Colonel HAMBLEN. They still make certain appointments under this same provision of law, sir, by designating from among qualified officers and competitors.

Mr. BROOKS. We wrote last year, wasn't it, a bill for the Air Force, Mr. Ducander?

Mr. DUCANDER. Yes, sir.

Mr. BROOKS. Why didn't we include that in this bill?

Colonel HAMBLEN. Because the Air Force Academy has an entirely different system now. They may designate, for each Congressman, a principal plus ten individuals.

Mr. BROOKS. That is the old law, not the new one?

Colonel HAMBLEN. Under the interim provision, sir, you recall that the Air Force may designate one man from each particular district so they could get representation of all of them. But they didn't go to the complete provisions we have in the Military Academy now. They won't for another 3 years, sir.

Mr. BROOKS. They gradually move into it at the beginning of this year.

Colonel HAMBLEN. Under the provisions of the revised bill they would gradually do so. At the end of 4 years they would be able to be at this stage, that's right, sir.

Mr. BROOKS. That's right. And here we didn't cover this feature in that bill.

Colonel HAMBLEN. No, sir. In their bill we actually specifically indicated, sir, that only one-our code number is 4,343-provision of that similar to the Air Force codification would be given so that we could maintain the Air Force at a strength they wanted.

We knew approximately how many more they would be authorized. So your committee, sir, decided that you should have so many congressionals and you knew that number specifically.

Then you said there would be so many others that they would be able to make, so that we knew the ultimate strength we were working on-rather a fixed input type of thing, sir.

Our service Academy is not in a fixed input, so we weren't able to do the desirable features you were able to fix. Now that each year a certain fixed number are going in the Air Force Academy, you said so many would be from congressionals, and so many would be from qualified alternates.

That works just fine because of the fixed input.

Mr. BROOKS. But we haven't even put that into effect yet. And here we are amending it.

Colonel HAMBLEN. All we are amending that would apply to the Air Force is that what you are talking about now, sir, the Air Force? Mr. BROOKS. Yes.

Colonel HAMBLEN. Would be that the provisions of this bill, which are premissive, would be that when the Air Force Academy comes to their ultimate use of the full utilization of their Academy, they, too, would be able to exceed their 2,496.

Mr. BROOKS. By how many?

Colonel HAMBLEN. By a number that would result in the average strength of the Corps of Cadets being 2,496-so if the initial strength would be 80 over it would end 80 under. Eighty cadets during a 4year period would average only about 40 maybe per year being added.

We must allow for attrition. Once we add those extra people into the Academy they remain with us.

We are not able to disregard them. They are always in the Academy. Mr. BROOKS. Any questions?

Mrs. St. George?

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. General, will you tell me what the graduating class is at the Naval Academy as compared with the Military Academy? How many do they graduate?

General COUNTS. Mrs. St. George, I believe they run around 800 or a litle over, and we are running about 450-550, I guess. That is only approximation.

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. How is the Military Academy equipped now to take the number of cadets they have? Could you handle that number? General COUNTS. We could not.

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. You certainly have plenty of room up there for expansion, though.

General COUNTS. We have a large study on that, as you probably know, of the possibilities for expansion and enlargement.

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. Yes. I hope you go forward with it. I would like to see you graduate at least as many cadets

General COUNTS. I will go back and answer the chairman's question about how many we should have. I think we should have more, but that is my personal opinion.

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. I do, too.

Mr. BROOKS. It occurred to me, considering the personnel of the three services and the coequal status that they enjoy at this time, that the three Academies ought to be the same size. That is the reason I put in this bill.

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. Mr. Chairman, I think you are right, too. They should be the same size.

General COUNTS. It is some strange thing the Naval Academy has always been approximately 50 percent larger. When I entered the corps of cadets we had 600. The Naval Academy was about 1,200.

Mr. BROOKS. I am just expressing the view that they all ought to be the same size. It seems to me that would make good sense.

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. I think, Mr. Chairman, we want to see the Military Academy increase. We have no problems with the other Academy. Colonel HAMBLEN. Mr. Chairman, what I mean to imply was the bill we are working on now would do just what you have suggested before. We appreciate that point and that is why it takes a while to work all three service Academies to exactly the same input.

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Ducander, will you keep in touch with the gentlemen so that we can get a bill up here and perhaps the chairman of the full committee would send it to this subcommittee.

Mr. DUCANDER. Yes, sir.

Mr. WINSTEAD. Mr. Chairman, I am inclined to think, then, that the Military Academy is far behind the Naval Academy and might be behind the Air Force Academy. But I am still getting more and more confused as we go along. We pay bonuses to get men into the services. We pay bonuses to get them out. Now when we increase the Academy and we rip these officers out from time to time, I am getting lost in all this shuffle.

Understand, I think there is a lot of merit to what you are asking for to get more on a par with the other Academies. If you get this

increase, will it cost additional money for your staff and your facilities to carry on that load?

General COUNTS. The staff would have no addition whatsoever.

Mr. WINSTEAD. You see, the point I am worried about, and I don't think we should take it out on you at the Academy, but we kick these officers out from year to year. We have too many of them. We demand they take care of the ROTC trained officers and these other fellows and we expand these Academies from time to time.

They talk about cutting down on manpower and I am about to get totally lost as to where we as a committee are going to draw the line. But that has nothing to do with what you are requesting here at this particular time.

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Burns?

Mr. BURNS. I understand, Mr. Chairman, there probably will be a change or two. My concern was with where these people would be selected from to make up this average number increase that they wanted to put in and what kind of ties there would be in that particular area.

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Ducander, I might say, has some different language, substitute language here. Are you familiar, General, with Mr. Ducander's language?

General COUNTS. Yes; I saw the one about the percentage basis.

Mr. BROOKS. Why not at this time read your suggestion there, Mr. Ducander? I think it would save time.

Mr. DUCANDER. Mr. Chairman, before reading it, the committee will remember that last year it considered two bills. One was for interim appointments for the Air Force Academy and the other was to increase Presidential appointments.

The committee took a firm stand on both of those bills, that any increase in appointments at the Academy should be for the main, at least, congressional appointments and not appointments from the executive branch.

Keeping that in mind, I asked the Department if they would draft this language which would allow for these additional appointments requested by the Department, but would make them on the same ratio as the appointments the Congress now has.

The Congress now has approximately 85 percent of the appointments to the Academy. Therefore, I asked that the language for these additional appointments give 85 percent of them to the Congress, which would maintain the ratio.

The language is as follows, reading on line 4 of the draft :

Cadets appointment: To bring corps to full strength, whenever it is estimated that the number of cadets at the Academy during a school year will be below the authorized number, the qualified candidates who competed for nomination and are recommended and found qualified by the Academic Board but not more than any estimated to be necessary to make the strength of the corps of cadets at the end of the school year equal the authorized strength of that corps, at least 85 percent of those nominated under this section shall be selected from qualified alternates nominated by the persons named in clause 16 of section 4342 (a), and clause 2 of section 4342 (e) of this title

and I will stop right there to say those are the congressional appoint

ments

and the remainder from qualified candidates holding competitive nominations under any other provisions of law

I will stop there to say those are the other appointments, Presidential and other appointments, honor school and that sort of thing

and appointments under this section is an additional appointment and is not in place of an appointment otherwise authorized by law.

The following language is identical to the Air Force Academy. Mr. BRAY. What is the purpose of this change? It is getting along pretty well the way it is, isn't it?

Mr. DUCANDER. I am taking no position, Mr. Bray, on whether you ought to grant the additional appointments or not. This language is only if you wish to grant them.

You would probably want them to be congressional appointments. Mr. BROOKS. Here is what we did with the Air Force. We said if they are allowed additional appointments, then those appointments should be taken 85 percent from the alternates nominated by the Members of Congress and placed in the Academy from those lists so that the Members of Congress would lose nothing by it.

Mr. BRAY. What I am suggesting here, Mr. Chairman, is why couldn't we go ahead and give us enough to give us one every third year, and in the second year an extra appointment, and go ahead just like we do now?

Mr. BROOKS. The estimate is 80 to 90. There are 435 Members of Congress. There really isn't enough to justify trying to arrange an alternate year or a third year.

General COUNTS. Mr. Chairman, that doesn't mean 80 or 90 a year either. That only means an overstrength for 80 or 90. That will last for 4 years. That is divided by four, if you are going to spread it

out.

Mr. BROOKS. It isn't large enough to distribute it on a congressional basis.

Mr. WINSTEAD. What would the additional cost be? Certainly if we had additional cadets there would be additional cost. General COUNTS. About $2,000 per cadet.

Mr. WINSTEAD. You won't have to add additional staff members, you won't have to add facilities, you have got everything you need to take care of what you now are requesting and you are just trying to keep a maximum strength of what you are capable of caring for at the present time?

General COUNTS. But, sir, when you say we have everything we need, that isn't true because we don't now. But I will say we won't be any worse than we are now.

Mr. BRAY. Mr. Chairman, what worries me though, is that here the Pentagon is wanting every year to drastically cut the Army and the Navy too, especially the Army, and everything else. It seems to me like that is kind of taking a little reverse English. Our big problem is trying to take care of the risks in officers.

I would just like to see what the Pentagon is going to do, whether they are going to keep reducing it, before we start increasing it. I feel very strongly on that matter myself. I believe we should have a firm policy with the Department of Defense, and I am not blaming you people for it. But we are kind of making ourselves subject to almost ridicule to come in here and keep increasing this at the time that they are decreasing.

Our new war is going to be a pushbutton war. At least by some thinking we won't need soldiers. If we just get the right people and make the right pushbuttons, we won't want to increase the Academy greatly at the time we are stopping the use of soldiers.

Mr. WINSTEAD. If the gentleman will yield there, I say I don't necessarily subscribe to the rapid reduction of the Army at the time of trying to make it, but what Mr. Bray has said is true nevertheless. What you say is true.

Mr. BRAY. I don't agree with it. I think they are making a great mistake. But as long as they are making that mistake and the money we have appropriated they won't even use. They ignore the ceilings that Congress has put on and we go from rags to riches, day by day.

One day we want to increase our forces enormously, and the next day we must cut them down to nothing. I myself want to see some permanent, firm policy that would take care of American needs adopted by the Pentagon before I vote to increase this.

Mr. BROOKS. Did you want to answer that?

Colonel HAMBLEN. Yes, sir. Mr. Bray, sir, if I may: The plan for the Department of the Army has been, insofar as its regular personnel are concerned, that we attempt to get 50 percent of our regular personnel from service Academy graduates, and the other 50 percent from ROTC and other sources. So what we are trying to do, sir, is approach that number from the Military Academy.

We have in the past, you know, been sending 25 percent of our graduates to the Air Force, but starting next year we will get nearly all

of them.

The idea then, sir, is we are attempting to get a sufficient number of graduates from the Military Academy that we may approach our desirable number so we get that 50 percent in our regular strength.

Mr. BRAY. I am not questioning your people's interest in it. Here they want to increase, and they want to decrease, and insisting on it. They want to decrease the Army 10 percent this year.

I have reason to believe that next year it will be another substantial decrease. Then already you say many of your personnel of the Academy used to go to the Air Force and now the Air Force is booming and there is a need for increasing your Academy graduates and we haven't any firm policy with the Pentagon. So I am willing to wait for any change until we know what the Department of Defense is going to do.

Colonel HAMBLEN. The point I was trying to get across, sir, is we feel the need for our people, with the specialization and the training we give them at the Academy, is increasing. As long as the Army gets lower numbers, the hard core must be even that better qualified. So we are attempting to be sure that we can try to measure up to our requirements.

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. Mr. Chairman, could I just say one thing to my colleague. I don't feel that this is an increase. I think all that they are trying to do is to be sure that the Academy will be at full strength. You are not going to save very much money on anything else if you don't allow them to take these extra 20 a year because that is all it is going to amount to at the present time.