Word: stimson
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Although Mr. Patterson wrote his letter on behalf of Secretary of War Stimson, the man behind this intelligent ruthlessness was the Army's kindly Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall. Since the U.S. technically was still short of war, his test had to be short of war, too. But its application could be as remorseless and effective as he and his assistants chose to make...
...answer came from OPM. Then Knudsenhillman sent to Secretary Stimson a recommendation for eight new plants to lift production 600,000,000 lb. a year. In Arkansas, Washington, New York, Alabama, California, North Carolina RFC will finance them: they are to be privately operated-by what companies...
...Said Mr. Stimson: "We favor autonomy of the air arm rather than segregated independence." His primary reason for this preference was thoroughly realistic: a completely independent air force would be effective only under a supreme command like the Nazis' Great General Staff, directing Army, Navy and Air. The U.S. has no such supreme command, and any effort to set one up in the midst of emergency would require "a general reorganization and redesign of the entire defense organization of this nation...
...Stimson argued that this was too big a job to undertake in emergency, held further that the U.S. form of government did not lend itself to a supreme command. If this reasoning was correct, his autonomous air force obviously made more sense for the U.S. than a completely independent force would make, and the few, long-sighted observers who thought that the U.S. would some day have to come to a real high command for all its forces might as well give up hope for the duration...
Nevertheless, such critics were bound to remember and throw back at Mr. Stimson one passage in his letter (to Military Affairs Committee Chairmen) explaining last week's compromise. Said the Secretary of War: "The successful conduct of war depends directly on the controlled and coordinated application of all types of military power against vital objectives. This requires unity of command...