Mr. ARMSTRONG. It is almost instantaneous; if it is a matter that would be of interest to the Department of Defense, it goes to them, I think, about the same day it comes into the Department.

(Discussion off the record.)

NATURE OF DEPARTMENT OF STATE INTELLIGENCE

Mr. STEFAN. When we set up your Bureau we were assured we were not setting up an intelligence agency as such, but an evaluation branch to evaluate intelligence.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. This discussion which we had off the record would give the ordinary layman the idea that you are engaged in actual physical intelligence work, which is not the truth. Is not that correct?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No, sir; I hope I did not convey the idea that we were an operating agency, because we are not.

Mr. STEFAN. Your agency is merely set up for the purpose of gathering information from all possible sources, evaluating it and distributing it to the real intelligence services of the Government? Mr. ARMSTRONG. That is correct.

Mr. STEFAN. And CIA has the responsibility of the physical intelligence work?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Absolutely.

Mr. ROONEY. That is not exactly so, is it? Are not all of our people at a mission concerned with picking up information?

Mr. STEFAN. Yes. They transmit it to this agency from all possible sources, newspapers, magazines, and reports from our various missions are brought into this agency, and they are there evaluated and then distributed or dispatched to the various agencies of govern

ment.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. You are making a distinction between overt and covert?

Mr. STEFAN. I understand that there is overt and covert work and all that business in CIA. They are wondering what the distinction between overt and covert is now. A lot of them do not understand it, but that is not in your jurisdiction anyway.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. You are just an evaluation agency.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Our group is practically all here in Washington. Mr. STEFAN. Except for the fact that you have 35 employees in Germany?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. And a few more who are collecting documents and maps as they move around the world.

Mr. STEFAN. And sending the information here for evaluation?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. And after you evaluate it you dispatch it?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. That is right, sir.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN LAST YEAR

Mr. STEFAN. Can you tell the committee what you have accomplished this last fiscal year, besides getting the history of these prominent people, and that you could get from any mission in the world if you wanted to?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. In the written justifications the number of requests for written intelligence research reports are set forth, the number of intelligence projects completed, the number of copies requested and the number distributed.

Mr. STEFAN. What are the outstanding accomplishments of your agency? I have read the justifications. That merely shows your workload and how much work you have been doing in evaluating these papers, and so forth. My question is what have been your real outstanding accomplishments?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I think the primary thing I can say that we have done is to provide the operating officials of the Department with a continuous and accurate flow of useful information on a day-by-day basis.

Mr. STEFAN. Is there anything outstanding that you have accomplished?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. It is difficult to pick out examples, Mr. Stefan. Mr. STEFAN. What did your work contribute preceding the evaluating of these papers, documents, and so forth?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. We have contributed a number of basic studies that will be used by our delegation at the forthcoming CFM. Mr. STEFAN. What is that?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. The Conference of Foreign Ministers that is projected with the Soviets in Paris. We have contributed to our delegation at several of the economic conferences during the past year a number of basic studies that they used in determining the United States' position on issues that were coming up.

We have given assistance to our Assistant Secretaries when they have gone out into the field and held their regional conferences, such as Assistant Secretary McGhee who is on his way to Ceylon now, and Assistant Secretary Miller, who is going to have a conference in Washington on March 26 of the foreign ministers of the other American republics.

Mr. STEFAN. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.)

PERSONNEL

Mr. STEFAN. You have 102 people in the Division of Research in the Far East?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No, sir; I think you mean the Division of Research for Europe. We have 57 for the Far East.

Mr. STEFAN. Yes; I meant to ask if the European Research Division has 102 people?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. One hundred and two, yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. What do they do?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. That group is following the development in each of the countries of Europe. The largest part of the group, of course, nearly half of them work entirely on the iron curtain countries, the U. S. S. R. and satellites.

Mr. STEFAN. Evaluating material from there?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir; and conducting studies of all the facts we can get our hands on with respect to all aspects of the political and economic scene.

Mr. STEFAN. Now, in the Far East Research Division you have 57 people?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. They are all here in Washington?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. What are they evaluating?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. They do the same thing with respect to the Asiatic Continent and the islands in the Pacific that the European people do for Europe. They cover from the Soviet border at Manchuria through Japan, continuing down through Southeast Asia, Burma, Indonesia, and all the islands.

Mr. STEFAN. How many people did you have on that task prior to February 1950?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Prior to February 1950, I think it was about the same number.

Mr. STEFAN. About the same number?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. What did they accomplish during that year and the year previous?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. During the past year, sir?

Mr. STEFAN. That is what I am asking for. You had the same number of people in the far eastern bureau evaluating far eastern information?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir. They accomplished the preparation of a very sizable volume of written intelligence that was delivered to the far eastern bureau and to the Army and the Navy, and others.. As conditions changed they moved on to other subjects, of course. Mr. STEFAN. What conditions?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, for example, there was a heavy workload with respect to the Philippines in the past year because of the seeming deterioration of economic conditions there.

Mr. STEFAN. You did not get my point. I am sorry.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Pardon me, Mr. Stefan.

Mr. STEFAN. You said these people worked in the Far East?
Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. That includes Korea; did it not?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. What did they accomplish of value in addition to the information they collected?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. They prepared a considerable number of current studies on conditions in Korea and in adjacant territories that were given to the operating people in the Department for use in deciding what to do.

Mr. STEFAN. What is that, a complete report of the condition that existed there at that particular time?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Some were quite comprehensive, and others would' be on narrower subjects; yes, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. I have no further questions.

Mr. ROONEY. Mr. Clevenger.

Mr. CLEVENGER. You employ about 975 people in this section?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. In October 1945, I believe that we had around 1,200.

Mr. CLEVENGER. You are asking in the justifications for 980, are you not?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Five hundred and twenty-one were authorized. Mr. CLEVENGER. How do you reconcile these figures? Adding 25, 275, and 179 it adds up to 479.

Mr. ROONEY. You have to add 67 on the first list. You see, there are three separate divisions.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. CLEVENGER. I will admit that I have gotten some light from listening to the statements today. Your answers today are quite at variance from the ones that you gave when you were up here before seeking a supplemental, but I am still a little bit at sea in not knowing just what all of these people are doing. It reminds me a little of the story they used to tell when I was a kid about our old friend, Daniel Webster. His father said that he had gone to town, and when he came back he met his older brother, Ezekiel. He said, "What have you been doing today"? He said, "I have been doing nothing, just fishing a little." He drove a little closer to the barn, and asked Dan, "What have you been doing today"? He said, "Well, I was helping Zeke."

Now, Dan came to Congress afterward and he had the answers. That is about as vague as some of the information we have gotten here today about just what you do.

I thought myself that surely you must have somebody out in fieldchecking these various areas, but it is just the evaluation of such material as it is brought back to Washington.

Mr. ROONEY. On your trips overseas you have seen in the embassies people cutting clippings from newspapers and magazines? Mr. CLEVENGER. Yes.

Mr. ROONEY. They are sent back here.

Mr. CLEVENGER. We spend this $2,587,000 gathering clippings here in Washington and putting them together. I can begin to understand now why we had no information on the movement down into Korea on the 25th of June. I was intrigued a little bit too by my friend's remarks about the British intelligence, and I am wondering if we might not ask them who checked on Dr. Fuchs. We probably would not have had the atomic-bomb explosion to check if the British intelligence had done its job with that doctor who probably carried back the secret through Mr. Gold and his friends in our country. So, I do not think we have to apologize to them. It seems as though this free world intelligence is none too good at the best, if we could judge the western countries here for such a fallible system.

SECURITY CHECKS ON EMPLOYEES

I have scratched off most of my questions, but I wonder did you check your own section carefully for security and for these peculiar risks incident to the Department?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Sir, we do not make an official check beyond that which is made by Mr. Humelsine and his people who have the regular and full responsibility for that. We do, as any persons who are responsible for a group do, try to assure ourselves on the basis of our personal observation that the people are all that they are purporting to be, but we do not have authority, we have no authority to investigate or do investigating of that sort.

Mr. ROONEY. I have one question off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. ROONEY. What time of day does your work start?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. With the military briefing we start at 7 o'clock in the Pentagon Building, bring the information back to the Department,

prepare a daily set of facts for the Secretary. The rest of the organization starts at various times from then on until 8:45 o'clock, the official hour.

Mr. ROONEY. Your office advises the Secretary with regard to the military situation in Korea?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. That is correct. We have also had, since June 25, a "watch room," which operates about 18 hours a day, picking up everything that comes in as rapidly as it is possible to get it into use for the daily morning briefing of the Secretary and for others.

Mr. ROONEY. How many people do you have engaged in that activity?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. It varies from a minimum of two to approximately five.

BUREAU OF INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS

WITNESSES

THOMAS C. MANN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INTERAMERICAN AFFAIRS

WILLIAM P. HUGHES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF INTERAMERICAN AFFAIRS

CARLISLE H. HUMELSINE, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR ADMINISTRATION

EDWARD B. WILBER, BUDGET OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. ROONEY. The next and last item for our consideration this afternoon, gentlemen, is that for the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, which appears at page 38 of the justifications, insofar as the domestic side thereof is concerned.

It should be noted that the amount requested is $740,820, which is the same amount appropriated for the domestic side of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs in the current fiscal year, and the number of positions is the same, to wit, 127.

ABSENCE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY

I understand that Secretary Miller is now in South America? Mr. MANN. Yes. I understand he obtained permission from the committee.

Mr. ROONEY. He did something that is so unusual that it should be mentioned here for the record; he telephoned and courteously stated he contemplated going to South America on important official business and asked if it would be all right with the committee.

The Bureau of Inter-American Affairs Foreign Service, is to be found beginning on page 41 of the justifications, which page reflects a requested increase of $100,141 over the amount allowed for this activity in the current fiscal year. We will insert at this point in the record pages 38, 41, 42, and 43 of the justifications.