Mr. BENNETT. The Office of Preparedness is in GSA now. It is under the direction of General Bray. Steel, for example, would be an area where we would have to defer. We have an interest in this and would defer to the Department of Commerce.

Agriculture has already been mentioned.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Now, you have indicated on page 4 of your testimony, an increase in the number of shipyards in countries dominated by the Russians.

Are you able to form any appraisal at this time of the Russians' plans and intentions with respect to commercial operation of their merchant marine?

Mr. CARL. I would be glad to submit that to you, sir.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Your answer is fairly sketchy on page 4 of your testimony.

Mr. CARL. There is a complete writeup by Intelligence of the Defense Department in the current June issue of Defense Transportation. Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Why could that not have been included in the answer to our question?

Mr. CARL. This just came out, sir. I just picked this up today.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. I am a little disturbed that the Department of Defense cannot give this committee, in response to a formal question, the same information that is included in a formal article published. Mr. CARL. Well, we did say that the Soviet shipbuilding has increased, and it was based on facts previously known.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Let me express some dismay.

At page 4 of your testimony, where you have been asked to give an appraisal of the Soviet maritime position, your single answer is that there has been an increase in the number of shipyards dominated by the Russians and Russian merchant ships have been seen in increasing numbers in the world trade routes.

Mr. BENNETT. We need to provide you a better answer. We have not done so, Mr. McCloskey.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. May I ask, at this point in the record, that that be supplied, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. DOWNING. Without objection, so ordered. [Information to be supplied follows:]

SOVIET MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTIVITIES

Prior to World War II, Russia ranked No. 23 in world tonnage. As of April 1975. Russia stood No. 7 (U.S. No. 10) possessing 17,278,000 DWT of merchant shipping. Their merchant marine is composed of 16 steamship companies, operating approximately 7,000 ships.

Their merchant marine is under the control of a single agency; Ministry of Merchant Marine located in Moscow. They have a fully automatic data processing system to manage their increasing merchant fleet.

This fleet is composed of a great number of smaller ships primarily to support coastal carriage dominated by dry cargo ships, particularly bulk carriers.

Starting in the 1960s, the Soviets began to standardize ship types to approximately eleven ship types, increase production, and have more efficient use of the shipyards. Their tanker fleet in size of ship averages below that of the world tonnage and is composed mostly of tankers of 50,000-ton levels although they do possess some larger tankers.

In the time frame of 1976-80, the Soviets are moving to containerization and will build an unspecified number of ships with 1200-1400 20-foot container equivalents.

In addition to larger container ships, they are also building or planning to build some RO/RO ships and have plans but no production schedule for a Catamaran. Additionally, they possess a passenger fleet of 80 vessels.

In recent years, the Soviet Merchant Marine has expanded the worldwide trading areas and have come into trade conflict with the U.S. Merchant Marine particularly in the Pacific.

Specific data as to the exact ship by type is available from the Maritime Administration.

It should also be noted that the Soviet Merchant operators purchased the Lykes Sea Barge concept and are having this type of ship constructed by shipyards in Finland.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. In London last fall, I visited one of the Soviet merchant training ships, which have been built in the last 5 years, and I understand they have six of those ships which far exceed the four old hulks that we use for training. It would appear that the Russians have a very clear intention of a broad expansion of their merchant marine. When we asked this question, it was essentially so we might evaluate the Soviet intentions. This kind of an answer does not give this committee much to go on.

Mr. BENNETT. We will have to go back and do some more homework. Mr. CARL. They have 15 training ships, by the way, sir.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. I referred only to the six they told me were built in the last 5 years, but I cannot recall us building a modern training ship within the last 20 years.

We have not even had a ship turned over for that purpose.

Mr. BENNETT. We will try to provide all the intelligence information we can of an unofficial nature for the record, and try to provide you some classified additional information, if that is all right.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Incidentally, you go back and refer to our aging merchant seamen.

You have seen this committee's ad hoc subcommittee report on the training of American seamen ?

Mr. BENNETT. I personally have not seen it. I assume my experts have.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Does Defense, within its responsibilities under the act, have any recent independent studies of the numbers of maritime trained people we would need in the event one of our contingency plans goes into operation?

Mr. BENNETT. I do not know of any specific information that is available.

However, I assure you we will go back and get some information or attempt to get it.

[The following was submitted:]

NUMBER OF MARITIME TRAINED PEOPLE NEEDED FOR OPERATION OF ONE OF OUR CONTINGENCY PLANS

The Department of Defense has sponsored no independent studies of the maritime labor situation. But because of its responsibilities under the Act, the Department of Defense has maintained close liaison with the Department of Commerce's Maritime Administration. The data compiled by the Maritime Administration is used by the Department of Defense in analysis of the readiness of the NDRF and other resources to meet Department of Defense requirements.

The Maritime Administration published a deck and engine officer supply and demand a study in May 1974 which projected peacetime manpower needs of the U.S. Merchant Marine for the period 1974-1984. The study took no account of the potential manpower requirements for the activation of existing NDRF ships. Also the study did not consider effects of temporary, local, or seasonal factors which would limit availability of trained people.

Under these normal, peacetime conditions the Maritime Administration study concluded that:

There will be a shortage of deck and engine officers by the end of the 1970s. In 1978, there will be a demand for 5,801 deck officers but only 5,618 officers will be available. In 1983, there will be a demand for 6,215 deck officers and a supply of 4,834. In 1978, there will be a need for 6,634 engine officers with 6,142 available. In 1983, there will be a demand for 6,977 engine officers and a supply of 5,700.

The Maritime Administration study states that the projection of a shortfall of skilled manpower is based on what are considered to be conservative assumption regarding ocean fleet size, required men-per-billet ratios, and the requirement of other obvious areas of demand. Pertinent tables from the Maritime Administration study follows:

DECK OFFICER SUPPLY/DEMAND RATIOS, 1974-84
[Baseline case]

Year

1974.

1975.

1976.

1977.

1978.

1979.

1980.

1981.

1982

1983.

1984

1 Office of Maritime Manpower projection, September 1973.

Extracted from a Report:

Deck and Engine Officers in the U.S. Merchant Marine.

Supply and Demand, 1974-1984, by U.S. Department of Commerce, Maritime Administration, May 1974.

Extracted from a report:

Deck and Engine Officers in the U.S. Merchant Marine.

Supply and Demand, 1974-1975 by U.S. Department of Commerce Maritime Administration, May 1974.

The Maritime Administration report of the distribution of seafaring jobs as of 1 April 1975 is as follows:

The Navy's Military Sealift Command has studied the personnel requirements which would be generated by the activation of ships now maintained in the NDRF for use by the Department of Defense. Included are 130 Victory cargo ships, 9 Seatrain Class cargo ships, and 43 ex-USNS ship types including tankers. This last category includes troop transports, cargo ships and tankers previously operated by the Military Sealift Command. If all these ships were activated, 9,098 crewmen would be required. This does not provide a reserve for crew relief for replacement of crewmen in the event of sickness or injury. The disparity between the foregoing projections (Deck/Engineer Officers, 1975: projected supply 12,611; projected demand 11,555) and actual total licensed seafaring jobs as of April 1, 1975, of 7,140, would indicate licensed personnel availability at the present time. Since the NDRF ships would not be activated en-bloc, it would appear that early activations in today's environment could probably be manned, although not without some special skill problems and, therefore, with some degree of calculated risk. We would tend to agree with the cited MARAD projections as we get further into the future, that, if left to itself, the situation could become critical. This situation will be kept under surveillance.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. This was not an inadverent comment in your testimony about the lack of qualified crews.

Mr. BENNETT. We have not gone into the depth we possibly could in that particular area.

We are aware of the problem and do have these statistics.

Admiral Moore did respond earlier to a question in that particular

area.

Now, as to the impact of a specific contingency, I do not believe we have ever done that detailed a planning in this particular area. But I think it is a very good idea for us to know more about our requirements there.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Mr. Bennett, I am curious in the thrust of your testimony that we depend on the merchant marine to meet our contingency planning situations.

Where, within the Department of Defense, is there any analysis of the commercial future, the competitive future of our merchant marine over the next 10 to 20 years, based on the international trade developments that you see? And do you have any existing office or capacity in the Defense Department to look at the purely commercial competitive aspects of our merchant marine over the next 2 decades?

Mr. BENNETT. No; I would say we do not have and we normally would not try to answer that question.

We try to rely on another element of the executive branch to be responsible for that.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Are you speaking of the CIA?

Mr. CARL. The Department of Commerce.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. And yet, your responsibility under the act is to see that the merchant marine is prepared to serve as an auxiliary in time of war.

Mr. BENNETT. For defense purposes, yes.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. That makes what the Maritime Administration does and their capacity for long-range contingency planning very important to conducting your own function.

Mr. BENNETT. It does.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Now, you say that you removed Admiral Miller because you needed an admiral's billet in the Navy that you could not assign one to the Maritime Administration.

Mr. CARL. We have an admiral, Admiral Kern; but the single admiral's billet was required elsewhere.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Well, that bothers me. If the importance of the Maritime Administration's long-term contingency planning is so great, why require an admiral's billet elsewhere?

Mr. CARL. Because we have actually now three naval officers in the Maritime Administration.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Of what rank?

Mr. CARL. We have one admiral, double hatted, one commander, and another commander, one of our best young commanders is over there.

This was an agreement with Mr. Blackwell also.

Admiral MOORE. Mr. McCloskey, it might be well to insert for the record the reductions in numbers of flag officers in the Navy that have come about, and the need for withdrawing certain flag assignments. This particular assignment was considered in that reduction in numbers of flag officers.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. I assume there are security memoranda back and forth as to why this particular assignment was considered worthy of elimination as opposed to others.

Admiral MOORE. I am not privy to those documents.

Mr. CARL. There was correspondence between the Secretary of Navy and Mr. Blackwell of MARAD on this whole matter, recognizing the very importance of that billet, recognizing the great job George Miller did, and we actually have concurred with the the MARAD recommendation.

We have put one of our very best admirals, wearing this double hat, sir, who is directly involved in this study that Mr. Wheeler talked about.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. What are his other duties, when you speak of the double hat here?

Mr. CARL. He has duties under Admiral Gaddis, shipyard facilities and the merchant marine.

Admiral MOORE. His primary duty is on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations in the Pentagon.

Mr. WHEELER. He is very much engaged in the interrelationships we have with MARAD, such as approval of the national defense features which go through him, Mr. McCloskey, so he has been working very closely with MARAD.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. I have other questions, Mr. Chairman, but in deference to your 5-minute rule, I will yield at this point.

Mr. DOWNING. Mr. Patterson?

Mr. PATTERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, it is a privilege to have your testimony this morning. There are a few additional questions I would like to ask, and I will start with: Why is it economically unfeasible for commercial operators to build the type of vessel that DOD needs?

Mr. CARL. This is for several reasons, primarily the container revolution brought about, of course, by the non-self-sustaining ship. Ports in Bremerhaven and Rotterdam have huge cranes which take the material off these containerships. It became a highly competitive field.

The non-self-sustaining containership was economically very feasible. It was fast, and so that economically it made a lot of sense. Being