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Public WelfaCARD DIVISION

NOMINATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

4-AUG 20

Copy 1969

LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE
UNITED STATES SENATE

NINETY-FIRST CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

DR. ROGER O. EGEBERG, OF CALIFORNIA, TO BE AN ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

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The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Ralph Yarborough (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Yarborough (presiding), Randolph, Williams, Pell, Kennedy, Nelson, Mondale, Eagleton, Cranston, Hughes, Javits, Prouty, Dominick, Murphy, Schweiker, and Bellmon.

Committee staff present: Robert O. Harris, staff director; John S. Forsythe, general counsel; Roy H. Millenson, minority staff director; and Jay Cutler, minority counsel.

The CHAIRMAN, The Committee on Labor and Public Welfare will come to order.

The first order of business this morning is three nominations: Dr. Roger Egeberg, of California, to be Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; Dr. Hubert Heffner, of California, to be Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology; and, Dr. William David McElroy, of Maryland, to be Director of the National Science Foundation. These will be taken up in the order in which I have read the names. Dr. Roger Egeberg, of California, will be first. I recognize the Senator from California, Mr. Murphy.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MURPHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Senator MURPHY. I am very appreciative of the opportunity accorded me by the chairman to introduce Dr. Roger Egeberg.

I am also pleased to see that my colleague, Senator Cranston, is present and I imagine that when I am finished he will want to have a word or two on Dr. Egeberg.

Mr. Chairman, I consider it a great privilege to have the opportunity to introduce to your committee this morning Dr. Roger Egeberg, of Los Angeles, who has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for Health and Scientific Affairs. Dr. Egeberg resides in Los Angeles and has resided there since the Second World War.

His reputation in his professional capacity, as an administrator of welfare, and in the different positions which he has undertaken has been of great accomplishment. Dr. Egeberg has lived a most productive life.

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He has served for the past 5 years as the dean of the school of medicine at the University of Southern California.

He received his B.A. degree from Cornell University. He received his Ph. D. from Northwestern and then returned to Chicago for his internship. He served his residency in Ann Arbor, Mich. He went into practicing medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1932.

Dr. Egeberg served in the Medical Corps of the Army. He was decorated with the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit. The Government of Norway decorated him. It is a tribute to his ability.

General MacArthur asked him to be his personal physician-a position which he held for the last 2 years of the war. Following the war Dr. Egeberg worked in Los Angeles and performed medical service at the Veterans' Administration hospital.

After 10 years in that position he became medical director of the Los Angeles County Hospital.

He began to teach as a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California. I know that the great deal of professional skill which he has shown in these positions will serve him well in Washington.

He brings to this important position a rare combination of great ability as an administrator and great ability in the field of medicine and the charm that I am certain you will find displayed by him.

It is a great pleasure for me to introduce to this committee Dr. Roger Egeberg, and to enthusiastically endorse this nomination and to express my sincere hope that the committee will see fit to pass on this nomination as quickly as possible.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Murphy. We appreciate your very fine words. I certainly agree with you that this is a most important position.

I recognize the junior Senator from California, Senator Cranston.

STATEMENT OF HON. ALAN CRANSTON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Senator CRANSTON. I want to join with my colleague, George Murphy, in his warm welcome to Dr. Egeberg and I am delighted to have you with us and look forward to your discharge of the new responsibilities that I hope you are going to have.

I think we can all agree that the vital position you have been nominated for has been vacant all too long.

There is a great need for far-sighted, imaginative, and energetic national leadership in the health field. And I believe, if your past accomplishments and statements are any measure, that you are eminently qualified to provide that much needed leadership.

I very much enjoyed the discussion we had in my office last week when you arrived here on such very short notice. I am particularly impressed to note your role in the organization and administration of a neighborhood health center in the Watts area of Los Angeles. I understand that you were the first medical school dean to undertake personally the position of project director of such a center.

I also understand that you have been instrumental in recruiting black physicians to participate at the center and in the decision to use local labor, and local contractors in the construction of center facilities.

Finally, I am delighted to learn that you are not one to let vital projects become hungup by the technicalities of Government funding arrangements. I know that when your center's OEO money was held up, you were able to secure the private funds to carry on, and I have great respect for that approach.

Your deep concern for community health and your commitment to community involvement in delivering community health care, as well as your progressive achievements as scholar and administrator and your compassion and humanity as a practicing physician, would seem to have qualified you very well indeed for the immensely challenging task that you will be facing to charting a course and a plan for delivery of health services to the many millions now so inadequately served with basic medical care.

Finally, and of major importance, I note that you can expect great support in your many responsibilities from your wife, Margaret, whose political taste, by the way, I greatly admire.

As coauthor with you of a number of your numerous published pieces, I am sure that she will be of great aid and comfort to you in the late evening hours, when, after a long day of travail, you are able to discuss with her, for example, soil salinity in the southern Joaquin Valley. Few of us, I am sure, share such common interests with our spouses.

California is, I am sure, proud at the honor bestowed upon you and her by your selection, and we all wish you great wisdom, and it seems appropriate to add, continued excellent health.

Thank you.

Dr. EGEBERG. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Cranston.
Senator Prouty.

STATEMENT OF HON. WINSTON L. PROUTY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF VERMONT

Senator PROUTY. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to welcome Dr. Egeberg this morning and trust he will receive speedy confirmation.

While I had never met Dr. Egeberg prior to last week, I am familiar with his writings and deeds. My colleagues are probably aware of his articles on the need to make medical education more pertinent and to involve medical students in community programs.

I think Dr. Egeberg has contributed much to the vital question of the maximum utilization of our medical resources. His writings on regional medical programs are particularly illuminating.

But it is not solely to a man's writings that we should look for an understanding of his abilities; we must also consider a man's actions. Dr. Egeberg has and continues to be an advocate as well as an activist. I can point to his role in providing medical programs in the strife-torn Watts section of Los Angeles and his effective leadership in numerous studies all carried on while he was an active professor and then dean.

My recent meeting with Dr. Egeberg confirmed my earlier impression of him as a man imminently qualified for the Nation's top health post. I look forward to his active and imaginative leadership in this post.

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