ARMED FORCES: The House of Brass

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A typical message to the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics: a report from a patrol-bomber squadron that the windshield wipers on its Lockheed P2V planes did not work because the windstream lifted them off the glass. The report went down through the aircraft division to the Lockheed patrol plane desk officer, headed through the airborne equipment division until in the aircraft systems design section it found a man who specialized in nothing but wipers. A copy went through the P2V maintenance section of the airframes structures unit of the aircraft maintenance division. Final action will be taken by an officer in the design of cabin and cockpit enclosures section, after he gets authorization from the budget section to pay for a modification. Six months after the original complaint, the squadron can hope to get windshield wipers that work.

The File That Wasn't There. Absurdities to the civilian eye sometimes have a certain wild bureaucratic logic, such as the file in the basement called "the file of non-filed files"—a list of files that have been sent somewhere else. The Pentagon explains that it saves searching for a file that isn't there.

Not the least of the Pentagon's complexities is the complex problem of simplifying itself. For the past two years, a civilian firm of management consultants has been studying its problems. Louis Johnson abolished several hundred long-standing committees that past Pentagonians had set up and forgotten. Samples: the Committee on Improved Career Outlook for Intelligence Personnel, the Committee on New-Type Sea Bag. But some 232 committees remain, including the Committee on Purchase of Blind-Made Products.

The Comers. However disagreeable he may find it, his Pentagon tour of duty is often crucial for a rising young officer. The years between 30 and 35 and the rank of lieutenant colonel are critical for him. Until then, promotion is almost automatic; after those years, he has to show special abilities if he is to make the jump to higher rank. The Pentagon is a good place to make the jump.

In the Pentagon, the able young officer is under the eyes of the big brass. He learns that he can argue with his superiors with impunity, provided he is concise, polite and logical. Such arguments are permitted more freely in the Air Force than in the Army, more freely in the Army than in the Navy. If he shows exceptional ability, a high-ranking officer may pick him for his staff, later see that he gets good commands. Then the word goes out that he is a "comer."

Long before Pentagon days, Lieut. Colonel George Marshall so impressed General John Pershing. The Navy's Forrest Sherman was taken under the wing of Admiral Chester Nimitz; Lauris Norstad, now top airman in Europe, was tapped by General Hap Arnold. Lieut. General Al Gruenther, generally regarded as the most impressive briefing officer the Pentagon has produced, was once a comer himself, is now Eisenhower's chief of staff at SHAPE. Recently, Gruenther called for the Army's brightest comer, Brigadier General Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Schuyler, 50, to serve as his plans officer. He also got the loan of the Navy's Captain George Anderson, 44. Anderson, whom Sherman had picked as his operations officer when he commanded the Sixth Fleet, is, according to Pentagon scuttlebutt, "sure to be CNO some day."