Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Difference between revisions

==Organization and assistants==

The principal deputy to the chairman is the [[Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff|vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]] (VCJCS), another four-star general or admiral, who among many duties chairs the [[Joint Requirements Oversight Council]] (JROC).

Although the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, [[Omar Bradley]], was eventually awarded a fifth star, the CJCS does not receive one by right, and Bradley's award was so that his subordinate, [[General of the Army (United States)|General of the Army]] [[Douglas MacArthur]], would not outrank him.<ref name=AP>{{cite news |title=Higher rank not in the stars for nation's top generals |first=Jim |last=Abrams |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xDkpAAAAIBAJ&pg=7013,1927407&dq=omar-bradley+fifth-star+not+for+chairman&hl=en |agency=Associated Press |date=1991-03-22 |quote=Bradley received his fifth star in 1950 when he became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff so he would not be outranked by MacArthur.}}</ref><ref name=Brassey>{{cite book |last1=Tillman |first1=Barrett |title=Brassey's D-Day encyclopedia: the Normandy invasion A-Z |url=https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_v2r2 |url-access=registration |access-date=2011-02-22 |year=2004 |publisher=Brassey's |isbn=978-1-57488-760-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_v2r2/page/48 48] |quote=MacArthur, having been army chief of staff before World War II, was senior to everyone on the Joint Chiefs, and some observers felt that Bradley was given his fifth star in order to deal with the vainglorious field commander on an equal footing.}}</ref> In the 1990s, there were proposals in [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] academic circles to bestow on the chairman a five-star rank.<ref name=IFA>{{cite conference |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HgoJAQAAMAAJ&q=%22five+star%22 |title=Organizing for National Security: The Role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff |date=January 1986 |publisher=Institute for Foreign Analysis |page=11 |isbn=9780895490742 |access-date=2011-02-21 |quote=There was some discussion of the proposal to grant the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs five-star rank, as a symbol of his status as the most senior officer in the armed forces.}}</ref><ref name=Jones>{{cite report |last=Jones |first=Logan |date=February 2000 |title=Toward the Valued Idea of Jointness: The Need for Unity of Command in U.S. Armed Forces |website=Defense Technical Information Center |page=2 |publisher=Naval War College |format=PDF |id=ADA378445 |access-date=2011-02-21 |url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA378445 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220601064250/https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA378445 |url-status=live |archive-date=1 June 2022 |quote=Promoting the Chairman to the five-star rank and ceding to him operational and administrative control of all U.S. Armed Forces would enable him to provide a unifying vision... }}</ref><ref name=Owsley>{{cite report |last=Owsley |first=Robert Clark |date=June 1997 |title=Goldwater-Nichols Almost Got It Right: A Fifth Star for the Chairman |page=14 |publisher=Naval War College |format=PDF |id=ADA328220 |access-date=2011-02-21 |url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA328220 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210917075250/https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA328220 |url-status=live |archive-date=2021-09-17 |quote=...Chairman's title be changed to Commander of the Armed Forces and commensurate with the title and authority he be assigned the grade of five stars. }}</ref>

In October 1962, when President [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] appointed Army general [[Maxwell D. Taylor|Maxwell Taylor]] as General Lemnitzer's successor, Kennedy eventually broke the traditional rotation for the position between the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army. Kennedy replaced a chairman who was from the Army with another general who was also from the Army. At that time, Kennedy should have appointed either [[Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force|Air Force chief of staff]] General [[Curtis LeMay]], chief of naval operations Admiral [[George Whelan Anderson Jr.|George Anderson Jr.]], or commandant of the Marine Corps General [[David M. Shoup|David Shoup]] to succeed General Lemnitzer as the fifth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since that, the traditional rotation was abolished.<ref>{{Cite book|last=McMaster|first=Herbert Raymond|title=Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam|publisher=Harper Perennial|date=8 May 1998|isbn=978-0060929084|pages=22}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Perry|first=Mark|title=Four-Stars: The Inside Story of The Forty-Year Battle Between The Joint Chiefs of Staff and America's Civilian Leaders.|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|date=1989-03-01|isbn=978-0395429235}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

| alt_officeholder5      = [[James V. Forrestal]]<br />{{small|(1st DOD)}}

| cabinet                = [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]

}}

{{Officeholder table end}}

| alt_officeholder2      = [[George Marshall]]

| alt_officeholder3      = [[Robert A. Lovett]]

}}

{{Officeholder table

| defence_branch          = [[File:Emblem of the United States Navy.svg|75px]]<br />[[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]]

| alt_officeholder        = [[Charles Erwin Wilson]]

}}

{{Officeholder table

| alt_officeholder2      = [[Neil H. McElroy]]

| alt_officeholder3      = [[Thomas S. Gates]]

}}

{{Officeholder table

| alt_officeholder        = [[Thomas S. Gates]]

| alt_officeholder2      = [[Robert McNamara]]

| cabinet2                = [[John F. Kennedy]]

}}

| alt_officeholder        = [[Robert McNamara]]

| cabinet                = [[John F. Kennedy]]

}}

{{Officeholder table

| alt_officeholder2      = [[Clark Clifford]]

| alt_officeholder3      = [[Melvin Laird]]

| cabinet2                = [[Richard Nixon]]

}}

| defence_branch          = [[File:Military service mark of the United States Air Force.svg|75px]]<br />[[United States Air Force|U.S. Air Force]]

| alt_officeholder        = [[James R. Schlesinger]]

| alt_officeholder3      = [[Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense)|Harold Brown]]

| cabinet                = [[Richard Nixon]]

| defence_branch          = [[File:Mark of the United States Army.svg|75px]]<br />[[United States Army|U.S. Army]]

| alt_officeholder        = [[William Cohen]]

| cabinet                = [[Bill Clinton]]

}}

{{Officeholder table

| timeinoffice            = {{ayd|2001|10|01|2005|09|30}}

| defence_branch          = [[File:Military service mark of the United States Air Force.svg|75px]]<br />[[United States Air Force|U.S. Air Force]]

}}

{{Officeholder table

| timeinoffice            = {{ayd|2005|10|1|2007|09|30}}

| defence_branch          = [[File:Emblem of the United States Marine Corps.svg|75px]]<br />[[United States Marine Corps|U.S. Marine Corps]]

| alt_officeholder2      = [[Robert Gates]]

}}

{{Officeholder table

| alt_officeholder        = [[Robert Gates]]

| alt_officeholder2      = [[Leon Panetta]]

| cabinet2                = [[Barack Obama]]

}}

==See also==

* [[Chief of Defence]]

* [[National Command Authority (United States)]]

* [[National Military Strategy (United States)]]