The Department of Defense spends more than half the federal budget each year. It ranks as the second largest real estate operator in the country, numbering many small cities—with all their attendant facilities—among its 600 installations in the United States. It employs nearly 4 million people, and its operation directly affects another 5 million families—feeding, clothing, housing, and insuring many of them. The scope and complexity of the Department's business once prompted a Pentagon executive to ask, "With headaches like these, is it any wonder that the military services each year procure $120,000 worth of aspirin and $1 million worth of tranquilizers?"

But immensity is only one aspect of the DOD that is described by C. W. Borklund in this volume in the Praeger Library of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies. The Department is charged with maintaining national security and, understandably, the dimensions of this job have expanded as war itself has changed. The Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have awesome responsibilities with world-wide implications —responsibilities that are reflected in the work of, and pressures on, everyone in the defense establishment, down to the lowest echelons.

Drawing upon the knowledge acquired in his many years of writing about Defense Department activities, Mr. Borklund discusses:

• the creation of the "National Military Establishment," later redesignated the Department of Defense;
• the reorganization that took place between 1949 and 1958, and the present-day structure of the Department;
• the problems the Secretary of Defense faces in exercising functional control over an organization comprising many groups of high-powered specialists, civilian and military;
• the growth and fundamental changes in DOD functions, especially in fighting limited wars, engaging in civic action, and running aid programs;
• the development of IRBM's and ICBM's from the first technological break-throughs to the recent decision to deploy a limited anti-ballistic-missile defense in the United States;
• the often troubled relationships with other agencies of government, including the Office of the President and the State Department, and with Congress and the public.

In the final chapter, the author notes some changes that may be expected in the future—in renewed budget ceilings, in disarmament and arms limitation, in personnel policies, and in renewed emphasis on further unification.