GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE IN EUROPE (A Review of GAO Activities in Connection With Certain Federal Expenditure, Procurement, and Inventory Practices in Europe) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1957 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, LEGISLATIVE REORGANIZATION OF THE American Embassy, Bonn, Germany. Present: Representatives Harden, Michel, and May. Mr. FASCELL. The meeting will come to order. First of all, let me extend, on behalf of the committee, the thanks Our primary field of interest deals with the operations of the General Accounting Office because of the fact, as is well known, the Committee on Government Operations is interested in all of the appropriated dollars from the standpoint of their expenditure economically and efficiently. Therefore, it becomes necessary for us to review not only the General Accounting Office operations but also the field or area that they review. That is the reason we are here today. All of the major areas of interest that have been developed by the field office of the General Accounting Office since it was organized, since the European Branch was organized in 1952, is what we are scrutinizing. A great many reports of considerable interest have been made, and we are trying to find out a little bit more about them, if we can. With that in mind, we have held hearings wherever we have gone. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE IN EUROPE (A Review of GAO Activities in Connection With Certain Federal Expenditure, Procurement, and Inventory Practices in Europe) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1957 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, LEGISLATIVE REORGANIZATION OF THE American Embassy, Bonn, Germany. The subcommittee met at 10:30 a. m., American Embassy, Bonn, Germany, Hon. Dante B. Fascell (acting chairman) presiding. Present: Representatives Harden, Michel, and May. Also present: Christine Ray Davis, staff director; Orville S. Poland, general counsel; Orville J. Montgomery, associate counsel; John W. McGarry, assistant counsel; John R. Buckley, staff member; and John P. Carlson, minority counsel. Mr. FASCELL. The meeting will come to order. This is a meeting of the Subcommittee on Executive and Legislative Reorganization of the House Committee on Government Operations. First of all, let me extend, on behalf of the committee, the thanks of all of us, Mr. Ambassador, for the very fine and courteous treatment that we have received. We realize, of course, that we are here without the warning time we would like to give and the preliminary briefing that we would like to have; that is, the way we normally operate. e are covering such a vast area and in such a limited time that this was an impossibility. Therefore, we doubly appreciate the fact that you have gone to this effort to accommodate us. Our primary field of interest deals with the operations of the General Accounting Office because of the fact, as is well known, the Committee on Government Operations is interested in all of the appropriated dollars from the standpoint of their expenditure economically and efficiently. Therefore, it becomes necessary for us to review not only the General Accounting Office operations but also the field or area that they review. That is the reason we are here today. All of the major areas of interest that have been developed by the field office of the General Accounting Office since it was organized, since the European Branch was organized in 1952, is what we are scrutinizing. A great many reports of considerable interest have been made, and we are trying to find out a little bit more about them, if we can. With that in mind, we have held hearings wherever we have gone. We Apparently he did not see fit to do it and apparently USAFE did not see fit and referred it back to the Secretary. Mr. FASCELL. Under the regulation they cannot release it to you. That is, if I read that regulation correctly. It said on top secret material that they have to get the Secretary of the Air Force to do it. Mr. BLAIR. That is correct. Nevertheless, I want to go to the top man in the command. Mr. FASCELL. You want to give him an opportunity to use his discretion in the spirit of the regulation? Mr. Blair. Right. Mr. Ness. In this particular instance, I do not know that it was top secret. It is my understanding that access to the records was denied because it involved plans and this planning required a clearance from the Secretary of the Air Force before it could be released. Mr. FASCELL. We have run into this thing all the time and we are going to be very interested in trying to get something done on it. For the life of me, I cannot understand why you should not have top secret clearance, or Q or X or Z or anything else. Mr. Blair. I would like to point out that everyone of our staff members has top secret clearance. Mr. MICHEL. Sort of an open ammunition session? Mr. FASCELL. You have to get cleared to have access to the specific information you are seeking, but you do not know what it is because the material is not available to you? Mr. Ness. That is right. We have no interest in war plans and we appreciate that there are many of these classifications pertaining to war plans. We do have need to get into the various records and satisfy ourselves where Gov. ernment dollars have been expended. Mr. FASCELL. Are there any other questions? Mr. May. On the 25 bases still active, with some to be returned, have we determined the value? As I understood, it involved several millions of dollars. Mr. May. We did not come to any conclusion because it is hard to do that due to the usage possibility of the British? Mr. FASCELL. I do not know. Ask one of those fellows. Mr. KADEL. Mr. Chairman, for the record, I would like to state that the Third Air Force asked for instructions on residual values on the 26th of July, 1955. Mr. FASCELL. I am glad that you have made it clear for the record that it was worse than I thought it was. In fact, there is no excuse for it, none whatever. If they made a decision that they are not going to take into consideration these values, they ought to let you fellows know. Are there any other questions? If not, General Holtoner and Colonel Collins and Mr. Kadel, we appreciate the fact that you have given us this time on short notice to go into this very important area for this subcommittee. It certainly has been very interesting and helpful for us and we trust that the hearings have been mutually beneficial. We wish that we could have visited you out at your installations. Time did not us. |
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