Secretary GILPATRIC. That is my opinion. If we find out to the contrary, there will be opportunity for us to make changes.

We think there is enough flexibility, enough safeguards in this directive, to avoid the contingency that you mention. Certainly, it is furthest from our thoughts to have that happen.

Mr. MILLER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KARTH. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Secretary, by the time you find that out, will you not put a blight upon the people who are dealing with these programs? Are they not going to feel time has run out on them, and that they have been bypassed? Has this been given thorough consideration?

Secretary GILPATRIC. I think any time you make a change, any time you attempt to provide better management and better effectiveness under changed conditions, there is going to be some resistance to it and some disappointments.

I find you can't change anything in the Pentagon without stepping on somebody's toes, but if you didn't do it you would never make

progress.

As Mr. Bass has said, we have to move ahead. We are in a different age and time, and I don't think we are going to lose anything by this. Mr. MILLER. Of course, I agree with you on these things and I know these things, and I am not trying to defend people who are going to be knocked out of the ivory towers they have built for themselves in the Pentagon-and there are a lot of them over there.

I am concerned with the scientists, I am concerned with the people who made the breakthroughs for the Defense Department, who are now seeing themselves completely gobbled up and taken over by a Service not friendly to them.

As far as leaks are concerned, there are some of them right in this thing that haven't been published that have just come out.

Secretary GILPATRIC. I am not promising you we can control the leaks. I think that is beyond anybody.

Mr. MILLER. I am not concerned with the leaks, I am concerned with the scientists and dedicated young officers, the young men who are going into this thing now, the people who are going to be graduating from West Point and Annapolis, youngsters, also, who perhaps wanted to go there who won't go there. People we are going to lose in the future.

Secretary GILPATRIC. There is plenty of room for them. Space is only one aspect of this whole area we are dealing with.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hechler.

Mr. HECHLER. Mr. Secretary, I share completely what Mr. Bass has said about the value of this directive. The only thing I would like to ask you is, do you think as a result of the headaches that you may have experienced in getting this directive through, that this may inhibit you from taking other action in the future, further to sharpen the decision-making process and achieve real unification?

Secretary GILPATRIC. Speaking for myself, I will not be inhibited as long as I am here, and I think Mr. McNamara is of the same mind, sir.

Mr. HECHLER. I just want to congratulate you on the philosophy that you have expressed here. We have to consider not only the morale of the officers in the Pentagon, we have to consider the general public

and whether it understands who has the button in the Defense Department, and also whether we actually achieve something as a result of our program.

It seems to me that you have taken a step in the right direction. Although I will reserve judgment and hope I will have an opportunity to ask you more questions about this later.

Secretary GILPATRIC. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions on this side?

Mr. Daddario.

Mr. DADDARIO. Mr. Secretary, does this directive do anything else other than changing the management concepts of the responsibilities that the Defense Department now has to develop its program within the area of our national goals for space?

Secretary GILPATRIC. In the military field.

Mr. DADDARIO. In the military area.

Secretary GILPATRIC. You have stated it correctly.

Mr. DADDARIO. It in no way affects the management within NASA? Secretary GILPATRIC. That is true.

Mr. DADDARIO. They have their problems and you have yours. Secretary GILPATRIC. We are going to try to help each other but we are not going to try to run each other.

Mr. DADDARIO. You have said here, and I think it is probably the most pertinent sentence in your whole report, that—

Important decisions affecting the national security of the United States should not be deferred pending a modus vivendi which will be satisfactory and pleasing to everyone.

Excepting for the effect on people who are not going to be satisfied, or not going to be pleased, your objective is not to make everyone happy but to bring order into the space program?

Secretary GILPATRIC. That is our objective. You have put it very well.

Mr. DADDARIO. Now, if somewhere along the line there comes a question as to the possibility of people now in the military space program, people who have great capacity, who are recognized as being people with the ability to help push our space program along, does this management change conceive that these people can be transferred from one branch of the Service to another, to participate in this program?

Secretary GILPATRIC. I think we have that flexibility. I wouldn't want to be too specific about it, but we have right in the Defense Research and Engineering staff, we have two or three hundred very able scientists.

I want to reiterate the type resources to which you refer and to which Mr. Miller refers are in too short supply for us not to make the best use of them wherever they are.

Mr. DADDARIO. If there is a problem which exists today it is the diffusion of this talent, spreading it too thin, and if I am correct in what I have heard here today, what you are doing is preventing this from being spread out and you are bringing it more closely together so that these people can work on programs better conceived and better managed so that they can then utilize their talents better to achieve these great goals in the military space area which we are striving for. Secretary GILPATRIC. That is our endeavor.

Mr. DADDARIO. I cannot help but feel that Mr. Bass has put his finger on this. You have made a statement here which in my opinion is clear, and if the objectives are as they seem to me to be, I think they will answer the questions which have been posed on those problems which do concern members of the committee who certainly have no objective other than seeing these objectives achieved at the earliest possible date.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Randall.

Mr. RANDALL. I would like to associate myself with the comments of Messrs. Bass and Hechler.

I read a little in Nation's Business magazine by the United States Chamber of Commerce, which I don't always agree with, but it is entitled "You Can Get More Defense For Less Money."

It seems to me that many of the thoughts expressed in there are what we have been talking about this morning.

I have noted these four safeguards that you put in here very carefully. Again, it is your conclusion that none of the services in their process of preliminary research will be affected?

Secretary GILPATRIC. Up to the limits we will find on expenditures so as not to allow the preliminary research to get out of hand but they will not be inhibited from going ahead and developing the ideas that they have to improve their capabilities.

Mr. RANDALL. And then the final safeguard, the exception, the unusual circumstance, that will be reviewed and that will be a safety valve, in other words, for such situations of the Board that you describe review; is that correct?

Secretary GILPATRIC. If they affect NASA, they go to the Board. If it is just the military, they come to the Secretary and myself.

Mr. RANDALL. This is no invasion of NASA, this is purely a military matter you are talking about.

Secretary GILPATRIC. Surely.

Mr. RANDALL. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Corman.

Mr. CORMAN. Mr. Secretary, I, too, am impressed by your presentation.

As one lawyer to another, I wonder if I might ask you a hypothetical question. If we can roll back the clock some four years, assume this directive is in effect and an admiral feels you can launch a ballistic missile from a submarine under the ocean and the Air Force doesn't think this is a bright idea. Could you tell us how far the Navy might be permitted to go in what we determine to be the preliminary research and development in furtherance of their assigned function and at what point the Secretary might have to make a decision as to whether to proceed with or abandon that particular project, and then if he made the decision to proceed, who would do it and who would have the responsibility for development?

Secretary GILPATRIC. I believe that if the question of a Polaris submarine came up today for the first time the decision would be no different than that which was reached 4 years ago.

I have been exposed to Admiral Rickover and I believe I have been just as convinced as my predecessors were, with the worth of his program, which has been a magnificient program.

As you will see from our recommendations to the President, when they are announced, we thoroughly believe in the Polaris program. I

don't think this would have changed and in the area where the Polaris functions, underwater launching of a ballistic missile that is clearly an area where the Navy's competence deserves consideration.

Mr. CORMAN. The total program then probably would have been carried out by assignment from the Secretary of Defense to the Navy? Secretary GILPATRIC. We see no reason to change that.

Mr. CORMAN. I realize you are not going to change the past program, but assuming you had a similar circumstance today, that is the kind of thing that would be assigned to a Service other than the Secretary GILPATRIC. Yes.

Mr. CORMAN. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, may I ask you something about this booster program? Originally we contemplated writing into the Act regarding NASA that NASA would have the authority to develop a booster, or a launcher.

Dr. Sheldon, is that in the authority?

Dr. SHELDON. Not that specifically, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Originally we had language in there that would have done that. Perhaps we changed it later on, but under the concept of the Wiesner Report that the booster program would be a national program, how do you fit that into your statements there on page three in your reference to it? Will it be a NASA program, will it be a Defense program? How will it be handled?

Secretary GILPATRIC. Some of the boosters used now in our vehicle program are developed by the Air Force. Some are being developed by NASA. We have agreement between us one of the agreements I will furnish for the record-in which we specifically approve a joint program-I have a copy of it right here. It is a classified document but it is the National Launch Vehicle Summary, and we have complete accord between NASA and ourselves on all launch vehicles and we also agree if we are going to start any more we will consult each other first.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it a national booster program? Do you follow the Wiesner concept on that?

Secretary GILPATRIC. Well, I don't know whether this meets all of Dr. Wiesner's points, but we have a national launch vehicle program now; agreed upon.

The CHAIRMAN. Your program now is to divide it between yourself and NASA on a basis of what you agree on?

Secretary GILPATRIC. And making the best use of the reserves we have. We don't want to spend money on programs that will parallel each other.

The CHAIRMAN. Our thought-and I get it from others too-is, to overtake Russia we must get busy and develop a booster that will be more or less a work horse, that we can depend upon it for heavy payloads to carry aloft. Is that your concept?

It might be used by the military or it might be used by the civilian? Secretary GILPATRIC. Well, that is what is happening today. Many of the shots being put up by NASA are on military boosters. The Titan, for example, will be one of our standard launch vehicles for years to come until Saturn and Nova and the others come along. The CHAIRMAN. When you come to the concept of the national booster program as I understood it, we were going to get behind one

type of work horse booster which would be developed at a reasonably early date and might have a thrust of, say, a million and a half pounds. Do we have anything of that sort in mind?

Secretary GILPATRIC. I am not sufficiently familiar with the NASA program to testify to it. I know that we have an agreement. We are not working on that. The military are not working on that one you mentioned.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions?

Mr. Fulton.

Mr. FULTON. The question comes on the budget. Who makes the justification for research and development now for space, first in the basic field and secondly in the practical field for weaponry systems? Who will do that?

Secretary GILPATRIC. As far as research is concerned, Mr. Fulton, I believe that each Service will be permitted to budget certain basic research within these limits

Mr. FULTON. Basic. Now, applied research

Secretary GILPATRIC. When we get to development, it will depend on which Service has the responsibility. The Army will budget for Nike-Zeus and for Advent. The Navy will budget for Polaris and for Transit and the Air Force will budget for Atlas, Titan and Minuteman, etc.-there are only a few approved programs now, you see. We don't know what will happen in the future, or to what extent Congress will appropriate future missile programs.

Mr. FULTON. Then the next question is on Polaris and I must say I have been a Navy man so I may be a little bit prejudiced, but the question comes up between a land-based weaponry system and a sea-based maneuverable system.

When the proposal is made by the Navy to expand Polaris in competition with, for example, Atlas or Titan, or various ones, what is going to happen? Does the Navy have the right to go ahead and make Polaris an ICBM of 3,000, 4,000, or say 9,000 miles, to make it exactly competitive?

Secretary GILPATRIC. I haven't heard the Navy claim they can do that. When it does, we will be very interested.

Mr. FULTON. If the Navy wants to increase the range

Secretary GILPATRIC. We have approved two successive improvements of the Polaris, the A-2 and the A-3.

Mr. FULTON. I am talking about the third one. Mr. Secretary, the third development is going to be making it into a competitor with the Atlas. What do you think of that?

Secretary GILPATRIC. I haven't heard of that. It hasn't come to my attention.

Mr. FULTON. Do they want to extend it beyond 3,000 miles range? Secretary GILPATRIC. We have approved every extension.

Mr. FULTON. Will you approve it to make it competitive with landbased missiles?

Secretary GILPATRIC. I don't know how many ICBM's we want. I think very seriously before we have another-we have Atlas, we have Titan

Mr. FULTON. That is the point I am making. What are you going to do-approve them all or cut the Navy

Secretary GILPATRIC. We will have to see what the strategic requirements are when these come up.