age of the National Security Act amendments of 1949. This
legislation redesignated the unified department the Department of
Defense, strengthened the powers of the Secretary of Defense, and
provided for uniform budgetary procedures. Although the services were
to be "separately administered," their respective secretaries
henceforward headed "military departments" without cabinet status.

The first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, was a man of
exceptional administrative talents, yet even before taking office he
expressed strong reservations on the wisdom of a unified military
department. As early as 30 July 1945, at breakfast with President
Truman during the Potsdam Conference, Forrestal questioned whether any
one man "was good enough to run the combined Army, Navy, and Air
Departments." What kind of men could the president get in peacetime,
he asked, to be under secretaries of War, Navy, and Air if they were
subordinate to a single defense secretary?[12-17] Speaking to Lester
Granger that same year on the power of the Secretary of the Navy to
order the Marine Corps to accept Negroes, Forrestal expressed
uncertainty about a cabinet officer's place in the scheme of things.
"Some people think the Secretary is god-almighty, but he's just a
god-damn civilian."[12-18] Even after his appointment as defense
secretary doubts lingered: "My chief misgivings about unification
derived from my fear that there would be a tendency toward
overconcentration and reliance on one man or one-group direction. In
other words, too much central control."[12-19]

[Footnote 12-17: Quoted in Walter Millis, ed., _The
Forrestal Diaries_ (New York: Viking Press, 1951),
p. 88.]

[Footnote 12-18: Quoted by Granger in the interview he
gave Nichols in 1954.]

[Footnote 12-19: Quoted in Millis, _Forrestal
Diaries_, p. 301.]

Forrestal's philosophy of management reinforced the limitations placed
on the Secretary of Defense by the National Security Act. He sought a
middle way in which the efficiency of a unified system could be
obtained without sacrificing what he considered to be the real
advantages of service autonomy. Thus, he supported a 1945 report of
the defense study group under Ferdinand Eberstadt that argued for a
"coordinated" rather than a "unitary" defense establishment.[12-20]
Practical experience modifi