[Note: Nominee responded and the information is contained in the committee's executive files.]

8. Have any tax liens, either Federal, State, or local, been filed against you or against any real property or personal property which you own either individually, jointly, or in partnership?

[Note: Nominee responded and the information is contained in the committee's executive files.]

(The committee may require that copies of your Federal income tax returns be provided to the committee. These documents will be made available only to Senators and the staff designated by the chairman. They will not be available for public inspection.)

SIGNATURE AND DATE

I hereby state that I have read and signed the foregoing Statement on Biographical and Financial Information and that the information provided therein is, to the best of my knowledge, current, accurate, and complete.

This 8th day of June, 1987.

SAMUEL KENRIC LESSEY, JR.

STATEMENT OF SAMUEL KENRIC LESSEY, JR.

Mr. LESSEY. First, I would like to express my gratitude, Mr. Chairman, to you and Senator Thurmond for delaying your Thanksgiving holiday to keep this hearing on schedule.

Mr. Chairman, I am honored to have been nominated by the President to be Director of Selective Service, and I thank the distinguished members of this committee for the opportunity to be here today as you consider my nomination.

In brief, I am deeply committed to the vigorous and fair administration of the Military Selective Service Act in accord with applicable statutory and constitutional law. Continued improvement in registration procedures and possible increases in registration will receive my immediate attention without detracting, of course, from the fundamental planning and preparation for the processing of registrants toward induction should it ever be necessary for the Congress to authorize and the President to direct the resumption of inductions.

In carrying out these responsibilities, I also am personally committed to the husbanding of public moneys in seeking to bring further economy and efficiency to the administration of the Selective Service System.

It will be my desire to work very closely with the members of this committee to improve the effectivess of Selective Service in carrying out its important statutory mission so vital to our Nation's security.

I shall be happy to respond to any questions which the members of this committee may have at this time.

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE OF NOMINEE

Senator GLENN. Mr. Lessey, in connection with your past Government service, how much exposure to the Selective Service System have you had? How much work with them have you done in your previous military and civilian government service? You have had extensive government and military service in the past. Have you had any close working relationship with Selective Service in those positions?

Mr. LESSEY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I suppose "close" is a word subject to interpretation, but I have been very active in the management of the Air Force Reserve and its reorganization. That is one of the recent occasions when I became familiar with some of the inner workings of the Selective Service.

I have also been somewhat of a student of the organization through the years. I would say in a nostalgic sense my first exposure is when I happened to meet General Hershey when I was a very young man. I have also had friends such as Dr. Curtis Tarr who held this position previously and whose career I did follow.

My other rather current activity in the mobilization planning and readiness area would be my experience as mobilization assistant to the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Senator GLENN. Continuing on the same tack, could you outline what your duties were or what were your duties in your position as mobilization assistant to the Director of the Federal Emergency Agency?

Mr. LESSEY. Let me highlight two areas which are probably the most important. One is that I participated and was closely involved with the planning and the execution of the first classified joint civilian-military mobilization exercises.

The other activity which I would highlight is my work as mobilization assistant not long after FEMA had been organized, which was a consolidation of five other government entities, as you know. I particularly had a responsibility for what had been known as the mobilization designee program when this responsibility was shifting from the Department of Defense over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That involved a lot of reorganization and planning and coordination in terms of where the linkages were going to be in the new organization. I think those two were probably the highlights which I would mention.

READINESS OF SELECTIVE SERVICE

Senator GLENN. I know you are not actually on the job yet, but do you have a feel for how ready our Selective Service is to be put into operation now if we needed it?

Mr. LESSEY. By all reports, Senator Glenn-and these are reports which, of course, have been presented to the Congress and to this committee and to the public-the Selective Service stands in a very high state of readiness, and it is prepared to carry out its mission. I, of course, will be interested in looking at it from the inside. Probably my initial impact will be one of trying to fine tune the operation and see if we can improve it.

Senator GLENN. What would your objective be to deliver the first inductees if we had a mobilization call go out? What's the target? Mr. LESSEY. Senator, I am sorry. I did not hear the first part of your question.

Senator GLENN. What would be the target for the first inductees, let's say, the first thousand or so to be brought into the pipeline and report for duty? What's the target on what time that would take?

Mr. LESSEY. The target on the first inductees I believe, is 13 days; and, of course, the 30-day goal is 100,000.

Senator GLENN. That's 100,000 in 30 days? Then what? Does it ramp up from there?

Mr. LESSEY. Yes, sir.

Senator GLENN. What does it come up to? How many potential are there in the pool right now? Do you know?

Mr. LESSEY. I believe there are about 15 million, sir-14 million to 15 million.

COMPLIANCE

Senator GLENN. What is our compliance rate running on registration? It's what-96, 97 percent?

Mr. LESSEY. It is in that area. That's looking generally speaking at the pool as a whole. If you examine different age categories, I think there is some variation on that. I think the initial registration is a figure significantly lower than that, but by the time you get to the primary draft age of 20, you are up to a high number. Senator GLENN. Are you satisfied with that compliance rate?

Mr. LESSEY. I'm like you, sir. From our earlier discussion, I am somewhat of a perfectionist. You are not on the team if you relax and think anything is already completed or perfect. It would be one of my goals, and I think it is already the goal of the people in the Selective Service System, to put further emphasis on constantly trying to improve those numbers.

Senator GLENN. We don't like to think that there are 3 or 4 percent, in effect, shirking their duty as we see it. Do you have any ideas of how you increase that compliance rate?

Mr. LESSEY. Well, I think one of the important areas, is a program already in existence at Selective Service, the public awareness program.

Among the 18 and 19 year olds, there is a group of people who simply do not become aware of the requirement until it catches up with them at some point. I think I wouldn't want to use the categorization of shirkers in an all-inclusive sense in that I think there definitely are some categories of people who need to be made aware of their responsibility.

Senator GLENN. Do you think that is the main problem as opposed to those that are just trying to get away with something? Mr. LESSEY. It would be premature for me to comment on that, Senator. Let me take a closer look when I'm aboard, if I may.

HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL SHORTAGE

Senator GLENN. Mr. Lessey, you know from our private conversation yesterday of my deep concern about some of the shortages that we have in the military where we have got certain jobs assigned to the Reserve components, particularly in the medical field. And they are what I've termed in this committee as near war stoppers in the nature of their shortages if we ever had to go into combat. Now, Congress enacted legislation this year authorizing Selective Service to design and develop a standby system to prepare for the post-mobilization, registration and classification of health care professionals. We have a shortage in the military right now of something like 35,000 nurses, and I think it is 17,500 doctors. And we are not doing very well. Some 70 percent of our medical services

are going to come out of the Reserve. And yet, in some of those specialty areas, we find as much as 65 or 70 percent shortages of that 70 percent that comes from the Reserve, if you follow that setup there.

Mr. LESSEY. Absolutely.

Senator GLENN. Do you have any thoughts on that and what we can do about it? And this will be my last question on this round. My time is expired.

Mr. LESSEY. Well, it will be, of course, my intention and desire to work closely with this committee and the other committees in Congress in carrying out this provision which is contained in the Defense Authorization bill. There is, of course, at the Selective Service System already the anticipation of carrying out this plan for the possible future registration of health care personnel.

I am fully aware of the problem you raise which, in certain areas such as nursing care, is even a national problem in the private sector. I will, of course, be seeking the appropriate briefings from the Department of Defense regarding the shortages which you have just highlighted in your question.

Senator GLENN. We ran into this about 11⁄2 or almost 2 years ago now in the subcommittee that I chair, the Manpower Subcommittee. And it came as rather a shocker to me that we were this short in some of those areas. So, that's one we want to work very closely with you on.

Senator Thurmond.

SOLOMON AND THURMOND AMENDMENTS

Senator THURMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Lessey, how successful is the existing registration system, and are the enforcing mechanisms such as the Solomon amendment and the Thurmond amendments sufficient to ensure satisfactory compliance with registration requirements?

Mr. LESSEY. The Solomon and Thurmond amendments, of course, have been extremely useful, Senator. To go back to one of my earlier answers, I think the high percentage of registration is something of which the Selective Service System deserves to be proud. I think they have done a good job. But the efforts which the Congress has made with those amendments have truly been very, very helpful. As I said before, I think we need to keep plugging away, fine-tuning, and working to keep those numbers up where they are and maybe improve them somewhat.

I will, of course, look for possible new initiatives and work with the Congress in that area if we see any particular spots which might be assisted by some other form of amendment.

Senator THURMOND. General Lessey, are there any changes in the law which you believe are needed at this time to ensure the success of the Selective Service System in the event of full mobilization?

Mr. LESSEY. I think, Senator, in all due respect, it is probably premature for me to be talking in terms of recommendations on legislation before I have joined the service and have had a real chance to look at things closely.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Chairman, I think that's all the questions I have.

I wish you success in your new assignment. I am sure you will do a fine job.

Mr. LESSEY. Well, thank you very much, sir.

MOBILIZATION OF HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL

Senator GLENN. Thank you, Senator Thurmond.

On the Selective Service plan efforts to develop a plan on the mobilization of health care specialists, what kind of a timeframe would you put on the development of that plan?

Mr. LESSEY. I am not sure what is in the existing scheme of things, but my understanding is it probably would be-what I've heard is 2 years. I may be mistaken on that. That sounds a little too long for me. I'd like to see if we can speed things up.

Senator GLENN. I would like to speed it up beyond that also. I would hope we could shorten it up considerably on that.

Mr. LESSEY. Frankly, sir, there is an element of vagueness. I like your use of the term "plan of a plan." I want to be able to get my handle on that. I'd like to get some answers there.

Senator GLENN. Well, it is an area that has concerned me very much because, as I said, we looked at it on the Manpower and Personnel Subcommittee. The further we went into it, the more vexing and intractable the problem became. We just didn't come up with any good solutions. And we have given some incentive pay and some things like that to try and get more medical people in, but in the medical profession, particularly for surgeons and specialties like that, another $1,500 a year incentive or so on doesn't make that much difference. And so, I think we need some real new approaches to this if we are to get those people in.

It's a critical matter. And it would be even more critical if we went into a mobilization situation where we need more of those people than we need now. We're short enough now. So, we will look forward to working with you on that plan.

And I don't know how closely you work with the Secretary of Defense on this. Do you have a feel for that yet as to how closely you work and let them help identify areas that are going to be of a particular shortage nature if we do have mobilization so you can identify those and perhaps have some plan or make special efforts to identify certain categories that are going to be very, very necessary if we ever have mobilization? How do you see yourself working with DOD?

Mr. LESSEY. Let me make a supposition there. As you know, the fundamental function of the Selective Service System is to provide the requirements which the Department of Defense has specified. I think most of us think of this in the general sense of registration and inductees of troops for the Army. But I would certainly agree with you that it would make a lot of sense to pin down, particularly in this program which we've just been talking about, specialties and detailed requirements.

I want to work very closely with the Department of Defense. As you know, Mr. Carlucci is one of my classmates, and maybe I'll try to start with But I think that's absolutely essential.