American Military History, Volume 2 by Richard W. Stewart

While demobilization proceeded, civil and military officials wres- tled with reorganizing the national security system to cope with a changed world. Army reformers, led by General of the Army George C. Marshall, Jr., and his successor as Chief of Staff, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, argued for strong centralized control at the na- tional and theater levels, using as their model the European Theater of Operations. They wanted to preserve the basic World War II command arrangements but also to go substantially beyond them. Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal advocated a looser, more decentralized system that would essentially continue World War II practices. The largest group of reformers, including President Truman and most members of Congress, desired efficiency and its supposed corollary, economy, above all else. Forrestal and the Navy prevailed in the three-year debate that culmi- nated in the passage of the National Security Act of 1947.

General Marshall