Or may the President theoretically appoint an officer of any rank, including an NCO? (Set aside practical or political implications for the purpose of the question.) Has a Marine ever been Chairman? Has a woman? Has an atheist? Can the president fire a Chairman? Has one ever been fired? Does the President’s appointment require Congressional approval? Thanks.
We haven’t had an O-10, or 5 star General/Admiral since WWII! So it is absolutely not required. It is however, required for that person to have the highest rank (a tie is fine) in all of the armed forces. That is because the CJCS outranks all other uniformed military personnel. CJCS is a promotion for four-star generals/admirals as it is right now. If someone got promoted to O-10 they would be the CJCS. Promotions did worked a little differently back then; link
No women have ever chaired; to date, no Marine Corp member has served in the position. For more info: http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0004627.html
Sorry, alterego, but O-10 IS the 4-star “full” General/Admiral grade. Look here .
This Law contains the answers (and it just re-codifies what existed pre-1986): The Chairman JCS has to be commissioned officer, a General/Admiral (4 stars). He could still be promoted into the grade/rank, but under normal circumstances there are eligibility requirements and political considerations that would make it tough to name anyone but someone already holding the O-10 grade, or an outstanding O-9 in a post normally filled by O-10, eligible for promotion(*). He is named with the consent of the Senate, for a fixed term, and like every officer, the Commander in Chief may can his a$$ if he’s unsatissfied with the performance.
(*Example: Colin Powell made a name for himself in Reagan’s NSC as a LTG. The year before being named CJCS, he was promoted to 4-stars and given a few months as head of FORSCOM in order to fill the qualification requirement of having previously headed a major national/global Command)
Each service’s own law dictates the grade of the CoS/CNO/Commandant.
We have not had a Marine CJCS since this organizational arrangement got formally started in 1948 – in fact IIRC it was only very recently, like in the 90s, that Marine generals began being appointed to head major global Joint Commands such as SOUTHCOM or CENTCOM. Remember that traditionally it was the Navy and Army that did theatre-wide or global strategy, and large-scale logistic management and political lobbying work (The Air Force leapfrogged the USMC in that sense because, well, at the time they were made a separate service they were the ones with the nukes, and they brought along a lot of legacy Army guys who had done just that kind of work, with Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay at the head). The USMC being a smaller force, specialized in frontline fighting, their officers would be disadvantaged by fewer opportunities to rack up in the resume the kind of large-scale organization management/policy lobbying work that would a colleague in one of the larger services’, unless the SoD or SoN were to make it policy to appoint a Marine officer to handle, for instance, DoN-wide procurement or planning . Even then they are also disadvantaged by having a smaller pool of general officers overall. There’s also the political element in that both USN and USMC belong to the “Navy Department”, and the other two “departments” may then object to the third having extra chances at bat. But with some Marines being now named to head Joint Commands, it should not take that much longer before a Marine makes it to CJCS.
To answer your other questions, the Chairman must be approved by the Senate (but I’m pretty sure the other Chiefs need not be) and the president may fire them at will, same as any other appointee. In that case, the Vice Chairman becomes Acting Chairman until he gets Senate approval, or a new Chairman is appointed.
Thanks for the responses, especially JRDelirious. (And Alterego, the tidbit about Washington was very interesting!) My only unanswered question is whether an atheist has ever been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Does anyone know?
That should really be “same as any executive appointee.” The president obviously can’t fire federal judges and stuff.
I don’t think any JCS chairman has been particularly upfront about their religion; it’s not really the type of job where one needs to appeal to the electorate.
As far as the Commandant of the Marine Corps becoming Chairman, I don’t think he can, by law. He is, barring any recent law changes, subordinate to the Chief of Naval Operations. Therefore, not only can he never outrank the CNO, but he can never be put into a position to command him.
I’m pretty sure that’s not right, Airman. As far as I know, the Commandant of the Marine Corps reports directly to the Secretary of the Navy, and is equal in rank and position with the Chief of Naval Operations.
Oh, yeah, also re: women – it’ll still be quite a while before we see a female CJCS. Because, once you figure out what’s behind the various requirements for making it to that level, you realize it is weighted in favor of combat-arms/unrestricted-line officers with prior experience commanding or senior-staffing as many of the levels of fighting unit their service has as possible. Until the 1990s most of this career progression was closed to women – and to this day they are excluded from Army/Marine Combat Arms and Navy Submarines.
Add to that the simple math of there being a lot fewer female than male officers to begin with, and how even with the opening of “line” positions , the proportion choosing technical or support specialties is still higher, and you see it’s gonna take time.
My money would be on the first female candidate for the JCS being someone who started as fighter pilot, in the Air Force or Naval Aviation. Who clinches it by being a hit in a non-uniformed post at the White House rather than Pentagon. Outside the JCS you could think that an earlier female US Coast Guard Commandant is likely since the Coasties were fully gender-integrated well before anyone else, but there you get a double dose of the problem of small numbers.
Actually, Doors, the Chairman JCS is a distinct, separate appointment from the CMC/CNO/COSA/COSAF. As it stands right now, the current vice-chairman of the JCS is a Marine, General Peter Pace (the first to hold the post – that and having commanded SOUTHCOM make him eligible for CJCS if he’s not bumping against mandatory retirement). And pursuant to Sections 152© and 154(f) the law quoted above, both the Chairman and Vice-chairman JCS outrank all other officers; but though in charge of running the JCS activities, they are NOT each Chief’s commanding officer.
An exceedingly minor nitpick:
The statement that there have been no five-star generals since WWII is a good generalization, but not completely true. Born in 1948, I can remember as a small child my father watching the news and then making a comment about Omar Bradley retiring, the last active General of the Army. So that would be the early 50s, on a guess. (Anyone have specifics on when he was CJCS and when he retired?)
He was Chairman from 1949-1953. While it’s true that there were 5-Star ranking officers after World War II, there were exactly two that were promoted to that rank after the war, and one is rather nitpicky. General of the Army Omar Bradley was promoted in September of 1950, and General of the Air Force (the only one ever, by the way) Hap Arnold was “promoted” to that rank in June of 1949. The nitpick with him was that he was already a General of the Army, having achieved that rank in 1944. Consider it more of a lateral promotion, as the Air Force didn’t even exist as a separate entity until 1947.
Every other 5-Star was promoted during the war. That’s not to say that they couldn’t have hung on for a few more years, hence your memory, but other than the two exceptions above they attained that rank prior to the end of the war.
Oh, and one other thing.
I could have sworn that the Commandant was a subordinate to the CNO. I’ll look for something to support that. If not, I’ll gladly concede the point. But I could swear I remember reading that somewhere.
whoops sorry about that. counts on his fingers :smack:
The Commandant of the Marine Corps is NOT subordinate to the CNO. Both report to the Secretary of the Navy.
Org chart here:
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/organization/org-sec.html
Also, IIRC, there are selection boards only for ranks up to O-8. Ranks beyond O-8 come with the particular billet a general/flag officer is selected for.
According to that chart, they report directly to the Under Secretary. Or am I missing something?
It looks like pretty much everyone except a few select people technically reports to the Under Secretary rather than the Secretary. I don’t think it makes much of a difference in practical terms.
Another nitpick: O-8 is not a rank. It is a pay grade. Pay grades do not tell you who is higher than whom. Two people may be of the same pay grade but if they have different ranks then the rank tells you who is higher.
See, e.g., here: