In Search of a Plan
Planning the War. By Lt.-Col. Clive Garsia. (Penguin Special. 6d.)
Tins is an extraordinarily interesting book and it is well worth close study. The main contention is that planning of the war should take in every factor which might lead to victory. No one is likely to disagree, if the apparatus can be found without too many inevitable disadvantages. But the author adds the further qualification that it should not be in the hands of any one man, and he suggests that the Prime Minister has " taken into his own hands the whole of the higher planning of the war." The gravamen of his case against this system appears to be that only when his teams of experts have reported is the " Chiefs of Staffs Committee " consulted.
The first question anyone will ask is whether the facts are correct. As far as I can see Colonel Garsia's scheme casts for the role he states the Prime Minister fills today the secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, who is to be chairman and general manager of the Central Planning Committee and chief of staff to the Prime Minister. It is clear that there are disadvan- tages in the Prime Minister being too closely associated with plans in case they should go astray; but if he accepted a plan, without initiating it, would he not be held responsible if it should prove disastrous?
The author speaks of " Anglo-American " planning. But can such a thing exist while America is not our ally? And how can the Dominions be associated with the planning if the Committees are to be kept to a total of five members? Would any Dominion accept the member of another as its representative? From a purely practical point of view is it not better to leave it to the* Prime Minister to select the means which he can best use?
One final point. In estimating the value of an elaborate change it is inevitable we should be guided by the impression left upon us by the proposer. Colonel Garsia suggested, at the end of November, that the Lamea-Itea line was the place where we " should give effective support to the Greeks should the need ever arise." That is certainly not reassuring. It is almost in- conceivable that any British Government would have dared to suggest such a line, since it would have involved the abandonment of almost the whole of Greece. Political and human factors
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