DEFENSE: Unlikely Revolution

High on the list of Jack Kennedy's campaign promises was a fresh look at the most expensive operation in the U.S. Government: the Defense Department, which devours more than half the federal budget. For a start, he asked Missouri's Senator Stuart Symington and a five-man committee of civilian experts to study ways and means of modernizing the organizational maze that winds through the Pentagon. It was a job with plenty of precedents, for critics have been suggesting revisions in the Defense Department ever since it was established in 1947.

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