of all research and development in the Department of Defense outside of basic research and outside of operational systems?

Secretary HITCH. I think it is very important, yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Did you know there has been a protest by General Lemnitzer that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were being by-passed in the making of such a directive without adequate consultation? if you knew of that, when did you first hear about it?

And

Secretary HITCH. No, sir, I did not know. I first learned of the opposition to this directive when I read a draft of Mr. Gilpatric's testimony to this committee.

Mr. FULTON. So when you hear that General Lemnitzer as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not have a full opportunity to study the matter, which according to many had far-reaching military implications, you would then recommend to go slow on such a directive had you known that, would you?

Mr. BASS. Would you yield a moment?

Mr. FULTON. I would rather proceed with my questioning. You are on the other side of this.

Mr. BASS. I believe you are stating something that hasn't been brought out at all. I haven't heard evidence that General Lemnitzer complained that he was bypassed.

Mr. FULTON. At page 3857 of the Congressional Record, my colleague, Mr. Gerald Ford, Representative of Michigan, put in the Record: "The Truth is All-Important." And I would take his statements to be true, and I would put it, when he hears that that has been the case, what would he do. I am asking his judgment, "when he hears," not had he heard.

(The article referred to is as follows:)

[Congressional Record-House, p. 3857]

THE TRUTH IS ALL-IMPORTANT

(Mr. Ford asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FORD. Mr. Speaker, on March 12, 1961 the office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs issued the following statement:

"The report that General Lemnitzer has protested to Secretary McNamara that the Chiefs are being bypassed or edged out of crucial military decisions by the Kennedy administration is simply without foundation."

This statement was carried on Monday, March 13, in many of the newspapers and other news media of the United States and probably in many of the newspapers throughout the world. This statement was issued by the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs, because the public charge had been made previously that Gen. L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had protested the transfer of control of space development to the Air Force.

The aforementioned statement issued by the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs, is, to say the least, a half truth. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs knew or should have known the facts and he should not now try to cover them up. General Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs did submit a statement dated March 2, 1961, in opposition to the draft directive on assignment of space systems development. In General Lemnitzer's reply to the Department of Defense draft directive he stated that the Joint Chiefs did not have a full opportunity to study this matter which according to him has far-reaching military implications.

General Lemnitzer's reply or memorandum also strongly protested the Department of Defense draft directive on the basis that such a move would result in an overall loss of effectiveness through the failure to utilize the full potential of our total defense resources.

The Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs, by semantics is seeking to deny to the public the facts: facts the public is entitled to know. The release of Sunday, March 12, by the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense Sylvester is a clearcut distortion.

This deliberate attempt to gloss over the true facts is difficult to understand when on Tuesday, March 14, Mr. Edward R. Murrow, the new director of the U.S. Information Agency, categorically stated the United States must tell the truth both to Americans and to the world. On this date Mr. Murrow lectured members of the Senate on complete frankness both at home and abroad. I suggest that this honorable approach be conveyed or transmitted to the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs. He should follow the same guidelines in the future even though his office did not do so in this specific case.

Mr. BASS. My distinguished friend is a good lawyer, an able lawyer, and he knows this was not a statement of General Lemnitzer, it was what somebody else attributed to General Lemnitzer.

The CHAIRMAN. I don't see how we can serve a useful purpose in putting one Member against another.

General Lemnitzer will be available to testify and we ought to ask him what he said.

I have read the Record. I have a copy of it here. I know just what Mr. Ford put into the Record, but I would like to hear General Lemnitzer say what he had actually said.

Secretary HITCH. I don't know what General Lemnitzer said and I would like to see the whole of the statement before I answered the question.

Mr. FULTON. May I restate, sir, that we are clear that if you had heard that General Lemnitzer had stated that the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not have a full opportunity to study this matter, and that it has far-reaching military implications, then you would have wanted to wait and go slow on such a directive before it was put into effect, would you not?

Secretary HITCH. Well, sir; I would want to know more about the circumstances.

Mr. FULTON. And I admire you for your statement.

Secretary HITCH. And how long this would take, I don't know.

Mr. FULTON. The next question is this: If you had learned that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had felt that there would be an over-all loss of its effectiveness through the failure to utilize the full potential of our total defense resources, then you as the Comptroller would like to look into that, would you not?

Secretary HITCH. If there had been a corporate act by the Joint Chiefs to this effect?

Mr. FULTON. If they had individually felt, or jointly in a meeting, this, then if that had come to your attention you would like to look into that directive a little further, wouldn't you?

Secretary HITCH. Well, sir; if it were a corporate act of the Joint Chiefs, yes, I would certainly want to look into it further. But I have no evidence that there was any such act.

Mr. FULTON. Any individual acts you would like to look into, too? Secretary HITCH. The individual acts of one of the Joint Chiefs? Not necessarily, no, sir.

Mr. FULTON. If each of the individuals or a majority of them felt such was the case and it had come to your attention, you would have asked for further time for consideration of the directive, would you not?

Secretary HITCH. Not necessarily, no, sir.

Mr. FULTON. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Questions?

Mr. TEAGUE. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Teague.

Mr. TEAGUE. Mr. Secretary, did you enjoy your illness?
Secretary HITCH. It came at a most inopportune time.

Mr. TEAGUE. We have a number of votes over here where I would thoroughly enjoy a case of pneumonia.

Secretary HITCH. They took very good care of me in Walter Reed. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chenoweth.

Mr. CHENOWETH. I have been curious, Mr. Secretary, just what is the function of the Comptroller in the Department of Defense?

I am not quite sure in my mind whether you are consulted on all these matters of policy and operations in the Department of Defense. Is it your role to pass on them, give them your opinion, or are you confined more to the fiscal and economic aspects of the Department of Defense?

Secretary HITCH. If any such order has any important financial or fiscal implications, I would be consulted on it. My office would be consulted on it.

Mr. CHENOWETH. You are consulted solely on the fiscal impact?
Secretary HITCH. Yes, sir.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Not on whether it was good or bad or wise or unwise, or whether it is to the best interests of the Department, but solely on the fiscal applications?

Secretary HITCH. That is true as far as my role as Comptroller is concerned, yes, sir.

However, the Secretary does encourage each of the principal advisors to express his opinions freely, and I would certainly not be out of order if I expressed an opinion on such an order that was not entirely based on the fiscal implications.

I have a special responsibility to look at the fiscal implications and comment on that.

Mr. CHENOWETH. As I get the situation, the directive then was in direct opposition or violation of certain statements you made in this book that you had written.

Secretary HITCH. No, sir. I think I have explained that I do not consider it necessarily in opposition to the statements that I had made in the book.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Of course if they were, you would be in a very embarrassing situation, wouldn't you? Now to be a part of the team down there where the captain makes a decision, and you would be going in an opposite direction, and it would be an impossible situation. Secretary HITCH. Fortunately, this book was written by two authors, and I can always maintain that when something is quoted against me, that particular paragraph was written by McKean. Mr. CHENOWETH. This is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I assume you have different colored type in your book for each one?

Secretary HITCH. If I had known that I was going to have this job, Mr. Chairman, I probably would not have written this book.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to commend the witness for a very candid statement.

Mr. FULTON. You have heard the quote: "Would that mine enemy had written a book"?

Secretary HITCH. Yes, sir, I have used it.

Mr. KARTH. Mr. Hitch, I want you to know I have a perfectly open mind on this thing. I have felt for some time that something had to be done to bring better order out of something of a chaotic condition. Now, whether this is right or not, I don't know, but this I am sure it is the desire of the committe to find out.

It is obvious to me that there are two reasons, at least, and I am sure many more, for this kind of a directive, (1) economy, and (2) efficiency.

Inasmuch as you are the Comptroller and also are interested in this, and inasmuch as you just said a moment ago that your office is primarily responsible for whatever important fiscal possibilities may be attached to this or that directive, then your office must have had some idea when they approved it of certain efficiencies or economies that this directive may effectuate.

Now, could you list those efficiencies or economies that were brought to light which caused your office to approve this directive?

Secretary HITCH. Well, the efficiencies and economies that one hopes to achieve by this order are the elimination or reduction of unnecessary and undesirable duplication of research and development activities.

Mr. KARTH. This is rather broad and general. Were there not any specific efficiencies and economies pointed out to your office that could come about as a result of this directive?

Secretary HITCH. Not to the best of my knowledge. Of course, this, as has been pointed out by Secretary Gilpatric, applies to the assignment of future research and development projects as they come up. It does not affect past assignments.

Mr. KARTH. No, but there are certain research and development works that are going on now in the various branches of the Service that this directive will, I suppose, affect.

I said research and development.

Were any of those specifically pointed out? Were any areas specifically pointed out to your office where the Defense Department was able to say to you that, "Here and here and here we will be able to eliminate duplications so that economies and efficiencies will come about as a result of the directive."?

Secretary HITCH. Well, sir, I have in my budget office people thoroughly familiar with the research and development programs, and I am sure that they were consulted, that they knew of such cases. I know their advice was taken into account.

Mr. KARTH. Will you then find out and submit for the record, those things that were pointed out to your staff that may very well result in efficiency and economies?

Secretary HITCH. I didn't say pointed out to my staff but by my staff.

To the best of my knowledge, nothing was pointed out to my staff. Mr. KARTH. Let's have those things then pointed out by your staff. Secretary HITCH. I will make inquiry about that.

(The information requested is as follows:)

In considering a preliminary version of a proposed Department of Defense Directive relating to "space" the staff of the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) took into consideration the fact that the proposed new Directive would provide a general statement of policy representing an additional step in the evolution of appropriate arrangements for managing the Department of Defense "space" programs. This evolutionary process was started immediately following the initial concern resulting from the first Russian satellite placed in orbit. At that time the primary U.S. satellite effort involved Project Vanguard conducted by the Department of the Navy as an element of the International Geophysical Year program and the Air Force was working on other projects such as the Weapon System 117L. (Reconnaissance Satellite.)

It was then recognized that management of the Department of Defense "space" programs should be consolidated to the extent possible pending the development of national policy with respect to the investigation, utilization and exploitation of the space environment. As a result of these considerations the Advanced Re search Projects Agency (ARPA) was established and most of the then current Department of Defense programs directly relating to "space" were assigned to ARPA. During the same period the preliminary aspects of certain non-military "space" programs were initiated through ARPA, with the approval of the President, prior to the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). When NASA was later established these non-military "space" programs were transferred to NASA. ARPA continued to be responsible for managing and directing the major portion of the Department of Defense "space" program, utilizing the facilities and capabilities of the military departments and contractors for the actual codnuct of the programs. The existence of ARPA provided the Secretary of Defense with a management mechanism to minimize duplication and over-lapping of "space" projects within the Department of Defense during the development of more finalized plans and objectives for "space" programs. As decisions could be reached and as developments approached the operational stage, various projects have been assigned by the Secretary of Defense to the Army, Navy or Air Force, as appropriate. Where applicable both program responsibility and funds have been transferred from ARPA. The Congress recognized the need for such adjustments and reassignments in the language included for the appropriation, Salaries and Expenses, Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense.

During the early part of this year the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) was in the process of identifying and summarizing current data for the various "space" and "space related" programs of the Department of Defense. These programs and projects vary all the way from large development projects, such as Samos and Midas, down to the relatively small basic and applied research type projects which are many in number. A tentative preliminary summary, dated March 6, 1961, classified SECRET, is attached which will indicate to the committee the programs which were under consideration on March 2, 1961. The identification and review of "space" and "space related" projects is still in process in cooperation with the staff of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, and the initial phase is expected to be completed in the near future.

The March 2, 1961, comments on a preliminary version of the proposed DOD Directive relating to "space" were developed within the context of the evolution discussed above. Specific line items were not, at the time, singled out for specific comment since the proposed Directive of itself did not transfer or reassign responsibility for any specific programs or projects. However, these projects have been under continuing review as a matter of normal practice. The staff did point out that the proposed Directive, as an additional step in the evolution of more effective management devices within the Department of Defense would bring the "space" projects under even closer scrutiny and more fine grained control of the Secretary of Defense, so that even more effective utilization of DOD resources, including funds, could be expected along the following lines:

(a) By further restricting the independent freedom of action of the three military departments to initiate research and development projects without prior approval of the Secretary, it is far less likely that new projects which could grow up to be inter-Service competitions with the same general objectives will be initiated.