Mr. BANTON. How was the interest of Twin Coach generated? Mr. Gunther, of Robert Heller, knew the Twin Coach Co., knew some of their activities. He saw Mr. Fageol. Mr. Fageol evidenced interest, and we got together and told him what our ideal would be and I think he produced the first vehicle just off the cuff. And the stuff he could readily get together and assemble. And that had potential and there was a number of defects in it and we ordered four. They were good, but we wanted to be sure, when you are talking about three or four thousand vehicles, you feel like having some evidence.

Mr. PLAPINGER. I agree with you, sir, but when we try to find out what experimental data you have, that would justify the procurement of two or three thousand, we have not been able to get that experimental data from the Department. I think that request was addressed to the Department while you were still there, Mr. Banton.

Mr. BANTON. That was.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Let me pursue that just a moment.

Mr. Banton, is there such data in the Department?

Mr. BANTON. I don't know whether it is available or not.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Was it available at the time?

Mr. BANTON. If it had been readily available, we would have contributed.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. What do you mean by "readily"?

Mr. BANTON. So we could get it together.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. It would have to be readily available to serve any useful purpose to you for the purpose of your analysis?

Mr. BANTON. Yes; I don't

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Wait just a moment. You said, "Yes," and then added something else. Did you say "Yes" to my question? Mr. BANTON. I think I did; yes.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Did you mean "Yes"?

Mr. BANTON. I am not positive that that data was available. If that data had been available, I am sure you would have got it.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. What was your first reaction when you received the letter from us? What did you do with the letter?

Mr. BANTON. I think the first thing I did when I received that letter was discuss it with Mr. Goff.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. What did Mr. Goff tell you?

Mr. BANTON. He told me to get the data together.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Did you get it together?

Mr. BANTON. Yes.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. What did you do with it?

Mr. BANTON. Sent up to his office.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. What did you do with it, Mr. Goff?

Mr. GOFF. As far as I know, I looked it over and drafted a letter and sent it to Mr. Abrams, and he sent it up to you.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. That is wonderful. Are you representing Mr. Abrams?

Mr. GoFF. No. Mr. Abrams signed the letter and the data he sent is what you got.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Are you saying to me, Mr. Goff, you sent and made available to Mr. Abrams all of the material and data Mr. Banton made available to you, is that right?

Mr. GoFF. Well now

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. At that time I did not submit any data to you folks. But I understand Mr. Banton went through his records and supplied material he got together from his records in draft form to our office and that a letter was drafted for Mr. Abrams' signature and that the material was forwarded.

Mr. PLAPINGER. Excuse me, but that is a summary report of the history of the sit-stand vehicle development.

On March 7, under the chairman's signature, there was a letter addressed to Mr. Banton saying:

I would like detailed information, if available, over and above data and records kept in the normal course of business on all trucks concerning the performance of these 250 vehicles. This should include the date and nature and results of any tests to which these vehicles were put, a description of the conditions under which such tests were conducted, copies of the special records kept concurrent with the tests and any other pertinent data.

Now, are you saying that that information was furnished to us? Mr. O'DONOGHUE. I am relating only what was furnished in answer to your initial letter.

I don't know, I have some copies of the correspondence here. I don't know what was furnished in reply to that. The letter you refer to was what date?

Mr. PLAPINGER. March 7.

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. Was that letter written during the—that is the letter to which Mr. Abrams replied.

Mr. PLAPINGER. Mr. Abrams could not very well reply to our letter of March 7 on February 27.

Mr. GoFF. I frankly don't remember seeing this letter that you are referring to.

Mr. PLAPINGER. Well, sir, on March 30 you answered it and said: Reference is made to your letter of March 7 and 8 addressed to Mr. Banton and myself of this department, respectively.

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. That was the detailed data of 15 pages of material Mr. Banton supplied to you.

Mr. PLAPINGER. That was comparative cost.

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. A chart of delivery times at Miami, Fla., during

1954.

Mr. PLAPINGER. And some tests in Warren.

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. Some comments on that. The procedures followed in that test, which took several pages. Then there was extracted data running-let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, about roughly 9 or 10 pages of extracted data.

Mr. PLAPINGER. What kind of extracted data?

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. Extracted data showing averages of controlled tests of performances at Miami. There was the disposition of Twin Coach vehicles as of March 4, 1955.

Mr. PLAPINGER. Was that experimental data?

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. I could not speak on that.

Mr. PLAPINGER. That is the question before the committee now. Mr. O'DONOGHUE. That was the data supplied to us by the industrial engineer's office as data which it was felt would be responsive to your inquiry, and we in turn forwarded it.

In addition to that, there was that estimated savings, estimates, statements, and Twin Coach vehicles costs at certain named offices, covering another 10 pages, apparently.

Mr. PLAPINGER. Was there any of the extensive experimental data that Mr. Gunther referred to at the last hearing?

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. I would have no knowledge of that. I am merely a conduit of the information.

Mr. PLAPINGER. Maybe that is the trouble. We have too many conduits and not enough areas of responsibility.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Goff, do you have a Mr. Doyle in your office? Mr. GoFF. Yes, I do.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Was he handling this matter for you?

Mr. GOFF. No. He helped get some of this stuff together. Just like we are anxious to furnish you the material you wanted. One of your letters came. It was referred to us. We told him to get the data together and we drafted whatever reply was necessary. Mr. Doyle, I would assume, probably just checked over

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Is this Mr. Doyle here today?

Mr. GOFF. No, he is not. But I don't think Mr. Doyle would know anything about the data. I remember now seeing this, because I remember those colored sheets, but I certainly did not go through the material, because I don't think my judgment on what the data was would be very

Mr. MOLLOHAN. That is one of the things we wanted to find out. Is it customary in the Post Office Department for all requests for data to go through the Solicitor's Office?

Mr. GOFF. On this particular thing, an investigation, yes.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Every congressional investigation of any sort clears through your office?

Mr. GOFF. Well, I would say this, that not on every one I actually see it, but they will call me up and say we have had a request.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. But it is sent up to your office and you go over it and have someone in your department go over it or clear it and then you send it to the Congress, is that right?

Mr. GoFF. That was not always done.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Was there some special reason for handling this in that way?

Mr. GOFF. Yes; there was.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Would you please put that on the record? What was this?

Mr. GOFF. Here was an official committee investigation.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. You understand I am talking about official committee investigations in all instances.

Mr. GOFF. This was one we anticipated there might be a hearing on. It would be my responsibility to represent the Department at the hearing. And I wanted to know something about it.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Isn't that always highly suggestive in any inquiry of a committee of Congress, that it might very well result in a hearing? Should not such a precaution be made in all such cases?

Mr. GOFF. I would say in this present Congress we tried to do that. We try to be informed what these investigations are. We try to make some coordination in regard to them, what committees are interested, what the subject of the investigation is, and then there is the other part-we were trying to make quite an effort to see that the letters were answered with some degree of promptness and that you did get an answer, because I think there has been some tendency not to appreciate how important it is to get these replies in.

Now, as to what the data shows, I am not in a position to say what is submitted by the Department. If they say it covers the inquiry, I certainly don't check through it.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. There are just two steps I want to clear right now. In response to this letter we just referred to a moment ago, under date of March 7, you supplied in your opinion all of the material you had there, dealing with this experiment?

Mr. BANTON. That is right.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. You supplied it all to Mr. Goff?

Mr. BANTON. That is right.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Now, Mr. Goff, can you state there is someone in your Department who submitted all the material from Mr. Banton, which answered that question and was responsive to that question? Mr. GoFF. As near as anybody could say, it would be Mr. O'Donoghue. He was working on this particular thing.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Our staff director had some conversations with Mr. Doyle in response to a direct question about it. Our staff director talked with Mr. Banton. Mr. Banton said it would take approximately 10 days to get the material together. Our staff director, Mr. Banton, told you it was entirely all right to send it on when you got it. Mr. BANTON. Yes.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Then when you did get it, you sent it to Mr. Goff's office and the matter went on for 2 weeks. Our man called you back. You said you would send it over a week or 10 days ago to Mr. Goff's office. Then our office called your office and spoke to Mr. Doyle. Mr. Doyle's response was it was rather voluminous and required quite a bit of analysis, and so forth, going through it, but it would be ready for submission for us. It dragged on a couple of weeks longer before we got it. And I was just wondering what sort of analysis you and the Solicitor's Office felt you should make of this experimental data before you feel it is in fit shape to submit to a committee of the Congress, and it seems, since this Mr. Doyle talked to us, it seems to me he would probably be in a better position to answer the question than Mr. O'Donoghue.

Mr. GOFF. Mr. O'Donoghue was doing the work.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Doyle was doing the talking.

Mr. GoFF. Mr. Doyle is the Solicitor in charge of opinions in the Legislative Division. It would be natural it would be referred to him. Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. O'Donoghue, did you receive the file as Mr. Banton submitted it to the Solicitor's Office?

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. As I understand it, there were several submissions. I did not write the proposed letter sending the material over, which Mr. Abrams signed.

answer.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Wait a minute. That is not going to get this The only answer I want is this: To the best of your knowledge, did you get the complete file containing all of the data as Mr. Banton submitted to the Solicitor's Office?

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. My point is there were several requests on your part and I did not deal with all of your requests. On the recent request I composed the letters on those, but the answer to the initial request was sent by someone else according to my recollection, but a general collection of that material was not handled by me. Then Mr. Banton submitted, in answer to the second letter your counsel men

tioned here. He submitted other material to our office. A composite of material.

We then forwarded that to you. We wrote a letter.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Did you forward all of that?

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. I forwarded the material that Mr. Banton supplied for forwarding in that particular case.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Was that the material which, in your opinion represented the fulfillment of our request of March 7?

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. Of course, as far as my opinion in the technical ⚫ field can go, I believe roughly about 20 pages of material were supplied at that time.

Mr. GOFF. I believe I ought to say something. This just occurs to me again. In fairness to Mr. O'Donoghue, I believe he was trying to see me and left word he wanted to talk to me about this thing over a period of time. I was tied up

Mr. O'DONOGHUE. There were several occasions where you were tied up or out of town.

Mr. GOFF. I think I must have been gone part of the time and Mr. O'Donoghue did not want to let this go without me seeing it. I think I was out of town part of the time.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Would it not be entirely proper to clear through Mr. Doyle, since he is the Assistant Solicitor, and from what you said a moment ago, must have been responsible for this?

Mr. GoFF. I think on some of these they wanted to clear this through

me.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Man, this must have been particularly important. Mr. GoFF. Well, I think he felt they wanted to clear it with me for this committee.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Was it because of political overtones?

Mr. GOFF. That might have been.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Did someone in the committee staff suggest to you there was politics involved?

Mr. GoFF. Not in the committee staff.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Someone out of the staff?

Mr. GoFF. Yes.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Would you like to go on record stating who told you that this was a politically inspired investigation?

Mr. GoFF. I don't want to make a statement where that comes from. We will see the report when it comes out.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. What report?

Mr. GOFF. The report of this committee.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Do you know what you have been doing, in effect, Mr. Goff, is challenging this committee every step of the way? Mr. GoFF. I don't believe so.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Your opening statement is that you accepted this as a politically inspired investigation. Isn't that a challenge? Mr. GOFF. Well, I didn't say so.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. It was to me when I got it.

Mr. GOFF. Mr. Mollohan, we have a lot of things to look out for. Mr. MOLLOHAN. What was your reaction to the suggestion that it might be well to talk to any minority members of the committee and see whether, in their opinion, it was a politically inspired investigation?