Abstract
THE changes in the machinery of government announced in the White Paper on the Central Organisation for Defence have on the whole been we received. The plan outlined represents an of we time practice. The Prime Minister remains chairman of the Defence Committee, and the Chiefs of Staff Committee will remain autonomous, with the responsibility for preparing appreciations of strategy and military plans and for submitting them direct to the Defence Committee, while the joint staff system will be retained and developed under the direction of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. While, however, the Service Ministers will continue to be responsible to Parliament for the administration of their Services in accordance with the general policy approved by the Cabinet and within the resources allotted to them, they will no longer themselves be in the Cabinet. They will be replaced there by a new Minister-the Minister of Defence-who will be deputy chairman of the Defence Committee and will carry the responsibility of co-ordination not only of resources between the three Services in accordance with the strategic policy laid down by the Defence Committee, but also the framing of general policy to govern research and development and the correlation of production programmes, as well as the administration of inter-Service organisations such as Combined Operations Headquarters and the Joint Intelligence Bureau, and the settlement of questions of general administration on-which a common policy for the three Services is desirable.
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Re-Organisation of Defence in Britain. Nature 158, 641–643 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/158641a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/158641a0