particular problems of the tungsten producers. Eighty percent of the production of tungsten in the United States can be produced profitably at $45 or less.

Mr. ENGLE. How much do we need that we don't have? How much is your consumption of tungsten right now?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I can't give you a precise figure. Some of the figures which I have seen have been classified as military secrets. Mr. ENGLE. It is about 30 million pounds, isn't it, something like that?

I

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. Of that neighborhood, if you want to press me. am perfectly willing to talk about it, but I understand these figures are confidential. If you want to take it off the record I will say anything you want.

Mr. ENGLE. I am not going to take anything off the record. I can sit down here with a pencil and arrive at some of these figures and the figure of 30 million pounds has been bandied around. Our production is about 5 million a year.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. That is right.

Mr. ENGLE. In other words, the requirements of this nation are at least six times what we can produce, isn't that right?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. All I would say is that nobody really knows what those requirements are. Those are figures that have been stated at various times. I went through the last war. I saw requirements figures at different times and those requirement figures are not firm. Mr. ENGLE. You have to take the best estimate you can get? Mr. LIPKOWITZ. That is right; we have taken them.

Mr. ENGLE. And if you make a mistake it is too bad for our steel industry.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. All I want to say, Mr. Congressman, is that regardless of the level of requirements, whether it is 20, 30 or 40 million pounds, it makes no difference in terms of the setting of the ceiling price. It only makes a difference in how far you want to go on subsidies because whether you need it or not, if you can't get it you can't get it, and if you can, you can. It has nothing to do with what you need. If you haven't got the reserves, you can need it all, but you can't mine them.

INDUSTRY REQUESTED BY OPS METALS BRANCH TO FURNISH TRAINED PERSONNEL TO WRITE OWN ORDERS AND REGULATIONS

Mr. ENGLE. I want to ask you a couple more questions.

Is the fact that you are sitting next to Mr. Ewing now, does that mean that you are his chief adviser?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I don't know what Mr. Ewing regards me as. I am the economist for the division of which Mr. Ewing is the chief of one branch.

Mr. ENGLE. Now, the second question: Do you feel that you have any obligation at all in connection with these price ceilings to discuss the matter with the industry?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. Surely. We have discussed them at various times. Mr. ENGLE. But you didn't talk to anybody in the industry on tungsten; is that right?

82354-52- -13

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. Various people here have talked with various people in the industry. I am not the only one who has anything to do with this, I assure you. You asked me what I thought. I told you.

Mr. ENGLE. I hope you are not the only one and I want to ask Mr. Ewing a question. Mr. Ewing, do you think that the mining industry of this country can have any confidence in your organization when you have men with the qualification and background and beliefs of Mr. Lipkowitz running your affairs and as your chief adviser?

Mr. EWING. Mr. Engle, I want to qualify that. Mr. Lipkowitz is not the chief adviser on tungsten. Our chief adviser on that is Mr. Jacoby.

Mr. ENGLE. Why didn't you bring him up here?

Mr. EWING. I brought him with me. He is here.
Mr. ENGLE. He is not up here advising you.

Mr. EWING. That I thought was possibly an approach from an economic standpoint, you wanted to know how we were justifying our prices. Sam is responsible for giving us the necessary statistics. Mr. DONOVAN. You haven't fixed any prices, have you?

Mr. EWING. Not any.

Mr. DONOVAN. Why justify anything that doesn't exist?

Mr. EWING. We have fixed a price on tungsten, which we are discussing.

Mr. ENGLE. I have one more question: How do you think that the mining industry of this country is going to have any confidence in what your organization is doing when you don't have a single one there who has ever had any practical experience in mine operation. Mr. EWING. I will put it this way to you: As far as the mining industry is concerned, before we issue any orders, it is our custom to have a group of people in. Now can I cite that it is customary and just as a matter of interest, as I told you we made verbal agreements on copper, lead, and zinc with some of the many producers.

At that time, if you would care to, on lead and zinc, I will read the list of people whom we consulted with. Would that be interesting to vou, Mr. Budge?

Mr. BUDGE. You are not answering my question.

Mr. EWING. I will try to answer Mr. Engle.

Mr. ENGLE. I just asked how you thought. It seems to me if I were running your shop, I would want to have somebody in it that could command the confidence of the industry I was working with, because if you don't do it, you are not going to get the kind of information that you ought to have.

Mr. EWING. Possibly I haven't made myself clear.

Mr. ENGLE. You don't know anybody in there that knows about this

matter.

Mr. EWING. Wait a minute. The toughest job you have is staffing. I wanted to call attention to the fact that on the 3d of January we met with the copper industry. At that time we had Mr. Cox from Kennecott present, we had Mr. Douglas from Phelps Dodge, Mr. Dwyer from Anaconda, Mr. Lynch from Calumet and Hecla, Mr. Singer from Miami, Mr. DeWitt Smith from Newmont, Mr. Simon Strauss from American Smelting, Mr. Zimmer from American Metal, and Mr. LaCroix from Copper Range.

At that meeting we made it very clear to them that it was up to them to furnish us with the men who draw their own regulations and

that is the policy that we have taken. From that meeting they furnished me Mr. Lenz. The next day we had a meeting on lead and

zinc.

We had Mr. Bilherz from Tri-State Zinc & Lead, Mr. Walter Carroll from National Lead, Mr. Dwyer from Anaconda, Mr. Harvey from New Jersey Zinc, Mr. Ince from St. Joseph Lead, Mr. LeFevre from United States Smelting & Refining, Mr. Kenly from New Jersey Zinc, Mr. Snyder from Combined Metals Reduction, Mr. Strauss from American Smelting & Refining, Mr. Weinberg from International Minerals & Metals Corp., Mr. Zimmer from American Metal, and Mr. Zoller from Eagle Pitcher Co.

At that meeting we stressed the necessity of them furnishing us with a man who was familiar with the various ramifications of the lead and zinc industry, so that they could write orders. It has been our policy to take people from industry and take the people who are recommended by our supervisory groups to write these orders.

Mr. Lipkowitz' responsibility is merely to furnish supporting data to those men.

Mr. REGAN. Right there, Mr. Ewing, did the lead-mining industry furnish you a man at your request?

Mr. EWING. I still have that up with them. We have been using a gentleman who was furnished by American Smelting & Refining, Mr. Halpern, whom you have on your list. I discussed it last week with Mr. Carroll. We have taken every opportunity to point out to these men in these industries that they must furnish us the men. If they don't give us the adequate tools to draw these regulations, they can't be drawn properly.

Mr. REGAN. But you are expecting your guidance from men in the industry?

Mr. EWING. From men in industry. I have worked in industry all my life. I know if we don't draw on the experience of those men, we will not put out satisfactory regulations. And it is the responsibility of the industry committee to furnish those men to us. Mr. REGAN. Mr. D'Ewart has been very patient.

DOMESTIC MERCURY MINES CLOSED BY FOREIGN IMPORTS

Mr. D'EWART. This committee has at various times concerned itself with mercury. I will ask if you had anything to do with the State Department at the time we imported the mercury from Italy, Mr. Lipkowitz, several hundred flasks.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. What year was that?

Mr. D'EWART. 1948 or 1949.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I left the State Department in 1947.

Mr. D'EWART. This committee has been very concerned about that. Did you have anything to do with the importing of the Spanish engineers that were brought over here to study our processing and mercury mining and then went home and put us out of business?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. Not that I recall, but as I remember the situation the Spanish mercury mines are the richest mines in the world from the point of view of ore grade. I believe they run around 4 to 8 percent, whereas most of ours run less than a half of 1 percent, so they do start off with a terrific advantage which can overcome a good deal of inefficiency.

Mr. D'EWART. Would you tell us who in the State Department was responsible for the importation of that mercury?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I am afraid I don't know, sir. I wasn't there. Mr. D'EWART. We are not happy about it, I will tell you for your own information, because we had some 70 mercury mines operating in this country. Today every one of those mines except possibly one is closed down because of the policy of the State Department and we have never been able to find out who was responsible for it and I wonder if you had.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I am sorry, sir; I have no information on it.
Mr. D'EWART. If you find out, will you tell us?
Mr. LIPKOWITZ. Yes.

DUTIES OF OFFICE OF PRICE STABILIZATION EXPLAINED

Mr. D'EWART. I would like to ask the chairman one question now. Who is it that writes the ceiling prices on minerals?

Mr. REGAN. Who is it that writes the price on minerals?

Mr. D'EWART. Yes; under this price control. We have been here an hour and a half, 2 hours this afternoon, and I would like to know now who is it that writes and issues this price control regulation.

Mr. REGAN. I assume that Mr. Ewing works out the price control regulations that he submits to the higher echelons and finally a ruling comes down. It has come down on one thus far. It is tungsten.

Mr. D'EWART. And after 2 hours of questioning we haven't found out whose responsibility it is.

Mr. EWING. I can explain that quite briefly. The responsibility lies with Mr. DiSalle, but Mr. DiSalle has delegated to me the responsibility for preparing these orders. Our policy has been to get the best industry man that we can get who is available. It is very difficult. To many men we can't offer attractive salaries, so most of the people on our staff are without compensation on leave from their companies. That man prepares the necessary material, he looks at the old orders, he works the bugs out of them as best he can; he calls in a group running anywhere from 12 to 17 or 18 men who are actively working in the industry; he clears that order with them.

Mr. Lipkowitz's responsibility is merely to give the supporting data, the statistics to that industry expert that we have. He, then, in turn goes to the lawyers, he submits data that is taken into consideration that he has, and they will put it into legal form which is required under the law.

Mr. ENGLE. Here is something that puzzles me. If these fellows are not being paid, how do they pay their bills?

Mr. EWING. They are being paid by their companies.

Mr. D'EWART. You say that Mr. DiSalle has the final say?

Mr. EWING. Oh, yes; he has.

Mr. D'EWART. Right here now I have in my hand a letter from the Economic Stabilization Agency, dated March 29, addressed to Senator Pat McCarran

This letter is in response to your letter of March 17 concerning the price of tungsten. The information contained in your letter is most helpful to me, and through the Office of Price Stabilization and in arriving at an equitable deter mination with respect to the price per unit of tungsten, I am glad to report to you at this time that the price of tungsten will be pegged at $65 per unit as recommended by you. The regulation on the subject probably will be issued next week.

That would indicate to me that Mr. Johnston, perhaps, had something to say about it. It is signed by Eric Johnston.

Mr. EWING. You realize there is a chain of command. When the orders come out they are signed by Mr. DiSalle, but Mr. DiSalle is responsible in a sense to Mr. Johnston, who is supposed to coordinate the over-all policy of wages and prices.

Mr. D'EWART. He signs them, but he clears them with Mr. Johnston. Mr. REGAN. I believe Mr. Ewing answered that before, that so far as he knew, Mr. DiSalle was the final word.

Mr. EWING. He is the final word. It is his responsibility on price, but he, in a sense, is responsible to Johnston, and Johnston is responsible to Wilson, and Wilson to the President. You have a chain of command through there, Mr. Regan.

Mr. D'EWART. This letter, for the information of the committee, is signed by Eric Johnston from the Economic Stabilization Agency. Mr. EWING. Mr. D'Ewart, undoubtedly that letter was addressed to Mr. Johnston and Mr. Johnston in turn replied.

OPS METALS BRANCH STAFFING PROBLEM DISCUSSED

Mrs. BOSONE. Mr. Ewing, who appointed you to this job?

Mr. EWING. I was brought down here, Mrs. Bosone, for what I thought would be a relatively short tour of duty. I was brought down by Mr. Valentine.

Mrs. BosONE. Mr. Valentine, who was appointed first?

Mr. EWING. That is right.

Mrs. BOSONE. And then who set up the office of the men whose histories are delineated?

Mr. EWING. I did.

Mrs. BOSONE. Of course, it is pretty tough to be in Government these days; isn't it? You see, you have been panned today, and we Congressmen get it when we go home. So, it is "dog eat dog."

Mr. EWING. Sure.

Mrs. BOSONE. Which is pretty sad.

Mr. EWING. I don't think I have been panned.

Mrs. BOSONE. And Government is so complex that it is pretty hard, and once in a while it is a little bit sad. I think that that is a bad commentary today, too. I haven't any doubt but what you are trying to do a good job. I have no criticism of Mr. Lipkowitz. Maybe it is because I don't know more about his background and what he has done in Government before, but certainly at this point I haven't any. Of course, you realize, Mr. Ewing, this whole committee is interested, I believe, to a person, in the development of mineral resources, and at this particular time to augment the production in minerals for defense. Most of us are from the West, and it seems to meand it isn't your fault perhaps, and yet some of it is, maybe that some of the big mining or the small mining production men-we have some in my own State of Utah; I am thinking of Mr. Ed Schneider, who has developed mines from little old veins and little old pockets and became a big mining operator, and yet he knows zinc and lead and silver as probably no other man in the country does know itit seems to me that somebody representing those people, should have been in the employ here.