Mr. STAKEM. Of course this is our ship, Congressman, and they are acting as an agent for the Government in the operation of the ship. Mr. THOMAS. Yes, but they will not run this ship, will they, the •Savannah?

Mr. STAKEM. Yes, States Marine is the agent for the Savannah.

Mr. THOMAS. Now turning to the Payment of Claims, War Shipping Administration, also in House Document No. 217, tell us about it. Mr. STAKEM. $18,135.19 is required for this purpose. Mr. THOMAS. How much is in the fund for that?

Mr. STAKEM. Nothing. It was wound up in 1958 and whatever was left was turned back to the miscellaneous receipts of the Treasury. This involves legal fees and disbursements in defense of overtime-onovertime suits, $12,489.69; and a claim for legal fees which grew out of an action that occurred in 1945 in connection with one of our ships. Mr. THOMAS. Where is your appropriating language?

Mr. ROONEY. Page 5.

Mr. STAKEM. For payment of claims arising out of vessel operations activities of the War Shipping Administration.

Mr. THOMAS. It is not in your justifications.

Are these all reduced to judgments?

Mr. PECK. No, these are legal fees in defending actions resolved in favor of the Government.

Mr. THOMAS. Are they all firm figures?

Mr. PECK. Yes.

Mr. ROONEY. Will the gentleman yield?

Who will get this money? Does it go to the three concerns located on the Brooklyn waterfront?

Mr. STAKEM. No. The $12,000 goes to Kirlin, Campbell & Keating, defense counsel.

Mr. PECK. Counsel have already been paid and this is for reimbursement to the shipping companies under the contracts we have. with them.

Mr. ROONEY. So the three concerns in New York would get this $12,000?

Mr. PECK. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. What about item 2, $5,645.50 for

Claim by former WSA foreign area representatives for reimbursement of legal fees and expenses in defense of an action, by a master of a ship operating under the WSA, alleging false arrest, unjustified repatriation, and loss of earnings. What is the nature of that case?

73884-61--18

Mr. STAKEM. The incident occurred in 1945 and involved the ship SS Helena Modjeska. The master of the ship was Capt. Simeon Shaw. Mr. THOMAS. How did we come out in the suit?

Mr. STAKEM. I think we won the suit, did we not. Mr. Peck?

Mr. PECK. These two War Shipping Administration area representatives in the Far East had to discharge the master of the ship because he was bringing a Japanese woman along with him on the ship from the south up to Yokohama to smuggle her ashore. He was court-martialed by the Army authorities and his license was suspended. He brought suit against these two area representatives saying they acted outside the scope of their authority under the War Shipping Administration. The suit was brought in Yokohama in a Japanese court and after several years' trial at intervals the court decided these men had acted within the scope of their authority and dismissed the suit.

Mr. THOMAS. We owe them $5,645.50?

Mr. PECK. That is correct. These were not all Japanese lawyers. This is a firm in New York which has a branch in Japan.

Mr. THOMAS. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 1961.

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

WITNESSES

DR. A. V. ASTIN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS DR. ROBERT D. HUNTOON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

DR. CHARLES M. HERZFELD, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

WILLIAM A. WILDHACK, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

DR. JOHN M. RICHARDSON, CHIEF, RADIO STANDARDS LABORATORY

NORMAN L. CHRISTELLER, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OFFICER JOHN H. PRINCE, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY

OSCAR H. NIELSON, DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET OFFICER

Mr. THOMAS. Gentlemen, will the committee please come to order. We have with us this afternoon our good friends from the Bureau of Standards. We have Dr. Astin, the Director, well and favorably known for many years; Dr. Huntoon, the Deputy Director; Dr. Herzfeld, an Associate Director; Dr. Wildhack, an Associate Director; Dr. Richardson, Chief of the Radio Standards Laboratory; Mr. Christeller, the financial management officer; Mr. Prince, deputy executive assistant to the Secretary; and Mr. Nielson, the departmental budget officer.

The requests contained in House Document No. 217 are in the amount of $4,200,000 for research and technical services and $1,500,000 for plant and facilities.

Doctor, do you have a statement for us?

Dr. ASTIN. Yes, sir; I have a prepared statement which I would suggest you might insert in the record and let me summarize it, because it would take about 20 minutes to read it.

GENERAL STATEMENT

Mr. THOMAS. We shall put it in the record verbatim at this point. (The statement follows:)

STATEMENT BY A. V. ASTIN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

The request for supplemental appropriations for the National Bureau of Standards arises from a growing urgency for more effective measurement services in key areas of science and technology. An extensive effort to improve and extend the primary standards and measurements services of the Bureau is critically important to our military and atomic energy technology and to our increased national effort in the exploration of outer space. The high priority now assigned to national programs in these other areas requires a greatly increased effort by the NBS because of the great dependence of complex devices such as satellites and nuclear weapons systems upon sophisticated, uniform, and reliable techniques of physical measurement.

The Bureau has a unique and exclusive responsibility to maintain the national standards of physical measurement and to provide the means whereby scientists, engineers, and production technicians may be assured that their measurements

are compatible and meaningful with the precision necessary for their particular application. Only a national institution, with a commission such as that held by the National Bureau of Standards, is in a position to provide the basis for a complete and consistent system of physical measurement that is adequate to meet the needs of science, industry, and commerce.

With the support of the Congress the Bureau has, in recent years, been making important progress in strengthening its unique research programs which are necessary prerequisites to improved service to science and industry. The needs of science and industry, however, have been growing at an even faster pace and the Bureau finds itself today faced by a large list of critical needs for standards and measurement techniques for new physical phenomena, for the extension of existing measurement capability into extreme ranges, for radically improved precision and accuracy in almost every field of measurement, and for the development of measurement capability in new and exotic environments. These needs must be met by the Bureau. Failure to meet them promptly will serve to increase our expenditure in our military and space programs and hinder our scientific and technological advancement.

It is a characteristic of the times that we live in-and I am sure that the Members of the Congress encounter this daily-that our military and space programs are involved in, or make use of, almost every aspect of progress in science and technology. The development of large rocket motors and their incorporation in missiles and space vehicles is an excellent example and one that affects both our national security and our international prestige. In the development of these devices we are subjecting materials to severe and extreme changes in temperature, pressure, and other environmental conditions. We are trying to find new and more powerful fuels. We are attempting to incorporate thousands of individual components in a device that must operate with great precision either under programed automatic control or radio guidance. We are incorporating sophisticated control, data-taking, and telemetering instruments in miniaturized and microminiaturized forms. And we are trying to do all these and many more things on an extremely fast schedule.

All of these activities place great demands upon our measurement capability. The scientists concerned with determining the properties of materials that may be useful in such devices must have extended temperature and pressure scales and more precise scientific instruments. The scientists and engineers who are designing and developing these complex devices must specify their performance and the performance of the thousands of individual components in terms of measurable quantities, but the performance requirements are much more extreme than those which could be adequately measured with the measurement capability of a former day. The producers of these devices and their components must be able to measure on the production line with a greater precision than formerly was required in the standards laboratory, and they must measure properties and characteristics that were unheard of or irrelevant only a few years ago. Finally when operable devices and instruments are being produced there is also the necessity to measure significant characteristics periodically to assure that they are performing properly or to assure that they will perform properly when called upon in an emergency.

The extent and detailed nature of the gap between the need for improved measurement services and the ability of the NBS to provide them has only recently become well defined. This bas been due to progress in a series of specialized studies initiated a little more than a year ago by the Aerospace Industries Association and the U.S. Air Force. As a result of these studies we have compiled a lengthy list of current needs, and the magnitude of the problem has been startling indeed. Because of their interrelated nature it is difficult to put a Precise number on the varying calibration and measurement services offered by the Bureau to research laboratories and industrial and military calibration centers. I can, however, give some indication of the magnitude of the problem facing the Bureau by saying that our present measurement services leave unmet one-half of the needs reflected in the various surveys, and of those services offered, about one-half are inadequate with respect to the precision or the range or some other characteristic of the service.

The military agencies, the space agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the various industrial concerns who work for them are pressing us for radically improved and expanded assistance. They are well aware that their problems related to measurement accuracy and measurement compatibility have an ultimate focus in the National Bureau of Standards. They are acutely aware that until these problems are solved they must spend excessive amounts for