Packard Commission


The President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, informally known as the Packard Commission, was a federal government commission by President Ronald Reagan, created by to study several areas of management functionality within the US Department of Defense. The commission was chaired by David Packard.

Background

Beginning in 1981, Reagan began an expansion in the size and capabilities of the US armed forces, which entailed major new expenditures on weapons procurement. By the mid-1980s, the spending became a scandal when the Project on Government Oversight reported that the Pentagon had vastly overpaid for a wide variety of items, most notoriously by paying $435 for a hammer, $600 for a toilet seat, and $7,000 for an aircraft coffee maker. In fact, these numbers were inaccurate; they were an accounting convenience rather than the actual cost of the materials.
In response to the scandals, Reagan appointed a commission, chaired by Packard, to study government procurement undertaken by the US Department of Defense. The Commission had Packard, Ernest C. Arbuckle, Robert H. Barrow, Nicholas F. Brady, Louis W. Cabot, Frank Carlucci, William P. Clark, Jr., Barber Conable, Paul F. Gorman, Carla Anderson Hills, James L. Holloway III, William Perry, Robert T. Marlow, Charles J. Pilliod, Jr., Brent Scowcroft, Herbert Stein, and R. James Woolsey, Jr. The President tasked the Commission with studying defense management policies and procedures, including

Recommendations

The Packard Commission reported that there was "no rational system" governing defense procurement, and it concluded that it was not fraud and abuse that led to massive overexpenditures but rather "the truly costly problems are those of overcomplicated organization and rigid procedure."
The Commission made several recommendations: defense appropriations should be passed by the United States Congress in two-year budgets, rather than annual appropriations bills; the creation of a "procurement czar," to be known as the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and the creation of a clear hierarchy of acquisition executives and managers in each of the services; the theater commanders should report directly to the United States Secretary of Defense through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the powers of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be strengthened.
Many of the recommendations by the commission were used when Congress reformed the Joint Chiefs of Staff system in 1986 with the Goldwater–Nichols Act.