DOD thus far is not willing to assume, and would defer the
mothballing of two ships which the Navy wishes to de-~
commission,
Adding, additionally the one LST used in REDWING
would cost another $300,000 and adding the "Horizon" vessel, at
least $500,000 more,
Also there will be an added cost of 10%
to 20% of such additions to JTF-7 for support costs.
9, In view of our financial situation, I feel I again must
reconmend against undertaking the YAG and LST program,
Briefly,
the situation is that when we budgeted originally for HARDTACK we
had no basis for knowing the number of shots we would require
and we programmed a series similar to REDWING and costing the AEC
40 million dollars in FY 1958,
Later, just before testifying to
the House, we raised this 40 million dollars to 45 million
dollars,
reducing other DMA sub-programs correspondingly.
The
Bureau of the Budget only reluctantly allowed this change and
indicated that a full review and rejustification would be required
prior to apportionment of the increase.
The laboratories have
indicated some 29 devices they might wish to fire and DOD plans 5
additional,
This contrasts with 17 fired in REDWING,
is beyond the laboratory capability to ready.
This 29
We have
arbitrarily told TASL and UCRL that they can plan on the basis
of 10 shots each and our latest estimate of such a program is
48 million dollars,
This is,
of course,
a flash estimate and,
to
carve down the amount as much as possible, we have told Mr,
Hertford and Mr. Reeves that they must make every effort to save
in PLUMBBOB,
We have given similar instructions to the 3
laboratory directors concerning both PLUMBBOB and HARDTACK,
STAFF JUDGMENT
10, The Division of Biology and Medicine and the General
Counsel concur in the recommendation of this paper.