for maintenance of the VOA facilities system worldwide. The Congress has, over the years, approved funds for modern plants at a number of points in the system. But there are still a number of components which are both obsolete and difficult to maintain in service. There are also occasional emergency situations of component failures, storm damage, or fire.

With balances from previous appropriations, we have met essential research and maintenance needs averaging about $1.2 million for the last several years. However, there have been no new funds appropriated since 1968, and only $400,000 will still be available for such needs in 1971. We have, therefore, requested an additional appropriation of $800,000. The House bill reduces this request by $200,000, and we ask that this cut be restored.

Mr. Chairman, I have studied the activities of this Agency very intensively over the past 18 months. I continue to be impressed by the value and magnitude of what we must do to serve our country's interest. I believe our budget requests are justified and appropriate, even in the context of this time of stringency in the Federal budget. Í hope that your committee will approve the requests now before you. Senator MCCLELLAN. Thank you very much.

I do not doubt that all of this money except possibly salary increases could be expended very wisely and I am not criticizing salary increases except that I have made some observations that indicate to me that a lot of our people could work harder than they do. They could get along with fewer personnel.

I have no doubt that substantially all this money could be wisely expended, but we are still under the burden of trying to hold down expenditures. We all recognize that. The House cut, percentagewise, is only about 2.5 percent of the budget. I believe that is it, is it not? Mr. SHAKESPEARE. I believe that is correct.

APPLICATION OF $2.5 MILLION RESTORATION

Senator MCCLELLAN. In round figures it is about 2.5 percent, which after all is a pretty small cut. All I want you to do is tell me, suppose we restore the whole amount-I don't know that can be done and we try to reach some accommodation with the House, which would have to be done you know how our system operates in all candor just what would you do if we just simply undertook to give you $2.5 million, half of what the House cut, give it back to you?

How would you spend it? I want you to submit a table showing how you would spend it.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. I will submit that specifically, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to comment on how we would spend the substantial amount of it.

Senator MCCLELLAN. We can't arrive at each little item, but maybe we can give you $2 million, $2.5 million. How would you spend it?

You say in terms of priority it is most essential to restore the $1,126,000 for special international exhibitions. I support these exhibitions. Again I point out that no doubt all of them could be very wisely provided for, but over all can we wisely and prudently expend so much more than we are going to take in, in the next fiscal year?

We come back to that. Cuts have to be made somewhere and everyone has to take his share of it. So I would like to have you file with the

committee what you would do if we restored $2.5 million of this reduction.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. I will do that, sir.

(The material was subsequently furnished for the committee file.)

SPECIAL INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

Senator MCCLELLAN. You may make any comment you wish at this time for the record.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. For the record I would like to speak briefly to the matter of the special international exhibitions to which you referred.

I share your view that these are of value to the country. During the past year in order to put my own judgment, Mr. Chairman, on the soundest footing, I went to the Soviet Union and saw the exhibit which is presently running there, in Leningrad.

I further went to Yugoslavia to see the exhibit there. I went to Rumania to see the exhibit there. I went to Hungary to see the exhibit there. I did this because I did not want to be just a creature of briefing on how these exhibits work. I wanted to see the people come through there, I wanted to see the exhibits and see what they said.

I have come away, Mr. Chairman, with the firm conviction that these exhibits in Communist countries are very valuable. That is the point that I want to make for the record.

Senator MCCLELLAN. You want to get as much money as you can for those?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Yes.

STAFF ATTRITION

Senator MCCLELLAN. Now on the salary increases, can you not make that up by attrition?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. We have had, sir, a substantial amount of attrition. As I pointed out in my statement, the number of employees in the U.S. Information Agency is today, as a result of cuts in the last few years, the lowest in the history of the Agency. We are not one of those agencies which has expanded constantly and become larger through the years. We are smaller now than at any time in our history. Senator MCCLELLAN. Are you also more efficient?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Well, that is a subjective judgment, Mr. Chairman. I think we are more efficient to this extent

Senator MCCLELLAN. I think it would not be fair for you to comment on that.

How long has it been since this Agency was established?
Mr. SHAKESPEARE. In the early 1950's.

EFFECTIVE UTILIZATION OF PERSONNEL

Senator MCCLELLAN. You have had 17 years. I can appreciate in a new agency building up there are a lot of misjoined or disjointed aspects of its structure. In the course of all these years the administration of the agency should have become more efficient.

You are handicapped in that you have to take employees from the civil service register, whether they are the best or not. I think you

ought to get out of your employees the work that they are capable of giving and I am not sure you are always getting that. This is not criticism of you, your administration, or your employees. But I think the time has come, with the tremendous number of Government employees we have and the great burden, the cost of operation of our Government, the tremendous obligations that our Government has assumed and has to meet, when we ought to insist on more efficiency and sometimes more industry on the part of our Government employees.

I direct that to myself, too. I think I am going to have to do a little appraising of some of my operations. I want to get more work for the money. I think it can be done without actually imposing on you.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. May I make one comment, Mr. Chairman, on the question of efficiency?

I subscribe fully to your views about the increased emphasis on getting the maximum of work from people. It is true also that when people are fully employed, actually their esprit the corps is better, they are better people.

CZECH FILM

I would like to suggest that in an analysis of the USIA there is an additional factor. So much of what we do necessarily falls in the creative sphere. I have tried to hold us to high standards on the creative merit of what we produce. For example, and I grant you that this is not a typical example and I mention it obviously because I am proud of it. We put out a short film this fiscal year, 15 minutes, on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. We put it out in connection with the first anniversary of the Soviet invasion. That was in August of last year.

Senator MCCLELLAN. Where is that film shown?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. That film has been shown throughout the world on television and as a short in connection with major motion pictures where you put in a 90-minute feature film, and this is a short that goes with it.

We have had extraordinary reception of this film throughout the world. It won the Academy Award for the best short documentary made in the world last year.

At some point I would be very happy to have you and your committee members see that documentary. In my judgment it is quite powerful.

Senator ELLENDER. Is it critical of the Soviet Union?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. It is very factual. What it consists of largely is films taken by the citizens of Prague, who at that time were permitted to have cameras because they still had the opening up of the Czechoslovakian society, of what was actually occurring, the way the citizens reacted, the way the Soviet soldiers reacted.

In the end, the bottom line of the film obviously shows that the spirit of a free people was crushed by tanks. But it is not said in dialog. It is said in actual pictures.

I think that is why it is so effective.

Senator ELLENDER. When you say you showed the soldiers there, you mean the Russian soldiers?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Yes, sir.

Senator ELLENDER. Were they disappointed at what they saw?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. There are scenes showing young Russian soldiers surrounded by the people of Prague, who are weeping and crying, and the soldiers look startled and dismayed. We show the tragedy of what happened to Czechoslovakia. There are some scenes of violence obviously in it, too.

Senator MCCLELLAN. Of what?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Of violence. There are some scenes in which the tanks are being used. Basically the impact of the film, in my judgment, is the interaction on the faces of the people, the soldiers doing the invading and the people of Czechoslovakia who were being crushed.

I did not mean to make a thing of this film. What I was trying to do is illustrate my judgment that, in analyzing the USIA, in addition to the efficiency of what we do, and we must have efficiency, the creativeness of our product, what it says about the free world and the United States, is a very important factor also.

In other words, our creative and ideological effectiveness, as well as our efficiency, is important.

OPERATIONS IN WESTERN EUROPE

Senator ELLENDER. Mr. Chairman, I notice that there has been very little reduction in our efforts in Western Europe. As you know, we have been harping against that. Here you have 804 positions in Western Europe, a decrease of only nine. I thought that we had some kind of understanding in the past that we would gradually phase out of Western Europe.

I do not for the life of me see why we should have USIA in Western Europe. That has been my position all along. We are still spending there, I note, $9 million as against $8.9 million last year.

It strikes me that we should have begun cutting corners there a long time ago.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. May I respond to that, Mr. Chairman?
Senator MCCLELLAN. Certainly.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Senator Ellender, I share your view that in Western Europe the impact of the world media is so great that much of the operations of the USIA should be on the tightest level possible. Let me comment on what we have done in that regard.

Since 1960

Senator ELLENDER. I am talking about last year. I know what you did in 1960 because of the fact we pounced on you-when I say "on you," I mean on the agency.

STAFF IN WESTERN EUROPE

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. May I tell you what the present situation is to see if it meets with your judgment and approval.

There are 19 programs in Western Europe, what we consider Western Europe. In 13 of those programs we now have four Americans. The four Americans generally consist of three men and a girl secretary. One of the Americans

Senator ELLENDER. In 13 countries?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. In 13 of those 19 programs.
Senator ELLENDER. In each country?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. No. We have four or less employees in 13 of the 19 programs.

Senator ELLENDER. In each of them?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Yes, sir. Generally what that consists of is this: It consists of one officer who runs the library. We feel if we have an American library present in those countries, even though the basic work is done by national employees, there should be an American in charge.

One man is, in effect, the press secretary to the Ambassador. In those countries there is an enormous interest in the American Ambassador. They want him to appear on television shows, do interviews, go out and meet people and talk. There is such a tremendous interest on the part of the powerful media in those countries that, in our judgment, it is a useful thing for the Ambassador to have someone who deals with that for him.

QUESTIONABLE AGENCY ACTIVITY

Senator ELLENDER. Why doesn't the Embassy carry that out? In other words, the work you do in Western Europe could be easily carried out in embassies.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. We are in the embassies, Senator.

Senator ELLENDER. I know, but you are a separate entity. You are under the Ambassador, it is true, but you are apart from his regular staff. You are different employees?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. From the State Department.

Senator ELLENDER. Sure.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. If it were the wisdom of the Congress that this function should be carried out by State rather than USIA, that would merely be a question of who did it. The point I was trying to make with you, Senator, is that I do feel that these few remaining functions need to be undertaken.

Now in my judgment we are undertaking them within USIA reasonably well, but if you decided you did not want us to do it and you wanted the State Department to do it, I think they still would need to be done.

Senator MCCLELLAN. Would you need the same number of employees?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Yes.

Senator MCCLELLAN. The expense would be the same?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE. Yes, that is what I meant.

Senator ELLENDER. I doubt that. It could be done much more cheaply. The point is that you have these separate organizations vying with each other. I have found a lot of that in my travels abroad. It strikes me that USIA has served its purpose. Insofar as I am concerned, I believe we would be better off in every country by letting the embassy handle this activity. We are the only country in the world where this information service is found separate and apart from the embassies.

Why we should keep that up, I have never been able to understand. It started off as a propaganda agency during World War II and it has remained in being ever since-separate and apart from the State Department. I would like to see it closed out, Mr. Chairman.