Mr. HAYS. You are going to have a hard time getting very much for that if you are going to let some fellow who has nothing to do with the buildings program spend $40,000 willy-nilly whenever he feels like it.

Mr. CROCKETT. He doesn't expend it willy-nilly whenever he feels like it, Mr. Chairman. This will have to be justified just like all the

money.

Mr. HAYS. It would appear you are going to have two different people running your building program. If you have a fellow building a $40,000 annex onto his house, would you be consulting the foreign buildings people?

Mr. CROCKETT. There must be consultation with our foreign buildings construction people or they don't get the money. Right now we are looking at the program for what we are going to give each regional bureau out of the 1966 appropriation.

Mr. Del Favero brought it to me this morning to look at, item by item, project by project.

We specify in advance what they are going to have for what purpose. This will save additional money on staffing, reduce the overhead even further than we have reduced it before. We don't need as many regional people as we even had in the past in the central FBO office. There has been duplication between the central FBO office and the regional offices.

Mr. HAYS. Under this new system, supposing someone down in Managua, Nicaragua decides he wants two extra bedrooms on the Ambassador's residence. Who does he have to get permission from to spend this $40,000?

Mr. CROCKETT. He has to get the money and has to get the permission.

Mr. HAYS. Where from?

Mr. CROCKETT. From the central FBO office. They will not have the money to do these kinds of things. This is a routine kind of thing, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HAYS. But he can go up to $40,000.

Mr. CROCKETT. This is a definition of minor improvements but this isn't the definition we have given regional bureaus and what they can do. This kind of minor improvement has to be approved architecturally by the central FBO office, and policywise, whether we are going to spend the money there or whether there is money available.

So the central FBO office still has control on these kinds of things. I am talking about the routine maintenance for day-to-day operations. Whether you paint this wall or whether you put in a window there or whether you change a door or whether you change a partition. These are the kinds of things where the posts ought to have total authority on.

Mr. HAYS. That doesn't even have to come to Washington.

Mr. CROCKETT. Not if they have the money to do it out of their allotment. Even now they do much of this under Mr. Johnstone's administration, where we eliminated these regional supervisors. We gave the post administrative officers a great deal of additional authority for routine local maintenance.

Mr. HAYS. Mr. Scarritt, aren't you the administrative officer in Mexico City at the moment?

STATEMENT OF RALPH SCARRITT, DIRECTOR-DESIGNATE, FOREIGN BUILDINGS OFFICE

Mr. SCARRITT. Yes, sir.

Mr. HAYS. What do you think you could do down there without asking Washington? What have you done?

Mr. SCARRITT. We have made partition changes where we originally designed two offices side by side. If it made sense to put a larger room in, I have taken a partition out as long as it doesn't affect the structural strength of the building.

Mr. HAYS. That is about the maximum that has been done down there?

Mr. CROCKETT. They can do leasing; we have delegated leasing to them so that they can do more leasing than they have ever done in the past without coming to Washington.

Mr. HAYS. What could they lease, for example?

Mr. CROCKETT. Heretofore, if a new employee were looking for housing and we had no Government lease, they would have to get approval for a Government lease. Now, if it makes more sense to have a Government lease than a private lease, they can make the Government lease and then not pay the allowances. They have a great deal more authority on leases than they have had in the past, but there isn't much change on this and the only real change is that the contact point for the post on FBO matters in the first instance is the regional bureaus now instead of FBO.

I am convinced in my own mind that it will reduce the amount of paperwork, reduce the amount of duplication, and it will save money and it will not diminish the amount of central control on the kind of buildings we have, whether we spend our money for the improvements we make in our buildings, or what we spend our money for. Even the so-called minor improvements. We have to insure that the money is spent wisely, as wisely as we can determine.

Mr. HAYS. While we are on Mexico City, how much is this change in the new ambassador's residence going to cost?

Mr. SCARRITT. I don't have the figures on it yet, Mr. Chairman. I have finished the sketches and the specifications and I hope to go out for bids just as soon as I get back. They are working on it right

now.

Mr. HAYS. What do you estimate?

Mr. SCARRITT. I guess in the neighborhood of $45,000 to $50,000. Mr. HAYS. What are you doing inside the house?

Mr. SCARRITT. Making the modifications that we discussed on the bedroom areas and the dining room and that is all.

Mr. HAYS. Are you leaving the bar in?

Mr. SCARRITT. No, sir, I am taking it out.

Mr. HAYS. It is already out.

Mr. SCARRITT. It is not out, but it is marked to go out.

Mrs. BOLTON. Why?

Mr. HAYS. If you had seen it, you wouldn't ask that question. That is the best answer I can give you.

Mr. JOHNSTONE. When you walk in the door, immediately you see this big bar.

Mr. HAYS. A huge building and the first thing you see when you come in the front door is a bar.

Mrs. BOLTON. Who put that in?

Mr. JOHNSTONE. It was in the house when we purchased it.

Mrs. BOLTON. I have a very strange feeling about this reorganization plan, Mr. Crockett. It seems to me that it makes everything separate and puts everything further away.

Mr. CROCKETT. On the contrary, Mrs. Bolton, it brings it closer

to me.

Mrs. BOLTON. Closer to your group, yes, sir.
Mr. CROCKETT. Closer to me personally.

Mrs. BOLTON. Why? You can't cover it all.

Mr. CROCKETT. No, but I bear the final responsibility for it.
Mrs. BOLTON. Yes, but that is very different.

Mr. CROCKETT. I have a very, very direct interest in it.

Mrs. BOLTON. Yes, I am sure of that.

Mr. CROCKETT. I have participated very closely in it and I think the organization puts the routine where it needs to be, but on the policy and on the decisions, I want to participate. I want to know what is going on. I think this organization will make me have a more intimate part in it than I have ever had in the past.

Mrs. BOLTON. Who originates this in any of these places? Does the consul or the ambassador, or who?

Mr. CROCKETT. They come about in various ways. Certainly every post, virtually every post, has a program that they are trying to put forward. Every post needs office buildings, the consulate needs an office building, so that the unfulfilled need around the world is terrific.

Mr. HAYS. Are you equating the word "need" with "desire" at this point?

Mr. CROCKETT. Yes, the unfilled desire is terrific. All the posts go to their own regional bureau and say "On next year's budget we would like an office building annex. We need staff housing, et cetera."

Then the Director and the Assistant Secretary sort it out as to what they think they ought to have. What are the things of highest priority? Then they give it to FBO.

Then the Central FBO Office starts sorting them down.

Mrs. BOLTON. How many women ever have anything to say about what changes are made?

Mr. CROCKETT. Do you mean ambassadors' wives?

Mrs. BOLTON. Wives and other people.

Mr. CROCKET. I would say too many, Mrs. Bolton. One of our problems is, very frankly

Mrs. BOLTON. Is the women, of course. Men always did think so. Mr. CROCKETT. Not only the women, but the ambassadors. One of the problems is in building an office building or building a residence or improving a residence, that every one of these occupants think about it and look at it and want things that relate to them as individuals. Whether it is design, room arrangement, number of rooms, color scheme, furnishings, and this is fine, but all women don't like their walls painted black and the floors red and some women do, and all men don't like

Mrs. BOLTON. But, as I understand it in Paris-I went to the decorative group there which I thought was excellent. The people I talked to had more common sense than I had found in a long time and had great taste and so on.

Mr. CROCKETT. I am talking about the individual occupant.
Mrs. BOLTON. Is that what your regional office would be?

Mr. CROCKETT. Yes, and this is what the FBO's Central Office does: Try to bring about balance between the desire of the occupant, what the wife and the ambassador want, and what we believe is more reasonable in terms of the long-range occupancy of the building.

Mrs. BOLTON. Of course.

Of course.

Mr. CROCKETT. We can't decorate and furnish every one of these buildings just to suit the individual person.

Mrs. BOLTON. Incidentally, I am an exceedingly practical person so I know what those differences, those problems are, and what a lot of trouble we women make.

Mr. CROCKETT. Every woman is a natural born interior decorator. Mrs. BOLTON. I would just like to say this to you, Mr. Crockett: When they built these buildings, these additions, these great things, not a woman had boo to say and most of the foolishness and the ridiculous things that were done was because there was no woman anywhere to tell them they were foolish

Mr. CROCKETT. I think this is right and most of us would be better off if we listened more to women.

Mrs. BOLTON. Once in a while.

Mr. CROCKETT. But now we have had the interior decoration done by women for a number of years.

Mrs. BOLTON. It has been improved enormously and I congratulate everybody who has had anything to do with it.

Mr. CROCKETT. We have done an excellent job in recent years. Mrs. BOLTON. Yes, and at other times it has been very bad but I think it is a man's world. We know that.

Mr. JOHNSTONE. You mean you have led us to believe that, Mrs. Bolton.

Mrs. BOLTON. We have to live in it.

Mr. JOHNSTONE. The ladies spend something like 90 percent of all the funds in the country; something on that order. Mrs. BOLTON. The women of the country, yes. own most everything, too.

Of course, here we

Mr. CROCKETT. We try to bring about a balance between the needs, the ideas of the occupants of the post.

To carry on, it is the job of the central FBO office, past, present, and future, to determine the priorities. What are the things that are most needed worldwide? What makes the most sense for us

to do next year?

Now, this always changes because of several things. One, there may be opportunities to buy something that we ought to buy. We like to take advantage of a good buy that comes up here or there as Mr. Johnstone mentioned yesterday. Also, there are natural emergencies. For instance, an earthquake took place at a post in South America and damaged the residence occupied by an ambassador. He is sleeping in his backyard. It is a rented place, therefore, we must find him something else. All we could do was find a place to buy. His family are sleeping in the dining and living rooms. think this changes the priority.

Mrs. BOLTON. Yes, of course.

I

Mr. CROCKETT. Also, advances in cost change priority. Oftentimes what we plan in this budget is one thing. When we get it designed and get the bids out, the costs have increased. There is some fallout every year in the priorities we plan for but in general this is the way the system works at present and will continue to work. Mr. FARBSTEIN (presiding). What is your reaction to a $40,000 improvement?

Mr. CROCKETT. Sir?

Mr. FARBSTEIN. What is your reaction to the sum of $40,000 improvement being permitted by the post?

Mr. CROCKETT. We don't permit this by the post. What we call it is minor improvements. For administrative designation, we differentiate between "original construction" and "major improvement" and "minor improvements."

The minor improvement break is $40,000. We could make it $20,000 or $5,000.

Mr. FARBSTEIN. I am inquiring whether or not in your opinion $40,000 is a minor improvement so that technically the local Ambassador or whoever it is may determine to do so

Mr. CROCKETT. He may not determine to do so, even now.

Mr. FARBSTEIN. You, yourself, admit they are permitted to do minor improvements.

Mr. CROCKETT. No; I didn't say that. They are not permitted to do anything. FBO still determines whether it goes on. They are not permitted to do anything. They can suggest it, but in the categorization of the way things fall, it is called a minor improvement, but it doesn't mean they have authority to do it.

They don't have the money to do it. We don't give them the money. They can't do it without the money.

Mr. FARBSTEIN. Then I understand for all purposes they have the right just to make repairs and maintenance?

Mr. CROCKETT. That is right.

Mr. FARBSTEIN. To any structure that presently exists?

Mr. CROCKETT. That is right.

Mr. FARBSTEIN. But insofar as improvements of any kind, nature, or description are concerned, they must come back for permission. Mr. CROCKETT. Surely; and money. And money.

Mrs. BOLTON. Which is the largest item in the permissive angle of life? Money.

Mr. CROCKETT. Always. Money is the most important factor in the whole business. You know it doesn't matter what control you say you have or what control is written in the regulations, the real control is whether the people have the money to do it or not. This is the real control.

Mrs. BOLTON. Yes; and that is why you come to us and that is why some of us ask what appear to be very foolish questions.

Mr. CROCKETT. No; this is a very important part of it.

Mrs. BOLTON. I have a number of things in the back of my head that trouble me very much. They have not been cleared away. Mr. FARBSTEIN. The reason I raised the question of local currency is because in another committee, of which I happen to be the chairman-another subcommittee-we find that we are having a lot of difficulty in intelligently disposing of this local currency. It is my