Sweeping Changes in Pentagon Urged

A report to the Senate Armed Services Committee, long a pillar of Pentagon support in Congress, recommends sweeping changes in the highest levels of the Defense Department, replacement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a new military advisory panel and establishment of a two-year budget cycle in an effort to streamline the operation of the nation’s military forces.

In addition, in a report scheduled for release today, the committee’s staff sharply criticized Congress, which it said was responsible for “substantial instability in defense policies and programs,” and recommended that the House and Senate reverse their tendency to delve too deeply into minor details and instead focus to a greater extent on broad policy issues.

The review was prompted by coordination problems that have beset military operations as far back as the Spanish-American War, but more recently in Vietnam, Iran and Grenada. In addition to those problems, the report cited cost overruns, spare parts “horror” stories and a concern that the Pentagon’s “strategies and long-range policies . . . do not appear to be well formulated and are apparently only loosely connected” to available resources.

Weinberger Briefed

Pentagon spokesman Robert B. Sims said agency officials had not read the document, though Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, Deputy Secretary William H. Taft IV and Adm. William J. Crowe, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had received a 40-minute briefing on it.

“The only thing so far it has to offer are sweeping conclusory comments to the effect that things are terribly wrong with our military and need to be fixed,” Sims said.

The report represents the culmination of two years of research, interviews and hearings. Although its specific recommendations have not been endorsed by the committee, Chairman Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the ranking minority member, have joined the voices calling for broad revisions in the Pentagon’s management and procurement operations.

In a letter to the two committee leaders, James R. Locher III, the staff member who directed the project, emphasized that the 645-page report was drawn up to strengthen the Defense Department, “the largest and most complex organization in the Free World.”

‘Structural Changes’

The Administration has begun its own study, under the guidance of David Packard, a former deputy secretary of defense, who has said that “structural changes” are needed.

If the 91 recommendations in the Senate staff study are carried out--some by legislation, but most by executive order--the Pentagon would undergo its most sweeping overhaul since a series of reforms were undertaken in 1958.

At the top of the list of recommendations is reorganization of the Pentagon’s senior civilian staff just below the secretary of defense to put a greater emphasis on military missions. The panel would abolish the undersecretary for policy and name three new undersecretaries who would be responsible for nuclear deterrence, North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense and regional defense.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff would be abolished, leaving the chiefs of staff of the Army and Air Force, the chief of naval operations and the commandant of the Marine Corps free to focus entirely on their own service matters, rather than being asked to put aside their individual interests and loyalties as members of the joint body.

Free From Pressures

A Joint Military Advisory Council of high-ranking officers would be established. It would be made up of a chairman and four-star officers from each service on their last tour of duty and thus presumably free from the service pressures that affect current members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The report’s authors reserved some of their most pointed criticism for the role that Congress plays in overseeing Pentagon operations. They said the structure of Congress and its reviews “produce an inconsistent and sometimes contradictory pattern of oversight and guidance,” reinforcing divisions within the Pentagon and “inhibiting the development of a coherent and integrated defense program.”

“Increasingly, the Congress is becoming involved in the details of the defense budget, not just the broad policies and directions that guide it,” the report said.

Times staff writer Paul Houston contributed to this report.