Page images
PDF
EPUB

stantial progress in meeting identified needs in the areas of health, education, and welfare.

I shall be happy to try to answer any questions that the committee may wish to ask. However, before proceeding with the committee's questions, I would like, with your permission, to highlight the organizational arrangements and staff changes which we have made and the approach we are taking to strengthen mangement and coordination of the complex and interrelated programs of the Department.

ORGANIZATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT

May I speak to the chart here?
Mr. FOGARTY. Go right ahead.
(The chart referred to follows:)

[graphic][ocr errors][merged small][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][subsumed]

Secretary GARDNER. First of all, I want to say, as I said in my earlier testimony, that the point of this way of organizing the Department is to carry these programs out in accordance with the intent of Congress. The immediate Office of the Secretary and Under Secretary is a very closely operating unit. I intend to use Mr. Cohen as my deputy, my alter ego. He is in touch with me at all times. He knows everything I am doing, and he serves in my behalf when I am not around. There is no problem of enough for the Under Secretary to do. He is a very, very busy man. I am going to pass over the assistant secretaries for a moment and come down to the operating agencies, because to me this is the heart of what we are trying to do.

As you see, we now have nine operating agencies with some current discussion about the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration. We have nine operating heads and every one of those operating heads reports directly to me. There is no layering of these operating people. I do not believe in putting buffers between myself and the people runnning our major agencies. It is my concern to strengthen their position as much as I possibly can and to serve them as much as I can. I won't comment on these various boxes [indicating the operating agencies], since you know them very well.

Mr. FOGARTY. What are the stars for?

Secretary GARDNER. The stars represent either new jobs or new men in old jobs. The stars on the chart show you the scope of change in the management area. You can see at a glance how many new people we have brought in. The blue boxes represent posts that did not exist before.

Now let me talk about these people [indicating], the Assistant Secretaries. This is a staff level, and you have some classic and easily recognized staff functions, which I will, of course, depend on very heavily and particularly in terms of pulling the Department together. We have taken the budget function from the Assistant Secretary for Administration and upgraded the job; Jim Kelly, who handled it before, is handling it now. He has a very important role in the new setup. The job of the Assistant Secretary for Administration is more familiar. It involves personnel, general services, security, and a variety of other functions. The roles of the General Counsel and the Assistant Secretary for Legislation you are familiar with. The new Assistant Secretary for Program Coordination, William Gorham, has been brought over from the Pentagon. He will be in charge of program planning and evaluation of the sort that was developed over there. It is still in the experimental phase here.

Finally, there are four substantive Assistant Secretaries. Their functions concern many agencies. These four Assistant Secretaries have advisory and coordinating responsibilities concerning the subject matter identified with their title. Frank Keppel will concern himself with education programs wherever they occur in the Department and wherever they occur outside of the Department. He will serve, in his responsibilities outside of the Department, as Chairman of the InterAgency Council on Education, and in this role he will concern himself with relating our education programs to those of the National Science Foundation and other Federal agencies-and a great many Federal agencies have some involvement with education. Inside the Department, Mr. Keppel will concern himself with the education matters

that cut across agency lines. The functions of the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Health, as you know, are still under consideration. The role of the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs, Dr. Lee, is like that of Mr. Keppel. Dr. Lee will concern himself with health activities as they exist throughout the Department. When Bob Ball wants to work out some problem with the Public Health Service on medical matters, Philip Lee will be present. When Ellen Winston wants to make comparable arrangements, he will be concerned with it. The same is true of the Assistant Secretary for Individual and Family Services, Lisle Carter. He will concern himself with a range of things, some of which are comprised in the term "welfare," some in social security, some involving the Administration on Aging, and in general he will be concerned with this kind of social

service.

Of the special assistants, the only one of particular interest is the Special Assistant on Civil Rights. I think I have gotten the best fellow in the country to join me and to pull together the civil rights activities of the whole Department. We are doing two things at once. We are putting the responsibility for civil rights activities on the operating agencies themselves. We are saying, in effect, that nobody in this Department can really get out of the civil rights business. We have a law to administer, one that is integrally involved with what is being done out in the field, and we cannot delegate responsibility for civil rights only to a small group in the Office of the Secretary. At the same time, we are building up our capacity in the Office of the Secretary to monitor all our civil rights efforts, to see whether they are effective, to relate our activities with those of the Department of Justice, and to do all the kinds of things in which we must act as a department. For example, we have asked the Public Health Service to concern itself with all civil rights problems relating to hospitals to avoid having both the Social Security Administration and the Public Health Service coming in at different times to work with the same hospital. We have asked the Office of Education to concern itself with all civil rights matters involving educational institutions, so that hereto we won't have several different agencies seeking compliance from the same institution.

I'd like to add one additional word. As you know, we have nine regional directors. It has always been a task to keep them in close touch with what we are doing. In my opinion, they play an extremely important role. They are the one part of our organization that not only sees the Department and its operations whole, but gets an immediate feedback from the operations of these programs. You cannot talk to a regional director without getting a sense of the actual impact of these programs as they hit the grassroots. So I am establishing improved communication with the regional directors. I have appointed Ed Baxter who is our Charlottesville regional director to head this office and he will work directly with me in trying to bring the regional directors closer to us.

I think that is all I want to say.

Mr. FOGARTY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, that is a very good statement. I would like to commend you for what I think are fine appointments you have made.

Many of them I have known for some years.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HUITT

Mr. LAIRD. There is another new Assistant Secretary that has not appeared before this committee in his official capacity. Perhaps he could be introduced.

Dr. Huitt.

Mr. FOGARTY. We would be glad to listen to your background, too. I imagine one of the most important things is that you came out of Wisconsin.

Mr. HuITT. Yes; I think that probably is. I grew up in Texas, was educated in the public schools and at Southwestern University and did graduate work at the University of Texas. I served in the Navy for 3 years. I went to the great State of Wisconsin in 1949 and spent 16 years there as a professor of political science. I am on indefinite leave from there now and I am delighted to be with the Department.

Mr. FOGARTY. Thank you.

VIEWS OF SECRETARY ON DEPARTMENT'S ROLE IN PROVISION OF HEALTH

SERVICES

Mr. Secretary, I have been very much impressed with your deep interest, from what I read, in education and your refreshing views on educational problems. You have written and spoken a great deal on this subject before you became Secretary, with the result that your views are fairly well known to those who read. You have had less occasion to address yourself to our national health problems. It would, I think, be helpful to this committee to have an expression of your views your own personal views on the role which the Federal Government and more specifically the health components of your Department could play in improving the Nation's health and insuring that the best of medical service is available, widely and readily, throughout the country. Some of the programs for which funds are included in the budget are becoming more deeply concerned with the provision of medical services.

I think the committee would like to hear your views on this aspect of the Federal Government's health activities.

Secretary GARDNER. Yes, sir. I will be glad to give you a very general statement, because this is something that interests me very deeply. I believe, briefly, that we are at a historic moment in the development of health activities in Government. In fact, in the development of health activities in this Nation, this is a moment that we may all remember for quite a long time to come. We have come to our present position because of the spectacular advances in the health sciences, because of the really remarkable legislative record of the 88th and 89th Congresses, and because of the very impressive backing which your committee has provided to these fields. Because of these gains we now have an unprecedented opportunity to take a step in health services in this country that will lay down a pattern for a generation to come. In my belief, we are now in a position to do a remarkable job of building on the base that you people have provided. There has been a lot of discussion about where the emphasis should be from now on, whether it should be on research or whether it should be on the ielivery of services. I am not inclined to argue the question. I beeve very, very strongly that we must maintain and strengthen the

« PreviousContinue »