for boycotting them and give them nothing. Don't move a ton of grain. Let them starve. Let the Canadians give it to them. They would not have.

New Zealand has not got the grain; Australia does not have the grain to sell them at the present time. I think it is about time the Americans got their back up and told these guys: "We make the rules. If you want the grain take them at our price, take it the way we send it to you or not at all." This is the way the longshoremen feel about it.

Mr. GILES. Thank you, Mr. Gleason.

I would like to ask you a few questions.
Mr. GLEASON. Go ahead.

Mr. GILES. In your joint telegram that was sent here, first let me say that with respect to the Cuban shipping matter I understand your general situation on that. That is a separate matter, not in the province of the Maritime Administration. So I am not in a position to pursue that.

Mr. GLEASON. Those ships are coming off that run, sir, and they are coming back and put in this Russian run.

Mr. GILES. So far as Continental is concerned that is the application or waiver that we have got. What is the position of Continental on using foreign ships that have been in this Cuban business?

Mr. STOVALL. To my knowledge Continental has chartered no vessels which have traded with Cuba. We have taken a firm stand since January 1, 1962, that any vessel trading with Cuba would not be chartered for any commodity irrespective of the destination. As of present time we include, and have for the past year and a half, a clause in every charter wherein the owner stipulates he has not traded with Cuba since January 1, 1963, and has no commitment on the vessel to trade with Cuba subsequent to the charter party.

Mr. GILES. So far as Government policy, Mr. Gleason, the Government policy with regard with Cuban shipping has been a blacklist or restriction on Government cargo, Government-aid cargo. Now I know there are a lot of differences of opinion as to that policy whether it should not be extended to all, commercial and otherwise. The fact remains as far as my Maritime Administration's abilities and responsibilities, the fact remains that the President of the United States has not seen fit to adopt a policy to go that far. So long as I am here I am going to have to administer the laws and the decisions and basic policies that the President of the United States decides upon regardless of my personal feelings or regardless of anyone else's personal feelings. But the point that concerns me

Mr. GLEASON. Can I follow up a little more on that Cuban situation?

Mr. GILES. All right.

Mr. GLEASON. I realize that none of us want to break the laws. We must have a head and we must respect our country and the people who run it. I realize that people like President Johnson and President Kennedy, God rest his soul, if he were here he possibly could not take the stand that some of our trade unionists would take because Congress would not possibly back it up.

I believe that the stand we have taken is a popular stand. I believe you cannot give an enemy a little bit and believe he will be eventually

happy with it. I believe he will take over once he gets his foot in the door. On this Cuban situation, Continental says, "For example, as of January 29, of the nine foreign-flag tankers that the Continental Grain Co. had already chartered to carry wheat to Russia there were three ships, the Demran, Yugoslav Marvellia, and Dressa that participated in the Communist buildup in Cuba in 1962." He said January 1, 1963.

One tanker, British-flag Londoncraftsman owned by London & Overseas Freighters, a company which has operated 10 tankers under its own name in the Cuban trade in the last 2 years and still has 10 tankers totaling 160,000 deadweight tons shuttling gasoline between Russia and Cuba. Now, this is something that we should try to stop.

Mr. GILES. Mr. Gleason, I am not in a position this afternoon in regard to Continental waiver, which is our main item of business, to discuss in detail the Cuban matters. I am sure that if you and I sat down and talked about it we would find many areas of personal agreement. But when it comes to administering the laws or the policies, why this agency, of course, will have to proceed on the basis of what our Government adopts.

Now, it seems to me, to make the final general comment on that, that we have got to have an orderly way and an orderly procedure for our Government to make these decisions. The basic questions that you raise, it seems to me, is who is going to make the basic decision, who is going to have that responsibility? Is it going to be the President of the United States to decide our foreign policy or will it be some private segment within the United States, some private individual or some group? This is a big country. We have a lot of room for differences. We get along, we get up on the stump and everybody says his piece. I believe in the right of labor unions to strike, to improve their conditions. I believe in the right of longshoremen not to load ships when they do not want to load them.

I am expressing my personal view, Mr. Gleason. I do not think it is right, I do not think it is in the interest of our country, for longshoremen who not only refuse to load the ships but will throw up a picket line so that no one else reasonably under the circumstances would work them. That is expressing a personal point of view. I think, whether we all like it or not, when it comes to a matter of our foreign policy, these basic decisions, we have an obligation not to frustrate the policy of the President of the United States.

Mr. GLEASON. I think we don't need pickets in the first place. The longshoremen don't need a picket. We can turn it on or off like this. Mr. GILES. Let me ask you this. Would you as a matter of principle just say to your longshoremen, or they would say to you, "We just won't load this ship but if the shipowners, whoever is involved, just round up a band of men that can come in and load it, that is all right with us"?

Mr. GLEASON. You would have to send the Marines in for that. Mr. GILES. I am searching out how you would follow up on your principle. In other words, what you are saying is that you and your executive board should make the foreign policy of the United States rather than the President?

Mr. GLEASON. No, I don't say that. I think that we have a right to refuse to handle any kind of package that we think is going to contaminate us.

Mr. GILES. I do, too.

Mr. GLEASON. This is all we are doing. I was very happy, I was up there on that Montreal strike when Montreal was out. I had to settle that strike up there. I was happy to read when most of that wheat went over to Russia there was a lot of glass in it. I was very happy about that. The more of this happens the better I like it.

Mr. GILES. Mr. Gleason, I can understand and appreciate your point of view on that particular question but I would like to ask the specific question here in connection with Continental. In your telegram or the one you signed jointly there is this language, "We vigorously protest the manipulation of shipping requirements." Now I can understand, I have been through this for two and a half months. I can understand there has been a lot of confusion or misunderstanding, lack of information amongst some of the shipping owners. A good many shipping owners were not as well informed, for example, as, say, the officials of shipping associations who actually attended meetings where we discussed these matters. Then many labor officials were not and could not have been as well informed as to what we were doing. Now I would like to ask you, do you have any specific case or any specific situation that you have been informed of that you think is plausible on the face of it where this agency has endeavored to manipulate this matter so that we would evade the shiping requirement?

Mr. GLEASON. All I can say, I stated evidence I have seen here this morning, the arbitrary stand that was taken against ship that appeared in this testimony here, that Continental just took a position and he was placed in a box, he was boxed in, he has to do business with your people, he has to do business with Continental and if he takes a position and demands that his ship be used, then it becomes a boycott of the shippers or somebody else.

Mr. GILES. I am not going to try at this point to justify all the positions of Continental. I have disagreed on many items of Continental. What I am concerned with, and I think properly so, is, do you feel that this agency, the Maritime Administration, has been arbitrary here this morning and today as to what you have seen?

Mr. GLEASON. Well, I think on certain occasions here in your own position you were begging, the way I understood it, you were begging these fellows not to ask for the ships to be used in this trade. I saw Dowd here was willing. I saw the first gentleman who testified was willing to put a ship in the gulf. The funny part of these fellows, Continental Grain or Cargill, if they have labor trouble they can change those ships around in 2 hours, they don't need a week, 10 days or 17 days. It is funny how they can change those ships around. I saw this morning here these guys were begged off in my opinion, the shipowners, not to press for the use of their ships in this business.

Mr. GILES. Begged off by whom?

Mr. GLEASON. By you.

Mr. GILES. So, you regard what I have said here today in these specific cases, you would put a label of "begging off the shipowners?" Mr. GLEASON. That is the way I feel about it.

While

Mr. GILES. Well, I hope that is not what I have been doing. Let me just say this, Mr. Gleason. I think I probably was as surprised as maybe you were when we got into this thing and I was confronted with all of the details that we were called upon to resolve or sort have been in the middle. We started out. I said, well, we got rates, so we took our rates over from the Public Law 480 program. many shipowners did not particularly like that I think it was generally recognized that that was a reasonable decision to make under all the circumstances. I did not, at that time, anticipate having to get into all of these minute items, who is going to pay the insurance, who is going to have the overtime and when does it start, and what exactly is going to be the draft and how clean is the ship going to be and who is going to stand that. What of the laydays, what of this and that? All of the hundreds of items that do go into a charter. But once the Government sets off, in effect, a market and says, "50 percent of this is going to be for American vessels," once we take that step and we set our rates, if we just sat by and let the two parties go to it, that is the shipowners and the grain exporters, we just have so many items in controversy and in issue that I am afraid we would never get anything settled. We would just have sort of jungle warfare. It sort of works on both sides because in that situation the grain exporter can go over the line too far as against and to the prejudice of the shipowner and the shipowner who wants to get the business and get the best bargain, he can go a little too far. All I am saying is that when we have a situation like this it is not the same as the ordinary business situation where the shipowner and the broker or the exporter can sit down and they work it out on a private, competitive enterprise basis.

I am frank to say we have simply had no choice here but to get into all of these details. There have been many items on which we have had to make a judgment where the grain exporter violently disagreed and many items on which the shipowners did. All I can say is that we have tried to do the best we can. The record will have to speak for itself. I recognize the difference of opinion and there is a lot of room for difference of opinion, but I would express this hope to you, sir. I would hope that the labor unions, the labor union officials, will try to see the total picture before they make any final judgments with regard to picket lines and that sort of thing. I just hope that they will take all of that into account. I feel very strongly, for example, in the Cargill matter where we had to issue a waiver, I feel very strongly that some of the labor officials were misled there. They were misled by, according to my information, by one or two or a very few shipowners who did not work it out, themselves. So they gave their story from their point of view to some labor union officials and then some action was taken on that basis.

I would like to say to you, Mr. Gleason, that the shipowners as a whole, the vast, vast majority have cooperated with the Government in this. They have cooperated with us in setting up this program and working out these basic arrangements. Most of the basic decisions we have made on this really came from suggestions made by shipowners and their representatives.

We could not have done it otherwise because they know the business much better than we possibly can. I would hope before your union or any other union accepts the final word from any person involved

in this that we have acted arbitrarily or capriciously against somebody in ruling for Continental as against the shipowners, I would hope that you at least would let us have an opportunity to go into that specific case and show you what the facts are as we see them.

Mr. GLEASON. Mr. Administrator, up until the Tulsa Hill we made our commitment to load this grain and I told you it was not unanimous. A lot of people were running around picketing, knocking ships off. We took a stand that it was going to benefit the American sailor, benefit the American Government, it would help our balance of payments and what have you. We went along with this program but listening here today, at the evidence, why does Continental book 50 percent of its foreign tonnage first before it books the American tonnage? Now, I am not a seaman. I am a longshoreman for 48 years on the docks. I have loaded ships, I have superintended ships, I have maneuvered ships around, I have changed ships from one port to another. What I heard here this morning from Continental does not jibe with what a practical man in the steamship business-it does not jibe. I don't understand again why they book 50 percent of the foreign tonnage before they book any American tonnage at all.

Mr. GILES. Mr. Gleason, and, Captain, you get ready to pull out of your files specific cases-Mr. Gleason, one of the reasons that Continental did not get to book or charter the American tonnage as rapidly as I thought they would was that some of our owners from the very beginning made offers which were clearly outside those basic terms and conditions we had already passed on.

Now, I don't know what the situation was in some of those cases except I think the owner must have been in an individual situation where he really did not have to make a decision at that time as to whether he wanted this business or some other business and perhaps he had his eye on some other business that was really more desirable and he really did not want to commit himself. So the fact is, and we are going to cite some of them here, in those early days of this several shipowners sent in offers which, on the face of it right off the bat, Continental could lawfully and properly turn down. Now I think as an example which demonstrates exactly what I am saying and supports it, when Continental filed their application here last Friday they had actually booked only 213,000 long tons. In this 5-day period which ended last evening an additional 98,500 tons was chartered. Mr. Gleason, they were on the same terms and conditions that had been on the board and for the same periods that had been on the board very clearly since January 17. Now I am not criticizing those shipowners for not coming in here 2, 3, 4 weeks ago because I am going to say that is their own business judgment. All I will say is that I do know, and it is clear to us here, that for their own purposes and perhaps for very good reason, on their own part, many American shipowners who are now actually chartered on this program waited pretty much until the last minute and perhaps very well for a good business reason.

Again I would say that there have been many items that Continental did that we did not agree with and we had to ask them to change, not that we could order them too. We simply informed them in advance that if you ever get around to having to apply for a waiver these are