Mr. DRIVER. In practical terms, this would mean that the national cemeteries under jurisdiction of the Department of the Army and the cemeteries and memorials under the jurisdiction of the American Battle Monuments Commission would be consolidated into one system to be administered by the Veterans' Administration, along with those cemeteries now under our jurisdiction. It might also be desirable to include in the new system at least some of the other cemeteries now administered by the Department of the Army. I recommend, however, as suggested by the Advisory Commission, there should be excluded from such a consolidated system, those cemeteries such as Gettysburg, which are administered by the Department of the Interior. With respect to the transfer of the American Battle Monuments Commission and the cemeteries under its jurisdiction, there are both advantages and disadvantages. The Commission has been effective in discharging its responsibilities. If it is decided to transfer the cemeteries currently under the Commission's jurisdiction to the Veterans' Administration, consideration should be given to the best methods of preserving the Commission's expertise. If it is determined to consolidate Federal cemeteries into one system administered by the Veterans' Administration, I would immediately initiate a study, as recommended by the Veterans' Advisory Commission, to review and formulate those adjustments or expansions to the system which would be necessary in order to accomplish the President's goal of providing "for every veteran who wants it * **the right to burial in a national cemetery reasonably close to his home." In conducting this study, we will work with other interested agencies of the executive branch and we will keep the appropriate committees of the Congress informed. There are presently pending before your committee a number of 90th Congress bills which would consolidate, with certain exceptions, all Federal cemeteries in which servicemen and veterans are buried into one system administered by the Veterans' Administration. I am today submitting a report to the committee on a number of these bills. While I favor the objectives of these bills, they have other features which need to be more closely examined, including such matters as eligibility, the extent and manner of transferring certain Army post cemeteries, the burial policy for, and the future status of, Arlington National Cemetery which are currently under review, and criteria for design and equipage of cemeteries. I would reserve comment on these aspects of the proposed bills until the executive branch has had an opportunity to study them further and make appropriate recommendations. I am advised by the Bureau of the Budget that there is no objection to the submission of the report by the Veterans' Administration on the 90th Congress bills referred to earlier, which I now submit for the record, and that subject to the reservations contained therein that I have indicated, a transfer to the Veterans' Administration of the cemetery functions would be in accord with the President's program. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I will be pleased to answer any questions the members may have. (The report referred to follows:) Hon. OLIN E. TEAGUE, Chairman, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives Washington, D.C. VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This will respond to your request for a report by the Veterans Administration on a number of 90th Congress bills to establish within the Veterans Administration a National Veterans' Cemetery system. One of the bills now before your Committee, H. R. 12801, would add to the cemeteries now administered by the Veterans Administration by transferring to the Administrator of Veterans Affairs, the national cemeteries and all other cemeteries now administered by the Departments of Defense and Interior. It also provides that the Administrator shall plan and establish a program of expansion, so that the capacity of such cemeteries is sufficient to permit burial of all those who would be eligible therefor. Other bills now before the Committee (exemplified by H. R. 347), in addition to consolidating the three systems administered by the Veterans Administration, and the Departments of Defense and Interior, would also transfer to the Veterans Administration those cemeteries located outside of the United States presently administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Accordingly, the comments contained herein may be considered to be applicable to all of these bills, namely, H. R. 347, H. R. 640, H. R. 1306, H. R. 1407, H. R. 2062, H. R. 2135, H. R. 3118, H. R. 3316, H. R. 5440, H. R. 6009, H. R. 13457, H. R. 2292, H. R. 2545, H. R. 5891, as well as H. R. 12801. All of the bills in question would provide authority for the Veterans Administration to operate, care for, and maintain the cemeteries to be contained in the new system, and set forth an eligibility criteria for interment which is patterned generally after the criteria now applicable to burial in national cemeteries (24 USC chapter 7). The bills also contain provisions relating to functions which are associated with the administration of cemeteries, such as providing grave markers for the unmarked graves of certain ex-servicemen, both in the national cemetery system and in private cemeteries. Transitional procedures would be established to provide for the transfer of so much of the personnel, property, records, and unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, and other funds available to the departments from which such cemeteries would be transferred, as are determined by the Director, Bureau of the Budget, to be appropriate. The President, in his message to the Congress on America's Servicemen and Veterans, January 30, 1968, stated: "Every veteran who wants it-those who risked their lives at Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima and the DMZ-should have the right to burial in a National Cemetery situated reasonably close to his home. I have asked the Administrator of Veterans Affairs to make certain that the recommendations of the Commission include proposals to assure this right in a meaningful sense." The "Commission" referred to by the President is, of course, the United States Veterans' Advisory Commission, consisting of distinguished citizens, which was formed by the Administrator at the request of the President, to evaluate and conduct a comprehensive study of various veterans' programs. The Veterans' Advisory Commission presented a copy of its report to your Committee on March 19, 1968. In its report, the Commission discussed the present involvement of four agencies of the Government in cemetery administration, and endorsed the President's statement that every veteran, who wants it, should have the right to burial in a national cemetery situated resasonably close to his home. They also recognized that while eligibility for burial in federally operated cemeteries extends to approximately 26 million living ex-servicemen, such eligibility, in practice, is limited by the restricted availability of space and by the geographical location of the cemetery. The Commission indicated that while the attainment of the goal set forth by the President requires long range planning, consolidating existing Federal cemeteries (with the exception of a few such as Gettysburg which are, in reality, national monuments administered by the Department of Interior), would, in their opinion, constitute the initial step toward achieving this goal. The specific recommendations of the Commission with respect to cemeteries were— "(1) that the entire Federal cemetery function, with exception of the Department of Interior cemeteries, be reassigned to the Veterans Administration; |