ABSTRACT
The oblique manner in which the proposed creation of a post-war military planning body was presented to the War Cabinet in the summer of 1942 closely resembled the way in which the Chiefs of Staff had been persuaded to allow the J.P.S. to be approached at the end of February. The cause of this, however, was not so much a need for discretion about the type of work being contemplated, as a genuine vagueness about the boundaries within which the new organisation would function. No draft directive covering proposed terms of reference had been prepared for the War Cabinet, which was merely requested to give the Paymaster-General carte blanche
in concert with the Service Ministers and the Chiefs of Staff, to make such arrangements as they see fit to ensure that the mass of factual information which already exists should be properly sifted and presented in such a form as to assist those responsible for deciding policy, Ministers and Service Chiefs alike, when the time for so doing arrives.1
