PANAMA CANAL ZONE Joint action has been taken by the military departments to produce greater efficiency and economy in the medical service in the area. The plan, approved by the Secretary of Defense, calls for use of the United States Naval Hospital at Coco-Solo and the Fort Clayton Hospital as the principal hospital facilities for all the armed services on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Isthmus. It also includes use of the Colón Hospital facilities for authorized civilian personnel and for other uses, consolidation of professional medical means, rotation of medical personnel, and establishment of an Area Joint Medical Advisory Committee. Joint use of laundry and dry-cleaning facilities in the Canal Zone has been established on a trial basis with the closing for 1 year of the Naval Hospital laundry at Coco-Solo. Savings is estimated at $10,000. PENNSYLVANIA Instead of establishing its own sales commissary in the Philadelphia area, the Army is using Navy-yard facilities at a saving of $40,000 annually. Subsistence for the Schuylkill Arsenal, Philadelphia, is being obtained from the Navy Yard at an annual saving of $6,000. The First Air Force has allotted funds to Second Army Headquarters for payment of subsistence allowance to Air ROTC students at institutions in Pennsylvania. PUERTO RICO The Navy, which administers a 400-family housing unit at San Juan, has allocated 140 units to Army personnel on a reimbursable basis. This eliminates the necessity of the Army providing other housing facilities. SOUTH CAROLINA The Army has been given authority to buy supplies from the Charleston Navy Yard. The Army's Charleston Wet Storage Basin has been made available to the Navy for mooring ships, and the Army engineers have given the Navy a 5-year permit to use the Ordnance Dock at the Charleston Ordnance Depot. The annual saving from these moves has been estimated at $141,875. Increased efficiency is regarded as more important. TENNESSEE The medical services of the Air Force Unit and the Memphis General Depot at Memphis have been combined into one administrative medical service, with the service furnishing the medical officer responsible for the administration and supervision of medical supplies. TEXAS Maintenance of Government-owned teletypewriter equipment at Biggs Air Force Base, El Paso, is performed by Army personnel from Fort Bliss at an annual saving of $2,460. Fort Bliss provides one type of automotive maintenance for the Forty-seventh Bombing Wing at Biggs Air Force Base. Combining of teletype circuits in the Fourth Army Area (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana) has resulted in an annual saving to the Government of $35,043. Fort Sam Houston provides laundry service for five nearby airfields. It provides bread from the post bakery to two nearby Air Force bases. Carswell Air Force Base at Fort Worth handles the issue and repair of enlisted men's clothing and equipment for four nearby ROTC units. Fort Bliss provides clothing, equipment, and shoe-repair service for five nearby Air Force installations and furnishes bread from post bakery to two nearby Air Force bases. Its commissary officer obtains perishable goods for Biggs Air Force Base, El Paso, provides laundry service for two nearby Air Force bases, and furnishes laundry service for a Naval unit stationed at White Sands Proving Grounds, Las Cruces, N. Mex. Fort Crockett provides commissary service for the Navy and Marines in the Galveston area. Camp Hood provides laundry service for four nearby Air Force bases. It provides clothing, equipment, and shoe repair for Bergstrom Air Force Base, Austin. Holloman Air Force Base, Alamogordo, N. Mex., has been granted authority to install instrumentation and radar at Fort Bliss. Maintenance of Government-owned teletypewriter equipment at Fort Worth Quartermaster Depot and United States Engineer office, Dallas, is performed by Air Force personnel from Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth. VIRGINIA Arrangements have been made for the use of up to 100 beds in the United States Naval Hospital in Portsmouth for the general hospitalization of Army and Air Force personnel in the Newport News-Norfolk-Portsmouth area. Without such an arrangement, it would be necessary to send patients to Washington for general hospitalization. In August 1947, the Navy assumed for the Army the inspection work on Army transport conversions at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. The Navy estimates that a saving of $120,000 was effected by the joint organization of these inspection facilities during the fiscal year 1948. The Army and Navy have put into operation a plan for Army utilization of Navy-owned-and-operated cold storage plants at Cheatam Annex, Williamsburg, and at Bayonne, N. J. The annual saving is estimted at $500,000 to $700,000. A power line has been constructed connecting the South Post, Fort Myer, with Arlington Farms, a Government civilian housing project, so that electricity may be purchased through one meter. The line is being extended to Navy and Marine barracks now under construction. An annual saving of about $13,000 will result. Upon request, the Navy has informally inspected Army's floating equipment at Fort Eustis and has made recommendations for improvement of Army equipment and facilities. By agreement with the Air Force, the Quartermaster General provides schooling and technical training for Air Force officers and enlisted men at the Quartermaster School, Camp Lee. Provision has been made for training of Air Force installations' specialists and replacement of different types at Fort Belvoir. It is estimated that this arrangement will save $2,040,000 a year. The First Air Force has allotted funds to Second Army Headquarters for payment of subsistence allowance to Air ROTC students at institutions in Virginia. WASHINGTON Through agreement, the Navy handles the Army's oversea transshipment of ammunition through the facilities of the Naval Ammunition Depot at Bangor and the Naval Magazine at Port Chicago, Calif. Arrangement permitted closing the Beaver Ammunition Storage point, Klatskanie, Oreg., and the saving of approximately $8,000 a month. Use by the Navy of Army Space Charters to the Alaskan area from Seattle from September 1947 through February 1948 saved an estimated $33,000 for the Navy. WEST VIRGINIA The First Air Force has allotted funds to Second Army Headquarters for payment of subsistence allowance to Air ROTC students at institutions in West Virginia. WYOMING The Fort Warren Air Force installation maintains 27 Wyoming Army vehicles with an estimated annual saving of more than $19,000. NATIONAL SECURITY ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1949 TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 1949 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a. m. in the committee room, room 212, Senate Office Building, Senator Millard Tydings (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Tydings, Byrd, Chapman, Kefauver, Hunt, Saltonstall, Baldwin, and Knowland. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, when Secretary Forrestal appeared here last week, you will remember that we requested certain information be furnished our committee, and which the Secretary assured us would be forwarded at the earliest possible moment. I have here the data which Secretary Forrestal has supplied for the information of the committee, and ask that it be copied in the record at this point. (The data referred to is as follows :) THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, Washington, March 28, 1949. Hon. MILLARD E. TYDINGS, Chairman, Armed Services Committee, United States Senate. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: When I appeared before your committee last week, I was asked to submit a comparison of the President's recommendations for amending the National Security Act of 1947, and the comparable recommendations of the Hoover Commission. The requested material is attached. JAMES FORRESTAL. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGES IN THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGES IN THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947-Con. President Truman's recommendations— Continued Hoover Commission's recommendations-Continued (5) Provide that the National Military In effect, the same-though the designaEstablishment shall become an tion "Department of Defense" is not executive department of the Gov- recommended in specific terms. ernment, to be known as the Department of Defense. (6) Provide greater flexibility in the Same. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: In response to your request for information on the National Military Establishment procurement-assignment program, made at the March 24, 1949, hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, I submit the attached statement and enclosures. Additional copies of the enclosures are available if required. Sincerely, JAMES FORRESTAL. MUNITIONS BOARD PURCHASE ASSIGNMENT PROGRAM The Munitions Board, in its program of coordinating procurement among the three departments of the National Military Establishment, has effected the assignment of purchase responsibility for selected commodities involving the greater portion of departmental procurement expenditures. In implementing this program, four types of coordination have been employed. These types, together with the definitions of terms are as follows: (a) Collaborative procurement-whereby procurement activities of more than one department occupy offices in the same area but make separate contracts, the objective being to center in one place geographically all procurement of smilar supplies or services, and facilitate the exchange of market information. (b) Joint procurement-whereby a jointly staffed and financed procurement activity purchases specific supplies or services for the three departments. (c) Single department procurement-whereby one department purchases certain items or services for another department. (d) Coordinated (aircraft)-used exclusively in the aircraft industry, where one department is assigned the responsibility for procuring selected items from a particular aviation plant for all three departments. There is enclosed a chart (tab 1) which indicates the current status of the purchase assignment program based on fiscal year 1949 planned procurement. It should be noted that while 80.7 percent by dollar volume of current procurement has been assigned, it does not necessarily mean that 80.7 percent of the military purchases during fiscal year 1949 will be coordinated under one of the methods outlined above. This figure only represents the maximum of what might have been coordinated had the assignments now in effect been in effect on July 1, 1948, and implemented without exception during the entire fiscal year 1949. Further, the figures are based on estimated planned procurements rather than actual purchases. The figure of 80.7 percent should be further qualified in view of the fact that certain items assigned may develop administrative and interpretational problems that may result in cancellation of the assignment. Furthermore, emergency and limited local purchase will be permitted in almost all groups of commodities. There is also enclosed (tab 2) a detailed listing of the United States standard commodity classification groups which are included in "Single department procurement" and "Joint procurement." (Tab 1, 1 page; tab 2, 23 pages, are as follows :) ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE PURCHASE ASSIGNMENTS IN EFFECT Department of the Army QM-Quartermaster Corps. TC-Transportation Corps. SIG-Signal Corps. Department of the Navy MARCOR-Marine Corps. MC-Marine Corps. BUS&A-Bureau of Supplies and Accounts. BUORD-Bureau of Ordnance. BUDOCK-Bureau of Yards and Docks. BUY&D-Bureau of Yards and Docks. BUMED-Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. BUSHIP-Bureau of Ships. BUAIR-Bureau of Aeronautics. Department of the Air Force AMC-Air Matériel Command. ASPPA-Armed Services Petroleum Purchasing Agency. ANMP-Army-Navy Medical Purchasing Agency (recently changed to Armed Services Procurement Agency). THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, Hon. MILLARD E. TYDINGS, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I am enclosing a summary table and a detailed memorandum of dollar savings that have been realized or are expected from positive action taken since the passage of the National Security Act, as referred to in my letter of March 24, 1949. The total savings in this category amount to $60,291,936, representing an increase of $3,774,515 over the total of $56,517,421 reported in the March 26, 1949, press release which I submitted to you last Thursday. The increased savings reported reflect information received subsequent to those reported in the February 16, 1949, Munitions Board report on "Elimination of duplication and overlapping," on which the release to the press was based. The figures given in this report include only those estimated savings which are the result of completed studies and investigations or portions thereof upon which final action in the form of implementing directives, formal agreements, or other unification measures has been taken. The savings evaluated and reported at this time have accrued or will accrue to the National Military Establishment in terms of one-time (immediate, nonrecurring), or annually recurring amounts. Sincerely yours, JAMES FORRESTAL. |