Mr. BELIEU. You are correct. The buck should be put on the back of the man who has the responsibility and authority. It is not only, however, an individual. It is a systematic weakness. I tried to look up some background on this.

A Navy writer in 1959 talking about excess property disposal said, "Disposal in this category has always been described in newspapers as a giveaway, a throwaway program because of the small return realized on the original cost and because much material is sold at a low price to friendly foreign nations for their military services. The problem is a large one."

He is talking now in 1959. This has been a national weakness in the disposal of military surplus property, I think. It is interesting that he shows some comparative figures, Department of Defense totals. They sold $1.7 billion worth of surplus in fiscal 1955. Now that was acquisition cost.

În 1956, $4.1 billion; in 1957, $6 billion; $8 billion in 1958. Now those figures in the 1956 to 1957 time frame are about the same I have quoted in my statement. He does not have any comparative analysis of what the return was in those years although there is one; I don't think this could be considered a key. In 1958 ships valued at $106 million were sold for $2.4 million, which is 2.4 percent roughly, about what the current average is.

So, we weren't doing well then. Speaking from experience in 1960 to 1965 I was Assistant Secretary and for a while Under Secretary of the Navy. The emphasis was not so much on disposal, handling it, as I remember it in the administration at that time. It was more, we have too much in the warehouse, get rid of it, it is costing too much to handle.

I think because we had Korea, Lebanon, and Vietnam and only a short period of so-called peace, the emphasis was on a different aspect. Now, the committee has rightly initiated the emphasis that should have been on it for a long time. This is one of the principles I have found very worthwhile in working with your committee staff. They have been most helpful in, I think, nurturing the institution of our defense establishment, the institution, the Army, which belongs to all of us. We have agreed that if we find malfeasance in individuals, we will go after them. If we find malfeasance in systems, we will stop it, and change it. That is the rule.

In some cases, I have kept this away from other parts of the Army so I can only blame myself in many cases for lack of action because we also wanted to protect the integrity of the investigation until such time as you started your hearings, and so forth.

This is what we have done.

Senator SAXBE. I think we have to isolate what we are looking for because this is as old as warfare, the fact that when you beat the swords into plowshares some of them don't make it. I do not think that we are going to necessarily find fault with $150 million worth of ships that only sell for 2 or 3 million dollars. We can have all kinds of talk about that, but that will not do any good. Maybe that is all they are worth.

What we are interested in and should be interested in is when a Nike missile is supposed to be junk and then it shows up being shot at

somebody that is serious business because somebody was paid off back at the junkyard. Or a machinegun or a complicated electronic device for missile guidance, and so on. This is where it gets to be a pretty dangerous game.

Now, I have had enough military experience to know-and I know that you have-that it is sometimes pretty careless the way this is handled. But if it is going to be controlled at all you have to make quite a show of effort and force.

I recall my first instance where the instructor came around, and I was in a cavalry unit. He shot three or four horses and he built a little fire and he burned the saddlebags, stuff that he had declared surplus. It was quite a show of property disposal as to this military equipment which had served its usefulness. I thought, what a waste this was, to shoot a horse or burn a saddlebag.

Later, in World War II, we saw whole shiploads of stuff that were just thrown away. The supply sergeant of the company was keeping books like crazy to account for one field jacket and back at the depot they were shoveling them out the back door by the truckload. So, some place between that company level and this final depot disposal level there is a lot of slippage.

I am just gratified that since you have been there you have seen fit to spend a substantial part of your time in trying to get this straightened out.

Now, what is TASCOM?

Mr. BELIEU. It is Theatre Army Support Command. It handles the logistics warehouses and supply systems behind the so-called frontline if you had a frontline over there.

I must apologize. I am having a problem with Army terminology even after 10 months.

Senator SAXBE. We will get around to making you feel at home.

Mr. BELIEU. I said to a general, "These acronyms, I don't understand any more. They have changed the language."

The general said, "Ain't it awful? I went back to my office and said to my staff, what does ETC stand for? They said that is et cetera, general."

TASCOM is the organization that would supply-for some of us who are as old as the plowshare statement, the COMSEC kind of thing you will remember in World War II.

Senator SAXBE. How do they tie into this disposal in Europe that we are talking about now?

Mr. BELIEU. They have the operation capability while the logistics top man is the staff type of thing. It is roughly comparable to the materiel-type command here as opposed to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics.

Senator SAXBE. Who commands this TASCOM in Europe?

Mr. BELIEU. General Eifler.

Senator SAXBE. What is his rank?

Mr. BELIEU. Three-star general.

Senator SAXBE. Isn't that where we are going to have to start? Mr. BELIEU. I think probably in the basic area that is the operating entity; yes. Policies and procedures, staff supervision, command would be at the Mike Davison level. The operating entity would be TASCOM and below.

Senator SAXBE. They run the depots? The personnel who run those are assigned to TASCOM?

Mr. BELIEU. Yes. Of course, he has organizational structures below him. Tactically regiments, battalions, brigades. He has MATCOM, materiel command, and so forth, below that. I think your staff has a well-defined outline of this. If not, we can provide one for the record so that it will show.

I would say, if the Chair and committee so sees fit, on the way over I thought I might have been remiss, we could provide a glossary of terms and technical data if it would help anything, for the appendix, for later review. This is a very complicated subject.

Senator SAXBE. Do we have a military structure graph of this? Mr. CONSTANDY. Yes, sir; we have several of them.

Senator SAXBE. Is it in this material?

Mr. CONSTANDY. It is not, yet. We anticipated introducing that later. There is a glossary, Senator, attached to the folder. (See exhibit No. 97, p. 199.)

Chairman MCCLELLAN. Is there anything further?

Mr. BELIEU. We can furnish any kind of staff command function chart. If we looked at an organizational chart with Mike Davison at the top, Conroy is the staff officer assigned. Below that would be Eifler's TASCOM and below that his subordinate structures.

Senator SAXBE. Just to straighten it out in my mind-you have been over there are these surplus yards or junkyards, generally run in conjunction with larger military installations, or are they isolated?

Mr. BELIEU. Maybe I can answer it from the list I have here. There are 11 disposal activities in USAREUR. In Berlin, it is by itself. Baden, Wurttemberg is second. Germersheim is part of the support activity.

Senator SAXBE. For instance, is the tank junkyard area in the ready area? I have seen that. Is that where you have your 6,000 tanks over there?

Mr. BELIEU. This would be back in the hands of troops. Senator SAXBE. It is more in the tactical deployment areas? Mr. BELIEU. I have not been in one of the disposal yards. Mr. CONSTANDY. Senator, we have a map which shows the disposition of each of the principal yards, of which there are 11. Those yards. in turn, have 18 satellites. They are generally geographically located in the same general areas, as are the other military installations. They are normally related to a specific installation. Usually, a depot.

(The following documents were introduced as an exhibit on p. 233.)

USAREUR PROPERTY DISPOSAL LOCATIONS

Support district

Supporting PDO

Areas supported

Munich, Bad Toelz, Berchtesgaden, Bad Aibling,
Garmisch, Oberammergau Murnau, Lenggries,
Augsburg, New Ulm.

Ansbach, Nuernberg, Fuerth, Illesheim, Erlangen,
Bayreuth, Bamberg, Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels,
Schweinfurt, Wildflecken.

Bamberg (POV's and scrap).

7th Army Training Area (scrap).

7th Army Training Area (POV's and scrap).

Schweinfurt, Wuerzburg, Bad Kissingen, Kitzingen,
Wertheim.

Hanau, Frankfurt, Gelnhausen, Buedingen, Aschaffen-
berg, Darmstadt.

Darmstadt, Badenhausen, Dieburg.

USA Maintenance Plant (tire rebuild).

Giessen Support Center, Giessen, Kassel, Fulda, Hersfeld, Kirchgoens Bad Nauheim, Freidberg, Butzbach, Marburg, NATO/SHAPE Chievres, Belgium.

Kaiserslautern Army Depot, Nahbollenbach, Baumholder, Pirmasens, Germersheim, Miesau, Kaiserslautern, Bad Kreuznach.

USA Ammo Depot, Miesau.

Pirmasens, Zweibruecken, Dahn, Fischbach, Salzwug,
Muenchweiler, Pirmasens Army Depot, Clausen,
Massweiler.

Germersheim Army Depot, Bellheim, Landau, Germer-
heim, Grinsheim.

Nahbollenbach Army Depot, Baumholder, Nuebrucke,
Idar-Oberstein.

Bad Kreuznach, Mainz, Dexheim, Finthen, Wackerheim,
Baumholder, Wiesbaden, Nahbollenbach.

Boeblingen, Ludwigsburg, Stuttgart, Heilbronn, Schwae-
bisch-Hall, Crailsheim, Goeppingen, Moehringen,
Vailhingen, Schwaebisch-Gmuend, Kornwestheim,
Nellignen, Neckarsulm.

Nellingen (2 cann points only).

Schwaebish-Gmuend Maintenance Plant.

Heidelberg, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Worms.
Nord Deutschland.

Ramstein.

Bitburg.
Mainz-Kastel.

Athens.

Zaragoza.

Torrejon

Moron

Mr. BELIEU. I guess adjacent to the ready alert equipment.
Senator SAXBE. Are these broken down into hardware and clothing?
Mr. CONSTANDY. No, sir.

Senator SAXBE. They are general?

Mr. CONSTANDY. Yes, sir. A depot existing in a geographic area will receive from whatever units are in that area whatever type of surplus material they have. If there are more armored units in that area, they would tend to get more armored equipment. Some of the depots, I believe, are designated to receive specific kinds of equipment, such as electronic equipment, and there has been a tendency to generate such equipment at property disposal yards which handle that type of equipment.

Senator SAXBE. Is most of the surplus coming back to the States, or is it disposed of over there?

Mr. BELIEU. I understand it is disposed of over there although we have had some cases where it has returned here.

Senator SAXBE. I know we have a lot of surplus clothing that has shown up in the Far East.

Mr. BELIEU. I would not be surprised to see cases where someone might have falsified or utilized a bill of lading or shipping piece of paper through here. It may never have gone through here.

82-422 0-72-pt. 1-6