Mr. VAN ZANDT. At this point, may I ask the general about the number of general officers you have assigned to sit on boards under Military Code of Justice? The Navy has 3 or 4 admirals, if my memory is correct. I think they are retired admirals called back to active duty.

Do you have generals sitting on these boards as the Navy does admirals?

General WETZEL. I am sorry, sir. I cannot answer that.

Mr. BLANDFORD. I think I can answer it according to our listing here, that you have no general officers assigned as the Navy has. General WETZEL. None.

Mr. BLANDFORD. I think that is the answer you want. We find the Navy with six flag officers, retired flag officers, sitting as presidents of provost courts-martial. You have only one retired general on

active duty. Is that right?

General WETZEL. More than that now. I think I told you that by June we would have only one retired general on active duty. There are four now.

Mr. VAN ZANDT. Who are they?

General WETZEL. There are four retired general officers on active duty. One is General Harmon, lieutenant general. He is the Air Force representative on the United States Military Staff Committee of the U. N. He will be off by June.

General Lynch, who was retired February 28 past, works in OSD, and we agreed with them to recall him to active duty for a short period until he could train his replacement.

General Hansel, recalled for the mutual-security position he occupies in the Air Staff, a position we will cover later.

The fourth is Brig. Gen. George Goddard, who is in Europe now and we feel he is the foremost authority of aerial photography in the world. He is to assist NATO countries to assist them in procedures in aerial photography. Four now, one by June.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Your Deputy Chief of Staff, Comptroller. That is a field we floundered in the other day.

General WETZEL. You skipped the doctors.

Mr. BLANDFORD. You are authorized five permanent general officers under the Officers Personnel Act. You have eight. I am sure we will find the same thing in the Air Force that we found in the Navythat you have more colonels occupying billets of doctors than you have billets for them, but it is an inevitable situation that has arisen because of the fact doctors come in during the depression and do not in good times, and as a result those who stay on build up rank. Is that correct, that you have a lot of colonels

Lieutenant Colonel KANE. We are still quite a bit below the requirements.

Mr. BLANDFORD. The Navy was way over in their positions occupied by captains as compared with their billets, forty-some-odd, if I am not mistaken.

General LEE. That is not the case in the Air Force.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Maybe starting out from scratch you were able to prevent such a situation from taking place.

The Deputy Chief of Staff, Comptroller. The Deputy Chief and Assistant Deputy Chief are self-explanatory, I think.

The Director of Accounting intrigues me because that job is done by a civilian in the Navy. It just occurs to me: Isn't this a job that is more closely akin to a civilian occupation than anything else in the Air Force? We are talking about the Comptroller now and not materiel. You have here a Director of Accounting. That would mean somebody who is a C. P. A. or somebody who had a lot of experience in accounting.

Why is it necessary to detail a brigadier general? I don't knowhe is a Reserve?

General WETZEL. Yes, qualified for the assignment.

Mr. BLANDFORD. But he is qualified for retirement. He has 19 years of service. He has 1 more year to go and he will be in like Flynn. Not that there is objection to that. I don't know whether it is cheaper to hire a civilian or to have a general officer. I haven't figured that out.

You have an auditor general. There is nothing comparable to that in the Navy, nothing comparable to it in the Mairne Corps that I know of.

That is also a Reserve.

Then you have a Director of Managment and Analysis Service, a brigadier general, and the comparable billet in the Navy is occupied by a captain.

Then you have a Director of Budget, and Assistant Chief of the Navy who does that, which is comparable, and there is probably a difference of whether the Assistant Chief is upper or lower half.

Commander WHEELER. The admiral drags halfway. That is a statutory billet.

Mr. BLANDFORD. A Director of Statistical Services. That is performed by a civilian in the Navy. Why is that a military billet, General?

General WETZEL. I suppose if you could hire a civilian within the limitations imposed-I would like to go back to the statement I made about the responsibility the chief has. He is not only limited to general officers but limited in the number of civilians and in their grades that he can hire. I certainly can't argue that a civilian properly qualified could handle the responsibilities of this office.

DIRECTOR OF STATISTICAL SERVICES, DCS/C

Plans and develops the integrated statistical and reporting network of the USAF and exercises technical supervision over the operations and performance thereof.

Provides complete statistical service to the Air Staff, including collection, compilation, analysis, and presentation of statistics in the form of recurring and special reports, analyses, and studies.

Provides centralized punch card accounting facilities for staff use.

Develops and administers such specialized activities as: USAF reports control system; USAF strength accounting systems; management and research of all accounting machine equipment used in the Air Force.

Mr. BLANDFORD. That is one of the things we are going to find in these hearings, I am sure.

Mr. PATTERSON. What would be the difference in the salary paid to a major general and a civilian in this comparable position?

Mr. BLANDFORD. I would say they would be approximately the same, Mr. Patterson. A major general draws $14,400, roughly speaking.

General WETZEL. I would guess that you would get off a little lighter with the major general than you would if you were able to get the comparable civilian who had the capability of doing this job. Mr. PATTERSON. It should be kept within the Air Force family, then, as to every position you can. A civilian should not play the part in the military program where it is not absolutely necessary.

General WETZEL. You are faced with a limitation on general officers and a limitation on high-grade civilians.

Mr. BLANDFORD. The criticism, as I understand it from various sources in the Congress, is that you have military people doing jobs that civilians should be doing, and that once you commission an officer you have him with you for all intents and purposes for 30 years. When you hire a civilian you are not committed to that situation, and to carry out what the Senate Armed Services Committee went into last year, there are many positions being occupied by general officers, or by officers, that could be occupied by civilians and release that many more military men. You might take a man with a weak heart and make him Director of Statistical Services, but you cannot take a man with a weak heart and make him a wing commander.

Mr. PATTERSON. Are these people qualified to do the line work? General WETZEL. This particular general, Major General Landon, is not a pilot.

Is that right?

General LEE. That is right.

Mr. PATTERSON. What could he be used for in the service other than what he is doing?

General WETZEL. Öther positions in the Training Command, for example.

Mr. PATTERSON. Where they really need him.

General WETZEL. Where he could be used.

Mr. GAVIN. What position did he occupy previous to this one? General WETZEL. I am afraid I don't remember. He has been here since I have been in Washington.

Mr. GAVIN. He has an Air Force background?

General WETZEL. Yes.

Mr. GAVIN. He has been with the Air Force for many years and qualified for this position. I think I met him in Europe at one time. I don't recall what his billet was there.

Mr. PATTERSON. I think if an officer is needed in a particular position he should be placed there, but if the position can be filled by a civilian and that particular officer is needed in another billet for the benefit of the Air Force, or the efficiency of the Air Force, then he should be placed there and a civilian placed into the position he

vacates.

Mr. BLANDFORD. That is my position on it, Mr. Patterson, that the services might save themselves from a lot of criticism based upon numbers, which seems to scare everybody. In other words, when you talk about number of general officers, it is peanuts. But when you talk about numbers of people wearing stars, perhaps, if you could go out and hire civilians to do those jobs, granted it might cost more money, but that is not unusual to change something for more efficiency and have it end up costing more money.

Mr. PATTERSON. You will have to explain that to Mr. Taber in the Appropriations Committee.

General WETZEL. You are caught in the middle.

Mr. BLANDFORD. You are caught in the middle. That is the trouble.

Mr. PATTERSON. That is right.

General WETZEL. It is difficult for the services to understand, I am sure, the real concern-and it is real, we certainly accept that-on the number of general officers. That we find it hard to understand. We have to face up to it. There is no question about that.

The job of Director of Statistical Services is a very important one. He is responsible for all the statistical information in the Air Force. It generates right down at grassroots level where we have people and things and parts and aircraft. It is an important job. All of that information is not only used by the Air staff to run their business, but it is the source of information we need to deal with the Office of Secretary of Defense and to deal with the Congress. Many times in the past, there has been an error which has involved this director calling our major commanders, directing that better control and better information be furnished.

A civilian in that position would be at a disadvantage, it seems to me to call up LeMay and tell him to watch his statistical services business and see that it gets in line.

Mr. BLANDFORD. A major general would have the same difficulty. General WETZEL. No. When you are right you haven't any difficulty in calling things to our four-star generals' attention.

Mr. BLANDFORD. It makes no difference whether you are a civilian or in uniform if you were right with General LeMay.

General WETZEL. I imagine so. I think, though, a civilian would be at a disadvantage. However, I cannot argue the point that you could probably find a civilian who probably would not want the job for the pay you could give him, but you could find one who would be capable of handling the job.

Mr. GAVIN. It would take him several years to get an Air Force background to get the feel of the job.

General WETZEL. Certainly.

Mr. BLANDFORD. In that connection, though, Mr. Gavin, that raises another interesting point, and I think probably you will find it in all the services. If it takes a background of statistical experience to become a director of statistical services, I wager that General Landon, without knowing it, never had previous experience in statistical services.

Mr. GAVIN. That is why I asked the question of his background. Mr. BLANDFORD. That is one of the problems the services continuously face, and that is bringing officers into positions where it takes a year to acclimatize them to their ability. That is in the very nature of things in the military services as far as that is concerned. But where that can be eliminated on a job that is more civilian than it is military, at least after you once have established your continuity you don't change it every 3 years, and in that respect there is a lot more efficiency in having a civilian than there is in having a military man if it is a position that does not require extensive knowledge of flying. Statistical services, if the name implies what I think it does means collecting statistics.

General WETZEL. He collects statistics.

Mr. BLANDFORD. I don't suppose that any extreme knowledge of the instrument panel of a B-36 is of very much importance in collecting those statistics?

General LEE. There is another point here, though, I think, Mr. Blandford. Officers who are normally selected for key spots, promotions such as general officers, are not selected normally just for one channel of endeavor such as a statistical services man or a B-36 pilot. Mr. BLANDFORD. That is right.

General LEE. A man selected to fill that kind of a position, a colonel or general, generally is selected from a broad point of view. I don't know all of General Landon's background, but I dare say he has had a great amount of experience in things such as adjutant general's work, recordkeeping, and so on. I know in 1946 he was in the United States Air Force Headquarters on some similar assignment. I have had some dealings with him. I am not exactly sure what he was doing. So I think we have to recall and remember that these people are not normally channelized in some little narrow field but they can step in and be an executive or a director in a number of management positions rather than just on one specialty.

Mr. PATTERSON. How do you people absorb an ex-pilot; that is, a fellow who has been flying for 10 or 15 years who gets to the rank of colonel and general and they are no longer in a flying status and would have to revert to something like bookkeeping or housekeeping in the service? Where do you put those fellows? Do you retire them, or what?

General LEE. If he were no longer, as you put it, Mr. Patterson, suitable for flying, he might even fill the position we are just discussing if he has had the background along with his piloting that he should have by the time he gets to the age and stage you are discussing.

Mr. PATTERSON. I am thinking principally of the requirements you have for aviators. The moment you pick up a defect in a flier then he is grounded. That is correct, is it not?

General LEE. If the defect is such that he is no longer able to qualify, yes.

Mr. PATTERSON. They catch him mostly on his eyes.

General LEE. Yes.

Mr. PATTERSON. Then he is grounded.

General LEE. Yes.

Mr. PATTERSON. If he is not physically disqualified to the point of being put out of the service on that disability, then you have to absorb him within the military end of the Air Force?

General LEE. Yes. And many of these jobs you see here are filled by the type of officer you are discussing. For example, General Hopwood, somewhere on the list you have, is a command pilot now grounded due to a physical defect. But General Hopwood's background and ability makes him highly suited for the type of job he is doing. He is not on flying status.

There are many more here if we got out the records, so they are fitted into the administrative side of things.

Some of them are still in jobs, most of them are still in jobs, that require pilot knowledge, knowledge that they gained as pilots, even though they are not actually out flying today.

Mr. GAVIN. That is not unusual in the Air Force to have those difficulties. I think the Army has trouble, too, and the Navy has,