tried to make the requirement less onerous by saying "itemized so far as practicable."

Since then I can not recall any Presidential reorganization plan under the last several Presidents and under OMB that have itemized the reductions. We just have new boilerplate language, which I now see in the President's message transmitting this plan.

Mr. Horton, I think, also read this but I will repeat it:

It is not practicable to specify all of the expenditure reductions and other economies that will result from the proposed reorganization and therefore I do not do so.

I would like to reemphasize the concern of the members of this committee that we do not want just new boilerplate language in Presidential messages but we really do want an itemization.

Let me ask this about the language the President used because I found it quite interesting.

"It is not practicable to specify all of the expenditure reductions and other economies ***." Does that mean that there is going to be a net reduction in expenditures?

Mr. WELLFORD. The problem with answering your question is the problem we have in good faith in meeting the general objective of the legislative clause.

To be specific, to itemize reductions, particularly when you are talking about administrative efficiencies that take quite a while to accomplish, is very difficult in terms of actual numbers.

People who have been involved in the reorganization have done it one of two ways. Either they have treated the objectives somewhat cavalierly and made claims about reductions that they did not have any objective basis for making or they have gone to the opposite extreme and simply said that there is no way to do it so let's take it on faith that we will try to achieve these reductions over time.

One difference that we have now is that we have located the reorganization project staff within the Office of Management and Budget. The reorganization people who have the responsibility for carrying through the promises that are made in connection with the reorganization plan sit in on the budget sessions and are in the position to help enforce the goals of savings about which you are talking.

In this specific case we are merging two administrative bodies that presently exist in the foreign affairs bureaucracy. We fully expect that the new administrator of the Agency for International Communication will have opportunities to realize savings in administrative personnel once he or she is on board and has examined what the possibilities are. We will certainly be in a position to insure that the Director remembers that he has a responsibility to introduce savings where possible, but it is very difficult right now for us to tell you specifically how much and exactly where those savings are going to be. Mr. ERLENBORN. I point out to you again the language of the law says "estimate any reduction or increase in expenditures * The President's message says, "It is not practicable to specify all of the expenditure reductions and other economies. **** Does that mean there would be no increase?

* * ""

Mr. WELLFORD. It is our prediction at the moment that there will be no net increase, based upon the information that we have.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Mr. Levitas has brought out in the questioning the fact that we are going to have at least a net increase of two executive level people as a result of this plan. That could have been itemized as an expenditure increase in the cost of administrative overhead. You have then suggested that there would be offsetting savings elsewhere, but no such attempt was made and no identification of this expenditure increase has been made as is required by law. That would have been possible, wouldn't it?

Mr. WELLFORD. Yes, sir, that would have been possible.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Why wasn't it done? Do you know? Do you hate to point out expenditure increases in organization plans?

Mr. WELLFORD. No. I think our concern was to defer the specifics until we had a new administrator in place who, we hope, is going to be a strong manager. Certainly we could do more than we did in terms of spelling this out for you, and we should do that.

Mr. ERLENBORN. I understand your desire to defer the specifics but I think that statutory language is a direction to you to give this Congress some specifics instead of deferring them.

Mr. HORTON. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. ERLENBORN. Yes.

Mr. HORTON. I was going to make generally the same point. It is the chicken and egg situation. The Congress is just not going to go along with these reorganization plans without getting some more specific information.

We found that on Reorganization Plan No. 1. I am not doing this because I want to be nasty to OMB, but the Members ask us questions. They make us appear to be very foolish when we say we don't know anything except that down the line some place they are going to make some savings. We cannot give that to our colleagues on the full committee or on the floor of the House when they come up and ask us these kinds of questions.

The law does require it, and you are going to have to give us the information. That is why we are asking you for it.

Maybe you can have savings which will result later but you are going to have to make some sort of estimate or give us something much more concrete than just saying down the road some place we are going to have a good administrator and he is going to do a good job, and he will do this and do that.

You have a number of people who are going to go over from the two agencies to the new agency. You ought to spell that out. We ought to see a table of organization, if you want to put it another way, an organization chart. You ought to tell us specifically what the new supergrades are and what is going to happen to the old supergrades. I am not talking just about this plan but the next one, too.

The Post Office and Civil Service Committee jumped all over our necks. They wanted us to refer the Department of Energy sequentially, and we did. As a matter of fact, they came over and sat in on the conference with us and made suggestions with regard to those supergrade personnel who were involved.

We not only have members of our own full committee looking over our shoulders, we also have other committees looking over our shoulders on these questions.

The people who have to supply the information are you people at OMB, not the USIA or the cultural unit in the State Department or somebody else. OMB has to give us that information.

Mr. Levitas is not even a member of this subcommittee, but he is here because he is interested. He is a member of the full committee. There are other members who wanted to be here today, but they have other commitments. It has turned into a full committee meeting on reorganization plans because we do not have sufficient information. I do not know how to make it any more blunt than that.

Mr. ERLENBORN. I would suggest to the gentleman that maybe we should ask for the kind of information that should have been sent along with the plan and ask that it be submitted within the next week.

Would it be possible for you to give us a table of organization including the levels at which the employees are anticipated to be, the executive levels, and so forth, as well as a general idea of the budgetary implications of this plan?

Mr. WELLFORD. I think we can send you the best estimate that we can put together in view of the concern which you have expressed about the budgetary impact. We will do that within the week period in which we are sending the other material which was requested.

Mr. ERLENBORN. I would hope that in that material you could identify the source of the personnel-how many from each agency, what new positions are being created, and whether there is any net decrease or increase in expenditures as a result of the plan.

Mr. WELLFORD. We will do that to the best of our ability.
Mr. BROOKS. Without objection, so ordered.

[See letter to Chairman Brooks from Executive Associate Director Wellford, dated October 27, 1977, which is in the appendix.]

Mr. ERLENBORN. I hope that this will then become the standard for the submission of plans in the future.

Let me get into another area. I am not too familiar with the area about which we are talking here because it does not come within my committee jurisdiction. However, in some of my travels overseas I have met cultural affairs officers in the embassies. I know something of their work.

The educational and cultural exchange program is under the Department of State. These cultural affairs officers are in the embassy overseas and under the direction of the ambassador to that country. Is that not correct?

Mr. WELLFORD. That is correct.

Mr. ERLENBORN. I have noticed in your presentation you say the nonpolitical character of the educational and cultural exchange programs must and will be maintained.

In practice and I do not think I am revealing anything that is secret or confidential-but in practice, doesn't that cultural affairs officer identify some bright young people in the government of the host country and possibly arrange for them to have an opportunity to come and visit the United States to learn something about us and possibly as a result of that be a little more friendly to the United States?

Mr. WELLFORD. Following us will be Mr. Bray from the USIA who can comment very specifically in response to your question. Obviously, the cultural affairs officers are concerned with spotting educators; for example, scientists, people of the arts who have something to communicate to this country and that information is passed on.

Beyond that, I think I would have to defer to Mr. Bray who knows very clearly in much more detail than I do about the ongoing operations of the USIA.

Mr. ERLENBORN. The result of this plan will be to remove that cultural affairs officer, in effect-or at least his function in the educational and cultural exchange program-from the embassy physically?

Mr. WELLFORD. No, sir, we have no plans now to change the way the field operations operate overseas.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Except the administration of the cultural exchange program will no longer be under the State Department, will it? It will be in this new independent Agency.

Mr. WELLFORD. The functions have operated in a consolidated way overseas but have had different administrations here.

Mr. ERLENBORN. I know in some places you find them all in the same building; in other places, USIA will have a separate building.

Mr. HIRSCHHORN. Abroad, it is generally the same personnel who handle the administration of both those programs that are now in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and those in the USIA. That is not expected to change. Indeed, that has been one of the driving forces for the interest in this reorganization, particularly on the Hill.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Are there any exchange programs operated by the State Department that will remain with the State Department, or will all exchange programs be transferred to this new Agency? Mr. HIRSCHHORN. All the programs will be transferred."

Mr. ERLENBORN. You will then be operating that in a totally nonpolitical way. Is that correct?

Mr. WELLFORD. Basically that is correct, sir.
Mr. HORTON. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. ERLENBORN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. HORTON. As I understand it, there are approximately 8,000 exchanges under AID; there are 20,000 under the Department of Defense; there is a 200-person teacher exchange conducted by HEW; and then there are exchanges by the Commerce Department, the National Science Foundation, et cetera. Are all of these going to be transferred over to this new Agency? Is that what you said?

Mr. WELLFORD. No, sir. We were talking about the cultural exchange activities which are presently in the Department of State. Mr. HORTON. I misunderstood. I just wondered if that was part of the plan.

Mr. WELLFORD. The other exchanges about which you are talking tend to be much more specialized and focused around specific programs. The cultural exchange activities that are operated by the State Department are

Mr. HORTON. Was that considered?

Mr. WELLFORD. Yes; that was, but I do not think it ever reached the point of an option for the President to consider.

Mr. HORTON. But the message does say, as I understand it, that this new Agency will coordinate all exchange programs. What does that mean? How are you going to do that?

Mr. WELLFORD. Obviously, exchange programs in the agencies which you mentioned, even if they are very specialized, may have some impact on the broad-based exchange programs that have been conducted by the Department of State. Where those impacts occur, some coordination will be necessary. This Agency will have responsibility for that. We do not anticipate that as a major source of conflict. I think the basic emphasis of the new Agency is on these culturalwide exchanges of educational activities.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Is the educational and cultural exchange program the only exchange program that is operated by the State Department? Mr. WELLFORD. As far as we are aware; yes.

Are you aware of any other, Pete?

Mr. SZANTON. No; I am not aware of any other.

Mr. ERLENBORN. If we operate in a totally nonpolitical fashion, we are not going to take into account who might be potential opinionmakers in the host country in the future, but who has the best talent and the best cultural background?

Mr. HIRSCHHORN. Congressman, the point that is made, both in the message and in the testimony, about the nonpolitical nature of the exchange program, is not to indicate any change in the way the program is being operated. The concern has been expressed by those who have been involved with the program, in the academic community in particular, that what they perceive as the nonpolitical nature of its operation at State will somehow be altered by its being placed in the new Agency. What we are trying to do is not indicate a change but indicate that we are continuing the existing nature of the program and the existing protections, such as the Board of Foreign Scholarships which selects the Fullbright grantees.

Mr. ERLENBORN. I find that slightly reassuring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Erlenborn. I am glad you have been slightly reassured.

The gentleman from New York is recognized.

Mr. HORTON. This has to do with personnel. I do think we ought to have that personnel structure about which Mr. Erlenborn talked. I do feel it is important for us to know what the personnel structure is going to be.

As I understand it now, the State Department personnel are to be folded into the USIA. As I understand it, in State there are Foreign Service officers, FSO's, while the USIA personnel are Foreign Service information officers, FSIO's. How are you going to work this out? Do the people from State become FSIO officers or detailees? What is the plan there?

Mr. WELLFORD. Let me ask Eric to answer that.

Mr. HIRSCHHORN. The present intention is that the Foreign Service officers who are in the Bureau of Cultural Affairs as well as the worldwide Foreign Service staff and the Foreign Service Reserve Unlimited Corps will be continued on the employment rolls at State and will serve on reimbursable detail in the new Agency until the time comes for