In addition to that, last October-I came on board in Septemberwe began to get into this in the depth that I can speak of personally. Shortly thereafter, I designated the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Logistics as the one in charge of reviewing this from topside. So, these reports are coming up. We do not intend to take the local commanders out of the chain. They still must maintain that responsibility.

This change in organization will bring forward the reports and guarantee that they get attention and action.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. You think there will be greater diligence on the part of those responsible in that area now to follow up on those reports and take appropriate corrective action?

Mr. BELIEU. There had better be, sir.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. At the top of page 15 you refer to plans for improved training. What training are you referring to there, for personnel working in property disposal yards? Aren't a lot of the people who work in those yards foreign nationals?

Mr. BELIEU. That is correct. When I look at this training bit, I must say it is in all aspects of personnel management. We have established schools here but the new training programs have to go right down to the yard itself.

As I mentioned yesterday, we do have a problem; but it is not a problem that is insurmountable. We have been doing this for many years in many areas, but it is one that continues because, you have language problems; you have third nation individuals working in the yards. Really everything should be translated into two or three languages. However it is not feasible or practical to do that in all cases.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. I guess you have trouble getting competent help?

Mr. BELIEU. I can't speak personally on that, but I have been told this is true. One of these gentleman may be able to.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. I would assume you do have. I don't know what you do about that except to employ them and give them some training.

Mr. BELIEU. That is correct. I have only been in Germany once this year. They have an economic expansion going on there and it is awful hard to get people, in the technical trades especially.

To more specifically answer your question, on the subject of demilitarization and security controls, for instance, we have added new courses in our schools, courses designed to cover some of the problems that have come up in the last few months.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. Tell us a little more about this asset control task force which was established on March 1, 1972. I believe it has completed its work with the report dated June 1972, last month. Is that correct?

Mr. BELIEU. Yes, sir. I have not personally had a chance to review the report yet. I would, if it meets with the committee's approval, like to have someone who has particularly seen the report describe it, sir.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. Our staff has a copy of it. We may want further information.

Mr. BELIEU. Yes, sir. I have not personally had a chance to review for identification.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. The staff seems to have the impression, the committee staff, that if these recommendations contained in this report are implemented they would improve management considerably.

Mr. BELIEU. Everyone I have talked to about it, including the staff, are enthusiastic about this study. As I said, I haven't had a personal opportunity to go through it in detail.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. Later during the hearings we will probably go into this more fully. For the moment, I think there is some hope that this report does point to areas where corrections can be made and no doubt will be made.

Senator SAXBE. Mr. Secretary, the testimony yesterday indicates that this practice is so widespread that I don't see how you are going to be able to correct it unless you just have a housecleaning of these people involved. I don't see anyplace where there has been prosecution, where there has been a suspension. There was one person suspended, but for other reasons it said.

They have been involved in pretty serious business here, involving rangefinders; Nike missiles. There are all kinds of hanky-panky going on here. Yet presumably this has not interfered with military careers or in the case of civilians, with their continuation as classified civilian employees.

Has there been any attempt to clean that up?

Mr. BELIEU. I have read those cases, too, sir. I cannot specifically answer as to detail because I have just begun to look at the procedures and details. That is where you have to start.

Now on people, we have approximately 2,700 personnel involved in the disposal operations. There are about 100 military, 1,000 Department of the Army civilians, and 1,600 foreign nationals. These are the recent figures I have. I hope they are correct. Some actions have been taken. I know that in one case in Germersheim Depot personnel changes have been made. But I cannot answer specifically on the

details.

(The following document was introduced as an exhibit on p. 233.)

EXHIBIT No. 105

Statistical data on local and third-country nationals employed by USAREUR/

USAFE

Employees, local national or third-country national at USAFE R. & M.
Center (information provided by Lt. Col. Schmidt)_.

68

Employees, local national or third-country national at USAR DCS/LOG
(information provided by Mr. Steinhoff, Civilian Personnel Office,
Heidelberg):
Headquarters

Field

43

Employees, local national or third-country national at TASCOM, as of
June 30, 1972____

26, 162

Employees, local national or third-country national at USAREUR and 7th Army Support Command_.

Employees, local national or third-country national at MATCOM

1

1, 960 8, 225

The 8,225 of MATCOM are included in the figure of 26,162 of TASCOM. NOTE: The above information relating to TASCOM, MATCOM, and the depots was provided by Mr. Schnurr of the Civilian Personnel Office, TASCOM.

The following figures represent local, national, or third country national employees at depots: Burtonwood, 483; Germersheim, 2,748; Kaiserslautern, 2,803; Miesau, 2,032.

A breakdown of the local national or third-country nationals employees working in the disposal yards (throughout Europe) follows:

Mr. BELIEU. I do know in some cases some military people have been tried by court martial and found guilty. Some of the cases go back to 1964. The one I have in front of me is 1968. I have an idea this has not been given the priority through the years that it should have. You are right, the system needs to be looked at from top to bottom, every facet all the way down through.

Senator SAXBE. Some of these statements are in 1972 as to things that have been happening in the last few years. Not 1964, but 1970 and 1971. I would guess that as this turnover of property increases, that it is going to increase the problem rather than diminish the problem.

I get the picture from reading the testimony that you have a bunch of wheeler dealers over there that are kind of running the scrapyards out of their hip pocket. I have had enough military experience to know that this is a kind of growing affliction, that you get a little publicity on it, then it slows down, but nothing really changes.

As soon as the heat is off, it starts right back up again.

It is rather frightening to think that missiles, complicated rangefinders, and other weaponry show up in the hands of dealers. They are not junk dealers. They are armaments dealers. The fact that there is a payoff in the yards there is a payment for the guy to be inefficient, maybe has to be straightened out. This is a first-class scandal here, if continued.

Mr. BELIEU. I would not attempt to defend those actions. Some of the cases I have seen scare me, to. I thought at one time maybe we could stop the whole thing, shut it down. But that is not quite feasible. The actions of making two people certify for screening, two people certify that things have been demilled, sort of a buddy check system, if you please, the fact that we have increased our inspections, in some cases from once a year to once every 3 months, we have teams out moving around and the new procedures we are establishing should do this.

As I said yesterday, it will take a long time to defend ourselves against dishonesty in high places or wherever it is found.

Senator SAXBE. I call your attention to page 26 of the transcript.
Mr. BELIEU. Page 26?

Senator SAXBE. Page 26. "In the course of the investigation we proved conclusively that (1) the Fuerth property disposal yard was managed inefficiently and waste and corruption were common. (2) The Zinks.. .”

Mr. BELIEU. These must be cases I don't have. These are the ones I believe that your investigators have. I probably know of them, but haven't read them.

Senator SAXBE. You haven't seen these?

Mr. BELIEU. I have not seen these. As I indicated in my statement yesterday, there were some bits of information I did not allow to be disseminated throughout the Army because it was the property of the committee staff.

As I understand, you will go through these in detail and we will be called in to furnish witnesses to discuss them later.

Senator SAXBE. The thing that disturbs me about these is the way they always wind up saying, "the lieutenant was a decent upstanding young officer not properly trained." Well, the jails are full of people like that who because of, maybe stupidity, committed crimes.

We are talking about very serious crimes that appear in these cases. I won't continue further until you have copies of these cases. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. Mr. Counsel, do you have any questions? Mr. CONSTANDY. No, sir.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

By the way, Senator Percy wanted to ask the Secretary some questions. Does anybody have any information about whether he is on his way?

Senator SAXBE. In the meantime, I would like to ask a general question.

Chairman MCCLELLAN. Go ahead. In the meantime, check on Senator Percy and see if he is available.

Senator SAXBE. Mr. BeLieu, you have not been over there very long, have you, sir?

Mr. BELIEU. About 10 months.

Senator SAXBE. How recently was this matter called to your attention?

Mr. BELIEU. I guess a couple of weeks after I got there we began talking about that. I went to Europe, if I remember correctly, in October-in January.

Senator SAXBE. Was there an investigation then proceeding under your predecessor or somebody at the level of the command that you are?

Mr. BELIEU. I can't answer that. The Army was aware of the problem because in 1970 it recommended to Defense that DSA be put in charge of the whole thing because the responsibilities and authorities were fragmented. I know that various surveys were underway.

In about October or November, I made contact with your staff after finding that Mr. Duffy was over there and then we began to have other long discussions, several of us, at one time or another.

That is about the time we began to assign Army people to the committee staff and decided we would go into a joint venture. We were already really in one. I guess Europe began its investigations and surveys in 1971. There is no question, however, that the impetus from the committee's action brought it to the front stage center.

Senator SAXBE. Who has command responsibility for this in Europe? Mr. BELIEU. Mike Davidson would be the commanding general. I think it is only fair, while I am not trying to gild anything as far as glossing over the importance of this investigation, the commanding general had major problems in Europe and as commanding general had to look at the status of his troops, its readiness.

We were bleeding Europe of people who were going to Vietnam. Actually our total experience in Europe or throughout the Army basically, excepting Vietnam, no private big business could have operated that way, turning over top command, your middle managers, foremen, middle command, 100 percent a year.

Senator SAXBE. What is his command?

Mr. BELIEU. U.S. Army, Europe. His man in charge of that would have been his logistician, Major General Conroy. He has been there 2 years.

Senator SAXBE. This has not happened in the last 2 years. You don't have a four-star general out there watching a junkyard, but you have somebody who is responsible for this area. You know the old Army saying, you can't delegate responsibility. If the guy is stealing down there, it is someone's responsibility.

Mr. BELIEU. I have looked at the list of people who have been in command and high positions over there. General Polk was there before Davison. He has been the longest there. I could provide the committee the list. The turnover of top command has not been as great as the lower commands.

Senator SAXBE. Have you contacted these generals in the last 8 months?

Mr. BELIEU. Yes; General Davison has put all his resources at my disposal. It is his resources that are doing the task force operation in Europe now.

Senator SAXBE. It seems to me to get to the bottom of this, we are going to have to get back to the main generals who have been there within the last 10 years, whether retired or whatever and wherever they are, and ask them, "Did you know they were stealing from you?" The buck has to stop someplace. I mean this fine upstanding lieutenant does not know what is going on upstairs. The buck doesn't stop with him.