Mr. SHRIVER. We will definitely; yes, Senator; we do. As a ma:ter of fact, the only criticism that I have heard about our contract 30 far is that it does not give enough to the contractor. There are com plaints that it is too rigorous, but Bill Kelly, who is in charge of our Contracts Division, would be very glad to try to answer specific ques tions.

Senator SYMINGTON. No, I only wanted the general observation. Mr. SHRIVER. Definitely.

Senator SYMINGTON. Senator Schoeppel put in a list of contracts totaling many millions of dollars, contracts incident to foreign aid. contracts with American citizens who, in some cases, have been ar ticulate advocates of this aid. That raises a problem as to their academic interest. I only mention this because it is in the record: and either the facts are correct, or they are not.

COSTS ESTIMATES BASED ON NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS

I read this morning in the Wall Street Journal an article by Mr. Otten. Did you read that?

Mr. SHRIVER. Unfortunately I did not.

Senator SYMINGTON. I was wondering if it was a good summary of your work. It read well, and was clear. I believe the article men tioned the yearly cost as planned of one of your men abroad to be $10,000, as compared to about $25,000 estimated for ICA people abroad.

Mr. SHRIVER. Yes, sir. I would like to make it clear that in estimating at $9,000 that is the best judgment that we could make at this time. But that figure could go up to $10,000, it might go down a little bit, but it is not a precise figure based on a large experience with operating these projects.

I would hate to have anyone believe that we had been able to project ahead so accurately that we know it is going to cost exactly $9,000. As a matter of fact, the figures in this report add up to $9,180, and we show that, but we have just rounded off at $9,000 to show what our best judgment was at this time.

Senator SYMINGTON. According to this article, the cost of your people would still be way under what other people are costing the taxpayers today, people who are doing, in effect, comparable work; is that not correct?

Mr. SHRIVER. Well, there is no question that the cost to the taxpayer of a volunteer under the Peace Corps overseas will be substantially less than the cost of other people working for the United States overseas has been in the past.

Senator GORE. Including the armed services.
Mr. SHRIVER. Yes, sir.

DEGREE OF UTILIZATION OF PRIVATE AGENCIES

Senator SYMINGTON. You have swung more toward working with private organizations than when the plan was first conceived; is that correct?

Mr. SHRIVER. No, sir; not all together. From the very beginning in the President's message he asked us to explore operating in five different ways. One of the ways was to operate with private volun

E

tary agencies; another was with American universities and colleges; the third was with the U.N.; the fourth was under direct Government supervision; and the fifth was in support of existing U.S. Government operations. We have always planned to work with private voluntary agencies.

Senator SYMINGTON. In other words, what you have done is move in these various fields, after looking it all over, in order to get the best possible job done at the lowest possible price?

Mr. SHRIVER. That is exactly right.

PLANS TO INFORM THE COMMITTEE OF EXPENDITURES

Senator SYMINGTON. Finally, I am impressed with what you are doing and have already done to render an accounting. Your idea is that, if this committee and the Congress approve this money, you will be in a position at all times to tell us exactly where the money has gone; is that correct?

Mr. SHRIVER. No question about it.

Senator SYMINGTON. As a member of this committee who has traveled around the world in recent years, I congratulate you on your progress to date, and I am confident many people in many countries will be grateful to you and your organization, and will think more of America as a result of the effort you are making.

I have no further questions or comments, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SHRIVER. Thank you very much, Senator Symington.
The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Kansas?

WAIVER OF CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATIONS AND OTHER PREREQUISITES TO EMPLOYMENT

Senator CARLSON. I sincerely regret, Mr. Shriver, that my schedule was such that I could not be here all day to hear your testimony. Personally, I am pleased that you are the head of this agency. I think it presents a great opportunity, although I think it involves some problems, too. I assure you that at any time I can be of assistance I would want to be.

I have, since coming here to the hearing, very hurriedly glanced through the bill, and I notice you propose to amend several provisions. of the civil service laws. I do want to ask you two or three questions about that.

On page 7, beginning on line 14 it reads that the service of a vol

unteer

shall not be credited toward completion of any probationary or trial period or completion of any service requirement for career appointment.

Now, after that in the bill is the following:

Under such conditions as the President may determine, examinations or other prerequisites to employment established by any law administered by the Civil Service Commission may be waived for persons who have completed training under section 8(a) of this act and have served abroad as volunteers.

Now, do I understand that you are going to give your own examination regardless of what the requirements might be of the Civil Service Commission?

Mr. SHRIVER. This particular provision to which you have called attention was approved for inclusion in here by the Civil Service Commission itself.

The thinking behind it is roughly as follows: It is their belief and ours that the training which Peace Corps volunteers will receive, the examinations they will take, and the experience they will gain overseas will be more than the equivalent of the regular civil service examinations which might be given here in this country.

So what they are saying, in effect, is that the examinations which our people have to go through and experience that they will gain will be deemed by them; namely, the Civil Service Commission, as equal to the civil service examinations.

Senator CARLSON. In other words, you will determine the type of examination, whether it is to be written, oral, or any other type?

Mr. SHRIVER. No, sir; not that we would determine. They have determined, you might say, on the basis of what they have already seen of our examinations and training procedure that our examinations and training procedures fulfill their requirements. That is their determination, not ours. This provision is in here at their suggestion and with their approval.

Senator CARLSON. I just raised the issue because this question might confront this committee, and other committees of future Congresses: namely, that of turning over the examinations, that I think properly, at least, should be observed by the Civil Service Commission, to other agencies of the Government when we maintain a strictly civil service examination and civil service organization. I wanted to raise it for that very reason.

Mr. SHRIVER. Yes, sir.

Well, we want to maintain the highest standards in the civil service just as you do, and one of the purposes of this was to enable Peace Corps volunteers, after they had returned to this country, to get into the civil service, and to that extent make a contribution toward the improvement of the Federal service.

I think the Civil Service Commission Chairman felt that entry into the civil service should be facilitated on behalf of these volunteers, and since they have been through this rigorous examination procedure and training, he and the Commission felt that they would have fulfilled the substantive requirements of the civil service examination procedures.

PROVISION FOR SUPERGRADE POSITIONS

Senator CARLSON. Then I would like to call your attention to section 7 on page 9, subparagraph (b), in which I notice that if this act is approved, your organization would be authorized to compensate 40 people without regard to the provisions of the Classification Act of 1949, and then later it says, I believe, that 30 of these would be compensated at rates higher than those provided for in grade 15.

Now, that would be authorizing the Peace Corps to select individuals in what we call supergrade positions; is that not correct? Mr. SHRIVER. Yes, sir.

Senator CARLSON. Well, we on the Post Office and Civil Service Committee and I think I speak for the chairman, the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, Senator Johnston-are very much

concerned about keeping some control over the number of supergrades in the Federal Government. I want to raise this, because when this bill hits the floor with this provision, I shall have to make some comments on it, and I would like to ask you this question:

Have you requested the Civil Service Commission for supergrade positions?

Mr. SHRIVER. Yes, sir; we have had several discussions with the Civil Service Commission. Again, I may say that this provision is in the proposed bill with their approval and their recommendation and support. As a matter of fact, the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission has already testified, I believe, before the appropriate committee in Congress, stating that this provision would be in this bill, and it would be additional to the civil service pool, governmentwide pool, of supergrades.

I would be happy to supply you, Senator, with a specific list of the supergrades for which we are asking and the job descriptions for supergrades, and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you why, in our judgment, we need supergrades for this particular type of work at this time.

The fact of the matter is that there seems to be an almost unanimous opinion that we need the highest quality people in the Government service and particularly the overseas service which it is possible to obtain. I think that is particularly true of this agency, especially at its beginning. In order to get it launched properly, and with expert and intelligent advice, we have to be able to attract the ablest possible people to its service. In this case, as I said a minute ago, we would be happy to discuss in detail with you each of these proposed 30 positions. As a matter of fact, I have an outline of each one of them here now to submit to you, if you would like to have it.

NEED TO CONSULT WITH THE POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE COMMITTEE

WITH RESPECT TO THE "SUPERGRADE" PROVISION

Senator CARLSON. Well, I am in favor of you having these people. It is not for that reason I have raised this question.

In the Reorganization Act, this particular phase of initiating supergrades for use in the various Government agencies belongs in the Post Office and Civil Service Committee. I do not want to be confronted with having this stricken on the Senate floor, because we have stricken some of these in previous bills for that reason.

So if you get the chairman of the Civil Service Commission to write you a letter on this I think it would be most helpful, because there are going to be questions asked. We are very fearful of letting all agencies of Government come in through legislation and secure supergrade positions. That is past history. I think you are entitled to these, or whatever number the Civil Service Commission and our Post Office and Civil Service Committee determine you need.

So I hope you will do something along that line, so we won't run into difficulty when this gets on the floor of the Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. Will the Senator yield? I have already written to the chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee requesting his advice on these provisions, as we do with all other committees that have similar interests in these bills.

Senator CARLSON. The distinguished chairman of the committee well knows that on several occasions Defense Department bills and other bills have come in, and in some instances we have stricken them out. The Senate usually supports us, for the reason that they are supposed to originate in the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, and we have never hesitated to grant them. I have no doubt these would be granted. But the regular committee procedure, I want the record to show, is through the Post Office and Civil Service Committee. Mr. SHRIVER. Yes, sir. I share your concern about it. We have talked to the Civil Service Commission chairman on two occasions about it. Mr. Moyers, sitting here, talked to him about it even this morning. I think you have a report from the chairman about it.

Mr. MOYERS. Yes, Senator. Mr. Macy called me this morning to report on his testimony yesterday before the House Civil Service and Post Office Committee. The chairman informed us that he had asserted to the committee that the request for the 30 supergrades from the Peace Corps and the additional supergrades for the new AID Agency were compiled after his report to the committee was prepared.

The committee in the House then asked the chairman to compile a new statement, comprising the needs for new supergrades in the administration overall. The chairman informed the committee that he would do this. But he did explain that this agency was established by Executive order, and the new AID program was reorganized only recently. So he did not have in his hand at that time he went before the committee the total number of supergrades. But he is giving that information in a separate presentation later.

Senator CARLSON. Well, I have no doubt that the supergrades will be granted. It is just a question as to how they will be granted. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

CONTRACT WITH NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY AND ITS ASSOCIATES

The CHAIRMAN. I apologize to the Senator from Ohio. I thought he had already completed his questions.

Senator LAUSCHE. Thank you very much.

I wanted to refer back to the Indiana Conference on Higher Education. Has the contract been completed with them?

Mr. KELLY. Yes, it has, Senator.

Senator LAUSCHE. There are 34 institutions of higher learning involved?

Mr. KELLY. There are 34 institutions cooperating with the University of Notre Dame.

Senator LAUSCHE. They are the ones that will do the training of the volunteers in Indiana?

Mr. KELLY. Yes, sir; the training will be conducted in Indiana. Senator LAUSCHE. Why was the contract made with the 34, instead of with 1?

Mr. KELLY. Senator Lausche, it was made with one, the University of Notre Dame. It was made with the University of Notre Dame acting in behalf of the other colleges and universities in a cooperative effort on this program.