Reorganization Man

Without fanfare, the President walked out of his office one day last week, got into his car and went over the river to Virginia on his first business visit to the Pentagon in five years. There, around a T-shaped table, he conferred for 2 1/2 hours with Defense Secretary Neil McElroy and 15 top civilian and military defense officials: Topic: Pentagon reorganization.

Among those present was a new military-civilian team mustered by McElroy last week to serve in effect as management consultants -- the Air Force's General Nathan Twining, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Arthur Radford and Army General Omar Bradley, Twining's predecessors as J.C.S. chairmen; William C. Foster, Washington industrial ist (Olin Mathieson Corp.) and former Deputy Defense Secretary (1951-53); Charles Allerton Coolidge, Boston lawyer and former Assistant Defense Secretary (1951-52). (Absent member: Nelson A. Rockefeller, part-sponsor of the Rockefeller Report, which recommended an overhauling of Pentagon organization --TIME, Jan. 13).

In his State of the Union message, the President had set himself a tight schedule by promising that he would have reorganization proposals ready for this session of Congress, then appeared to back down in his press conference. Taken aback by the impression of relaxation read into his press-conference statement, the President said in his G.O.P. speech in Chicago last week: "In this I intend to participate personally until the job is done." Three specific reform proposals have already reached his desk: 1) streamline McElroy 's own personal Defense Secretary operation, 2 *) give McElroy power to shift funds between services, 3 ) create a central strategic military planning group under McElroy's eye.

The President and McElroy will have to hustle to beat Congress. At week's end Connecticut Republican Senator Prescott Bush let it be known that he is drafting his own legislation, based upon the Rockefeller Report, calling for a chief of staff empowered, under the Secretary of Defense and the President, to define roles and missions among the three services and achieve "efficient unified commands." The President's program was essentially the one previewed by Labor Secretary Jim Mitchell before the A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention in Atlantic City last fall (TIME, Dec. 16). Its principal weapon against labor racketeering and corruption would be compulsory public filing of union records. To superintend this filing, Ike asked Congress to establish a new U.S. Commissioner of Labor Reports--with subpoena powers--to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The commissioner would see to it that unions file annual financial reports and at least once every four years certify that their locals have held elections by secret ballot. Secret balloting would be required by law for national union officials or for the delegates to national electing conventions. Embezzlement of union funds, false statements or entries and the willful destruction of union records would become a felony. Also a felony for any employer or union representative: to offer or receive a payoff for influencing labor relations. Unions found guilty of failure to file full and proper reports would be denied the services of the National Labor Relations Board and federal income-tax exemption.

Labor leaders, who grudgingly accepted Secretary Mitchell's program in December as the most lenient they could hope for, crossed their fingers last week and hoped that the nation's preoccupation with defense might take off the heat. Labor would cheerfully accept public reports on all pension and welfare funds (including employer-managed funds), would like legislation to stop right there if public opinion would stand for it. Still to come: the final report and recommendations of Arkansan John McClellan's Senate investigating subcommittee, which may well be tougher than Ike's proposals, may well step up the heat.

* Which now includes a Deputy Secretary, eight Assistant Secretaries, a general counsel, ten Deputy Assistant Secretaries, four Special Assistant Secretaries and 23 "staff directors" atop a pyramid of 2,362 people.

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