ITEMS UNDER COUNTERINSURGENCY PROGRAM

Senator PELL. Right, and also nothing for logistics management, and yet it is the largest item in the new request which you submitted. I wonder if Mr. Poats could shed some light on this.

Mr. POATS. The main reason for this is we have broken out the items in greater detail in this program. The original presentation showed, I believe it was, $50 million for various activities in support of the counterinsurgency program-the project program. We had detailed breakout sheets which we presented in closed testimony. We did not have a simple breakout of this form for public use, but we have now broken it out in more detail.

As for Cam Ranh Bay-this was simply not planned at the time we came in with the original presentation 1 year ago. This is for a project to create a housing village for workers at the Cam Ranh Bay military and logistics base.

Senator PELL. I should know the answer to this and do not. Could we have a further breakdown of this $20 million if you have submitted it?

Mr. BELL. Oh, yes.

Mr. POATS. Oh, yes.

Senator PELL. Is it in our files?

Mr. POATS. I will be glad to submit it in the record. (The information referred to follows:)

"COUNTERINSURGENCY-RURAL CONSTRUCTION" BREAKDOWN OF $20 MILLION FOR

LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

This activity consists of the following four major items:

1. Breaking out and operating 10 vessels from the U.S. reserve fleet. Estimated costs to break out and rehabilitate the 10 vessels are about $4 million. Operating costs for the remainder of this fiscal year are estimated at $6 million.

2. Improving Government of Vietnam capability to handle internal logistics. 3. Assisting the Government of Vietnam in establishing integrated maintenance facilities in all provinces for all Government-owned civilian type vehicles and equipment.

4. Introducing improvements in the cargo handling systems and facilities in existing ports of Vietnam, specifically DaNang, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, and Saigon, and to increase airlift capabilities for distribution inland.

A breakdown of fiscal year 1966 requirements by component follows: 16 AID technicians____

14 participants; to the United States and Korea for 3 to 6 months--Contract commodities; bulk of this to break out and operate 10 vessels from U.S. reserve fleet; procurement 10 helicopters_-

28 Filipino supply handling and warehousing technicians from the Eastern Construction Co----.

U.S. commodities; includes cargo and material handling equipment, warehouses, transportation, and maintenance equipment---

Total

$310,000 60,000

15, 500, 000

244, 000

3,992, 000

20, 106, 000

FRENCH CONDUCT OF BUSINESS WITH VIETCONG AND NORTH VIETNAM

Senator PELL. Then another question I have is as to the French friends. They inform me they are able to do business in both Vietcong and North Vietnamese territory in a relatively-or they have friendswho are able to conduct business in a relatively normal way. Is this a correct statement?

Mr. BELL. It is much less true today than it was a few years ago. A number of the French rubber plantations have had to close down within the last year for a number of reasons. The Vietcong-they never could operate in Vietcong areas except by paying taxes to the Vietcong. Those taxes have been getting higher and higher, and some of the French owners have concluded that it is confiscatory to pay taxes as they had to do to the Vietcong and also to the Government.

Moreover, some of them have been the scene of military action, as you know. There has been some bitter military fighting in some plantations.

Moreover, it has been difficult for them to hold labor. The Vietcong have been impressing people into the VC forces, and the Government is drafting people for the Government forces.

There are still, I believe, some, but relatively few, French enterprises continuing to operate in areas where they are exposed to Vietcong pressures.

Senator PELL. If you were a French banker with a client who had business in Vietcong territory and one who was in North Vietnam, where would he be more likely to do reasonably well?

Mr. BELL. If I were a banker of any country I would not lend money to either one.

Senator PELL. Right. But if you had to make a choice, which one? Mr. BELL. Well, I guess I would have to answer that it would depend on the particular enterprise and the particular location.

In South Vietnam, in areas which are Government controlled or likely to become secure as part of the Government-controlled areas, the risk would not be too great.

In the areas that would be classified on Senator Clark's map as Vietcong controlled, I would think the risk very serious bcause in those areas it is the intention of the Government of Vietnam, with U.S. help, to change that situation-to go in and remove the Vietcong control.

In North Vietnam our bombing in the past, and at present, as you know, has been very sharply focused-or the attempt has been to focus it-very sharply on military objectives. Those military objectives have included roads and highways and port facilities, and if the hypothetical French investment you are talking about were close to or dependent on any of those facilities, then the risk would be very serious there.

The CHAIRMAN. I wonder if the Senator would allow me to interpose a moment and suggest that we recess now until 2:30. We have been here a very long time. You have been very patient, Mr. Bell, and Senator Morse wishes to continue at 2:30 here in this room.

Mr. Reporter, I have been requested or I wish to put into the record an article here on the use of foreign polls.

(The article referred to follows:)

[From the Evening Star, Jan. 7, 1966]

U.S. USE OF FOREIGN POLLS IN POLICYMAKING IS GROWING

(By Walter Pincus, Star staff writer)

Last October, President Johnson's favorite domestic political pollster, Oliver Quayle, went to South Vietnam at Government expense to survey the situation in that war-torn country.

Quayle, whose domestic polls are constantly being cited by the President, said recently he was "asked to go out *** to do political consulting" with U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and members of his staff. He denied he did any polling.

Other sources, however, say Quayle and members of his New York-based firm prepared questionnaires in Saigon that were used as the basis for a Vietnam public opinion survey.

QUESTIONNAIRES USED

Members of the U.S. mission, these sources say, were "unhappy" at Quayle's effort since they believed the nature of the people and the political situation were not favorable for gathering of any accurate information.

In fact, these sources add, several Vietnamese interviewers were captured by the Vietcong and American diplomats were fearful an incident would develop over the contents of the Quayle questionnaires.

Quayle, himself, refused to comment on his activities—other than to deny he took any polls-and referred all questions to Press Secretary Bill Moyers.

Moyers said Quayle did not go to Vietnam at the President's request, but could not furnish details on the trip.

Quayle's Saigon activities are being cited by observers both on Capitol Hill and within the administration as an example of the growing use by the Johnson administration of polls in foreign policy planning.

Critics of such practice assert that Johnson's reliance on polls in domestic situations may not be translatable to overseas areas-particuarly those less developed countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America where polling techniques have not yet been perfected.

LEARNED LAST SUMMER

The new policymaking use of polls first came to the surface during last summer's Senate Foreign Relations Committee inquiry into U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic.

Under Secretary of State Thomas Mann and Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Jack Hood Vaughn reportedly told the Senators a confidential U.S. sponsored poll taken in the Dominican Republic shortly before the crises justified their determination that Juan Bosch-who received just 26 percent of the popular support-did not have a large enough popular following to control the Communists who had become associated with his cause.

The increased White House interest in polls has been reflected in a stepup in U.S. Information Agency fund requests to carry surveys out overseas. Last year, for example, USIA asked for a 30-percent increase-to $452,000 for foreign public opinion surveys.

The total amount spent on foreign polls may be much larger. The Dominican poll, for example, does not appear among those listed in the USIA budget, although Mann reportedly referred to it more than once as being conducted by that agency.

Accompanying the increased tempo of polling is a broadening of the matters under inquiry.

In 1964, USIA hired French and German pollsters-for $6,500-to measure opinions in those two countries on various issues where American and French policies were in conflict. Thus, a French concern paid with U.S. funds was polling French citizens on whether they favored their own government's policies or those of the United States.

In Germany, the poll was so designed as to test whether the Germans favored Johnson or French President Charles De Gaulle policies where the two appeared to be in conflict.

Also in 1964, USIA ran a survey of attitudes of several Afro-Asian countries toward India.

USIA also conducted a $3,500 study of voter behavior patterns in three Brazilian cities. This survey attempted to develop relationships between social and psychological variables and the vote for Brazil's President. The Brazil study drew some private criticism since its results referred entirely to a sensitive domestic Brazilian situation.

Another major worldwide polling effort was made by USIA in 1964 to determine student attitudes toward the United States and its policies. This type of survey-more in line with USIA's past efforts-aimed at determining how

student attitudes are formed in order to select the best approaches American propaganda should undertake.

LATIN QUESTIONS

According to information presented last year to Congress, the student polls in Latin America-which were undertaken in Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela at a cost of some $52,000-included such questions as:

"In your opinion is the life of the average person in Cuba better off since the Castro revolution, worse off, or about the same as it was before?

"Do you think violence will or will not be necessary to bring about the [progressive] changes you would like to see?

"Do you think U.S. policy toward Castro during the past 2 years has been too soft, too hard, or about right?

A variation of the student study took place in West Germany last year where United Arab Republic students in German universities were polled on their attitudes and political opinions.

Along with these new areas of inquiry, USIA has continued to poll worldwide on the general climate of foreign opinion on major domestic and foreign issues affecting the United States. These so-called prestige polls-which became the focus of political controversy during the 1960 presidential elections-take a different tone in various parts of the world.

In Britain, for example, a Gallup poll subsidiary has a continuing contract to measure British public opinion on world leadership in space. In December 1964, a special report was made on English attitudes toward space leadership following the Soviet launching of a three-man spaceship.

In Europe, the world survey deals with opinion on cold war relaxation, the image of U.S. military strength and the impact of race relation problems.

SUPPLEMENTING SURVEYS

Supplementing broad surveys were "flash" polls such as a $2,500 survey in four Latin American countries after the 1964 Organization of American States approval of sanctions against Cuba and a similar survey in Nigeria and Kenya after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

To what use are all these polls put? No one can say, for USIA is closemouthed about their distribution and all the polls bear some security classification for at least 2 years.

The Agency, however, makes a daily report to the President highlighting foreign reaction on events of major concern to the United States and there is little doubt the polls receive some emphasis here.

The CHAIRMAN. We will recess until 2:30.

(Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m. the committee recessed to reconvene at 2:30 p.m. the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Senator MORSE. The hearing will come to order.

The Chair wishes to announce that Senator Fulbright will be delayed. He hopes that Senator Sparkman, after he has a conference. in his office, will be able to come to preside. He has asked the Senator from Oregon to preside until he or Senator Sparkman can arrive. I want to say that other colleagues, I have been advised, will be coming and going during the afternoon. This chairman, so long as he presides, will follow the 10-minute rule, and will proceed by asking Senator Church to ask any questions he cares to.

Senator CHURCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BELL.

Senator MORSE. Just a moment. I understand Senator Prouty is. in the audience.

Senator Prouty, will you come up and sit with us?

Senator PROUTY. I am very happy here, thank you.

Senator CHURCH. I just want to say for the record what I said to you privately before the hearing started this afternoon, that I thought that your responses this morning were very able, and that your presentation of the administration's has been a most commendable one, under some pressure. I know it sometimes must seem like an unequal contest, when you are down in the well and we are up here on the dais, but, in a way, you make up for that with your experts on either side, and with all of the data that is at your fingertips. In that connection, I would like to go back to a line of inquiry that I commenced this morning.

IMPACT OF THE WAR ON DOMESTIC PROGRAMS

You will remember that I asked you this morning about the foreign aid program, that is to say, the worldwide program that is being proposed this year as compared with last year, and you indicated that it was about the same size, very slightly larger this year than last. I then mentioned the cuts that were being proposed for many programs here at home, in the light of the spiraling costs of the war in Vietnam.

I think, Mr. Bell, you responded that actually the domestic programs were not being cut. You said it was true that the President was not asking for as much additional money as we might otherwise, owing to the costs of the war in Vietnam, but that the domestic programs were not being seriously cut.

Now I have reviewed the budget, in the little time that I have had, and I find some very drastic cuts in some domestic programs that seem to me to be very important ones.

I would like to mention a few of them for the record.

First of all, there is the school milk program. I think that this has been a very good and wholesome program. The American people have given it widespread support, and millions of our schoolchildren benefit from it.

Last year the President requested $103 million for the school milk program. This year he requests $21 million. That is in the neighborhood of an 80-percent cut.

In the agricultural conservation program, which is known to the farmers of the country and which has, unlike many other crop control programs, enjoyed the general support of the American farmer, last year the Congress voted $220 million for that program. This year the President requests $120 million, or a $100 million cut.

Last year, for watershed projects, the President requested 80 new starts, compared with 35 new starts this year.

Last year the President requested, for land-grant colleges, $12 million. He requests nothing this year.

In the field of education we have had, as Senator Morse will certainly bear me witness, a tremendously important Federal-aid program in impacted areas, where large Federal facilities have occasioned undue burden upon the local school districts. Last year the Congress voted $347 million for the impacted area program. This year the President requests $183 million, and when you take Public Law 874 and Public Law 815, which are the two sides to this impacted area program, the total cut in this year's budget exceeds $270 million.