BASIS FOR PERSONAL SERVICES ESTIMATE

Mr. SCHWABE. Something was said this morning about the personnel that was needed here. Of course that, together with all the other needs is in the same category of being speculative, to a great extent, as you have already testified; is that not ture?

Mr. MILES. I do not think it is quite as speculative, Mr. Schwabe. I think the number of people whom we need to make our surveys of a minimum of 200 areas is represented in the estimates before you.

POSSIBLE NUMBER OF AREAS TO BE SURVEYED

Mr. SCHWABE. Where do you get the 200 areas that you are talking about?

Mr. MILES. I used the figure 200

Mr. SCHWABE. You said a minimum of 200 areas.

Mr. MILES. The Housing and Home Finance Agency estimates a maximum estimate of 600 areas to be surveyed.

Mr. SCHWABE. Under Public Law 139?

Mr. MILES. Yes. I must say that from our standpoint, in terms. of the community facilities to be provided, we do not think that the number of surveys that we will have to make will be of that order of magnitude. We believe, however, that it might be around 200 in view of the fact that there are 200 on the list which the Military Establishment has set as possible critical areas, and in view of the fact that some will be stricken off of that list, and probably within the next year others will be added to it.

Mr. SCHWABE. That would comprehend practically all of the military establishments of the country then, would it not, the 200?

Mr. MILES. I do not think so, sir. I think there are considerably more military installations than that.

Mr. SCHWABE. In more places than 200, you mean?
Mr. MILES. Yes.

SURVEY PROCEDURE

Mr. SCHWABE. You are talking about these surveys that you contemplate making. Will you tell us just what do you do in making these surveys; what have you done thus far? You can enlarge upon it and project what you intend to do, and if you have the staff.

Mr. MILES. Last spring we made preliminary surveys of two major industrial areas, the Savannah area and the Paducah area.

Mr. SCHWABE. Tell us just what you did now so we will have that in the record.

Mr. MILES. We had the regional director of our Atlanta office organize a kind of team which reviewed the total situation in the Savannah River area. The team had representatives from the Public Health Service, the Children's Bureau, Bureau of Public Assistance, and a representative of the old-age and survivors insurance also, Í believe, as a member of the team.

SURVEY OF SAVANNAH RIVER AREA

They surveyed the Savannah River area, talked with local officials in each of the key municipalities. They obtained from the employ

ment service and from the Atomic Energy Commission estimates of in-migration.

Those estimates at that time showed that there would be about 35,000 construction workers at the peak of the construction work down there.

There is a good deal of difference of view as to how many of those 35,000 could be drawn from local labor, and how many would have to be brought in from the outside.

I think the figure was generally agreed upon as 20,000 that would be brought in from the outside, with an estimate ranging in the neighborhood of 60,000 or more who would be brought in in total; that is to say, when workmen come in they bring their families, and so on. Mr. SCHWABE. You did not make this survey yourself; you farmed it out to an area director at Atlanta. That is Mr. Lyle?

Mr. MILES. That is right. I did not make it personally, but Mr. Lyle had this team. They did as good a job as they could within a limited time of finding out what would happen if you bring in 60,000 additional people, where the shortages in community facilities would be, in order that they could come to some sort of a preliminary estimate of the situation.

We did the same thing in Paducah. Of course, the Public Health people were major representatives on the teams, in view of the fact that the health needs were of highest priority.

We would have to bring those two surveys up to date in the light of further information. It would not take too long to do that for those two areas.

I would simply like to comment in that connection, and in connection with Mr. Fogarty's point this morning, that we will be moving from one area to another. It is difficult to establish a cut-off point and say, "Within 4 months we will have a picture."

The fact is that within 2 months we might have a good picture of what the needs are in Savannah and Paducah. It might even be possible to make it in less than that.

We would have good data on some areas and progressively, as other areas become more and more critical and acute, we would add them to the list and add them to our knowledge of the situation.

Mr. SCHWABE. Who made your survey for Paducah?

Mr. MILES. That was made under the supervision of the regional director at Cleveland, Mr. Kimball Johnson.

Mr. SCHWABE. In these surveys that were made, were the surveys made by the two regional directors included in relation to the health surveys, as well?

Mr. MILES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHWABE. You said something about someone working in conjunction with Mr. Lyle down in Atlanta, or out of his office, as representing the Public Health Service?

Mr. MILES. Yes.

Mr. SCHWABE. Do you know who it was?

Mr. POND. Dr. Meriwether, the regional medical director of the Public Health Service. Mr. Kirshensen also participated in this study.

Mr. SCHWABE. Do you know how long the child-welfare workers spent on this?

Miss ARNOLD. They made several trips of several days each. They had to work with two States. Both South Carolina and Georgia were involved. They did try to work with both the State agencies and the local agencies. It involved several days of two or three trips each. Mr. SCHWABE. Did they get far behind in their other work? Mr. MILES. They did a great deal of the work on overtime. Mr. SCHWABE. They are paid for overtime?

Mr. MILES. No, sir. Some of the clerical workers may have been, but not these administrative and professional people.

Mr. SCHWABE. The lower paid people did a lot of work, as far as that is concerned, did they not?

Mr. MILES. Yes, I do not deny that. Also, the whole team pitched in and worked week ends and nights and all hours of the day to do that.

INADEQUACY OF JUSTIFICATIONS

Mr. SCHWABE. Assuming that you were sitting on this side of the table where the members of this committee are, and we were sitting on your side of the table--I do not say this to embarrass you, but we are all American citizens, taxpayers, and should represent the people in their best interest regardless of which side of the table we may be seated behind do you imagine that you could see the position in which you place us by coming up here and asking for $25,500,000 on the basis of the justifications you have submitted? Have you stopped to think of that, Mr. Miles?

Mr. MILES. Yes, I have, Mr. Schwabe. I would also like to share with you the same feeling which you have expressed.

Mr. SCHWABE. As far as you dare do it, please proceed along that line. We know the restrictions under which you are working, but so far as you dare do it, proceed along that line.

Mr. MILES. The Congress had before it this bill which finally became the Defense Housing Community Facilities and Services Act. They had extensive hearings on the subject. The people who were before the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee were people who representated the States and local communities in various parts of the country, including the people who were being very hard hit by the Savannah River project. I am sure the committees that considered this bill were keenly conscious of the very acute problems that exist.

They found some difficulty in arriving at any kind of good determination as to what figure ought to be put in the law.

Mr. SCHWABE. For the same reason probably that we are experiencing difficulty.

Mr. MILES. Precisely. The $60 million that they put in there was a perfectly arbitrary figure.

Mr. SCHWABE. You mean, just one they picked out of the air, so to speak?

Mr. MILES. I think so.

Mr. SCHWABE. I do, sir.

Mr. MILES. Somebody obviously has to make full and extensive surveys in order to determine really how much money is needed for this purpose.

Mr. SCHWABE. Why make these surveys until we are impressed with the idea that there is a need for these services? Why go out and

do that which is equivalent or will become equivalent to inviting people to come to the Federal Treasury for hand-outs?

Mr. MILES. Well, sir, I am sure if you had before you, or at least I feel sure in my own mind-I may be wrong-if you had before you all the same witnesses who appeared before the committees of the Congress that passed upon this bill, including the representatives from the Atomic Energy Commission, indicating the urgency of getting that job done, and so on, you might well come to the same conclusion that those committees came to, and that the Congress did: that a law such as this was necessary. All we are doing, sir, is to carry out our responsibility under the law.

Mr. SCHWABE. I do not know whether you are carrying it out or not. That is what I am trying to get at. You, in the first place, had the opportunity to confer with these witnesses. You easily could have ascertained who were the witesses. You could have ascertained from them what information they had, sifted it and boiled it down and presented it to us here, it seems to me, in a way that would have laid before us some concrete information.

Yet, you say that perhaps the legislative committee did not have much more tangible information than you are giving us. So, maybe you would not have been able to give us any more definite information even if you had consulted them before you came up here. You say they undoubtedly reached up in the air and got this figure, arbitrarily, or by guesswork, so, perhaps you cannot do any better today. Perhaps that is all true. I believe it is, as a matter of fact.

NEED FOR SOUND BASIS FOR DETERMINING CRITICAL AREAS

But, sharing with us again this responsibility that you said you were willing to-and I asked you to be limited only by your position and limitations-I do not know and I cannot think just what we are basing our figures on from what you have said.

If you can give us a more intelligent basis for a computation, why, all right. I do not know that I share in what is your idea, that you should go out there and say to these communities, perhaps 600 of them you say the military suggests, you say a minimum of 200, where these facilities might be needed, appreciated, enjoyed or wanted by the people there.

We all know there is very much an inclination when the local communities find that they can unload on Uncle Sam; they will do it and will welcome the opportunity for you to tell them, "Now, all right; what can you use here? What is there that you need? We are here to find out what you want."

Rather, it seems to me, you should let them present their cases or, where you hear of the dire need, that you might approach the scene and find out what the situation is rather independently of those who want to shift the burden from the locality to the Federal Treasury.

I would like to see that other approach made once in a while. Mr. MILES. I think, in general, that would be our approach, Mr. Schwabe.

The Critical Areas Committee has a docket of cases. We do not go out and dig them up, and we have no intention of doing that

Mr. SCHWABE. Let me interrupt you to this extent, and I know this is a fact because I have investigated it and I can establish it to

be true: that one voice crying in the wilderness is all that is necessary to justify the President, if he sees fit, to declare an area a critical defense area, and he and this committee you are talking about will not tell anybody who made the request, for I have had that experience.

I have had the experience of where chambers of commerce in various localities have requested the information in order that they might attempt to find out who is making the request. They have answered that, if one person made it and made them believe it was sufficient to justify the designation of that place as a critical defense area, that was all that is necessary.

Mr. MILES. I believe that policy is going to be changed.

Mr. SCHWABE. I certainly hope so. I know it prevails to this hour, or within the last few days. I just think we ought to approach this from a little different angle.

We ought to know that in this great country of ours we have an unwritten principle that has made this country great: that one should be entitled to be confronted by his adversary, to know who contends or makes application for something in order that it might be reputed or defended. But that has not been the policy in creating these defense areas.

The committee members have told me so unequivocally. I say then we are inviting this situation. If one person is allowed to give vent to his views, and those views be the basis of determining a critical defense area in opposition to the vast majority of the community or the vast majority of those who have the interest of the community at heart, the system is wrong.

I do not propose to try to encourage it by lavish appropriations in order to get people to go out and say, "What do you want? What do you need? Does anybody here think this ought to be done; and, if so, we will give it consideration, which means perhaps we will do it." That is what encourages them to ask for help. That is what I want to get away from.

Have you anything to suggest in the way of cooperation along that line?

PROPER PROCEDURE FOR DETERMINING CRITICAL AREAS

Mr. MILES. I would certainly agree with the principle that you have enunciated: that the critical areas should not be designated as critical without full consideration, starting with a formal request by a responsible public official, such as the mayor of the locality, and with full opportunity to be heard for anybody who disagrees that the community is or should be designated as critical.

Mr. SCHWABE. That is the thing not always known; that is, the informant or the one who makes the request is not always known.

Mr. MILES. I would certainly think, as far as I can see, that there is every reason why that person should be known. Normally, it should be the top executive of the community.

Mr. SCHWABE. It is the American way of procedure.
Mr. MILES. Absolutely.