The Nation - News from Feb. 7, 1986

The Senate Armed Services Committee has expressed support for a proposal to make sweeping changes at the highest levels of the Defense Department, but has stopped short of accepting a staff proposal to replace the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a new military advisory panel, Senate sources said. The committee has yet to take a final vote on the proposals, but after two days of study it has instructed its staff to make what have been described as relatively minor changes in much of the proposed legislation. The sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified, said the committee was avoiding “radical reform.”