to his inquiry which reported the delivery of the letter, and sought an explanation for the discrepancy.

After presenting copies of these unanswered letters to the Soviet observer at the executive council, Mr. Stock emphasized the seriousness of the concern about the treatment of mail from the United States, advised that the treatment of this mail was the subject of congressional investigation and hearings, as well as consultations with the Department of State, and requested an appropriate response to these letters.

Second, officials of the Postal Service have had a number of meetings and discussions with officials from the Human Rights Bureau and from the Soviet desk at the Department of State in preparation for a bilateral discussion of these problems at the diplomatic level. The Postal Service also provided the Department of State with a report of these problems on April 26, 1979, in order to assist the State Department in preparing for such a diplomatic discussion with Soviet representatives. A copy of this report has also been furnished to

this committee.

Third, the Postal Service has developed proposals to amend the Universal Postal Convention which would clarify the obligations of postal administrations to provide advance notice of all of their prohibitions and to give prompt advice of the seizure of mail, and which would make relief from liability for the seizure of a registered item under domestic legislation explicitly conditional upon prior notification of the relevant domestic prohibition. Those proposals were submitted to the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union on March 9, 1979.

In an effort to gain support for all of our proposals during the 1979 Congress, we have scheduled a pre-Congress conference with the postal administrations of Canada, France, Germany, and Great Britain, to be held in mid-July.

Finally, I would like to comment upon House Concurrent Resolution 58. The Postal Service welcomes this resolution as an expression of congressional concern about the Soviet Union's treatment of mail from the United States to certain addresses in the Soviet Union. The Postal Service agrees that the problems addressed by the resolution are serious enough to merit the attention and concern of the Congress, and supports what it understands to be the basic objectives of the resolution. Although the Postal Service cannot recommend adoption of the resolution in its present form, the Postal Service recommends adoption of a modified resolution, one revised in accordance with the position of the Department of State, as well as with the observations which I will offer, as follows:

First: The Postal Service does not consider a Universal Postal Union Congress to be an appropriate forum for communicating the concerns of the United States which this resolution is intended to express. The congress of the UPU is convened once every 5 years for the purpose of revising the Universal Postal Union Acts. It is not intended to serve as a forum for discussing or resolving bilateral disputes. As I previously indicated in this testimony, the Postal Service has submitted proposals to the Universal Postal Union Congress to clarify and to strengthen Universal Postal Convention provisions

dealing with the proper reporting of prohibitions, with the appropriate notification of seizures, and with the liability of an administration in the event it fails to comply with convention requirements. The Postal Service believes that its most effective position at the Rio Congress would be to concentrate its efforts on seeking the adoption of these proposals. The Postal Service is concerned that a parallel effort to confront the Soviet Union in a public manner with regard to its implementation of customs regulations might jeopardize the adoption of such proposals. We accordingly have no objection to a revision of paragraphs 2 (a) and (b) of the resolution to support our efforts to secure revisions of the UPU Acts.

Second: It has become increasingly apparent that there are underlying nonpostal causes for the Soviet Union's interference with mail to certain addresses. Testimony taken by your subcommittee in its hearings last year tended to confirm that nonpostal decisions and policies of nonpostal Soviet authorities, in particular Soviet customs seizures and mail censorship activities by Soviet prison authorities, are a basic cause of postal problems. Resolution of the postal problems will not necessarily resolve the basic problems which this resolution seeks to address. To the extent that there are nonpostal causes for the nondelivery of mail addressed to persons in the Soviet Union, it would appear that the concerns of the United States about such matters should be taken up bilaterally, placed before an international organization of general jurisdiction, such as the United Nations General Assembly, or should be taken up in the context of the ongoing discussions regarding the implementation of the final act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. This resolution, however, does not specifically urge that any of these measures be taken to deal with these problems.

In losing, I would like to stress that the Postal Service will continue to monitor Soviet treatment of mail from the United States, will continue to press Soviet postal authorities to improve their performance in reporting the requirements and activities of Soviet customs and prison authorities, and will support State Department efforts to press Soviet authorities, both bilaterally and in the context of Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe discussions, to improve Soviet performance in permitting communications by mail between the people of the United States and the people of the Soviet Union.

This concludes my prepared comments. I will be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

Mr. HANLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Regan, for your fine testimony.

With respect to the substitute for our resolution which you have described in your testimony, was this substitute called to the attention of the committee previously, or is this our first notification of it? Mr. REGAN. Mr. Chairman, we have not proposed any specific language to substitute for the present language, no, sir.

We have discussed substitutive language with officials of the Department of State and I believe that officials of the Department of State have brought substitutive language to your attention only most recently, sir, and we would be prepared and quite happy to work with

you and work with State Department officials to reach agreement on common language which we would all support without any qualifications whatsoever.

Mr. HANLEY. Mr. Gilman?

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Regan, you mentioned that the State Department had made some suggestions concerning substitute language for House Concurrent Resolution 58.

Mr. REGAN. I believe that a member of the Human Rights Bureau of the State Department has been in contact with your staff with regard to some alternative language.

Mr. GILMAN. And that suggestion was made within the past few weeks?

Mr. REGAN. Within the past 2 weeks at the most.

Mr. GILMAN. Prior to that, has there been any other suggestion by the Executive branch for any revison in this legislation on which this committee is now holding a third hearing?

Mr. REGAN. No, sir. I believe we have not suggested any alternative language prior to this.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HANLEY. Well, I pose the question because your testimony is the first that I have heard of any difference involved with respect to attitude toward the resolution which has been pending for approximately 2 years.

Mr. Regan?

Mr. REGAN. Yes, Congressman Hanley. Although the Postal Service has not in the past provided you with any alternative language, we did express some reservations about bringing this issue up in a public formal manner at the Universal Postal Union Congress in a letter to you from Assistant Postmaster General James Finch, I believe, of November 20, 1978. We did indicate at that time some reservations about bringing the matter up in this fashion.

I might also state that although we would have reservations about bringing the matter up in a public and formal manner, we would nevertheless be prepared to bring this matter to the attention of other Postal Administrations and to seek their support perhaps in a less formal manner.

Mr. HANLEY. Mr. Regan, I noticed the statistic provided suggests a decline in the number of incidents related to nondelivery. Could the decline, in your mind, possibly be associated with the activities of this committee over the course of the last year or so on this subject matter? Mr. REGAN. Mr. Congressman, I would not doubt that Soviet officials are aware of the interest of Congress in this issue, and that they are taking that interest into consideration and improving their response to inquiries, as well as improving their handling of mail, to the extent that there have been improvements.

Mr. HANLEY. As you recall, at our hearings last year on this subject, witnesses from both the Postal Service and the Department of State made it anything but clear as to the manner in which they were coordinating efforts to resolve the problem.

Could you describe for us today what relationship between the Department of State and the Postal Service has developed since our committee discovered the sad state of that joint effort.

Mr. REGAN. Yes, Congressman Hanley. We have met much more frequently with representatives of both the Human Rights Bureau and with the representatives of the Soviet desk at the Department of State to discuss just how we might more effectively bring this problem to the attention of Soviet officials, and we have agreed to provide the Department of State with reports on the kinds of inquiries and complaints about mail service from the Soviet Union, and about the nature of those complaints.

Since your hearings last summer, we have, in addition, provided the Department of State with a detailed report on this problem which might serve as the basis for an intervention at the diplomatic level.

I should perhaps also indicate that we will be working closely with the Department of State with respect to the proposals we have introduced to amend the Universal Postal Convention, coordinating with them to gain support for the adoption of those proposals.

Mr. HANLEY. Are there people in the State Department who have been delegated responsibility in this regard, and I ask this question, hopeful that continuity prevails within the Department of State?

Mr. REGAN. I don't know that there has been a formal delegation of responsibility to specific individuals, but we have been dealing with the same representatives over the course of the past year and expect to continue to deal with them. If they have not been delegated to specific individuals, the responsibility certainly appears to have lodged with the Human Rights Bureau and with the Soviet desk, and there has been continuity in our dealing with those two offices of the Department of State.

Mr. HANLEY. Now, on page 6 of your testimony you mention an upcoming bilateral discussion at the diplomatic level on Soviet mail interruption. Can you tell us when this discussion will take place, who the participants will be, and what the specific issues are for the agenda?

Mr. REGAN. I cannot tell you definitely when the discussion will take place. I have been given to understand that it will take place in the very near future, if it has not already taken place at this moment. When I say the very near future, I'm thinking in a matter of 1 month, 2 or 3 weeks even.

The contact, I've also been given to understand, will be made by Mr. Mark Schneider, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, who did testify before this subcommittee last September, and the contents of that contact with Soviet authorities will involve the entire range of problems which we have testified to you about this morning as well as previously. It will specifically mention the unanswered Soviet letters which we described to you in our testimony this morning, as well as the failure of Soviet authorities to respond to other correspondence, so it will address the entire range of problems which you have been discussing in these hearings.

Mr. HANLEY. At the appropriate time and once that discussion is completed, would you be good enough to meet with staff counsel of this committee and provide the counsel with an orientation with respect to what occurred. [See p. 148.]

Mr. REGAN. Yes, sir, I would be very pleased to do that.

Mr. HANLEY. Thank you.

Mr. Gilman?

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Regan, I certainly want to thank you for participating in our hearing today and the Postal Service for making your time available to us so that you could come here to report on the progress, limited as it is, being made by the Postal Service. It seems the Postal Service is finally beginning to take a hard look at this matter. We welcome that, after all this time that we have been working toward a solution of this problem. As you know, I've been quite critical of the Postal Service's laxity regarding this issue and, while we may disagree about the manner in which you approach the problem, it seems that a lot more attention is being given to the problem at the present time and we certainly welcome that.

Can you tell me a little bit about the coordination of efforts the Postal Service has sought with the State Department?

Who are you meeting with, and how frequently are your meetings, and who's working on the problem at the State Department?

Mr. REGAN. Well, we met with Mark Schneider, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Rights in the Bureau of Human Rights. We've met with John Greenwald, also with the Human Rights Bureau. We've met with Shaun Byrnes of the Soviet desk at the Department of State, and we've also met with Dave Schiele of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

Mr. GILMAN. How frequently have you met?

Mr. REGAN. I'd say since January-since January, I would guess we have met on the average of maybe once a month, once every 6 weeks, and in addition we have talked much more frequently than that over the telephone.

Mr. GILMAN. On this issue?

Mr. REGAN. Just this issue.

Mr. GILMAN. You've met about three or four times since January of this year to discuss this issue?

Mr. REGAN. At least.

Mr. GILMAN. Is that the first that you started meeting, in January? Mr. REGAN. No. We met last summer. Our meeting with Mark Schneider was last summer and I believe we may also have met last fall, but we've met more frequently this year, partly in preparation for the Executive Council meetings this March, partly in preparation for the new Congress coming up.

Mr. GILMAN. Was there a joint Postal Service-Department of State conference before the Postal Union meeting and the Executive Council meeting and did you decide on a policy in cooperation with the State Department on this issue before you went to the UPU Executive Council?

Mr. REGAN. Yes, sir; we did have a meeting with officials from the Department of State prior to this meeting to discuss our approach to the development of proposals to be submitted to the Congress, to the kinds of material that we would bring to the attenion of the authoriies at the Executive Council, as well as to the nature of a report that we might submit to them which would serve as a basis for diplomatic level intervention.

Mr. GILMAN. Who's chairing this cooperative effort between the Postal Service and the State Department?