Historical Studies
Air Force
SAF/AA
A History of tHe office of tHe AdministrAtive AssistAnt
to tHe secretAry of tHe Air force
PriscillA d. Jones And KennetH H. WilliAms
cover
An undated aerial view of the Pentagon from the Potomac River side, by TSgt. Andy Dunaway,
USAF. Library of Congress.
Air Force
Historical Studies
U.S. Air Force Historical Support Division
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
2019
SAF/AA
A History of tHe office of tHe AdministrAtive AssistAnt
to tHe secretAry of tHe Air force
Priscilla D. Jones
and
Kenneth H. Williams
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within
do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Air Force, the Department
of Defense, or the U.S. government. All documents and publications
quoted or cited have been declassied or originated as unclassied.
contents
PArt one
The Origins of the Oce of the Administrative
Assistant, 1947–1986
Kenneth H. Williams 1
PArt tWo
The Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the
Air Force: Goldwater-Nichols and Beyond
Priscilla D. Jones 23
sAf/AA orgAnizAtion tAbles 76
AdministrAtive AssistAnts to tHe
secretAries of tHe Air force
John J. McLaughlin
September 27, 1947 – October 4, 1963
Joseph P. Hochreiter (acting)
October 5, 1963 – February 16, 1964
John A. Lang Jr.
February 17, 1964 – August 18, 1971
Thomas W. Nelson (acting)
August 19, 1971 – September 28, 1971
Thomas W. Nelson
September 19, 1971 – January 11, 1980
Robert W. Crittenden (acting)
January 12, 1980 – August 24, 1980
Robert J. McCormick
August 25, 1980 – March 31, 1994
William A. Davidson (acting)
April 1, 1994 – June 14, 1994
William A. Davidson
June 15, 1994 – September 30, 2011
Timothy A. Beyland
October 1, 2011 – May 2, 2014
Patricia J. Zarodkiewicz
May 3, 2014 – Present
1
Part One
The Origins of the Ofce of the
Administrative Assistant, 1947-1986
Kenneth H. Williams
The roles and responsibilities of the Oce of the Administrative Assistant
to the Secretary of the Air Force have evolved exponentially since the rst
secretary, W. Stuart Symington Jr., established it. On September 27, 1947,
nine days after the founding of the service, Symington assigned twenty-
eight-year-old John J. McLaughlin, on an interim basis because there
was no funding for additional personnel, to coordinate “housekeeping”
services such as correspondence control and stang. This study outlines
the origins and development of the roles of the administrative assistant, the
oce that is known as SAF/AA, from the founding of the Air Force up to
the time of the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, better
known as Goldwater-Nichols.
1
When the National Security Act of 1947 (Public Law 253) created
the Air Force, the “new” service was not new at all, as the U.S. Army Air
Forces and its preceding iterations had existed for forty years. Neither was
the concept of an administrative assistant, as both the War Department and
the Department of the Army had oces with similar duties, which will be
discussed below. There was a tremendous amount to be done to transition
to an independent service—scheduled to take two years as the Army
passed responsibilities and facilities to the Air Force—but the key leaders
remained the same.
2
Symington, who had been assistant secretary of war
for air, became the rst secretary of the Air Force, and the commanding
general of the Army Air Forces, Gen. Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz, transitioned
to the role of Air Force chief of sta. Although President Harry S. Truman
The author thanks colleagues Jean A. Mansavage, Priscilla D. Jones, Yvonne A. Kinkaid, Helen T. Kiss,
and William C. Heimdahl (AF/HO retired) for their research and editorial contributions to this study.
1. “Housekeeping” quote from “History of the Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force from September
18, 1947, to June 30, 1950,” 2 vols., typescript, AF/HOH, 1:3 (hereafter OSAF history, 1947–50).
2. For a detailed study of the origins of an independent Air Force, see Herman S. Wolk, Planning
and Organizing the Postwar Air Force, 1943–1947 (Washington, DC: Oce of Air Force History,
1984). According to Wolk (pp. 203–4), as of September 1947, the Oce of the Secretary of the Air
Force “inherited solely those functions of the Secretary of the Army as were then assigned to or
under the control of the Commanding General, Army Air Forces. Over two years the Secretary of
Defense was authorized to assign to the Department of the Air Force such other responsibilities of
the Department of the Army as he deemed necessary or desirable, and to transfer from the Army
appropriate installations, personnel, property, and records.” This book (pp. 275–92) also contains the
full text of the National Security Act of 1947.
2
had to formally appoint Symington to the newly created position, Secretary
of War Robert P. Patterson had put Symington on notice in April 1946 that
he would be overseeing the transition to an independent Air Force if one
did come to pass.
3
There were many new challenges for the Air Force secretariat as of
September 1947, as it had to build its own headquarters support sta and
infrastructure and choose how much it would continue to follow Army and
Army Air Forces protocols. One of Symington’s formative decisions was
to continue the division of labor between operations and administrative
support that had evolved under Robert A. Lovett while Lovett was assistant
secretary of war for air in the early 1940s. Symington and Spaatz reached
an understanding that Symington would be the public spokesman for the
Air Force in interactions with Congress and the president but that he and
his sta would not be directly involved in operational details.
4
Truman had summoned Symington into government service in
1945 from Emerson Electric, where Symington had been company
president. Symington brought business acumen to the job as well as
experience with the military acquisitions process, as Emerson Electric
had manufactured gun turrets for bombers during World War II. In fact,
Symington had rst met Truman when then-Senator Truman (D-Mo.) led
an investigation of Emerson’s contracting practices. The Senate committee
cleared Emerson, but from the process, Symington gained an understanding
of how Congress viewed acquisitions, as well as a champion in Truman,
who asked Symington to head the Surplus Property Board the same week
Truman became president in April 1945.
5
To understand how the roles of the Oce of the Administrative
Assistant originated and initially evolved, one must appreciate how
business-oriented the founding Air Force leadership was. Symington had
served as president of a manufacturing company and believed strongly in
scientic management and eciency principles. Arthur S. Barrows, the
rst under secretary of the Air Force, had recently retired as president of
3. James C. Olson, Stuart Symington: A Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003),
87. There is some indication that even though the rst secretary of defense, James V. Forrestal, was
a long-time friend of Symington’s that Symington was not his rst choice to be secretary of the
Air Force. Truman overruled Forrestal and appointed the fellow Missourian. Wolk, Planning and
Organizing the Postwar Air Force, 178, 183.
4. Warren A. Trest and George M. Watson Jr., “Framing Air Force Missions,” in Winged Shield,
Winged Sword: A History of the United States Air Force, ed. Bernard C. Nalty (Washington, DC: Air
Force History and Museums Program, 1997), 1:400; George G. Watson Jr., The Oce of the Secretary
of the Air Force, 1947–1965 (Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1993), 53. Watson’s
book is the authoritative study of the origins and development of the Oce of the Secretary. The only
administrative assistant Watson mentions, however, is John McLaughlin, who served for most of the
period covered in the book.
5. Olson, Symington, 50–59.
3
Sears, Roebuck and Company, one of the leading retailers in the United
States. Symington had known Barrows since the early 1930s. Assistant
Secretary Cornelius Vanderbilt “Sonny” Whitney, scion of two prominent
American industrial families and a cousin of Symington’s wife, had founded
a mining company, provided signicant initial investment in the company
that became Pan American World Airways, and backed everything from
movies—including Gone with the Wind—to thoroughbreds. Whitney had
own in both world wars and had served on Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s
sta during World War II as a colonel in the Army Air Forces. The other
assistant secretary was Eugene M. Zuckert, who had degrees from Yale
Law School and Harvard Business School, where he had taught. Zuckert
had worked as an assistant to Symington at the Surplus Property Board
and while Symington was assistant secretary of war for air.
6
There is signicant information available on these men of prominence
Symington assembled to mold the Air Force like a business.
7
Much less is
known about John McLaughlin, a young man from Brooklyn, New York,
to whom these senior leaders turned to manage the nuts and bolts of their
everyday administrative duties. McLaughlin would become one of the
most vital threads of cohesion and continuity in the secretary’s oce, as
he served sixteen years as the rst administrative assistant to the secretary.
McLaughlin was born in 1919 and came to Washington in January 1940
for a civilian job in personnel with the Army Air Corps. He served with
the Navy on a submarine in the Pacic during World War II and returned
to his post with the Army Air Forces after the conict. On September 27,
1947, nine days after Symington took oce, the new secretary detailed
McLaughlin, on an interim basis, to oversee what were described as
“housekeeping” services.
8
The concept of an administrative assistant was not a new one for
the sta transitioning from what had been the War Department to the
6. Trest and Watson, “Framing Air Force Missions,” 1:400; Olson, Symington, 123; Joseph Durso,
“C. V. Whitney, Horseman and Benefactor, Dies at 93,” New York Times, December 14, 1992; Richard
Pearson, “Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert Dies,” Washington Post, June 6, 2000.
7. For Symington’s eorts to run the Air Force like a business, see in particular Wyndham Eric Whynot,
“Architect of a Modern Air Force: W. Stuart Symington’s Role in the Institutional Development of the
National Defense Establishment, 1946–1950” (PhD diss., Kent State University, 1997). Symington’s
signature phrase during the early days of the Air Force was “management control through cost control.”
Eugene Zuckert later conceded that “I never knew what it meant,” although he thought the saying
was “very shrewd, because he [Symington] was attempting to build the businesslike image of the Air
Force.” The early organizational charts even listed “Management Control” and “Cost Control” as
areas of responsibility for Zuckert as assistant secretary. Eugene M. Zuckert, interview with George
M. Watson Jr., December 3, 4, 5, 9, 1986, typescript, AF/HOH, 18–19 (hereafter Zuckert interview);
Jacob Neufeld, comp., Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force Organizational and Functional Charts,
1947–1984 (Washington, DC: Oce of Air Force History, 1985).
8. “John J. McLaughlin Dies; Aide to AF Secretaries,” Washington Post, April 18, 1972;
OSAF history, 1947–50, 1:3.
4
Department of the Air Force. There had been a similar position in the
Oce of the Secretary of War since its establishment in 1782, and one
had evolved in the Oce of the Secretary of the Army as well. By World
War II, the administrative assistant for the Army was overseeing records
management, personnel, contingency spending, civilian medical treatment,
printing, and procurement and accounting within the secretariat.
9
McLaughlin had to be detailed on interim status because the National
Security Act made no provision to pay new personnel. The Air Force
reached agreement with the Army to transfer the full sta of what had been
the Oce of the Assistant Secretary of War for Air—eleven civilians and
four ocers—to the Air Force and to fund the positions for the rest of scal
year 1948. With no budget for any additional billets, Secretary Symington
sought help from General Spaatz, who allocated Air Sta funds to meet
the initial civilian stang needs. Phased transfer of more personnel from
the Department of the Army also began over subsequent months.
10
With at least some personnel funding nally in place, Symington
regularized the Air Force’s new position of administrative assistant
on December 14, 1947. At that time, McLaughlin had a staff of three
civilians, one ocer, and one warrant ocer. In addition to the Oce of
the Administrative Assistant, Symington also established the oces of the
general counsel, legislative liaison, and information services.
11
During Symington’s tenure as secretary, the administrative assistant’s
oce reported directly to the secretary’s executive ocer, who for most
of the period was Brig. Gen. John B. Montgomery. The second secretary,
Thomas K. Finletter, made the Oce of the Administrative Assistant a
separate entity within the secretariat in October 1950, with the administrative
assistant reporting to the secretary through the under secretary.
12
9. Historical Support Branch, U.S. Army Center of Military History, “Quiet Service: A History
of the Functions of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, 1789–1988,”
unpublished typescript, n.d., AF/HOH, 1, 18–19. The Ocial Register of the United States does not
indicate that there was an administrative assistant position within the Oce of the Assistant Secretary
of War for Air. During World War II, there had been a Management Control oce under the Air
Sta that seems to have approximated several of the functions of what became the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant. Branches of the Management Control oce were Administrative Services,
Organizational Planning, Operations Analysis, Manpower, Statistical Control, and Air Adjutant
General. Military ocers headed all of these sections. Air Force, January 1944, 33.
10. U.S. Air Force, Report of the Secretary of the Air Force to the Secretary of Defense for the
Fiscal Year 1948 (1 July 1947–30 June 1948) (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Oce,
ca. 1948), 279–80.
11. Wolk, Planning and Organizing the Postwar Air Force, 185; OSAF history, 1947–50, 1:3–4, 10;
“History of the Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, September 18, 1947, through June 30, 1950,”
typescript, National Archives, RG 340, entry P5, box 5, p. 65 (hereafter OSAF history, 1947–50 [NA]).
12. “History of the Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, 1 July 1950–30 June 1951,” draft,
typescript, AF/HOH, 12, 23 (hereafter OSAF history, 1950–51); Neufeld, Oce of the Secretary of the
Air Force Organizational and Functional Charts; OSAF history, 1947–50 (NA), 62. Before Air Force
independence, while Symington was still assistant secretary of war for air, he had sent then-Colonel
Montgomery to the United Kingdom to meet with senior ocials of the Royal Air Force and learn from
their experience as an autonomous air service. Watson, Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, 47.
5
McLaughlin headed the Oce of the Administrative Assistant through
1963, serving seven secretaries of the Air Force, and was a signicant gure
in the formation and early development of the Air Force as an independent
service. Zuckert observed in a 1986 interview that McLaughlin was “a
darn good bureaucrat” who “knew where all the bodies were hidden.”
McLaughlin wrote in a 1962 article that in the late 1940s, a “small, closely knit
organization” managed the Department of the Air Force “with a minimum
of paperwork.” Secretary Symington emphasized four basic concepts:
functionality, exibility, decentralization, and simplicity. According to
McLaughlin, Symington had a “special ‘in the family’ camaraderie” with
General Spaatz and his successor, Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, that facilitated
coordination between the administrative and operational sides of the Air
Force. Nevertheless, Symington was a “dominant person,” as Zuckert put
it, and “everybody knew who was the boss.”
13
Symington assigned the Oce of the Administrative Assistant a couple
of signicant tasks from the very beginning that it continues to perform
to the present: management of personnel and space allocation within the
secretariat. As a 1950 history of the founding period put it, “Since all
secretariat oces were established and organized at approximately the
same time or at close intervals of each other, the problem of space and
manning was urgent for each oce.” Stang positions was challenging, as
many people, both civilians and reservists, who had worked in government
during World War II had gone back to their home states. Zuckert recalled
that “we had people coming into big jobs in Washington after the war who
had never served in a top headquarters in their life.”
14
Because of the lack of budgeting for personnel at the time of Air Force
independence, as noted above, a 1948 report by the secretariat stated that
“the interim policy of the Secretary provided for the initial manning of
each oce on an extreme austerity basis, and operating policy was limited
to those areas which could not be delegated to appropriate sections” of
the Air Sta. Symington gave preferential status to the Directorate of
Public Relations, the Air Force Personnel Council, and the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant. McLaughlin’s background in personnel was
invaluable, as the task for him and his colleagues was extensive. By the end
of the scal year on June 30, 1948, stang for the secretariat stood at 318,
a quantum leap in eight months from the initial fteen people. Of these,
13. “John J. McLaughlin Dies”; Zuckert interview, 7 (6th quote), 8 (5th quote), 32 (1st and 2d
quotes); John J. McLaughlin, “Organization of the Air Force: A Revolution in Management,” Air
University Quarterly Review 13, no. 3 (Spring 1962): 5 (3d and 4th quotes).
14. OSAF history, 1947–50 (NA), 65 (1st quote); Zuckert interview, 19 (2d quote). As the 1950
paper put it, “Perhaps the greatest achievement of this oce [of the Administrative Assistant] was the
laying out and equipping of the oces of the secretariat. Next, of course, was the procurement, training,
and placement of the personnel necessary to round out each oce.” OSAF history, 1947–50 (NA), 66.
6
121 (sixty-eight civilian, fty-three military) came in phased transfers of
billets from the Department of the Army as the Air Force began picking up
more of the responsibilities previously carried out by the Army Air Forces,
while 197 (114 civilian, eighty-three military) held newly lled positions.
All of these people had to have places to work, which made the task of
space management nearly as challenging as that of stang.
15
In an administrative history of the first ten years of Office of the
Secretary, Harry M. Zubko, a long-time employee of the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant best known as the compiler of Current News,
wrote in 1957 that at the time of Air Force independence, the service
had taken “a fresh approach to the organization of the Secretariat and to
the problem of providing civilian control in a military establishment.”
Unstated was that budgetary constraints left Symington and his small sta
little choice but to innovate. According to Zubko, “Unlike the Army or
Navy, whose civilian managers employed extensive backup organizations
to gather information on which to base their decisions, the Air Force
adopted a concept of providing civilian policy guidance, with the military
Air Sta performing the operational details, making backup studies, and
developing recommendations.”
16
As a result of this approach, the Air Force had the smallest sta among
the three service secretariats, but also blurred lines of responsibility. In a
much more candid piece that he wrote after he retired, Zubko recalled that
in the early years, the Oce of the Secretary had “all kinds of organizational
problems” while “trying to adjust its sta to get out from under the Army and
do the military things.” He observed that “there was a lot of confusion about
who was responsible for what.” The civilians had no roles in operational
aairs, while the military side “had some partial responsibility and a lot
of interest in administrative matters.” Zubko credited Assistant Secretary
Zuckert, who stayed with the oce until February 1952, with working out
the “original ground rules” and soothing tensions among senior ocials
in the secretariat and on the Air Sta. Nevertheless, confusion about roles
and responsibilities continued well into the 1950s, issues that led to a
McLaughlin-directed study discussed below.
17
As McLaughlin and his small sta tried to gure out personnel and
space allocation puzzles in the early days of Air Force independence,
15. Report of the Secretary of the Air Force to the Secretary of Defense for the Fiscal Year 1948,
280–81.
16. “Administrative History of the Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force,” typescript, draft by
Harry M. Zubko, August 28, 1957, AF/HOH, p. 1 (hereafter OSAF history, 1957).
17. Harry M. Zubko, “Historical Notes Highlight Pentagon Players—Part 3,” Foresights and
Hindsights from Harry, June 22, 2017, http://foresightsandhindsights.blogspot.com/2017/06/historical-
notes-highlight-pentagon.html.
7
Secretary Symington assigned the Oce of the Administrative Assistant
another signicant function that it has continued to oversee to the present:
budgeting for the administration of contingency funds. McLaughlin
submitted his rst budget for the secretariat in November 1947, a document
that outlined spending for scal year 1949.
18
Another important duty for the Oce of the Administrative Assistant
was to coordinate paperwork. Maj. Robert W. Endsley, the rst deputy
administrative assistant, set up the Correspondence Control Branch to
maintain records across the secretariat and develop suspense follow-
up procedures. The operation began with only two mail clerks. The
branch received ocial status in December 1947 within the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant and employed six civilians.
19
The Oce of the Administrative Assistant also established a
central repository for classified documents, the Top Secret Control
Oce, in October 1947. The unit monitored all incoming and outgoing
correspondence of high classication and maintained special les for the
secretary’s use. The secretariat transferred the Top Secret Control Oce
from the administrative assistant to the executive oce in April 1949, but
the function reverted to the administrative assistant in 1951 in the form of
the Document Control Branch.
20
After President Truman approved the Air Force seal on November
1, 1947, Secretary Symington designated the administrative assistant
as custodian of the emblem. He charged McLaughlin’s office with
establishing regulations and procedures for its use and with axing the seal
to department documents as required. The seal’s rst ocial use occurred
on December 18, 1947, when McLaughlin axed it to the commissions of
Barrows, Whitney, and Zuckert.
21
With the Oce of the Administrative Assistant formally established
in December 1947, McLaughlin brought in a team of management experts
to review the component oces to determine their requirements. A study
conducted in January 1948 resulted in the Oce of the Administrative
Assistant organizing into the following branches: Supply, Civilian
Personnel, Military Personnel, Correspondence, and Oce Services. The
oce also had a mess ocer and a special projects ocer. The mess ocer
was the originator of what became known as Air Force Mess Number
18. OSAF history, 1947–50 (NA), 65.
19. Ibid.
20. OSAF history, 1947–50, 1:10–11.
21. Report of the Secretary of the Air Force to the Secretary of Defense for the Fiscal Year 1948,
282–83; OSAF history, 1947–50, 1:2–3, 11. Truman had named Symington, Barrows, Whitney,
and Zuckert on recess appointments in September, and the Senate did not formally approve their
nominations until December. Watson, Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, 53.
8
One, now the Air Force Executive Dining Facility. As of 1948, the Oce
of the Administrative Assistant had an authorized strength of thirty-nine
civilians, four ocers, and seven enlisted airmen. At that time, however, it
had only been able to hire sixteen civilians.
22
The Oce of the Administrative Assistant functioned with these
branches for a year and half before McLaughlin reorganized the sta
in October 1949 to better meet the needs of the secretariat as they had
developed. Civilian and military personnel consolidated into a single
Personnel Branch, and the Supply Branch became the Services Branch,
which was responsible for supplies and communications. McLaughlin
eliminated the Oce Services Branch and parceled its functions between
the Personnel Branch and the newly created Management Branch. The
Management Branch reviewed and analyzed procedural problems within
the secretariat and produced studies as assigned on issues of budget,
personnel, and space allocation. At the time of the restructuring, the
Management Branch consisted of six civilians and one ocer.
23
When Thomas Finletter succeeded Symington as secretary of the Air
Force in April 1950, reorganization of the secretariat extended to the Oce
of the Administrative Assistant, which consolidated functions into three
branches: Management, Administrative Services, and Correspondence
Control. Administrative Services took on the personnel duties as well as
the budgeting of contingency funds. At the end of June 1950, total stang
for the Oce of the Administrative Assistant stood at fty-three civilians,
two ocers, and three enlisted airmen.
24
The Korean War, which began the same month, prompted rapid
expansion of the Air Force, which more than doubled the size of its
military force within two years.
25
As noted above, Secretary Finletter
made the Oce of the Administrative Assistant a separate oce within
the secretariat in October 1950, and the office underwent ongoing
reorganization to meet the increasing needs of the secretariat and the
service, evolving into seven branches during 1951: Correspondence
Control, Administrative Services, Supply (which separated from
Administrative Services in May 1951), Management, Security (stood up
in August 1951), Document Security, and Air Force Mess Number One. In
one year, stang for the Oce of the Administrative Assistant increased
from fifty-eight to 128, with seventy-nine civilians, nine officers, and
22. OSAF history, 1947–50, 1:12–13.
23. Ibid., 1:13–14.
24. Ibid., 1:14.
25. From July 1950 to July 1952, the Air Force personnel limit increased from 416,000 to 1,061,000,
and the number of wings grew from forty-two (forty-eight authorized) to ninety-ve. Watson, Oce
of the Secretary of the Air Force, 117; McLaughlin, “Organization of the Air Force,” 6.
9
forty enlisted airmen as of June 1951. Finletter also expanded the scope
of responsibility for the Office of the Administrative Assistant in the
spring of 1951 when he assigned McLaughlin and his sta to be available
to advise the under secretary and the assistant secretaries on all matters
under their respective jurisdictions.
26
Although civilian and military personnel recruitment and training
remained together under the Administrative Services Branch, the branch
split civilian and military personnel into separate sections to better meet the
exigencies of wartime expansion. These two sections recruited and trained
personnel for the secretariat, processed military assignments, promotions,
and eectiveness reports, secured travel orders, and maintained personnel
records and rosters.
27
The Management Branch analyzed procedural problems in the secretariat
and recommended reallocation of responsibilities to better meet stang
needs with available personnel. The branch prepared mobilization stang
plans, developed a succession list for key civilian positions, reviewed the
delegation of powers and responsibilities within the secretariat, developed
informational and functional charts, and wrote policies, procedures, and
administrative directives.
28
The new Security Branch formalized several duties that had not been
permanently assigned. It authenticated security clearances across the
secretariat, conducted security training, and monitored compliance with
security instructions. Prior to the formation of the branch, the Oce of
the Air Provost Marshal had issued security clearances for the secretariat.
The Security Branch also formed and equipped a security guard force,
which numbered thirteen air police guards by March 1952, all enlisted
airmen. The Security Branch did not remain under the administrative
assistant for long, however, as the secretariat transferred it to the Air Sta
in 1952. Nevertheless, the Oce of the Administrative Assistant remained
responsible for “security services” within the secretariat and with advising
departments on security matters, although it did not have a branch devoted
to these issues again until the 1980s.
29
26. OSAF history, 1950–51, 23, 25; “History of the Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force from
April 1, 1951, to June 30, 1951,” 2 vols., 1:4, AF/HOH. It is interesting that so much reorganization
took place under Finletter, who Zuckert said was “not concerned with the business management of the
Air Force.” Zuckert interview, 8.
27. OSAF history, 1950–51, 24.
28. Ibid., 26.
29. OSAF history, 1950–51, 27–28; Department of the Air Force, “Department of the Air
Force Organization and Functions (Chartbook),” Headquarters Pamphlet 21-1, October 1960, vii
(quote) (hereafter Chartbook [date]); Office of the Secretary of the Air Force Key Personnel
Telephone Directory, January 22, 1952, p. 4; Department of Defense Telephone Directory,
December 1987, O-148. All directories cited here and below can be found in the AF/HOH library.
10
Air Force Mess Number One was a self-supporting mess that catered
to the secretary and under secretary of the Air Force, the Air Force Chief of
Sta, and their invited guests. The Oce of the Administrative Assistant
had a mess ocer from at least January 1948, and there seems to have
been a formal mess for the secretary by 1950. The mess expanded under
Secretary Finletter and had grown to a sta of twelve by mid-1952.
30
Reorganization continued in 1952, both within the Office of the
Administrative Assistant and across the secretariat. McLaughlin rolled
administrative functions into an Administrative Services Division, which
included the Personnel and Services Branch, the Supply and Equipment
Branch, and Air Force Mess Number One.
31
An Administrative Management Division briey existed for the rst
part of 1952. It included Correspondence Control, which McLaughlin
broke out as a separate division by September 1952; the Management
Branch, which remained as the Management Oce through mid-1953
before it disappeared, its functions absorbed by other oces; and the
Security Branch, which the secretariat transferred to the Air Sta in
1952, as noted.
32
As Correspondence Control became a division, it initially included a
Document Security Branch and a Correspondence Control Branch, which
became the Mail and Records Branch in 1953 and then separated into a
Mail Branch and a Records Branch in 1954. The secretariat transferred the
Document Security Branch to the Oce of the Air Adjutant General in
late 1953 or early 1954.
33
The secretariat had formally established the Special Projects Oce
in April 1949 under the Oce of the Special Military Assistant. Its initial
assignments were to prepare the annual report of the Oce of the Secretary
of the Air Force and provide research for the secretary. In February 1952,
Secretary Finkletter moved the Special Projects Oce to the Oce of
the Administrative Assistant. By 1955, Special Projects had become the
Research and Analysis Division.
34
At some point between 1952 and 1953, the secretariat moved the Air
Force Board for Correction of Military Records from the Oce of the
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Management) to the Oce of the
30. OSAF history, 1950–51, 30.
31. Secretary of the Air Force Key Personnel Telephone Directories, 1952–54.
32. Secretary of the Air Force Key Personnel Telephone Directories, 1951–53.
33. Secretary of the Air Force Key Personnel Telephone Directories, 1952–54; Department of
Defense Telephone Directory, April 1955, C–61.
34. John J. McLaughlin, Oce Memorandum 20-11, April 21, 1949, AF/HOH; McLaughlin, Oce
Memorandum 20-11, Supplement 1, February 20, 1952, AF/HOH; Secretary of the Air Force Key
Personnel Telephone Directories, 1950–54; Department of Defense Telephone Directory, April 1955, C–61.
11
Administrative Assistant. Whether this reassignment took place by order
of the new secretary of the Air Force, Harold E. Talbott, is unclear. Most
of the reorganization within the Oce of the Administrative Assistant
had already taken place before the inauguration of President Dwight
Eisenhower in January 1953. Talbott and his new under secretary and
assistant secretaries took oce in February.
35
The secretariat transferred the Air Force Printing Committee from
the Office of the Assistant Secretary (Materiel) to the Office of the
Administrative Assistant in February 1952. This department became
known as the Air Force Committee for the Improvement of Paperwork in
1955 but was back as the Printing Committee by 1959.
36
A new entity the secretariat placed under the Oce of the Administrative
Assistant in 1953 was the Air Force Civilian Attorney Qualifying Com-
mittee, which the Air Force had created a year earlier. This board of
civilian attorneys, appointed by the secretary of the Air Force, continues to
the present and approves the appointments, promotions, and assignments
of personnel in civilian attorney positions across the service. It remained
under the Oce of the Administrative Assistant for fteen years.
37
By 1952–53, the Oce of the Administrative Assistant had evolved
into the structure it would have for a quarter century. By 1955, the three
divisions had the names they would carry forward: Administrative Services,
Correspondence Control, and Research and Analysis. Names of the divisions
changed in the 1960s and 1970s, and branches under them came and went, but
the oce operated with three divisions quite similar to these that McLaughlin
constituted until the divisional structure began to dissolve in the late 1970s.
The Special Projects Oce was already gaining notice in expanding
circles by the time Secretary Finletter transferred it to the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant in 1952. The “special projects” started in early
1948 with one colonel who provided research for the secretary for speeches
and congressional testimony and wrote the rst yearly report for the Oce
35. Secretary of the Air Force Key Personnel Telephone Directories, 1950–53. The history Zubko
drafted in 1957 gave details on when the secretariat founded the board but did not note when it
came under the auspices of the Oce of the Administrative Assistant. Assistant Secretary Zuckert
established the board on November 30, 1948. On February 24, 1949, Secretary Symington conferred
the powers of the board to Zuckert that Transfer Order No. 23 had given Symington. This order had
transferred the function of correction of military records related to airmen from the Army to the Air
Force. OSAF history, 1957, 51–53.
36. Secretary of the Air Force Key Personnel Telephone Directories, 1952–54; Department of
Defense Telephone Directories, 1955–59.
37. Secretary of the Air Force Key Personnel Telephone Directory, July 20, 1953, 8; OSAF history,
1957, 53–54; Air Force Instruction 51-107, “Employment of Civilian Attorneys,” October 24, 2011, 7,
http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/af_a3_5/publication/a51-107/a_51-107.pdf. Prior to
the establishment of this committee, a joint committee with members from the Army and the Air Force
had carried out these functions. OSAF history, 1957, 53.
12
of the Secretary. A second colonel joined the operation in the fall of 1948,
and the secretariat formalized the Special Projects Oce in April 1949
under the Oce of the Executive Assistant. The oce began keeping les
on key national defense subjects and personalities and initiated a small
clippings service for Secretary Symington, an operation that blossomed
when the ocers hired a civilian, Harry Zubko, in 1950 to take over the
duties. Zubko reviewed newspaper coverage each morning of Air Force-
and national security-related matters and briefed Secretary Finletter. He
expanded the clippings le with an edition for General Vandenberg as
well. Soon, the other members of the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of
defense wanted copies, and Finletter assigned Zubko a couple of enlisted
airmen to help with the expanding task. One was MSgt. Amabel Earley,
who became the namesake of the “Early Bird” morning edition. Within a
few years, their Current News, initially a mimeographed newsletter, was
going all over the Pentagon and beyond, reaching a circulation of 20,000
by the time Zubko retired in 1986. For many years, Zubko also wrote
the annual report for the Air Force.
38
Even as McLaughlin was reorganizing the Oce of the Administrative
Assistant in the early 1950s to meet the evolving needs of the secretariat, he
feared that expansion of the Oce of the Secretary was getting out of hand
and creating a heavier workload for many, including his sta. McLaughlin
put his concerns into a memorandum for Assistant Secretary Zuckert in
January 1952. One issue was the growing number of deputies within the
secretariat. At that time, Zuckert had six, the other assistant secretary had
two, and a special assistant had two. According to McLaughlin, the deputy
positions decentralized operations that could be handled more eciently
through his office, caused problems with communications, created
overlapping responsibilities, and risked the rise of small administrative
empires within the secretariat.
39
There was a fair amount of turnover in the Oce of the Secretary of
the Air Force during the 1950s as Donald A. Quarles, James H. Douglas Jr.,
and Dudley C. Sharp followed Finletter and Talbott in relatively short terms
as secretary. There was also restructuring across the Pentagon with the
Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 and its implementation
in 1959. These developments had little immediate impact on the Oce of
38. John J. McLaughlin, Oce Memorandum 20-11, April 21, 1949, AF/HOH; McLaughlin,
“Special Projects Oce,” memorandum, July 27, 1951, AF/HOH; Harry M. Zubko, “Historical
Notes Highlight Pentagon Players—Parts 1–3,” Foresights and Hindsights from Harry, http://
foresightsandhindsights.blogspot.com/2017/06/; Richard Scheinin, “Harry Zubkoff and His
Pentagon Papers,” Washington Journalism Review, March 1985, 34–35, https://www.cia.gov/library/
readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00845R000100200001-4.pdf.
39. Watson, Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, 167.
13
the Administrative Assistant, however, which kept the same structure and
primary functions outlined above through the rest of the decade.
40
McLaughlin had anticipated further Defense reorganization under
President Eisenhower and had lobbied as early as May 1953 for a study
of the responsibilities of the secretariat and the Air Sta. Many in the
secretariat had complained for years about what Air Force historian George
M. Watson Jr. called “the lack of clear authority lines.” Watson noted that
“growing confusion frustrated workings between the OSAF [Oce of the
Secretary of the Air Force] and the Air Sta and had damaging eects on
specic areas such as procurement.” It took three years after McLaughlin’s
rst suggestion, however, until Secretary Quarles approved such a study.
41
McLaughlin and his sta completed “The Secretary of the Air Force-
Air Staff Relationship Study” in October 1956. It found significant
disagreement about roles and responsibilities of the secretariat and the Air
Sta, even within each oce. Secretary Quarles formed a study group to
follow up on the survey, but it had little success nding common ground.
As Watson observed, the 1956 study had “identied a disease, but not a
cure. However, by airing complaints, it allowed many oces within both
the OSAF and the Air Sta the opportunity to recognize that they shared
similar problems.” The root of many of them was the increasing power
and reach of the Oce of the Secretary of Defense, an issue exacerbated
by the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 but not of full-
measure impact until the 1960s.
42
The election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 brought a founding
executive back to the secretariat: Eugene Zuckert, who took office as
Kennedy’s secretary of the Air Force in January 1961. Faced with not
only the growing power of the Department of Defense but also with a
strong and often inexible secretary of defense in Robert S. McNamara,
Zuckert longed for a return to the days when more authority had rested
in the hands of the service secretaries, as had existed when he worked
for Secretary Symington. Zuckert had McLaughlin and his sta draft an
article for Air University Quarterly Review that outlined a “revolution
in management” of the Air Force that pointed back to the earlier model.
40. For an account of the functions of the Oce of the Administrative Assistant as for 1957, see
OSAF history, 1957, 47–54. As for the impact of the legislation, George Watson wrote that “the OSAF
under Secretaries Douglas and Sharp did not appear to be radically aected by the 1958 Defense
Reorganization Act. The Air Secretary’s power was dwindling to be sure, but there was no tyrannical
hand within the OSD [Oce of the Secretary of Defense] making life any more uncomfortable than it
had been for Secretary Quarles. The nal evaluation and implementation of the two reorganization acts
of the 1950s would be left to the next administration’s Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara.”
Watson, Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, 202–3.
41. Watson, Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, 167–68.
42. Ibid., 168–74 (quote, 174).
14
The draft of the article bore Zuckert’s name, but it appeared in print in
1962 under McLaughlin’s.
43
All was not well between the former colleagues, however, and
disagreements boiled over in 1963. According to Zuckert, McLaughlin
was “doing all sorts of crazy things,” which the secretary attributed to the
administrative assistant becoming “mentally disturbed, or an alcoholic, or
both.” McLaughlin made a threat on Zuckert’s life, one Zuckert took so
seriously that he had security guard his house that night. Zuckert conceded
that “I stuck with him too long,” but after this incident, McLaughlin had to
go. In October 1963, the Air Force lost the only administrative assistant in
its sixteen-year history. McLaughlin’s deputy, Joseph P. Hochreiter, served
as acting administrative assistant until February 1964.
44
Despite the unfortunate end to McLaughlin’s career, his inuence on
the Office of the Administrative Assistant was profound. He launched
and cultivated it, and the structure he developed for it in the early 1950s
remained in place long after he left civilian service with the Air Force.
Secretary Zuckert lled the administrative assistant position from the
Air Sta, naming John A. Lang Jr., who had been the deputy for Reserve
and ROTC aairs, to replace McLaughlin. Lang was a North Carolina
native, born in 1910. He had enlisted in the Army Air Forces as a private
in 1942 and was a major when he left active duty in 1946. Lang accepted a
commission in the Air Force Reserve and rose to the rank of major general.
Before he joined the Air Sta in 1961, he had served on stas of several
U.S. congressmen between 1947 and 1961.
45
According to Zuckert, “everyone liked” Lang, who “represented
a calming inuence after McLaughlin.” Lang “had a lot of energy, and
people would work for and with him.” Zuckert said that he called Lang
“Magnolia Blossom” because of his “southern accent and that line of
bullshit he handed out.” He described Lang as “a good soldier” and also
as someone who “loved the Air Force; the Air Force was his passion.”
46
43. McLaughlin, “Organization of the Air Force,” 3. The draft listing Zuckert as the author is in the
les at AF/HOH. Whether Zuckert shifted authorship credit in appreciation of McLaughlin’s eort or
in an attempt to avoid direct responsibility for it in McNamara’s eyes is unknown. For McNamara’s
impact on the secretariat, see Watson, Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, 205–44; for Zuckert’s
frustrations about the limited power of the service secretaries by the time he was in oce, see Zuckert
interview, 3–19.
44. Zuckert interview, 32. McLaughlin’s obituary stated that he retired from his position
with the Air Force, although he was only forty-four years old at the time. McLaughlin died tragically
in 1972 from injuries sustained when he was hit and pinned by his own car while trying to stop it
from rolling out of his driveway. “John J. McLaughlin Dies.” According to Zubko, Zuckert red
McLaughlin. Elaine Blackman, “Harry’s Wrap of ’50s Pentagon Memories—Part 4,” Foresights and
Hindsights from Harry, June 29, 2017, http://foresightsandhindsights.blogspot.com/2017/06/harrys-
wrap-of-50s-pentagon-memories.html.
45. Lang ocial Air Force biography, AF/HOH.
46. Zuckert interview, 39.
15
The Research and Analysis Division of the Oce of the Administrative
Assistant grew during the 1960s, to a sta of twenty-eight by 1968.
A series of Air Force ocers continued to serve as division director,
as they had since the section’s inception. Harry Zubko recalled that
“every one of them was a sharp, intelligent, top-notch guy,” as all had
been hand-picked for the prestigious assignment of directly supporting
the secretary of the Air Force. The best known of these ocers was Col.
John L. Frisbee, who became editor of Air Force Magazine after he
retired from the service. Murray Green, the long-time civilian deputy
director, and Zubko provided continuity for the sta. In addition to
the Current News service, which expanded in the 1960s (see below),
the division’s primary focus remained writing and research support
for the secretariat, including the preparation of speeches and special
reports for the secretary of the Air Force, as well as the annual posture
statements for Congress. Green tracked public reaction to defense-
related issues, including the Vietnam War, for Zuckert’s successor,
Secretary Harold Brown.
47
The Research Branch of the Research and Analysis Division had its
tasks expanded in 1963 when Secretary McNamara designated the Air
Force as executive agent for the Department of Defense for dissemination
of military-related news stories. Prior to that time, the Joint Chiefs, the
Oce of the Secretary of Defense, and each service secretariat had its own
clippings service. McLaughlin had suggested consolidation of Pentagon
news gathering under the Air Force as early as 1953, but it took a decade
before anyone acted on the idea. With McNamara’s designation, Current
News and the “Early Bird” edition circulated more widely in the Pentagon
and to other government agencies, extending the responsibilities of branch
head Zubko and his small sta.
48
47. File of correspondence concerning the presentation of the Legion of Merit to Lt. Col. Larry J.
Larsen, IRIS no. 01097707, Air Force Historical Research Agency (AF/HRA), Maxwell Air Force
Base, AL; Blackman, “Harry’s Wrap of ’50s Pentagon Memories—Part 4” (quote); “John Frisbee dies
at 83,” Washington Post, August 31, 2000; “Murray Green, 86, Analyst, Historian for the Air Force,”
Baltimore Sun, October 26, 2002.
48. John J. McLaughlin, memorandum for Under Secretary James H. Douglas Jr., April 1, 1953, AF/
HOH; James H. Douglas Jr., memorandum for John J. McLaughlin, April 2, 1953, AF/HOH; Elaine
Blackman, “Dad’s Advice on Reading and Speeding it Up (and Why JFK Called Him on It),” June 20,
2015, Foresights and Hindsights from Harry, http://foresightsandhindsights.blogspot.com/2015/06/
dads-advice-on-reading-and-speeding-it.html; Scheinin, “Zubko and His Pentagon Papers,” 35.
The oce had authority as executive agent for national security news analysis under Department
of Defense Directive 5160.52. According to those who knew both men, there was a long-standing
professional rivalry between Murray Green and Zubko. The Scheinin article has Green taking credit
for overseeing Current News until his retirement in 1970, which he technically did as deputy director
of the division, but by all accounts, Zubko ran the operation from its inception. Several articles
support this point; see for example “A Pentagon Newspaper Consisting of Clippings,” New York
Times, July 6, 1983.
16
Secretary McNamara brought Zubko and his clippings service to the
attention of senior ocials at the White House, particularly McGeorge
Bundy, the special assistant for national security aairs, and Pierre E.
Salinger, the president’s press secretary. Salinger called Zubko regularly
to ask him to look for various items in the publications he reviewed, and
Zubko began sending Salinger several dozen articles a day for the press
secretary to share with President Kennedy. One day Salinger phoned
Zubko and put Kennedy on the line. “These articles you send me, do you
read them all yourself?” the president asked. When Zubko said that he
did, Kennedy asked him how fast he read, stating that he had a hard time
keeping up with all the news clippings in addition to everything else he
had to review. Zubko asked the president if he wanted him to cut back on
the number of articles he was sending. “No, no,” Kennedy replied, “I just
want to be sure that you suer as much as I do. Keep it coming.”
49
The increased visibility brought more assignments. Zubko said that many
times across his career, senior staers asked for his oce to prepare position
papers for secretaries of defense and even presidents, and on occasion he drafted
national security sections of presidential speeches. After the assassinations of
Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, President Lyndon B.
Johnson formed the U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention
of Violence, chaired by Milton S. Eisenhower. According Zubko, his oce
was “deeply involved” in the commission’s study.
50
In the 1960s, the secretariat also became engaged in a project that
had a much lower public prole; in fact, the federal government did not
acknowledge the existence of the National Reconnaissance Oce (NRO)
until 1992.
51
President Eisenhower approved formation of the NRO in
August 1960 to coordinate Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency
space reconnaissance efforts. Joseph V. Charyk, the under secretary
of the Air Force, became dual-hatted as the rst director of the NRO,
reporting directly to Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates Jr. on NRO
matters.
52
When the Kennedy administration came into oce in January
1961, McNamara informed Zuckert that Charyk would remain the under
secretary. As Zuckert put it, Charyk was “cognizant of a lot of things
which McNamara felt would be very hard to transfer to someone else,
49. Blackman, “Dad’s Advice on Reading and Speeding it Up.”
50. Elaine Blackman, “Letter to Professors Shed More Light on Harry’s Life,” September 8, 2016,
Foresights and Hindsights from Harry, http://foresightsandhindsights.blogspot.com/2016/09/letters-
to-professors-shed-more-light.html.
51. “Out of the Black: The Declassication of the NRO,” National Security Archive, September 18,
2008, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB257/index.htm.
52. Robert L. Perry, Management of the National Reconnaissance Program, 1960–1965 (1969;
repr., Washington, DC: National Reconnaissance Oce, 1999), 13–15.
17
such as the ‘black programs.’”
53
With the exception of just a couple of
periods, the under secretaries of the Air Force remained the directors of
the NRO through 1986.
54
The Oce of the Administrative Assistant became the conduit for Air
Force involvement with the NRO. Air Force personnel, both military and
civilian, who worked in the “black world,” as it came to be known, were
ocially assigned to the Oce of the Administrative Assistant. As William
A. Davidson Jr., who became the administrative assistant in 1994, later put
it, “The original part of [SAF/AA] working ‘black programs’ starts with the
NRO relationship, and trying to act as the cover mechanism for that so they
could legitimize all the activities that would occur.” According to Davidson,
“They used to call it the ‘Green Door,’ which was special assignments
anywhere; it covered assignments if we didn’t want someone to know who
the people were. If you were out on cover with some other agency, you’d
get assigned through that process, and they’d ensure you were taken care
of.” The military assistant in the Oce of the Administrative Assistant and
his executive ocer coordinated much of this activity.
55
As the oce’s portfolio expanded, Lang undertook some minor
reorganization of the Oce of the Administrative Assistant in 1965–66
that had more to do with streamlining than with extensive changes of
function. Administrative Support became the Management Division, while
Correspondence Control transitioned to become the Executive Support
Division. Research and Analysis remained as it was, printing moved under
Executive Support, and the Air Force Board for Correction of Military
Records and the Air Force Civilian Attorney Qualifying Committee
remained separate offices that reported directly to Lang. In 1968, the
secretariat placed the Board for Correction of Military Records under
the Oce of the Assistant Secretary (Manpower and Reserve Aairs)
and made the Civilian Attorney Qualifying Committee a separate entity,
associated with other committees and boards.
56
The Department of the Air Force publication of “Organizations
and Functions” (Chartbook) as of December 1969 stated that the Oce
of the Administrative Assistant was “responsible for management and
administration” of the Oce of the Secretary. The rst of several specic
duties listed was administering contingency funds, followed by “developing
53. Zuckert interview, 19.
54. Charyk, Brockway McMillan, John L. McLucas, James W. Plummer, Hans M. Mark, and Edward C.
“Pete” Aldridge Jr. all served concurrently as under secretary and director of the NRO. “NRO Directors,”
National Reconnaissance Oce, http://www.nro.gov/history/csnr/leaders/directors/index.html.
55. William A. Davidson Jr., interview with Priscilla D. Jones and Kenneth H. Williams, February
26, 2018, AF/HOH (hereafter Davidson interview).
56. Department of Defense Telephone Directories, 1966–68.
18
and maintaining the continuity of the operations plan” for the secretariat.
The next item the Chartbook highlighted was the Defense-wide clippings
and news service, which continued to have the formal agency McNamara
had given it, under the guidance of the Oce of the Assistant Secretary
of Defense (Public Aairs). Other duties included control of the Air
Force order system; coordinating Air Force responses to questions from
the White House and the Oce of the Secretary of Defense; reviewing
“miscellaneous claims against the Air Force,” including those under the
Military Claims Act, and announcing the decisions for the secretary; and
custody and control of the Air Force Seal, which the oce had maintained
since 1947. After Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act in 1967,
the secretariat placed the Oce of the Administrative Assistant in charge
of reviewing FOIA requests involving the Air Force and announcing the
decisions of the secretary.
57
Thomas W. Nelson joined the Oce of the Administrative Assistant
around the time of the reorganization in 1966 as chief of the newly constituted
Management Division. He became the acting deputy administrative
assistant in 1969, the permanent deputy in 1970, and followed Lang as
the administrative assistant when Lang retired in 1971. Nelson had been
born in Idaho in 1921, received the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart while
serving in the Army as an enlisted man during World War II, and had begun
working as a civilian in personnel for the Air Force in 1948.
58
Nelson oversaw more reorganization in the rst part of the 1970s as the
Executive Support Division became the Administrative Systems Division.
The Oce of the Administrative Assistant also opened what it labeled the
Executive Agency Service department, with Zubko dual-hatted as the
head of this area as well as Research and Analysis. The latter division by
this stage was fully focused on news gathering and dissemination, while the
military-staed component that previously had been under Research and
Analysis moved to the Executive Agency Service as the Policy Analysis
Group. This section continued to write speeches and presentations for the
secretary, as well as reports for Congress. Zubko himself was a point
person for both the news and the research sides of the operation. People
from the secretariat, the Air Sta, and other areas of the Pentagon came to
him when someone needed information on a subject quickly. Zubko had
the les, institutional memory, and connections to get questions answered.
59
57. Chartbook, December 31, 1969, 12 (dated August 1968); “Oce of the Secretary of the Air
Force,” Air Force Fact Sheet 75–18, October 1975, 7–8.
58. Nelson ocial Air Force biography, AF/HOH. Upon his retirement, Lang took a senior admin-
istrative position at East Carolina University. Zuckert interview, 39.
59. Department of Defense Telephone Directories, 1971–75; Davidson interview. Henry A.
Kissinger, who had served with Zubko in a U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps unit during World
War II, got Zubko to let his researchers use Zubko’s les as they helped Kissinger prepare the
volumes of his memoirs. Scheinin, “Zubko and His Pentagon Papers,” 34.
19
During this period, the secretariat was “pretty casual,” according to
William Davidson, and the Office of the Administrative Assistant was
“fairly laid back.” The secretariat as a whole was only around 320 people.
Unlike during the 1950s when there was overlap and confusion about
roles between the secretariat and the Air Sta, by the 1970s, “the two
stas operated totally independently,” Davidson recalled. “It was literally
completely divided, except at the very top.”
60
When Nelson retired in January 1980, his deputy, Robert W.
Crittenden, became the acting administrative assistant. At some point
around this transition period, Antonia Handler Chayes, the under secretary
of the Air Force, led an internal study that concluded that the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant should be abolished, with its functions parceled
across the secretariat. Secretary Hans M. Mark disagreed with Chayes’s
nding but understood that he would have to bring in someone from the
outside to institute reforms.
61
Mark had known Robert L. McCormick since McCormick had been the
executive ocer for the assistant secretary for research and development
in the early 1970s. When McCormick, an Iowa native who rose to the rank
of colonel in the Air Force, retired from active duty in 1975, Mark had
helped him get hired in a senior administrative position with the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, where Mark worked at the time as
director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. In August 1980, Mark brought
McCormick to the secretariat as the new administrative assistant.
62
Davidson, who came to the Oce of the Administrative Assistant
in 1983 as a military executive ocer, described McCormick as “pretty
intense and very organized,” a change for a sta used to a slower pace
under Nelson. McCormick transferred Crittenden and brought in new
people to oversee several areas, including personnel and the mess.
“Those types of things got changed,” Davidson recalled, “not necessarily
organizational structures,” as McCormick sought to make the operation
“more professional.”
63
There was room for organizational innovation because the divisional
architecture that John McLaughlin had developed for the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant three decades earlier was breaking down by the
time McCormick took oce. Most of the authority had shifted from the
divisional level to various branches, several of which had become little
efdoms. The oce continued to perform the same functions, but by 1982,
the formal structure under three divisions was gone. When McCormick
60. Davidson interview.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.; McCormick ocial Air Force biography, AF/HOH.
63. Davidson interview. Al C. Sisneros, who McCormick hired, ran what became the executive
dining facility for nearly thirty years.
20
oversaw reorganization in 1987 as the Air Force began implementing
the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the new hierarchy for the Office of the
Administrative Assistant was built around branches, not divisions.
64
In terms of personnel, the largest of the efdoms was what had become
known as the News Clipping and Analysis Service. McCormick and
Zubko already knew each other from McCormick’s tour in the secretariat
in the early 1970s and became “very close,” according to Davidson.
McCormick encouraged expansion of the oce’s publications and of
their dissemination. Zubko also had a direct relationship with Caspar
Weinberger, who became secretary of defense in 1981. Like nearly all the
senior leaders during the period, Weinberger awaited delivery of the news
summary every morning. “We used to call it ‘management by the Early
Bird,’” Davidson recalled, as the senior executives read the newsletter
while on the way to the oce “so they knew what their work was going to
be,” what issues were the most pressing.
65
In fact, embarrassing stories about activities of another service
prompted what became the most signicant change in the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant during this period. An Army secret operation in
the early 1980s known as Yellow Fruit, which supported the Contras in
Nicaragua and included some of the early money-laundering activities
related to those of the Iran-Contra scandal, had been the subject of an
internal Pentagon investigation for two years when news of Yellow Fruit
reached the press in 1985.
66
With the Air Force determined to avoid
similar irregularities and scandal with its “black programs,” the under
secretary, Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge Jr., who was also director of the
NRO, asked Davidson to undertake “a study and build an oversight
mechanism that would ensure that the Air Force wouldn’t run into those
kinds of problems.” Davidson’s background was with the Oce of Special
Investigations, and he had been detailed to the NRO in the 1970s as its
chief of polygraph, so he had a good understanding of its organization
and security apparatus. Davidson was due to rotate out of the Oce of the
Administrative Assistant to another military assignment, but Aldridge told
64. Department of Defense Telephone Directories, 1980–87; Davidson interview.
65. Davidson interview (quotes); McCormick nomination for Federal Executive of the Year, 1984,
courtesy of William A. Davidson Jr.; James Burton, The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old
Guard (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993), 95–96; Scheinin, “Zubko and His Pentagon
Papers,” 33.
66. Caryle Murphy and Charles R. Babcock, “Army’s Covert Role Scrutinized,” Washington
Post, November 29, 1985; Je Gerth, “Pentagon Linking Secret Army Unit to Contra Money,” New
York Times, April 22, 1987; Michael Smith, Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America’s Most Secret
Special Operations Team (New York: St. Martin’s, 2006), 110–17; William M. LeoGrande, Our Own
Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1998), 385–87.
21
him that he would be staying and standing up the new program. Newly
promoted Colonel Davidson became head of the Department for Security
and Investigative Programs (SAF/AAZ). Upon retirement from the service
in 1990, Davidson became the deputy administrative assistant, and he
succeeded McCormick as administrative assistant in 1994.
67
As Air Force involvement in classified programs grew, so did the
complexity of tracking the funding for them. The Oce of the Administrative
Assistant had been in charge of the service’s contingency funds since the
founding of the Air Force, but McCormick instituted expanded controls
and ordered regular audits. His system of safeguards became a model for
other areas of the Air Force and across the Department of Defense.
68
From its interim status in 1947 through the rst four decades of the Air
Force, the Oce of the Administrative Assistant emerged as an integral part
of the operation of the service. Its greatest power came to rest in its control
of contingency funds, but its inuence through the array of services that
came under its auspices grew wider as years passed, even more so as the
“black programs” expanded. The oce’s most widely known operation,
the news and clippings service, continued for several years after Zubko’s
retirement in 1986 but eventually transitioned to the public aairs oce of
the Department of Defense and has since ceased.
67. Davidson interview (quote); Davidson ocial Air Force biography, AF/HOH.
68. McCormick nomination for Federal Executive of the Year, 1984.
23
The Administrative Assistant to the
Secretary of the Air Force:
Goldwater-Nichols and Beyond
Priscilla D. Jones
Part two
introduction
Since the establishment of the U.S. Air Force in September 1947, the
administrative assistant to the secretary of the Air Force (SAF/AA) has
represented departmental continuity and institutional memory. By March
2018, eight men and one woman had been sworn in as administrative
assistants and/or as acting administrative assistants. The tenures of the
three longest-serving administrative assistants, William A. Davidson, John
J. McLaughlin, and Robert J. McCormick, totaled forty-seven years of the
service’s seventy-one-year history.
1
Several recurring themes run through the history of SAF/AA. One, as
mentioned, is continuity, from one Air Force secretary to another; from
one Air Force chief of staff to another; from one president to another.
From August 1980 through March 2018, the tenures of four administrative
assistants—McCormick, Davidson, Timothy A. Beyland, and Patricia J.
Zarodkiewicz—intersected those of twenty-two secretaries and/or acting
secretaries of the Air Force; thirteen chiefs of sta or acting chiefs of sta;
and seven presidents. In Davidson’s view, the “number one job” of the
administrative assistant is to be “the long-term . . . advisor” to each Air
Force secretary; “the rest of it is secondary.”
2
Another recurring theme is an aspect of an Air Force-wide issue: how
can the business of the department be done more eectively? How can
The author thanks colleagues Yvonne A. Kinkaid, Helen T. Kiss, Randy E. Richardson, Jean A. Mansavage,
Kenneth H. Williams, and William C. Heimdahl (AF/HO retired) for their contributions to this study.
1. Davidson served as acting SAF/AA from Apr 1–Jun 14, 1994 and as SAF/AA from Jun 15,
1994–Sep 30, 2011 (though he returned, until his ocial Nov 1 retirement date). McLaughlin served
as SAF/AA from Sep 27, 1947–Oct 4, 1963. McCormick served as SAF/AA from Aug 25, 1980–
Mar 31, 1994). Headquarters United States Air Force Key Personnel, updated by Maj Laura E.
Cox (Washington, DC: Air Force Historical Studies Oce, Jan 2013), p 14. [https://media.defense.
gov/2013/Apr/10/2001329974/-1/-1/0/AFD-130410-035.pdf, accessed Jan 29, 2018.] According to
the 1980 Statistical Digest, McCormick’s tenure began on Aug 24, 1980.
2. Intvw, C. R. Anderegg, Air Force History and Museums Program director, with William A.
Davidson, SAF/AA, Jul 15, Aug 19, and Sep 16, 2011, at the Pentagon.
24
duplication be avoided and integration and coordination be enhanced?
These tasks have a larger context also: how can the services and other
government agencies work more eectively together?
This leads to a third recurring theme: the ability of the Air Force in
general, and SAF/AA in particular, to work with outside agencies on highly
classied projects. As retired administrative assistant Davidson recalled in
a February 2018 interview, what SAF/AA “was really equipped to do was
to handle the black world.” This was due, in significant part, to his own
professional background and experiences and those of other individuals
who worked there. And the outside agency with which the secretary of
the Air Force and SAF/AA had perhaps the closest connection, since at
least the late 1970s, was the National Reconnaissance Oce (NRO).
3
Air
Force secretaries Dr. Hans M. Mark and Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge, Jr.,
exemplify this connection. Mark was NRO director from August 1977
until October 1979; acting Air Force secretary from May until July 1979;
and Air Force secretary from July 1979 until February 1981. Aldridge was
NRO director from August 1981 until December 1988; acting Air Force
secretary from April until June 1986; and Air Force secretary from June
1986 until December 1988.
4
These three themes are key also to understanding why certain activities
are placed in, or removed from, the SAF/AA portfolio. The rst reason:
continuity. The mission and responsibilities of the administrative assistant
to the Secretary of the Air Force are not tied to any particular administration;
they are tied to process, ongoing and independent of politics and changes in
senior leadership. Second: better ways to do business. As Davidson recalled,
SAF/AA has “a history of taking something, and trying to make it better,
and giving it to somebody else.” And here, the involvement of various Air
Force secretaries and chiefs, vice chiefs, and assistant vice chiefs of sta, in
directing organizational changes in several cases, should not be overlooked.
Third: “it’s not just Air Force.” That is, Davidson noted, SAF/AA becomes
involved when other agencies are involved in a particular activity or task,
working together with the Air Force. That, he said, was “the old lineage of
the NRO. It goes back to the way that the Air Force knows how to deal with
multiple agencies. And we never get credit for it.”
Funding and, consequently, personnel levels are a fourth reason
functions are renamed or moved in and out of SAF/AA. Davidson
3. Unless otherwise indicated, all Davidson quotes are from Intvw, Priscilla D. Jones, Air Force
Historical Support Division (AF/HOH) chief, histories and studies, with Col William A. Davidson,
USAF (Ret), retired SAF/AA, Feb 26, 2018, at the AF/HOH, Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, DC.
4. Cox, HQ USAF Key Personnel, p 4. NRO, list of NRO Directors. [https://www.nro.gov/History-
and-Studies/Center-for-the-Study-of-National-Reconnaissance/NRO-Directors/, accessed Mar 18, 2019.]
25
recalled that even before the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act of 1986, the Air Force labored under manning re-
strictions. The Secretariat was permitted 320 personnel, and the Air Sta
had a separate staffing number. The black world did not, officially,
exist and so had its own, classied number. The Goldwater-Nichols Act
combined the Secretariat and the Air Sta numbers and directed that, as
of October 1, 1988, the total number of permanent-duty military members
and civilians could not exceed 2,639.
5
After that, he said, “people start[ed]
maneuvering” and wondering how best to accomplish the mission, which
was not getting smaller, with fewer sta. Field operating agencies (FOAs)
and special oces, whose personnel were not included in the Headquarters
manpower numbers, were put into place “in order to get the job done.”
Air Force-wide activities such as the Air Force Central Adjudication
Facility (AFCAF), the Air Force Declassication Oce (AFDO), and the
Air Force Art Program Oce (AFAPO) were not counted, although they
belonged to the administrative assistant to the Air Force secretary. So as
SAF/AA was “dropping people out, moving people here, doing dierent
things” to accomplish the mission, the nature of the organization began,
and continued, to change:
. . . what eventually happens is, it forces you to combine [func-
tions. This is] sometimes good, sometimes bad. And then it
forces you to get out of support business. . . . It tends to force
you into contractors, which tends to be more expensive, once the
contractors realize you no longer have the capability to do this.
The history of SAF/AA is not easy to analyze or even to describe.
Few documentary sources—such as the June 2007 memorandum about
the establishment of the information management directorate (HAF/IM)
and its information chart Mr. Davidson shared with me, and the HAF2002
report he hoped still existed in SAF/AA files—are presently available
that would explain why certain functions came in and out of the oce.
Even tracing the basic evolution of the three-letter subordinate oces
is problematic due to conicting and/or incomplete organization charts
and personnel directories. For example, the important Headquarters Air
Force (HAF) Mission Directives 1-6, The Administrative Assistant to the
Secretary of the Air Force, dated June 2007, December 2008, March 2014,
5. H.R. 3622 (99th): Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. [https://
www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/99/hr3622/text/enr, accessed Dec 21, 2017.] Pub. L 99–433, title 10,
section 8014 Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force, Oct 1, 1986, 100 Stat. 1058, 10 USC 8015. [http://
uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title10&edition=prelim, accessed Dec 21, 2017.]
26
and December 2014 are available; but, critically, the Secretary of the Air
Force Orders (SAFOs) that preceded them are not. The Department of
Defense (DoD) Telephone Directories are, according to Davidson, the most
reliable source for basic organization information and personnel names.
But as he pointed out, even they do not include all of the functions of
SAF/AA. The Directories stopped listing names of personnel as of Edition
I, 2005, and the last edition available is dated 2007. The Headquarters
Department of the Air Force Organizational Charts are helpful but are
neither detailed nor complete. The U.S. Air Force Statistical Digests are
helpful but incomplete. They include most subordinate oce names but
not designations, for example, and some but not all names of personnel.
The data they provide about SAF/AA stops at 2012.
For these and other reasons, Davidson’s February 2018 interview, and
that of retired Air Force History and Museums Program (AFHMP) deputy
director William C. Heimdahl in January 2018, have been invaluable.
What follows is the beginning of a continuing eort to synthesize
currently available information and documents.
tHe AdministrAtive AssistAnt to tHe secretAry of tHe Air
force: HistoricAl Antecedents
The administrative assistant to the secretary of the Air Force is part of a
long, multiservice tradition, one that is particularly intertwined with that
of the U.S. Army. This heritage extends back to the establishment of the
Department of War in August 1789 and to the skilled individuals who,
holding positions of evolving titles, assisted the secretary of war in managing
the increasingly complex administration of the department.
6
Initially, the
post was a political appointment but fell under the competitive civil service
in May 1896. An act of May 1908 designated the position as “assistant and
chief clerk,” and this designation was carried forward into the rst edition
of the United States Code, published in June 1926. But in early January
1931, the war secretary described the position as “Administration Assistant
to the Secretary of War.”
7
After the passage of the National Security Act in
July 1947, the rst secretary of the Department of the Army chose to retain
for the position the title of administrative assistant.
8
6. Until 1798, the secretary of war also managed the administration of naval aairs. Quiet Service:
A History of the Functions of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, 1789–1988,
n.a., n.d., pp 3, 9, AF/HOH archives.
7. Ibid., p 15.
8. Ibid., p 20.
27
The National Security Act spoke in general terms in establishing the U.S.
Air Force, giving the service signicant freedom, for example, to organize
its headquarters. Together with the Army and the Navy, the Air Force was
established as an executive department, with a civilian appointed by the
president and conrmed by the Senate as secretary. The act authorized the
Department of the Air Force an under secretary and two assistant secretaries,
also civilians subject to presidential appointment and Senate consent. The
act did not speak to the position of administrative assistant, but it would
have been surprising, particularly given the position’s long Army tradition
and the military backgrounds of the early USAF leadership, had such a post
not been part of the oce of the new Air Force secretary.
9
However much early Army aviators like Henry H. “Hap” Arnold and
Carl Andrew “Tooey” Spaatz had wanted autonomy for the Army air arm
and, eventually, an independent air force, they as West Point graduates and
Army ocers had been trained in Army practices and procedures and were
familiar with War Department organizational structures. They would have
been well aware of the position of administrative assistant. The precursor
organizations that evolved into the modern U.S. Air Force were part of
the Army heritage: as retired AFHMP deputy director Heimdahl noted,
“We grew up in the Army.”
10
Indeed, on the Air Force chief of staff’s
side, a similar position, titled secretary of the Air Sta, appears, without a
designation, on the rst U.S. Air Force organizational chart, dated October
10, 1947. It continues, always under the same name but with an AF/
ESS or other designation, for a quarter of a century, last appearing in the
March 1972 chart.
11
The function makes a reappearance, as headquarters
executive secretariat (HAF/ES), in the headquarters organization chart of
June 15, 2000. It is included in the available charts up to and including that
dated August 15, 2006. The next available chart, dated January 17, 2011,
does not include HAF/ES, and the function does not appear thereafter.
12
9. Herman S. Wolk, Toward Independence: The Emergence of the Air Force, 1945–1947
(Washington, DC: AFHMP, 1996), pp 1–28. [https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/01/2001329742/-
1/-1/0/AFD-101001-054.pdf, accessed Jan 31, 2018.] Herman S. Wolk, Reections on Air Force
Independence (Washington, DC: AFHMP, 2007).
10. Intvw, Priscilla D. Jones, AF/HOH chief, histories and studies, with retired AFHMP deputy
director William C. Heimdahl, Jan 31, 2018, at the AF/HOH, author’s notes.
11. It does not appear on the next chart, dated May 1972. Jacob Neufeld, compiler, Department of
the Air Force, Organizational Charts Headquarters USAF, 1947–Present, AFP 210–5 (Washington,
DC: Oce of Air Force History, May 1989), AF/HOH archives.
12. Headquarters Department of the Air Force Organizational Charts, Jun 15, 2000; May 29, 2001;
Apr 15, 2002; Jul 1, 2003 (supersedes the unavailable chart of Nov 15, 2002); Feb 23, 2004; and Aug
15, 2006, AF/HOH archives. HAF/ES does not appear on the charts for 2013 or 2016; any charts
published in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, or 2015 are unavailable. The charts in the AF/
HOH archive titled 2009 and 2015 are actually the charts for 2011 and 2016, respectively.
28
tHe united stAtes code: tHe legAl bAsis of tHe Admini-
strAtive AssistAnt to tHe secretAry of tHe Air force
The United States Code, rst adopted in 1926, consolidates and codies,
by subject matter, the nation’s current federal general and permanent
laws.
13
As of January 2018, the Code had fifty-three named titles, or
subject-matter categories, and one unnamed (reserved) title.
14
For the rst
twenty years of the Code’s statutory life, the chapters of Title 5, Executive
Departments and Government Ocers and Employees, included provisions
for the Department of War and the Department of Navy. Title 10 included
provisions dealing only with the Army, with Title 34 covering the Navy.
The first supplement to the 1946 edition of the U.S. Code reflected
the sweeping changes set out in the National Security Act of 1947, and it
is in this supplement that the U.S. Air Force is rst mentioned. Title 5’s
chapter dealing with the Department of War was excised; in its place was
a new chapter for the National Military Establishment. The title’s chapter
dealing with the Department of Navy remained, and the title now had a
separate chapter for the Department of the Army and a new chapter for the
newly established Department of the Air Force. Title 10 was still reserved
for the Army and Title 34 for the Navy. The Air Force did not have its
own title. Congress also intended that the National Security Act of 1947
would promote coordination between, and “provide for the establishment
of integrated policies and procedures” for, the military departments and
other national security-related government entities, and later U.S. Code
13. The rst U.S. Code consolidated the country’s general and permanent laws in force on Dec 7,
1925, then scattered in dozens of volumes containing the Revised Statues of 1878 and the Statutes
at Large. The rst Code did not enact or repeal any law. U.S. Code, 1925–1926 ed., The Code of the
Laws of the United States of America of a General and Permanent Character in Force December
7, 1925, consolidated, codied, set forth, and published in 1926 by the 69th Congress, 1st session.
Roy G. Fitzgerald, Preface, Jun 30, 1926, p v. [http://www.heinonline.org.pentagonlibrary.idm.oclc.
org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.uscode/usc1925001&id=1&size=2&collection=uscode&index=uscode/
usca, accessed Jan 10 2018.] U.S. Code, 1946 ed., Supplement I (Jan 3, 1947–Jan 5, 1948), 80th
Congress, 1st Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Oce, 1948), Chauncey W.
Reed, Preface, Apr 20, 1948, p vii. [http://www.heinonline.org.pentagonlibrary.idm.oclc.org/HOL/
Page?handle=hein.uscode/usc1952001&id=1&size=2&collection=uscode&index=uscode/usce,
accessed Jan 11, 2018.]
14. U.S. House of Representatives, Oce of the Law Revision Counsel, United States Code,
table of contents, current as of Sep 1, 2017 or thereafter. The Oce of the Law Revision Counsel is
statutorily responsible for several tasks related to the U.S. Code, including preparing it and publishing
new versions of it. [http://uscode.house.gov/browse/prelim@title34&edition=prelim, accessed Jan 10,
2018.] Cornell Law School, “U.S. Code: Table of Contents,” LII [Legal Information Institute], n.d.
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text, accessed Jan 9, 2018.]
29
revisions would reflect these aims.
15
It would not be surprising that
congressional intent would have also included the notion of equivalent
positions, like that of administrative assistant, across the services, to
facilitate communication between opposite numbers.
The Air Force would get its own title, or rather, subtitle, when an act
of Congress on August 10, 1956, overhauled Title 10 of the U.S. Code.
The act resulted in the repeal of Title 34, Navy and further “revised and
codied the statutory provisions that related to the Army, Navy, Air Force,
and Marine Corps . . . [enacting] those provisions into law as Title 10,
Armed Forces.” The Army fell under Subtitle B; the Navy and Marine
Corps under Subtitle C; and the Air Force under Subtitle D. Part I of
Subtitle D dealt with the service’s organization, and Chapter 803 with the
Department of the Air Force.
16
Three decades later, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act of 1986 amended Title 10—Armed Forces and made
the rst statutory mention of the position of administrative assistant to
the secretary of the Air Force. The act added to Chapter 803 several
new sections, including Section 8018. Administrative Assistant.
17
This
development, a signicant milestone in SAF/AA history, is part of the
wider and ambitious aims of the Goldwater-Nichols Act: reforming the
management and administration of the Department of Defense; enhancing
interoperability or “jointness” amongst the military services; and, thereby,
improving the eectiveness of military operations.
18
15. U.S. Code, 1946 ed., Supplement I. National Security Act of 1947, Public Law 253, 80th
Congress, 1st session, Jul 26, 1947 (quote from Sec. 2., Declaration of Policy). The act aimed at
promoting U.S. national security by providing for, among other things, a Secretary of Defense, a
National Military Establishment, and Departments of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.
Lawmakers also sought to promote “the coordination of the activities of the National Military
Establishment with other departments and agencies of the Government concerned with the national
security.” [http://legisworks.org/congress/80/publaw-253.pdf, accessed Jan 12, 2018.]
16. Thereafter, Title 34 was reassigned. Public Law 1028, Aug 10, 1956, chapter 1041 70A Stat. 1,
U.S. House of Representatives, Oce of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. Code, 34 USC: Front Matter,
From Title 34-Crime Control and Law Enforcement, Prior Provisions. [Link from http://uscode.
house.gov/browse/prelim@title34&edition=prelim to Title 34—Front Matter, http://uscodel.house.
gov/?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title34-front&num=0&edition=prelim, accessed Jan 10, 2018.] Title
10 and Title 32, United States Code, Public Law 1028 [H.R. 7049], 84th Congress, 2d session, Chapter
1041, approved Aug 10, 1956. [http://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=70A&page=1,
http://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=70A&page=1#.] CQ Almanac, Public Laws, 84th
Congress, 2d Session listing the 638 public laws enacted by the 2d session of the 84th Congress.
[https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal56-884-28625-1348788#1028,
accessed Dec 21, 2017.]
17. H.R. 3622 (99th): Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. The
new section, 8018, was added [by] Pub. L 99–433, title V, section 521(a)(5), Oct 1, 1986, 100 Stat. 1059.
18. AFHMP deputy director William C. Heimdahl discussed these and other matters with the author
during and after his Jan 31, 2018 intvw.
30
Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on October 1, 1986,
the Goldwater-Nichols Act was “the result of almost ve years of eort
and analysis by Congress and the Pentagon” and “the rst major defense
reform legislation since the” Department of Defense Reorganization Act
of 1958.
19
The bill aimed to solve “the inability of the military services
to operate eectively together as a joint team.”
20
This failure had been
brought into sharp focus by critical operational problems in the years
leading up to Goldwater-Nichols, specifically, the Iran hostage rescue
mission of April 1980 and the U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and
the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983.
21
The statutory impact of the Goldwater-Nichols Act’s overhaul of Title
10 on the Air Force secretary and administrative assistant is discussed
below. To provide a broader context, these provisions are also compared
with those aecting the other services. As noted above, Part I of Subtitle D
deals with the service’s organization, and Chapter 803 with the Department
of the Air Force.
Chapter 803—Department of the Air Force
Several sections in Chapter 803 provide the legal basis for the position
of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force.
Section 8014. Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force
Section 8014 provides for an Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force to
help the Air Force secretary carry out the responsibilities of that position.
22
The section goes on to describe the composition of the Oce of the
19. Justin Johnson, “2017 NDAA: Dene the Goldwater–Nichols Problem Before Trying to Solve
It,” The Heritage Foundation, Jul 12, 2016 (1st quote) [http://www.heritage.org/defense/report/2017-
ndaa-dene-the-goldwater-nichols-problem-trying-solve-it, accessed Jan 4, 2018]. Roger R. Trask and
John P. Glennon, eds., The Department of Defense: Documents on Organization and Mission, 1978–
2003 (Washington, DC: Oce of the Secretary of Defense Historical Oce, 2008), p 42 (2d quote).
Public Law 85-599, Aug 6, 1958, H.R. 12541. [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-72/
pdf/STATUTE-72-Pg514.pdf, accessed Dec 21, 2017.] John T. Correll, “Eisenhower and the
Eight Warlords,” Air Force Magazine, Jul 2017. [http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/
Magazine%20Documents/2017/July%202017/0717_Correll_Eisenhower.pdf, accessed Dec 21,
2017.] ADM Arleigh Burke, USN, Chief of Naval Operations, “The Reorganization Act of 1958,”
1958 JAG J. 3 (1958-1959), HeinOnline. [http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.
journals/naval1958&div=66&id=&page=, accessed Jan 9, 2018.]
20. Quoting Sam Nunn, preface to James R. Locher III, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-
Nichols Act Unies the Pentagon (College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 2002), p xii.
21. Kathleen J. McInnis, Goldwater-Nichols at 30: Defense Reform and Issues for Congress,
Congressional Research Service, R44474, Jun 2, 2016. [http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/
u2/1013813.pdf, accessed Jan 4, 2018.] Mark Bowden, “The Desert One Debacle,” The Atlantic,
May 2006. [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/05/the-desert-one-debacle/304803/,
accessed Jan 4, 2018.] Christopher Allan Yuknis, The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act of 1986: An Interim Assessment, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks,
PA,USAWC Military Studies Program Paper, Apr 15, 1992, pp 7–8. [http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/
fulltext/u2/a249601.pdf, accessed Dec 21, 2017.]
22. Section 8014(a). 100 STAT. 1057. 10 USC 8014.
31
Secretary of the Air Force, listing the Air Force under secretary, assistant
secretaries, general counsel, inspector general, chief of legislative liaison,
and air reserve forces policy committee.
23
Section 8014 does not explicitly
mention the administrative assistant, but it does note that the Oce of the
Secretary includes other similar “oces and ocials as may be established
by law” or established or designated by the Air Force secretary.
24
Section 5014 provides for an Oce of the Secretary of the Navy. In
most respects, it describes the composition of the oce in the same way
as does Section 8014 for the Air Force, and likewise makes no explicit
mention of an administrative assistant to the secretary.
25
Section 3014 provides for an Oce of the Secretary of the Army and
makes explicit mention of an administrative assistant to the secretary.
In describing the composition of that oce, the section includes an
administrative assistant as the third in the list of entities that compose the
oce of the Army secretary.
26
Section 8018. Administrative Assistant
Section 8018 is devoted entirely to the administrative assistant position,
by name, and is the sole mention of the position in Chapter 803. The
Goldwater-Nichols Act added this new section to Chapter 803.
Under the section’s short provisions, the secretary of the Air Force
was permitted, but not obliged, to appoint an administrative assistant.
That individual was obliged to carry out the duties the Air Force secretary
prescribed. The exact wording is as follows: “The Secretary of the Air Force
may appoint an Administrative Assistant in the Oce of the Secretary of
the Air Force. The Administrative Assistant shall perform such duties as
the Secretary may prescribe.”
27
Likewise, the secretary of the Navy was permitted, but not obliged,
to appoint an administrative assistant, and that individual was obliged to
carry out the duties the Navy secretary prescribed.
28
23. Section 8014(b)(1)–(5). 100 STAT. 1057. 10 USC 8014.
24. Section 8014 (b) (6). 100 STAT. 1057. 10 USC 8014.
25. Section 5014. Oce of the Secretary of the Navy, (b)(1–7). 100 STAT. 1045. 10 USC 5014.
26. Section 3014. Oce of the Secretary of the Army, (b)(3). 100 STAT. 1036. 10 USC 3014.
Section 5014. Oce of the Secretary of the Navy, (b) (3). 100 STAT. 1045. 10 USC 5014 [Chapter
503—Department of the Navy].
27. Section 8018. Administrative Assistant. 100 STAT. 1059. 10 USC 8018.
28. These equivalent provisions for the Navy are in Section 5018. Administrative Assistant. 100
STAT. 1047. 10 USC 5018. The exact wording is as follows: “The Secretary of the Navy may appoint
an Administrative Assistant in the Oce of the Secretary of the Navy. The Administrative Assistant
shall perform such duties as the Secretary may prescribe.” This, like Section 8018 for the Air Force,
was added by the Goldwater-Nichols Act, Pub. L. 99–433, title V [Military Departments]. In the case
of the Air Force: Title V—Military Departments, Part C—Department of the Air Force, Sec. 521. The
Air Force Secretariat. In the case of the Navy: Title V—Military Departments, Part B—Department of
the Navy, Sec. 511 [The Navy Secretariat](c)(4), Oct. 1, 1986, 100 Stat. 1047.
32
The Goldwater-Nichols Act does not contain similarly worded
provisions with respect to the Army. However, Title 10, U.S. Code,
Section 3018. Administrative Assistant, begins by noting that “There is
an Administrative Assistant in the Department of the Army.” The section
goes on to set out duties that the administrative assistants in the Oces
of the Air Force and Navy are not explicitly allowed to perform. The
first subsection makes the appointment of an administrative assistant
mandatory: that individual “shall be appointed by the Secretary of the
Army and shall perform duties that the Secretary considers appropriate.”
29
This is followed by two additional subsections:
(b) During a vacancy in the oce of Secretary, the Administrative
Assistant has charge and custody of all records, books, and papers
of the Department of the Army.
(c) The Secretary may authorize the Administrative Assistant to
sign, during the temporary absence of the Secretary, any paper
requiring his signature. In such a case, the Administrative Assistant’s
signature has the same eect as the Secretary’s signature.
30
The Code had recognized these duties as part of the portfolio of the
Army secretary’s then-called assistant and chief clerk since its 1925–1926
edition, in the chapter on the Department of War in Title 5—Executive
Departments and Government Officers and Employees. Congress had
given legal sanction to the second of these responsibilities in an act of
March 4, 1874.
31
The 1925–1926 edition of the Code made no specic
mention of an equivalent subordinate to the Navy secretary in Title 5’s
chapter on the Department of Navy. However, the 1925–1926 edition did
mention subordinate “chief clerks” in several sections in Title 5’s chapter
on provisions applying to departments generally.
32
29. Section 3018. Administrative Assistant, (a). Italics added.
30. Section 3018 (b) and (c). In all three subsections, “the title ‘Administrative Assistant’ . . . [was]
substituted for the title ‘Assistant and Chief Clerk,’ to accord with present usage.” Section 3018,
Historical and Revision Notes.
31. Quiet Service, p 8, citing Act of Mar 4, 1874, 18 Stat. 19. 43d Congress, 1st session, Chap.
44.—An act authorizing the chief clerk of the War Department to sign requisitions on the Treasury
during the temporary absence of the Secretary of War. Approved, Mar 4, 1874. [https://www.loc.gov/
law/help/statutes-at-large/43rd-congress/session-1/c43s1ch46.pdf, accessed Jan 11, 2018.]
32. U.S. Code, 1925–1926 ed., The Code of the Laws of the United States of America, Title 5.—
Executive Departments and Government Ocers and Employees. Chapter 1.—Provisions Applicable
to Departments and Ocers Generally, e.g., Sections 5. Vacancies in oce of department heads;
temporarily lling, 23. Supervision of subordinate clerks, 33. Women clerks, 43. Authority to employ
clerks and other employees, and 45. Ocers, clerks, and employees. Chapter 3. Department of War,
Sections 185.–187. Assistant and chief clerk; duties; Chapter 7.—Department of Navy.
33
sAf/AA And tHe goldWAter-nicHols Act, 1984–1988
As early as the spring of 1984, Administrative Assistant McCormick and
his small sta were involved in preparing the Air Force for what eventually
became the Goldwater-Nichols Act. McCormick’s military assistant, Lt.
Col. Jason M. Middleton, and the exec, Lt. Col. William A. Davidson,
sat on teams that were working on the “integration of certain Air Sta
activities and the Secretariat,” which was how the act began to operate.
Davidson recalled that Goldwater-Nichols did not aect SAF/AA “per se.”
He and his colleagues were “more worried about FM, RD, and AQ being
melded together. Working oce space issues, to get them all together, and
[working] organizational issues, because part of what we used to do was
design the organizational structures, working with the secretary.”
In Davidson’s view, Goldwater-Nichols affected SAF/AA in two
ways. First, he recalled, the vice chief of sta
33
asked why there was an
administrative assistant, McCormick, who reported to the secretary, and a
director of administration (AF/DA), Col. Bill [William O.] Nations, who
reported to the Air Sta. And so, almost as an “afterthought,” as Davidson
described it, to Goldwater-Nichols, the headquarters organization charts
show that AF/DA “and nearly all associated functions” were moved to
SAF/AA. According to these charts, this new oce, “[r]enamed the
Directorate of Information Management and Administration, . . . absorbed
responsibility for the resources management function previously under
AF/SC [Assistant Chief of Sta, Systems for Command, Control,
Communications & Computers].”
34
Col. Norman Lezy, not Colonel Nations,
appeared as director of administration in the headquarters organization
charts for December 1986, February 1987, and 1 March 1, 1987. But by
the chart of March 27, 1987, AF/DA had been removed.
35
“As part of the afterthought of Goldwater-Nichols,” Davidson
reiterated, Colonel Nations “and his whole crew” were assigned to SAF/
33. Davidson stated that this was Gen Michael P. C. Carns, who became director, Joint Sta, in Sep
1989 and then served as Air Force vice chief of sta from May 16, 1991 until Jul 28, 1994. His ocial
USAF biography indicates he retired on Jul 1, 1994. Cox, HQ USAF Key Personnel, p 10. U.S. Air
Force, “General Michael P. C. Carns,” ocial biography, n.a., current as of Apr 1994 (but includes
retirement date) [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/107464/general-michael-
pc-carns/, accessed Mar 7, 2018]. Carns was not vice chief when SAF/AA numbers went from 19 in
Apr 1987 to 43 in Dec 1987 and 48 in Dec 1988. Previous vice chiefs who served during the period
discussed in this section were Gen John L. Piotrowski (Aug 1, 1985–Jan 31, 1987) and Gen Monroe
W. Hatch, Jr. (Feb 1, 1987 until he retired on Jun 1, 1990). Cox, HQ USAF Key Personnel, p 9.
34. Quote in this sentence, and the 2d quote in the preceding sentence, from Neufeld, Organizational
Charts Headquarters USAF, introductory essay.
35. Neufeld, Organizational Charts Headquarters USAF.
34
AA. Nations was rst listed in the December 1987 issue of the Department
of Defense Telephone Directory as the director of information management
and administration (SAF/AAD), also making its rst appearance in the
SAF/AA portfolio. This December 1987 issue was the rst published after
the Goldwater-Nichols Act became law in October 1986. Also added to the
SAF/AA portfolio was the Publishing Branch (SAF/AADP): it fell under
SAF/AAD and likewise appeared for the rst time in the December 1987
issue. The shift of AF/DA functions into SAF/AA was not, Davidson said,
required by Goldwater-Nichols. “But it t into that category of how can
we do things better, and where there is a split, why should we have a split?
It was a decision made by the Air Force, not forced by the law.”
The second “afterthought” to Goldwater-Nichols during this period was
the move of the news clipping service to the Department of Defense. In
the DoD Telephone Directories for April 1986 and April 1987, the News
Clipping & Analysis Service was listed with its new designation, SAF/AAR,
in the Directory’s April 1986 issue. In the December 1987 and December
1988 issues, the activity had the same designation but a new name, Current
News Analysis Research Service. It did not appear in the December 1989
issue or thereafter. Davidson recalled that the transfer was not caused by
Goldwater-Nichols “but because we were in support of . . . It was a DoD
activity, and they decided to move it under . . . [the assistant secretary of
defense] for public aairs,” who since 1989 had been Pete Williams.
Staffing at SAF/AA was stable from April 1983 to April 1986,
uctuating between seventeen and nineteen positions. As a result of the
post–Goldwater-Nichols additions to SAF/AA, its personnel numbers
increased signicantly, from nineteen in the Directory’s April 1987 issue
to forty-three in December 1987 and forty-eight in December 1988.
36
sAf/AA And tHe “AAP” designAtion, 1983–2011
Beginning at least as early as three years before the passage of the
Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Department of Defense Telephone Directories
show that the office of the administrative assistant to the Air Force
secretary used the designation “AAP” to refer to the Military Personnel
Branch and “AAA” to refer to what was then named Civilian Personnel.
37
In the December 1988 issue, SAF/AAP was listed as Director of Personnel,
then-Maj. Robert G. Linn, and it included Military Personnel, whose
chief was SMSgt. Gregory A. Homan, who had been in that post, as
36. Department of Defense Telephone Directories, all held in AF/HOH archives.
37. Ibid., Triannual Issues Number One, Apr 1983, Apr 1984, Apr 1985, Apr 1986; and Triannual
Issue Number Three, Dec 1987.
35
a master sergeant, since the April 1986 issue.
38
In the December 1989
issue, SAF/AAP was listed as Chief Personnel Division, who was still
Linn, and included Military Personnel, whose chief was still Homan. By
the publication of the December 1990 issue, Linn had been promoted to
lieutenant colonel.
39
Later DoD Telephone Directories included the names
of Linn’s and Homan’s successors, but the two parts of SAF/AAP—
Chief Personnel Division and Chief Military Personnel—remained,
unchanged, through the December 1998 issue.
40
The SAF/AAP function
was not included in the SAF/AA section of the December 1999 issue,
but it reappeared there in the December 2000 issue, with a new name,
Military Personnel, led by a major, with a senior master sergeant serving as
superintendent, military personnel.
41
By November 2003, SAF/AAP had
been redesignated HAF/AAP, Chief Personnel Support, and was led by a
major, with a senior master sergeant serving as superintendent, military
personnel.
42
The designation, name, and structure continued, unchanged,
through early 2004. It was no longer part of SAF/AA by early 2005.
43
The Headquarters USAF Organization Charts provide different
information. In the chart of April 4, 1991, SAF/AAP was titled Chief
Management, and it was headed by Lt. Col. [Robert G.] Linn.
44
The
following month, it was renamed Chief Military Personnel, but Linn still
led it. For the next eleven and a half years, SAF/AAP remained unchanged
except for its chief, through the chart of November 15, 2002. But SAF/
AAP Chief Military Personnel did not appear in the next chart, dated July
1, 2003, or in those that followed.
45
In his February 2018 interview, retired administrative assistant
Davidson recalled the circumstances of SAF/AAP’s 2004 departure from
SAF/AA. Sometime in 2002, after Lt. Gen. Joseph H. Wehrle, Jr., became
the assistant vice chief of sta in April of that year, he asked Davidson
his opinion of a reorganization issue that would aect Davidson and
SAF/AAP.
46
Wehrle thought that he and Davidson should “combine in
HAF/ES” the “small personnel shop” then in SAF/AAP. Wehrle’s view
38. Ibid., Triannual Issue Number Three, Dec 1988.
39. Ibid., Triannual Issues Number Three, Dec 1989 and Dec 1990.
40. Ibid., Triannual Issue Number Three, Dec 1998.
41. Ibid., Triannual Issues Number Three, Dec 1999 and Dec 2000.
42. DoD Special Edition Yellow Pages, Nov 2003, AF/HOH archives.
43. DoD Telephone Directory, Edition I, 2005.
44. Headquarters USAF Organization Charts do not include listed individuals’ rst names.
45. Headquarters USAF Organization Charts.
46. Lt Gen Joseph Wehrle, Jr., served as the Air Force assistant vice chief of sta from Apr 1, 2002
until Sep 30, 2003. His ocial USAF biography indicates he retired on Oct 1, 2003. Cox, HQ USAF
Key Personnel, p 12. U.S. Air Force, “Lieutenant General Joseph H. Wehrle Jr.,” ocial biography,
n.a., current as of Jul 2003 (but includes retirement date). [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/
Display/Article/105353/lieutenant-general-joseph-h-wehrle-jr/, accessed Mar 22, 2018.]
36
was that, as assistant vice chief, he was “the ultimate commander” with
respect “to people who . . . [were] assigned outside DoD,” and that he
looked “over all the military guys.”
47
Davidson agreed that they should
move SAF/AAP functions into HAF/ES, “except for those that . . . [were]
assigned . . . outside agencies.” Those military individuals, Davidson told
Wehrle, should “stay up underneath AA on a day-to-day basis.” Davidson
explained his reasoning to Wehrle: as SAF/AA representing the Air Force,
Davidson “had a responsibility back to DoD, . . . and that was exclusive of
who it was. It was who was being assigned there and controlling once they
get there, a home base for Air Force fellows and things like that, that were
working in the White House.” But, Davidson told Wehrle, “[T]he other
ones, I think we ought probably to do that. It makes better sense to put it
all in one place, because we’ve got two dierent systems.”
48
And so, they
“transferred AAP to HAF/ES.”
In the Headquarters USAF Organization Chart dated January 17, 2011,
the SAF/AAP designation appeared in connection with a new function,
Information Protection.
49
This was the designation’s last usage. By the
publication of the chart of September 17, 2013, the information protection
function had been passed to a renamed SAF/AAZ, Security/Special
Program Oversight/Information Protection, and there was also a new
directorate, Information Management (SAF/AAI).
50
These directorates
appeared, unchanged, in the last available chart dated April 18, 2016.
51
exAmPles of offices fAlling under tHe AdministrAtive
AssistAnt to tHe secretAry of tHe Air force, 1984–2014
Air Force Executive Dining Room (AFEDR)/Air Force Executive
Dining Facility
By the time of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Air Force Executive
Dining Room had been under SAF/AA for decades. In the years immediately
preceding the act, the executive dining room had appeared in the April 1984
and April 1985 issues of the Department of Defense Telephone Directory
with the designation AS/SAFAAM and in the April1986 issue with the
designation SAF/AAM. The function was moved around in SAF/AA, and
its designation was revised, in the years that followed. As of the December
47. Davidson, quoting Wehrle.
48. Davidson, recalling his comments to Wehrle.
49. Headquarters USAF Organization Charts. The chart of Jan 17, 2011 superseded that of Jan 20,
2009, which is not available.
50. Ibid., chart of Sep 17, 2013.
51. Ibid., chart of Apr 18, 2016. This chart superseded that of Nov 5, 2015, which is not available.
37
1999 issue of the Directory, it was known by its revised name, Air Force
Executive Dining Facility (AFEDF); this remained the case through the
Directory’s 2007 issue. The Air Force Executive Dining Facility regained
its SAF/AAM designation as of HAF Mission Directive 1-6, Administrative
Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, March 20, 2014.
Air Force Publishing Function
The Air Force publishing function rst appeared in the SAF/AA
portfolio in the December 1987 issue of the DoD Telephone Directory. At
that time, it was titled Publishing Branch (SAF/AADP) and fell under the
Directorate of Information Management and Administration (SAF/AAD).
It would be listed in later Directories under several dierent names and
designations. The acronym, AFDPO, and name, Air Force Departmental
Publishing Oce, rst appeared in the Directory’s December 1999 issue.
Under the rst HAF Mission Directive 1-6, published in June 2007,
the Air Force Departmental Publishing Oce was included, together with
the Air Force Declassication Oce (AFDO) as a direct reporting unit to
HAF Information Management (HAF/IM).
52
Air Force Art Program (AFAPO)
This Air Force-wide activity had been transferred to SAF/AA by
December 1999 after it was removed from the portfolio of the Air Force
Historian, Dr. Richard P. Hallion.
53
The art program had previously been
in public aairs (SAF/PA), and it was moved to the history oce at the
Pentagon, an Air Sta activity. Davidson recalled that, thereafter, serious
personnel problems developed, to the point of congressional and news
media involvement. The assistant vice chief of sta, Lt. Gen. David L.
Vesely,
54
decided to call together a group under his chairmanship “look at
the Art Program and determine what we would do.” Davidson’s military
assistant, Ed Patrick, sat in as the SAF/AA representative. The group
52. Michael W. Wynne, Secretary of the Air Force, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 5 Jun 2007, The
Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, OPR: SAF/AAX, Certied by: SAF/AA
(Mr. William Davidson), copy in AF/HOH archives. [http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/
af_a1/publication/a38-601/a38-601.pdf, accessed Jan 26, 2018.]
53. Dr. Hallion was the Air Force Historian from Nov 1991 until Nov 2002. U.S. Air Force, “Dr.
Richard P. Hallion,” n.a., current as of Sep 2006 (but includes Nov 3, 2006 retirement date). [http://www.
af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/104943/dr-richard-p-hallion/, accessed Mar 13, 2018.]
54. Lt Gen David L. Vesely served as Air Force assistant vice chief of sta from Mar 17, 1997 until
Sep 30, 1999. His ocial USAF biography indicates he retired on Dec 1, 1999. Cox, HQ USAF Key
Personnel, p 12. U.S. Air Force, “Lieutenant General David L. Vesely,” ocial biography, n.a., current
as of Sep 1998 (but includes retirement date). [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/
Article/105337/lieutenant-general-david-l-vesely/, accessed Mar 13, 2018.]
38
decided to move the program to SAF/AA. Davidson recalls that he told
Patrick, “We can go ahead and do it. And I understand. . . . But you know,
that’s something we haven’t done before. But I’d be glad to do it. We’ll
take it on.” Davidson and Vesely conferred, and they both agreed that the
program needed continuity and someone who understood what the program
meant to the military. What it meant to the military . . . [was] ‘This is
us.’. . . [T]he Art Program was “This is us” to the four-stars and the three-
stars.” Davidson noted that “The problem they have now is the artists are
getting old, and unless you . . . push it a little bit, you’re not going to get
new artists to play. So it’ll die. And it’s a big piece of history that you don’t
want to lose. But we’ll see.” After Davidson retired, Timothy A. Beyland
became administrative assistant and reorganized and consolidated several
activities, including, Davidson noted, Facilities and Art.
Under the HAF Mission Directive 1-6 of March 2014, the Air Force Art
Program Oce no longer had its own place in the organization chart and now
fell under the newly named subordinate oce, Operations (SAF/AAO).
55
Air Force Central Adjudication Facility (AFCAF)
An Air Force-wide activity falling under SAF/AA. AFCAF appeared
for the rst time as part of the SAF/AA portfolio in the December 2000
issue of the Department of Defense Telephone Directory.
Under the HAF Mission Directive 1-6 of March 2014, the Air Force
Central Adjudication Facility (AFCAF), listed as a separate subordinate
oce in the earlier directives, was now absorbed into the DoD Central
Adjudication Facility (DoD CAF).
56
Air Force Declassication Oce (AFDO)
An Air Force-wide activity falling under SAF/AA. AFDO appeared
for the rst time as part of the SAF/AA portfolio in the December 2000
issue of the Department of Defense Telephone Directory.
Under the rst HAF Mission Directive 1-6, published in June 2007,
the Air Force Declassication Oce was included, together with the Air
Force Departmental Publishing Oce (AFDPO), as a direct reporting unit
to HAF Information Management (HAF/IM).
57
55. Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the Air Force, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014,
Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, OPR: SAF/AAII, Certied by: SAF/AA
(Mr. Tim Beyland), copy in AF/HOH archives.
56. Ibid.
57. Wynne, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 5 Jun 2007.
39
Under the March 2014 mission directive, the subordinate information
management oce was redesignated SAF/AAI, and AFDO and AFDPO
were its two named activities.
58
sAf/AA And HAf 2002, 1999–2001
59
A key milestone in the continuing efforts of Air Force leadership to
improve business practices and departmental organization came in the late
summer of 1999, when then-acting Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters
created a review known as HAF 2002 and put Administrative Assistant
Davidson in charge of it. Col. L. Eliot Hurlbut became director of the
HAF 2002 Integration Oce (HAF 2002/IO). The oce rst appears in
the Headquarters Department of the Air Force Organizational Chart of
August 1, 1999, the day before Peters became Air Force secretary. Hurlbut
was listed as director. By December 1999, HAF 2002 and its director and
his subordinates were listed in the DoD Telephone Directory.
60
Why was it called HAF 2002? In his February 2018 interview, Davidson
recalled that “We named it that intentionally, so that it would cross over
administration[s], so it wouldn’t die with the [current] administration.”
Davidson recalled in interviews in 2011 that, with Peters and Air Force
chief of sta Gen. Michael E. Ryan in place, “at that point . . . we were
starting to try to get the sta closer together, so we did that HAF 2002
study. We were in another eciency drill. . . . the chief and the secretary
were the sponsors for that.”
61
Air Sta and Secretariat personnel, together
on working groups led by Hurlbut, reviewed various oces, starting
“inside the Glass,” to determine how to consolidate functions to eliminate
duplication and unnecessary work.
62
The aim was, primarily, to “improve the business models. . . . Without
aecting organizations per se, but there were some that you wanted to
aect.” Davidson and his colleagues set up “temporary oces . . . to try
58. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014.
59. Like other parts of this study, this section relies in large measure on Intvw, Jones with Davidson.
60. HQ Dept of the AF Organizational Chart, Aug 1, 1999, and DoD Telephone Directory, Dec
1999–Triannual Issue Number Three.
61. Intvw, Anderegg with Davidson. F. Whitten Peters was acting Air Force secretary from Nov 1,
1997 until Aug 1, 1999 and Air Force secretary from Aug 2, 1999 until Jan 20, 2001. Gen Michael E.
Ryan was Air Force chief of sta from Oct 1, 1997 until Sep 5, 2001. Cox, HQ USAF Key Personnel, pp
5, 8. U.S. Air Force, “F. Whitten Peters,” ocial biography, n.a., current as of Mar 2000 (but includes
Jan 20, 2001 departure date). [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/104736/f-
whitten-peters/, accessed Mar 15, 2018.] U.S. Air Force, “Gen. Michael E. Ryan,” ocial biography,
n.a., current as of Sep 2001 (but includes Oct 1, 2001, retirement date). [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/
Biographies/Display/Article/105755/general-michael-e-ryan/, accessed Mar 15, 2018.]
62. Intvw, Anderegg with Davidson (quote). In his Feb 2018 interview with Jones, Davidson stated,
“We had colonel working groups that worked each one of these issues.”
40
to advance . . . HAF 2002, this review of how we do business, how we’re
organized.” One of these was the Headquarters Information Project Oce
(AF/AAH), directed by Terry Balven, whose job was to “nd out how we
could integrate these processes.”
63
Over a period of time, Davidson and others involved in HAF 2002
“looked at all sorts of models of how you can do things jointly.” They
“trained a number of senior leaders . . . and sent them out to various
locations, to learn from industry.” IBM, MIT, and others volunteered to
help look at the various functions and to make recommendations, many
of which were instituted. Decisions were made at the two- and three-star
level; “ultimately, the decisions were made by the chief and secretary.”
As a result of HAF 2002, the designation “HAF” started to appear,
representing the combination, in support of the entire Headquarters, of
eorts that used to be done separately, by both the secretary and the Air
Sta. The separate sta groups of the chief and secretary were combined,
and Davidson and his oce began to pick up several of the consolidated
functions. His responsibilities had already included personnel support for
the Secretariat. “Now, we start[ed] doing the personnel support for inside
the Glass.” Ryan asked if SAF/AA could provide supply, and so SAF/AA
picked up that as well.
Davidson recalled that HAF 2002 addressed the signicant problems
in programming. This led to the establishment, by early 2004, of HAF/
RM, the consolidation of the financial resources process under the
administrative assistant to the Air Force secretary. By the summer of
2006, HAF/HR, the consolidation of the manpower process, had also been
placed in the SAF/AA portfolio.
64
In the late spring or early summer of 2001, Davidson gave a transition
brief to incoming Air Force secretary James G. Roche.
65
Davidson
discussed the progress of HAF 2002, noting that the review was about
“halfway through” and recommended that it be continued. Roche
ultimately decided to end the process, though he allowed “some hanger-
ons” [sic] to be nished. Davidson noted that “we had gotten probably 70
to 80 percent of what we were attempting to do.”
63. Terry Balven was listed as the chief, Dir HQ Info Proj AF/AAH, in the Dec 1999 issue of the
DoD Telephone Directory. AAH does not appear thereafter. The HQ Dept of the AF Organizational
Charts oer conicting information. AAH appears for the rst time in the Aug 1, 1999 chart, as SAF/
AAH Dir Information Planning, under Balven; it appears again in the Jun 15, 2000 and May 29, 2001
charts. It is not listed in the Apr 15, 2002 chart or in subsequent charts.
64. HAF/RM, HAF Dir Budget and Programming, appears for the rst time in the Feb 23, 2004
HQ Dept of the AF Organizational Chart. HAF/HR, Dir Manpower and Human Capital Management
makes its rst appearance in that source’s organization chart of Aug 15, 2006.
65. Dr. James G. Roche was Air Force secretary from Jun 1, 2001 until Jan 20, 2005. Cox, HQ
USAF Key Personnel, p 5. U.S. Air Force, “Dr. James G. Roche,” ocial biography, n.a., current as
of Feb 2004 (but includes Jan 20, 2005 departure date). [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/
Display/Article/105044/dr-james-g-roche/, accessed Mar 15, 2018.]
41
sAf/AA And tHe rAPid cAPAbilities office, 2003 And beyond
Air Force Secretary James G. Roche activated the Air Force Rapid
Capabilities Oce on April 28, 2003. Located in Washington, D.C., the
oce aimed to expedite the timely “development and elding” of Defense
Department “combat support and weapon systems.” Staed with functional
specialists on small, integrated teams, working under “a short and narrow
chain of command” and with signicant warghter involvement, the oce
carried out sensitive projects sometimes involving other government
agencies and short timelines.
66
In a March 2018 interview, retired SAF/AA Davidson recalled the
origins of the Rapid Capabilities Office. He noted that Air Force sec-
retary Roche, a former Northrop Grumman executive, had a keen
interest in technology. Roche and other service leaders like Davidson
were contemplating the Air Force’s current circumstances and its future
direction. At the same time, the boundaries of what had been the “black”
world were shifting: increasingly, Davidson noted, “our current black
world . . . had become more and more white world,” as formerly secret
agencies like the NRO,
67
and formerly secret capabilities like the B–2 and
the F–117, became “more and more normal” as information about them
was released to the public. Davidson and others feared that the Air Force
was “starting to lose the capability to do things, . . . both evolutionary and
revolutionary. And forget[ting] how to do things fast, within the law.”
68
Working together “all the time” on these and related issues were, among
others, Roche and the Army and Navy secretaries and Edward C. “Pete”
Aldridge, Jr., the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology
and logistics (AT&L), who had also served—while NRO director—as
acting Air Force secretary and then as Air Force secretary.
69
In the end,
Aldridge “sent up a proposal, primarily generated by Air Force military
assistants who understood the system, [and] who had been talking to each
66. U.S. Air Force, “Rapid Capabilities Oce,” Fact Sheet, n.a., Aug 28, 2009. [http://www.af.mil/
About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104513/rapid-capabilities-oce/, accessed Mar 10, 2018.]
67. The Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency established the NRO as a covert
organization on Sep 6, 1961. The public acknowledgment of the NRO’s existence came on Sep 18,
1992. Department of Defense Key Ocials: September 1947–May 2015 (Washington, DC: Historical
Oce, Oce of the Secretary of Defense, Jun 2015), p 77.
68. The NRO also began to lose the capability to move quickly, as the formerly black world became,
in Davidson’s words, “more and more white world.” Aldridge later commented on the impact the Sep
1992 declassication had on the NRO: “As a result of declassication, the oversight and attention
given by Congress and by sta and by auditors increased dramatically. So the uniqueness of NRO,
where you could make decisions quickly without all the fanfare, a very closely knit internal capability,
started to deteriorate. It continued to deteriorate.” Intvw, Rebecca Wright with Edward C. “Pete”
Aldridge, Jr., NASA Headquarters Oral History Project, May 29, 2009, Arlington, VA. [https://www.
jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Administrators/AldridgeEC/AldridgeEC_5-29-09.
htm, accessed Mar 10 2018.]
69. Davidson recalled here that he had worked with Aldridge to set up AAZ.
42
other. And what comes out of it is the RCO, [the] Rapid Capability Oce.”
Roche made two decisions, probably, Davidson believes, after discussing
the new oce with Aldridge. First, a board consisting of Roche, Aldridge,
Air Force chief of sta Gen. John P. Jumper, and Assistant Secretary of the
Air Force for Acquisition Dr. Marvin Sambur would oversee the activities
of the new oce. Second, the RCO would report to SAF/AA Davidson.
In his interview, Davidson pointed out that this was another example
of an underlying theme in the history of SAF/AA: providing continuity.
Roche told the group his reason for his reporting-chain decision. As
Davidson recalled, “Roche said, ‘Because we need continuity. It has to
outlast the political process.’”
However, Davidson noted, this reporting structure is not widely known:
. . . the director of RCO reports to Pat [Zarodkiewicz]. . . . [But] if
you look at a wiring diagram, it doesn’t make any sense at all. . . .
[Y]ou don’t ever see . . . that that’s the reporting structure. You’ll
see that it reports to a board. If you look on the web, . . . you’ll
see that there’s an RCO, and the RCO reports to the board. On a
day-to-day basis, it . . . [doesn’t] go forward until it goes to Pat. . . .
[T]he RCO guys report to her. I think they go and see her, at least
once a week or something like that.
And, indeed, as Davidson noted, there was no mention of the admini-
strative assistant in, for example, the most recent U.S. Air Force fact sheet
on the office, released in August 2009. According to that document,
the oce reported to and was tasked by a board of directors. The under
secretary of defense for acquisition was the chair, and members were,
on the Air Force side, the secretary, the chief, and the assistant secretary
for acquisition.
70
sAf/AA And “outside Activities”
In his March 2018 interview, retired administrative assistant Davidson
discussed, in unclassied terms, the “outside activities” in which SAF/AA
had been and continued to be involved. He stated that there were “several
activities . . . that were in other agencies [over which] . . . the Air Force
had . . . administrative control.” He said they still existed and were now
under SAF/AA operational and administrative control. Two of them had
started, he recalled, “in Pete Aldridge’s day.” Individuals who may have
70. U.S. Air Force, “Rapid Capabilities Oce,” Fact Sheet, n.a., Aug 28, 2009.
43
been twelve years old at that time, and who later entered the Air Force,
were “junior players and now the senior players in those organizations.”
Davidson did not discuss the specics—the names of the organizations
and the relationships—but he pointed out, as he had done several times
throughout the interview, the longstanding ability of the Air Force and
SAF/AA “to work with those groups.” He did not believe that these outside
activities showed up in the mission directives, but he did note that they did
not fall under AAZ. Instead, he said, “They operated exclusively kind of
under me . . . as direct reports. And I was the rater for most of them, under
the relationship.”
sAf/AA, communicAtions, And informAtion mAnAgement,
2005–2016
SAF/AA and the Information & Communications Support Directorate
(HAF/IC)
In May 2005, Richard L. Testa began working for Administrative
Assistant Davidson as the director of the Information and Communications
Support Directorate (HAF/IC). He held that position until he retired in
March 2007. He was also serving as the Headquarters Air Force chief
information ocer (HAF/CIO). His duties included overseeing the Air
Force Pentagon Communications Agency (AFPCA), responsible for
command and control support to the National Military Command Center
(NMCC) and travel support to senior Defense Department ocials.
71
Air Force Pentagon Communications Agency (AFPCA)
The Air Force Pentagon Communications Agency, which can trace
its organizational lineage back to 1951, was moved from Air Force
Communications and Information Center (AFCIC) to SAF/AA in 2005.
There it remained for eighteen months. This development was the result
of the ongoing Pentagon renovation and the discussions underway about
71. Before joining the Senior Executive Service, Mr. Testa had served more than three decades
in the Air Force and Air National Guard, retiring as a major general. His position as of May 2005
was listed as Director, Headquarters Communications and Information Support [sic], Oce of the
Secretary of the Air Force. U.S. Air Force, “Richard L. Testa,” ocial biography, n.a., current as of
Aug 2005 (but includes Mar 31, 2007 retirement date). [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/
Display/Article/104790/richard-l-testa/, accessed Mar 6, 2018.] Department of Defense, National
Guard Bureau, “Major General Richard L. Testa,” ocial biography, n.a., current as of Jul 2003.
[http://www.nationalguard.mil/portals/31/Features/ngbgomo/bio/7/779.html, accessed Mar 6, 2018.]
The Information and Communications Support Directorate appeared for the rst time in the DoD
Phone Directory, Edition I, 2007 issue.
44
what Pentagon communications would ultimately look like.
72
The agency
was realigned under the Air Force District of Washington (AFDW) at a
ceremony at Bolling Air Force Base the end of September 2006. Here was
another example of SAF/AA’s willingness to hand o previously supervised
functions in the interests of eliminating duplication and enhancing eciency.
As AFDW commander Maj. Gen. Robert L. Smolen stated at the ceremony,
the realignment would result in a “single Air Force voice” with respect to joint
issues in the National Capital Region and in support of the war on terrorism.
The reorganization, he said, would “eliminate redundancies and maximize
interoperability and eciencies.”
73
SAF/AA and the Information Management Directorate (HAF/IM)
On June 7, 2007, Administrative Assistant Davidson circulated a
memorandum announcing the consolidation of information management
respon-sibilities under the new Information Management Directorate
(HAF/IM). With James G. Neighbors as director, HAF/IM replaced the
HAF Directorate for Information and Communications Support (HAF/
IC). This development was another example of SAF/AA’s ongoing
efforts to consolidate functions, eliminate duplication, and improve
business practices. As Davidson pointed out,
This name change and consolidation of information management
responsibilities was [sic] driven by the recent alignment of Air
Force communications support in the NCR [National Capital
Region] under the Air Force District of Washington and our desire
to consolidate information management responsibilities within
one HAF organization.
Now falling under HAF/IM as direct reporting units were the Air
Force Declassication Oce (AFDO) and the Air Force Departmental
Publishing Oce (AFDPO). Also reporting to Neighbors were three newly
designated HAF divisions that had been under HAF/IC: the Information
Management Division (HAF/IMI), encompassing HAF CIO sta and
mail services; the Enterprise IT Services Division (HAF/IME), providing
72. Intvw, Jones with Davidson. AFPCA appears in the SAF/AA portfolio for the rst time in
the DoD Telephone Directories in 2005 and for the last time in 2007. DoD Telephone Directories,
Editions I and III, 2005; Edition I, 2006; and DoD Phone Directory, Edition I, 2007. Air Force
Historical Research Agency, “Air Force Pentagon Communications Agency (AFCIC),” fact sheet,
Dec 11, 2008. [http://www.afhra.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/433444/air-force-pentagon-
communications-agency-afcic/, accessed Feb 24, 2018.]
73. Linda Card, “Air Force Pentagon Communication Agency restructures under AFDW,” Air
Force District of Washington, News, AFDW Public Aairs, Sep 28, 2006. [http://www.afdw.af.mil/
News/Article-Display/Article/336112/air-force-pentagon-communication-agency-restructures-under-
afdw/, accessed Feb 24, 2018.]
45
service-oriented architecture solutions; and the Media Division (HAF/
IMM), providing HAF multimedia services.
Davidson had every expectation that HAF/IM would “improve
our information management process and oversight, customer
service, records management, and the ability to comply with legally
mandated information management requirements.”
74
The information management function continued to evolve. By
September 17, 2013, following a signicant SAF/AA reorganization and
consolidation under Administrative Assistant Timothy A. Beyland, HAF/
IM had become SAF/IM, and by April 18, 2016, SAF/AAI.
75
sAf/AA’s evolving resPonsibilities, 2007–2014: Air force
mission directives
As noted above, the administrative assistant to the secretary of the Air
Force became a statutory position after the Goldwater-Nichols Act led to
changes in the U.S. Code. A general section on the position was added
to the code and, since that time, the specic parameters of the position
have been governed by several types of Air Force documents. These have
included Secretary of the Air Force Orders (SAFOs), copies of which are
not available at present, and, since June 2007, U.S. Air Force mission
directives (MDs).
76
These documented the assigned mission and authorized
authorities the Air Force secretary directly assigned or authorized to each
of the service’s “two-letter” oces or ocials.
77
74. Direct quotes from William A. Davidson, Administrative Assistant (SAF/AA), Memorandum
for Distribution C, subj: Information Management Directorate, Jun 7, 2007. U.S. Air Force, “HAF/IM
Organization: Directorate for Information Management,” ocial organization chart, n.d. The author
thanks Mr. Davidson for copies of both of these documents. DoD Phone Directory, Edition I, 2007.
75. HQ Dept of the AF Organizational Charts, Sep 17, 2013 and Apr 18, 2016. James, HAF
Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014. Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the Air Force, HAF Mission
Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, OPR: SAF/
AAII, Certied by: SAF/AA (Ms. Patricia J. Zarodkiewicz), pp 1, 10, 11, 12, AF/HOH archives.
76. U.S. Air Force mission directives describe mandatory responsibilities and authorities and were
designed to communicate mission responsibilities to commanders and personnel; enable review of a
“unit’s adequacy for accomplishing its mission”; and “[p]rovide a basis for interaction between the
unit and other organizations.” Each unit had to have a mission directive. James G. Roche, Secretary of
the Air Force, Air Force Policy Directive 10-1, 21 Jun 2002, Operations, Mission Directives, certied
by: HQ USAF/XO (Lt Gen Charles F. Wald), supersedes AFPD 10-1, 2 Aug 93, p 2. [http://www.
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a405089.pdf, accessed Jan 26, 2018.] “Mission directives provide general
guidance about an organization’s mission and communicate the unit’s mission and responsibilities
to the commander and unit personnel. Mission directives describe what an organization does, not
how it does it. They are written at the executive level.” Daniel R. Sitterly, Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary, Manpower and Reserve Aairs, Air Force Instruction 38-601, 7 January 2015, Manpower
and Organization, Format and Content of Mission Directives, certied by: AF/A1 (Mr. Robert E.
Corsi Jr.), supersedes AFI 10-101, 12 Feb 2003, p 1. [http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/
af_a1/publication/a38-601/a38-601.pdf, accessed Jan 30, 2018.]
77. Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the Air Force, Air Force Mission Directive 1, 5 Aug 2016,
Headquarters Air Force (HAF), supersedes: AFMD 1, 8 Apr 2011; certied by: SAF/AA (Ms. Patricia
Zarodkiewicz). [http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/saf_aa/publication/afmd1/afmd1.pdf,
accessed Jan 26, 2018.]
46
The administrative assistant to the secretary of the Air Force is obliged
to fulll mandates and authorities set out in HAF Mission Directive 1-6.
These are expanded, withdrawn, or otherwise revised pursuant to changes
in the U.S. Code or in U.S. Air Force organization. From 2007 through
2014, these directives described the administrative assistant’s mission,
organizational relationships, specic responsibilities, and subordinate
offices. They also assigned the authorities the Air Force secretary
delegated to SAF/AA. These the secretary received from, most commonly,
the secretary of defense pursuant to Department of Defense directives and
instructions, or less frequently, pursuant to Title 10 of the U.S. Code and
to Executive Orders. The specic responsibilities of the administrative
assistant owed from these delegated authorities. This system of delegated
authorities, by which the defense secretary delegated authorities to the
service secretaries, who in turn delegated them to relevant subordinate
oces, preceded the Goldwater-Nichols Act.
78
HAF Mission Directive 1-6, The Administrative Assistant to
the Secretary of the Air Force, June 5, 2007
The first HAF Mission Directive 1-6 was published on June 5, 2007,
relatively late in the tenure of administrative assistant William A.
Davidson, over the signature of Air Force secretary Michael W. Wynne.
The June 2007 directive superseded Secretary of the Air Force Order
(SAFO) 110.1, Authorities and Duties of the Administrative Assistant to
the Secretary of the Air Force, March 14, 2000, and it provided a template
for the directives that followed.
Mission
In its rst sentence, the June 2007 directive—and those that superseded
it—made clear the primacy of the U.S. Code in establishing the legal basis
for the Air Force secretary’s administrative assistant: “The Secretary of
the Air Force, pursuant to 10 USC §§ 8013-8016, may establish oces
and ocials within the Secretariat to assist the Secretary in carrying out
his or her responsibilities.” In so assisting the secretary, the administrative
assistant was charged with “providing administrative continuity” for
the oce of the secretary and with “managing support activities” for
that oce, “the Secretariat, the Air Sta, and supported Field Operating
Agencies and elements.” The administrative assistant was also responsible
78. Intvw, Jones with Heimdahl.
47
for “departmental programs involving policy, publishing/publications and
forms, security, special access programs, and committee management.”
Rounding out the administrative assistant’s mission was the duty to prepare,
within SAF/AA areas of responsibility, policies for the secretary’s approval
and to issue ocial guidance and procedures to implement them.
79
Organizational Relationships
The incumbent reported to the Secretary of the Air Force, served as an
agent of the secretary within SAF/AA policy and program areas, and, like
the entire Department of the Air Force, carried out all functions subject
to the secretary’s “authority, direction and control.” The administrative
assistant and the Oce of the SAF/AA cooperated with other Headquarters
Air Force organizations responsible under Title 10 of the U.S. Code for
helping the Air Force secretary to carry out her or his duties.
80
Responsibilities
By June 2007, as administrative assistant and senior career adviser to
Air Force secretary Michael W. Wynne, and as senior Air Force security
ocial, William A. Davidson had a wide range of duties. Several of these
related to security, one of his longtime areas of particular expertise. He
was specically responsible for the following:
81
1. Providing advisory services on administrative matters and
administrative continuity during changes of top ocials in the
Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force;
2. Developmental policy formulation; committee management,
security oversight for U.S. treaty issues, cover programs, and
special access programs;
3. Representing the Air Force on the National Security Policy
Forum as the Air Force Senior Security Ocial, and providing
oversight and broad direction in conjunction with other 2-digit
offices on plans, policies, and programs related to Air Force-
wide information protection/assurance and personnel, industrial,
physical, network/computer, and information security; and
79. Wynne, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 5 Jun 2007, pp 1, 6 (quotes).
80. Ibid., pp 1–2 (quote on p 1).
81. Ibid., wording quoted directly from the list on p 2. U.S. Air Force, “William A. Davidson,”
official biography, current as of Jul 2011. [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/
Article/107294/william-a-davidson/, accessed Jan 18, 2018.]
48
chairing the Air Force Security Policy and Oversight Board to
ensure an enterprise-wide approach to security;
4. Departmental guidance for and program management of
contingency funds, publishing, publications and forms man-
agement, implementation of DoD Issuances,
82
physical space
management and building services in the Pentagon and leased
space, special access programs and appeals boards, committee
management, the Air Force Executive Dining Facility, the Air Force
Art Program, the execution of AF-wide document declassication,
and the AF-wide adjudication of security clearances;
5. All budget and program development, and manpower and
personnel management for the HAF portfolio consisting of all
HAF organizations, their assigned FOAs, and the AF District of
Washington, and as such co-chairs the Program Budget Review
Board (PBRB) and the Program Budget Review Group (PBRG);
6. Representing the Air Force on the DoD Concessions Committee
for the Pentagon;
7. Personnel resource management for the Secretariat, and bud-
geting and supply services for the Secretary of the Air Force, the
Under Secretary of the Air Force, the Chief of Sta of the Air
Force, and the Vice Chief of Sta of the Air Force;
8. Continuity of operations planning and execution for the Oce
of the Secretary of the Air Force;
9. Approving medical designee status on behalf of the Secretary
of the Air Force;
10. Approving claims submitted under the Military Claims Act and
the Federal Tort Claims Act against the Air Force over $200,000; and
11. Making personnel appointments and certifying documents as
directed by the Secretary of the Air Force.
Delegated Authorities
Department of Defense directives and instructions and various titles
and sections of the U.S. Code delegated to the Air Force secretary a large
number of authorities. The secretary was permitted to delegate these
authorities to subordinates such as the administrative assistant, who could
generally redelegate them to other Department of the Air Force ocials
while retaining ultimate responsibility for all matters aecting the core
SAF/AA mission. Many of the specic responsibilities of the administrative
assistant, and the duties of the SAF/AA subordinate directorates, owed
82. Department of Defense directives and instructions.
49
from those delegated authorities. As of June 2007, Secretary Wynne had
delegated fourteen authorities to Davidson, but that number would expand
two-fold by December 2008, in the early months of Secretary Michael B.
Donley’s tenure.
In June 2007, the authorities delegated to the administrative assistant
related to the following:
83
1. DoD issuances.
2. Management of administrative space in the National Capital
Region.
3. Procedures for the acquisition and eective use of Federally-owned
and leased administrative space in the National Capital Region.
4. Process of payments for Real Property Services rendered by
WHS [Washington Headquarters Services].
5. Establishment and management of committees.
6. Administration of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
7. DoD Concessions Committee.
8. Utilization of stock fund furnishings.
9. Execution of interservice support agreements and supply
service reimbursements.
10. Special access program policy.
11. Management, administration, and oversight of DoD special
access programs.
12. DoD cover and cover support activities.
13. Ocial Representation Funds.
14. Administration and operation of executive dining facilities
located in the Pentagon.
Subordinate Oces
As of June 2007, Davidson had ten subordinate directorates to assist
him. By December 2008, this number had increased to eleven.
In June 2007, these directorates were the following:
84
1. Human Resources and Manpower Division [sic]
85
(SAF/AAA)
managed civilian personnel, and manpower support functions for the
Secretariat, the Top-4,
86
and selected eld activities. The directorate also
83. Wynne, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 5 Jun 2007, wording quoted directly from the list on pp 4–5.
84. Ibid., wording quoted directly from the list on pp 7–8, tenses changed from present to past.
85. “Division” should read “Directorate”. This error was corrected in Mission Directive 1-6, 22
Dec 2008.
86. These were the Air Force secretary, the under secretary, the chief of sta, and the vice chief of sta.
50
provided support for the many AA sponsored and AF outside DoD activities
located in approximately thirty-ve locations worldwide. Responsibilities
included liaison with WHS/OSD on senior management personnel issues,
management of DoD Outside Agency Assignments, and chairing the Special
Fund Council. The directorate also facilitated requests for personnel actions,
in-hire security clearances and drug testing, provided leave and payroll
guidance, oversight and guidance on manpower and stang issues, including
individuals brought into service as Special Government Employees and
oversight of the civilian awards programs. It managed the civilian training
budget, validated and approved training requests, and performed quality
control on civilian appraisals. Other HAF-supported functions included
fundraising campaigns for the National Capital Region, the Air Force
Pentagon Parking program, and emergency appeals.
2. Directorate of Facilities Support (SAF/AAF) provided a variety
of logistics services at various levels of support in space management,
civil engineering, interior design, supply services, administrative and
secure telephones, and Pentagon renovation coordination for HAF in
government-owned and leased facilities in the National Capital Region.
3. Directorate of Policy, Plans, and Resources (SAF/AAX) provided
departmental policy on policy formulation, federal and DoD advisory
committees, and acted as the group federal ocer (GFO) for Air Force
committees under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. SAF/AAX issued
departmental guidance on implementation of DoD Issuances (Directives
and Instructions), and for publications and forms management. SAF/AAX
managed the documentation of Secretary of the Air Force’s delegated
authorities and responsibilities; provided resources support to the oces
of the Secretary, Chief of Sta, and the Administrative Assistant; and
represented the SAF/AA on various Air Force corporate structure entities,
such as the Operating Budget Review Committee (OBRC).
4. Directorate of Security, Counterintelligence and Special Program
Oversight (SAF/AAZ), acting on behalf of the Administrative Assistant, the
Senior Air Force Security Ocial, initiated and managed special research,
feasibility studies, inquiries, and sensitive reviews for Air Force senior
leadership. Contributions were designed to help ensure the protection and
technological advancement of Air Force security and special programs.
Responsible for coordinating appropriate counterintelligence support from
the Air Force Oce of Special Investigations and other agencies as necessary.
Served as the focal point for Air Force security support to the White House
and as the Air Force Special Access Program Central Oce (SAPCO).
5. Air Force Executive Dining Facility (AFEDF) provided suitable
accommodations for the SECAF and the CSAF to dine and host special
51
functions for foreign dignitaries, ocial visitors, and other guests as
necessary in the execution of the responsibilities of their respective oces;
and a secure and private facility for key sta personnel in the Secretariat,
the Air Sta, and the Oce of the Secretary of Defense, to dine with guests
while conducting ocial business.
6. Air Force Art Program Oce (AFAPO) managed the custodial,
curatorial and exhibition activities for an inventory of more than 9,000
works of art worldwide. Established and implemented guidance and planned
strategies to document the Air Force story through art.
7. Air Force Central Adjudication Facility (AFCAF) granted, denied,
and revoked security clearances and Sensitive Compartmented Information
(SCI) access eligibility for all Air Force personnel and administered due
process thereto; approved special access eligibility determinations for
contractors, civilian, and military personnel; determined trustworthiness
for child care providers, funds handlers, and contractor personnel requiring
access to restricted areas, and provided adjudicator and personnel security
information systems training.
8. HAF Budgeting and Programming (HAF/RM) managed the
HAF resource management process and provided input to the Air Force
Corporate Structure for all program, budget, and nancial plans in the HAF
portfolio. Managed day-to-day programming, budgeting, and execution
processes for the HAF.
9. HAF Manpower and Human Capital Management (HAF/HR)
had overall responsibility for the HAF military and civilian manpower,
and civilian employment execution management within the HAF portfolio.
Was the single entry point for HAF portfolio manpower issues to AF/A1.
10. HAF Information Management (HAF/IM) provided leadership
and oversight for HAF Information Resource Management (IRM) (including
Information Management (IM) and Information Technology (IT)) activities
as HAF Chief Information Ocer (HAF CIO), Executive Secretary for the
Information Technology Management Board (ITMB), and chairman of the
supporting ITMB Working Group. HAF/IM had two direct reporting units:
the Air Force Departmental Publishing Oce (AFDPO) and the Air Force
Declassication Oce (AFDO). AFDPO provided support for authors and
users of ocial Air Force publications and forms (including include technical
and customer support for those creating or accessing publications or forms).
AFDO was responsible for the declassication and safeguarding of permanent
and historical National Security Information (NSI) Air Force documents. It
served as the Air Force focal point for inter-agency coordination within the
Federal Government of all Air Force declassication issues and acted as
the lead agent for inter-agency and inter-service declassication working
52
groups. HAF/IM relied on the 844th Communications Group reporting to
the AFDW/CC to provide various communications and information systems
and services for the HAF.
HAF Mission Directive 1-6, The Administrative Assistant to
the Secretary of the Air Force, December 22, 2008
A revised SAF/AA mission directive, superseding that of June 2007,
was published on December 22, 2008, over the signature of Michael B.
Donley, who had become Air Force secretary in October after serving as
acting secretary since Wynne’s departure in June 2008.
87
Mission and Organizational Relationships
The new directive made no changes in the administrative assistant’s
organizational relationships, but it did expand Mr. Davidson’s mission to
include information protection. This change had a signicant impact on
the responsibilities of, and authorities delegated to, his position and on the
structure of SAF/AA.
Responsibilities
The December 2008 mission directive increased from eleven to fourteen
the number of specic SAF/AA responsibilities, clarifying or revising several
and adding new ones, pursuant to Titles 10, 28, and 32 of the U.S. Code.
Departmental policy formulation, committee management, and
security oversight now included information protection programs as well
as the areas listed in the June 2007 mission directive.
The directive claried that Davidson’s departmental guidance and
program management duties included cover programs and that the guidance
and management duties related to leased space referred to that in the
Washington, D.C., area.
His personnel resource management responsibilities, mentioned in the
June 2007 directive solely in regard to the Secretariat, were now expanded
to include “Top-4, and selected eld activities.”
88
87. Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2008, The
Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, OPR: SAF/AAX, Certied by: SAF/AA
(Mr. William Davidson), AF/HOH archives. Donley had been assistant secretary of the Air Force
(nancial management and comptroller) from 1989 and then acting secretary of the Air Force from
Jan 20 until Jul 13, 1993. He served as the director of administration and management, Oce of the
Secretary Defense, from 2005 until he returned to the Air Force in 2008, serving as acting secretary
(Jun 21–Oct 2, 2008) and secretary (Oct 2, 2008–Jun 21, 2013). Cox, HQ USAF Key Personnel, p 5.
U.S. Air Force, “Michael B. Donley,” ocial biography, current as of 21 Jun 2013. [http://www.af.mil/
About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/108354/michael-b-donley/, accessed Feb 1, 2018.]
88. Donley, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2008, pp 1–2, 3 (quote).
53
In addition, continuity of operations planning and execution now
included evacuation coordination for the oces of the Air Force secretary
and SAF/AA.
The administrative assistant was now responsible for approving
claims submitted under the Foreign Claims Act and the National Guard
Claims Act against the Air Force, in addition to those submitted under
the Military Claims Act, as the June 2007 directive had stipulated. The
maximum claim amount was also lowered from more than $200,000 to not
more than $100,000. The administrative assistant’s authority to approve
Federal Tort Claims was removed pursuant to sections in Title 28 of the
U.S. Code ordering the Department of Justice to work directly with the Air
Force Judge Advocate on these claims.
89
The directive gave Davidson three new responsibilities:
90
1. Approving Claims by Members for Certain Losses of Household
Eects Caused by Hostile Action, in an amount not more than
$100,000.
2. Reviewing and approving requests from military members and
civilian employees of the Air Force to retain gifts to themselves or
their dependents from foreign governments.
3. Approving the hiring and compensation of Highly Qualied
Experts (HQEs).
Delegated Authorities
The December 2008 directive listed thirty authorities Air Force
secretary Donley delegated to administrative assistant Davidson, an
increase of sixteen from the fourteen listed in the June 2007 directive. One
of the sixteen new authorities related to Davidson’s new responsibility
regarding “highly qualied experts,” and one spoke to the detail of
Defense Department personnel to duty outside that department. The
remaining fourteen were associated with a new subordinate organization,
the Information Protection Directorate.
In December 2008, the new authorities delegated to the administrative
assistant related to the following:
91
1. Hiring and compensating Highly Qualied Experts.
2. United States security authority for North Atlantic Treaty
Organization aairs.
89. Ibid., p 3.
90. Ibid., wording quoted directly from the list on p 3.
91. Ibid., wording quoted directly from the list on pp 6–7.
54
3. Department of Defense Information Security Program.
4. Department of Defense Personnel Security Program.
5. Access to and dissemination of restricted data.
6. Unauthorized disclosure of classied information to the public.
7. Department of Defense unclassied control of nuclear
information.
8. Security of Department of Defense personnel at US Missions
abroad.
9. Assignment of American National Red Cross and United Service
Organizations, Inc., employees to duty with the military services.
10. Department of Defense Presidential Support Program.
11. Selection of DoD military and civilian personnel and contractor
employees for assignment to presidential support activities.
12. National Industrial Security Program.
13. Defense Industrial Personnel Security Clearance Review Program.
14. Department of Defense security training.
15. Security Clearance Program for US citizens employed directly
by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
16. Detail of DoD personnel to duty outside the Department of
Defense.
Subordinate Oces
The December 2008 directive made a few minor revisions in the
responsibilities of the already-existing ten subordinate directorates
assisting the Air Force secretary’s administrative assistant.
The description of the Directorate of Facilities Support (SAF/
AAF) deleted the duty to provide logistics services in the area of secure
telephones. The duties of the Directorate of Policy, Plans and Resources
(SAF/AAX) now included “Federal and DoD Advisory Committee
management.” In addition, SAF/AAX also became “the focal point for
the SAF/OS, SAF/US
92
and SAF/AA Continuity of Operations Plan,
Evacuations, and the Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan[.]”
93
In the
Directorate of HAF Information Management (HAF/IM), the Air Force
Departmental Publishing Oce and the Air Force Declassication Oce
were now described as “named activities,” not “direct reporting units” as
they had been in the directive of June 2007.
94
92. SAF/OS: Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force; SAF/US: Oce of the Under Secretary of
the Air Force.
93. Donley, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2008, p 9.
94. Ibid., p 10 (1st quote). Wynne, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 5 Jun 2007, wording quoted directly
from the list on p 8 (2d quote).
55
In a major change, the revised directive increased from ten to eleven
the number of subordinate oces. The new directorate, the Information
Protection Directorate (SAF/AAP), reected the administrative assistant’s
new duties in this area. The directive described the new oce as follows:
95
Information Protection Directorate (SAF/AAP) provided a stra-
tegic focus on the protection of information across the Air Force. The
Directorate served as the Secretariat for the Air Force Security Policy and
Oversight Board (AFSPOB) and Chaired the Air Force Security Advisory
Group (AFSAG) with responsibilities for convergence activities across
the AF Information Protection enterprise. The Directorate served as the
Air Force focal point for inter-agency coordination within DoD and the
Federal Government involving information protection and security issues
and represented the Air Force on inter-service and inter-agency committees
and working groups. Additionally, the Directorate directly managed the
Air Force’s Information Security, Industrial Security, Personnel Security,
NATO and Controlled Unclassied information programs. The Director
served as the Air Force Career Field Manager for the Security (080) series.
HAF Mission Directive 1-6, Administrative Assistant to the
Secretary of the Air Force, March 20, 2014
A revised SAF/AA mission directive, superseding that of December 2008,
was published on March 20, 2014, over the signature of Deborah Lee
James, who had become Air Force secretary in December 2013. Secretary
James succeeded Eric Fanning, who served as acting secretary following
Donley’s retirement in June 2013.
96
Timothy A. Beyland, who had become
then-Secretary Donley’s administrative assistant in October 2011, certied
the March 2014 mission directive just two months before his deputy, Patricia
J. Zarodkiewicz, succeeded him. The directive included “significant
changes due to a reorganization”
97
that reected changes in headquarters
stang and organization, details of which would be announced publicly
in the coming months.
98
These stang and organizational changes resulted
95. Donley, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2008, wording quoted directly from p 11, tenses
changed from present to past.
96. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014. Fanning had also served as under secretary
of the Air Force from Apr 2013 until Feb 2015. U.S. Department of Defense, “Eric Fanning: Former
Secretary of the United States Army,” ocial biography current as of 18 May 2016. [https://www.
defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography-View/article/778714/eric-fanning/, accessed Feb 2, 2018.]
97. There were so many alterations that the Mar 2014 directive, unlike that of Dec 2008, did not use
asterisks to indicate the revised material.
98. U.S. Air Force, News, “Air Force announces changes to headquarters organization,” Jul 14, 2014
[http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/486175/air-force-announces-changes-to-headquarters-
organization/, accessed Jan 26, 2018].
56
in revisions to the administrative assistant’s mission, responsibilities,
delegated authorities—now called delegated authorities or assigned respon-
sibilities—and subordinate oces.
99
Mission and Organizational Relationships
The March 2014 mission directive made a few changes to the SAF/
AA mission and organizational relationships. Unlike the directives of June
2007 and December 2008, that of March 2014 deleted all reference to
Air Force Mission Directive 1, Headquarters Air Force, and relied solely
on relevant sections of Title 10 of the U.S. Code as authority for the
establishment of the position of administrative assistant to the secretary of
the Air Force as part of the Secretariat.
100
In addition, the March 2014 directive deleted all references to the “Air
Sta” and replaced them with “Headquarters Air Force.” For example, in
the directive’s mission section, the administrative assistant’s management
of support activities now applied to Headquarters Air Force (HAF),
and reference to “the Secretariat” was deleted here also. The security
enterprise aspect of the administrative assistant’s mission was revised:
“information protection” was now, simply, “information”; and “personnel
and industrial security” replaced “special access programs.” The latter,
however, still appeared in the section on SAF/AA responsibilities.
101
The
revised directive made slight adjustments in SAF/AA’s organizational
relationships as well, including deleting the description of SAF/AA as
“part of the Secretariat.”
102
Responsibilities
The March 2014 mission directive increased from fourteen to nineteen
the number of specic SAF/AA responsibilities. It retained, verbatim, a
99. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 1 (quote). U.S. Air Force, official
biographies: “Deborah Lee James,” current as of Jan 2017 [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/
Display/Article/467806/deborah-lee-james/, accessed Feb 6, 2018]; “Timothy A. Beyland,” current as
of May 2014 [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/104992/timothy-a-beyland/]
and “Patricia J. Zarodkiewicz,” current as of Aug 2017 [http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/
Display/Article/104775/patricia-j-zarodkiewicz/], both accessed Jan 16, 2018]. U.S. Department of
Defense, Press Operations, “Air Force Announces Changes to Headquarters Organization,” Release
No: NR-370-14, Jul 14, 2014. [https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-
View/Article/605080/air-force-announces-changes-to-headquarters-organization/, accessed Feb 5,
2018.] Reprinted in U.S. Air Force, News, AFNS, “Air Force announces changes to headquarters
organization,” Jul 14, 2014.
100. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 1. James, Air Force Mission Directive 1,
5 Aug 2016.
101. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, pp 1 (quote), 2.
102. Ibid., p 2. Donley, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2008, p 2 (quote).
57
number of those listed in the December 2008 directive, but it also
reworded, consolidated, divided, claried, or expanded several others. The
March 2014 directive connected SAF/AA responsibilities to the secretary’s
delegated authorities less directly than had its predecessors.
Those responsibilities retained related to the following:
103
1. Providing advisory services on administrative matters and
administrative continuity during changes of top ocials in the
SAF/OS [Oce of the Secretary of the Air Force].
2. Approving medical designee status on behalf of the SecAF.
3. Approving claims submitted under the Military Claims Act, the
Foreign Claims Act, and the National Guard Claims Act against
the Air Force over $100,000;
4. Approving Claims by Members for Certain Losses of Household
Eects Caused by Hostile Action, in an amount not more than
$100,000.
5. Approving the hiring and compensation of Highly Qualied
Experts (HQEs).
6. Making personnel appointments and certifying documents as
directed by the SecAF.
The reworded, consolidated, divided, claried, or expanded respon-
sibilities related to the following:
104
1. Departmental policy formulation; Special Access Program
(SAP) security oversight for international arms control agreements
and treaty issues; cover programs.
105
2. Serving as the Security Program Executive (SPE) with oversight
and management responsibilities for the Air Force Security
Enterprise (AFSE). Integrates with other two- letter oces on
security plans, policies, programs, resources, information sharing,
and risk management activities. Chairs the Air Force Security
Enterprise Executive Board (AFSEEB).
106
103. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, wording quoted directly from the list on pp 2–3.
104. Ibid., wording quoted directly from the list on pp 2–3, tenses changed from present to past.
105. The Mar 2014 directive deleted the phrase “information protection programs” from this
responsibility as it had been described in the Dec 2008 directive.
106. The Mar 2014 directive also introduced the Security Program Executive and the Air Force
Security Enterprise; deleted mention of the National Security Policy Forum and the Air Force Senior
Security Ocial; deleted specic mention of several security areas of responsibility; and renamed
what had been the Air Force Security Policy and Oversight Board.
58
3. Departmental guidance for and program management of
contingency funds, to include Emergency and Extraordinary
Expenses
107
and Official Representation Funds; publishing;
publications and forms management; implementation of DoD
Issuances; and Committee Management.
108
4. Physical space management in the Pentagon, HAF oce space
on Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility–Washington, Joint Base
Anacostia-Bolling, and leased space in the Washington DC area;
this included AF Pentagon parking and badging,
109
as well as the
Air Force Art Program.
5. The Air Force Executive Dining Facility [AFEDF]; and repre-
senting the Air Force on the DoD Concessions Committee for the
Pentagon and the Pentagon Governance Council.
110
6. All budget and program development, and manpower and
personnel management for the HAF portfolio consisting of
all HAF organizations, their assigned FOAs;
111
co-chaired the
Program Budget Review Board (PBRB) and the Program Budget
Review Group (PBRG).
7. Personnel resource management for the Secretariat, Glass Doors
Offices,
112
and selected field activities. Budgeting and supply
services for the Secretary of the Air Force, the Under Secretary of
the Air Force, the Chief of Sta of the Air Force, the Vice Chief
of Sta of the Air Force, and the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air
Force [CMSAF].
113
8. Operated the HAF Gift Locker. Reviewed requests from military
members and civilian employees/political appointees of the Air
Force on the appropriateness to retain gifts for themselves or their
dependents from domestic personnel and/or foreign governments;
107. The Mar 2014 directive introduced this new category, referred to as Emergency Extraordinary
Expenses in the relevant delegated authority and as Emergency and Extraordinary Expenses in the
relevant section of the U.S. Code.
108. The Mar 2014 directive deleted mention here of cover and special access programs and special
access programs appeals boards, but several delegations of authority dealt with these matters.
109. The Dec 2008 mission directive had included the Air Force Pentagon Parking Program in the
duties of the directorate of Human Resources and Management (HAF/RM), but the Mar 2014 directive
was the rst to include it in the list of specic responsibilities and the rst to make any mention of badging.
110. The AFEDF now had its own specic responsibility, consolidated with that related to the DoD
Concessions Committee, and the Pentagon Governance Council made its rst appearance in a SAF/
AA mission directive.
111. The Mar 2014 directive deleted the Air Force District of Washington from this list.
112. The Dec 2008 directive had here read “Top-4.” The Mar 2014 directive used, for the rst time,
the term “Glass Door Oces” but did not dene it. According to the Dec 2014 mission directive, the
term referred to the “SecAF [Secretary of the Air Force], Under Secretary of the Air Force (USecAF),
AF/CC [Chief of Sta of the Air Force], Vice Chief of Sta of the Air Force (AF/CV), and Assistant
Vice Chief of the Air Force (AF/CVA).” James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, p 3.
113. The CMSAF was now included in this list.
59
maintained an inventory of items appropriate for gift giving by
Glass Doors oces; processed gift requests.
114
The administrative assistant’s new or newly included responsibilities
related to the following:
115
1. Representing the Air Force as the Senior Agency Ocial.
2. Serving on the Air Force Space Board to address SAP [special
access program-]related issues across the space portfolio.
3. Oversight of Information Resource Management for the HAF
116
in
the Pentagon reservation; media (including graphics, videography,
and photography) services to HAF; and Ocial Mail service to HAF.
4. Overseeing and implementing the Air Force Insider Threat
Program.
5. Serving as the Restricted Data (RD) Management Ocial to direct
and administer the RD classication program within the Air Force.
Delegated Authorities/Assignment of Responsibilities
The March 2014 directive listed forty-three authorities Air Force sec-
retary James delegated to administrative assistant Beyland, an increase of
thirteen from the thirty listed in the December 2008 directive. What had
in all previous mission directives been described solely as an “authority”
was now described, in twenty-ve instances, as a “responsibility”; in ten
instances, as “authority”; in six instances, as variants of “authority and
responsibility”; and, in two instances, as “specic authority.” The March
2014 mission directive retained a number of those delegated authorities—
now most frequently called “responsibilities”—that clearly corresponded
to those listed in the December 2008 directive, but it usually reordered
them and sometimes made minor additions or deletions in addition to
the “authority” versus “responsibility” alterations noted in the previous
sentence. It also deleted several others and added new ones.
117
114. The Mar 2014 directive made the rst mention of “the HAF Gift Locker” and expanded SAF/
AA responsibilities in this area. The administrative assistant would now review gift retention requests
from political appointees, not just from military members and civilian employees as had been the
case under the Dec 2008 directive. New also was the mention of “appropriateness,” and gifts from
“domestic personnel” now joined those from foreign governments as a source of concern. The duties
to maintain an inventory and to process gift requests were explicitly spelled out for the rst time.
115. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, wording quoted directly from the list on pp 2–3.
116. The Dec 2008 mission directive had included HAF Information Resource Management in the
duties of the directorate of HAF Information Management (HAF/IM), but the Mar 2014 directive was
the rst to include it in the list of specic responsibilities.
117. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, wording quoted directly from the list on pp 5–9.
60
The delegations of authority/assignments of responsibility retained by
the administrative assistant were the following:
118
1. Responsibility relating to detail of AF personnel to duty outside
the Department of Defense.
2. Responsibility relating to DoD security training and authority
to appoint a representative to the DoD Security Training Council
(DSTC).
119
3. Responsibility relating to the administration and operation of
executive dining facilities located in the Pentagon.
4. Authority and responsibility relating to DoD issuances.
5. Responsibility relating to the process of payments for Real
Property Services rendered by WHS.
120
6. Responsibility relating to United States security authority for
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) aairs.
7. Authority relating to the establishment and management
of committees . . . , not to be further delegated lower than the
Assistant Secretary level or the three-star ag ocer equivalent.
121
8. Authority relating to the administration of the Federal Advisory
Committee Act . . . (not to be further delegated lower than the
Assistant Secretary level or the three-star ag ocer equivalent and
to no one serving in any capacity on the Committees in question).
122
9. Authority relating to DoD cover and cover support activities.
10. Responsibility relating to the DoD Concessions Committee.
11. Responsibility relating to Department of Defense Information
Security Program.
12. Responsibility relating to DoD Personnel Security Program
(not including adjudication of AF security investigations), with
the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and
Reserve Aairs (SAF/MR) having Personnel Security Appeals
Board (PSAB) oversight.
123
118. Ibid.
119. The DSTC authority was new.
120. The wording of this responsibility is unchanged from the Dec 2008 mission directive. But
according to its “Summary of Changes” section, the Mar 2014 directive added “the authority to ensure
the Air Force processes payments promptly and expeditiously for all Real Property Services rendered
by Washington Headquarters Service (WHS)”. However, the Mar 2014 directive does not say this
explicitly in its section on delegated authorities/ assignments of responsibility.
121. The prohibition on further delegation below the listed levels was new.
122. The prohibition on further delegation below the listed levels was new.
123. The prohibition on adjudication of AF security investigations, the role of SAF/MR, and the
PSAB were new.
61
13. Authority relating to the management, administration, and
oversight of DoD Special Access Programs (SAPs).
14. Responsibility relating to SAP security policy.
124
15. Authority/Responsibility relating to access to and dissemination
of restricted data.
16. Responsibility relating to assignment of American National
Red Cross and United Service Organizations, Inc., employees to
duty with the military services.
17. Responsibility relating to unauthorized disclosure of classied
information to the public as delegated to the SECAF pursuant
to DoDD 5210.50, Unauthorized Disclosure of Classified
Information to the Public.
18. Responsibility relating to Department of Defense Presidential
Support Program (not to include adjudication of AF security
investigations).
125
19. Responsibility relating to Security Clearance Program (not
to include adjudication of AF security investigations), for U.S.
citizens employed directly by NATO.
126
20. Responsibility relating to Air Force policy development for
DoD unclassied control of nuclear information.
127
21. Responsibility relating to personnel investigations of
Department of Defense personnel at U.S. Missions abroad.
128
22. Authority relating to selection of AF military and civilian
personnel and contractor employees for assignment to presidential
support activities, . . . not to be delegated below this level.
129
23. Responsibility relating to National Industrial Security Program
(NISP).
24. Responsibility relating to Defense Industrial Personnel
Security Clearance Review Program.
25. Responsibility relating to procedures for the acquisition and
eective use of Federally-owned and leased administrative space
in the National Capital Region (NCR).
26. Authority relating to hiring and compensating HQEs.
124. The insertion of “security” was new.
125. The prohibition on adjudication of AF security investigations was new. The Department of
Defense Central Adjudication Facility (DoD CAF) had absorbed the Air Force Central Adjudication
Facility (AFCAF). James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 1.
126. The prohibition on adjudication of AF security investigations was new.
127. The insertion of “Air Force policy development for” was new.
128. The phrase “personnel investigations” had read “security” in the Dec 2008 directive.
129. The phrase “AF military” had read “DoD military” in the Dec 2008 directive. The prohibition
on delegation “below this level” was also new.
62
The March 2014 directive rescinded four delegated authorities granted
the administrative assistant in the December 2008 directive. It deleted
authorities relating to utilization of stock fund furnishings, the execution
of interservice support agreements and supply service reimbursements,
and the Department of Defense Personnel Security Program. It also
removed the authority relating to “management of administrative space
in the National Capital Region,” but, as noted above, kept in place that
relating to “procedures for the acquisition and eective use of Federally-
owned and leased administrative space” in the region.
130
The new delegations of authority/assignments of responsibility to the
administrative assistant were the following:
131
1. Authority relating to reporting DoD intelligence and intelligence-
related sensitive activities, other than CI and HUMINT
132
activities,
for the preceding scal quarter to the Oce of the Under Secretary
of Defense, Intelligence, Sensitive Activities Directorate.
2. Responsibility relating to providing prompt responses to
Defense Investigative Service (DIS) personnel security lead
requests from overseas military investigative agencies.
3. Authority and responsibility relating to the coordination
of efforts with Director of Administration and Management
(DA&M) on matters relating to the authorities, responsibilities,
and functions assigned in the Directive.
4. Authority relating to the implementation of DoD cover and
cover support activities.
133
5. Responsibility relating to identifying an ocial to serve as the
Transition Assistance Coordinator for the departure and arrival of
PAS and non-career SES ocials.
134
6. Responsibility relating to WHS.
7. Responsibility relating to the updates, responsibilities, func-
tions, relationships and authorities of the Principal Deputy Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy (PDUSD)(P).
8. Responsibility relating to providing the General Counsel with
information and recommendations concerning all phases of the
personnel security programs within the Air Force.
130. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 8.
131. Ibid., wording quoted directly from the list on pp 5–9.
132. CI: counterintelligence; HUMINT: human intelligence.
133. This new authority was in addition to the “Authority relating to DoD cover and cover support
activities,” retained as noted above.
134. PAS: presidentially-appointed, Senate-conrmed; SES: senior executive service.
63
9. Authority/Responsibility relating to the management, admin-
istration, and oversight of the Air Force Security Enterprise.
10. Responsibility relating to providing AF SAP-unique IT
support, access to AF Access Database System (AFADS), AF
Special Programs (AFSP), Conguration and Security Tracking
System (CASTS), phones and all other SAP specic hardware,
databases and systems; funding SAP specic missions, equipment
and capabilities; referring adverse information on persons under
AF SAP cognizance to the DoD CAF following a determination
by the appropriate Program Security Ocer.
135
11. Authority relating to Emergency Extraordinary Expenses as
delegated to the SecAF pursuant to Title 10, Section 127, Emergency
and Extraordinary Expenses, and Ocial Representation Funds.
136
12. Responsibility to ensure all assigned personnel, contractors,
visitors, and guests to the Pentagon Reservation comply with the
Administrative Instruction; authorized to identify and assign a
Component Parking Representative and Division Representative
to administer the Air Force Parking Program.
13. Responsibility and authority to grant the entry of authorized re
inspectors into Air Force-controlled or occupied space at reasonable
times, and to ensure conditions are promptly corrected or incorporated
into the appropriate WHS facility hazard abatement plan, and to
ensure re safety representatives are assigned and trained.
14. Specic authority . . . relating to the use of government aircraft
by DoD ocials, specically, to “review and approve government
air requests from within their respective Departments” which
is delegated to SAF/AA for Secretariat requests, the AF/CV for
MAJCOM Commanders (except when the primary purpose of the
travel is for a Combatant Command), and the Assistant Vice-Chief of
Sta (AF/CVA) for Air Sta, FOA, and DRU requests. SAF/AA may
approve these requests when AF/CV and AF/CVA are not available.
15. Authority to approve, as the AF focal point for all AF hosted
or attended conferences, conferences where the estimated AF-
wide costs are below $500,000. Authority to approve attendance
135. The Mar 2014 directive did not include a corresponding mention of this delegated responsibility
in its list of specic responsibilities. In a complete reversal, the Dec 2014 directive included this
entry in its list of specic responsibilities but did not include it in its delegated authority/assigned
responsibility list.
136. This delegated authority was both new and old. As noted above, the Mar 2014 directive
introduced this new category, referred to here as Emergency Extraordinary Expenses and as Emergency
and Extraordinary Expenses in the relevant section of the U.S. Code. The delegated authority relating
to Ocial Representation Funds was included in the Dec 2008 directive and was retained here.
64
at conferences hosted by non-DoD entities, where the estimated
AF-wide costs are at or below $20,000.
16. Authority/Responsibility relating to the management, admin-
istration, and oversight of classified information sharing/safe-
guarding program and the Air Force Insider Threat Program.
17. Specic authority . . . to approve medical designee status.
137
Subordinate Oces
The March 2014 directive made signicant revisions in the SAF/AA
organization chart and in the responsibilities of several of the subordinate
offices assisting the Air Force secretary’s administrative assistant. The
reorganization mentioned in the rst sentence of the March 2014 directive
resulted in consolidations, deletions, name changes, and other revisions
in those oces. The eleven subordinate oces of the December 2008
directive were now six, and they were no longer described as directorates.
The March 2014 directive established the Sensitive Activities Oce
(SAF/AAH) and dismantled several directorates listed in the December
2008 directive and reassigned or deleted their responsibilities. Some of the
duties of the old Human Resources and Manpower Directorate (SAF/AAA)
were passed to the new Resources (SAF/AAR) oce and others to the new
Operations (SAF/AAO) oce. Some of the duties of the old Directorate
of Policy, Plans, and Resources (SAF/AAX) went to the Resources oce
and others to the new Information Management (SAF/AAI) oce. The Air
Force Art Program Oce (AFAPO), listed as a separate subordinate oce
in the December 2008 directive, was now part of the Operations oce. The
Air Force Central Adjudication Facility (AFCAF), also listed as a separate
subordinate oce in the earlier directives, was now absorbed into the DoD
Central Adjudication Facility (DoD CAF). The Information Protection
Directorate was closed, with most of its responsibilities apparently passed
outside SAF/AA and a small number reassigned to the renamed Security
and Special Program Oversight (SAF/AAZ) office. The March 2014
directive used the phrase “information protection” only once, in describing,
in general terms, the SAF/AA portfolio. In another development, the SAF/
AA organization chart now included the administrative assistant’s deputy
for the rst time in a mission directive.
138
The six subordinate three-letter oces described in the March 2014
directive were as follows:
139
137. The DoD instruction granting this specic authority reserved all other authorities to the Air
Force surgeon general. The Dec 2008 directive included this activity in its list of specic responsibilities,
but there was no corresponding delegated authority until here in the Mar 2014 directive.
138. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 10 (quote and organization chart).
139. Ibid., wording quoted directly from the list on pp 10–12, tenses changed from present to past.
65
1. Resources (SAF/AAR).
This newly named oce combined certain functions of the old Human
Resources and Manpower Directorate (SAF/AAA); the old Directorate of
Policy, Plans, and Resources (SAF/AAX); the old Directorate of HAF
Budgeting and Programming (HAF/RM); and the old Directorate of HAF
Manpower and Human Capital Management (HAF/HR).
The Resources office, a Secretariat function
140
managed civilian
personnel
141
for the SAF/OS, SAF/US, AF/CC, AF/CV, AF/CVA and
selected eld activities. SAF/AAR also provided support for the many
AA-sponsored and AF outside DoD activities located in approximately 35
locations world-wide. Responsibilities included liaison with Washington
Headquarters Service/Oce of the Secretary of Defense (WHS/OSD) on
senior management personnel issues, management of DoD Outside Agency
Assignments, and those responsibilities associated with chairing the
Special Fund Council. Additionally, this directorate facilitated requests for
personnel actions, in-hire security clearances and drug testing,
142
oversight
and guidance on manpower and stang issues to include individuals
brought into service as Special Government Employees, oversight of the
civilian recognition programs,
143
managed the resources and requirements
for civilian training and education, and managed and oversaw civilian
performance management systems functions including emergency appeals
directed by DoD and Oce of Personnel Management (OPM).
144
SAF/
AAR represented the SAF/AA on Air Force Corporate Structure entities
such as the Operating Budget Review Committee (OBRC).
145
SAF/AAR
managed the HAF resource management process and provided input to
the Air Force Corporate Structure for all program, budget, and nancial
plans in the HAF portfolio. SAF/AAR was responsible for management
of day-to-day programming, budgeting, and execution processes for the
HAF.
146
SAF/AAR maintained overall responsibility for the HAF military
and civilian manpower, and civilian employment execution management
within the HAF portfolio. Acted as the single entry point for HAF portfolio
manpower issues to AF/A1.
147
Provided resources support to the oces of
the SecAF, CSAF, and the SAF/AA.
148
140. The functions set out in the rst four sentences were the same or nearly the same as those in
the Dec 2008 directive’s description of SAF/AAA.
141. The phrase “and manpower support functions,” included in the Dec 2008 directive’s description
of SAF/AAA, was deleted here.
142. The phrase “provides leave and payroll guidance,” included in the Dec 2008 directive’s
description of SAF/AAA, was deleted here.
143. The Dec 2008 directive’s description of SAF/AAA described these as “civilian awards programs.”
144. The Dec 2008 directive noted that SAF/AAA “performs quality control on civilian appraisals”
but made no mention of emergency appeals or OPM.
145. The Dec 2008 directive included this duty in its description of SAF/AAX.
146. The Dec 2008 directive included the duties in these two sentences in its description of HAF/RM.
147. The Dec 2008 directive included the duties in these two sentences in its description of HAF/HR.
148. The Dec 2008 directive included this duty in its description of SAF/AAX.
66
2. Operations (SAF/AAO).
This newly named oce combined and expanded certain functions of
the old Directorate of Facilities Support (SAF/AAF) and the old Human
Resources and Manpower Directorate (SAF/AAA). The Air Force Art
Program Oce no longer had its own place in the organization chart and
now fell under the Operations oce (SAF/AAO).
SAF/AAO managed all facility and logistical support services for the
HAF and other Air Force agencies occupying government-owned and leased
facilities in the NCR. SAF/AAO was the AF liaison with OSD, WHS, Facilities
Services Directorate and other Services on all facility and logistical issues in
the NCR.
149
Support included, but was not limited to, facilities and facility
operations, facility modication, maintenance, space management, civil
engineering, parking allocation,
150
furniture procurement, systems furniture
design, interior design, corridor displays, supplies and supply services,
continuity of operations,
151
capabilities, lease/rent management, facility
acquisition and contracting, and secure/non-secure telecommunications.
152
Other HAF-supported functions included locksmith and physical security
support, Airman’s Hall scheduling, badge/CAC services, preparation of
building pass applications and contractor verications,
153
maintained the
HAF Gift Locker
154
for presentation and disposition of gifts, and managed
the official Air Force fundraising campaigns (e.g., Combined Federal
Campaign and Air Force Assistance Fund) for the NCR.
155
Additionally,
SAF/AAO facilitated the world wide Air Force Art program, managing the
custodial, curatorial and exhibition activities.
156
3. Security and Special Program Oversight (SAF/AAZ).
The Security and Special Program Oversight (SAF/AAZ) oce bore
some resemblance to the Directorate of Security, Counterintelligence and
149. The Dec 2008 directive made no mention of liaison duties with WHS/OSD except in connection
with “senior management personnel issues, management of DoD Outside Agency Assignments, and
those responsibilities associated with chairing the Special Fund Council” that fell under SAF/AAA.
As noted above, these fell under SAF/AAR in the Mar 2014 directive.
150. In the Dec 2008 directive, the Air Force Pentagon Parking program was one of the duties of
SAF/AAA.
151. This is the Mar 2014 directive’s only specic mention of SAF/AA “continuity of operations”
duties. The Dec 2008 directive (p 9) gave a detailed duty to SAF/AAX: it was “the focal point for the
SAF/OS, SAF/US and SAF/AA Continuity of Operations Plan, Evacuations, and the Joint Emergency
Evacuation Plan.”
152. The Mar 2014 directive added many of the tasks following the previous footnote as new
or expanded responsibilities, compared with those included in the Dec 2008 directive’s description
of SAF/AAF. For example, the Dec 2008 directive deleted SAF/AAF’s duties regarding secure
telephones mentioned in the Jun 2007 directive.
153. The Mar 2014 directive was the rst to mention these particular “HAF-supported functions.”
154. As noted above, the Mar 2014 directive made the rst mention of “the HAF Gift Locker.”
155. In the Dec 2008 directive, fundraising-campaign responsibilities were part of the SAF/AAA portfolio.
156. As noted above, the Air Force Art Program Oce (AFAPO) was a separate subordinate oce
in the Dec 2008 directive.
67
Special Program Oversight (SAF/AAZ) of the December 2008 directive.
The new office retained some of its predecessor’s past functions and
removed others. The new SAF/AAZ also took on some functions from the
Information Protection Directorate (SAF/AAP), which no longer existed
under the March 2014 directive.
Old SAF/AAZ functions not passed to the new Security and Special
Program Oversight oce included initiating and managing “special
research, feasibility studies, inquiries, and sensitive reviews for Air Force
senior leadership. . . . designed to help ensure the protection and technological
advancement of Air Force security and special programs.” Gone also
was the responsibility “for coordinating appropriate counterintelligence
support from the Air Force Oce of Special Investigations and other
agencies as necessary.”
157
Several Information Protection Directorate functions did not transfer
to the new Security and Special Program Oversight oce. The March 2014
directive made no mention of the Air Force Security Policy and Oversight
Board (AFSPOB), the Air Force Security Advisory Group (AFSAG),
or the duty to manage “NATO and Controlled Unclassied information
programs.” The director of the new oce would not be responsible, as the
SAF/AAP director has been, for serving “as the Air Force Career Field
Manager for the Security (080) series.”
158
SAF/AAZ provided a strategic policy focus on the Air Force Security
Enterprise
159
and on protection of information across the Air Force. SAF/
AAZ served as the Secretariat for the AFSEEB.
160
Served as the Vice
Chair for the Security Enterprise/Mission Assurance Steering Group with
responsibilities for convergence, integration, and information sharing of
security activities across the AF security enterprise.
161
Additionally, SAF/
157. Donley, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2008, p 9.
158. Ibid.
159. The Dec 2008 directive did not use the phrase “Security Enterprise.”
160. Not present in the Dec 2008 directive and unidentied in that of Mar 2014, this acronym
referred to the Air Force Security Enterprise Executive Board. Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the Air
Force, Air Force Policy Directive 17-1, 12 Apr 2016, Cyberspace, Information Dominance Governance
and Management, OPR: SAF/CIO A6SS, Certied by SAF/CIO A6 (Lt Gen William J. Bender),
Supersedes: AFPD 33-2, 3 Aug 2011; AFPD 33-4, 17 Jan 2013; and AFPD 33-5, 11 Jan 2013. [http://
static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/saf_cio_a6/publication/afpd17-1/afpd_17-1.pdf, accessed Feb
13, 2018.] That policy directive (p 5) identied the administrative assistant’s duties as follows:
1. IAW AFPD 16-14, Security Enterprise Governance, provide assistance to SAF/CIO A6 in the pre-
sentation and vetting of cyberspace issues and agenda items to the Air Force Security Enterprise
Executive Board when appropriate.
2. On behalf of the security enterprise and special access program (SAP) community, participate in
cyberspace governance forums.
3. As the Senior Security Ocial and Security Program Executive, ensure Personnel, Information, Indus-
trial, and Insider Threat security programs are aligned with and support cyberspace policy and execution.
4. Support the SAF/CIO A6 in execution of CIO responsibilities for Special Access Program networks.
161. The Dec 2008 directive did not mention this responsibility or the steering group.
68
AAZ managed the AF Information Security Program (to include nuclear
information
162
security); Personnel Security Program; Industrial Security
Program;
163
acted as the AF focal point for the insider threat program,
164
and served as the Air Force Special Access Program Coordination Oce
(SAPCO) and the Authorizing Ocial for Air Force SAP systems.
165
4. Air Force Executive Dining Facility (SAF/AAM).
The primary responsibility of the Air Force Executive Dining Facility,
providing “suitable accommodations” for the Air Force secretary and chief
of sta, remained unchanged from what it had been in the December 2008
directive. The only change was in the description of the facility’s additional
responsibility with respect to “key sta”. In the earlier directives, these
had been personnel in the Secretariat and the Air Sta. Now, they were
“personnel in the HAF,” a revision reecting the organizational changes at
Headquarters Air Force.
166
5. Information Management (SAF/AAI).
The revised Information Management (SAF/AAI) closely resembled
its predecessor, HAF Information Management (HAF/IM). But the revised
oce no longer acted as HAF Chief Information Ocer (HAF CIO). The
revised oce also took on several functions of the old Directorate of
Policy, Plans, and Resources (SAF/AAX).
SAF/AAI provided leadership and oversight for HAF Information
Resource Management, to include Information Management, Information
Technology, Privacy Act, Freedom of Information Act, and Records
Management activities.
167
SAF/AAI served as Executive Secretary for
the HAF Information Technology Management Board and chaired the
supporting ITMB Working Group. SAF/AAI had two named activities:
162. The Dec 2008 directive included a delegated authority related to DoD “unclassied control
of nuclear information” but made no mention of any nuclear-related duties in its descriptions of the
administrative assistant’s subordinate oces.
163. The duties thus far in this sentence came from the Dec 2008 directive’s description of SAF/
AAP responsibilities. But the Mar 2014 directive did not carry over the SAF/AAP duty to manage also
“NATO and Controlled Unclassied information programs” included in the Dec 2008 directive (p 11).
164. The Mar 2014 directive made the rst mention of the insider threat program. But it deleted
the SAF/AAZ duty to serve as “the focal point for Air Force security support to the White House”
included in the Dec 2008 directive (p 9).
165. This duty as named was new.
166. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 12 (all quotes). Donley, HAF Mission
Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2008, p 10 (1st and 2d quotes).
167. Privacy Act, Freedom of Information Act, and records management activities were new or
newly spelled out.
69
the Air Force Departmental Publishing Oce (AFDPO) and the Air Force
Declassication Oce (AFDO). AFDPO provided support to authors and
users of ocial Air Force publications and forms (to include technical
and customer support for those creating or accessing publications or
forms). AFDO was responsible for the declassication and safeguarding
of permanent and historical National Security Information (NSI)
Air Force documents. It served as the Air Force focal point for inter-
agency coordination within the Federal Government of all Air Force
declassication issues and acted as the lead agent for inter-agency and
inter-service declassication working groups.
168
SAF/AAI provided media
services to include graphics, videography, and photography services to
HAF organizations, and operated the Ocial Mail program for HAF
organizations on the Pentagon reservation.
169
SAF/AAI interfaced with the
844th Communications Group [CG], reporting to the AFDW/CC, to ensure
various communications and information systems and services for the
HAF.
170
SAF/AAI developed departmental policy on policy formulation,
federal and DoD advisory committees, and the Group Federal Ocer
(GFO) for Air Force committees under the Federal Advisory Committee
Act; issued departmental guidance for these programs, and publications
and forms management. SAF/AAI managed the documentation of
Secretary of the Air Force’s delegated authorities and responsibilities.
171
6. Sensitive Activities Oce (SAF/AAH).
This oce served as the United States Air Force Focal Point and Single
Enterprise to address immediate and emerging Combat Air Force, Combat
Support Agency, and Combatant Commander’s mission needs involving
sensitive activities, specically their applications, and operational con-
cepts. This also included those sensitive activities . . . involving other
non DoD Federal Departments and Agencies (NDFDA). This Directorate
also promulgated SAF/AA’s directed manning prioritization guidance for
USAF personnel assigned to USAF, DoD, and NDFDA sensitive activities
via AFPC’s Special Programs Assignment Division.
168. The duties in the preceding ve sentences repeated those set out in the Dec 2008 directive.
169. The Mar 2014 directive was the first to mention the Official Mail program, and the other
responsibilities were new or newly spelled out.
170. The Mar 2014 directive made slight adjustments in the Dec 2008 directive’s wording of this
sentence. The oce—no longer relying on the 844th CG—interfaced with that group, with the goal of
ensuring—instead of providing—those systems and services for the HAF.
171. In the Dec 2008 directive, these responsibilities belonged to the Directorate of Policy, Plans,
and Resources (SAF/AAX).
70
HAF Mission Directive 1-6, Administrative Assistant to the
Secretary of the Air Force, December 22, 2014
A revised SAF/AA mission directive, superseding that of March 2014, was
published on December 22, 2014, over the signature of Secretary James.
It was certied by Ms. Zarodkiewicz, who had succeeded Tim Beyland
as administrative assistant in May 2014. The revised directive included
changes resulting from the Headquarters Air Force reorganization,
specically the elimination of graphics responsibilities from the portfolio
of the subordinate Information Management oce.
172
It also added “Information Protection” to the name of an already existing
subordinate oce, clarifying SAF/AA responsibilities in that area.
173
Mission and Organizational Relationships
The December 2014 mission directive did not alter the SAF/AA
mission or organizational relationships.
Responsibilities
The December 2014 mission directive increased from nineteen to
twenty the number of specific SAF/AA responsibilities. It retained,
verbatim, sixteen of those listed in the March 2014 directive, but it deleted
part of one and claried, reworded, or expanded two others. The new
responsibility dealt with matters related to special access programs.
The December 2014 directive deleted graphics from the list of media
services over which Zarodkiewicz’s subordinate Information Management
oce had responsibility. The revised duty read as follows:
174
Oversight of Information Resource Management for the HAF
in the Pentagon reservation; media (including videography and
photography) services to HAF; and Ocial Mail service to HAF.
The directive added a parenthetical definition to the SAF/AA
responsibility relating to personnel resource management. The revised
responsibility read as follows:
175
172. The removal of graphics responsibilities is apparently a continuation, or nal piece, of the
Headquarters Air Force reorganization that had a signicant impact on the Mar 2014 directive.
173. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, pp 1, 10, 11, 12. USAF ocial biography,
Zarodkiewicz.
174. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, p 2.
175. Ibid., p 3.
71
Personnel resource management for the Secretariat, Glass Door
Oces (SecAF, Under Secretary of the Air Force (USecAF), AF/
CC, Vice Chief of Sta of the Air Force (AF/CV), and Assistant
Vice Chief of the Air Force (AF/CVA)), and selected eld activities.
Budgeting and supply services for the SecAF, the USecAF, the
CSAF, AF/CV, and the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force.
The directive made two changes to SAF/AA’s responsibility relating to
the HAF Gift Locker. More signicantly, it enlarged Zarodkiewicz’s duty
by adding consultation with the State Department on gifts from foreign
governments. It also revised the wording about the gift inventory. The
expanded and reworded responsibility read as follows:
176
Operated the HAF Gift Locker. Reviewed requests from military
members and civilian employees/political appointees of the
Air Force on the appropriateness to retain gifts for themselves
or their dependents from domestic personnel and/or foreign
governments; consulted with Department of State on proposed
declinations of gifts from foreign governments for ocial use,
to including [sic] accepting such gifts on behalf of the Air Force
or otherwise disposing of such gifts; maintained an inventory of
items appropriate for gift giving by Secretariat and Air Sta senior
leaders;
177
processed gift requests.
The December 2014 directive added an entry related to special access
programs to the list of SAF/AA’s specic responsibilities. This entry had
appeared in the March 2014 directive, not on the specic responsibilities
list but on the delegations of authorities/assignment of responsibility list.
The December directive reversed this: it included the entry in the specic
responsibilities list but not in the delegated authorities list.
178
Under the
December directive, Zarodkiewicz now
179
Provided AF SAP-unique IT support, access to AF Access
Database System (AFADS), AF Special Programs (AFSP),
Conguration and Security Tracking System (CASTS), phones
and all other SAP specic hardware, databases and systems;
176. Ibid., wording quoted directly from p 3, tenses changed from present to past.
177. In the Mar 2014 directive, “Secretariat and Air Sta senior leaders” read “Glass Doors oces.”
178. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, pp 3, 5–9. James, HAF Mission Directive
1-6, 20 Mar 2014, pp 2–3, 7.
179. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, wording quoted directly from p 3, tenses
changed from present to past.
72
funded SAP specic missions, equipment and capabilities; referred
adverse information on persons under AF SAP cognizance to the
DoD CAF following a determination by the appropriate Program
Security Ocer, pursuant to Memorandum of Understanding
between DA&M and SAF/AA, 5 December 2012.
Delegated Authorities/Assignment of Responsibilities
The December 2014 mission directive reordered and made several
other changes to the delegations of authority/assignment of responsibility
list. As noted above, the directive deleted the SAP-related entry quoted
in the previous section from the delegated authorities list and moved
it to the specic responsibilities list. The directive also deleted one
responsibility and added a new one. These revisions resulted in a net
decrease, from forty-three to forty-two, in the number of specic SAF/
AA responsibilities.
180
The December 2014 directive deleted the March directive’s respon-
sibility regarding “assignment of American National Red Cross and
United Service Organizations, Inc., employees to duty with the military
services.”
181
The December directive’s new responsibility related “to complying
with guidance for information concerning significant quantities of
special nuclear materials, other than that contained in nuclear weapons
& that used in the production of energy in reactor plants of nuclear
powered ships.”
182
Subordinate Oces
The December 2014 directive made one change in the SAF/AA
organization chart: the Security and Special Program Oversight oce was
renamed Security, Special Program Oversight and Information Protection,
with the three-letter designation, SAF/AAZ, unchanged.
183
There were changes also in the responsibilities of the subordinate
oces assisting the Air Force secretary’s administrative assistant. The six
subordinate three-letter oces described in the December 2014 directive
were as follows:
184
180. Ibid., list on pp 5–9.
181. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 7.
182. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, p 7.
183. Ibid., p 10. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 20 Mar 2014, p 10.
184. James, HAF Mission Directive 1-6, 22 Dec 2014, wording quoted directly from the list on pp
11–12, tenses changed from present to past.
73
1. Resources (SAF/AAR).
SAF/AAR as described in the December 2014 directive resembled
that of the March 2014 directive. Overall, the wording was condensed
or otherwise revised; certain tasks were added and others deleted. Gone
was the March directive’s mention of SAF/AAR’s “support for the many
AA-sponsored and AF outside DoD activities location in approximately
35 locations world-wide.” Gone, too, was text related to the following:
Special Government Employees; civilian recognition programs, training,
education, and emergency appeals directed by DoD and OPM; and the
Operating Budget Review Committee.
SAF/AAR was now described as responsible for providing nancial
management,
185
programming, civilian employment execution, and
military and civilian manpower resource management support to the HAF
portfolio. SAF/AAR represented the SAF/AA to the Air Force Corporate
Structure and on other Boards. SAF/AAR provided inputs for all HAF
nancial and manpower resource requirements. The directorate oversaw
the development and defense of the HAF’s POM submission.
186
SAF/
AAR managed the day-to-day programming, budgeting, and execution
processes; Unit Manpower Document (UMD) adjustments; and civilian
work-year execution within the HAF.
187
Additionally, the directorate
provided civilian personnel support to the oces of the SecAF, CSAF,
SAF/AA, and selected eld activities. Responsibilities included liaison
with Washington Headquarters Service/Oce of the Secretary of Defense
(WHS/OSD) on senior management personnel issues, management of
DoD Outside Agency Assignments, chairing the Special Fund Council,
providing oversight and guidance on stang issues, and facilitating
requests for personnel actions, in-hire security clearances, and drug testing.
2. Operations (SAF/AAO).
SAF/AAO responsibilities remained largely unchanged from those
described in the March 2014 directive. The December directive claried
several responsibilities, narrowing some and expanding others. SAF/
AAO support now included corridor display policy, as opposed to corridor
displays, and contractor verification policy, as opposed to contractor
verifications. Continuity of operations responsibilities now referred
specically to AA. Airman’s Hall duties now included management, not
just scheduling.
185. “Financial management” was a new phrase.
186. The tasks in this sentence and the one preceding were new.
187. The Dec 2014 directive was the rst to mention Unit Manpower Documents; this phrase and
the one following were new.
74
3. Security, Special Program Oversight and Information Protection
(SAF/AAZ).
“Information Protection” was now formally added to SAF/AAZ’s
name, but its duties remained unchanged from those described in the
March 2014 directive.
4. Air Force Executive Dining Facility (SAF/AAM).
SAF/AAM’s responsibilities remained unchanged from those de-
scribed in the March 2014 directive.
5. Information Management (SAF/AAI).
SAF/AAI’s duties remained unchanged with one exception: the media
services it provided no longer included graphics.
6. Sensitive Activities Oce (SAF/AAH).
188
SAF/AAH’s duties were unchanged with two exceptions. It now
served as the U.S. Air Force “Oce of Primary Responsibility and Single
Enterprise” instead of the USAF “Focal Point and Single Enterprise.” And
the oce’s duties involving sensitive activities no longer included the
phrase “specically their applications.”
189
188. This oce was described in the Dec 2014 directive’s paragraph A2.2.7: the paragraph should
have been numbered A2.2.6.
189. The description also included a couple of minor wording and punctuation changes.
76
77
78
79
80
Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force
and Subordinate Oces, 1983–2007
1
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
Headquarters USAF Organization Charts,
1991–2016
1
4 Apr 1991
SAF/AA: AA Mr. McCormick; Dep Mr. Davidson
SAF/AAZ: Dep for Security & Investigative Programs Col Furusho
SAF/AAI: Dir Information Management Col Pardini
SAF/AAP: Ch Management LTC Linn
SAF/AAX: Ch Plans, Programs & Budget LTC Joubert
4 May 1991
SAF/AAP renamed.
SAF/AA
SAF/AAZ
SAF/AAI
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel LTC Linn
SAF/AAX
1 Jul 1991; 1 Aug 1991; 1 Sep 1991; 1 Oct 1991
SAF/AA
SAF/AAZ LTC Weaver (Colonel selectee)
SAF/AAI
SAF/AAP
SAF/AAX
1 Nov 1991; 1 Dec 1991
SAF/AA
SAF/AAZ Col Weaver
SAF/AAI
SAF/AAP
SAF/AAX
1 Jan 1992; 1 Feb 1992
SAF/AA: AA McCormick; Dep Davidson
SAF/AAZ: Dep for Security & Investigative Programs Col Weaver
SAF/AAI: Dir Information Management Col Pardini
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Lt Col Linn
SAF/AAX: Ch Plans, Programs & Budget Lt Col Joubert (Colonel
selectee)
1
Air Force Historical Support Division archives.
103
1 Mar 1992; 1 Apr 1992; 1 Jul 1992; 1 Oct 1992; 1 Jan 1993; 1 Apr
1993; 13 Jul 1993; 1 Oct 1993; 1 Jan 1994
SAF/AA
SAF/AAZ
SAF/AAI
SAF/AAP
SAF/AAX Col Joubert
1 Apr 1994
Davidson is now acting AA; plus, 2 chiefs became directors, and the
order changes to alphabetical.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson (Acting); Dep Davidson
SAF/AAI: Dir Information Management Col Pardini
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Lt Col Linn
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget Col Joubert
SAF/AAZ: Dir for Security & Investigative Programs Col Weaver
1 Sep 1994
Davidson is now AA, and there is no longer a Dep; plus new Dir (SAF/
AAO), and all new military personnel.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson
SAF/AAI: Dir Information Management Col Collins
SAF/AAO: Dir Operations Support Col Semon
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Maj Patrick
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget Lt Col Walker (Col selectee)
SAF/AAZ: Dir for Security & Investigative Programs Lt Col Patterson
(Col selectee)
1 Jan 1995
Unchanged, except that Walker is now a colonel.
1 Apr 1995
Unchanged, except that Patrick is now a lieutenant colonel.
1 Jul 1995; 1 Nov 1995; 1 Jan 1996
Unchanged.
1 Apr 1996
A new 3-letter (SAF/AAA); plus, a new lieutenant colonel, replacing
Patrick.
SAF/AA: Davidson
104
SAF/AAA: Ch Civilian Personnel Ms Park
SAF/AAI: Dir Information Management Col Collins
SAF/AAO: Dir Operations Support Col Semon
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Lt Col Best
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget Col Walker
SAF/AAZ: Dir for Security & Investigative Programs Lt Col Patterson
(still Col selectee)
1 Jul 1996
Info Management (SAF/AAI) is gone; plus, civilian replaces Patterson;
plus reordered (no longer alphabetical).
SAF/AA: Davidson
SAF/AAO: Dir Operations Support Col Semon
SAF/AAA: Ch Civilian Personnel Ms Park
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Lt Col Best
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget Col Walker
SAF/AAZ: Dir Security & Investigative Programs Mr. Boesch
1 Oct 1996
New departmental publishing responsibility (SAF/AAD); plus new
colonel replaces Walker.
SAF/AA
SAF/AAO
SAF/AAA
SAF/AAD: Dir Departmental Publishing Mr. McMullin
SAF/AAP
SAF/AAX: Col Ferguson
SAF/AAZ
1 Jul 1997
2 new military, replacing Lt Col Best and Col Ferguson.
SAF/AA
SAF/AAO
SAF/AAA
SAF/AAD
SAF/AAP: Maj James (Lt Col
selectee)
SAF/AAZ: Lt Col Hurlbut (Col
selectee)
105
1 Aug 1998
James is now a lieutenant colonel.
SAF/AA
SAF/AAO
SAF/AAA
SAF/AAD
SAF/AAP Lt Col James
SAF/AAX
SAF/AAZ
1 Sep 1998
New heads of SAF/AAO and SAF/AAA.
SAF/AA
SAF/AAO Dir Operations Support Col Loucks
SAF/AAA Ch Civilian Personnel Mr. Arigo
SAF/AAD
SAF/AAP
SAF/AAX
SAF/AAZ
1 Nov 1998
Hurlbut is now a colonel. To recap all:
SAF/AA: AA Mr. Davidson
SAF/AAO: Dir Operations Support Col Loucks
SAF/AAA: Ch Civilian Personnel Mr. Arigo
SAF/AAD: Dir Departmental Publishing Mr. McMullin
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Lt Col James
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget Col Hurlbut
SAF/AAZ: Dir Security & Investigative Programs Mr. Boesch
1 Aug 1999
Davidson now has a Dep; vacancy at SAF/AAO; SAF/AAD has gone
away; new 3-letter (SAF/AAH); a major replaces Lt Col James at SAF/
AAP; vacancy at SAF/AAX; and new oce (HAF 2002 Integration)
with former SAF/AAX head Col Hurlbut as head.
SAF/AA: Davidson; Dep Mr. Henry
SAF/AAO: Dir Operations Support (Vacant)
SAF/AAA: Ch Civilian Personnel Arigo
SAF/AAH: Dir Information Planning Mr. Balven
106
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Maj Bruner
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget (Vacant)
SAF/AAZ: Dir Security & Investigative Programs Boesch
HAF2002/IO: Dir HAF 2002 Integration Oce Col Hurlbut
15 Jun 2000
Dep AA now vacant; SAF/AAO has gone away; a new major replaces
Maj Bruner at SAF/AAP; a new female head at SAF/AAX.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson; no Dep
SAF/AAA
SAF/AAH
SAF/AAP: Maj Gatlin
SAF/AAX: Ms. Lunsford
SAF/AAZ
HAF2002/IO
29 May 2001
Mr. Corsi now Dep AA.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson; Dep Corsi
SAF/AAA
SAF/AAH
SAF/AAP
SAF/AAX
SAF/AAZ
HAF2002/IO
15 Apr 2002
SAF/AAH has gone away; a new colonel heads SAF/AAX, replacing
Lunsford; SAF/AAZ has an expanded name and a new head, replacing
Boesch; and a new 3-letter (SAF/AAF); HAF2002/IO has gone away.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson; Dep Corsi
SAF/AAA: Ch Civilian Personnel Arigo
SAF/AAP: Ch Military Personnel Maj Gatlin
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget Col Bishop
SAF/AAZ: Dir Security & Special Programs Oversight Mr. Hennessey
SAF/AAF: Dir Facilities Mr. Dittamo
15 Nov 2002 (p 38 of the list: doesn’t appear to be dated).
No change from 15 Apr 2002 (p 37).
107
1 Jul 2003
No names listed except for AA and Dep AA; new name for SAF/AAA;
SAF/AAP has gone away.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson; Dep Corsi
SAF/AAA: Ch Human Resources & Manpower
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget
SAF/AAZ: Dir Security & Special Programs Oversight
SAF/AAF: Dir Facilities
23 Feb 2004
No names listed except for AA and Dep AA; 2 new HAF additions.
SAF/AA
SAF/AAA
SAF/AAX
SAF/AAZ
SAF/AAF
HAFCIO: HAF Ch Information Ocer
HAFRM: HAF Dir Budget & Programming
15 Aug 2006
A few names listed; HAFCIO has gone away; HAF/IC and HAF/HR are
new.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson; Dep AA Corsi
SAF/AAA: Dir Human Resources & Manpower
SAF/AAX: Dir Plans, Programs & Budget
SAF/AAZ: Dir Security & Special Programs Oversight Mr. Hennessey
SAF/AAF: Dir Facilities
HAF/IC: Dir Information and Comm Support Mr. Testa
HAF/HR: Dir Manpower and Human Capital Management
HAF/RM: Dir Budget & Programming
20 Jan 2009: not available.
17 Jan 2011 (current a/o Jan 2011; supersedes 20 Jan 2009)
A few names listed. Signicant reorganization.
SAF/AA: AA Davidson; Dep AA Corsi
SAF/AAA: Human Resources
SAF/AAP: Information Protection Mr. McGarvey
SAF/AAZ: Security, CounterIntel & Special Programs Mr. Deacon
108
SAF/AAX: Policies, Plans & Resources
HAF/HR: HAF Manpower & Human Capital Management
HAF/IM: HAF Information Management Ms. Miller
HAF/RM: HAF Resource Management
17 Sep 2013
A few names listed. A new AA and Dep AA. Signicant reorganization/
consolidation/deletions; new names and new people. First inclusion, in
these org charts, of SAF/AAM.
SAF/AA: AA Mr. Timothy Beyland; Dep AA: Ms. Zarodkiewicz
SAF/AAI: Information Management Ms. Miller
SAF/AAM: Executive Dining
SAF/AAO: Operations
SAF/AAR: Resources
SAF/AAZ: Security/Special Program Oversight/Information Protection
Mr. McMillin
5 Nov 2015: not available.
18 Apr 2016 (supersedes 5 Nov 2015)
A few names listed. A new AA and Dep AA. New heads of SAF/AAI and
SAF/AAZ.
SAF/AA: Ms. Patricia Zarodkiewicz; Dep AA Mr. Shelton
SAF/AAI: Information Management: Mr. Chadrick
SAF/AAM: Executive Dining
SAF/AAO: Operations
SAF/AAR: Resources
SAF/AAZ: Security/Special Program Oversight/Information Protection
Ms. Kay
109
Dr. Priscilla D. Jones is chief, histories and studies, with
the Air Force Historical Support Division in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Kenneth H. Williams is senior editor and writer with the
same organization.
