Defense Command Filled As 2 More Take Service Oath
Sullivan Made Navy Secretary, Symington Chief of Air as Aides to Forrestal
Army-Air Pact Is Reached
This Covers a Wide Unification but Some Fliers Protest at Lack of Own Medical Arm
Two More Sworn As Defense Heads
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Washington, Sept. 18--The top ranks in the new national military establishment were filled today when oaths were taken by John L. Sullivan as Secretary of the Navy and by W. Stuart Symington as the Secretary of the now independent Air Force. Immediately after assuming his new office, Mr. Sullivan announced that tomorrow W. John Kenney, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, would be sworn in to succeed him as Under-Secretary. Another development on the first day of the unification of the armed forces was the announcement by Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army, and by Secretary Symington of a separation agreement by the Army department and the new Air Force department embracing more than 200 specific points. This agreement was reached amicably at the highest level by the two secretaries and by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Army Chief of Staff, and Gen. Carl Spaatz, commanding general of the old Army Air Forces. It was learned on high authority, however, that the air staff was dissatisfied with an agreement which disallowed a separate medical corps and a chaplain's corps for the Air Force and would leave under Army control thousands of engineer troops serving the Air Force. Agreements up to Forrestal There were other points of dissatisfaction. Secretaries Royall and Symington stressed, however, that no part of the agreement could come into force without the approval of James Forrestal, who yesterday became the country's first Secretary of Defense. They also explained that the agreement was subject to revision as it met the test of reality, and that the separation of the Air Force from the Army would be an evolutionary process for the next two years and that modifications were more than likely. The oath-taking ceremony, held in Secretary Royall's office, was attended by members of both Houses of Congress, Cabinet officials, high-ranking Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps officers and relatives of Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Symington. Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson administered the oath to both officials. Mr. Sullivan, a native of Manchester, N.H., served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air from July 2, 1945, until he was elevated to Under-Secretary on June 17, 1946. Mr. Symington, whose residence is now at Creve Coeur, Mo., was born at Amherst, Mass. He had been Assistant Secretary of War for Air since Feb. 1, 1946. Old Office Sign Removed The sign reading "Secretary of War," one of the country's old titles, was removed from over Mr. Royall's office door today. It was replaced by one reading "Secretary of the Army." For Mr. Royall the day marked merely a change of titles; it was not necessary for him to take a new oath as the statutory provisions covering the status of the old War Department were continued in force by the National Security (Unification) Act of 1947. This held true also for William H. Draper, Under-Secretary of the Army, who recently took the oath as Under-Secretary of War. The Army-Air Force agreements covered a wide scope including administrative procedures, paper work, intelligence, organization, mobilization, training functions and like problems. The agreements were based upon preliminary studies embodied in a so- called "hall board report" made by a board of officers headed by Maj. Gen. William Hall, an Air Force officer on duty in General Eisenhower's advisory group. Details of the board's report were reported in The New York Times on July 27. Gradual Changes Ordered Mr. Royall said at a news conference that he was gratified to say that the agreement plan was "without dissent from either side." One of the most important provisions in it, he continued, were those providing that all personnel would remain in their present assignments, whether they were Army men on duty with the Air Force or vice versa, until a gradual and orderly transfer could be made where necessary. Equally important, Secretary Royall said, were the agreements for cross-servicing and cross-procurement. These provide that the department having predominant interest or established agency in a particular field will serve the other department in that field. Thus it would not be necessary for the Air Force to create its own overhead agency for procurement of common items of supply which the Army already is set up to do. From these joint arrangements, Secretary Royall said, he expected considerable economies. He recalled that he had testified before a Congressional committee that such economies would surely result if a strong and capable secretary of defense were appointed. Referring to Mr. Forrestal, he added: "We've got a strong Secretary of Defense, so I anticipate there will be savings." Medical Service Involved Mr. Symington also stressed the amity which marked the agreements, saying it had not been necessary to refer any problem for decision to the level of the Secretaries. One line of the report stated: "Chaplains and medical personnel will remain with the Army." The Air staff confirmed that this meant the Air Force would have neither a medical corps nor a chaplain's corps. Asked about the medical question, Mr. Royall replied: "It is an initial plan. If we find that it should be changed for efficiency and economy, it will be done." The medical service question has long been one of strong disagreement within the services, and it was established that as far as the Air staff was concerned it was a problem still to be fought out. During the debate of the unification issue in Congress, one War Department proposal for a single medical service for the Army, Air Force, and the Navy was strongly resisted by the Navy as well as the old Army Air Force. There was a strong feeling among some members of the Air staff that the agreements were virtually forced upon the Air Force while it was in a secondary position--that is, while still a part of the Army. The undercurrent was particularly powerful in regard to medical officers and engineer troops. Hospital Set-up Is Cited The agreement today stated: "General hospitals for the Army and the Air Force will be operated by the Army. Station Hospitals will be operated both by the Army and the Air Force." It was learned that Maj. Gen. Malcolm C. Grow, the air surgeon, who is an Army, not an Air Force, officer, took this position before the Hall board: "The traditional organization for the medical support of ground and naval operations cannot suffice for the medical service of the autonomous Air Force in being. Each major force (Army, Navy, Air Force) must be intrinsically endowed with a complete medical service at operational level, insuring the availability of trained and experienced personnel for potential combat employment." General Grow, it was understood, feared that without an integral medical corps, with its specialty in aviation medicine, the Air Force would not be able to assure a full medical career to medical officers assigned to the Air Force, especially if the force were limited to operation of only the small station hospitals. The air staff, it was learned, did win one limited objective in a dispute with the Army. Differ on Engineer Units The Army had wanted to retain all service troops--engineer, chemical, signal, ordnance, quartermaster--above the group level. The air staff was able to win the point that these units should be left in the Air Force up to the wing level. As one officer explained, the Army view would have left the Air Force as a combat organization with virtually no integral service units. Nevertheless, it was learned, the brief, technical terms of the agreements meant that twenty aviation engineer battalions, each about 650 men strong, and about twenty-five engineer utility, maintenance and like companies of about 150 men each, would be retained by the Army but would remain on assignment with the Air Force. The opposition to this was based on the fact that the Army would train the troops, and that conceivably they could be recalled from the Air Force, especially in view of the failure of the Army to meet its recruiting goals. It was learned that Brig. Gen. S. D. Sturgis Jr., the air engineer, whose basic arm is not the Air Force but the Corps of Engineers, has recently opposed Army control of the aviation companies and battalions. The agreements indicated that an Air Force Academy, with a standing like that of the military and navel academies, would ultimately be established. But present air-staff thinking, it was learned, was to continue taking a quota of officers from West Point, as the agreements provide, until the military academy is no longer able to supply the needs of both services. The long-term plan is to subsidize prospective Air Force officers for two years in a civilian college and then send them to the air academy for three years.
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