United States Secretary of Defense

United States Secretary of Defense
Seal of the Department of Defense
Flag of the Secretary of Defense
Incumbent Leon Panetta since July 1, 2011
Formation	September 19, 1947
First holder	James Forrestal
Succession	Sixth (in the presidential line of succession)
Deputy	The Deputy Secretary of Defense
Salary	Executive Schedule, Level 1 (5 U.S.C. § 5312)
Website	www.defense.gov

The Secretary of Defense (SecDef) is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries. Under the direction of the President, the Secretary of Defense has per federal law (10 U.S.C. § 113) "authority, direction and control over the Department of Defense", and is further designated by statute as "the principal assistant to the President in all matters relating to the Department of Defense".^[1]

The Secretary of Defense is in the chain of command and exercises command and control, subject only to the orders of the President, over all Department of Defense forces – i.e. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps – for both operational and administrative purposes.^[2][3][4][5] Only the Secretary of Defense or the President can authorize the transfer of forces from one Combatant Command to another.^[6] The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the Secretary of Defense and the President, and while the Chairman may assist them in their command functions, the Chairman is not in the chain of command.^[7]

The Secretary of Defense is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, and is by custom a member of the Cabinet, and by law a member of the National Security Council. An individual may not be appointed as Secretary of Defense within seven years after relief from active duty as a commissioned officer of a regular component of an armed force.^[8]

Along with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense is generally regarded as one of the Big Four important cabinet officials. Secretary of Defense is a Level I position of the Executive Schedule and thus earns a salary of $199,700 per year. The current Secretary is Leon Panetta who assumed office July 1, 2011.

History

The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps were established in 1775, in concurrence with the American Revolution. The War Department, headed by the Secretary of War, was created by Act of Congress in 1789 and was responsible for both the Army and Navy until the founding of a separate Department of the Navy in 1798.

Based on the experiences of World War II, proposals were soon made on how to more effectively manage the large combined military establishment over which only the President had direct line authority. The Army generally favored centralization while the Navy had institutional preferences for decentralization and the status quo. The resulting National Security Act of 1947 was largely a compromise between these divergent viewpoints. The Act split the War Department into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force, each with their own Secretary, and created a sui generis National Military Establishment led by a Secretary of Defense. At first, each of the service secretaries maintained quasi-cabinet status The first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, who as Secretary of the Navy had opposed creation of the new position, found it difficult to exercise authority over them with the limited powers his office had. To address this and other problems, the Act was amended in 1949 to further consolidate the national defense structure in order to reduce interservice rivalry, directly subordinate the Secretaries of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force to the Secretary of Defense in the chain of command, and rename the National Military Establishment to the Department of Defense. The position of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the number two position in the department, was also created at this time.

The general trend since 1949 has been to further centralize management in the Department of Defense, elevating the status and authorities of civilian OSD appointees and defense-wide organizations at the expense of the military departments and the services within them. The last major revision of the statutory framework concerning the position was done in the Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. In particular, it elevated the status of joint service for commissioned officers, making it in practice a requirement before appointments to general officer and flag officer grades could be made.

Powers and Functions

DoD organization chart (2005.)

Functional chart of the major DoD components, and their relations to the President and the NSC.

In the U.S. Armed Forces, the Secretary of Defense is often referred to as SecDef or SD. The Secretary of Defense and the President together constitute the National Command Authorities (NCA),^[9] which has sole authority to launch strategic nuclear weapons. All nuclear weapons are governed by this dual-authority – both must concur before a strategic nuclear strike may be ordered.

The Secretary's staff element is called the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and is composed of a Deputy Secretary of Defense (DEPSECDEF) and five Under Secretaries of Defense in the fields of Acquisition, Technology & Logistics; Comptroller/Chief Financial Officer; Intelligence; Personnel & Readiness; and Policy.

The Secretary of Defense by statute also exercises "authority, direction and control" over the three Secretaries of the military departments (Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Air Force), the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Chief of Staff, Commandant of the Marine Corps, Chief of Naval Operations, and Air Force Chief of Staff), the Combatant Commanders of the Unified Combatant Commands, the Directors of the Defense Agencies (for example the Director of the National Security Agency) and of the DoD Field Activities. All of these high-ranking positions require Senate confirmation.

The Secretary is one of few civilians^[10] who is authorized to act as convening authority in the military justice system for General Courts-Martial (10 U.S.C. § 822: article 22, UCMJ), Special Courts-Martial (10 U.S.C. § 823: article 23, UCMJ), and Summary Courts-Martial (10 U.S.C. § 824: article 24 UCMJ).

List of Secretaries of Defense

The longest-serving Secretary of Defense is the late Robert McNamara, who served for a total of 2,595 days.

Parties

      Democratic       Republican

Status

  Denotes acting Secretary of Defense

No.	Portrait	Name	State of Residence	Took Office	Left Office	Days served	President(s)
1		James Vincent Forrestal	New York	September 19, 1947	March 19, 1949	558		Harry S. Truman
2		Louis Arthur Johnson	West Virginia	March 28, 1949	September 19, 1950	540
3		George Catlett Marshall, Jr.	Virginia	September 19, 1950	September 19, 1951	365
4		Robert Abercrombie Lovett	New York	September 19, 1951	January 20, 1953	491
5		Charles Erwin Wilson	Indiana	January 20, 1953	October 8, 1957	1,722		Dwight D. Eisenhower
6		Neil Hosler McElroy	Ohio	October 9, 1957	December 1, 1959	783
7		Thomas Sovereign Gates, Jr.	Pennsylvania	December 2, 1959	January 20, 1961	415
8		Robert Strange McNamara	Michigan	January 21, 1961	February 29, 1968	2,595		John F. Kennedy
								Lyndon B. Johnson
9		Clark McAdams Clifford	Kansas	March 1, 1968	January 20, 1969	326
10		Melvin Robert Laird	Wisconsin	January 22, 1969	January 29, 1973	1,469		Richard Nixon
11		Elliot Lee Richardson	Massachusetts	January 30, 1973	May 24, 1973	114
–		William Perry Clements, Jr.	Texas	May 24, 1973	July 2, 1973	39
12		James Rodney Schlesinger	Virginia	July 2, 1973	November 19, 1975	870
								Gerald Ford
13		Donald Henry Rumsfeld	Illinois	November 20, 1975	January 20, 1977	427
14		Harold Brown	New York	January 21, 1977	January 20, 1981	1,460		Jimmy Carter
15		Caspar Willard Weinberger	California	January 21, 1981	November 23, 1987	2,497		Ronald Reagan
16		Frank Charles Carlucci III	Pennsylvania	November 23, 1987	January 20, 1989	424
–		William Howard Taft IV	Ohio	January 20, 1989	March 20, 1989	59		George H. W. Bush
17		Richard Bruce Cheney	Wyoming	March 21, 1989	January 20, 1993	1,402
18		Leslie Aspin, Jr.	Wisconsin	January 21, 1993	February 3, 1994	378		Bill Clinton
19		William James Perry	Pennsylvania	February 3, 1994	January 24, 1997	1,085
20		William Sebastian Cohen	Maine	January 24, 1997	January 20, 2001	1,457
21		Donald Henry Rumsfeld	Illinois	January 20, 2001	December 18, 2006	2,158		George W. Bush
22		Robert Michael Gates	Texas	December 18, 2006	July 1, 2011[11]	1,643
								Barack Obama
23		Leon Edward Panetta	California	July 1, 2011	Incumbent	&10000000000000135000000135

Succession

Presidential succession

The Secretary of Defense is sixth in the presidential line of succession, following the Secretary of the Treasury and preceding the Attorney General.

Secretary of Defense succession

In Executive Order 13533 of March 1, 2010, President Barack Obama modified the line of succession regarding who would act as Secretary of Defense in the event of a vacancy or incapacitation, thus reversing the changes made by President George W. Bush in Executive Order 13394 as to the relative positions of the Secretaries of the Military Departments. All of the officials in the line of succession are civilians appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate:

Executive Order 13533 (March 1, 2010—Present) # Office Secretary of Defense 1 Deputy Secretary of Defense 2 Secretary of the Army 3 Secretary of the Navy 4 Secretary of the Air Force 5 Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 6 Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 7 Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) 8 Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 9 Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence 10 Deputy Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defense 11 Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 12 Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 13 Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) 14 Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 15 Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence 16 Director of Defense Research and Engineering 17 General Counsel of the Department of Defense Assistant Secretaries of Defense Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs Director of Operational Test and Evaluation Director of Operational Energy Plans and Programs and the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation 18 Under Secretary of the Army Under Secretary of the Navy and the Under Secretary of the Air Force 19 Assistant Secretaries of the Army Assistant Secretaries of the Navy Assistant Secretaries of the Air Force General Counsel of the Army General Counsel of the Navy and the General Counsel of the Air Force.

Executive Order 13394 (December 22, 2005—March 1, 2010) # Office Secretary of Defense 1 Deputy Secretary of Defense 2 Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence 3 Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 4 Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 5 Secretary of the Army 6 Secretary of the Air Force 7 Secretary of the Navy 8 Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) 9 Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 10 General Counsel of the Department of Defense Assistant Secretaries of Defense and the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation 11 Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Material Readiness and the Director of Defense Research and Engineering 12 Under Secretary of the Army Under Secretary of the Navy and the Under Secretary of the Air Force 13 Assistant Secretaries of the Army Assistant Secretaries of the Navy Assistant Secretaries of the Air Force General Counsel of the Army General Counsel of the Navy and the General Counsel of the Air Force.

Living former Secretaries of Defense

• 10th – Melvin Robert Laird
• 12th – James Rodney Schlesinger
• 13th and 21st – Donald Henry Rumsfeld
• 14th – Harold Brown
• 16th – Frank Charles Carlucci III
• 17th – Richard Bruce Cheney
• 19th – William James Perry
• 20th – William Sebastian Cohen
• 22nd – Robert Michael Gates

See also

• List of United States Secretaries of Defense by time in office

References

Federal law

• Title 10 of the United States Code
• Title 50 of the United States Code

Directives and doctrine

• Gates, Robert M. (2010-12-21). [[1] Department of Defense Directive 5100.1: Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major Components]. Department of Defense Directive. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense. [2]. 
• Mullen, Michael G. (2009-03-20). [[3] Joint Publication 1 – Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States]. Joint Publications. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense. [4]. 

Print sources

• Trask, Roger R.; Goldberg, Alfred (1997). [[5] The Department of Defense 1997-1947: Organization and Leaders]. Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense/U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0160491630. [6]. 

Online sources

• "Histories of the Secretaries of Defense". U.S. Department of Defense. http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/. Retrieved September 3, 2002. 
• "The Department of Defense Organizational Structure". U.S. Department of Defense. http://www.dod.mil/odam/omp/pubs/GuideBook/DoD.htm#Secretary%20of%20Defense. Retrieved November 13, 2006. 

Footnotes

1. ^ Title 10 of the United States Code §113
2. ^ Title 10 of the United States Code §162(b)
3. ^ >Title 10 of the United States Code §3011
4. ^ Title 10 of the United States Code §5011
5. ^ Title 10 of the United States Code §8011
6. ^ Title 10 of the United States Code §162(a)
7. ^ Title 10 of the United States Code §152(c)
8. ^ The National Security Act of 1947 originally required an interval of ten years after relief from active duty, which was reduced to seven years by Sec. 903(a) of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. In 1950 Congress passed special legislation (Pub. Law 81-788) to allow George C. Marshall to serve as Secretary of Defense while remaining a commissioned officer on the active list of the Army (Army regulations kept all five-star generals on active duty for life), but warned:

   It is hereby expressed as the intent of the Congress that the authority granted by this Act is not to be construed as approval by the Congress of continuing appointments of military men to the office of Secretary of Defense in the future. It is hereby expressed as the sense of the Congress that after General Marshall leaves the office of Secretary of Defense, no additional appointments of military men to that office shall be approved.

   See Defenselink bio, retrieved 8/2/2010; and Marshall Foundation bio, retrieved 8/2/2010.

9. ^ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O63-NationalCommandAuthoritis.html
10. ^ Others include the President, the Secretaries of the Military Departments, and the Secretary of Homeland Security (when the Coast Guard is not under DoD)
11. ^ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43591679/ns/politics-more_politics/

External links

• The Reinvention of Robert Gates by Michael Crowley, The New Republic, November 9, 2009
• "Top Civilian and Military Leaders". U.S. Department of Defense. http://www.defenselink.mil/osd/topleaders.aspx. Retrieved October 13, 2007. ^{[dead link]} – Includes the Secretary of Defense
• More information on each position and biographies of the current Deputy Secretary (DepSecDef) and Under Secretaries (USDs)

United States presidential line of succession
Preceded by Secretary of the Treasury	6th in line	Succeeded by Attorney General