Washington, DC Nov. 11, 1997 – The top civilian post overseeing the nation's military space programs was abolished Monday as part of a sweeping Pentagon reform plan to cut 30,000 civilian jobs from the nation's defense establishment over the next five years. And the consolidation of responsibilities for defense-related space activities within the office of the Secretary of Defense, begun in 1995, was abandoned. The move stunned the space policy community here.

Created in 1995 as part of a move to concentrate management of national

security space policy planning and program direction, the office of the

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense-Space attempted to oversee a vast

civilian and military space bureaucracy spread around more than a half

dozen agencies in the Pentagon. The job, headed initially by former Capitol

Hill committee staffer Robert V. Davis, and later policy planner Gil

Klinger, attempted to coordinate defense policy in space matters and to

assure that budget planning and funding was available for whatever space

needs the military services seemed important.

Critics, however, claimed that the DUSD-Space staff were rapidly becoming advocates for specific program needs, not brokers without agendas. The establishment of the post, which reported to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, was part of a move to centralize management of specific technology, like space programs, within the Defense Secretary's extended office, a move begun in 1994 by former Defense Secretary William Perry and shepherded by his chief assistant, John Deutch.

But the reforms were junked Monday, as Defense chief William S. Cohen moved

to bring military space management back under the assistant defense

secretary for policy, citing the need for all space policy to be brought

under a national security planning function. Cohen also returned the

management of technology part of the DUSD-Space office back to the

individual services from which it had been consolidated. All totalled, the

consolidations and reforms announced by Cohen Monday would save the

taxpayers more than $3 billion a year, beginning in five years when the

reforms would all take place. Cohen also called for two additional rounds

of military base closings, which he claimed would save another $3 billion

per year.