should be avoided. However, for other tasks in which a more deliberate process is possible, it would appear useful to have a wide range of inputs.

As an additional consideration, only two of four Services would be represented by the Chief and Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff. The two Services not represented may believe that their Serviceunique inputs have not been adequately addressed. As a consequence, their resistance to proposed alternatives may be formidable.

• Option 1C-designate the JCS Chairman as a statutory member of the National Security Council

This option has two objectives: (1) to enhance the stature of the JCS Chairman; and (2) to ensure that military advice is directly provided to the NSC. The first objective is likely to be obtained if this option were implemented. As a statutory member of the NSC, the JCS Chairman would be viewed as a more powerful and influential official. He may be able to use this enhanced stature to take positions and provide advice independent from the views of the corporate JCS. Alternatively, if he continues to be constrained by the requirement to speak only for the corporate JCS, the advice that he offers is likely to continue to be ineffective. If there is a clear desire to have a more independent JCS Chairman capable of forceful articulation and representation of the joint perspective, it appears that more powerful actions will be necessary.

This option is likely to fail to meet its second objective: ensuring that military advice is directly provided to the NSC. The Congress cannot through legislation instruct the President from whom he must receive advice. If the President believes that the professional military should have a voice at particular NSC meetings, he will invite appropriate officers, including the JCS Chairman. If the President does not want advice from the professional military, for whatever reason, it cannot be forced upon him by law.

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Retired), former Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs, support these views. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Dr. Brzezinski stated:

Insofar as the deliberations of the NSC itself are concerned, it is immaterial whether the Chairman of the JCS is made a statutory member....In practice, attendance at the formal NSC meetings is at the President's discretion, and discussion is equally open to the statutory and nonstatutory members. The President calls upon those whose views he wants to hear.

There is no vote and no de facto distinction between participants. Thus the views of the Chairman of the JCS are heard as much as the President wishes to hear them. (Part 11, page 488) During the same hearing, General Scowcroft presented a similar view:

I think the present system where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is an adviser to the NSC is perfectly adequate. He does and should attend most of the meetings and he will respond in whatever manner the President wishes to use him. (Part 11, page 495)

While there are convincing arguments that professional military advice should be directly presented to the NSC when national defense or security issues are being addressed, there is no way of ensuring this through legislation. The National Security Council is an advisory body to the President. He is and should be free to use and organize it as he sees fit. Congressional efforts to instruct him on the appropriate use and composition of this body are likely to be futile in addition to being undesirable.

In addition to these considerations, this option has a major disadvantage in that it would make the Secretary of Defense and one of his subordinates, the JCS Chairman, equals on the NSC. This would be highly undesirable. It would undermine the Secretary's authority and lead to confusion in the formulation of defense policy and the management of the Department of Defense. Dr. Brzezinski shares this concern:

The issue [statutory membership on the NSC for the JCS Chairman], therefore, should be judged not in terms of the JCS contribution to the NSC deliberations as such, but rather in terms of the relationship between the Chairman of the JCS and the Secretary of Defense.

While I strongly favor the reforms proposed by Gen. David Jones for the enhancement of the role and status of the Chairman of the JCS, I would be concerned over changes which dilute the authority of the Secretary of Defense as the President's principal officer on defense matters. (SASC Hearings, Part 11, page 489)

General W. Y. Smith, USAF (Retired) sees another disadvantage in making the JCS Chairman a statutory member of the NSC: the senior military position could become politicized. In his paper, "The U.S. Military Chain of Command, Present and Future," General Smith argues:

...As a member of the NSC the Chairman would tend to be perceived as a member of the Administration's political team because he would be sitting with the other statutory members: the Vice President and the presidentially appointed Secretaries of State and Defense. It is inadvisable for him to be so perceived either at home or abroad. Furthermore, it is not inconceivable that the selection of a Chairman under these conditions could become politicized as each Administration would want to make certain it had a Chairman compatible with its outlook and objectives. This would gravely endanger our apolitical military tradition. (page 44)

• Option 1D-authorize the JCS Chairman to provide the President, National Security Council, and Secretary of Defense with military advice in his own right

As the only member of the JCS without responsibility to represent Service interests, the JCS Chairman is uniquely qualified to champion joint military interests. However, his ability to effectively do so is tremendously limited by his lack of authority to present his own views.

It is absolutely clear that the joint perspective is now under-represented in the Department of Defense. In the absence of more dra

matic reforms of the JCS, the only possible way to provide more effective representation of this critical point of view is to authorize the JCS Chairman to forcefully present his own views independent of the corporate JCS position or that of individual Service Chiefs. While there are other options to enhance the independent authority of the JCS Chairman, this is obviously the most important. The other options would serve to complement this one. By themselves, the other options would have a limited effect.

Critics of this option question whether a JCS Chairman -whose background, experiences, and biases are derived largely from duty in one Service should be considered as being any more objective or expert than other JCS members. In this context, the argument is put forward that the overriding advantage of the current JCS system (with all its faults) is that it ensures that the collective experiences and professional judgments of JCS members are included in the process through which advice is formulated. While the corporate JCS and individual Service Chiefs would still have the opportunity to present their views, they could be overshadowed by a powerful JCS Chairman whose influence would be out of proportion to his expertise and experience.

There is some validity to this argument. However, so long as the members of the JCS, with the exception of the Chairman, retain their Service leadership roles and thus function as a committee of the lowest common denominator, there would seem to be only one way to strengthen the representation of joint interests: enable the JCS Chairman to present his own independent views.

• Option 1E -authorize the JCS Chairman to independently manage the Joint Staff

At present, the JCS Chairman has only a small, immediate staff that reports to him. The Joint Staff works for the corporate JCS body. If the JCS Chairman is to be able to forcefully represent the joint perspective, he must be able to direct the Joint Staff to conduct its work in support of this unified outlook.

The principle advantage of this option is that it may substantially alleviate the tendency of the Joint Staff to propose consensus recommendations representing the lowest common denominator of possible Service agreement. The JCS Chairman could ensure a more objective approach to issues by the Joint Staff. He could also ensure that critical issues receive the attention that they deserve regardless of their level of controversy from the Service perspective. The JCS Chairman could ensure that the Secretary of Defense would receive a greater diversity of viewpoints, more rapidly generated, and more sharply defined than at present. The JCS Chairman could also be authorized, as is proposed by Option 1K in this section, to alter the cumbersome staffing procedures of the Joint Staff which are primarily designed to achieve consensus.

Under this option, work on the Joint Staff would probably become more interesting and offer a greater opportunity for meaningful contributions on important issues. These possibilities might attract higher caliber officers to Joint Staff assignments. It should be noted, however, that this option would not fully ensure the independence of the Joint Staff since each officer would still be dependent on his Service for future promotions and assignments.

Critics of this proposal argue that the JCS Chairman would become too powerful if he solely managed the Joint Staff. He would have full authority to set the work agenda of the Joint Staff. His biases would be forced on the Joint Staff which would be required to accommodate and support his views. With this substantial staff support, the JCS Chairman would be able to completely dominate the other JCS members. There is a possibility that the Service Chiefs might seek to increase the size and quality of their Service staffs to more effectively argue their disparate views.

On the other hand, it can be convincingly argued that the reverse is now the case. By requiring that the Joint Staff work for the corporate JCS, the Service Chiefs have denied the JCS Chairman access to sufficient staff support. At the same time, the Service Chiefs have large Service staffs to support them in their joint work. The Chairman's Special Study Group noted the reliance of the Chiefs on the Service staffs and their limited interaction with the Joint Staff:

... by tradition, the Chiefs prefer to depend on their Service staffs rather than on the Joint Staff to analyze Joint issues and to assist them in preparing for JCS meetings. For this reason, there are collectively about as many officers in the Service staffs generally dedicated to Joint activities as there are on the Joint Staff. More important, the Service Chief is not given the benefit of regular Joint Staff advice to balance against the Service views he receives from his own Service staff. The Chief obviously has access to Joint Staff papers, but he does not normally interact with the Joint Staff on a regular basis, nor is he routinely briefed by the Joint Staff. (page 10) In essence, authorizing the JCS Chairman to independently manage the Joint Staff would correct a current imbalance in staff support and would not, as some have claimed, create an imbalance. As John Kester has concluded:

...Unless the [JCS] chairman can call on the joint staff for meaningful help, his position resembles that of the first secretary of defense, who was limited by law to no more than four civilian assistants. ("The Future of the Joint Chiefs of Staff", page 14)

• Option 1F-establish the position of Deputy JCS Chairman A Deputy JCS Chairman would be authorized to assume the authority of the Chairman whenever he was traveling away from Washington, D.C. (which is quite often). This would provide for improved continuity and control in the exercise of the Chairman's responsibilities. In a position as critical as JCS Chairman, continuity and control are important and desirable. In supporting the proposal to create a Deputy JCS Chairman, General Bernard W. Rogers, USA, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. European Command (USCINCEUR), stressed the need to ensure the presence in Washington of a cross-service spokesman at all times:

...The Chairman is a cross-service spokesman, not the service chief. When the Chairman is not there, we need, I think, a

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Deputy to the Chairman who is a cross-service spokesman. (SASC Hearings, Part 7, page 279)

An additional advantage of a Deputy Chairman is that it would give the JCS Chairman an ally within the JCS who was independent of any Service and capable of objective consideration of the joint perspective. General W. Y. Smith questions, however, whether a Deputy or Vice Chairman would be an ally of the JCS Chairman:

...it has been stipulated that the Vice Chairman would come from a Service other than that of the Chairman. The Chairman presumably would have a say in his selection, but the extent to which the Vice Chairman would have any personal loyalty to the Chairman or necessarily share his point of view is at least questionable. ("The U.S. Military Chain of Command, Present and Future," page 39)

Moreover, critics of this option have suggested that the Deputy Chairman would have little to do whenever the Chairman was in town. If the Chairman were given greater authority, however, he would probably have more than enough work to delegate. It might be desirable to task the Deputy Chairman to focus on resource issues in the same manner that the Deputy Secretary of Defense serves the Secretary. It would also be possible to specify that the Deputy Chairman would also serve as the Director of the Joint Staff, thus making him the Chairman's key ally in managing the staff. This would only make sense if the preceding option of authorizing the Chairman to manage the Joint Staff were implemented. Alternatively, the Deputy Chairman could assume the responsibilities currently performed by the Assistant to the Chairman (i.e., coordinating JCS relations with outside agencies like the Department of State and the National Security Council). If the Deputy Chairman took up duties now performed by another flag or general officer, an additional flag or general officer billet would not have to be created.

Critics of this option believe that a Deputy JCS Chairman is not needed. General Vessey has stated:

...a four-star deputy chairman is not required and one would, in fact, not improve the operation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Answers to Authorization Report Questions)

Moreover, critics argue that the creation of a Deputy Chairman would end the system of rotating the position of Acting Chairman among the Service Chiefs. Many observers believe that this rotating system has had the positive benefit of broadening the perspective of individual Service Chiefs. General Vessey has commented that giving the Deputy Chairman the Chairman's duties in his ab

sence.

...takes away an important integrating tool that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been using for the past three years; that is, we have rotated the duties of Acting Chairman in the absence of the Chairman for periods of three months. We have found that this procedure makes all of us better members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and from time to time brings each of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff into direct contact with