Mr. BARRY. It appears that the President has the power to assign from time to time other than the executives that you have. Does that mean that that power doesn't go to you? I will read the specific paragraph in the letter:

In addition another deputy representative to the Security Council is authorized and the President may also appoint from time to time such other persons as he may deem necessary to represent the United States in the agencies of the United Nations, including the Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council.

I took that to mean that the President had the power from time to time to appoint additional deputies for you. But I thought that power also would accrue to you, would it not?

Ambassador STEVENSON. We haven't so interpreted it under the strict interpretation of the language. It says, "including representatives to." Whether that means representatives to the United Nations for all purposes or whether it means only to those specific agencies, this is what we are trying to clarify.

Mr. BARRY. It would be the Secretary of State's interpretation here. Perhaps Mr. Cleveland could shed some light on this paragraph. It is paragraph 2 of your letter dated the 12th of February 1963. It seems to me the authority is already there.

Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Cleveland.

STATEMENT BY HON. HARLAN CLEVELAND, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS

Mr. CLEVELAND. I think the problem is under the way the present act is drafted. Each time somebody is to sit in one of these major councils or commissions up there who isn't a person holding a statutory job, we have to go back to the President and in the case of some commissions we have to go for a Senate confirmation arrangement.

For example, one of my special assistants in my office is over in Geneva at the moment representing the United States at the Economic Commission for Europe. We had to go all the way through and get a Senate confirmation so he could sit for 2 weeks in Geneva at that meeting, which isn't a particularly significant meeting.

It is to remove the really extraordinary amount of personnel paper work that goes on in this business because of the rigidities in the original act that this somewhat more flexible version has been drafted.

Mr. BARRY. Would you say there could be an extraordinary difference in the qualifications of a Director of the Trusteeship Council and as compared to the Director of the Economic and Social Council? I should think they would take almost two entirely different types of mind. Perhaps it may or may not be wise to shift them around and change them about so that the Congress of the United States wouldn't be able to fix responsibility on either of them. I am just asking as a matter of information. I am not attempting to criticize, but I would like some reassurance.

Ambassador STEVENSON. If I may interrupt for a moment, let me say to you, sir, that we have up there seven committees of the General Assembly. We have also the Security Council. We also have the Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council. We have five top men who are appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate.

I would like to have flexibility to be able to assign these peopleMr. BARRY. When you say, "these people," do you mean the five people or the others

Ambassador STEVENSON. I mean the five, those that are provided for by statute, to any of these meetings at any given time, where their special experience or competence would be most useful and where they are available.

The problem of availability with the number of meetings going on concurrently is difficult.

Mr. BARRY. As a Congressman I can appreciate the necessity of covering each meeting adequately.

Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Gross.

Mr. GROSS. As a new member of the committee, I would like to know something about you, your status at the United Nations. You are the Senior Ambassador, I take it?

Ambassador SREVENSON. I am the permanent representative under the language of the act.

Mr. GROSS. What is your salary?

Ambassador STEVENSON. $27,500.

Mr. GROSS. And you are located, your home is in the Waldorf Astoria, as you mentioned a little while ago?

Ambassador STEVENSON. Yes.

Mr. GROSS. What does the Government pay for that per year? Ambassador STEVENSON. $30,000.

Mr. GROSS. Do you pay Federal income taxes?

Ambassador STEVENSON. Do I personally?

Mr. GROSS. Yes.

Ambassador STEVENSON. Yes.

Mr. GROSS. Are you reimbursed for those taxes out of United Nations funds?

Ambassador STEVENSON. No.

Mr. GROSS. Are the

Ambassador STEVENSON. I am not assigned to the United Nations. I am assigned to the U.S. Mission.

Mr. GROSS. Are American employees of the United Nations forgiven their Federal income taxes?

Ambassador STEVENSON. No.

Mr. GROSS. None of them?

Ambassador STEVENSON. They are in the same position as you or anybody else.

Mr. GROSS. You don't occupy the status of

Ambassador STEVENSON. No. That tax exception feature you are referring to only relates to other international civil servants employed by the Secretariate.

Mr. GROSS. If Americans are employed, then they are forgiven their taxes, is that correct?

Ambassador STEVENSON. They are reimbursed.

Mr. GROSS. By the United Nations?

Ambassador STEVENSON. Yes.

Mr. CLEVELAND. Excuse me. An American working in the Secretariat of the United Nations pays his regular taxes. The problem that the United Nations has is that most of the other countries forgive any taxes for, let's say, an Argentine secretary who is working at the United Nations. As a consequence the United Nations has de

veloped a system for assessing all of its employees in accordance with a scale roughly equivalent to a combination of our Federal and New York State income taxes.

So that any stenographer anywhere in the United Nations building, whether American or not, gets the same take-home pay. But the American stenographer pays her taxes to the Federal Government. The Argentine in effect pays her taxes to the United Nations which then simply remits that money to the Argentine Government. Mr. GROSS. Aside from Mr. Plimpton

Ambassador STEVENSON. We also, Mr. Gross, as you know, have to pay New York State income taxes.

Mr. GROSS. Mr. Plimpton, I understand, also has the rank of Ambassador?

Ambassador STEVENSON. Yes.

Mr. GROSS. Aside from him, what is the average pay of the 20 that you here propose to benefit?

Ambassador STEVENSON. We have a schedule here for those.

Mr. GROSS. If you will just give me the average for them.

Ambassador STEVENSON. The average is $17,647 of the group that would be eligible for this housing allowance.

Mr. GROSS. You and Mr. Plimpton-excuse me.

Mr. FASCELL. I was going to say, without objection, if you want to offer that for the record

Mr. GROSS. I would like to see it in the record for all of them. (The information requested follows:)

U.S. mission to the United Nations-20 officer positions considered eligible for proposed housing allowance (average salary, $17,647)

Mr. GROSS. You are provided with a car and driver?
Ambassador STEVENSON. Yes. I wouldn't be eligible.

Mr. GROSS. I understand. Are the 20 provided with cars and drivers?

Ambassador STEVENSON. No, we have a total of three cars for the whole group. So we have to share.

Mr. GROSS. Tell me about your retirement system.

Ambassador STEVENSON. Our retirement system is exactly the same as it is for all Federal employees.

Mr. GROSS. I discovered yesterday that not all are the same. In other words, there is a 612-percent deduction from pay, is that correct, for your employees?

Ambassador STEVENSON. I will have to ask Mr. Geaneas

STATEMENT BY ZACHARY GEANEAS, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. MISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

Mr. GEANEAS. I don't recall what it is. The only difference that I know of is that there is a different retirement provision for the Foreign Service officers.

Mr. GROSS. In the Federal Government, as I discovered yesterday, it is a 62-percent deduction from payroll, and the Federal Government puts up 61⁄2 percent for Federal Classification Act employees, whereas the international lending agencies, and I hope this isn't news to you, because it may give you ideas that you haven't already had, the international lending agencies deduct 7 percent and the Federal Government puts up 14 percent.

So they have a pretty plush retirement system going for them in the international lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund. I say again I hope I haven't given you any ideas.

Ambassador STEVENSON. It might be for the Secretariat of the United Nations, which would be comparable.

Mr. GROSS. You have no such retirement system as these international lending agencies?

Mr. CLEVELAND. These are regular employees of the Department of State. They participate either in the Foreign Service retirement system or in the Civil Service retirement system, if they are Federal employees.

Mr. GROSS. You have spoken of the "remorseless work" and the "indispensable functions" to which you are subjected. I assume you have seen this Saturday Evening Post article of March 30, 1963, entitled "This Is the UN at Play"?

Ambassador STEVENSON. I have seen that.

Mr. GROSS. If I may quote from it briefly :

Night brings a different U.N., a dazzling, exotic, frenetic and exhausting social whirl that makes the glittering social life of New Frontier Washington look as simple and unadorned as that of old frontier Dodge City.

We went to huge receptions where more than 1,000 people jammed into a room, to intimate ambassadorial dinner parties on Park Avenue, to all-night parties given by young Africans, to boating parties on Long Island Sound.

***Little countries give big parties to outdo big countries, and big countries give three, four, five, a dozen parties. This fall, white-bearded Muhammad Zafrulla Kahn, of Pakistan, the president of the General Assembly, looked down from his green marble dais and told the delegates before him, "We cannot carry out all our social obilgations and yet have all the time that we need for our work. Either we must cut down on one or we shall have to cut down on the other." Three nights earlier, the Pakistani Mission had given its second large reception of the season.

There are dozens of lonely delegates living in New York hotel rooms, a fact which New York playgirls quickly discovered. Often they stroll through the U.N. itself, where they are known as "ladies of the corridor." On Friday afternoons, just before the weekend, the deep leather chairs of the delegates lounge hold a gaudy variety of girls, fluffing their hair and painting their mouths. Guards who stop such a woman in the hall get firm and effective retorts: "Hands off, honey. I'm a guest of the Ambassador from--what's the name of that little country?"

I won't go further with this article at this point. What is your reaction to this article? Is it true or untrue?

Ambassador STEVENSON. The latter part is an aspect of the work with which I am not familiar. As to the former part, the statement that Zafrulla Kahn made about the excessively big parties was made by myself, only I made it before he did. I think one of the hardest, one of the heaviest burdens up there is attendance at these functions. Often there are two or three a day. We try to distribute our officers so that all of those are attended, at least of friendly countries, by some officer so there isn't any resentment. They keep lists of who accepts and who attends.

Frequently, in my own case, if I don't attend a reception, like the one that you described by one of the smaller countries, their disappointment is made known to us. It is a very, very heavy burden both in time, energy and in the diversion of your time from other work, other recreation which would be much more agreeable.

I wish very much, Mr. Gross, that it were possible to alter the practice of entertainment in New York. And this bill that we are talking about here bears very little relation to this because we are not talking about the large sort of functions that countries give on their national independence day, which is the usual thing. That is customary all over the world, even as we do on the Fourth of July in most of our embassies around the world.

I wish it could be altered because it is excessive. We have in our mission, I think, if anything been spartan about this, both not only during my tenure, but previously. I am now talking about a different kind, which is entertaining at home.

Mr. GROSS. As Mr. Rusk says, "effective social intercourse," in his letter of transmittal of this bill.

Ambassador STEVENSON. I should add as a postscript too, that magazine is not one of my favorites.

Mr. GROSS. I wouldn't expect it would be, if it told some of the truth about the operation of the United Nations, Mr. Stevenson. I wouldn't expect that it would be.

Has my time expired?

Mr. FASCELL. We will come back to you.

Mr. O'Hara?

Mr. O'HARA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had not intended to ask any questions. I am not a member of your subcommittee.

I came here because whenever Ambassador Stevenson is on the Hill I want to be close to him.

I would like to make a comment. My good friend from Iowa read from-was it the Saturday Evening Post, Mr. Gross?

Mr. GROSS. Yes. I will be glad to have you read it in full.

Mr. O'HARA. I have been told that the Saturday Evening Post lost circulation, so they have a new editorial approach, aimed at mass circulation. In such an approach there is always the temptation to overlook the substance to put in the spice.

Mr. Ambassador, how much of your time are you forced to give to social functions of the type that you have indicated, functions that advance the interest of our country? It may be a national day, say, of a small country, but if you are not there, you are leaving with them a feeling of resentment.