EXHIBIT 5

ETTERS FROM THE MUNITIONS BOARD REGARDING APPROPRIATION REQUESTS, VALUE OF ACQUISITIONS AND STOCKPILE OBJECTIVES

NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT,

MUNITIONS BOARD,

Washington 25, D. C.. February 18, 1948.

Ben. RICHARD J. WELCH,

Chairman, Committee on Public Lands,

House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR MR. WELCH: Reference is made to your letter of January 28, 1948, to M. Hargrave requesting certain information for the use of your committee. In accordance with your request there are enclosed herewith two copies of the nonconfidential report to Congress, dated July 23, 1947, and 25 copies of the gonconfidential report dated January 23, 1948.

With regard to the requests contained in paragraph 1 of your letter for copies f the stock-pile appropriation requests. I beg to advise that these documents are lassified as confidential since they spell out in each case the proposed purchases f each material during the appropriate fiscal year. In this connection, therebre, we submit the following information of a general nature covering the appropriations request. For the fiscal year 1947, the request was approved by the Bureau of the Budget in the amount of $250,000,000. This was approved as tash appropriation and was in the nature of a deficiency request because it could not be filed until after the enactment of Public Law 520 on July 23, 1946, by which time, of course, the regular appropriation had already been considered. The House rejected this request entirely and the Senate amended this action to the appropriation of $100,000,000, which amendment was then ratified by the House and enacted. For the fiscal year 1948, the appropriation request again was filed after the submission of the regular budget. The submission by the Bareau of the Budget was $200,000,000 to be appropriated in cash. The House nduced this to a cash appropriation of $100,030.000 plus contract authorization of $50,000,000. The Senate increased the contract authorization to $100,000,000, and the final bill was for $100,000,000 cash and $75,000,000 contract authorization. For the fiscal year 1949, there has been included in the regular Treasury Department requests, as approved by the Bureau of the Budget, appropriation of $350,000,000 for strategic and critical materials, of which $75,000,000 is to liquidate the previous contract authorization and $285,000,000 represents new funds available for procurement activity.

While the above does not indicate any break-down of the requests as to minerals (and nonminerals, such break-down is included with respect to the 1919 figure in ur reply to your supplemental question No. 3 given below.

With respect to the 1947 and 1948 appropriations, we presume that you would more interested in what was actually done than what was forecast at the me. What has been done and is being done with respect to the $275,000,000 of 147 and 1948 appropriations and contract authorizations is set forth in our rplies to your supplemental questions 1 and 2 given below,

With respect to the six supplemental questions set forth in your letter, we have the following replies:

1. Expenditures from Public 520 funds through December 31, 1947, included $30,651,852 for metals and minerals and $1,559,561 for other materials. Total obligations as of that date included $158,686,671 for metals and minerals and $24,963,173 for other materials.

2. The unobligated balance available on December 31, 1947, prospectively will he obligated in the amount of $67,734.279 for metals and minerals and $23,615,877 for other materials. This of course should be taken as an estimate and actual performance might vary considerably one way or the other, depending upon market conditions with respect to all materials for the next few months.

3. he appropriation request for $285,000,000 for the fiscal year 1949 included $13,339.725 for items other than the actual purchase of material. The amount requested for actual purchase may be divided, according to present forecasts of procurement activities in the amount of $202,102,335 for metals and minerals and $69,557,940 for other materials.

4. The total estimated current value of the over-all stock-pile objectives can be subdivided as $2,686,449,000 for metals and minerals and $467,663,000 for other materials.

5. The stock piles remaining on hand from acquisitions under Public 117 can be subdivided with respect to current value as $77,860,403 for metals and minerals and $3,114,020 for other materials. The corresponding figures as to