The Key West Agreement
The Key West Agreement (1948) was a major step toward composing differences between the military services over their respective roles and missions.The immediate purpose was to reconcile the inconsistent treatment of service functions in the National Security Act of 1947, which had unified the armed forces under the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense), and its companion Executive Order 9877. Two issues were uppermost: in regard to air power, whether the air force should share its strategic nuclear bombing function with the navy's carrier‐based aircraft; and in regard to ground forces, whether limitations urged by the army should be imposed on the size and capabilities of the Marine Corps.
Growing interservice friction over these issues prompted Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal to meet privately...
[The entire page is 374 words long]
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