armed forces and replaces the chairman in his absence or disability.
Although the vice chairman was not originally included as a member
of the JCS, the National Defense Authorization Act of 1992 made
him a full voting member of the JCS.
The military service chiefs play a somewhat ambiguous but dual
role in the process. As members of the JCS, they offer advice to the
president, the secretary of defense, and the NSC. As the chiefs of the
military services, they are responsible to the secretaries of their mili-
tary departments for management of the services. The service chiefs
serve for four years. By custom, the vice chiefs of the services act for
their chiefs in most matters having to do with day-to-day operation of
the services. The duties of the service chiefs as members of JCS take
precedence over all their other duties.
The JCS chairman has a staff, called the Joint Staff, that assists in
providing strategic direction of the combatant forces and their oper-
ation under unified command, and for their integration into a “joint”
force. The Joint Staff is composed of approximately equal numbers
of officers from the army, navy, marine, and air force personnel. In
practice, the marines make up about 20 percent of the number allo-
cated to the navy. The director of the Joint Staff has authority to re-
view and approve issues when there is no dispute among the services,
when the issue does not warrant JCS attention, when the proposed ac-
tion conforms to policy, or when the issue has not been raised by a
JCS member.JOINT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE (JIC). One of the least
known of U.S. intelligence organizations that emerged during World
War II, the JIC survived well into the late 1950s despite the reor-
ganization of U.S. intelligence in 1947 and the establishment of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Officially established on 11
February 1942, the JIC, like its British cousin, produced intelligence
reports for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and “higher authorities”
of the United States. Reporting to the JCS’s Joint Planning Staff, this
agency initially contained representation from the coordinator of in-
formation (COI)—predecessor to the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS)—although there was concern that civilian representation in a
military organization would set a dangerous precedent. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its director, J. Edgar Hoover,
were specifically excluded from sitting on the JIC.106 • JOINT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE05-398 (2) Dictionary.qxd 10/20/05 6:27 AM Page 106