Presidential Papers, Doc#73 To Charles Erwin Wilson, 14 March 1957. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Document #73; March 14, 1957
To Charles Erwin Wilson
Series: EM, WHCF, Confidential File: Defense Department
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVIII - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace
Part I: A New Beginning, Old Problems; January 1957 to May 1957
Chapter 1: The Mideast and the Eisenhower Doctrine

 

Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense: This morning when we discussed the Cordiner studies and your memorandum of March eighth, I told you I would try to give you my comments before leaving today.1

We would be well advised, I think, to pinpoint--insofar as we possibly can--the proposals for compensation adjustment on the retention of those hard-to-train technicians and specialists (especially enlisted personnel) who are now leaving the service at an undesirable rate, with consequent heavy cost both in money and in operating effectiveness.2

In like manner, the proposals regarding officers ought to be focused on meeting the problem at the particular points where officers are leaving the service with comparable adverse consequences.3

I recognize that other features might also be desirable, but in present circumstances, it strikes me that these must be very few if the proposals to meet the most serious situations are to have any prospect of success.

While there would be no objection to your sending your proposals as currently developed to the Bureau of the Budget, provided it is made clear to all concerned that the whole matter is still under consideration, I am sending the Bureau a copy of this letter for its use in its analysis both of your current proposals and of proposals you may develop in response to this memorandum.4

1 Eisenhower had met with Secretary of Defense Wilson following the NSC meeting to discuss Wilson's response to the recommendations of the Cordiner Committee on Modernization of the Pay Structure for the Members of the Armed Services. (Wilson's March 8 memorandum is in same file as this document; the March 14 meeting is summarized in Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conversation, Mar. 14, 1957, AWF/D.) The Defense Department had established the Cordiner Committee, technically known as the Defense Advisory Committee on Professional and Technical Compensation, in May 1956 (see Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. XIII, 1957, p. 636). The committee’s chairman, Ralph Jarron Cordiner (B.S. Whitman College 1922) had been president of the General Electric Company since 1950. Eisenhower would leave Washington that afternoon to attend the upcoming conference in Bermuda (see no. 78).

2 The Cordiner report proposed to make skills and proficiency, rather than seniority, the basis for military pay scales. In a March 4 meeting with Cordiner and Wilson, Eisenhower had expressed his dismay that more attention had not been paid to the true "hard skills," the lack of which, he believed, were hurting the armed forces (Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conversation, Mar. 5, 1957, AWF/D).

3 During the March 4 meeting the President had expressed his opposition to any program which proposed substantial increases in the pay of generals without concomitant pay raises for privates; such a program, he thought, would probably generate criticism. Eisenhower also expressed concern that any change in military pay scale would put pressure on the governmental pay scale, and probably on the general economy as well.

4 On May 8 Secretary Wilson would approve a proficiency pay system for 350,000 skilled technicians in the armed forces. Legislation to implement the Cordiner Committee recommendations would be introduced in the Senate in June 1957. For developments see no. 226, and New York Times, May 9, 1957.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Charles Erwin Wilson, 14 March 1957. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 73. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/73.cfm

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