danger of allowing these things to be thrown open and the things that can occur. (Secretary Morris nods.) Mr. HÉBERT. Now, Mr. Fisher, do you have any questions to ask regarding the ground rules? Mr. FISHER. No. Mr. HÉBERT. None at all? I mean you understand it? Mr. FISHER. Yes. Mr. HÉBERT. And Mr. Kilgore? Mr. KILGORE. No questions. Mr. HÉBERT. Have any members of the committee any questions? Mr. HARDY. I would just like to raise one question in connection with the ground rules. Are we going to have hearings that would involve these installations where hearings have been held in the cities affected? Mr. HÉBERT. Not unless the Member comes to the committee and requests. Mr. COURTNEY. There are only five. Mr. HÉBERT. We have six now. Mr. COURTNEY. Six now. Mr. SANDWEG. Six. Mr. HARDY. I was under the impression that some of those were of prime consideration before the committee-some of those where meetings had been held under the sponsorship of local chambers of commerce, and so forth. Mr. HÉBERT. Well, I would imagine, Mr. Hardy, that those are included in this six. Mr. Morris could best inform us. But unless we have heard from the Member, who certainly would be the individual of most consideration Mr. HARDY. Yes. Mr. HÉBERT (continuing). Unless he has come to us and asked us about it, we thus assume he is satisfied with the situation and we have not pursued it any further. Mr. HARDY. Well, that was the point that I wanted to be sure I understood. If we get into those, then the Member who represents that district would be expected to bring out all of the points that relate to any meetings that were held in the area? Mr. HÉBERT. That is correct. Mr. HARDY. As they are necessary. Mr. HÉBERT. Yes. Mr. HARDY. Now, there was one other factor in connection with that. I had understood that these meetings were participated in both by the military and by General Services Administration. (Secretary Morris nods.) Mr. HARDY. Now, I wonder whether, under those circumstances, if we get into those specific areas, I wonder whether the participation of GSA in those meetings would have any significance here? Mr. Morris would know about it. Mr. HÉBERT. Mr. Morris, my impression there would be the interest and concern of the GSA in those meetings was the future use of the installation. So therefore the only interest or concern of the GSA would be that the decision to close would be final. Then they would come into the picture. But they are not in the picture as to the military necessity. Mr. HARDY. I understand that. Mr. HÉBERT. Is that correct? Secretary MORRIS. That is correct, sir. Mr. HARDY. I understand that. They would have no concern. Mr. COURTNEY. Moreover, the question of future use and the matter of disposal would be a subject for the Real Estate Committee. Mr. HÉBERT. The Real Estate Subcommittee of our full committee. Mr. COURTNEY. When and if a formal disposal is proposed. Mr. HARDY. I was thinking more in terms of covering the aspects of the matter which had been discussed in these previous sessions. I wasn't thinking about the decision. Mr. COURTNEY. The final decision. Mr. COURTNEY. To get rid of it. Mr. HÉBERT. All we are concerned with is the military consideration. Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, before we continue, may we just clarify it a little bit. There are at the moment for consideration only six items. The first two are military Air Force bases one in Mr. Fisher's district, and the other in Mr. Kilgore's district. The other four are arsenals. Now, I doubt very much, excepting perhaps in the case of Raritan, in New Jersey, that there has been any public meetings. Mr. HÉBERT. Benecia. Mr. COURTNEY. And Benecia, I am sorry. Secretary MORRIS. Yes. Mr. HÉBERT. And also in connection with these matters there have been delegations, State delegations which have called on the Department of Defense. Mr. COURTNEY. That is right. Mr. HÉBERT. There have been instances where the Governor of Washington-who, incidentally, called on me as well. Also the delegation from California. Secretary MORRIS. Yes. Mr. HÉBERT. But these things must all be funneled through the individual member. That is the thing I want to impress. Mr. COURTNEY. That is right. Mr. HÉBERT. So we can keep an orderly procedure here. And that is what we are trying to do. Now, I also might say that of the 73 bases closed, 52 are on American soil, and of those 52 I think 16 were industrials which already had been closed. Is that correct? Secretary MORRIS. Fifteen, sir, are industrials. No, they have not been all closed. Mr. HÉBERT. I mean they are in the process of being closed. I mean this was no shocking information given out by the Department of Defense. Secretary MORRIS. In these cases the economic impact is very small. Mr. HÉBERT. Well, we are not interested in the economic impact. We are trying to bring it down to the bases that are in contention. (Secretary Morris nods.) Mr. HÉBERT. The ones that have been questioned. That is, the ones we have been interested in, because as I told you already, and told Secretary McNamara, I can't envision that the Department of Defense, infallible as it might seek to be, is not infallible. You have to have some mistakes in 52. You are not that perfect. That is the reason we want to bring these things here in executive session, so we can work them out in an orderly fashion. (Secretary Morris nods.) Mr. HÉBERT. Because I personally feel very keenly about it as you well know, and feel some mistakes have been made, and I thinkwithout prejudging the case, I think some hasty decisions have been made. Anyway, I won't give any further comment. All right, Mr. Morris. Secretary MORRIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like first, if I may, to make a short general statement, and then deal with the specifics of the bases in Texas. The Department of Defense welcomes this opportunity to review with this committee the program which was initiated at the outset of this administration to strengthen our defense posture by putting all aspects of our logistics management on a sound and economical footing. As one step in this program, President Kennedy informed the Congress in his state of the Union message that he was instructing the Secretary of Defense to immediately appraise opportunities to eliminate bases and installations no longer required. Subsequently, in his budget message of March 28, the President made further specific reference to the importance of this program and I would like to quote his remarks for the record: We must continually review our nearly 7,000 military installations in the light of our needs now and in the event of emergency. Those bases and installations which are no longer required must be inactivated, and disposed of where feasible, and I have so directed the Secretary of Defense. He has already taken steps to have 73 domestic and foreign installations discontinued as excess to our needs now and at any time in the future; and studies are continuing now to identify additional facilities which are surplus to our requirements. I am well aware that in many cases these actions will cause hardships to the communities and individuals involved. We cannot permit these actions to be deferred; but the Government will make every practicable effort to alleviate these hardships, and I have directed the Secretary of Defense to take every possible step to ease the difficulties for those displaced. But it is difficult, with so many defense and other budgetary demands, to justify support of military installations, with high operating and payroll costs and property values, which are no longer required for the defense of the Nation. BACKGROUND OF DECISIONS TO REDUCE OR CLOSE 73 INSTALLATIONS AS ANNOUNCED ON MARCH 30, 1961 Before discussing the individual installations of specific interest to this committee, I believe it would be useful to place in clear perspective the way in which our studies have been made. First, I should point out this is not a new program. As you know, there has been considerable attention during the past 5 years to dis 75318-61-2 posing of excess personal and real property throughout the executive branch. Under this policy the Secretary of Defense on August 29, 1958, issued DOD Directive 4165.20 instructing all departments to evaluate their property holdings and to promptly declare excess any not found necessary for long-term requirements. Under this policy the departments have taken a number of actions to discontinue or curtail operations. I believe that it is important that the Congress and the public understand the process by which the decisions were made on the 73 actions announced on March 30, 1961. In late January, Secretary McNamara organized a special task force of personnel from the three military departments and his own office to evaluate the utilization of defense installations. I personally supervised the work of this task force, keeping Secretary McNamara and the departmental secretaries informed of its work. Our procedure was to review the studies which had been in process in each of the military departments for many months-and in some cases for 2 or 3 years-and to select those installations on which the findings were sufficiently complete to justify a decision. These studies were originally made by the bureaus, technical services, and commands; reviewed by the top military and civilian officials of the military departments; and finally presented to the Secretary of Defense for decision. Furthermore, these studies were made by reviewing overall requirements against total available capacity for an entire class or group of activities, taking into account requirements both under peacetime and mobilization conditions. For example, it was found that the Department of Defense owned 311 million square feet of covered storage space but that much of this space was now vacant in view of the reduction in defense inventories by $10 billion since fiscal year 1957. One result of the actions announced on March 30 will be the elimination of 41 million square feet of excess storage space. Another illustration is storage sites for reserve fleet ships. In July 1950, the inventory of such ships was 2,261. By the end of fiscal year 1962, this inventory will have been reduced to about 657 ships. As a consequence, whereas we once required 15 storage sites, our maximum justifiable need today is 8. An equally dramatic change has occurred in our requirements for training establishments-particularly those relating to pilot training. In 1956 we required a training base structure to produce 9,000 pilots and navigators per year in support of the 137 wing force level. In the current fiscal year our program calls for the training of only 2,700 pilots and navigators. I have mentioned only 3 categories out of some 60 principal groups that have been under study and on which studies are continuing. We are currently examining our future requirements for each of 1,000 major installations in these 60 categories. Simply to keep these installations open-regardless of their workload-we are spending almost $2 billion per year for operations and maintenance. PLANNING THE PHASEOUT OF UNNECESSARY INSTALLATIONS In the past our base closing program consisted of making an announcement and proceeding to complete the phaseout action. We were doing very little to assure that phaseout plans gave consideration to the impact on communities. As directed by President Kennedy in his budget message, our studies now do not terminate with the decision to declare a property excess. As directed by President Kennedy in his budget message, our studies now do not terminate with the decision to declare a property excess and turn it over to GSA. A separate full-time staff has been established to work with Federal, State, and community officials in seeking ways of assuring the highest productive use of the inactivated facilities, as well as to take all possible steps to assist employees in obtaining satisfactory reemployment. We are being assisted in this new program by many Federal agencies, including Commerce, Labor, HEW, GSA, Housing and Home Finance, Small Business Administration, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Civil Service Commission. This program was announced by Secretary McNamara on April 20, 1961, and I would like to submit for the record an outline of its scope and objectives. (The material referred to is as follows:) [Apr. 20, 1961-No. 367-61, Oxford 53201-53176] STANDARD PLANNING PROCEDURES ADOPTED FOR USE IN CURTAILING ACTIVITIES A standard procedure has been developed to serve as a guide in planning all aspects of discontinuing, or substantially curtailing, activities at Department of Defense installations. Concerned with the problems in personnel and community relations which follow a decision to curtail or inactivate an installation, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara established an Installations and Relocation Planning Committee on March 31, 1961, and assigned the Committee the task of preparing a standard planning procedure. Membership of the Committee consists of Thomas D. Morris, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Installations and Logistics) as Chairman; Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs); Carlisle P. Runge, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower); Kenneth BeLieu, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Courtney Johnson, consultant for logistics, Department of the Army; and Alan I. McCone, special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force. This procedure, which was developed by the Committee, is designed primarily for application in cases where the curtailing or discontinuing of the Defense Department activities has severe effects on the community and the employees. It is equally adaptable, however, in less severe cases. In summary, the procedure calls for: (1) The Development of factual data relating to the reasons for the decision to discontinue or curtail the particular activity, the impact of the decision on the community, and possible future use by other government or commercial interests of the facilities; (2) the development of a public information program for informing the community, military commands, and installations, congressional Members and committees, and civic and service organizations of the facts bearing on the decision; (3) alleviation of the impact through a personnel program which would provide (a) early notice to employees, employee groups, and to those governmental agencies (both Federal and State) which could assist in placement of released employees; (b) assistance in placement on a priority basis in other government positions; (c) |