Now there is another thing here. You have something in the law known as the Byrd Act. You have a right under this to build up as large a civilian personnel as you see fit to do; use your money by giving civilian jobs; but I am hoping that the Byrd Act will not be swept aside because it does have a limitation.

Mr. KILDAY. Maybe that has something to do with the increased number of officers on duty, when you are limiting your personnel as far as civilian employees are concerned.

Secretary GRAY. I doubt it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KILDAY. You don't think so?

Mr. SHORT. May I ask the president of North Carolina University -I congratulate him, he has good sense

Mr. COLE. You mean you congratulate the university.

Mr. SHORT. I congratulate the university. I think I will go down and take a course.

Secretary GRAY. Glad to have you anytime.

Mr. SHORT. I know, Mr. Secretary, one reason we passed the Unification Act was to eliminate, or reduce-not eliminate, reduce the number of personnel in these things. I know it is going to take time and patience. But don't you think we can reduce the numbers not only in the Army, but Navy, Air Force, and all? You meet with them over there. You are familiar with the picture. Don't you think we can cut down and reduce expenditures, as you are going to do at North Carolina?

Secretary GRAY. I think we can. We are in the process of doing that now, Mr. Short. I think it is fair to say we are trying to watch this thing as closely as we can. Now we have just in the last few days announced a change over in the Department of the Army which is gỏing to eliminate one staff division. It is not going to save a great number of people, but it is going to save some people and some money. Mr. SHORT. You will hear a lot of squawks, too.

Secretary GRAY. No; I don't think so. This does not affect hospitals or plants in people's communities or anything. It is entirely internal within the organization of the Army.

I think your point about it taking time is a good one. Much of the work we are engaged in now is trying to get over the hump of unification. I think a lot of details will wash themselves out in time. But right now we are at an all-time high of boards, committees, and other devices which do require personnel for their functions.

Mr. KILDAY. And in working up bills like this, too.

Mr. VINSON. I desire to make a statement for the benefit of the Secretary and Mr. Short, that every consolidation that I have ever witnessed in Government has created more jobs. I have never seen

a consolidation-and I am speaking of this committee Mr. SHORT. That is right.

Mr. PRICE. The congressional reorganization, too.

Mr. VINSON. The congressional reorganization has created more jobs. Unification has caused more officers to have to come to Washington. They have to come to administer it.

Secretary GRAY. May I say, Mr. Chairman, that I believe, if you in the Congress will adopt the bill in substance, we will be able to reduce jobs because I think that some of the statutes that are now on the books which prescribe duties, functions, and prerogatives of some of the

special bureaus and branches of the Army make it impossible for me to eliminate certain jobs.

Mr. VINSON. Let the General point those out as he testifies, so we can thank you and give you a decoration for having accomplished that in that particular instance.

Secretary GRAY. All right, sir.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question on 103?

Mr. KILDAY. Yes.

Mr. COLE. What type of person is included in the description as a civilian officer in the Department of the Army?

Secretary GRAY. I think under civil service there are officials who are known as officers. I think any civilian

Mr. COLE. Are they not all civilian employees?

Colonel BAYA. Sir, it is my understanding that in a constitutional sense an officer is a person who is appointed to an office that is created by law under the constitution. The heads of departments can appoint people to offices, inferior offices, under the constitution. I think when the head of a department appoints a civilian under the civilservice laws to one of the positions set up by the Classification Act that that creates that person as an officer. That was the sense in which this was used in this bill.

Mr. COLE. Yes. But you see, this section would authorize the Secretary to destroy that Classification Act. If it is meant that it would authorize the Secretary to detail the Chief of Finance, we will call him, a man who holds a particular office, a statutory office-he is an officer of the United States, you say. Now if the Secretary is authorized to detail that man, an officer of the United States, to some other job, then he defeats the purpose of the statute which created that office.

Colonel BAYA. There was no intent to do that and we can work with the committee's staff to work out the language.

Mr. COLE. I don't think you intend to transfer an office from its statutory function into doing something else. I don't believe you intend to do that.

Colonel BAYA. Sir, we can improve the language to overcome that if the committee thinks it necessary. This bill does not repeal the Byrd law and there is no intent by this bill to repeal it.

Mr. SHORT. I would make that clear.

Colonel BAYA. You can put in a saving clause to show that that is so. Mr. COLE. I don't see why you aren't protected and all your objectives achieved by referring to them as civilian employees, which they are, no matter whether they are an officer or a charwoman. They are civilian employees.

General COLLINS. I think that is the case, Mr. Cole.

Mr. VINSON. Mr. Chairman, I think flexibility probably should be given the Secretary to have as large a personnel as he feels is necessary and have as many officers here as necessary because I understand at one time, Mr. Secretary, you had 600 committees in the Pentagon in operation-600 separate committees.

Secretary GRAY. More than that, sir.

Mr. VINSON. More than that

General COLLINS. Actually

Mr. VINSON. Wait one minute. I am not being facetious. I am serious. How many operated at one time?

General COLLINS. I don't know, Mr. Chairman, but I am quite certain the number is less than it was before unification.

Mr. VINSON. No, it could not be because you never had 600 boards operating at one time in the history of the Government.

General COLLINS. We can check that for you, for certain, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. VINSON. Mr. Secretary, how many boards have been operating at one time-the maximum number?

Secretary GRAY. This is not as of now.

Mr. VINSON. I am not talking as of now.

Secretary GRAY. At one time I know there were over 800 committees. I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that includes the committees doing work with the Munitions Board, the Research and Development Board, the Personnel Policy Board, Civilian Components the whole gamut of the Department. There were more than 800. Many of them have been abolished, but there are a good many still functioning.

Mr. VINSON. The Secretaries of the three Departments should have flexibility to man the 600 ad hoc committees running full blast at one time. I am just wondering how many we would have on the firing line in the case of emergency.

Mr. KILDAY. Let us get to section

Mr. COLE. There is another phase of section 103, Mr. Chairman, I would like to raise. I am not certain it is understood. As I read it, the Secretary of the Army is not authorized to assign or detail to any duty a civilian for work in any other place except in the office of the Secretary or one of the Under Secretaries or Assistant Secretaries. He could not detail civilian personnel in the Army Establishment except in your own office and the Under Secretary's office and the Assistant Secretaries.

Colonel BAYA. Sir, the laws that govern that are not repealed or touched by this bill. There is a provision in the National Security Act that says that the Secretary of Defense may appoint such civilian personnel under the Classification Act as are needed for the Department of Defense, except those in the Departments of the Army, Navy, or Air Force.

Mr. COLE. That is right.

Colonel BAYA. This bill does not change those laws at all. Whatever they are, they are in status quo as far as this bill is concerned. Mr. COLE. But you are seeking to give to the Secretary under section 103 authority to move civilian personnel in whatever way he wants to do it for the running of the Army Establishment. But section 103 limits that authority to the detail of civilian personnel in his own office or the office or the Under Secretary or the Assistant Secretaries.

Secretary GRAY. Section 103 really, sir, I think seeks to change a limitation-it is quoted at the bottom of that page-which arose in 1926.

Mr. COLE. 1916.

Secretary GRAY. Whenever it was. Colonel Baya has pointed out, if this old law which is quoted at the bottom of the page were not on the books, it would not be necessary to have section 103. And the

same purpose could be accomplished, I believe, by simply repealing this limitation which refers to officers from the procurement services. Mr. COLE. My point is, as Secretary of the Army you would not have authority to transfer a stenographer from the Corps of Engineers to the Corps of Chaplains.

Mr. VINSON. That is right, under this language.

Mr. SHORT. Would you?

Secretary GRAY. Under this section plus other laws, I would have. Mr. COLE. It is under that ambiguous origin of that other law which you say is derived from judicial construction of the power of the Commander in Chief that is inherently delegated to you that that can be done.

Secretary GRAY. We were talking about military officers, officers in the Army, when we spoke of the Commander in Chief's powers to transfer and assign. Now in regard to civilians, there are other laws that I believe would enable me to make any transfer I saw fit of civilians in the Department.

I will say we would accomplish the same purpose as this section will accomplish if you simply repeal this language which limits apparently the assignments of people to the civilian assistants from the procurement branches. Now in point of fact I do not think we followed that and it has not been for a long time so construed, but we felt it would be clearer to get that provision off the books.

Mr. COLE. That raises another question. I understood this bill was designed to serve as a codification of the statutes relating to the administration of the Department of the Army. Now, if you say there is some other authority vested in the Secretary of the Army in some other statute, why isn't that brought into this bill?

General COLLINS. I agree with Mr. Cole. I would suggest that in order that we be consistent, we have Mr. Blandford and his staff work with our staff and dig up the existing law that does authorize the Secretary to transfer civilian personnel and write it into this law somewhere.

Mr. SHORT. Of course, General, you have a definite limitation in section 103.

Mr. VINSON. Of course he has.

Mr. SHORT. You can assign them only to the Secretary, the Under Secretary, and the Assistant Secretaries and that is all.

General COLLINS. That is the point Mr. Cole is making. My suggestion is that we let our two staffs get together, find out what the law is and then be consistent, as you suggest, and write it in here at the appropriate place.

Mr. VINSON. Or remove this limitation and give them the blanket authority in the Department of the Army.

General COLLINS. Right, sir, one or the other.

Secretary GRAY. Mr. Chairman, may Colonel Baya say a word about it?

Colonel BAYA. I would like to say one thing in answer to Mr. Cole. The problem of codification extends across 50 titles in the United States Code.

Mr. COLE. The problem of what?

Colonel BAYA. The problem of codification extends across 50 titles in the United States Code. Now the laws on civil service apply Gov

ernment-wide to all of the departments. We could not pick that body of law up and put it in this bill without repealing that law and reenacting it here and getting mixed up with law that is handled by other committees of Congress.

Mr. COLE. I don't think you are correct on that. I don't think the civil-service laws with regard to the work of civil employees apply in every department of the Government with respect to the transfer and detail of duty.

Colonel BAYA. I will be glad to go into it with Mr. Blandford, sir. Mr. COLE. I fancy that some department heads have authority to transfer personnel which other departments do not have. And that authority is derived not out of the Classification Act

Colonel BAYA. There are other limitations that come in annual appropriations acts that reach the departments. We have the Byrd law and other laws, but they apply generally across the board. They are not limited to the Department of the Army. We could not take those laws that apply across the board and pick them up and put them in the bill.

Mr. KILDAY. In conference with our staff, may I suggest you give consideration to amending section 101 (d) by simply adding "civilian employees" and dropping out this other provision entirely.

Mr. SHORT. Yes.

Mr. COLE. Yes.

Mr. SHORT. That is at the bottom of page

Mr. BLANDFORD. I think we can accomplish that.

Mr. SHORT. It is page 4, line 4.

Mr. KILDAY. Now we will go to section 201.

Mr. SHORT. Of course he is restricted there to members of the Army. Mr. BLANDFORD. It accomplishes the same thing, exactly.

TEXT OF SECTION 201, "ARMY STAFF AND ITS COMPOSITION"

Mr. BLANDFORD (reading):

SEC. 201. (a) There shall be in the Department of the Army a staff, which shall be known as the Army Staff, and which shall consist of

(1) the Chief of Staff;

(2) a Vice Chief of Staff;

(3) such Deputy Chiefs of Staff and Assistant Chiefs of Staff as the Secretary of the Army may prescribe;

(4) the officers prescribed in sections 206, 207, and 208 of this act; and (5) such other members of the Army and such civilian officers and employees in or under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Army as may be assigned or detailed under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Army.

(b) Except as otherwise specifically provided by law, the Army staff shall be organized in such manner, and its members shall perform such duties and bear such titles, as the Secretary of the Army may prescribe. Part of the Army staff may be designated the Army General Staff.

EXPLANATION AND DISCUSSION OF SECTION 201, “ARMY STAFF AND ITS

Colonel BAYA (reading):

COMPOSITION"

The Secretary of the Army cannot administer the Army by himself, but must be assisted by numerous staff officers to discharge his large and heavy responsibility. The chief and most important of these staff officers is the Chief