AUGUST 6--The Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 was approved. Effective 6 months from date, the new law provided a more direct civilian control over military operations through the offices of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the respective service secretaries; provided for the establishment of unified or specified, combatant commands, to direct the operations of units assigned from the respective services.

Responsible for the accomplishment of their military mission directly to the President and the Secretary of Defense; and revised the secretarial structure of the Department by reducing the number of Assistant Secretaries of Defense from nine to seven, limiting the number within each service department to three, specifying that one of them be an Assistant Secretary for Financial Management, and revoked the statutory provision for an Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air.

The law also maintained the separate organization of each service under its own Secretary and defined the Navy Department as including Naval Aviation and the U.S. Marine Corps.