make it hot for this type of crime in 11 cities, that they will just conveniently move out to places where you are not doing this sort of thing. So I would think you would need a capability of being able to move where experience teaches you the problem moves or exists and that there would be a constant on-going matter for you to be concerned about. I don't think you will ever live to see the day when you can just concentrate a program of this sort in this few of the areas where this sort of crime is conducted. And so I would like for you to do some thinking in terms of not quantity, but where a well designed and profitable program can operate, so that sooner or later we can hope to add others. Then we can get on top of one of the greatest problems in the Nation, and that is this proliferation of crime. So as you go into this, I would like for you to remember our interest in this type of thinking and approach and look for the opportunity to enlarge it.

You may decide on less or more manpower, or there may be a different type of manpower for a different type of community. There are many things you might be able to determine as you go along that would be helpful for all of us in determining what the ultimate size and scope of this activity ought to be. Surely, if we can make it pay in 11 communities in terms of abating crime, and we see 11 more communities that are not profiting from it, it would be very difficult to explain why you would do this and help people avoid crime in one community and you would not use the same device to do it in another.

So I think you have to have a broader view of how it can apply across the board, or especially how you can follow the criminal to the point where at least you establish in his mind that there is not really any safe harbor for him to go and set up shop.

Mr. MACDONALD. I think we are very sympathetic to this committee's desire to try this out on an isolated basis and profit from our experience.

Mr. STEED. The point is I want it to work. I don't want us to get committed over our heads and then get sore spots in it and make it tough for the long range part of it. Crime is not just going to go away with one slap in the nose. This is a battle that is never going to be over. And hopefully we are working here with a tool that will be a good deterrent on a permanent basis. Whether it is always going to be a matter for the Federal Government to shoulder this much of the burden remains to be seen. But at least to the point that we can make sure we have something here that will work and pay off. The Federal Government, I think, would have very few places where we could invest resources to a better cause.

COSTS OF PREVENTING CRIME

While I am on the subject of crime, I had occasion over the holidays to be in Florida, and I visited some friends there who live in very nice condominiums on the ocean front. And all these places have this very complicated security, very costly security, against burglars. And I don't know what you can do to calculate the cost of crime prevention in terms of how many tens of thousands of people spend so many millions of dollars for police and locks and television sets

and alarm bells, and all sorts of devices, to try to keep burglars from preying upon them.

And then we find that in the Washington area here, whole areas seem to be beset by professional burglar crews, where they must have sources around the country clubs, or someplace, to know when people are going to be out of town or away from home. Apparently they can cut the glass and be in the house and take all the good silver and antiques and anything else of value, and be out and gone in a matter of minutes. They even go so far as to have furnaces on panel trucks to melt up the silver on the way out of town so that if they are caught, there is no way to identify what they have stolen.

Now, if we have come to that point that crime is a major industry in the United States, we are going to have to have some way to cope with that-because this type of a mobility would make it almost impossible for a local police force to cope with it, because they strike and leave, and are in another jurisdiction in a matter of less than an hour, and therefore have a very easy way to evade capture. We also have out where I come from an ongoing theft of horses. We find that we think that some of our horses that sell in the thousands of dollars range are being stolen and butchered and sold for dog meat and human consumption. It is a wide-spread thing, that is also a mobile moonlight type of crime.

Mr. MILLER. It is happening in Spain, too.

Mr. STEED. For all we know, some of us may be eating horsemeat for hamburger and not know it. This is not an isolated thing anymore. Now, this isn't necessarily a bomb crime, or a gun crime. But all does mix itself together, and it is pretty hard to fight it on just some fronts, and not fight it on all fronts. Since the Federal Government is the only agency that does have jurisdiction in every nook and corner, some of this involvement, I would think, has to become your business somewhere along the line. Because I just don't believe that these types of burglary rings would operate without firearms. I think it would be a matter of great necessity that they go armed. Maybe not while they are in your house burglarizing it, but certainly after they make the kill and are out on the way, because other underworld characters find out about it, and that would be a temptation for a criminal to prey upon a criminal.

So these are the kinds of things that make any new ideas or any new effort to try to cope with the criminal problem in the country something we ought to give attention to, and try to promote it so long as there is any hope that it will make a contribution that is worth the cost.

So this is one of the sort of thoughts I approach your experiment with.

I hope you have got something here that gets the job done. And if it does, I think we are going to have to think about a lot more places than 11.

POSSIBLE ADDITIONAL FUNDING

Now, as I say, one other thing to remember-we have more or less wanted to wait to see what the three places already funded

do. We are in a time schedule that pushes us up early this year. Since the fiscal year starts October 1, we ought to be able to get some track record by the supplemental time, so that by the time the fiscal year begins, we can have brought into balance anything omitted in the first instance.

So we might do it two or three different ways. But there are several stages around where funding can be obtained, if our experience and things that we get into as you go along with this point the way to it.

So we would expect to have in any case a number of ongoing contacts with you as you get into this.

I don't want to impose an undue burden of reporting to you, but we do have a very keen interest, and would like to be as up to date as you can keep us.

I think it would be to all our advantages.

You had already had a little of this sort of thing in the Washington area, I believe, before you got the idea to expand it. I would assume you probably have gone further here than anywhere else. What have you found out thus far, just in this area alone?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, sir, let me say first we did initiate early in the game a gun-tracing study in the Washington area. We expect to fully implement the program in Washington, D.C. in the mid part of February. In other words, all the new agents have been recruited. They will complete their training on February 12. All of the experienced agents have been transferred into the area. So about midFebruary we will expect to have the Washington, D.C.——

TIME FACTOR FOR REPORTING RESULTS

Mr. STEED. What time factor do you feel you would need to begin to get any record that you can identify?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, sir, our experience will improve on this. But in our own mind we are feeling between one and two years. In other words, we should start making a noticeable-some kind of major noticeable impact within about a year, and to get really a fairly true reading of this would be about two years, although obviously with experience we might change this.

Mr. STEED. In terms of your meshing in with the local enforcement agencies, are you going to need that much time? I know you had yourself tracked on that.

Mr. DAVIS. No, sir. In fact, if I remember correctly, there are 16 separate jurisdictions in the Washington metropolitan area that will be involved in this. And of course the local prosecutors, as well as United States attorneys, and all of these people-I believe—have already been contacted to explain the program to them. And we have received pledges of cooperation from all of these organizations.

EMPHASIS ON BOMBING PREVENTION

Mr. STEED. Well, are you giving any thought now in the light of recent experience that more emphasis would be placed in this particular field on the bomb problem, the terrorist type thing, as against the original gun tracing phase of it?

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Mr. DAVIS. Well, sir, of course that will vary somewhat according to the city that is involved. But certainly we intend to give important attention to the bombing problem and the security of explosives in that area, and so forth, as well as firearms.

Mr. STEED. You remember sometime ago when we had some bombing concerns of a very intense nature in the Washington area, and a great deal of time and effort was put into storm sewer, and all sorts of other type of preventive measures to protect Government buildings against bomb attack. Would you be able to give local law enforcement officers any help in the field of preventive type steps to be taken in the bomb protection field?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. In terms of manpower, of course, because we would be somewhat limited in comparison to the other agencies involved-obviously, you have the local metropolitan police department. In other jurisdictions you have the protective services, such as GSA. So there are a large number of people. But we would certainly be available to provide advice and things of this kind. And one of the key things that we will be looking for is the theft of explosives, any connection it has with this area. By and large, the people who use explosives rely on theft. And this is one area we are going to give added emphasis to. So that hopefully, when we get a report of thefts, through investigations, we may be able to prevent the bombing before they have an opportunity to use it.

Mr. STEED. You hear stories all the time about how some thief figured out some clever way to break in and steal explosives and firearms when the ordinary lock and key sort of thing was no longer adequate. You probably are called on frequently for advice on how to take a legitimate gun and explosive storage area and make it safer, aren't you?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir, there are Federal regulations that we administer, that of course set standards for the kinds of security in an explosive magazine, down to the kind of lock that can be used, to the location of the hinges, where they are inside so they cannot be removed. And of course this is one area that we will pay particular attention to. Of course there are really two problems here. One of them is to prevent the theft if at all possible, so they cannot have access to it. But certainly if explosives are stolen, we want to know about it as soon as possible.

NEED FOR REPORTING THEFTS

Mr. STEED. You consider that a very much more important reporting need than the reporting of stolen guns would be?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, sir, in terms of potential, the potential for destruction and loss of life

Mr. STEED. A person who has a firearm that is stolen, they benefit themselves in the first instance by reporting to you. Whereas the person with explosives, they are mostly not owned by individuals in the same sense firearms are. Therfore, it wouldn't have the same selfish appeal to report the explosive as would have the individual with the firearm.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Also I might point out under Federal law, the person is required to report the theft or loss of explosives to

both ATF and his local police department within 24 hours. Now, this is an area we are going to re-emphasize. We feel that there have been some thefts of explosives that have not been properly reported. So that we are going to pay particular attention to this, and if necessary revoke some licenses and permits, to make sure that these people comply with the law in reporting. Because many times it is possible to tie in a theft with a subsequent bombing, or perhaps even to recover the explosives before they can be used.

EXPLOSIVES TAGGING

have

Mr. STEED. You told us last time that you had made some progress in the field of, I guess, chemical additive to help you trace the source of bombs after the explosive was set off. What is the situation now? Mr. DAVIS. Well, sir, the advisory committees that we established have viewed systems, one of them, for example, by Westinghouse, that conclusively demonstrate that this is a feasible method or technique. To give you a very quick example—if that system had been in place in the LaGuardia bombing, we would know now exactly what kind of explosive was used, where it came from, or at least we could limit it down to three or four sources in terms of the distribution of that particular lot of explosives. So this is a tremendously effective investigating tool.

As I reported to the committee last time, we are also quite interested in the detection of explosives before they are detonated. This can either be done with insertion of scientific tagging materials, or, again an even longer range concept, without tagging them—just merely the materials that make up the explosives themselves.

It appears technically feasible to detect those before the explosive

is detonated.

As you know, the President has established a task force, following the LaGuardia bombing, and our people have appeared at meetings of this task force-and this is centered primarily in the Department of Transportation and FAA-but our people have been there and advised them of what our committees have done, and made available to them any support they need from our committees.

WAGERING

Mr. STEED. I know the gentleman that has been carrying on the work of the Gambling Commission. And I notice you have here some problems in the field of wagering. I assume that his work has been largely confined to those people who are on the right side of the law and are not afraid to talk to him. But how large a problem is the illegal gambling side of your activity?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, sir, it is being conducted only on a minimal basis, as sort of a pilot operation. And, of course, I think there is no question that the total gambling picture in the United States is of very large dimensions. We just have not been able to divert resources from firearms, explosives, other important priorities, in any meaningful sense.

As I pointed out, we have been able to make a number of investigations, a number of recommendations for prosecution. We seized 116 vehicles.