The story behind the National Security Act of 1947

Military Review, May-June, 2008 by Charles A. Stevenson

Forrestal saw the potential value of such an approach and promptly turned to an old friend, Ferdinand Eberstadt, who had served on the Army-Navy Munitions Board and the War Production Board, to conduct the study. He also assigned 30 Navy personnel to help prepare the report. Eberstadt was not a Navy partisan, and he got assurances from Forrestal that he could "let the chips fall where they may." (15) But his report, by broadening the issue from military organization to whole-of-government handling of national security, gave the Navy an alternative that it could argue was both more important than military unification and sufficient by itself to strengthen the government for future challenges.

Eberstadt submitted a 250-page report in September, and it was sent to Congress in October 1945. The Eberstadt report marshaled the arguments against consolidation and fleshed out the idea of a national security council (NSC) as a substitute. Eberstadt argued that military unification "looks good on paper," but "has never been put to the acid test of modern war." The idea "strikes deeply into the traditions, fiber, morale, and operations of our military services," he claimed. He also noted that the only countries that had tried such systems were ones where the military dominated and there was no civilian control. He doubted that a single person could run the huge consolidated department. "The lone civilian Secretary would run the risk of becoming a mere puppet completely hemmed in by the regular establishment." And he warned, "under unification Congress would be presented only with a single 'organizational line.'" (16)

The case for an NSC was powerful in its own right. Eberstadt argued that "strategic planning and operational execution were good" during the war, but that "there were serious weaknesses in coordination." He cited "gaps between foreign and military policy--between the State Department and the Military Establishments. Gaps between strategic planning and its logistical implementation--between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military and civilian agencies responsible for industrial mobilization. Gaps between and within the military services-principally in the field of procurement and logistics. Gaps in information and intelligence--between the executive and legislative branches of our Government, between the several departments, and between Government and the people." (17)

Eberstadt proposed an NSC to formulate and coordinate policies in political and military fields; to assess and appraise U.S. foreign objectives, commitments, and risks; and to keep these in balance with American military power. "It would be a policy-forming and advisory, not an executive, body." He also said that such a structure could wage both peace and war. The members were to be the president as chairman, plus the secretaries of state and the three military departments, the chairman of a new National Security Resources Board that was to plan defense mobilization, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (18)