Mr. BENNETT. Let me say one other thing that might be of interest to you. In our stockpile, one of the problems that we are having is the current assumption concerning the number of ships, merchant marine ships, that will be lost as a result of enemy action during a war, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have taken a position that an assumption that currently exists is not adequate. I think that is another thing that we collectively have to concern ourselves with. There is more of a threat that we will not have as many of these ships over a longer period of time, as we might have had in the past, because of the strength of the Russian Navy Fleet. Mr. RUPPE. Well, from World War II experience, you can assume you would have some initial losses before you are able to protect your merchant marine shipping, anyway. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DOWNING. Mr. Sarbanes? Mr. SARBANES. Gentlemen, I want to thank you for some helpful testimony. I am struck by how wide ranging are the criticisms directed at governmental support of activity in the American merchant marine area, and what they rest upon in terms of assumptions, particularly in the defense area. Let me give you two examples. There is a recent book highly critical of some of the maritime programs, and it says, among other things, that the Department of Defense studied the matter several years ago and decided the effective controlled fleet was sufficiently reliable to be included in U.S. defense planning. The book then, of course, goes on to build an argument on this statement. As I understand your testimony this morning, your conclusion is that such fleet ought not to be included in defense planning, and I understand you rely in large part for that conclusion on the most recent point in time when that concept was put to the test in the Mideast situation when we in fact did not have control over such fleet. Mr. CARL. That is correct. You know, when you do not have anything, you reach out for any possible support, and we reached out several years ago, and perhaps people in Defense said, rightfully at the time, that there was a possibility of using the effective controlled fleet; but it really does not exist as far as our real needs are concerned. Its availability was uncertain in the Mideast situation. Mr. BENNETT. Let me add to that. I think our position is that the controlled fleet should not be considered as a substitute for the U.S. flag fleet. Mr. SARBANES. Now, another criticism that is made is that any war that we are going to be involved in is going to be a very quick thing. That theme runs through the criticisms, in effect. saying: "Well, you talk about needing a maritime capacity to provide for the contingencies of war, but our defense planning assumes that a war would be short and over with in a hurry, and we are not going to be able to use that fleet.” Again, the most recent war for us was the involvement in Southeast Asia, and as I understand it, that conflict placed enormous strains upon our ability to meet the demands for shipping. Mr. BENNETT. There is a whole range of conflict that the Department of Defense must be prepared for, and it is not just the 90-day NATO war. It is other types of contingencies and so forth, Mr. Sarbanes. There are possibilities all over the world that would involve us in conflict that would go well beyond 90 days. Additionally, the situation is changing, and Dr. Schlesinger, the Secretary of Defense, and his staff are constantly assessing what it is we should have, reaching parity pretty much in the strategic area, and there is one school of thought that now says that the NATO war could easily be a conventional war. There are thoughts of changing this 90-day assumption to a 180-day assumption and to plan for even a longer type of war. There are a number of considerations and thoughts of this nature that we constantly are considering. I do not think that we can say that we can plan on just a 90-day war, and let it go at that. Mr. SARBANES. What were some of the difficulties that were encountered by the Defense Department with respect to the Vietnam situation because of the insufficiency of our maritime capacity? Mr. CARL. In the 1966-67 timeframe, we had ships, and because of the types of ships they were, age and so forth, the conditions of the ports and so forth, they were delayed in the ports of Vietnam for as much as 240 days until we could resolve our port problems, our throughput problems, and come up with containerships and other types of faster ships in the merchant marine. We were lucky in Korea, that we happened to have a reserve fleet of those Victory ships, which are fast going down the drain. We were able to call in those ships. The other important thing is those berth-line operators that cooperated with us to give us their ships lost cargo to their foreign competitors. Our fleet situation was pretty bad until toward 1969 and 1970, when the reserve fleet ships were in operation, and we more or less had a good throughput at the Vietnamese ports. Mr. BENNETT. I think I would just add two things. We had some troubles in the beginning with foreign-flag ships, and I think you know about that. Mr. SARBANES. I was going to ask that question, because some critics suggest we could meet our needs in such situations by calling upon foreign-flag carriers that the competition to get cargo and make money is so intense that they will respond. I gather our experience, at least in the Vietnam situation, shows that is not the case. Admiral MOORE. The foreign-flag assets available to the Department of Defense are not provided by law. They are an exception to the law. Under the Cargo Preference Act of 1904, we are obliged to use U.S.-flag to move defense cargoes, unless it is not available. At the outset of the Vietnam, we did enter into charters of foreignflags for lift required to fulfill a small percentage of those early requirements. There were some 17 foreign-flag ships employed in the 1965 and early 1966 timeframe. There were occasions where those foreign-flag ships did not perform. There were occasions when they refused to sail. So problems are generated by employing that asset; but, as Mr. Carl mentioned earlier, we were reaching out for any assets that would be available to the Department of Defense to fulfill the lift requirements that were so essential at that time. Foreign-flag shipping was an asset available to us. Mr. SARBANES. Now, one of the other matters that concerns me greatly is that, if you are going to have a ship-operating capacity and a shipbuilding capacity, you have to have the men with the skills to do those jobs, and the highly cyclical nature in which the industry operates works, it seems to me, at counterpurposes to developing a stable, well-trained, highly professional labor force. This leads me to query whether there is not some way that the needs of the Defense Department, as reflected in terms of the ships you would seek to have built, which may not altogether square with what the commercial interests want, and subsequently in terms of how ships are used, could be developed on a coordinated basis with what the private sector is doing in order to maintain a stable level of activity, both in the shipyards and in shipping itself; thereby insuring the Nation of the development and perpetuation of a skilled work force. Mr. BENNETT. You have about five or six different elements there. That is perhaps a good summary of a systems approach to the whole problem. I think that getting this kind of coordinative planning would be the best of all possible worlds and that we would try to do it. We too are concerned, as you are, with the crewing of the ships and the feast-and-famine type of situation that does exist. We have expressed our concern. I think we would have to defer, particularly to MARAD, to try to answer that particular question better. We are constantly striving to get stability where we can, in our shipbuilding capability. Mr. SARBANES. Let me ask you this morning not to be so deferential to MARAD or other agencies of the Government, and simply to ask you gentlemen if the entire range of policy were within your jurisdiction, what would you do? Mr. BENNETT. In other words, you are asking us for our opinions in this particular area? Admiral MOORE. Let me reflect a little history here. I happen to remember some statistics. I think my figures are fairly accurate. We had a peak of 115.000 seagoing employees at the height of or near the end of Vietnam operations. Right now those seagoing employables are about 26,000. Many are getting along in years. Mr. SARBANES. I was going to ask for an age profile. Admiral MOORE. We are concerned about that. There are people who served in World War II, so they are rapidly approaching a retirement age, with a current average of 46.48 years. Mr. Carl can speak with more expertise in this area than I, but their number may be down to 24,000 in the next 2 or 3 years. We have a national defense reserve fleet which will require skilled people as when ships in that reserve fleet are activated. It is a problem we recognize as we consider the people required to man and operate those ships once they are brought to active service. Jobs are going away, as they have been going away, with the reducing of the U.S.-flag numbers, and I feel that if I had the opportunity I would strive for some means of employment to perpetuate an adequate asset of people for a contingency purpose. Mr. BENNETT. It is an important element of the national defense, and I think perhaps we have not done enough about it. I asked that specific question with MARAD. I was down on the James River, and visited the national defense reserve fleet just last week, and I asked Mr. Killian and Mr. King, and they believe for the national defense reserve fleet at least that under emergency conditions the unions can provide the crews. I think the unions would probably say we could use more people. We need more people, yes. We think that there is a relationship to national defense. Mr. SARBANES. There is, of course, as Admiral Moore pointed out, the fact that the number they can provide is shrinking year by year, because we essentially have in that labor force a population that entered it a long time ago, and is aging very rapidly. I would be interested in seeing an age profile, because I think it would show we are not drawing in a significant number of younger men. Some of that is happening, but not enough, really, as you project forward to provide the skilled force that would be required in an emergency situation. Mr. BENNETT. We have that age profile, which we can comment on now or provide later for the record. Mr. SARBANES. Why not submit it? [The following was submitted:] MARITIME WORK FORCE Since the U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Transportation, has regulatory and documentation authority over U.S. seamen, and the Maritime Administration, Department of Commerce, has similar responsibility for the U.S. merchant marine industry, Department of Defense does not maintain current statistics on the maritime work force. Department of Defense does, however, assist in funding of studies in these areas. One such study, dated September 1974, and entitled "The Seagoing Workforce, Implication of Technological Change," dealt with aging of the maritime work force. This report was conducted by the Maritime Transportation Research Board National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. Noting that distributions by age which would allow for a detailed analysis of the composition of the seagoing workforce were not available, the report included a table which depicted median ages by type of seagoing occupation during the 10-year period from 1962 through 1972. As can be seen from review of that table, a copy of which follows, median ages of all types of seagoing personnel have increased at a relatively steady rate. In addition, as the noted report points out, there now exists "an increasingly aging workforce with a potential for block retirement. As jobs become scarce, older men with union seniority get preference for the available work. Young men become discouraged and eventually drift out of the work force." The report pointed out that a continuation of this trend eventually will result in an age gap in the workforce with large numbers of workers clustered around the extremes of the age scale. Commenting on problems of recruitment of young men for seagoing jobs, the report concluded that the "lessened chances of steady employment may make it more difficult to attract and retain young people." Authors of the subject report recommended that more data are needed to develop a statistical analysis of the seagoing workforce, including age distribution by ratings; career data of seamen before and after training and after leaving the workforce; characteristics of new entrants, leavers and stayers by type of school and type of jobs; intraindustry mobility, and a number of related areas. This type of information would doubtless be of significant value to Department of Defense. The cited table follows: SEAMEN'S EMPLOYMENT ANALYSIS, NATIONWIDE MEDIAN AGES, INCLUDING GREAT LAKES, 1962-63 TO 1970, 1 Includes medical, nuclear, and other classifications. Source: Office of Maritime Manpower, Maritime Administration, Department of Commerce. Mr. CARL. It comes, by the way, from the Transportation and Movement Control put out by the Joint Logistics Review Board to recapture our Vietnam problems up through 1970, and I will just read you this quote. It says: "Because of decreasing employment opportunities offered by the American Merchant Marine, the maritime labor force since 1970 numbered only about 100,000 men, and as of January 1965 their average age was 45, which compares very poorly with the average of Navy personnel, which is 25. "Experience has shown it takes about 1.9 men to keep one seagoing billet filled throughout the year." This has now dropped to 26,000 men, as Admiral Moore testified, so we have a great concern for experienced personnel. Mr. SARBANES. The other thing that I think would be helpful is if you could provide the committee a little more information or report on the Soviet effort in this field. I am struck by the fact that at a time when there is mounting criticism that we should not put resources into this field and should pull back from it other countries all around the world are making exactly the opposite decisions, not only the Soviet Union but some other Western European countries, and some of the underdeveloped counrties. Obviously, they are making some judgment about national security interests and economic interests and so forth that are very different from the judgments that some critics are calling upon our Government to make. It is my understanding that the Soviet commitment of resources in this area has increased significantly, and they are now engaged in rate wars with respect to the carriage of world commerce. So obviously they have reached an entirely different judgment as to the interests at stake in this matter. Mr. DOWNING. Will my friend from Maryland yield? |