interviewed, we were not able to obtain a first-hand account of the events that led up to his resignation but the former vice chairman also resigned at that time as a result of the chairman's resignation and he said he felt he could no longer serve the Commission. The current chairman was appointed on October 7, 1987, and the current executive director was appointed on October 16, 1987.

We did ask the Commission members about the HHS support and most of the Commission members knew very little of any administrative details, but the current Commission chairman and the current executive director and the former vice chairman_highly rated the support service provided the Commission by the Department of Health and Human Services.

I believe that covers the important points in my statement and we would be glad to respond to any questions you have.

Chairman GLENN. Thank you very much, Ms. Kleeman. I appreciate that and we will look forward to receiving your report on the investigation upon its completion. I know you have had some difficulty getting information. We understand that, and I would presume you do not feel you have all the information you need yet to give us the full story on the Commission.

Ms. KLEEMAN. No. We are still working on it. Certainly the lawsuit has been one impediment to our getting everything we needed, but we will stay in there and we will try to get the rest of the docu

ments.

Chairman GLENN. Good. What other documents? Do you have any other documents on request or any other requests for information that have been refused, outside the White House? Or is that the main bit of information?

Ms. KLEEMAN. That is the main bit of information. This has been a rather hurry-up operation and there are some documents that we are still going to be looking for, but the primary documents missing are those from the White House.

Chairman GLENN. What types of documents are you looking for there that you have not received yet?

Ms. KLEEMAN. Well, we have asked them for the financial disclosure statements. On the personnel papers, it does say financial disclosure statements were filed at the White House. And we have asked them for the letters of resignation and other correspondence. Some I believe may be covered by executive privilege, but we have given them a list of documents that we have heard about in our interviews that we would like to get.

Chairman GLENN. You also mentioned that an HHS lawyer was present at most of your interviews. Is that normal or was that only done because the court case has been filed? I guess the next question would be, what effect did that have on your interviews?

Ms. KLEEMAN. Well, I do not think we got the same kind of information we would have had had lawyers not been present. I know if I had been the subject of those interviews, I am not sure how I would have felt with a lawyer present watching what I said.

Chairman GLENN. Did the lawyers advise them on occasion not to answer a question?

Ms. KLEEMAN. On occasion there were things that the lawyers felt were relevant to the litigation that they suggested they not answer. On the whole-we had agreed on most of the questions

ahead of time with the lawyers-and on the whole we certainly tried to stay clear of anything that would affect the litigation.

I have never been involved in a case where there were lawyers present at interviews and I just know my answers would be different if I were under that situation.

Chairman GLENN. Did this have sort of a chilling effect?
Ms. KLEEMAN. I suspect so.

Chairman GLENN. The former chairman, Dr. Mayberry, declined to be interviewed, I know. He did send a letter to the Committee, though, and I would like to quote from that letter. "It would be helpful if the chairman could be more involved in selecting the members of the Commission such that a cohesive group could be formed."

Were you able to determine whether Dr. Mayberry had any say in the selection of the other members of the Commission?

Ms. KLEEMAN. I was told that he had some suggestions to offer. I do not know if they were ever reviewed by anyone at the White House. But certainly it is the White House prerogative, the President's prerogative, to name any members of a presidential commission and we just never were able to find out if any of Dr. Mayberry's suggestions were accepted.

Chairman GLENN. That is the President's prerogative. I do not disagree with that. I would think that where a person is asked to be a chairman of something like this, though, that his views would be solicited or sought. I would certainly encourage that, whether it is a presidential commission or whether it is an agency commission being asked for, or a congressional commission.

It would just seem to me to be common sense that you would want that person's advice on putting the group together to perform a very specific task which this group was asked to do.

Ms. KLEEMAN. Right.

Chairman GLENN. It seems to me that that is rather key to the whole thing.

How many AIDS Commissioners had ever served on an advisory panel or presidential commission of any kind before? Did you get a record of that?

Ms. KLEEMAN. We did ask that in interviews. Mr. Ziombra conducted the interviews. Maybe he can talk about it.

Chairman GLENN. Fine.

Mr. ZIOMBRA. Mr. Chairman, three of the commissioners we interviewed told us that they had previously served on advisory committees.

Chairman GLENN. I think it is helpful if you have somebody with some experience, but you are putting together a commission for a very specific purpose, and so you may want to call people who have never been involved with anything before. AIDS is something new in our society and so I can see that you do not necessarily have half a panel of people with previous experience on panels or commissions before.

I think this Commission is a rather important one. What guidance did the AIDS Commissioners receive on their responsibilities as commissioners and when did they get it?

Ms. KLEEMAN. Well, there was a meeting before they were sworn in-I believe it was on July 23-when they met with the President

and the Secretary of HHS and many of the other officials at HHS. I believe that meeting was open to the press. We were not there at that time, but we have understood that they only discussed some of the content or the subject matter and we have been told that the HHS lawyers told them not to interact, that this was not a meeting.

So I believe at that time, they did get some preliminary information about the AIDS subject matter itself.

We also found that services contracted to handle travel and other expenses did send notices to each one of the commissioners about allowed travel and other expenses. Other than that, I am not sure. Did any of the interviewers say that they got any other information?

Mr. ZIOMBRA. No. I think that pretty much covers it, according to what we were told.

Chairman GLENN. I do not know whether you got into it in this kind of depth or not, but I was interested, in reviewing some of this material in preparation for the hearing today, that Dr. Meyers, who was the vice chairman, in his letter back to us in response to our questions of him, had a suggestion that, and I quote out of the middle of his letter here: "It would have been helpful to me as a member of the Presidential Commission to have had an outline of the relevant provisions within the act"-referring to the FACA"perhaps in the form of a handbook that would describe the role of a presidential commission, including answers to some of the common questions about how the group could subdivide the tasks involved, appointment of officers within the commission, travel reimbursement guidelines, perhaps common pitfalls to be avoided. It also would have been quite helpful to know the full range of options available to a commission in achieving its mandate; or in lieu of such a list, a description of those options that are specifically unavailable for a commission to use. Such items should include the dependence and/or independence that a commission should have with respect to the relevant Federal agencies, ability or lack thereof to subcontract specific tasks, definitions of public meetings versus private," and so on.

Then he goes on to explain why he feels these things are important. I thought that was a very good suggestion perhaps because people coming on a commission like this have a lot of questions. They want to perform a job. They are coming in because they feel it is their duty to their country and yet they are sort of lost on how you go through this maze of laws and regulations here in Washing

ton.

From your look at it, do you think that is a good idea?

Ms. KLEEMAN. It sounds like an excellent suggestion. I do know that in our interviews, when we did ask questions related to administrative activities, most of the commissioners were not aware of some of the administrative provisions. It sounds like a very good idea.

Chairman GLENN. The President announced the selection of the Commission members on July 23. Now, FACA provides that an advisory committee cannot meet or take any action until its charter has been filed with GSA. The AIDS Commission's charter was not filed with GSA until July 28.

Did the Commissioners meet or take any action prior to July 28? Ms. KLEEMAN. Maybe our general counsel can answer that. Chairman GLENN. Good.

Ms. GIBSON. As I understand it, and I think Ms. Kleeman mentioned previously, they did have a briefing during meetings with the White House and NIH on July 23. I understand that their role was essentially that of an audience listening to speeches and lectures and some discussion of the rules that would be applicable to them, and that they were advised on several occasions by counsel that they could not conduct business, they could not take action as a committee because their charter had not yet been filed.

So the indication that we have is that they did not take committee action or conduct business before the charter was filed.

Chairman GLENN. The meeting you mentioned out in Rockville, I think, that was one that was rather interesting because I guess they were advised by the lawyers, as you say, not to, "interact." In other words, you can go out there but you are supposed to drink your drink and eat your cookie, or whatever they were doing at this reception, and not discuss anything of any substance whatsoever so it could not be considered a meeting, I guess, which seems a little ludicrous but――

Ms. KLEEMAN. Several of the members did tell me they were very impressed with the array of notables who were collected there and they felt that this was going to be a very important advisory committee.

Chairman GLENN. Why didn't HHS file the AIDS Commission charter by July 23? What was the hold up on that? That is what was holding up the start of operations, wasn't it?

Ms. KLEEMAN. We were not able to find out why. I suspect it is probably just bureaucratic activity. I am not sure. Perhaps GSA would know. The charter is filed with them.

Chairman GLENN. Well, the 13 Commission members were finally sworn in on September 9. Why was there so much of a delay from July to September?

Ms. KLEEMAN. We have no idea. There were activities during that time but we found nothing to give us any hint on that.

Chairman GLENN. Well, this whole Commission is being brought together to develop consensus recommendations on ways for the Government to respond to the AIDS crisis, and it is a crisis.

From your observation do you think they are going to be able to do that?

Ms. KLEEMAN. We did not look at the content of their work at all so I am not sure that

Chairman GLENN. You looked at it as to whether it complied with FACA.

Ms. KLEEMAN. We were looking at the administrative provisions. I would say that given the controversial subject matter that they are dealing with and the controversies that we have heard about so far, it will be a difficult matter at best.

Chairman GLENN. Well, thank you. We want to do whatever we can to help you get the information you need and I hope the White House will take today's hearing as a sign that we do want to follow through on this.

Ms. KLEEMAN. We will follow through for you.

Chairman GLENN. The work of the Commission is very important and we are trying to follow through and make certain that FACA is complied with and that we are doing our job in facilitating their work and making sure they keep on the right track. We are not just heckling people.

We want to make sure that this stays on the right track and we can get the information. We have a system where the right people can get in. They can be brought together expeditiously, do a job and do it well. That is all we are trying to do and if the law gets in the way of that, then we want to change the law. The law should facilitate that and make sure that this thing stays on track.

That is all we are trying to do and I hope the White House will see this as a way to cooperate with us. We should not be playing any games with something as important as this AIDS Commission. We are using it as an example of FACA because it is the most recent, the most visible, and has had the most problems getting off the ground and getting started. And it is important for every one of us in this room that we get that thing underway. So that is the reason that we are using it as an example.

Ms. KLEEMAN. We know they are under a tight deadline and we have tried to be as careful about our requests as possible, but we will continue to follow-up and I believe we will have some recommendations for you on possible changes to the act.

Chairman GLENN. All right, good. We will look forward to getting those.

Thank you very much.

Ms. KLEEMAN. Thank you.

Chairman GLENN. Our next panel is Mr. Eric R. Glitzenstein of Public Citizen Litigation Group, accompanied by William B. Rubenstein of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Dr. Robert F. Murray, Jr., professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Oncology of Howard University College of Medicine.

We welcome you to our hearing today and would welcome either a summary version or the entire report. In either event, your entire testimony will be included in the record.

Mr. Glitzenstein, if you will lead off, we would appreciate your testimony.

TESTIMONY OF ERIC R. GLITZENSTEIN, PUBLIC CITIZEN LITIGATION GROUP;1 ROBERT F. MURRAY, JR., M.D., PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS, MEDICINE, AND ONCOLOGY, HOWARD UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE; 2 AND WILLIAM B. RUBENSTEIN, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION 3

Mr. GLITZENSTEIN. Thank you, Senator Glenn.

I have submitted a rather lengthy statement for the record which covers various aspects of the Advisory Committee law.

Chairman GLENN. It will be included in its entirety.

Mr. GLITZENSTEIN. Thank you. I will try to distill down for the Committee the essential points in the testimony, starting out with an observation.

1 See p. 110 for Mr. Glitzenstein's prepared statement.

2 See p. 130 for Dr. Murray's prepared statement.

3 See p. 137 for Mr. Rubenstein's prepared statement.