Colonel REGAN. We are broken down into the Foreign Excess Sales Office, which Mr. Sidman will brief you on. We have a field operations office. We have broken France into three sectors, the western, eastern, and central sectors. We have small detachments at each area responsible for all these facilities that now belong to the Military Liquidation Section. We have an installation office that takes care of all our records on Army and Air Force installations the Military Liquidation Section has taken over and does all our engineering work. We have a security office responsible for all the guards at the various locations, not including Evreux at the present time but all the various bases we have. We have an administrative shop which does regular administration; and a management office that takes care of our budget and financial problems. We have an information and reception office that takes care of our visitors and furnishes information. We have a coordinating office that coordinates our activities and works daily with the French on coordinating matters. And we have a liaison office that works with French-speaking personnel and does translation of correspondence. I want to make a correction about the coordinating office. It coordinates activities in the service but does not deal with the French. UMD calls for 507 in the Military Liquidation Section. Our current strength is slightly under 400. We thought we would have 507 by the 1st of July. However, we will never reach this peak strength because we have frozen our hiring. We have found we do not really need all this strength and we feel we do not need to fill these vacancies, so we will not reach our 507. Under the terms of reference our mission is: The Military Liquidation Section is responsible for the disposition of matters of military interest, including the disposition of property, remaining after the relocation of U.S. military forces from France. This is either by negotiated sale or sales through the Foreign Excess Sales Office, or removing items to where they are required by the component commanders of the Army, Air Force, or other commanders. Our functions and responsibilities are limited to those which are directly related to the liquidation of U.S. military interests as a result of the military withdrawal from France, and the functions include the following: Acceptance of custodial responsibility, including control, ownership, security, protection and accountability for U.S. installations and facilities, including all real, personal and related personal property contained therein, on "A" date. And I will explain what "A" date is. "A" date is described as follows: The date on which operations at a base or installation have terminated, all stocks, supplies and troops (except for the custodial force) have been withdrawn and all personal and related personal property for which there is a U.S. requirement has been removed. We came into business on the 1st of March. Prior to the 1st of April MLS had taken over all the U.S. facilities in France from the component commanders, USAREUR and USAFE, with the exception of 32 real properties that belonged to the Petroleum Distribution Command and one Air Force property which is the Suippes Gunnery Range. We have taken all of those over and as of now we own all in France except the 33 I have told you about. Mr. MONAGAN. How many are there? Colonel REGAN. There are a total of 311 installations. Mr. MONAGAN. When you say you own them you mean? Colonel REGAN. We have custody of them and are responsible for guarding them. We are in a peculiar situation at this base. The decision was made by European Command Headquarters at Evreux would stay in operation through the 15th of June for two purposes: (1) To be the logistic base for the removal of items that we had to move by air from France, high-value items for EUCOM and some for SHAFE. The second purpose was to support the Paris Air Show. Colonel Tarver, as the Evreux Air Base Commander, has retained Colonel TARVER. I have only 120 military but 220 total personnel, including local nationals. Mr. MONAGAN. Are these included in the 400? Colonel REGAN. No, sir; they are not included. That figure is a little false. I will go back to the figure of total personnel. MLS took Evreux over on the 24th of March as belonging to the Military Liquidation Section, and I released to Colonel Tarver on a hand receipt 19 buildings so he could operate here using the 19 buildings, and USAFE is responsible for all the costs of electricity, water, sanitation, et cetera. Colonel Tarver on June 15 will start to fold his operations here and will be completely out by the end of June and be in a caretaker status by the 1st of July. We will have from 15 to 18 personnel, mostly guards, 14 guards. These will be turned over to Lieutenant Larson to keep this base in fair condition, keep it guarded until we either sell the base or dispose of the related personal property on the base.. Back to the total number of people. I said we had slightly under 400 for the Military Liquidation Section. This is MLS proper. Recently we had to pick up 600 local nationals and 22 more military to take care of Army installations because we have taken these Army installations over from what was called the French support group, the Army group that takes care of dependents remaining here until the end of the school year. The French Government agreed we could keep the schools open. These dependents are still here and will be here until the termination of the school year. Once these dependents have departed the French support group will still have items to remove from their bases, and when we take over the 1st of July we will have to guard these facilities. Mr. ROMNEY. You mentioned the French support group? Colonel REGAN. Yes. It used to be the communications zone personnel but when the communications zone folded the 1st of April they left behind a French support group. Mr. ROMNEY. You don't mean French nationls, but that is a geographical description? Mr. ROMNEY. You don't mean French nationals, but that is a geographical description. Getting back to the functions of the Military Liquidation Section, another function is described as follows: Care and preservation only of any remaining U.S. assets (e.g., command operating stocks) which are to be removed from France by the component commander. In the case of the Air Force, all property has been removed from France for which there was a requirement elsewhere with the exception of Evreux. Colonel Tarver has some items for operations-GCA, ground control approach, and Tacan facilities. He will remove all of those by the 1st of July. The whole objective was, if there was a requirement for any items, they were removed prior to our taking them over. Mr. ROMNEY. You are speaking about a requirement within the Military Establishment and not a requirement for AID, for example? Colonel REGAN. That is true. But all the assets in France of both the Army and the Air Force have been screened thoroughly by Government agencies. For example, some trailers from this base went to AID. Mrs. HECKLER. Were the requirements communicated through NICP? Colonel REGAN. Yes, all the way through, Air Force and Army. Mr. ROMNEY. When you talk about property you are not talking about related personal property? Colonel REGAN. I am not talking about radiators, lighting, and so forth, unless there was a requirement for a generator or transformer. When we had a requirement for those we moved them. Mr. ROMNEY. But a listing of generators, radiators, and so forth, was not circulated to all Government agencies so they knew what was available here in France? Colonel REGAN. I am not familiar with that. I was not in headquarters and did not get in this business until March. Colonel TARVER. I believe it was circularized. In closing the bases all the commands were invited to come and look at the bases themselves and they had a list of the items available and if they had a requirement they could tell our headquarters, "You have this at Evreux; we have a requirement for it and we want it." To give you an example, we have pulled generators off this base but have kept some behind because as long as the airfield is operational I have to have backup power in case the power at Evreux goes off. This has happened in the last 3 weeks. When we close the operation down on the 12th of June, actually, we will remove the high value items and ship them to Germany. Colonel REGAN. Another of our functions is as follows: Responsibility, with USAFE and USAREUR support, for the negotiation of "Operational Base" sales. An "operational base" is defined as follows: A U.S. Military Base facility in France which the GOF has requested be turned over to French authorities in operating condition, requiring therefore that certain facilities and related personal property be left in place, pending negotiations. There were only two operational bases left in France which the French desired to buy in operating condition. One was Toul-Rosieres and the other was Chateauroux. On Toul-Rosieres, USAFE left $225,000 worth of items for which they had a requirement or could use but it was not a critical requirement. We negotiated a sale with the Gov ernment of France on Toul-Rosieres. We sold the Government of France all U.S.-funded related personal property. We, through our computations, estimated that the maximum fair market value that we could obtain for the related personal property at Toul was $ -. The French initial offer for this RPP was $220,000. We actually sold it for $795,000, and I turned the base over officially to the French on the 16th of May, and when I turned it over we pulled all of our personnel out and sent them out of France with the exception of the officer in charge, because he had additional responsibilities. Mrs. HECKLER. What about Chateauroux? Colonel REGAN. Chateauroux is a peculiar base divided into two portions. One is called Déols and the other is La Martinerie. Mrs. HECKLER. Are you negotiating that now? Colonel REGAN. On the Déols portion of Chateauroux the estimated maximum fair market value was $ The initial French offer was $110,000, and we sold it for $360,000. This, again, applies to only the U.S.-funded related personal property. I will make a clarification here. Chateauroux is the only U.S. air base that is not NATO. This is strictly United States. All the others in France are NATO bases which we have occupied and used. On La Martinerie we are still negotiating. We have not sold it. In the case of Toul, this was purchased by the French Air Force. In the case of the Déols portion of Chateauroux it was purchased by the French Government for the Serima overhaul depot. The French Army is interested in La Martinerie but we have not agreed on a price. Again on functions: MLS is not responsible for the disposition (by sale or otherwise) of NATO property, except as directed by competent authority in the section of final transfer to GOF of the base/facility involved. I think this is self-explanatory. We do not sell NATO property. We do not have this authority in MLS. The next function is: Disposal of remaining personal and related personal property, according to economic determination, i.e., disposal by procedures most economically advantageous to the U.S. related personal property not otherwise disposed of will be placed on real property records. This property thus becomes a part of the facility turned over to GOF, and will be the subject of Embassy residual value negotiations. I have a list of the sales completed to date together with the total U.S. investment, the acquisition cost of RPP, the original French offer and the actual sales price negotiated, and a comparison of what we can get by selling the same equipment through FESO. We feel by far we are getting the most for the U.S. Government through negotiated sales. An example is the Jeanne d'Arc Hospital which we recently sold. It is an Army hospital. The estimated fair market value was $ We sold it for $460,000 and I would have to refer to my notes for the original French offer. That is generally true, that we are getting more by negotiated sale. We are getting more than by selling through FESO. I have the figures for you. Mr. MONAGAN. We will receive them for the file and if they are not too bulky we will make them a part of the record. Colonel REGAN. The next function is: Support and assistance to the U.S. Embassy, Paris, in residual value negotiations. We have recently been sitting down with the Embassy and NATO to see how best MLS could contribute to the negotiations, what type of computations we can make to help them in residual value negotiations. Mr. MONAGAN. Residual value means determining the present value of an unexpired term of lease or other agreement, is that correct? Colonel REGAN. That is correct. In the case of Toul, for example, the total U.S. investment in Toul was $23 million. We sold Toul for $795,000, but that was only the related personal property, it did not include the brick and mortar. They were left but that benefited the Government of France by our leaving them here so we would have a claim against the Government of France for that. Mr. MONAGAN. That would not be based on a lease but on the remaining expected life of the buildings? Colonel REGAN. Yes, 20-year life, built in 1962, good until 1982. Mr. MONAGAN. Realizing that some of them would be very small. Colonel REGAN. Yes. It will either be multilateral, which would be NATO residual value, or bilateral, which would be United States. One that is multilateral is Brienne. The next function of MLS is: Transfer of facilities and installations, held in custody, to appropriate authorities of the Government of France. This [indicating] is our progress report of April 1967. Mr. MONAGAN. Thank you. We will receive that for the file. Colonel REGAN. Sir, we have released to the Government of France 93 Army and seven Air Force installations. Most of these were small and a lot of them were just leases. The only large facility we released to France was Toul. Mr. MONAGAN. When you say "released" you mean without any compensation? Colonel REGAN. Yes. The leases were released without compensation but we still have not put in our claims for termination of the contract. Mr. MONAGAN. They are still subject to negotiation? Colonel REGAN. Yes, sir; they still are. I hopefully will return four major installations to the Government of France next week: Laon, Chaumont, Etain, and Jeanne d'Arc. Mr. BARASH. I might ask what the sale price has been on the bases you just mentioned. Colonel REGAN. I have it on all of them if you like. Mr. MONAGAN. You go ahead and finish your statement and then we will go into that afterward. Colonel REGAN. The next function of MLS is: Acceptance of surplus commodity housing records and custody, concurrently with the transfer of the parent base. Surplus commodity housing real estate records and responsibility for custody of physical assets will remain with the accountable officer until transfer to MLS. Sir, I am really not competent to discuss the surplus commodity housing. This is run by my other deputy. Except I can say we have taken over 392 housing units throughout France and we have made |