respected
Soviet specialists, George F. Kennan and Charles “Chip” Bohlen,
in meetings of the War Council (forerunner of the Armed Forces
Policy Council) whenever defense matters with foreign policy
implications were on the agenda.
33
Kennan was also director of
State’s main think tank, the Policy Planning Sta, and, as such,
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
15
often devoted himself to problems of long-range policy, an area
of special interest to military planners. Having ready access to
Kennan’s and Bohlen’s expertise was, of course, a demonstration
of Forrestal’s continuing preoccupation with the problems of
communism and the Soviet Union. It also indicated, in a broader
sense, the importance he attached to establishing and maintaining
close State-Defense consultation wherever possible, a concern that
not all of his successors would share.
Forrestal also recognized that it was no less important to shore up
his relationship with Secretary of State Marshall, with whom he
was on friendly, but not overly close, terms. Not only had they
been on opposite sides during the unication debate, but also they
had disagreed on policy toward China. In particular, Forrestal had
questioned the wisdom of Marshall’s decision, while serving as
Truman’s special emissary to China in 1946, to cut o military aid
to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government in an eort to pressure
it into a coalition with the Chinese Communists. Although the aid
had since resumed, Forrestal worried that it would be a case of
too little, too late. He thought that the United States, as Chiang’s
wartime ally, had an obligation to “continue to supply support
and ammunition to the Central government,” and said “that no
matter how dicult the situation became we should not withdraw
entirely from China.”
34
Resisting the spread of communism in Asia,
he believed, was no less important to U.S. security interests than
resisting it in Europe. Broadly speaking, his views in this regard
reected sentiment throughout the defense establishment, a sign of
deeper divisions yet to come between State and Defense over U.S.
policy in Asia.
Despite their dierences, however, Forrestal knew that he would
need Secretary of State Marshall’s help to fashion eective and
workable policies under the new national security system. Not only
did Marshall have Truman’s total trust and highest admiration, but
he also had numerous friends and contacts in foreign capitals and
generated condence abroad in the United States. Although having
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
16
Marshall’s backing may not have been essential in every instance,
Forrestal realized that without that support, his position and
inuence would be considerably weaker, especially in his dealings
with Truman. It was therefore no surprise that in his most intense
confrontation with the President—the showdown in the fall of
1948 over the scal year (FY) 1950 defense budget—Forrestal
turned to Marshall when he found he needed help persuading
Truman that the Pentagon should have more money.
35
Developing a Concept of National Security
Despite eorts by the Truman administration to anticipate future
dangers, no one could have possibly foreseen the scale and scope of
Cold War problems that would envelop the United States for the
next four and a half decades. Yet even as early as 1947, it was clear
that the United States faced an extraordinary situation demanding
unprecedented responses. e Truman Doctrine and the Marshall
Plan, while bold and innovative, were only the beginning. Although
Forrestal’s most immediate concern was to see to it, so far as he
could, that the machinery of the National Security Act functioned
smoothly, his thoughts were never far from what must have seemed
an endless profusion of crises abroad. During his rst 6 months
as Secretary of Defense, he encountered a steady escalation of
international tensions, highlighted by emergencies in Italy, Greece,
Palestine, Central Europe, and elsewhere, all potential inroads for
Soviet expansionism. Like many others in Washington, Forrestal
accepted the domino theory—he worried that if one country fell
to communism, others would follow. As he became increasingly
absorbed with nding ways to counter this danger, Forrestal was
more convinced than ever that foreign and defense policy were one
and the same and should be addressed and handled accordingly.
While no two foreign problems were alike, all had one thing in
common—a capacity for involving the United States militarily
at a time when its capabilities were stretched to the limit. e
potential for the deepest and most serious trouble seemed to be in
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
17
Palestine. In the fall of 1947, Truman—against the advice of both
Forrestal and the Department of State—encouraged and endorsed
the creation of a Jewish state, thus precipitating the ensuing Arab-
Israeli conict of 1948–1949. To Forrestal, it seemed that Truman
had taken an unnecessary risk for purely political purposes—
to curry favor with Jewish voters in the United States—though
Truman’s decision was far more complicated than his Secretary
of Defense perceived.
36
At the same time, Forrestal worried that
the President’s action would alienate the Arab oil producers, open
the door for Soviet penetration of the Middle East, and ultimately
compel American military intervention in the interest of restoring
peace and stability. e Joint Chiefs estimated that if the United
States became involved in any Middle East peacekeeping mission,
the cost and diversion of resources could be enormous—upward
of 100,000 troops, plus air and sea support, raising the distinct
possibility that the United States might have to resort to partial
mobilization.
37
Even if the United States avoided involvement in Palestine,
there still remained the danger of crises and entanglements
elsewhere. According to intelligence reports, unchecked economic
deterioration, internecine strife, or communist-led guerrilla
movements continued to threaten on a variety of fronts, with Italy,
France, and Greece among the most troubled and vulnerable.
38
What to do, should conditions in these countries worsen, became
a recurring topic on the NSC agenda from the fall of 1947 well
into the next spring. en, amid these deliberations in February
1948 came the Soviet-engineered coup that toppled the neutralist
government in Prague, followed shortly thereafter by rumors of
impending Soviet military action in Germany, the disruption of
land trac into Berlin, and nally, in June, the Soviet blockade
that left Berlin dependent for its existence on an Allied airlift.
From this ominous sequence of events, Forrestal became convinced
of two important points. One was the need for increased military
readiness, which was at a postwar low around the beginning of 1948.
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
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Although the Intelligence Community dismissed a Soviet attack on
the West as unlikely, it could not rule out “some miscalculation
or incident” that might accidentally trigger an East-West conict.
39
Up to this time, Forrestal had been willing to risk what he termed
(in his testimony before the Finletter Commission) “a somewhat
understaed military establishment” in the interests of a healthy
economy at home and assistance for recovery abroad.
40
But in the
aftermath of the Czech coup, with tensions escalating in Europe,
he saw the need for accepting greater risks and came out in favor
of a general strengthening of the Armed Forces. In March 1948,
he and the Joint Chiefs put before Truman a list of recommended
measures to bolster the nation’s sagging defense posture, including
a supplement to the FY49 defense appropriation, reenactment of
Selective Service, and the transfer of custody and control of nuclear
weapons from the Atomic Energy Commission to the Armed
Forces. Truman, while opposing any change in atomic custody and
control procedures, did accept most of the rest of this package. But
for scal reasons, he insisted on keeping the supplemental as small
as possible, preferably around $1.5 billion, as opposed to the $9
billion the JCS sought. e resulting compromise of $3.1 billion
thus gave Forrestal and the chiefs some, but not all, of what they
wanted, and was in many respects merely a rehearsal for the larger
and more painful contest yet to come later in the year over the FY50
Defense budget. But as the whole episode indicated, America’s Cold
War strategy was becoming increasingly dependent—to a degree
probably never anticipated—on readily available military power.
41
e other conclusion Forrestal drew from these experiences was
that time was running out for the United States to develop a
comprehensive and systematic plan of national security that would
draw foreign policy and military planning into closer harmony.
Although Forrestal had been championing such a plan almost from
the moment he took oce, his diculties as Secretary of Defense
in trying to forge agreement among the Services and between them
and the President on the FY49 supplemental provided a strong
added incentive. Something, Forrestal realized, had to be done to
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
19
curb the Services’ free-for-all competition for funds and to establish
a rational basis for the allocation of resources. He envisioned a
policy blueprint setting forth foreign policy objectives, general and
specic alike, in a way that would help him to determine military
needs and allocate resources. “It seems to me,” he argued, in urging
the NSC to expedite action on such a paper:
that our policy with respect to particular countries must take
into account our interests throughout the world and our
ability, as a practical matter, both from an economic and
a military standpoint, to protect these various interests. In
my opinion it is abundantly clear that priorities must be
established, and this cannot be done rationally in the absence
of a denitive world policy.
42
e NSC’s rst cut at this problem, a general report (NSC 7)
on “Soviet-directed World Communism,” was issued in late
March 1948. Drafted by the council’s sta with practically no
guidance from senior ocials, NSC 7 was a disappointment to all
concerned. It was almost lost amid the turmoil over the war scare
in Europe and the defense supplemental. Couched in generalities,
the paper called for “a world-wide counter-oensive against Soviet-
directed communism” backed by unspecied, but presumably
large, increases in American defense spending, nuclear weapons
production, foreign aid, and anti-communist propaganda.
43
Although Forrestal and the Joint Chiefs judged the paper a
promising start, they considered its analysis and recommendations
too vague and ambiguous to be of concrete use. State Department
reactions were essentially the same.
44
Dissatised by this initial eort, Forrestal turned to George
Kennan and asked him and his Policy Planning Sta colleagues
in the Department of State to try their hand at identifying “the
basic premises” of U.S. foreign policy. “e diculty about the
matter,” Forrestal told Kennan, “came from the fact that within the
National Military Establishment—at all levels of authority—there
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
20
was still an element of confusion concerning our basic policy—
with a considerable amount of pressure directed towards preparing
a military organization with which to ght a war.”
45
Kennan had
tackled similar problems for Forrestal before, most notably in early
1947, when, at Forrestal’s request, he had drafted a policy analysis
of Soviet behavior that ended up being published as his celebrated
“Mr. X” article on containment strategy in Foreign Aairs.
46
Even
so, Kennan was invariably dubious of trying to reduce issues of
the complexity Forrestal had in mind to writing. Personally and
professionally, he put little credence in prescriptive policy papers
and found their value exaggerated. But in apparent deference to
his friendship with Forrestal, he agreed to look into the matter.
47
e one in need of the most persuading was Truman, determined
to hold the line on a defense budget not exceeding $15 billion,
worsening relations with the Soviet Union notwithstanding.
Privately, at a meeting with Forrestal, Marshall, and other key
advisors on May 21, 1948, the President readily acknowledged
that insofar as Congress and the American public were concerned,
it might be helpful to explain and clarify U.S. foreign policy
objectives. His thinking at the time was that “four or ve speeches”
by Marshall and other senior ocials—following the pattern of the
year before, when the administration had introduced the Truman
Doctrine and the European Recovery Program—would meet the
problem.
48
A few weeks later, however, when Forrestal suggested
that the NSC be charged with developing a statement of objectives,
and that the resulting study be used in determining the military’s
“size, character, and composition” in the soon-to-be-prepared FY50
budget, Truman grew wary.
49
In his response (written by James
Webb, director of the Bureau of the Budget and one of Forrestal’s
most persistent critics), Truman approved the project Forrestal
proposed but cautioned that nal decisions on any use of the
study would be his alone, depending on unforeseen changes in the
international situation and the economic outlook. “I do not feel,”
Truman further advised, “that the preparation of the initial 1950
budget estimates can be delayed or based wholly on this eort.”
50
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
21
Truman’s caution was understandable. Although the value of a
general policy statement may have been obvious to Forrestal,
especially for budgetary planning purposes, it was much less
attractive from Truman’s perspective. What worried Truman and
those close to him, like Webb, was the extraordinary power and
control over the allocation of resources that the military might
acquire through such a paper. Taken to its logical conclusion,
Forrestal’s approach would, in eect, let foreign policy drive
military requirements and relegate scal and economic concerns
to secondary importance. It could, conceivably, open the way
for the Services to make huge budget demands and hand them
a powerful instrument to justify almost any force posture they
deemed appropriate. Such apprehensions did not mean that
Truman would deny Forrestal the guidance he said he needed, or
ignore whatever suggestions the NSC might have to oer. But they
did reinforce Truman’s conviction that the NSC should function
only in an advisory capacity. Despite the unsettled and potentially
volatile international situation, Truman decided to accept the risk
of holding the line on military spending.
e upshot, after much hard bargaining all around, was a
FY50 defense budget tailored to Truman’s—not Forrestal’s—
preferences.
51
In an eleventh-hour attempt to persuade Truman to
change his mind and lift the $15 billion ceiling, Forrestal appealed
to Secretary of State Marshall for support. Although reluctant to
become involved in Forrestal’s growing conicts with Truman,
Marshall eventually relented and agreed that a somewhat larger
defense budget was “better calculated” to instill condence among
America’s allies.
52
But neither Marshall’s change of heart nor the
NSC’s adoption in late November 1948 of a basic national security
policy paper (NSC 20/4), thus fullling Forrestal’s request for
guidance, did anything to alter Truman’s thinking.
Indeed, if Forrestal ever had any hopes that NSC 20/4 would
be the catalyst for an integrated foreign and defense policy, he
must have been sorely disappointed. Engineered by Kennan
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
22
and the Policy Planning Sta, with inputs from the Intelligence
Community, NSC 20/4 readily acknowledged that the Soviet
Union posed a serious threat to U.S. security and that Moscow’s
ultimate aim was “domination of the world.” Militarily, there was
no question that the Soviet Union possessed superior numbers in
men and equipment. Based on available intelligence, the report
speculated that Soviet forces could, in a matter of months, overrun
and dominate much of the Eurasian land mass, subject Britain to
air and missile bombardment, and even launch a limited number
of one-way air sorties against the United States. Yet as dangerous
and threatening as Soviet military capabilities appeared, no signs
existed that the Soviet Union was actively preparing to wage such
a campaign.
53
In fact, the more serious and immediate danger cited in NSC
20/4 came from the possibility of Soviet espionage, sabotage, and
political subversion. Given the nature of these threats, the report
saw no pressing need for increased military preparedness and urged
“a level of military readiness which can be maintained as long as
necessary.” As part of this overall eort, NSC 20/4 cautioned
against “excessive” armaments and recommended instead measures
to strengthen the domestic economy and to promote economic and
political stability abroad. In other words, lacking evidence of an
imminent or even likely military confrontation, NSC 20/4 found
no reason to question the adequacy of current defense policies for
coping with Soviet expansionism. Nor did the paper explore what
specic function military power should play in American foreign
policy, other than to say that it should act “as a deterrent to Soviet
aggression.”
54
For this purpose, an integrated program of action
may have had some advantages, but it was hardly necessary.
Not surprisingly, then, NSC 20/4 contributed little to producing
a more comprehensive, systematic approach to national security.
Nor did it result in any appreciable increase in the military’s
inuence on policy, as some critics of the NSC system feared might
happen. On the contrary, by minimizing the likelihood of an
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
23
East-West armed confrontation, it probably lessened the military’s
credibility in Truman’s eyes and almost certainly led him to believe
that, despite continually growing security obligations overseas, the
United States could reasonably risk leveling o and even cutting
investment in its defense establishment—a perspective not shared
by Forrestal. Not until the appearance of NSC 68 nearly a year
and a half later would the Truman administration again address the
problems of trying to bring foreign and defense policy into closer
harmony. But the impetus then would come not from Defense but
from the Department of State, and would be tied to a dierent and
potentially more dangerous international environment.
While the immediate consequences may have been negligible,
one lasting eect of NSC 20/4 and the events surrounding its
development was a much clearer picture of the Secretary’s future
role in the overall policy process and in foreign aairs particularly.
Conclusion
Forrestal took seriously his designation under the National Security
Act as the President’s principal national security assistant and tried
to operate accordingly. He viewed himself not merely as another
executive department head, but as a coordinator with government-
wide interests and responsibilities. He assumed oce in 1947 fully
expecting foreign aairs to be a signicant part of his agenda, in
line with what he considered his statutory responsibilities under
the National Security Act. As historian Melvyn Leer cogently
summarizes, “Forrestal never ceased insisting on the importance
of integrating defense and foreign policy, of matching military
capabilities with diplomatic commitments, and of reconciling the
costs of defense with the needs of the domestic economy.”
55
As the rst Secretary of Defense, Forrestal established procedures
that are still relevant to this day. One of the most lasting
requirements, one that reected his belief in the need for a joint
strategy, was the necessity of establishing an integrated national
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
24
security policy that reected both foreign and defense policy.
Associated with this view, he recognized the need for allies within
the government, in particular the Secretary of State, to push the
views of the Department of Defense. And he came to recognize
that he had not made the Secretary’s sta large enough to conduct
the business of the department. Forrestal also realized that his
perspective of his role as senior national security assistant to the
President in the National Security Council might at times be at
odds with the role of the Secretary of Defense as envisioned by
the President. is divergence had the potential to create friction
and possible disconnects in foreign and defense policy formation—
something Forrestal himself discovered right away.
By the time the preparation of NSC 20/4 was over, it was apparent
that Truman had become exasperated with a Secretary of Defense
who aspired to turn the NSC into “an operating super-cabinet
on the British model.”
56
Henceforth, although the Secretary’s
participation in NSC aairs would remain an important part of his
job, it would never be the focal point that Forrestal had envisioned.
Above all, it was the President who determined and continues to
determine the Secretary of Defense’s role and degree of involvement
in foreign aairs. Forrestal served under a President who viewed the
Secretary’s job from a considerably narrower perspective. Rating
ecient management as his number-one priority, Truman wanted
the Secretary of Defense to take charge of the military budget,
eliminate waste and unnecessary duplication, and give the taxpayer
a better return on investment. Although not averse to the Secretary’s
participation in foreign policy, Truman considered this a secondary
function of the job.
Yet in the face of worsening relations with the Soviet Union and
the increased possibility of U.S. military intervention in a number
of foreign trouble spots, Truman acknowledged that as a practical
matter, Cold War problems overshadowed all others in initially
framing the Secretary of Defense’s foreign aairs agenda. e
development of eective working relations between the Pentagon
Establishing the Secretary’s Role
25
and the White House for managing these new situations did not
come easily. Although he respected Forrestal’s ability, Truman
was openly at odds with him over such key issues as the running
of the NSC, military spending, custody and control of atomic
energy, and policy toward Palestine and China. e more they
disagreed, the more apparent it became that Forrestal’s departure
was probably only a matter of time. at point came in March
1949 with Forrestal’s resignation. His successor, Louis Johnson,
was of an entirely dierent temperament and readily adapted to
the more circumscribed description of his duties under the 1949
amendments as “principal assistant to the President in all matters
relating to the Department of Defense.”
57
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role
27
Notes
1
Quoted in Walter Millis with E.S. Dueld, eds., e Forrestal
Diaries (New York: Viking, 1951), 299.
2
e most recent monograph on the Secretaries of Defense, albeit
one that devotes only a few pages to Forrestal, is Charles A. Stevenson,
SecDef: e Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary of Defense (Washington, DC:
Potomac Books, 2006), 9–10; for a more comprehensive account, see
Steven L. Rearden, History of the Oce of the Secretary of Defense, vol. I,
e Formative Years, 1947–1950 (Washington, DC: Government Printing
Oce [GPO], 1984), 29–43.
3
Quoted in Henry F. Pringle, eodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New
York: Harcourt Brace, 1931), 172.
4
Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: e U.S. Strategy to Defeat
Japan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991). Also see J.A.S. Grenville,
“Diplomacy and War Plans in the United States, 1890–1917,” in Lawrence
E. Gelfand, Essays on the History of American Foreign Relations (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972).
5
Quoted in Ernest R. May, “e Development of Political-Military
Consultation in the United States,” Political Science Quarterly 70 (June
1955), 166.
6
See omas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the
Quest for a New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
7
William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, e Challenge of
Isolation: e World Crisis of 1937–1940 and American Foreign Policy
(Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1970), 40–41; Mark Skinner Watson,
Chief of Sta: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, DC: Historical
Division, Department of the Army, 1950), 93–94.
8
James F. Schnabel, History of the Joint Chiefs of Sta: e Joint
Chiefs of Sta and National Policy, 1945–1947 (Washington, DC: Oce
of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta, 1996), 1–2.
9
See omas Patterson and Dennis Merrill, eds., Major Problems in
American Foreign Relations, vol. 2 (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co.,
1995), 185–233.
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10
See, for example, Herbert Feis, e China Tangle: e American
Eort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1953).
11
Ray Cline, Washington Command Post: e Operations Division
(Washington, DC: Chief of Military History, 1951), 322–327.
12
Paul Y. Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany:
e Washington Controversy,” in American Civil-Military Decisions, ed.
Harold Stein (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1963), 311–
464; Steven L. Rearden, “American Policy Toward Germany, 1944–1946,”
Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1975, chaps. 1–2.
13
Rearden, Formative Years, 11–16; also see Kenneth W. Condit, e
Joint Chiefs of Sta and National Policy, 1947–1949 (Washington, DC:
Oce of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta, 1996), 1–9.
14
Roger Trask and Albert Goldberg, e Department of Defense:
Organization and Leaders (Washington, DC: Historical Oce, Oce of
the Secretary of Defense, 1997), 1–14.
15
For quote, see James Forrestal, testimony before the Senate
Committee on Military Aairs, October 22, 1945, in Hearings: Department
of Armed Forces, Department of Military Security, 79:1 (Washington, DC:
GPO, 1945), 97. e most balanced biography of Forrestal remains
Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, Driven Patriot: e Life and
Times of James Forrestal (New York: Knopf, 1992); far less reliable but
interesting nonetheless for its psycho-historical methodology is Arnold
A. Rogow, James Forrestal: A Study of Personality, Politics, and Policy (New
York: Macmillan, 1963).
16
For the origins of the report see Jerey M. Dorwart, Eberstadt and
Forrestal: A National Security Partnership, 1909–1949 (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 1991), 98.
17
Alfred D. Sander, “Truman and the National Security Council:
1945–1947,” Journal of American History 59 (September 1972), 369–388.
18
See memo, Marshall to Truman, February 7, 1947, “Comments .
. . on Draft Bill to Promote National Security,” in Foreign Relations of the
United States (FRUS) 1947, I (Washington, DC: GPO, 1967), 712–715.
It should be noted that, as Army Chief of Sta in 1944–1945, Marshall
had been the principal architect of the War Department’s unication
proposal, and therefore had a personal interest in promoting its adoption
over the Navy’s plan. For perhaps the most denitive account of national
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security policy formulation in the Truman years, see Melvyn Leer, A
Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and
the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).
19
For a nuanced account of the machinations behind the National
Security Act and the National Military Establishment, see Cecilia Stiles
Cornell, “James V. Forrestal and American National Security Policy,
1940–1949,” Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1987, 228–308.
20
Clark Cliord with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President
(New York: Random House, 1991), 162–163.
21
Anna Kasten Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the
National Security Council,” Journal of American History 72 (September
1985), 360–378; Sander, 385–387; Rearden, Formative Years, 118–123.
For Souers’s personal perspective on the role of the NSC, see Sidney
Souers, “e National Security Council under President Truman,” in e
National Security Council: Jackson Subcommittee on Policy-Making at the
Presidential Level, ed. Henry Jackson (New York: Praeger, 1965), 99–110.
22
Millis, 316.
23
Trask and Goldberg, 136.
24
Hoopes and Brinkley, 355.
25
See, generally, Leer, 141–181.
26
Cornell, 252–260.
27
For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Ernest R. May,
“Lessons” of the Past: e Uses and Misuses of History (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1973). See also Leer, 1–24.
28
Randall B. Woods and Howard Jones, Dawning of the Cold War:
e United States’ Quest for Order (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1991), 133–173.
29
See, for example, Lloyd C. Gardner, Architects of Illusion: Men
and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941–1949 (Chicago: Quadrangle
Books, 1970), 270–300.
30
“Secretary’s Executive Session with the President’s Air Policy
Commission,” November 3, 1947, Oce of the Secretary of Defense
Historical Oce les.
31
Rearden, Formative Years, 58–67.
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32
Ibid., 65.
33
e National Security Act of 1947 created a War Council to
advise the Secretary of Defense on “matters of broad policy relating to the
armed forces.” e Council consisted of the Service secretaries and the
Joint Chiefs of Sta, with powers of decision reserved to the Secretary of
Defense. In 1949, when Public Law 216 amended the 1947 Act, it was
renamed the Armed Forces Policy Council, with the Deputy Secretary
of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta added; the
Commandant of the Marine Corps joined it in 1983.
34
Millis, 286.
35
Doris Condit, History of the Oce of the Secretary of Defense: e
Test of War, 1950–1953 (Washington, DC: Historical Oce, Oce of the
Secretary of Defense, 1988), 34.
36
Hoopes and Brinkley, 387–404.
37
Memo, Joint Chiefs of Sta for Truman, April 4, 1948, “Provision
of U.S. Armed Forces in Palestine,” in FRUS 1948, V, 798–800.
38
See, for example, Central Intelligence Agency, “Review of the
World Situation,” September 26, 1947, and “Review of the World
Situation,” November 14, 1947, box 203, PSF, Intelligence File, Truman
Papers, Harry S. Truman Library.
39
Memo, Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter for the President, March 16,
1948, RG 330, CD 12–1–26.
40
For more on the Finletter Commission, see Robert Frank Futrell,
Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic inking in the United States Air Force,
1907–1960, vol. 1 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, December
1989), 224–231.
41
Trask and Goldberg, 58.
42
Memo, Forrestal for Executive Secretary, National Security
Council (NSC), March 12, 1948, “International Situation,” RG 330, CD
9–2–18.
43
NSC 7, “Soviet-directed World Communism,” March 30, 1948,
FRUS 1948, I, 545–550.
44
Ibid., 557–564.
45
Memo, Marx Leva for John H. Ohly, May 26, 1948, “Committee
of Four Meeting, May 26, 1948,” RG 330, CD 9–2–30.
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46
See “X” (George F. Kennan), “e Sources of Soviet Conduct,”
Foreign Aairs 25 (July 1947), 566 –582. is article was based on Kennan’s
famous “long telegram” on Soviet behavior that he sent while serving as
chargé in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, February 22, 1946; available at
<www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm>.
For Forrestal’s inuence, see, Rearden, 7–8.
47
Memo, Kennan for Lovett, August 5, 1948, “Basic Policy
Estimate,” FRUS 1948, I, 599–601.
48
Memo summarizing discussion at a conference called by the
President, May 21, 1948, Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s File,
National Security Council Collection.
49
Memo, Forrestal for Executive Secretary, NSC, July 10, 1948,
“Appraisal of the Degree and Character of Military Preparedness Required
by the World Situation,” RG 330, CD 5–1–50.
50
Letter, Truman to Forrestal, July 15, 1948, RG 330, CD 5–1–50.
51
For the wrangling over the scal year 1950 defense budget, see
Warner R. Schilling, “e Politics of National Defense: Fiscal 1950,” in
Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, Strategy,
Politics, and Defense Budgets (New York: Columbia University Press,
1962), 1–266
52
Letter, Forrestal to Truman, December 1, 1948, FRUS 1948, I,
669–672.
53
NSC 20/4, “U.S. Objectives with Respect to Counter Soviet
reats to U.S. Security,” November 23, 1948, in FRUS 1948, I, 663–
669.
54
NSC 20/4, November 23, 1948, “U.S. Objectives with Respect
to the USSR to Counter Soviet reats to U.S. Security,” FRUS 1948, I,
662–669.
55
Leer, 176.
56
Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1956), 60.
57
For a brief description and analysis of the 1949 amendments, see
Trask and Goldberg, 14–21.
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About the Authors
Jerey A. Larsen is president of Larsen Consulting Group LLC in Colorado
Springs and a senior scientist with a major U.S. defense contractor. He
also serves as an adjunct professor at Denver, Northwestern, and Texas
A&M universities. A retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, Dr. Larsen is
widely published. He holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University.
Erin R. Mahan has been Chief Historian for the Secretary of Defense since
2010. Previously, she worked in the Center for the Study of Weapons of
Mass Destruction at National Defense University and in the Historian’s
Oce at the U.S. Department of State, where she was an editor of the
Foreign Relations of the United States series. Dr. Mahan holds a Ph.D. in
history from the University of Virginia.
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Historical Office
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Washington, DC
Published by National Defense University Press
