will be a cost penalty in addition to that amount of $1,054, using the Letterkenny facility. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is that considered an advantage, to have that additional cost, Mr. Secretary? Secretary MORRIS. It is considered no penalty, sir. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I wonder if with me, you would agree Mr. Secretary, that a more meaningful indicator of the usefulness of an installation would be the tonnage shipped and the tonnage received, instead of the amount of tonnage actually at an installation? Secretary MORRIS. Sir, I think that the fallacy in the type of index that you have been referring to is that a depot is not the master of its own workload. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. That is quite obvious. It is not the master of its own fate, for that matter. I only wish it were. Secretary MORRIS. Sir, these are things that vary, depending upon the programs and plans from year to year of the operating establishment. Obviously, as we have all said, we have been making good use of Raritan. It is too bad that it does not have the long-term potential and capacity to retain it as a multimission depot. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, the long-term capacity we are still talking about is whether it is suitable for missiles; is that right, Mr. Secretary? Secretary MORRIS. That is in relationship to all other aspects required for a long-term multimission depot. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. What other aspects could we be talking about except missiles? I mean, is there any other way in which Raritan represents an inefficient installation? Secretary MORRIS. Sir Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I grant you I am looking at this from a biased point of view. But I still fail to understand why, if you have a big installation that is suitable for missiles, you don't use that for missiles, and use your smaller installation which is suitable because of its strategic location, its nearness to ports and shipping and transportation, highway and railroad and air-why we can't still say that that has a reasonable function in today's world, instead of writing it off as something unneeded and clearly surplus? I fail to see how you have made a case for saying that Raritan Arsenal is clearly surplus, except by saying it is not suited for something which no one will argue. No one is suggesting that we would want highly explosive missiles in Raritan Arsenal. We have had an unpleasant experience there and we don't want to repeat it. Secretary MORRIS. Our objective, sir, is to reduce to the smallest number of multimission depots to meet our mobilization requirements. And to do this in the interest of achieving maximum flexibilty and economy. The studes that have been described show that by the distribution of workloads as mentioned this afternoon we can save on the order of $812 million per year. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. By the elimination of a fire department at the Raritan Arsenal, is about what we are saying. Secretary MORRIS. No, sir. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Plus the fact there is going to be serious attrition of personnel. Secretary MORRIS. No, sir. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Who refuse to move to Detroit and Colorado and other spots. Secretary MORRIS. You are completely misconstruing what we mean, sir, by savings. We are talking Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. The personnel savings. I am sure they are agreed on now. Secretary MORRIS. Yes, sir. This is not due to attrition, sir. This is due to the actual elimination of workloads requiring positions. Twelve to fourteen hundred such positions. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I would like to ask another question on the formal presentation, General, or Mr. Secretary. On page 5 is the statement made, Some of our conventional weapons are phasing out, leaving an insufficient workload to efficiently utilize existing facilities. I wonder whether you could comment about the new conventional weapons coming into the supply system-the M-14 rifle and the M-60 machinegun, and so on? Is it not true that Raritan represents the assembly depot for such equipment as it moves to Europe? General LYNDE. We have assembled shipments there for movement to Europe, yes. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. How would you plan to handle that kind of a shipment? General LYNDE. However, Raritan is not exclusively that. General LYNDE. Sir, I Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I didn't claim any such thing. General LYNDE. But it is being utilized for that purpose, is it not? [Addressing Colonel Kling.] You are sending your rifles there? He says ordnance major items. sir. Colonel KLING. All production is going directly from facility now, General LYNDE. The production is going directly from facility now. Colonel KLING. Some of the initial production was put into Raritan for this reexamination process. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well Colonel KLING. And inspection. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is it not true-and I don't know who should be answering the question-that Raritan is modifying the M-60 medium tank prior to shipment to Europe? General LYNDE. A limited quantity; yes, sir. On the M-60, they are applying modifications that were found to be necessary from early tests of the vehicle. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. And the Honest John missile is also shipped out from Raritan? Colonel KLING. I don't know. I believe it is an assembly of only one package. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I can't hear you. Colonel KLING. Only the assembly of a package that may have gone through. I know of no Mr. HÉBERT. Speak up, please. Colonel KLING (continuing). No shipment. Mr. COURTNEY. He said he knows of no shipment, there may have been an assembly that went through. Is that your answer? Colonel KLING. Yes. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I have what I hope will be one final short question, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HÉBERT. Take your time. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. On page 3 of your statement there is a reference to the vast and costly overcapacity in the ordnance depot system. Is it not true that what we are talking about is whether or not to cut down one of four multipurpose depots? And is it not true that one of those installations is roughly the same size as Raritan, and that Raritan is the smallest? General LYNDE. Which one do you nominate as being of the same size, sir? [Pause.] Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, you tell me, General. You have got the figures. You presented them to us, didn't you? General LYNDE. Square feet of covered general storage space, Raritan, 2,000; Letterkenny, 4,000; Savannah-Rock Island complex, 3,700. [Addressing reporter.] Those are millions, or thousand thousands. And Pueblo, 3 million. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, Pueblo is the one I am referring to, General. You are talking about roughly the same size installations. And if it is true that there is such an expensive and vast overcapacity, why do you choose the smallest one, instead of the one that maybe is medium small, such as Pueblo. General LYNDE. If you will come over to the column title "Acres," you will find that Pueblo has 24,000-24,800, as opposed to Raritan, 3,200. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Now you are talking about the size of the installation. The only value of the size of with respect to the storage of missiles. And if we could only get over this obsession, of the necessity of an installation to store missiles in order to be fully effective, I think we might clear the air a little bit. General LYNDE. At Pueblo we have a [deleted] mission. Pueblo is also very closely identified with the Artillery School at Sill. And I would say that Pueblo is very favorably located to take care of two extremely important national defense activities. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, this would again be another indication to me that we have done a pretty good screening process on our major installations. And it doesn't necessarily follow that we have got to do any further screening in order to have an efficient depot system. But I can see we can differ on that. But surely there is not much difference in size between the two so far as storage space is concerned; is that not so? The acreage, of course, is different; I am not arguing about the acreage. General LYNDE. Yes. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. And, of course, the virtues are different. The strategic importance in one is different from the strategic importance of the other. Secretary MORRIS. Sir, there is a 50-percent difference, we should recognize, in size-2 million versus 3 million. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, now, we only-you mean we are talking about general covered storage space now. Secretary MORRIS. Yes. As I understood you statement, you said there was not much difference in storage space. And there is a 50percent difference. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, we have got as a result of this-you are considering this additional storage space an asset now, is that right, Mr. Secretary? Because as I understand it, as a result of this you are going to continue to have some of this vast and costly overcapacity. And as you say, you will have, as a result of retaining these three with this 50percent additional over Raritan, of roughly, as I recall, 1 million square feet, is that not so, above mobilization requirements? I don't know where that figure was. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I recall you said you were going to have an overcapacity beyond what you will need for mobilization today. Which I should think might be conceivably inadvisable, and not advisable. Secretary MORRIS. Sir, we pointed out, I believe, in the figures you are referring to, that should we take Raritan in combination with the other, we might have a deficit as high as 1 million square feet. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, I don't know how you can say that, General-I mean Mr. Secretary. If you take the bigger ones and Raritan you might, if you walked all over the factor the wrong way. But if you, yourself, know you need a certain requirement for mobilization, you wouldn't be likely to. So it is a very unrealistic argument to say: "If we took the combination it would produce a deficit," and that then you would have a deficit. Of course, you would. But if you took Raritan because it has a function to serve and you took others in order to get the required storage space, you would have the storage space, or you would have within 115,000 square feet, if I am not mistaken. Is that not so? It would come to 115 if you took the right combination of installations in addition to Raritan. Secretary MORRIS. Sir, the important thing-and this is a classified matter that we were unable to discuss at our first meeting-is that Pueblo has a [deleted] which makes it inconceivable that we could consider it for elimination. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well Secretary MORRIS. So you must consider the combinations of the others, omitting Pueblo from that calculation. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. This is the first news I have heard today. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You have some classified information. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. To justify one of the reasons why you don't close one or the other of the installations. There has been nothing of any classified value, so far as what you said, except for this. And I am very appreciative to get that much. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very much this opportunity, and I regret imposing on the committee's time. Mr. HÉBERT. You have not imposed, sir. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Thank you both, General, and both Secretaries. Secretary MERRILL. Thank you, sir. Mr. HÉBERT. Let me ask one thing before you proceed. Mr. HÉBERT. What is the phaseout date on Raritan? Secretary MERRILL. 1964 I mean. Mr. HÉBERT. June 30, 1964? Mr. HÉBERT. What is the policy of the Army in declaring surplus, before the phaseout dates? Secretary MERRILL. Mr. Chairman, in this case we have notified the congressional committees, as you know, of the excessing of this and other depots Mr. HÉBERT. That is not my question, Mr. Secretary. Secretary MERRILL. With the objective of encouraging their use for other purposes, rather than retaining them without excessing them, and thus delaying the time when they might be used for other purposes. Mr. HÉBERT. What is the policy in declaring excess? That was the question I asked. Secretary MERRILL. What is the policy? Mr. HÉBERT. What is the policy of the Army in declaring excess? Now do we or they declare it immediately, as in this case, or is this an unusual declaration? Secretary MERRILL. In the present case Mr. HÉBERT. I am not trying to impugn on your reasoning. I just want to know what it is. Secretary MERRILL. Yes. In this case the policy is to declare them. excess as soon as possible. Mr. HÉBERT. Is this the first one you declared as soon as possible? Secretary MERRILL. No, there are three. Mr. HÉBERT. In this present series. Secretary MERRILL. Yes, sir. Mr. HÉBERT. Which is a departure from any previous proceedings. Secretary MERRILL. We are doing these more rapidly than they have been done in the past, that is correct. Mr. HÉBERT. And you will continue to excess them as rapidly as possible in order to expedite the clearance? Secretary MERRILL. In order to expedite the use of them for other purposes, sir. Mr. HÉBERT. That is right. But it does not mean that the target date would be moved up by the declaration of excess? Secretary MERRILL. No, it would not. Mr. HÉBERT. The disposition would be made based on target? Mr. HÉBERT. And that is-I think it is very commendable that you do this in these cases. Secretary MERRILL. Yes, sir. Mr. HÉBERT. Because you get them on the market faster. |