President's Commission on Military Compensation Remarks to Members of the Commission.

This afternoon we are establishing a Commission on Military Compensation, which I think will have great impact on the future of our country.

As a former military man myself, having spent 11 years in the Navy, I know how important it is to have both good pay and good morale within our military forces.

I also know how important it is to have the limited funds available spent in the most effective way to provide for our Nation's defense.

We now spend almost 60 percent of our total military budget on personnel. I'm not saying that this is too much, but I do say that when we spend this large a portion that it should be spent in the most effective way with the basic pay and the other compensations for those men and women who offer their very lives for the security of the United States.

I've asked this very fine Commission, headed by Chairman Charles Zwick, to do a complete analysis of the military compensation system in our country, to see if and how it should be improved, and I've asked them to make a report back to me within 9 months. Next March 1 [March 15], I believe, is the exact date.

This will not only be an assessment involving pay and retirement and other benefits of those who serve our country so well but in the process of the study there will be a renewed analysis of the effectiveness of our voluntary recruitment program.

This was put into effect to eliminate the gross discrimination that did occur during the Vietnam war and prior because poor people who couldn't go to college were the ones who were drafted and went to war.

And in the implementation of the voluntary recruitment program there was an accepted knowledge that compensation would be improved. So, we are not making any prior judgments. We want to be sure that when the study is completed, that our military personnel will be encouraged to enlist and to serve a long career, and that there's a proper balance among those who enjoy the benefits of offering their lives to our country in the military services.

I want to thank all the members of the group for being willing to serve. This is going to be a very time-consuming effort, very complicated and, as you can well imagine, very controversial.

The Chairman is Charles Zwick from Miami, who is an economist and who is now a banker. He is a former Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Herbert York from La Jolla, California. He is a physicist. He is with the University of California in San Diego, and he is the former Director of Defense Research and Engineering and also a former Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Philip Odeen from Lake Forest, Illinois. He is a political scientist. He is vice president of the Wilson Sporting Goods Company. He is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. He is a systems analyst, and he was a Director of Program Analysis for the National Security Council.

John Filer from Hartford, Connecticut. He is a lawyer, he is chairman and executive officer of the Aetna Life and Casualty Company. He is also a former State senator from Connecticut.

General William E. Depuy from Fort Monroe, Virginia. He is an economist. He is now at South Dakota University. He is Commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Jane Pfeiffer from Armonk, New York. She is vice president of communications of IBM. She was a participant in the White House Fellows Program in 1966, and she worked in the Council on Foreign Relations in 1967.

Lieutenant General Benjamin Davis, U.S. Air Force, retired. His credentials are superb. He is a U.S. Military Academy graduate. He was in the U.S. Armed Forces in Korea, Chief of Staff of the UN Command. He retired in January 1970, and he has extensive experience in transportation and also in the insurance field.

Walter Page, from Huntington, Long Island, New York. He is president of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. He is associated with the Foreign Policy Association, a trustee of the Carnegie Institution.

And Thomas Ehrlich from Washington. He is a lawyer. He is president of the Legal Services Corporation; he is a former dean, Stanford Law School, and a Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State.

These distinguished men and women have the background of analysis, of planning careers, of the legal profession, military profession, National Security Council, foreign affairs, and the trust of myself and the Secretary of Defense as well, and they and an adequate staff and detailed research and study, I think, will guide me and the other officials of our Government to make the right decision in giving the members of our Armed Forces in the future an attractive career opportunity with the most effective fighting force available to us.

I'd like to ask the Secretary of Defense to comment further.