every agency of Government, instead of a single department; to wit, yours?

Attorney General KATZENBACH. Well, I don't think so. I think, as I said in my statement, it would tend to proliferate it. I don't think, if I may say so, perhaps with immodesty, Senator, that the Executive Office, which houses a variety of agencies, principally the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, is more able to accomplish things in this area than a Cabinet officer. I would disagree with that.

Senator JAVITS. Now, the Chair has already read the question and answer from the volume "Proposed Civil Rights Act of 1964," which indicated the clear intention to make this mediating agency "separate from the Department of Justice."

I have referred to the message of President Kennedy of June 1963 in which he referred to the Service as an agency "whose duties are completely separated from departmental functions of investigation or litigation."

Now, you referred to Senator Kennedy, my colleague from New York, then Attorney General of the United States. He testified on July 26, 1963, before a House subcommittee, to the following effect with respect to recommending this Service. He said, in answer to a question:

The administration's efforts will continue, but they cannot adequately substitute for the work of a regularly constituted organization which could devote its full energies to mediation in seriously troubled areas.

I would take that testimony also to bear out what I think is the clear implication of everything that was the framework of the 1964 act, that the Community Relations Service should not be a part of or even in the department of the investigative and prosecuting function.

Attorney General KATZENBACH. I think, Senator, again, if you cast your mind back to what had immediately preceded the events of which Attorney General Kennedy at that time spoke, I think if you can remember, going back even that short a period of time, some of the attitudes which existed, some of the problems which he had, which the Department of Justice had, some of the attitudes about them in the South, I think a lot of water has gone over the dam since then. I think it is far less true today than it was then. There was a good deal of emphasis being given in that statement and in what the President said to the fact that we should not try to cast this additional burden on the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. I agree with that. I think that is a separate function, that it ought to be maintained as a separate function. I am in complete agreement with that.

I think that at that time one of the efforts to gain confidence that point was at that time almost predominant. It was simply a feeling that Secretary Hodges as head of the Department of Commerce that this would help to pour a lot of oil on the troubled waters at that time. I don't think the same considerations and conditions prevail. I don't think there was really any thought at that time, Senator, of the work that the Community Relations Service might be doing in northern cities, so-called ghetto areas, on that. I don't think it was on anybody's mind. There was no focus on that. The focus was almost totally on the tremendous problems at that time of Birmingham, Ala., and Cambridge and these other areas.

There was a good deal of sentiment, actually, on the House side to put it in the Department of Justice at that time, and I said I thought it ought to be in the Department of Commerce. I think given those same circumstances, going back to 1963, I would probably say the same thing.

Senator JAVITS. So you are really basing it on the fact that you claim circumstances have now changed and you also claim that the activities of the Service will not be compromised by the transfer. Attorney General KATZENBACH. That is essentially it, Senator. And things really have changed since 1963.

Senator JAVITS. My own disposition has been that the change has rather emphasized the fact that conciliation should be conciliation, visually, actually, basically divorced from the prosecuting function, for the very reason you have yourself conceded, that the conciliation service will extend the reach and the purposes of the Department. We will have more witnesses, and perhaps we will get more light on the subject.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator RIBICOFF. Senator Harris?

Senator HARRIS. I think, Mr. Attorney General, the credentials of all of us who are taking part in this hearing this morning in the civil rights field are unquestioned, and I think what all of us want to do is move more rapidly toward eliminating discrimination in American life.

I take it that Vice President Humphrey, who also has those same kinds of unquestioned credentials, has recommended this, that you feel that this will help us move more rapidly toward that goal. That is what we want to know, and to be assured of.

Attorney General KATZENBACH. I do very sincerely, Senator.

Senator HARRIS. I think there has been some valid criticism of U.S. efforts in civil rights matters, in that we are long on enforcement and short on prevention.

Do you think that we can do a better job in the prevention field as a result of this transfer?

Attorney General KATZENBACH. Yes, sir. And I would agree with you. I think we have to do that. We have to do a better job in all of the departments of Government that are administering all of the Great Society programs, if you will, to make sure that these are in fact reaching the people that they are meant to reach, and in many, many instances that means are they in fact reaching the Negro population, whether it be the Negro population of Jackson, Miss., or Los Angeles, Calif., or New York City, or any other place-Chicagowhere there is a large Negro population.

One of my constant efforts here is to attempt to make sure that in the provision of Federal programs and Federal funds that these are really meeting these problems, and securing the cooperation, which I have no difficulty securing, of the other departments. But this, in a way, is a rather new program and it is not easy sometimes to make this determination, and this is what we have been trying to do, what I regard as one of my principal responsibilities under title VI, to attempt to see whether this is in fact happening.

I think the Community Relations Service operating within all of these areas would really greatly strengthen my intelligence with re

spect to what was happening within these areas, and perhaps equally what the feelings within that community were, and that this would assist me greatly in terms of trying to get the total Federal programs working, in order to prevent, as you say, or solve some of these problems in order to really let our Negro citizens walk through the doors after the legal barriers are down, to walk through all the other doors that they have to walk through to achieve a full place in American life and American society.

Senator HARRIS. I think all of us, of course, are fearful that the Community Relations Service might lose its identity, not technically in the chain of command, but as a matter of practicality. And I think we want to know that you are also concerned about that, and that you will give us your assurance that you will guard against the confusion of the enforcement and the conciliation roles, and that you feel it can be done under this plan.

Attorney General KATZENBACH. I feel that it can be done. I can understand the concern about that.

I simply feel that the benefits to be gained from this completely outweigh, in my judgment, the problems that I think Senator Javits has so skillfully brought out.

You are a good cross-examiner, Senator Javits.

STATUS OF CRS IN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

Senator HARRIS. My own judgment is that the status of the Community Relations Service would actually appear higher in Justice than it does in Commerce. I think that Commerce really is not the place, and I think we will be hearing from people who oppose the plan who also suggest it should not be in Commerce, but suggest perhaps it be over in HUD.

Do you feel that it will perhaps give more weight and status to the Service to move it to Justice from Commerce?

Attorney General KATZENBACH. I think that it very definitely will. I think primarily the reason is the major concerns that the Department of Justice has and the extent to which the President, the other Cabinet officials, and indeed the general public, civil rights groups, look to the Department of Justice with respect to these problems. So that I think it is far less of an orphan in the Department of Justice than it would be likely to be in the Department of Commerce.

The main activities of the Department of Commerce really have very little to do with racial tensions in communities around the United States-rural and urban.

Senator HARRIS. As to separate identity, the Director of the Community Relations Service will still be a Presidential appointment to be confirmed by the Senate?

Attorney General KATZENBACH. Yes; and it will be kept independent of the other agencies within the Department.

Senator HARRIS. That is all I have.

RANK OF CRS DIRECTOR

Senator JAVITS. Would you mind just one question?

Are you going to make the Director an Assistant Attorney General?

Attorney General KATZENBACH. He will have the rank of Assistant Attorney General. I think maybe it is a mistake to call him Assistant Attorney General. I think the title Director, Community Relations Service, is a preferable title.

Senator RIBICOFF. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. Our next witness is Mr. Frederick B. Routh.

Mr. Routh, your entire statement will be placed in the record, but we would appreciate your going immediately to the objections of your organization to this plan because we would like to have as much of that before we have to suspend.

Mr. ROUTH. Yes, sir; I would be glad to do so.

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK B. ROUTH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INTERGROUP RELATIONS OFFICIALS

Mr. ROUTH. Mr. Chairman, our objections are based on a long record in the field of intergroup relations that has indicated to us the wisdom of keeping separate the functions of community relations, conciliation, and persuasion and the function of law enforcement in the more strict sense of the word.

After the proposal was made to transfer the Community Relations Service to the Justice Department, NAIRO met in annual conference in Chicago last October, and at that time our association adopted a resolution.

The main part of that resolution deals with the problems that will be created, in our estimation and professional opinion, in this transfer. It was the feeling of the group there, in the resolution they adopted, that this proposed transfer may seriously damage the effectiveness of the Community Relations Service. And while we recognize the role of the Justice Department as appropriately that of the law enforcement agency of Government, we felt that the difference between the two roles of conciliation and the role of law enforcement was such that it would damage the image of the Community Relations Service, and lessen its effectiveness for affirmative action.

I think the discussion that took place prior to the adoption of that resolution spelled out our concept of why this would lead to a confusion of role, and since that is in the written statement, and I believe all members of the committee have that, you probably have looked at it, I will not repeat that here.

I think, too, it would lead to a confusion of image in the minds of the people with whom the Community Relations Service must deal. And I think this is perhaps even more important than the confusion

of role.

It seems to us that the Justice Department's image in the communities of the Nation is a sort of combination of the FBI, of the Justice Department attorneys going to court, and of the Federal district attorneys. This is not exactly the type of agency that people who are seeking conciliatory and persuasive assistance would turn to.

In addition to this, it seems to us that, based on experience in a number of the States and in a number of the cities, this would be an unwise transfer.

In Michigan, for instance, as I pointed out in the written statement, we kept separate in the State FEPC, of which I was executive director for 3 years, the two functions.

Now, it is true that that organization had both functions, but we were not regarded as the law enforcement agency of the State, and the attorney general's office was.

We divided these two functions in the various communities of that State.

Some of our field representatives who formally were investigators in the law enforcement division or activities of our commission did not pursue those activities in the communities where they served in a secretariat capacity with the employment advisory committees that we had established in the various communities of this State.

In one instance we violated our own rule. At that time we had an extremely heavy caseload, we were running badly behind, we had a backlog of cases, and we deemed it necessary to assign one of the field representatives to a series of cases in the community in which he had served in a secretariat capacity to the local employment advisory committee. And that damaged his relationship with the group.

In closing the written statement, Mr. Chairman, I pointed out that this was not a new concern of the National Association of Intergroup Relations officials. That back in 1961 we had submitted to the President of the United States a series of recommendations entitled "Executive Responsibility in Intergroup Relations."

Among those recommendations was one concerning a community consultative service, a suggestion that eventually became the Community Relations Service.

We advised at that time that this service be in the executive branch of Government, that it be at a high level, and it was our understanding, though it is not specifically said in that statement, that this would be related directly to the White House.

In the resolution recently passed in Chicago, our association suggested that the Community Relations Service be maintained in the Department of Commerce until such time as it could be transferred to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Our feeling was that HUD at that time had not been staffed, that the Executive order transferring HHFA and the other constituent agencies to it had not been issued, and until these things did take place, it would be unwise to move it there. Since CRS was functioning rather well where it was, that it was best to leave it there at this time.

Finally in the statement, Mr. Chairman, I pointed out that there are 32 State agencies dealing with intergroup relations problems in the country today. Only one, New Jersey, has its commission located in the attorney general's office. It was moved there a few years ago from the department of education. It, at that time, was the only State that had its commission located in the department of education. Most of the commissions in the various States are independent commissions, independent bodies, and in a few of the States, such as Pennsylvania, California, and Oregon, they are located in the department of labor; that is because their function has been primarily the function of a fair employment practice commission rather than a commission dealing with the broader questions of community relations and the problems with which the Community Relations Service deals. In those States that have multiple jurisdiction, that cover not only employment, but cover as well education, housing, public accommoda