Mr. THOMAS. Where were these 539 to be located? How many will be in the District of Columbia and how many will be in the field? Mr. WILLIAMS. I don't have the number breakdown, Mr. Chair

man.

Mr. THOMAS. I think I saw that breakdown some place in your justifications. Can you put your finger on it?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I don't believe we have it in here, as a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman. It is in the green sheets.

Mr. THOMAS. I mean it is not in your narrative form. I thought I saw it someplace. I notice here that your unit cost, referring to your table on page 3, for record checks and inquiry cases, of which you have a backlog of 669,000, is $4.50.

BACKLOG OF CASES

Mr. WILLIAMS. There is a backlog of 430,000, sir.

Mr. PHILLIPS. A backlog of what?

Mr. WILLIAMS. A backlog of 430,000. The figure you are looking at is the amount to be processed.

Mr. THOMAS. To be processed?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. Is that not a backlog?

Mr. WILLIAMS. The actual backlog on hand is 430,000. The figure you mentioned anticipates the work we will get during the current year plus the backlog.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, the figure then is very misleading. You say to be processed, 815,078."

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is with the supplemental money. That is what we could do with the supplemental money requested.

UNIT COST PER CASE

Mr. THOMAS. The unit cost is $4.50?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. How do you arrive at that cost, that figure of $4.50? Mr. WILLIAMS. That is actually derived from work-report information, Mr. Chairman. Our work-report system gives us a cost at various stages of an operation.

Mr. THOMAS. Where is this check made, from your own files?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It is made from various files."

Mr. THOMAS. Is it made from your three sources: namely, the FBI, your own files, and the files of the Committee on Un-American Activities?

Mr. WILLIAMS. And all of the Defense Establishment's files.

PERSONAL SERVICES

Mr. THOMAS. What is the type and grade of personnel in salary who engage in this particular activity?

Mr. WILLIAMS. The average grade is grade 2 and grade 3. It is a very low-grade operation. The persons who actually do the checking of the files are grade 4.

Mr. THOMAS. File clerks?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Those are the people who go out into the other agencies making the checks in other agencies.

Mr. THOMAS. Are they usually men or women?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Men.

Mr. THOMAS. How many cases can they handle a day?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I don't know.

Mr. THOMAS. How do you arrive at that figure of $4.50 per unit if you do not know?

Mr. WILLIAMS. From their workload reports. They report the number of cases they process, the amount of time they spend on processing.

Mr. THOMAS. How long does it take one investigator, we will call him, to handle one case? What is the average time?

Mr. WILLIAMS. They go by points, sir; that is, points of investigation. As I recall, they are supposed to clear about one point day. Mr. THOMAS. How many points are there in a case? Mr. WILLIAMS. On an average of one and a half. That, of course, does not include the travel time they would take in getting from one point to another.

Mr. THOMAS. In other words, it would take an investigator 2 days. Mr. WILLIAMS. Aside from the time that it would take him to get to the different points.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, your cost here is very low. You state that a unit cost is $4.50, but it takes one investigator 2 days. You certainly pay your investigators

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, the investigators don't fit into this work pattern.

Mr. THOMAS. Who do?

Mr. WILLIAMS. These are the lower-grade employees we are speaking, of, the grades 2 and 3 and 4 people.

Mr. THOMAS. Call them whatever you want to, they are still doing investigative work; are they not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes. Of course, but they usually work at a large card file. It is a question of moving from one part of the alphabet to another.

SUITABILITY CONVERSIONS

Mr. THOMAS. I note that the suitability conversions from record check and inquiry cost you $50.92 a case.

REGIONAL LOYALTY BOARDS

Examining and adjudicating regional loyalty cases cost you $128.05 a case. That is in the regional loyalty boards.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. How long does it take them to find out a case when they once take jurisdiction?

Mr. WILLIAMS. The elapsed time runs, on an average, 2 months, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. Then, if it is appealed from the regional loyalty board to the Central Review Board here in the District of Columbia, the cost is $780 a case; is that correct?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. It runs into money.

How long does the average case take here on the Loyalty Review Board?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Three to four months, sir.

PROPOSED TRANSFER OF SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS TO THE CIVIL

SERVICE COMMISSION

Mr. YATES. You stated that there is legislation pending on the Hill for the Commission to take over the investigating function of the FBI in connection with the Voice of America and the Atomic Energy Commission. In your opinion, will the Commission be able to perform the function as well as the FBI? What is entailed in that sort of investigation?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It is a personal investigation. It is a background investigation of the person's employment, associations, membership in organizations, and so on.

Mr. YATES. It involves field work of a nature; does it not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Of a nature; yes, sir. It is more of a personal investigation that it would be an examination of a criminal record, let us say.

Mr. MOYER. I might add, Mr. Yates, that as we explained, that type of investigation is not in this picture because the legislation that has been proposed by the Department of Justice has not yet been acted upon by the Congress. Now, in that type of personnel investigation, if the Commission should be authorized by the Congress to take it over, and we should run into any loyalty information, the case would go to the FBI for investigation as to loyalty.

Mr. YATES. Well, this has been recommended by the Department of Justice, this form of legislation?

Mr. MOYER. Yes.

Mr. YATES. Why did they pick out the Voice of America and the Atomic Energy Commission?

Mr. MOYER. I just mentioned a few.

Mr. YATES. Are there a number of agencies?

Mr. MOYER. Yes.

Mr. YATES. On the basis of application for positions rather than type of agency, I mean what is the nature of the surveys you would be conducting then?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It would be this sort of situation: It involves employment. Every person employed by the Atomic Energy Com

mission, including contract employees, must be given a full field investigation. The FBI does that.

Mr. YATES. Is the FBI not presently geared to do that?

Mr. WILLIAMS. They have a backlog, I understand, of over 100,000 cases pending. They cannot gear themselves to do it, which, as I understand it, is why they wish to get rid of the activity.

Mr. YATES. Well, would this be in the nature of a preliminary investigation such as you conduct now, turning over to the FBI such cases as you find might be suspicious?

Mr. MOYER. It would be a full field personal investigation. That is, it would not only involve record checks and inquiries but a full field investigation. Then, if as a result of either the record checks or the inquiries or the full field personnel investigation we run into any loyalty information, that would be turned over to the FBI.

Mr. YATES. Do you do any such work now?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We actually make the same security investigations, by law, for Civil Defense. We are required by the Civil Defense Act to do that.

Then the suitability conversions that we do are very identical to this type of thing. There is little or no difference between them.

As I recall, the bill does provide that we make investigations and turn over the results to the agency and they make the determination. We make no determination. If they want additional information over and above what we have supplied, they may go to the FBI for their request of further information on loyalty cases.

TRANSFERS OF PERSONNEL BETWEEN AGENCIES

Mr. YATES. What percentage of the turn-over in positions is attributable to agency changes and what percentage is attributable to employees leaving the Federal service? Do you have any records on that?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, I do not have any specific records. I think I could get them for you, though. I think they are available.

Mr. YATES. Well, in my experience I have found that many Federal employees will go from one agency to another with the openings that come along and claim the next higher grade.

Mr. WILLIAMS. By and large the agency losing the person fills the job from some source or another unless it is a forced separation due to a reduction in force. To the extent that you get transfers, by and large, the losing agency is required to fill those jobs.

Mr. YATES. I think that figure would be very interesting.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I am almost certain that in our employment statistics that we get from agencies, there is a figure relative to transfers. We can give you the information that you want.

Normally it runs-I know that during the late war that figure of transfers averaged about 4,000 a month. That was an abnormal period. In normal periods it will be considerably less than that.

Mr. YATES. Is there any way of decreasing the unit costs of these cases?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We think not, sir. As I explained a little while ago, this is from actual work reports. Every employee in the Commission makes a work report in which he reports the amount of time, the amount of work, that he processes and the amount of time he spends

on it. We do periodically survey those operations to find out whether there is some simpler and yet equally effective way of doing it.

This particular loyalty operation probably has gotten more attention from the Commission from that point of view because it is an expensive operation by and large.

AVAILABILITY OF PERSONNEL FOR EMPLOYMENT

Mr. PHILLIPS. Did you put into the record anywhere the answer to my question as to whether, no matter how much money was given you, you could secure and provide adequate employees for yourselves to carry on such an investigation?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We think we can, sir.

Mr. PHILLIPS. For the sole amount you are asking for?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir, for this reason: As I said earlier, by and large this money will go into the services of lower grade people. Most of it is out in the field in our regional offices. For the most part, our regional offices seem to have no difficulty in finding the people they need.

Mr. PHILLIPS. How many actual cases have you concluded up to the present time? Have you put that into the record?

Mr. WILLIAMS. For the fiscal year 1951?

Mr. PHILLIPS. For any period that you state, from the time you started up to the present time, or for the fiscal year 1951. What do you have there?

Mr. WILLIAMS. For what items of work?

Mr. PHILLIPS. For this loyalty check.

Mr. WILLIAMS. For the record and inquiry cases, we processed last year 479,000 cases.

NUMBER OF CASES UNSUITABLE FOR EMPLOYMENT

Mr. PHILLIPS. Have you put into the record anywhere the amount of that number that you have found unsatisfactory for unemployment? You would find the ones who were not satisfactory for employment, but not necessarily on loyalty grounds. You might find them doubtful or you might find them

Mr. YATES. Unqualified.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Yes, not qualified for some reasons stated on page 2 of your written statement.

Mr. THOMAS. Security risks or loyalty risks.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Security risks or loyalty risks are people whose background might not have anything to do with loyalty but were unsuitable for Federal employment.

Mr. WILLIAMS. We investigated about 8,000 cases of that type, and approximately one out of four were found unsuitable and separated from the service. About 1,800 people were separated for that

reason.

Mr. PHILLIPS. That would include those people whose loyalty was doubtful?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Those would not be the loyalty cases. Those people were separated for other reasons than loyalty.

Mr. THOMAS. To be specific, for what causes?