Mr. ARENDS. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cole?
Mr. COLE. No.

Mr. PRICE. Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Price?

Mr. PRICE. Mr. Secretary, first of all, I want to say that I wholeheartedly endorse this legislation and have for some time. What do you estimate the cost of the Air Academy to be?

Secretary KYES. Well, I have a number of people here who have general ideas on it. Just a general statement, I would think it would fall within the general areas of academies that you have in the other

services.

Of course, as the complexity of air defense grows, you might have variations over the years. I think all you gentlemen have better than I have in mind about what West Point and Annapolis have cost. It would be I would say in the same general range. There are a number of factors that could vary that, of course.

Mr. PRICE. Of course, Mr. Secretary, the reason I ask the question of you is because in this statement you say it was given the most serious consideration. So I thought that the answer would be one easy to give.

Secretary KYES. Well, I will probably be very frank with you, as I have always tried to be. I think the fixation of an exact cost is rather difficult, because we don't know, by the time each increment of that goes on over the years, as they build it up, whether you are going to have more inflation or less.

Mr. PRICE. Of course, as far as I am concerned the cost is not the most important thing.

Secretary KYES. I don't think it is either.

Mr. PRICE. The reason I asked the question is for the record. I am certain it is one that will come up many times.

Secretary KYES. Well, these gentlemen behind me here have quite a bit of detailed information. But knowing the general area of these other and realizing the fact that assuming it is done on a basis of wise spending and you make proper decisions as to expansion as you go along, it is a basic thing that is needed for the Air Force and therefore to me the cost, assuming that it is well and efficiently done as you say, is a minor element.

Mr. PRICE. I certainly agree. The important thing is the Air Academy, as far as I am concerned.

Secretary KYES. You know, if you do the right thing, the cost is really secondary, because you always get dividends beyond your investment.

Mr. PRICE. I am glad to hear you say that, Mr. Secretary.

The CHAIRMAN. One thing, among many that the President said in his message to us on the state of the Union, on the 7th, was this short sentence:

A professional corps is the heart of any security organization.

And all of us realizing the increasing importance of air power certainly don't need much argument to convince us that it should have its own academy and have its own identity, its own individuality and something that will give it dignity and prestige and place it on an

equal-certainly an equal footing-with the two long-time established Academies at West Point and Annapolis.

Mr. Hardy?

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to follow along that same line. I certainly want to subscribe also to the need for professional trained leaders for the Air Force. I wonder, though, Mr. Secretary, if in view of the increasing emphasis on the Air Force and the diminishing emphasis on the Army and the Navy in your opinion in the not too distant future we may find we have more facilities for training people at the Military Academy and at the Naval Academy perhaps than we need?

Secretary KYES. Well, actually, sir, I sort of found from experience that any endeavor you go into, if you can tailor the thing that you are going to do as the mechanism or the production mechanism, that you get a very efficient return.

Now you have many highly technological problems in relation to the Air Force, with electronics and many other factors. They are going to get more so.

Therefore, I feel it is important in this particular case, because of the high technical levels of the things that we are going into, that we start fresh. Because I think we will get a greater return if we do this on a basis of basic planning for a highly technical approach to it, which every man from his very beginning along with his college training ought to have. That goes into physical arrangement and everything else. That is the point I am trying to make, if I don't make myself clear.

Mr. HARDY. I just want to raise the thought that is running through my head, which I do not subscribe to, of course. But I just wonder whether there might be anybody that would subscribe to the idea of turning West Point over to the Air Force and making some other arrangement for the Army, with a diminishing requirement?

Secretary KYES. Sir, I don't have a crystal ball to look far enough down the road on that.

Mr. SHAFER. Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Shafer.

Mr. SHAFER. Mr. Secretary, I wonder if you have fully studied the testimony on this proposition that was given by Robert Patterson, former Secretary of War, back in the days when we were considering the Unification Act, in 1948?

Secretary KYES. No; I have not, sir.

Mr. SHAFER. Well, in that testimony of course there was a statement made to the effect that such an academy would never be neces

sary.

Secretary KYES. Sir, I think it is necessary.

Mr. SHAFER. And the testimony of the late James Wadsworth who was more or less opposed to such an academy.

Secretary KYES. I think it is necessary. I wouldn't be here asking you to consider it otherwise.

Mr. SHAFER. Don't you think it would be a good idea for the Defense Department to dig up that testimony and read it and then come up here with some answers to it?

Secretary KYES. Well, I haven't read the testimony, sir; so I couldn't even give you an answer to it. I don't know what is in it. Mr. SHAFER. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bennett?

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Secretary, I have heard over a period of several years some discussion by some people of some knowledge in the field I think to the effect that perhaps West Point and Annapolis themselves have outgrown their original function and it would be better if those schools were turned into post graduate schools and that original cadets going to those schools should be people chosen from all universities and colleges throughout the United States and that the present system of having undergraduate level of instruction from Army and Navy should be abandoned.

Have you given any consideration to that thought?

Secretary KYES. Well, I have a very prominent educator, who is Assistant Secretary in Charge of Manpower, and he is going to testify a little later. I believe, with his educational background in the field of heading up educational institutions, he can probably give you a better answer than I could on that.

The CHAIRMAN. And if the gentleman from Florida will yield just at that point.

Mr. BENNETT. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Having discussed this previously with Dr. Hannah, who is the next witness, I am going to have him elaborate on that very point.

Mr. BENNETT. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary KYES. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is one of our outstanding educators, president of a great college that produces not only scholars but championship football teams. We are very happy to have you with us this morning, Dr. Hannah, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel.

You can proceed in your own manner, Doctor. If you want to read. your prepared statement and then answer my questions, you may. Particularly I want you to discuss the point that was raised by the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Bennett.

Mr. HANNAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I should like to present a prepared statement and then I should be happy to answer any questions that I can.

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN A. HANNAH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL

Mr. HANNAH. Mr. Chairman and members of the Armed Services Committee, defense consists of a combination of men, material, and money. It takes men to use the material effectively, to maintain it, design it, and manage it. It takes men to spend the money wisely and to conserve it. In the last analysis a limiting factor in the Defense Department like in most other human activities is the quality of its manpower. The continuing quality and effectiveness of the Air Force will be largely dependent upon the quality of its professional leadership.

I have spent my lifetime as an educator, the past 13%1⁄2 years as the president of a large midwestern land-grant university, with one of our

larger Army and Air ROTC units turning out several hundred second lieutenants each year for the Army and Air Force.

Last spring President Eisenhower turned over to me the annual reports of the Boards of Visitors for West Point and Annapolis with the request that I give these Academies and the proposed Air Academy some serious consideration. This I have tried to do. I appear before you today with a firm conviction that the existing Academies deserve more attention than they have received in recent years and at an appropriate time I shall be happy to discuss the solution of some of their problems that deserve the support of the Congress.

The Defense Department is a huge operation involving the expenditure of vast sums of money. When tens of billions are being spent to assure our survival it is easy to become so involved in considerations of atomic versus standard weapons, guided missiles, radar screens, remote detection centers, carriers versus land bases, and on and on and forget that as we plan for the future there is no more important consideration than the wisest possible programs for training our future military leaders-Army, Navy, and Air.

It is the view of some able and sincere educators that the educational needs of the services could be met adequately by institutions under civilian control. They point out that many of our finest military leaders have come from our civilian colleges and universities. They argue that graduates of civilian institutions bring into the services a highly desirable variety of background, training, and experience, and often a high degree of desirable specialization.

I came to my present office in the Department of Defense with that point of view. I had studied the report of the Service Academy Board, the so-called Stearns report, and I remained convinced that undergraduate training of career officers could best be given in civilian colleges and universities, with the Academies restricted to postgraduate training in various military specialties.

My subsequent experiences in close association with large numbers of graduates of West Point and Annapolis and visits to the two Academies have led me to a complete change of viewpoint. I am now strongly convinced of the wisdom of establishing an Air Force Academy, believing it is to be necessary from the standpoint of national defense, and wholly desirable from an educational point of view.

I have been led to this complete change of attitude by the personal observation that West Point and Annapolis perform two unique functions which no civilian institution of like rank could hope or be expected to do.

I am impressed, first of all, with their intense and continued emphasis upon the ideal of service to the country. Nowhere else, so far as I know, are young men exposed to just that sort of influence over a protracted period. Loyalty and dedication to the service are hallmarks of the graduates of the Military and Naval Academies, and we would be in a sorry state if the professional officers' corps did not have a high proportion of men who are motivated by just those ideals. Since such training is available nowhere else, it is not only desirable but necessary that the Air Force should have its own Academy where it can teach its own cadets those same lessons.

Second, I am impressed by the high standards of integrity and personal ethics enforced at the two service academies. No one would

claim that their graduates are totally beyond reproach, but I do maintain that few professions, if any, can match the success of the service academies in inspiring their members to live up to such high standards of integrity and ethical conduct. These qualities are those which Americans demand of the officers who may some day lead their sons into combat. Again, the Air Force is certainly entitled to have its own Academy where it can indoctrinate its own cadets with the ideals and proud historical traditions of American military airmen.

The recommendation of the Stearns report that at least 50 percent of the professional officer corps should be made up of Air Force Academy graduates leaves ample room for the introduction into the Air Force of graduates of the civilian universities, who bring with them the qualities I mentioned earlier. It leaves room, too, for the ROTC program to continue to perform its highly useful services in training officer candidates, thousands of whom have served with great distinction in all of our military services.

I see another advantage in having an academy devoted to serving the best interests of the Air Force, and through the Air Force, the best interests of the country. It should be possible to attract to the faculty of such an Academy the Nation's foremost authorities on aviation, who would be both an inspiration to their fellow teachers and their students, and a vital force in the advancement of research and development. Any thinking person knows that we have reached only the opening stages of the air age, and that the security of our country depends to a great degree upon our success in keeping abreast or ahead of other countries in the field of military aviation. It is reasonable to anticipate that the science of aviation would be benefited greatly by having such authorities on the faculty of an Air Force Academy, where in their thinking, teaching, and research, they would perform more effectively than it is possible for them to do under existing circumstances.

In the Department of Defense, and especially in those offices concerned with manpower and personnel, we look upon this Academy as meeting a long-range need of the Air Force. It is in the best national interest to establish an Air Force Academy which will provide a corps of officers who are dedicated to their country, inspired to live and work by high standards of integrity, and trained to meet the particular requirements of the service to which they owe their loyalty. Long years ahead historians may well record that one of the most significant accomplishments of this 83d Congress was the authorization for the establishment of this Air Force Academy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for a very excellent statement. Any questions?

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Brooks.

Mr. BROOKS. May I ask a question? Dr. Hannah, you refer here. in your statement to the need, "At least 50 percent of the professional officer corps should come from the Academy graduates." What is the percentage that would come from the other services, other service academies, to the services?

Dr. HANNAH. Of course, that varies with the strength of the armed services. The ideal toward which Annapolis and West Point both