BRAIN TRUST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 February 1940, Page 5

BRAIN TRUST

DIRECTION OF BRITAIN’S WAR EFFORT RAPID EXECUTIVE ACTION REQUIRED. CABINET RESPONSIBILITY AND CONTROL. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. LONDON, February 1. The working of Britain’s brain trust for the direction of the war was explained in a written reply from the Prime Minister. Mr Chamberlain, to a question in the House of Commons. The system required rapid executive action, with maintenance of Cabinet responsibility and control, he said. The Committee of Imperial Defence had been merged at the outbreak of the war with the War Cabinet, to which were now attached most of the peacetime Cabinet committees. The War Cabinet Committee was divided into five groups: (1) Military operations and intelligence.

(2) Home policy, under Sir Samuel Hoare. (3) Civil defence, under Sir John Anderson.

(4) Economic policy, under Sir John Simon.

(5) Priority questions, under Lord Chatfield.

The military operation and intelligence group included a standing Ministerial committee on military coordination which was established in October, comprising Lord Chatfield, Mr Winston Churchill. Mr Oliver Stanley, and Sir Kingley Wood, with the three Chiefs of Staff as advisers. It kept the strategic situation under constant review and made recommendations to Cabinet for the conduct of the war.

The three Chiefs of Staff, with the joint planning and joint intelligence staffs, also formed a committee of. this group, advising Cabinet on military aaspects of the war either directly or through the Ministerial Co-ordination Committee.