The Key West Agreement
The Key West Agreement (1948) was a major step toward composing differences between the military services over their respective roles and missions.The immediate purpose was to reconcile the inconsistent treatment of service functions in the National Security Act of 1947, which had unified the armed forces under the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense), and its companion Executive Order 9877. Two issues were uppermost: in regard to air power, whether the air force should share its strategic nuclear bombing function with the navy's carrier‐based aircraft; and in regard to ground forces, whether limitations urged by the army should be imposed on the size and capabilities of the Marine Corps.
Growing interservice friction over these issues prompted Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal to meet privately with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at Key West, Florida, 11–14 March 1948, where he brokered a compromise. Although primary service functions—air, land, and sea warfare—remained unchanged, each service received a secondary, or collateral, assignment. These were summarized in a paper entitled “Functions of the Armed Forces and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” which replaced the executive order. Forrestal hoped that this agreement would encourage more interservice collaboration—between the air force and the navy in planning nuclear warfare, and between the army and Marine Corps in amphibious operations.
Although the Key West Agreement provided a framework for resolving disagreements over service functions, it did little to eliminate the underlying sources of interservice rivalry. Money remained tight up to the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, and until then, no service would readily part with or share responsibilities on which its budget claims rested. The Key West Agreement stood as the official statement of service functions until an updated directive replaced it in March 1954.
[See also Rivalry, Interservice.]
Growing interservice friction over these issues prompted Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal to meet privately with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at Key West, Florida, 11–14 March 1948, where he brokered a compromise. Although primary service functions—air, land, and sea warfare—remained unchanged, each service received a secondary, or collateral, assignment. These were summarized in a paper entitled “Functions of the Armed Forces and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” which replaced the executive order. Forrestal hoped that this agreement would encourage more interservice collaboration—between the air force and the navy in planning nuclear warfare, and between the army and Marine Corps in amphibious operations.
Although the Key West Agreement provided a framework for resolving disagreements over service functions, it did little to eliminate the underlying sources of interservice rivalry. Money remained tight up to the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, and until then, no service would readily part with or share responsibilities on which its budget claims rested. The Key West Agreement stood as the official statement of service functions until an updated directive replaced it in March 1954.
[See also Rivalry, Interservice.]
Bibliography
Alice C. Cole, et al., eds., The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, 1944–1978, 1978.
Steven L. Rearden , History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense: The Formative Years, 1947–1950, 1984.
Steven L. Rearden
More From encyclopedia.com
United States Department Of Defense , The Department of Defense (DOD) is the executive department in the federal government that is responsible for providing the military forces needed to… Agreement , 4. Agreement
analogy
an agreement or correspondence in particular features between things otherwise dissimilar; in literature, the basis for metaphor… Escrow , Skip to main content
Escrow
Escrow
Something of value, such as a deed, stock, money, or written instrument, that is put into the custody of a third p… Premarital Agreement , A contract made in anticipation of marriage that specifies the rights and obligations of the parties. Such an agreement typically includes terms for… Non-compete Agreements , A contract limiting a party from competing with a business after termination of employment or completion of a business sale.
Found in some business c… Service Level Agreement , SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT (SLA)
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are written contracts between a service provider and its client guaranteeing a certain…
You Might Also Like
NEARBY TERMS
The Key West Agreement