Mr. Ross. No, sir; they do get thousands of routine requests, routine inquiries, from constituents and Members of Congress where the services provide the information without referring them to the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. FASCELL. What is the directive which establishes the guideline in the services for referral? If I were in one of these offices, where could I turn to determine whether I could pass final judgment on this matter or whether it was a matter I would have to refer to your office?

Mr. Ross. I cannot cite any particular one. There are a number. It would depend on the subject matter.

Mr. FASCELL. Is there some directive in those great big books you have on your desk dealing with the release of information?

Mr. Ross. Yes, sir.

Mr. FASCELL. Are those the two books which you furnished to the committee?

Mr. Ross. Yes, sir.

Mr. FASCELL. They contain all of the directives dealing with the release of information, and these directives have been issued by the Department of Defense?

Mr. Ross. Yes, sir; and they also contain service regulations and other data requested by this committee.

Mr. FASCELL. I am not trying to be facetious, but if I were one of these officers down the line I would not release anything if I had to wade through all of those directives and regulations.

Mr. Moss. Are there any guidelines, written or verbal, on Army information practices which themselves are classified?

Mr. Ross. I am sure the answer to that is yes, sir-dealing with nuclear information.

Mr. Moss. Would those be guidelines of the Department of Defense, or of the Atomic Energy Commission?

Mr. Ross. I would say both.

Mr. Moss. And only in the field of nuclear information are there guidelines that are classified?

Mr. Ross. I cannot answer you here on that. I would have to go through them. I can give you that information in writing.

Mr. Moss. If you would. Is it a fairly substantial number of directives or policy memorandums?

Mr. Ross. I think there would be relatively few.

(The following information was transmitted by letter, dated July 25, 1956, from the office of Assistant Secretary Ross:)

In the public information area, the DOD has two current directives which are classified; they pertain to the information policy on nuclear weapons and radiological warfare."

Mr. HOFFMAN. Counsel was Norris, and he quoted from it.

asking you about an article by Mr. Permit me to read a paragraph:

Both Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor and Gen. Nathan F. Twining, Army and Air Force Chiefs of Staff, disavowed much of the material published over the weekend represented as reflecting the views of their services and which were critical of other services and some of their weapons.

In that connection, you are familiar with the present newspaper controversy over what the Secretary of Defense has said, or is reported to have said, are you not?

Mr. Ross. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOFFMAN. And above that paragraph Í just read, referring to Wilson, it says:

Moving in to halt the budding public row over defense policy, Wilson promised to find out who were the little "eager beavers" who handed partisan-slanted classified papers to newsmen over the weekend. This is "not good for the country," the Cabinet officer said, promising to stop it. "But the best way to settle this and the 'honest differences' between the services is to leave it to the Defense Department," Wilson said.

Now do you find any fault with that?

Mr. Ross. No, sir; I have not any fault to find with that.

Mr. HOFFMAN. I do not know whether counsel did, or anyone on the committee did. That is a typical family row, is it not, about which one is better and which is best? Is not that up all of the time when we have an appropriation bill, when you come to Congress for money?

Mr. Ross. As I stated yesterday, it has been a continuing problem in the Department of Defense.

Mr. HOFFMAN, Well, they all want what they think is their share, do they not?

The chairman just called my attention to an article on military and United States foreign policy planning, down on page 200, about the different Departments appearing before the Appropriations Committee, and I want to thank you for calling my attention to this. It is not anything new, but I am glad to have it printed in black and white. Once before Congress, the item reads, it is the policy of the services when they come before the committee, to defend the budget without any question of to whom they owe political allegiance, namely, the President.

That has always been true, has it not; that is to say, each groupthere are 4 of them now; there used to be 3, the Army, Navy, and what-no, only 2, the Army and Navy, and when we reorganized in the interest of economy and efficiency, we added the Air Force so as to cut expenses and strike the rest of them out. Is that your experience when they came before the Appropriations Committee? Were you on the Appropriations Committee?

Mr. Ross. No, sir, I was not.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Well you know how they operate; each one goes down and blows his own horn. Maybe I should not say that, but you know what I mean-each one goes down to advocate so much before the Appropriations Committee, and that is the way it goes and, inevitably, they have to boost their own service.

You would not expect the Air Force, would you, from your knowledge and experience, to come in and say "Now, we are not quite as good as the Army and we do not want quite so much," would you? Mr. Ross. I do not think that has been the practice, sir.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Am I to understand from that evasive answer that you think it might happen some time in the future? In other words, that is evident, is it not?

Mr. Ross. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Then when they come to Congress they all get together in favor of the budget if they do not want more, and some want more? Is not that the way it goes?

Mr. Ross. I was never on the Appropriations Committee.

69222-56-pt. 5———5

Mr. HOFFMAN. I know, but you had to vote on the appropriation bill and many times you did not know what it was all about, did you? Mr. Ross. That is right; not all details.

Mr. HOFFMAN. I think that is true of nine-tenths of us-we just have to take the word of the experts and so we vote, take a chancerelying upon their judgment and honesty. And the net result is that sometimes they get more money than they can handle. Do you not recall there were unexpended balances in practically all of the funds? That is a matter of common knowledge!

I can understand why the counsel and the chairman of the committee as a minority member, I can understand why they complain about not getting information out of the Department; but I do not understand why you hesitate to answer questions the answers to which we all know.

Mr. Ross. I am not hesitating to answer. I think the procedure. of presenting the President's budget to Congress is well established and the fact known that Defense Department witnesses for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps come up and justify these budget requests before the Appropriations Committee. That procedure is well established.

Mr. HOFFMAN. I am not saying you are evasive; I do not mean that. Perhaps a more accurate answer, if I may put words in your mouth, would be that the answer is obvious to the questions I have just asked.

Is there any reason why, after the unification bill passed, or the fact that Congress over the years I have been here has tried to get the various Departments to economize-is there any reason why Secretary of Defense Wilson should not come in and, figuratively speaking, bump their heads together and tell them to get together and quit rowing? Do you know of any reason?

Maybe you being Assistant Secretary, I should not ask that. But I cannot see anything wrong in the comment to the Members in the other body that he did not need the billion more and the further comment that he did not intend to spend it anyway-I cannot see why what he said was not all right. Maybe I am on the wrong side politically.

Mr. MITCHELL. I would like to point out one item in title V, section 171, paragraph 6 of the National Defense Establishment.

No provision of sections

and then follows a string of sections

of title 50 shall be so construed as to prevent the Secretary of the military department or a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from presenting to Congress on his own initiative, after so informing the Secretary of Defense, any recommendations relating to the Department of Defense which he may deem appropriate.

Mr. HOFFMAN. That is all right, and Forrestal issued the same kind of order when we were holding hearings on the unification bill. That was not the original order. And then he said "All you boys testify." and if you read the hearings you will see that Colonel Maas testified that notwithstanding the order, there was a fear in the services that they would not get a choice assignment, would not get promotion, if they did come up and testify.

That relates to the Secretary that you read.

Mr. MITCHELL. It relates to the National Military Establishment. Mr. HOFFMAN. I can understand that, but that aims at channeling the thing through that particular Department, and over and above all of the Secretaries is the Secretary of Defense with the various branches and just as the Air Force has a head, so must the whole Department have a head, and if you have everybody all down the line giving out to the newspapers information willy-nilly, I can agree with you; but when a congressional committee asks for information of that kind which seems to have a semblance of appearing to act on judgment, instead of a guess, we should have the information; but after we get all through, we just guess at it.

I cannot see anything wrong with what the Secretary of Defense said. Of course, I realize what he said gives an opportunity for political propaganda. That is all right; they may come up in the next campaign and say "We wanted to give you more money for national defense, but it was not spent." I think the taxpayers are more concerned with saving a few dollars than appropriating an extra billion which cannot be spent.

Mr. MITCHELL. To return for one moment to the question of the recent leakage of classified documents, will you ascertain if Secretary Wilson has asked the Secretaries of the Services to investigate that matter, and submit a statement to the committee with respect to it? Mr. Ross. I will.

Mr. MITCHELL. The matter has been aired in the press and no one knows what is happening over there. Will you also see that a report is available to the appropriate committee of Congress?

Mr. Ross. Yes.

(The following information was transmitted by letter, dated July 25, 1956, from the office of Assistant Secretary Ross.)

The documents referred to and from which the press carried quotes consisted of three Army and three Air Force papers. Included in these documents were staff working papers which received a limited distribution; two of these contained classified material and were stamped "Confidential." The Secretary of Defense orally requested the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air Force to look into the matter of how these documents got into the hands of the press. He is awaiting their report.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Of course, the press has to be published every day and they must of necessity have something to print, and that is all right. But if we want to fight for their education, or in defense of it, that is our fault.

Mr. MITCHELL. Now, Mr. Ross and Mr. Schooley, I believe you are both familiar with the case of Capt. George W. Campbell, assistant for public relations for the Third Naval District. This concerns an article he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post on the sinking some 10 years ago of the cruiser Indianapolis.

Captain Campbell submitted this article for security clearance to the Chief of Public Information, Department of the Navy. In reply, he received a letted dated June 6, 1955, from Capt. J. D. Lamade, Navy Deputy Chief of Information. This 12-page letter, stamped "For official use only," raised no question of military security, but simply stated that the Navy found the article objectionable on the ground that the sinking of a Navy ship, even in wartime, was not considered suitable material for publication, and that the retelling of this tragedy might have an adverse effect on enlistments in the Navy.

(The letter follows:)

From: Chief of Information.

To: Capt. G. W. Campbell, United States Navy.

Via: Commandant, 3d Naval District.

Subject: Article entitled "The Story of the Indianapolis.”

Enclosure: (1) Subject article.

Reference: (a) SecNav Instruction 5720.7 of November 13, 1953.

JUNE 6, 1955.

(b) Letter from Capt. G. W. Campbell, United States Navy, of May 10, 1955, and first endorsement thereto.

1. The Story of the Indianapolis, which was submitted for review and clearance by reference (b), is hereby returned not cleared for publication.

2. The Navy Department in reviewing this article has two basic objections to it. First, it is considered to be contrary to the letter and spirit of article 0514, paragraph 1, subparagraph (e), of reference (a); secondly, it is not believed to be in the best interest of the Navy for naval officers in authoritative positions to intentionally reemphasize to the American public the story of tragic naval disasters.

3. Article 0514, paragraph 1, subparagraph (e), of reference (a) reads as follows: "Military and civilian personnel may receive pay for private literary effort; however, they may not receive pay or other remuneration for the preparation of material which their duties require them to provide gratuitously. This policy applies to any official naval material including photographis authorized for public release." It is considered that the material contained in this article is official naval material and that it is the duty of any Navy public information officer to make official Navy material available to the public without receiving remuneration therefor. It is understood this article was once sold to Life magazine, not used, returned to the author, and is now up for sale to the Saturday Evening Post.

4. The story of the sinking of the Indianapolis, and the terrible ordeal which the survivors went through for 4 days at sea is a tragic episode in the history of World War II. Encouragement for publication of this material by any person in the naval service is not in the best interests of the Navy. Its publication will serve only to reopen the old wounds of those dependents and families of personnel who were lost, either in the sinking or who drowned at sea. It will bring to the attention of young men between the ages of 17, 18, 19, and 20 who might be contemplating enlisting, this episode which, perhaps at the time it occurred, they were too young to have known about. It might serve to give such young men the idea that the story of the Indianapolis sinking is typical of what they can expect in cruiser or any shipboard duty in time of war. It is true, of course, that this story is history and that any civilian writer who wishes to research the newspaper clippings or published material which followed this disaster could recreate this story and publish it without any reference to the Navy Department. There is no way to prevent this. However, it would seem that loyalty to the Navy and the efforts of the Navy Department to enlist and reenlist men, would preclude naval officers or personnel from voluntarily submitting the story to a commercial publication merely for personal remuneration. The story of the Indianapolis is not typical of the fate of cruisers in World War II. There are many, many stories of and about cruiser action in World War II which would relate the heroic deeds of ships and men of the Navy who fought through the war and who returned to the United States eventually to see their homes and families again.

J. D. LAMADE, Acting.

This was in line with the "constructive contribution" directive of the Secretary. Subsequently the Saturday Evening Post itself tried to get the article cleared through the Department of Defense and specifically through the office of Mr. Schooley. Mr. Hugh Morrow, Washington editor of the Saturday Evening Post, recalls from notes made at the time the following details from the conversation he had with Mr. Schooley on June 7, 1955:

Mr. Morrow asked Mr. Schooley if he had requested a copy of the Campbell article and Mr. Schooley replied that he had received no such copy even though he had requested one from the Navy on two