MEMORANDUM FOR THE HONORABLE CAGFAR W. WEINBERGER SUBJECT: Implementation of the kecommendations of the The implementation memo you sent to the President on March 3 has been revised to foliow more closely the format and detail of the Commission report and has been put into NSDD format (Tab A). Attached at Tab B is a proposed public announcement which we plan to release after your review. Appropriate draft letters to both Houses of Congress are at Tab C. (S) The NSDD is intended to strengthen your hand vis-a-vis the legislation now in both Houses and maintain your control of the implementation process. We have tried to be sensitive to the President's desire to implement the Commission's recommendations without infringing on your authority or prerogatives. (c) The events of the past week have demonstrated that the Hill has been most favorable toward the Commission's report. The report thus gives the President considerable leverage in dealing with the more radical proposals for reform that now abound in both Bouses. Because of our need to sustain momentum on this and your pending trip to Europe, I hope we can have your comments this week before you leave. (C) OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE 10 September 1987 MEMORANDUM FOR GENERAL WATTS, SAF/AC SUBJECT: Weapons Systems Costs and Projections As you will recall from earlier correspondence on the subject, Dr. Amlie and I have continuing concerns about the integrity of our reports to Congress on weapons systems costs and projections. The current confusion over the so-called "outyears" of the Five Year Defense Program (FYDP) has heightened our concerns. On several occasions in the past couple of months, I have raised the issue of the failure to reconcile the supporting detail of the FYDP "outyears" - FY 90, 91, and 92 to the President's "top line" figures for those same years. As I understand it, the purpose of the PPBS is to produce a FYDP that reconciles the detailed projections and the "unconstrained" requirements with the "constrained" budget toplines of the President's program. Some people estimate that DOD expends over a million manhours per year to produce a FYDP. I have been told that the essential reconciliation was not done when the FYDP was prepared for this year. I would like to pursue this question, especially as it may affect our reports to Congress. This brings me to the accompanying SECRET chart. We want to find out whether the figures we are using for "outyear" reporting are reconciled to the "88 PB plus 34 GROWTH" line ("the President's" figures) or the higher 88 PB projection. I presume that the highest projection depicted on the chart reflects the sum of the detailed projections contained in the Comptroller FYDP computer tape. I also presume that the "88 PB plus 3 GROWTH" is the "constrained" projection. As noted above, the chart in question is "SECRET which greatly inhibits our discussion of this important matter. I would greatly appreciate your declassifying this chart so we can discuss it freely and over the telephone, both with our colleagues in the Pentagon and with interested parties in Congress. Senator Weicker and the DOD Inspector General have already declassified the misBatch figures for all of the Department of Defense. Therefore, I don't see why ours can't be declassified as well. In case you have not seen the correspondence, Senator Weicker's figures indicated that the excess of the unconstrained projections over "the President's budget" for the three "outyears" was $82.9B. The IG adjusted this figure downward to $77.2B to reflect off-setting receipts. Our mismatch for the three years is roughly proportional to the DOD excess and represents an increase of 7.3% of our total budget for the three years in question. More significantly, perhaps, it represents an excess of 20.5% above the lowest of the three projections on the attached chart, the "87 PB plus 0% GROWTH" line. As noted on the chart, this lowest projection is itself substantially above the House Budget Committee mark for 1988. Because of the significance of this issue, I would greatly appreciate your personal attention to this matter and your support for getting the accompanying chart and its updates declassified so we can deal with the questions more easily. In this connection, I noted especially President Reagan's call for openness on the part of the Soviet Union in revealing their budget figures. In a speech on August 29, 1987, the President said: "The Soviets can also open their defense establishment to world scrutiny. They can publish a valid and comprehensive defense budget and reveal the size and composition of their armed forces. They can let their parliament, The Supreme Soviet, debate major new military programs." We can set a good example, as well as doing ourselves a favor, by taking our heads out of the sand and dealing forthrightly with the very troubling projections depicted in the attachment. If we don't do it now, I'm afraid the matter might not be dealt with until the new Administration takes office in 1989. As I understand the new procedures, we are not scheduled to do an FYDP next year which will result in the Congress and the taxpayers being kept in the dark. Given this situation, it is all the more important that our current projections hang together at least as well as they have in the past. As the Chief of Staff and the Secretary wrote in their July 29, 1987 memorandum, "Keeping Congress Informed", many in the Congress believe that "the Air Force just isn't being honest in explaining the performance of their programs." They went on to write: "Our policy will continue to be to provide candid, timely assessments of problem areas or potential problem areas that could reasonably be of interest to the Congress. We'll just have to do it better." Declassifying the attached document will be a good start in this direction. If you cannot do this right away, then I must raise the same questions that I raised about the March 12, 1986 memorandum 2 from John M. Poindexter to the Secretary of Defense which I requested be declassified in my 20 August 1987 memorandum to you, Subject: Questions on SF 189. In this connection, I have not yet received an answer to this declassification request. I would appreciate a follow-up inquiry and an early answer. Attachment A Pitzgerald A. E. FITZGERALD 3 Mr. SIKORSKI. At this point I would like to turn to Mr. Louis Brase and ask you to make your statement, and then we will get to questions for both of you. STATEMENT OF LOUIS BRASE, PRINTING MANAGER Mr. BRASE. Mr. Chairman, my name is Louis C. Brase. I am a GS-12 printing manager at Goodfellow Air Force Base. Mr. SIKORSKI. Mr. Brase, can you pull that microphone in? Thank you. Mr. BRASE. I am a GS-12 printing manager at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas. I have been a civilian employee of the Department of Air Force for 33 years. I very much appreciate the invitation to appear here today to provide the Congress with the information on my experiences with the Standard Form SF 189 and 4193. As you may know, I am one of the plaintiffs in the case brought by the American Federation of Government Employees that challenges the legality and constitutionality of these secrecy agreements. I am accompanied by my counsel in that matter, Mr. Joseph B. Kennedy, General Counsel for the Government Accountability Project. At this time I would like to introduce a statement by Mr. Kennedy into the record. Mr. SIKORSKI. It will be inserted in the record without objection. [The prepared statements of Joseph B. Kennedy and Louis C. Brase follow:] |