other departments to make available to ECA some of their top-flight personnel.

I wish I could advise you that while attempting to meet other responsibilities during the past 10 days I have found time to make myself thoroughly familiar with the tremendous volume of detail offered in justification for appropriations under the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948. That I have not been able to do. But I do have considerable familiarity with the financial dimensions of the program due to my having served as a member of the President's Committee on Foreign Aid, better known as the Harriman committee, last summer. Furthermore, even before I formally took office I requested Mr. Richard Bissell, who served as executive secretary of the Harriman Committee, and Messrs. Calvin Hoover and Edward Mason, who were members of the committee, to join me in a consulting capacity. Among their assignments I requested that they appraise the program from the standpoint of its over-all cost and also that they analyze a number of the more important estimates of European requirements such as those for grain, steel, coal, and freight cars. Mr. Bissell is prepared to testify on behalf of Messrs. Hoover, Mason, and himself as to these schedules of expenditures. I am prepared to join these three gentlemen in testifying as to the reasonableness of the over-all cost of the program.

Five billion three hundred million dollars is a lot of money, yet of three responsible and independent estimates of probable financial requirements for the program, it is the lowest; the other two reports are those of the Harriman committee and the International Bank. I am speaking with utter sincerity when I say to you that my great fear is that even with the most careful planning and the most rigorous supervision of expenditures, this amount may prove insufficient to accomplish the degree of recovery we seek.

As a businessman there is one aspect of this program that deeply concerns me, namely: The implication that the Administrator may be held rather rigidly to these schedules. As I have already stated, I am impressed by both the quality and quantity of work that has gone into preparing this program. But this recovery program is something quite different from a departmental budget which covers the cost of familiar activities. In ECA we have little in the way of precedent or experience to guide us. We know precisely what we want to accomplish, namely: Increased production in all of the nations covered by this aid program. That must be brought about primarily by increased output per man-hour both on the farm and in the plants. But just how this can be accomplished we can't be too sure today.

Furthermore, we'll undoubtedly be confronted with changes in conditions both abroad and here that no one can forsee. If we're to avoid wasting millions of dollars we must quickly terminate programs that are not proving resultful. We must be prepared to shift our plans quickly to meet changing conditions. In other words, close supervision and high flexibility are both essential if we're to get the most out of our dollars. You can be sure of this-that getting the most out of our dollars is something we're most determined to do.

The CHAIRMAN. The estimate that has been sent up here is entirely in wide open form and it has absolutely nothing in it which would limit the Administrator as to almost any activity he might wish to engage in in connection with this assistance program.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I speak off the record for a few minutes and tell you a little more clearly what I have in mind, if that is permissible?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

(Statement off the record.)

SELECTION AND APPOINTMENT OF TOP PERSONNEL

The CHAIRMAN. Have you at this point reached the stage where you are able to tell us something about your top personnel?

Mr. HOFFMAN. Yes; I think I can give you some general idea as to the kind of people they should be.

First, very valuable preparatory work was done and detailed charts were prepared; but again we are aproaching this task with the thought that those were suggestive rather than in any sense directive. That was made clear.

In the first place, in this country, we have a director of operations. I am very happy to say that Mr. Richard Bissell is acting in this capacity now. He does not know it, but no matter how hard he tries I do not believe he is going to be able to wiggle out of that job, because he has shown extraordinary capacity; and he has familiarity with this problem such as we must have if we are to get into this program quickly. He supervises the development of the programs for these countries and also the procurement of the supplies that are called for under the program. He has that general supervision of the home operations.

The CHAIRMAN. Could you give us a statement of his background? Mr. HOFFMAN. Several years ago, when we were trying to set up the organization CED, and had had various people suggested to us, individuals who were well-grounded in economics but who also had some sense- and that is a combination you do not always findDick Bissell was right at the top of the list. So I hunted up Mr. Bissell. I found that Mr. Bissell was at that time employed by Mr. Lewis Douglas in the Maritime Commission. I went to Mr. Douglas and tried to convince Mr. Douglas that he ought to lend us Mr. Bissell for some special work that we wanted done. He assured me that under no circumstances could I have Mr. Bissell, except over his dead body, which convinced me that Mr. Douglas had a very high opinion of Mr. Bissell.

I do not know whether Mr. Bissell has spent much time in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or not, but I think he was formerly attached to that institution. He has spent most of his time in business. The next time I tried to get Mr. Bissell for a special job, I found out he was working for the United States Steel Corp., doing investigations for them.

The next time I ran into him he was still on that job. And the next time I ran into him-and that, by the way, was in connection with the Harriman Committee work, because I was on that committee and when it came to recommending a man who combined hard sense and a broad knowledge of international economics, whom we had to have, Bissell's name came first. So we all said, "We have to have Bissell." We finally decided that two or three of us would have to tell Mr. Olds that we had to have him and he would have to get along somehow without him.

Mr. Chairman, my entire experience has been in business. I have seen many men operate. I have never seen a job of work turned out of higher quality, and of greater quantity, than the job of work turned out by the Harriman Committee during the weeks we were meeting. Also, never have I seen an executive secretary—and much of the work always falls on staff-an executive secretary who was able to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable differences among the 19 individualists who comprised that committee. We all had very stanch views. Most of us had very hardened views on various subjects. But when we got through I think a miracle was accomplished. And that report, by the way, was not a pussyfooting report, as you all know. It was a very forthright report and it was signed by all 19 members of that committee.

So when I found myself in this job, the first thing I did was to get on the telephone and start trying to find Mr. Bissell, because I knew that I could not carry on this job without him. I telephoned Cambridge, could not get his home, but finally I did get Mr. Mason, who is here today also, and he agreed he would track Mr. Bissell down for me. Mr. Bissell called me, and I said, "Don't talk to me, but get a plane and come on down here." Well, planes were not flying and he came down on a train and has been here since.

I just say to you that I think I am a very responsible person when it comes to giving testimony as to individuals and I say that Mr. Bissell is extraordinarily well-informed in the economics of this situation. He is as able an administrator as I have ever seen in action and, as I say, somehow, we have got to keep him, even if it takes congressional action. Mr. Bissell has charge of operations.

Now, on the fiscal front

The CHAIRMAN. You are going to put on controls?

Mr. HOFFMAN. Are you talking about controls domestically?

The CHAIRMAN. No; I mean on this fellow here.

Mr. HOFFMAN. We are going to put on the toughest kind of supervision we know how to put on; that you may be assured of.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you gone any further than that?

Mr. HOFFMAN. Yes, sir. Of course, there is this whole group of problems that are of vital importance in the fiscal and monetary field. There I think we are fortunate in having been able to get Mr. Wayne Taylor who has in the past been Under Secretary of the Treasury and also Under Secretary of the Department of Commerce and President of the Export-Import Bank, to come into our organization and take responsibility there. It is his responsibility to handle the fiscal arrangements with the various countries, with the State Department helping in working out these bilateral agreements. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. What is his title?

Mr. HOFFMAN. We have not thought about titles yet, Mr. Wigglesworth.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. He is head of fiscal and monetary activities? Mr. HOFFMAN. I think he will be at the head of that section and, as I say, if there is a better man than Mr. Taylor, I do not know him. We intend shortly to bring in on a consulting basis, but without pay-because I am sure we can do it-some of the very top men from the financial world who are acquainted, who are well versed in international finance, to help us in the matter of policy; because there are many problems that are not yet answered in the field.

One thing that concerns me is this question of what shall we do with these blocked currencies, local currencies, in order to get the greatest value out of them from the recovery standpoint. That would be, of course, primarily a task for the mission in the field. But even before the missions go out, I think we can take advantage of men like George Harrison, president of the New York Life Insurance Co., and who was formerly I think Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve a few years ago; Randolph Burgess of the National City Bank, and there are a number of people I think we can bring in here who are thoroughly expert in that field and who can help us at least from a policy standpoint to guide our operations and bring out some answers to questions that are still perplexing.

None of these appointments have been easy; when it comes to personnel, it has been a case of resorting to all the pressures that we can bring to bear to get people.

Another person was recommended by my very good friend Chester Davis who told me that when it came to the matter of food distribution and procurement, Dr. FitzGerald of the Department of Agriculture was one of the top men of the world. I immediately demanded and got the services of Dr. FitzGerald; not easily, but he is now in our shop and has general direction of the food section. Those are the people who are already on.

There is one other, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Aleck Henderson, whom I think many of you must know from his very fine work down here during the war years, and who is a member of the firm of Cravath, Swayne & Moore. He has come down here at a very great sacrifice and I assure you only under great pressure, to take over the job of general counsel. If there is any better man for that job I do not know who it could be than Aleck Henderson.

Mr. KERR. Did I understand you to say that Chester Davis agreed to come into your organization?

Mr. HOFFMAN. No, Judge Kerr. I should love to have Chester Davis, but he is not too well, as you perhaps know, and is recovering from an operation. But he recommended Dr. FitzGerald as being the very best man I could possibly get. I have implicit confidence in Mr. Davis. I have known him for 15 years and when Chester Davis tells me that something is so, I always find that it is so.

Mr. KERR. I am a man who shares that same feeling about him. Mr. HOFFMAN. So we have gone that far. We have made no other appointments except on a very temporary basis.

I should like to say a word about Mr. Cawley, our budget officer. We borrowed him from the Commerce Department. They do not know it yet, but he is not going back, because we have found him to be both reliable and creative in a field where we have got to do creative work if we are going to make good on this task.

Otherwise our personnel is on a temporary basis. We did not bring anyone in on a permanent basis except these few people, because we want to see how these work out.

We are convinced of this, that we have got to have a closely knit, hard-working, hard-hitting team, who will work together, or else we will not accomplish anything. Secondly, this team has got to play in the big league down here and in such a way that we will continue to get the kind of cooperation that we have had to date. We have had perfectly wonderful cooperation from other departments of the

Government and from the Congress so far. We hope to continue to merit that confidence and if we do, I think this job is do-able. Short of that kind of a set-up, it is not.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. How long do you anticipate it will be before you can have your main people appointed?

Mr. HOFFMAN. I certainly hope by the end of this week we will have the key jobs filled. We have literally hundreds of applications from people who are genuinely patriotic. One of the encouraging things has been that among these 14,000 applications that we have had, we have received hundreds from people who are perfectly willing to turn their backs on important jobs and important money and work for us for little or nothing. I do think we can draw upon these people who have been recommended to us very highly for heading these missions abroad. But we cannot do anything about that until our roving Ambassador is nominated and approved by the Senate. are still in the process of working that out.

We

The same is true of the deputy. As a matter of fact, until our roving Ambassador is appointed, I do not want to try to finalize a decision on the deputy, because our roving Ambassador has got to have complete confidence in the team back here, and we have got to have confidence in him.

So we tried to go slowly on these key jobs and if we get the people we hope to get I think we may be confident that we will have a firstclass team.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You have hopes of getting both those appointments during the current week? ·

Mr. HOFFMAN. I certainly hope so and, Mr. Wigglesworth, if there is any way I can put further pressure on to get things done, I shall do so. But up to now we just had to move a little bit slowly.

UNEXPENDED BALANCES AVAILABLE FROM PRIOR APPROPRIATIONS

The CHAIRMAN. Would you be able to tell us what are the remaining unexpended balances carried over to you eitherby the act itself or by any other operation?

Mr. CAWLEY. Mr. Chairman, I checked on that the other day and was advised that there was approximately $2,000,000 left unobligated out of a total amount of about $575,000,000 foreign aid and interim aid. I should like to explain further that all of that is not as yet disbursed.

The CHAIRMAN. All of the purchases are not delivered?

Mr. CAWLEY. That is correct, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I am wondering if you can give us this information. Of course, there are other items, but that is the interim-aid item? Mr. CAWLEY. Yes, sir. The last item was $55,000,000. I believe there was approximately $522,000,000 prior to that time. The CHAIRMAN. That totals $577,000,000?

Mr. CAWLEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the total amount that was available? Mr. KEEFE. Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt to say that Mr. Lovett advises that they have those figures exactly..

Mr. CAWLEY. Fine. I asked for them the other day and they had not submitted them as yet, but Mr. Lovett indicates that he has them. here. I have here a set of figures.