EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, The PRESIDENT, BUREAU OF THE BUDGET, Washington, D. C., March 7, 1944. SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith for your consideration an estimate of appropriation for the Office of the Coordinator of InterAmerican Affairs of the Office for Emergency Management amounting to $19,174,000 for the fiscal year 1945 and contract authorization amounting to $2,500,000 for the fiscal year 1945. The estimate of appropriation, the details of which are attached, is to provide funds for the activities of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs for the fiscal year 1945, and contract authorization for the fiscal year 1945. I recommend approval. Very respectfully, HAROLD D. SMITH, Director of the Bureau of the Budget. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OFFICE FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT OFFICE OF THE COORDINATOR OF INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS Salaries and Expenses, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs Salaries and expenses: For all necessary expenses of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs [(hereafter referred to as the Coordinator)], including not to exceed [$30,000] $15,000 for the temporary employment of persons or organizations by contract or otherwise without regard to the civil-service and classification laws; employment of aliens; travel expenses, not to exceed [$150,000] $175,000; printing and binding, not to exceed [$12,500] $12,000; entertainment of officials and others of the other American republics; [payment to employees with official headquarters outside the continental limits of the United States, in accordance with the Standardized Regulations prescribed by the President on December 30, 1942, of living and quarters allowances;] grants of money [or property, property, or services to governmental and public or private nonprofit institutions and facilities in the United States and the other American republics; the free distribution, donation, or loan of publications, phonograph records, radio scripts, radio transcriptions, art works, motion-picture scripts, motion-picture films, educational material, and [such] other material and equipment [as the Coordinator may deem necessary and appropriate to carry out his program]; such other gratuitous assistance as the Coordinator [deems advisable in the fields of the arts and sciences, education and travel, publications, the radio, the press, and the cinema] may deem necessary and appropriate to carry out his program; expenses of transporting employees of the Office of the Coordinator and their effects from their homes to their places of employment in the other American republics, or from their homes in the other American republics to their places of employment, and return, when specifically authorized by the Coordinator; travel expenses of dependents and transportation of personal effects, from their places of employment to their homes in the United States or in the possessions of the United States or in the other American republics, of employees for whom such expenses were paid by the Government on their assignment to posts in foreign countries; causing corporations to be created under the laws of the District of Columbia, any State of the United States, or any of the other American republics, to assist in carrying out the Coordinator's program and capitalizing such corporations: Provided, That corporations heretofore or hereafter created or caused to be created by the Coordinator primarily for operation outside the continental United States shall determine and prescribe the manner in which their obligations shall be incurred and their expenses allowed and paid without regard to the provisions of law regulating the expenditure, accounting for and audit of Government funds, and may, in their discretion, employ and fix the compensation of officers and employees outside the continental limits of the United States without regard to the provisions of law applicable to the employment and compensation of officers and employees of the United States: Provided further, That the Coordinator shall transmit to the President immediately upon the close of the fiscal year a complete Anancial report of the operations of such corporations; [$30,735,000] $19,174,000, of which $4,000,000 is for the payment of obligations incurred under the contract authorization of $18,000,000 under this head in the National War Agencies Appropriation Act, 1944, and in addition [thereto] to said appropriation the Coordinator is authorized to enter into contracts during the fiscal [years 1944 and] year 1945 in an amount not exceeding [$18,000,000 $2,500,000 for obligations necessary for and incident to his program: Provided further, That not to exceed [$300,000 $200,000 of this appropriation shall be available to meet emergencies of a confidential character to be expended under the direction of the Coordinator, who shall make a certificate of the amount of such expenditure which he may think it advisable not to specify and every such certificate shall be deemed a sufficient voucher for the amount therein certified: Provided further, That notwithstanding the provisions of section 3679, Revised Statutes (31 U. S. C. 665), the Coordinator is authorized in making contracts for the use of international short-wave radio stations and facilities, to agree on behalf of the United States to indemnify the owners and operators of such radio stations and facilities, from such funds as may be hereafter appropriated for the purpose, against loss or damage on account of injury to persons or property arising from such use of said radio stations and facilities (50 U. S. C. 1-5; Executive Order 8840, as amended; Act of July 12, 1943, Public Law 139). |