or Half of the work comes from somebody in the executive branch from the general public, asking what are you going to do about this or that, about a railroad situation, about a new merger? You have about half of your staff on overall policy matters, not necessarily related to bureau business. Mr. WALLHAUSER. Does he have separate counsel? Mr. KLOTZ. No. Mr. WALLHAUSER. So, the Assistant or Under Secretary has about eight or nine people in his office, on his staff? Mr. HODGES. That's right, staff people. Mr. WALLHAUSER. And your question, Mr. Chairman, relates to the need for these eight or nine? Mr. HODGES. These are staff people. That does not count the complements. You have a larger number when you count the clerical and all the rest. I'm talking about eight or nine specialists. Mr. KLOTZ. For instance, there is a budget expert who will check the budgets and work with the budget officer of the Bureau of Public Roads and specialize in that particular field of roads. Mr. BROOKS. Now, Governor, back to more specifically the BDSA. Mr. HODGES. Yes, sir. Mr. BROOKS. How many divisions are there in that? Mr. HODGES. About 21, I think, sir. Mr. BROOKS. What is the grade of the director of each of these divisions? Mr. KLOTZ. This is Mr. William Merkin who is the Director, Office of Administration, Business and Defense Services Administration. Mr. HODGES. What is roughly the grades? Mr. MERKIN. The grade is 15, sir, roughly. We have several of them who are grade 16, but they have additional responsibilities. They go beyond just being an office director. Mr. BROOKS. What is the average number of persons assigned to each division? Mr. MERKIN. Of the 21 divisions I would say the average is about 15, sir. It varies. Our smallest division has 6, our largest division has 30. The variation is by subject matter and responsibility. Mr. BROOKS. How many employees of GS-14 or above are in each division? Mr. MERKIN. I don't have that in numbers, Mr. Chairman. I can furnish that for you. Mr. BROOKS. We would like to have that. How many GS-15 and above are there in the BDSA agency itself? There are 21 divisions, we know there are 21 grade 15's or above. How many others? Mr. MERKIN. I do not have that exact number with me. It's probably in the range of 35, sir. Mr. Chairman, if I may extend my remarks a moment. Mr. BROOKS. Yes. Mr. MERKIN. I think you have to understand the organization of BDSA, of course, to get Mr. BROOKS. You don't think this is an abnormally high percentage? Mr. MERKIN. No, sir. Frankly, if you deal with the problem you find it's really insufficient. The BDSA has responsibility for commodities and industries. We at a very high level consider that we have over 435 industries for which we are responsible. These grade 15's and our grade 14's are in effect the agency expert on the commodities and industries of American business. When one thinks of the Commerce Department and calls upon us for commodity information-how many tractors were manufactured; how many cars are produced-you think of an individual in BDSA and it's that individual who is established and recognized as an industry expert, recognized both by the responsibilities delegated to him by the Secretary, by the classification of the grade through the Civil Service Commission standards for such responsibility. Mr. BROOKS. Pardon me, this is how you justify your departmental character? Mr. MERKIN. Yes, sir; in addition to the business economic responsibility of these individuals the BDSA has responsibility by delegation from the Office of Emergency Planning for certain industrial mobilization activities and these same individuals that we are speaking of, our grades 14 and 15, have their mobilization responsibilitiesMr. BROOKS. This is the Industrial Manpower? Mr. HODGES. It is like the WPB and all. Mr. MERKIN. It is like a pool, so that the individual is not as such, as one would think, an employee assigned to a specific responsibility; his responsibility is industrywide. Mr. BROOKS. Now, who coordinates the activities of these divisions and approves the various studies and surveys that they produce? Mr. MERKIN. Well, our 21 divisions are grouped into 3 major categories. They are headed up by an office director. We have an Office of Industrial Equipment; we have an Office of Industrial Materials; we have an Office of General Products and Services. It roughly breaks down into 7 divisions reporting to each of these office directors. The office directors themselves then report to an Assistant Administrator of BDSA. In terms of programs and projects that are approved quite frankly our problem is selecting from the mass of demand, it is not a problem of what we approve, it's primarily a problem of what we do not approve. Mr. BROOKS. Somebody approves a good many of them. Mr. MERKIN. Yes, sir; we are able to approve within the facilities, manpower, and funds available to BDSA, only a small portion of what is requested. Mr. BROOKS. I understand that. Who makes the decision of those that you do undertake? Mr. MERKIN. The decision is initially reviewed by these three office directors. Then they make recommendations to the executive staff of the agency which consists of two assistant administrators, one a specialist in economic programs, industrial growth, and the other man, the man in charge of the operating responsibilities of these 21 divisions; these are then served up to the Administrator and the decision is made then on the basis of need, funds available, and other factors. Mr. BROOKS. Now, I have here a list of these BDSA investigations for the fiscal year 1962 and I noted in looking over it the other night that the Electronics Branch and the Communications Branch both conducted surveys as to the markets for U.S. communications equipment in various foreign countries, and it seems to indicate some duplication and maybe inefficient specialization, would it not? We have one, just for example, these two which I don't say are typical of the work that they do, but they are illustrative of this duplication. Your Electronics Division was studying a market for U.S. Microwave, forward scatter, and other radio communications equipment and radar in Kuwait, and the report is a pretty short one. It indicates that except for one oil company the only prospective customers appear to be a few wealthy merchants and sheikhs who buy communications equipment to link their outlying palaces and the city. I think the Electronics Division might well have sort of checked with the Communications Division which was making a study on telephone facilities in Trinidad and other areas. I just say you can get specialization pretty minute. I'm just wondering, Governor, if they might now-you know that one is kind of hard-you could almost sit here and figure out there isn't going to be any big market for stoves in Kuwait. [Laughter.] Mr. WALLHAUSER. Mr. Secretary, your Department employs a great many consultants, doesn't it? Mr. HODGES. Yes, sir. Mr. WALLHAUSER. Would they be involved in this work of preparing surveys and so forth in addition to the people of the Department? Mr. HODGES. They might, Mr. Wallhauser; you might have a consultant or more consultants in BDSA, but basically I would not think that that's generally where you would use them. I think it's fair to say about the question raised by the chairman that, Mr. Chairman, although this looks on the face of it like a rather foolish thing, much of this in these two illustrations you gave are byproducts of studies made in the area itself, people writing in through a report of a consul or an attaché writing in and we simply take that and send it out to people as a matter of information. Mr. WALLHAUSER. For instance, this guidebook describing the environment of Mars, Venus, and the Moon. This will be very helpful, I'm sure, to someone but not to us. Mr. BROOKS. I hope not. Mr. WALLHAUSER. I want to ask one other question, if I may. Mr. MERKIN. Large is a Mr. WALLHAUSER. Well, do you have any turnover, do they leave you for private industry? Mr. MERKIN. I would say in that context we do not have a large turnover; no, sir. We have some turnover. Mr. WALLHAUSER. Do you have any trouble recruiting? Mr. MERKIN. We have had our normal personnel problems in recruiting qualified individuals; yes, sir. These are industry experts, specialists; we have to hire them for their industry expertise, and we find it very difficult-I say that many of the individuals-well, I interviewed some people just the other day for a vacancy. Quite literally one gentleman was currently employed in private industry and making $42,000 a year. We were trying to attract him for a grade 13 job. Mr. WALLHAUSER. Well, the new proposed Federal pay raise would give GS-15 quite a substantial increase so that would partially help you, would it not? Mr. MERKIN. Yes, it would. Mr. WALLHAUSER. What, Mr. Secretary, was the purpose of a release like this, would you say? Mr. HODGES. I don't know. Mr. MERKIN. That was from our Office of Technical Services. Mr. HODGES. I might say this, Mr. Chairman, I hadn't seen that particular one. I will tell you a story on how we react. I used to say when I was Governor seeing something that I had done, I had an expression, "I just work here." I think that is true most of the time because we have such a variety of products. This is what is done, Mr. Wallhauser, by a rather remarkable group of people in the OTS-the Office of Technical Service--and this is where this particular thing came from about Venus, Mars, and the Moon. Mr. BROOKS. A remarkable group of people? Mr. HODGES. Yes, sir; because they take translations and so forth, Mr. Chairman, from technical publications and disclosures all over the world. We knew in that OTS, for instance, a whole lot about the sputnik that the public found out much later on. This is done in great numbers and sent all over America to laboratories and research institutions, to industries, and then I might as well add, sir, as we do in this Government, we send it to all of our friends throughout the world, the rest of the countries, so they won't have to work at it. Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Secretary, I did have one pretty difficult question occurred to me. You know, we asked about why the staffing for the BDSA, requested by both the subcommittee and the GAO, have not been supplied. I just wondered whether Mr. Merkin had been working on that and had them in the mill or whether he had been off for a week or two. Mr. MERKIN. No, sir. Mr. HODGES. Mr. Prince, could you answer that? Mr. PRINCE. It is my understanding the material that you asked for in here either has been sent to you or is on the way. Mr. BROOKS. Between your office and mine and it must not have gotten here before 9:30, Mr. Prince. You know we talked about the staffing justification for the BDSA and you said you would look into it. You do recall that, although we haven't received it yet? Mr. MERKIN. This was ready last week, sir; I don't know why it hasn't been received by your staff. Mr. BROOKS. If you had sent it to us direct- [Laughter.] may be going through our Mr. BROOKS. Governor, gotten to Mr. Prince yet. here. Department. I'm afraid you are right. Mr. PRINCE. I have my copies, Mr. Chairman. I do not understand why you do not have yours. Mr. BROOKS. We didn't get them either. Mr. HODGES. We will get it for you, sir, get it for you if we have to break the rules. Mr. BROOKS. Even if you have to go direct. It seems that business service responsibilities are somewhat scattered, and I'm wondering if you may not feel it should be centralized under one Assistant Secretary so you don't have this problem of drawing the line between foreign and domestic interests of Ameri can business. You know, you separate foreign and domestic interests and I am wondering Mr. HODGES. Mr. Chairman, that's a good question. Mr. BROOKS. The businessman's businessman. He's concerned about doing business in the United States, if he has a good business he might want to ship it overseas. Mr. HODGES. We are giving serious thought to that kind of thing. It has traditionally broken down into domestic and foreign, this expression professors use it proliferates itself. So, I think you have a good point and it's entirely possible they ought to have-they have a close working relationship but on the chart itself and the actual designation probably ought to be closer together. Mr. BROOKS. And maybe the concept; because many of our enterprises, from farming to manufacturing, are not just foreign or just domestic. Mr. HODGES. We are running into that all the time, trying to sponsor these further exports. We find we need to do something domestically before they can do something on a foreign basis. GREAT LAKES PILOTS Mr. BROOKS. I would like to try and cover one more point before we adjourn for noon, and it would be on the subject of the Great Lakes Piloting Administration, Governor. Mr. HODGES. Yes, sir. That was primarily the question of the Great Lakes where we had a tieup, sir, between the States bordering the Great Lakes and Canada where there was some activity and we have a specific statute that required us to give attention to that. On the coastal States there was nothing we were directed to do. Mr. BROOKS. In other words, everything that is done on the Great Lakes is in excess and above that which is done in reference to pilots for the gulf coast and the western coast pilots. Mr. HODGES. You might want to answer that. Mr. MESCHTER. I'm afraid I missed the question. Mr. BROOKS. The Governor said he had some specific legislation regarding the Great Lakes Piloting Administration, and I was suggesting then that everything they do in the Great Lakes is above and beyond that which they do for pilot administration on the gulf coast, on the east coast and the west coast, and the rest of the United States. Mr. MESCHTER. That is correct, sir; yes. Mr. BROOKS. Now that the pilot system on the Great Lakes has been established, what justification is there for continued Federal participation at a level higher than traditionally undertaken on other coasts of this country, if any? Mr. MESCHTER. The Federal Government in the enactment of the Great Lakes Pilotage Act of 1960, declared its powers and undertook to exercise its right to regulate pilotage on the Great Lakes. The manner and method in which pilotage shall be regulated is clearly described in this act. Accordingly, Federal participation embraces all aspects of regulation and stands in the same relative position as the States with respect to State pilotage. Individual State participation in pilotage by the eight States bordering the Great Lakes would certainly create extremely complicated |