The political conflict that took place over the unification of the military services was one of the most intense of the entire post-World War II period. It pitted at various times Army, Navy, Army Air Force, and Marine officers against each other, civilian officials against the military, and the executive against the legislative branch of government. Only after consideration of the issue by three Congresses, five sets of lengthy congressional hearings, and numerous White House meetings was some degree of unification achieved with the passage of the National Security Act and the establishment of the office of Secretary of Defense.

This study analyzes the unification conflict in terms of the actors involved, their goals and perceptions, and their strategies and tactics of influence. It provides fascinating details on the high-powered lobbying, public relations, and propaganda campaigns undertaken by the military services and serves also as an excellent case study of how conflict over policy develops and becomes resolved generally in executive branch and congressional politics.

Following a brief historical introduction that describes early interservice relations and the impact on unification sentiment of such incidents as the Billy Mitchell case, the author gives a full accounting of the different proposals and counter-proposals for unification that began to be advanced late in World War II. He throws many illuminating sidelights on the personalities that influenced the unification conflict—Roosevelt, Truman, Forrestal, Marshall, Stimson, Arnold, King—and on how their predilections for one or another of the services and their conceptions of the kinds of military forces required for future wars shaped their unification positions.

The data used for this study were drawn from some 10,000 pages of congressional hearings, debates, and reports; from newspapers and magazines of the period; from memoirs and biographies; from unpublished materials not previously used and in some cases made available especially for this book; and from personal interviews with actual participants in the unification conflict.

This is one of the series of sponsored by the Institute of War and Peace Studies of Columbia University.