General WALSH. No; they do not, and the terms of our agreement with the French are to the effect that we should be charged only taxes such as are actually levied against the French military in Morocco. As far as I know, we have paid no taxes at all.

Mr. RILEY. What taxes would come under that provision?

General WALSH. The ones that I have had brought to my attention were taxes on gasoline and other fuels which are purchased locally and on which the French Government would normally pay the regular price which would include the local tax. We have been billed for such a tax, but I have instructed the district engineer not to pay it until it is finally determined whether or not the tax was actually being paid by the French Army.

Mr. DAVIS. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.)

SITES VISITED BY GENERAL WALSH

Mr. DAVIS. You told us that you had visited five sites. We have six listed here. Which of those did you not visit?

General WALSH. I have been to every place listed on that map. I was at Sidi Slimane and Rabat Sale. That is where the Fifth Air Division headquarters is to be built. Nothing has been constructed there at all so far. The project there is primarily the headquarters buildings, the housing for the troops of the Fifth Air Division, and it is to be adjacent to the existing French airfield just north about 5 kilometers. I have been to Boulhaut, walked and driven all over that. I covered Nouasseur very thoroughly. I covered Ben Guerir very thoroughly. I had just a brief visit at El Djema Sahim. I have driven all along the line of the liquid fuel system from Casablanca to Nouasseur, and from Nouasseur to Sidi Slimane, and this last name, Cazes, that is simply fencing of the storage area in Casablanca. I have been to that storage area.

Mr. DAVIS. When were you appointed as district engineer for the Mediterranean?

General WALSH. The 14th of February of this year.

Mr. DAVIS. How long have we had our position of division engineer for the Mediterranean?

General WALSH. It was created the same date. The Mediterranean division has a considerably larger scope of operations than French Morocco alone.

LOCATION OF QUARTERS

Mr. DAVIS. Your headquarters is where?

General WALSH. It is planned to be established at Casablanca, and to be moved to Rabat when we can find office space available. At the present time, there is nothing available in Rabat for any office space. Mr. DAVIS. Does that mean you really have no division organization in the Mediterranean at the present time?

General WALSH. That is correct. I am in the process of recruiting personnel for it at this time.

Mr. DAVIS. What kind of headquarters for supervision do you have in Morocco at the present time?

General WALSH. At the present time I have none. The district engineer of the East Atlantic Division has a force of a little better

than 100 that has direct charge of the supervision of these bases. That district will be under my control, one of three that will be under my control.

them?

OFFICERS RELIEVED IN AREA

Mr. DAVIS. We have been reading about the relieving of officers in this area. Were those officers of the Corps of Engineers, some of General WALSH. There have been two officers relieved, Colonel Derby and Colonel Haseman, and they are being replaced by officers of the Corps of Engineers. Colonel Haseman's replacement is already over there. Colonel Derby's replacement was due to leave by air yesterday. Colonel Chase is the acting district engineer at the present time.

Mr. DAVIS. Where is he?

General WALSH. At Nouasseur. General Old, the Air Force commander at Nouasseur, and the Resident General of French Morocco, have both asked me to move it to Rabat when we can secure space up there for our headquarters, because they are both located at Rabat.

Mr. DAVIS. To the best of your knowledge, General, was this Mediterranean Division set up because of the reports of lack of proper supervision and irregularities that we have been hearing so much. about, or was that planned from the beginning as soon as we knew there was to be a construction program in this area?

General WALSH. No; it was not planned from the beginning. The Chief of Engineers advised me, I believe it was on the 8th of February, that he had decided to establish a Mediterranean division because he felt he needed the division control or supervision in the Mediterranean area to take care of the problems locally due to the fact that communications are so difficult in that area back to the United States.

Prior to the organization of the Mediterranean division, the work in the Mediterranean area had been supervised by the East Ocean division, which is located at Richmond, Va., and they had been given general supervision. They had also a great many bases in the far north and their workload was so great that the Chief of Engineers felt that it was desirable to split up that workload and get the top supervision close to the actual work itself.

METHOD OF SELECTION OF SITES FOR AIRFIELDS

Mr. DAVIS. As a matter of practice, did the Air Force pick out the general area in which they wanted an installation and then the Engineers picked the exact site of it?

General WALSH. That, in general, is correct. We have made a study of approximately 80 different locations, and in conjunction with the Air Force commander decided whether or not those areas would be suitable. We were restricted very seriously, however, because of the fact that the terms of our agreement with the French Government required that they furnish the actual site, and they have been unwilling to furnish the site that the Air Force and the Engineers felt was the most desirable, for reasons of their own, and we have more or less been required to take and develop the sites that the French Government was willing to give to us.

Mr. DAVIS. Did that factor play an important part in the abandonment of the base that was mentioned earlier?

General WALSH. I do not believe that entered into it.

General MYERS. No, sir; it did not.

The site at Mechra bel Ksiri, stating it generally, was unsuitable from an operational point of view for two main reasons: The runway, in order to locate it above the flood plane of the river, whose name I do not remember, would have to be located generally on the side of a hill, a gently rising hill, in order to get it above the flood plane, and it would have to be located, of course, parallel to this hill, to this range of hills, in order to get any kind of an approach to it at all. Under those conditions the approaches were very poor because the hill line curved in general, and locating it on the side of a hill, from a construction point of view, would have involved tremendous earth movement.

Mr. DAVIS. What I am trying to get at is, in keeping with what General Walsh said, the actual sites were those agreed upon by the French. Who picked the actual sites in this case?

General MYERS. The Air Force picked the site, picked all these sites, working closely with the French as to the political considerations and the availability from the French standpoint, from the operational suitability and from the Air Force operational standpoint, and then with the Engineers as to the feasibility of constructing at those sites. It was the prime responsibility of the Air Force to select the sites.

Mr. DAVIS. It looks as if all three of them had to agree on the site. If this site was unsuitable from an operational standpoint, how come the Air Force agreed to it in the first place?

General MYERS. I think the answer to that is, sir, initially, in the period beginning January 11, 1951, we had a mission over there headed by General Hamilton, who was not an operations man, charged with negotiation of technical agreements with the French, and the French liaison in Morocco. As a result of his negotiations, this site was tentatively selected. General Old, who commands the Fifth Air Division, and who arrived over there in May, is a Strategic Air Command man and a bomber operator, and the job of site selection was turned over to him, and he immediately decided the base was not suitable from an operational point of view.

CIRCUMSTANCES CAUSING ABANDONMENT OF BASE AT MECHRA BEL KSIRI

Mr. DAVIS. From your experience, where would you say the slipup came so that we did have a construction camp set-up prepared to build a site at a place where, when the first experienced operational officer got on the scene, he was able to say, "This just will not do." General MYERS. Where did the slip-up come?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

General MYERS. May we say that the slip-up came in personality. It is difficult for me to answer that question.

Mr. DAVIS. You can go off the record if you wish. We would just like to know. I do not want to get you in Dutch by putting the finger on anybody, but we have heard so much about this thing that I would like to know about it. If you have a personal opinion we would like to know that off the record.

General MYERS. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

General MYERS. I would like to correct the $103,000 figure. That was the figure quoted previously. I have a report here of the Atlas Constructors. Cost at Mechra bel Ksiri, total $120,271.50. As I explained before, that is subject to variation because that does not include overhead items. It does not include the site investigation

costs.

Mr. DAVIS. All of that happened before you appeared on the scene, General Walsh?

General WALSH. Many months before I got there.

General MYERS. Perhaps it would be well, since this will be off the record, that I read a paper that I have here on the outline of the site selection history of this whole business.

Mr. RILEY. General Walsh, am I correct in understanding that you have to return to your station soon?

General WALSH. I have tentative arrangements to leave tomorrow

at noon.

Mr. RILEY. We shall try to finish with General Walsh's testimony this morning.

TAXES LEVIED BY THE FRENCH

Mr. DAVIS. General Walsh, resuming the discussion that the chairman had with you with respect to taxes, you mentioned the petroleum tax as being an illustration, and said that we had an agreement with the French that we were not to be taxed any more than the French Army was taxed.

General WALSH. That is correct.

Mr. DAVIS. What about this construction tax that the French Government has been levying with respect to the installations we have been building? Has that been applied in Morocco?

General WALSH. I never heard of it in connection with any work in Morocco.

Mr. DAVIS. You have heard or have been informed of it with respect to work on the mainland?

General WALSH. I had read it in the newspaper, only.

Mr. DAVIS. Would you be in a position to know whether or not this tax was being levied?

General WALSH. In Europe?

Mr. DAVIS. In Morocco.

General WALSH. I know it has not been.

LIMITATION ON AMERICAN CIVILIAN PERSONNEL

Mr. DAVIS. How did we get in this hole with a limitation of 130 people in Morocco?

General WALSH. The agreement that was made with the French Government, and I believe signed in the 20's of December of 1950, stipulated that the details of carrying out the terms of that agreement would be worked out by a French liaison mission and the Air Force. They started those negotiations promptly after the first of the year. The French stipulated that until that memorandum of understanding was completed, the construction contractor would only be permitted

to have 100 personnel in French Morocco. That was a stipulation by the French in Morocco.

Mr. RILEY. Will the gentleman yield at that point?

Mr. DAVIS. I yield.

Mr. RILEY. General, is my understanding correct that there was some concern among the French officials that the wage scale paid to American workers would upset the local economy?

General WALSH. They were very fearful of an upset in the local economy in Morocco both from the point of view of purchases to be made and wage scale.

Mr. RILEY. And that was the primary reason why the French were reluctant to have too many American workers come in over there? General WALSH. I think that was one thing. And I think they wished to have the details of the agreement fully worked out before work was actually undertaken.

Mr. DAVIS. Would you say that it was obvious at the time that 130 people would not be able to provide the necessary supervision. in this area?

General WALSH. Very definitely; yes. However, I think you must remember that the urgency of getting these fields constructed was tremendous; that the pressure on the district engineer and through him on the contractor was one of tremendous urgency, and that every effort was being made to buy equipment, get it shipped over, so that they could actually undertake construction the minute that agreement or memorandum of understanding was completed.

In the early stages they felt that it would be just a question of weeks. However, it actually dragged out until the 19th of April when the agreement was finally reached and the French gave us permission to bring in the necessary people to do the job.

But during that period, January, February, and March and part of April, equipment and supplies were being purchased in the United States and were being shipped over and received by this very small group of people with additional local help, and stored, and set up, so that as soon as work could be undertaken they would be ready to go. The minute that release on personnel was given in April, the contractor started shipping personnel as fast as he could recruit and get them overseas and he built his force up quite rapidly.

TYPE OF CONSTRUCTION IN MOROCCO

Mr. DAVIS. Is the construction in Morocco considered of the permanent or temporary type, General?

General WALSH. In general it is considered temporary construction. Of course, the runways, aprons, taxiways, and so forth, must be of permanent type construction. But the housing for airmen is of the Dallas-type hut, which has a 5- to 10-year life. The storage facilities that are being built are of minimum strength so as to serve only a short-time period. Some of the other buildings will be built out of concrete block which is the cheapest type of construction for those facilities in that area, because wood shipped in would be very expensive. The most economical source of lumber for that construction is the United States.

Mr. DAVIS. What are we doing in the wav of housing other than troop housing in this area?