ployee, or even just an ordinary American citizen, who is in residence abroad can bring back his own personal effects into this country without duty, providing he has been at a bona fide residence abroad for a year.

Before this law was put into effect, there was no emergency in the world, and we lived with these previous regulations quite well.

Mr. FORRESTER. May I interrupt you there just 1 minute. Just why was that privilege extended to any American who resided abroad?

Mr. DURBROW. I cannot answer that directly, but my understanding of it is if a man working for the Standard Oil Co. or some other American concern goes abroad and spends a long time in their foreign service, as we do in the Government Foreign Service, he has his home there, he gets more children, has to buy more furniture perhaps and more clothes, and cannot buy all the clothes in the United States and take them over there for a long period; so as to permit a man returning to the United States for residence to bring his household goods with him so he is not penalized for having been sent abroad by his company or by the Government to do his service abroad.

Mr. FORRESTER. How about the American who wants to go over there for a year to obtain some culture which he feels he does not get over here. How about him? Is he provided for, too?

Mr. DURBROW. I am not an expert on customs law, sir, but I understand that is the case. That I presume is the reason why the goods under the old regulations, which are still in force except for this special emergency legislation, made it mandatory that the goods should have been owned for at least 1 year before they could be brought in free of duty. So you take your cultural expert and your real employee going abroad for his job.

The reason why we are particularly interested in this continuation of emergency legislation is because of the world emergency today. We try to have people go out with their families. It is a much better way to live, not to have families split for too long. We have to send them to some parts of the world that are comparatively quiet now. Some parts of the world we do not send families to because of disturbed conditions. But some places that are comparatively quiet today-look what happened in Egypt a few weeks ago. It does become disturbed and it does get worse.

We try to induce people to go out there with their families. They take their goods and chattels. They acquire others over there. They have a bigger house or something like that. They do buy some things over there.

All of a sudden conditions will become very disturbed in that area and we will have to order the family out. Under the old regulations unless the individual, the man himself, the head of the family, were coming back on orders and more or less accompanying his goods-it does not have to be on the same boat, but following behind in a lift van, we will say― he could not bring those goods in free of duty under the old regulations, as I understand them.

Now, when we have to send the wife and children home because of disturbed conditions, they naturally want to set up a household here, and the husband batches with some other men and does not need all the furniture, we will say. So if the principal does not come back,

under the old rules and regulations you would have to pay duty on these goods or put them in bond.

Mr. FORRESTER. Could I interrupt you now, without you losing your train of thought there. Suppose, for instance, that a person who went abroad for a year with his family to learn a little more about communism and so forth should find himself in the midst of some trouble over there and want to come back to America for asylum on account of that trouble.

Does this kind of authority allow us to let that man and his family back in here?

Mr. DURBROW. No, sir. As I understand, this law is only for Government officials. It is an emergency act only for Government officials.

Mr. FORRESTER. I understood you to say anyone.

Mr. DURBROW. I say under the old regulations, sir, the basic law that is in force, this 1-year rule is for a person who has a bona fide residence abroad. I am afraid I do not think there is any law that says whether you go to Moscow and enjoy it, or do not like it, and get scared and come home.

But this particular emergency act is only for Government officials traveling under orders. We do have to order families home without their principals, or sometimes it would be that when our officers were forced to leave China, for instance, the families were sent home, but the officers might have been sent to Saigon or to Korea or wherever it was, where he could not take his family.

So under this legislation they can take at least part of the household effects back so they can set up a family establishment here. This is another question I think that is very important to you gentlemen, is that we have a personnel circular in effect in the State Department which permits people to send their household goods home if there are disturbed conditions, and even if the family does not come home; because we do not want to get caught-I think maybe your committee heard about the Korean claims a short time ago, and there are about $900,000 in claims of losses of personnel effects in Korea.

We are trying to induce people to send as much as they can home for safekeeping or outside of disturbed areas; and if we did not have this emergency legislation, that would be impossible to do, to send to the United States. They could send it to some other place that is more quiet, but I think most Americans think that things are safer here at home than they are abroad.

So the thought is that we would reduce any future claims against the United States for loss of personal effects in cases of disturbances or war or other matters of that kind. Without this legislation, if it does not continue, we would have to change this personnel circular we have in effect today that we are trying to induce people to get those goods and chattels that they do not earnestly need there out of the way and sort of camp it out at that particular post so that they do not get captured, burned, or lost, and have claims against the United States Government.

Mr. FORRESTER. How long has this emergency power been vested in the Executive? Was any such power as this granted to the President during World War I?

Mr. DURBROW. I would not know, sir. I am sorry.

Mr. FORRESTER. I am just wondering how long we have been operating under this kind of power, under Executive power, and just why it has not been presented to Congress for permanent legislation, with an attempt to get the business out of the hands of the President. Colonel HEARNE. This particular act, Mr. Chairman, is June 27,

1942.

Mr. FORRESTER. Is that the first of anything smacking of this kind of legislation?

Colonel HEARNE. I know of no previous act. I will not say that there has not been. However, I have made in the last several years a study of emergency legislation, and did not run across anything prior to this particular act.

Mr. FORRESTER. I was just wondering if during World War I that could have been dealt with in some manner by our Government, because we had people overseas then, when France was overrun. I just wondered if we had done anything about it then or whether this is more or less something that has come to us in just a few years, and we have not had an opportunity to get around to it and make a study and get the bugs out of it, and therefore has left it with Executive authority; or whether it was something we should have been thoroughly familiar with and should have planned against by appropriate legislation.

I hope you gentlemen see what I am trying to say to you now. Mr. DURBROW. Sir, on that point, I think there was this other basic law that was in effect before this 1942 act was passed which we lived with. I have been in the Foreign Service for 22 years. I have come back home here several times in the thirties, and my goods and chattels came in free of duty because I had been ordered abroad, was a bona fide resident abroad, and was being ordered back here to Washington for duty, and that was covered.

But I accompanied those goods, so to speak. They were following right behind me on sometimes the same ship. So we could live with it then. But because of the emergency situation, where we have to, as I pointed out already, send families home ahead of the principaland as I understand the law, the old law, if the man did not come home under Government orders himself, but his family did, then they would be subject to paying duty, which we do not think is fair to them when their families are being evacuated on orders from the Gov

ernment.

Mr. FORRESTER. How long have you been with the State Department?

Mr. DURBROW. Since 1930, sir.

Mr. FORRESTER. I understand-and of course I know this is just an opinion of the State Department, and I have lived long enough to know that the hindsight of a moron is sometimes more intelligent than the foresight of a genius-but I understand now that it is probably the idea that this emergency may be 15 or 20 years. Mr. DURBROW. It is possible.

Mr. FORRESTER. Then, operating upon that hypothesis, what is your recommendation as a man in the State Department as to whether we should continue to operate by Executive authority or whether we should recognize these conditions which we are living under and that we would do the necessary things by legislation in Congress?

Mr. DURBROW. I do not know how long that would take in the first place, but I think it would be quite a hardship on our people in run

ning our personnel operations in these emergency conditions if this should last for some time.

I know that all of us in that particular type of work-personnel transfer work, you might call it would like very much to have this continue until it was decided that this kind of emergency is going to go on for 15 years-which I think, I might admit, that we should get permanent legislation.

Mr. FORRESTER. Of course this emergency started in 1950.

Mr. DURBROW. Basically, sir, I think it has been going since 1939 myself.

Mr. FORRESTER. I know, but the shooting started in 1950.
Mr. DURBROW. That is correct, the technical date; yes, sir.

Mr. FORRESTER. The thing that puzzles me and I want to get your view on it—it looks like to me we are bound to be in an emergency for a good long time. We are facing an enemy that says democracy is outmoded, and God a myth, so it looks to me as if we are going to face an emergency for a good long time.

That is why I am wanting the views of the State Department, if I can get them, that in view of that logic, whether it is correct or not that we should be addressing ourselves to obtaining permanent legislation instead of just hanging on to an emergency authority vested in the President.

Mr. DURBROW. Perhaps we should, sir. I cannot speak to that. I am not in that particular branch at the present time of political prognostication. But I will repeat, if I may, that from my own personal job at the present time I would not like to see this legislation lapse and cause us difficulty.

We are pulling families out of various places in the world, Iran, Egypt, and so forth, because of emergencies and not of their wish or volition; and if they have to pay duty on their household goods coming back, it would be a considerable hardship which we would not like to put upon them.

Mr. FORRESTER. I think this committee will also have our sympathetic view on that, too. But we are just also wondering if we could not get matters like this closed where we would not be operating on an emergency basis, which is so apparent to us now.

Frankly, I think the American people today are coming to that view, that these things ought to be approached in a realistic way and they ought to be handled by the law-making agency of this country.

Mr. BURRUS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say this on behalf of the agencies with whom we talked on this general subject. I think there is a reluctance on the part of the agencies to ask for more benefits or continue any of these powers longer than they feel they can justify them, and to limit them to an emergency condition.

I think maybe they have leaned over backward in some instances in that direction. They felt that it would not be well received if they asked for powers and benefits on a permanent basis, but would be better received if it were limited strictly to the emergency period which they felt they would justify it.

Mr. FORRESTER. I am glad to get that statement. We are all trying to discover what is the best thing for America. Is Major Fisher available where he could give us information on that particular subject, 1 (a) (12)?

Colonel HEARNE. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we might pass that, because I believe there will be a number of questions on this. It is a long act, and I think the next one, 2 (b) (1) and 2 (b) (2), are more or less related subjects which we might finish up today, if you do not mind passing that out of order.

Mr. FORRESTER. That being the case, the bell has just signaled, and I am anticipating a roll call quite soon. We will adjourn at this time until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

All you gentlemen try to cooperate with us. Let us try to have as much information as we can get in order that we can help each other on this.

(Thereupon, at 11:45 a. m., the subcommittee recessed until Friday morning, 10 a. m., February 29, 1952.)