for the Chiefs in the Technical Service [sic] in AR 10-5, to manage the careers of all military personnel assigned to Army technical corps, to direct and control Army technical schools, and to furnish those currently assigned Army-wide services which are not transferred to the Systems and Materiel Command.45

The Hoelscher Committee made some minor adjustments as the result of Army staff criticisms. The final report as submitted to the Chief of Staff on 5 October 1961 and on 16 October to Secretary McNamara included the following principal recommendations:

The technical services and The Adjutant General's Office were to be functionalized. The agencies primarily affected were the offices of the chiefs of the technical services which were either abolished or reorganized functionally as Army staff agencies except for the Surgeon General and the Chief of Engineers. The field installations of the technical services were to remain, although their exact relations to the new field commands were undecided. Technical service personnel would still retain their branch insignia and designation just as the combat arms had after the abolition of the chiefs of the combat arms under the Marshall reorganization in 1942.

The principal logistics agency of the Army in place of the technical services was to be a single Systems and Materiel Command. It would be responsible for the entire matériel cycle from research and development through distribution and major maintenance activities, except for combat development functions. It would inherit most of the personnel and field installations of the technical services.

A second new major field command would be a Combat Developments Agency. It would be responsible for integrating this function, fragmented until then among the several technical services and CONARC, and its personnel would be drawn largely from these agencies.

CONARC would be reorganized as a Force Development Command, a designation later dropped, to include all the technical service schools and training facilities, while losing its combat development functions to the Combat Developments Agency. A new major field command under CONARC would be responsible for training individuals, including their

(1) Ibid., p. 2, and Inclosure 1, pp. 1-4, 8-9, 14-15. Quotation is from page 15. (2) Illig-Garvin Memorandum, 27 Sep 61, Inclosure 1, pp. 10-11.

induction and processing, functions currently assigned to The Adjutant General's Office.

Another new field agency rather than a command was to be the Office of Personnel Operations responsible for all Army personnel management functions previously performed by DCSPER, The Adjutant General's Office, and the technical services. The management of general officer careers would remain a DCSPER function.

The real change centralized the personnel management of technical service officers under OPO because personnel management of technical service enlisted personnel had already been centralized in The Adjutant General's Office.

Less noticed was the reorganization of Army headquarters proposed by the Hoelscher Committee because this feature was largely eliminated in the final reorganization plan approved by Secretary McNamara. The principal changes proposed were to create a Director of the Army Staff with the rank of lieutenant general to act as the deputy of the Vice Chief and Chief of Staff in supervising the work of the Army staff. Second, the committee proposed to separate the operational planning and training functions of DCSOPS into two agencies, a Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy and International Affairs and another for Plans, Programs, and Systems, which would include responsibility not only for organization and training but also for co-ordinating Army plans, programs, and budget functions in these areas.

The Adjutant General's Office was to be abolished with its personnel functions going to OPO and CONARC, while its administrative functions would be reorganized under a new Chief of Administrative Services. The Office of the Chief of Military History would be abolished also and its functions transferred to the latter agency.

While public attention focused on the organizational changes proposed by the Hoelscher Committee, the latter made two major recommendations for improving Army staff procedures. First, it recommended that the General Staff divorce itself from operating responsibilities by transferring personnel responsible for such functions to the new major field commands. The principal agency affected would be DCSLOG, which as a

result of the Palmer reorganization in 1955 had greatly increased its staff. Second, it proposed to reform the General Staff's "staff actions" procedures by cutting down on the number of formal concurrences required in favor of procedures which were aimed at producing quicker and clearer decisions and actions.46

Six months of detailed research by a carefully selected staff which balanced professional and military talent in many areas made the Hoelscher Committee report the most thorough and detailed investigation of Army organization and management since World War I. Following submission of his report, Hoelscher and his headquarters staff conducted special briefings at Carlisle Barracks in mid-October for Secretary Stahr, General Decker, the General Staff, and representatives of the technical services. General Decker then disbanded the Hoelscher Committee, except for a small headquarters staff.

"(1) Hoelscher Committee Report, pt. I. (2) Ibid., pt. II, Hq., DA, pp. 159–60.

CHAPTER X

Project 80: The End of a Tradition

At Secretary Stahr's request General Decker appointed a General Staff committee under the Comptroller of the Army, Lt. Gen. David W. Traub, to study the Hoelscher Committee report and recommend what action the Army should take. The Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations, and Office of the Chief of Research and Development (OCRD) were directed to prepare supporting studies with recommendations on the internal organization of the proposed logistics, training, and combat development commands. At the same time Secretary Stahr forwarded the report to Secretary McNamara notifying him that the Traub Committee would probably take three or four weeks to make any recommendations but that it was "better to be right than rapid." While he welcomed suggestions from Mr. Vance and would supply him with whatever information he wanted in accordance with Secretary McNamara's instructions, he firmly believed that as Secretary of the Army he should retain the initiative in Project 80 until he had submitted his recommendations.2

Instead Secretary McNamara seized the initiative. At the end of October he told Secretary Stahr he wanted more details on the internal organization of the new commands, especially the logistics command. The lack of clear-cut assignment of responsibility for requirements, procurement, and supply particularly bothered him.3

1(1) Blumenson, Project 80 History, pp. 53-57. (2) Copy of Chief of Staff Memo 320 (14 Oct 61) for Deputy Chiefs of Staff and others. 14 Oct 61, sub: Study of Army Organization. Tab A to Report of the Committee Appointed to Develop and Recommend to the Chief of Staff the Views of the Army General Staff on Project 80, 22 Nov 61. Hereafter cited as Traub Committee Report.

2 Ltr, Secy Stahr to Secy McNamara, 16 Oct 61. Kjellstrom Briefing files, Department of the Army Reorganization Project Office (DARPO) files.

3

Copy of Memo for Record, Col H. W. O. Kinnard, Executive, OSA, 1 Nov 61. In Kjellstrom Briefing files, DARPO.

For the Hoelscher Committee veterans, Project 80 soon became a series of frenzied crash actions in response to a continuing barrage of detailed questions from Secretary McNamara and Mr. Vance, such as should there be four, five, seven, or ten subordinate commands within the logistics command? How many people would be assigned the new commands and where would they come from? What major steps were required in changing over from the old to the new organization? What were the pros and cons of alternative proposals for grouping the various commodity commands and the functional supply command? Secretary McNamara also wanted detailed organization charts for each of the new commands showing where they would come from.*

Secretary McNamara and Mr. Vance bypassed the Traub Committee and worked directly with the harried band of Project 80 veterans under Col. Edward W. McGregor. General Illig's office in DCSLOG and the office of Lt. Col. Wilson R. Reed, Deputy Director for Plans and Management in OCRD, provided expert assistance in rushing through one organization chart after another. These Colonel McGregor personally carried from one office to another for approval and finally to Mr. Vance's office.

This disregard for traditional staff procedures dismayed the Army staff. The Traub Committee could not keep up with the rapidity of Secretary McNamara's requests and decisions. A disagreement between DCSLOG and OCRD over the internal organization of the logistics command proved very embarrassing when it went directly to Secretary McNamara. Under Secretary Stephen Ailes directed General Traub to "insure that everything that goes forward to OSD from now on out in fact represents an Army position as decided by the Undersecretary or other proper authority." Finally on 28 November Mr. Ailes was able to recommend creating five subordinate commodity commands under the logistics command: missiles, munitions (including chemical, biological, and radiological material), weapons and mobility, communications and electronics, and

(1) Ibid. (2) Mimeographed Outline, ODCSLOG (General Illig's office), 17 Nov 61, sub: Criticism and Justification for Commodity Assignments Within a Five Command Group. (3) Memo, Mr. [Paul R.] Ignatius, ASA (I&L), for General Traub, 18 Nov 61, on the former's conversation with Mr. Vance and Mr. Horwitz. All in Kjellstrom Briefing files. (4) Army General Staff Council Minutes, 15 Nov 61.