Eugene M. Zuckert

Centralization of functions under Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara since 1961 has substantially altered the role of the military Service Secretary. There is a widely held opinion that it remains only for the Congress, in its own good time, to inter decently the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force, together with their respective Secretaries. My own experience in two separate statutory tours totaling nearly a decade since 1947 does not at all support this conclusion. The military departments exist today, not as vestigial monuments to tradition, but as viable institutions. They perform in our constitutional democracy a function which emphasizes checks and balances in the determination of military policy.