Memorandum from Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson to President Harry S. Truman
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OCR Page 1 of 2TOP SEADET
THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
WASHINGTON
DECLASSIFIED
8 DEC 1949
E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and S(D) or (E)
OSD letter, April 12, 1974
By NLT- H , NARS Date 6.27.75
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
The Defense Department has been planning since the middle of
1948 for the establishment of a Joint Command Post, in a protected
location a convenient distance from the Seat of Government, for use
of the armed forces in the event of war. The Joint Command Post,
when manned and in operation, would be the principal implementing
agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to coordinate the operational
elements of the armed forces by transmitting the policy decisions
and implementing directives to the various JCS commands and to the
Services, as appropriate. Under such a concept, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff would remain at the Seat of Government.
The Defense Department believes that, in light of the intelli-
gence estimates, the Joint Command Post should be ready for opera-
tion by 1952. In order to assure this readiness and to implement
the most urgent aspect of this problem, namely, the procurement of
long lead-time communications equipment, action must be commenced
now. A minimum time-lag of two years from the initial letting of
contracts for this communications equipment will ensue before the
equipment is received from the manufacturers.
As you know, the matter of establishing a Joint Command Post
is closely related to the location of the Seat of Government. In
view of your approval in January 1949 of the NSRB recommendation
that the Government would remain in Washington until that area be-
eame completely untenable, the Defense Department considers that
the immediate problema is to choose an appropriate site for the Joint
Command Post convenient to, but not in, the city of Washington and
to proceed forthwith to its development. It is my thought, in order
to avoid causing undue alarm on the part of the public, that an
existing military installation, such as Fort Meade, Maryland, should
be selected for the site of the Joint Command Post, rather than an
undeveloped location. I consider that a survey of several possible
the
TS-1384
FOR SEGRET
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