Revolt of the Admirals

A Cold War incident known as the "Revolt of the Admirals" involved a number of retired and active-duty United States Navy admirals who publicly disagreed with President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson in their emphasis on strategic nuclear bombing executed by the United States Air Force as the primary means by which the nation and its interests were defended. The episode occurred in 1949 during a time wherein the administration was attempting to severely reduce military expenditures.

Following the end of World War II, the United States government was concerned about the large deficit spending that had been necessary for the war effort. To reduce expenditures, the Truman administration instructed the services to draw-down their forces quickly and return to a peacetime military. The two main issues facing the services were the question of unification of the services under a single command, and the funding that each branch would have in the markedly reduced military budget. The discussion of the post-war military flowed from General of the Army George C. Marshall's call for unification of the Department of War and the Department of the Navy. Marshall believed that the services needed a unified overall command to better coordinate their activities, to save lives, and to minimize waste and redundancy. He first advanced his general ideas on the subject in November 1943, and his proposals led to what became known as the "unification debates".

On 9 May 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff appointed a four-man (two Army, two Navy) Special Committee for Reorganization of National Defense, under the chairmanship of Admiral James O. Richardson (commander of the U.S. Fleet, 1940–41), which held hearings in Washington, D.C., and in the field for ten months. The committee reported to the J.C.S. on 11 April 1945. With Richardson dissenting, the three-man majority recommended: (1) the creation of a single department of armed forces; (2) three equal services (thus adding an independent Air Force); (3) a single commander of all forces who would be in charge of strategic planning and would direct military operations in the field; (4) a single Services of Supply; (5) a U.S. Chiefs of Staff organization with duties limited to advising the president on military strategy and the budget but without operational authority.

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