DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY PROPOSED TESTIMONY FOR APRIL 27 1983 ON H.R. 2708 A BILL TO FURTHER THE NATIONAL SECURITY AND IMPROVE THE ECONOMY OF THE UNITED STATES BY PROVIDING GRANTS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF PROFICIENCY IN CRITICAL LANGUAGES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP95B00895R000200040036-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: April 26, 1983
• Content Type: MEMO

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- EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON. D.G. 20503
April 26, 1983 SPECIAL
LEGISLATIVE REFERRAL MEMORANDUM
TO: Legislative Liaison Officer
Department of Education
D artment of State
D;partment of 'Commerce
entral Intelligence Agency
SUBJECT: Department of"the Army proposed testimony for
April 27, 1983, on H.R. 2708, "A bill to
further the national security and improve the
economy of the United States by providing
grants for the improvement of proficiency
in critical languages, for the improvement
of elementary and secondary foreign language
instruction, and for per capita grants to
reimburse institutions of higher education
to promote the growth and improve the
quality of postsecondary foreign language
instruction".
The Office of Management and Budget requests the views of
your agency on the above subject before advising on its
relationship to the program of the President, in accordance
with OMB Circular A-19.
A response to this request for your views.is needed
no later than 4:00 p.m. today, April 26, 1983.
Questions should be referred to Fred Fischer
(395-5880 ) or to Naomi Sweeney
the legislative analyst in this office.
tom. .e 4c 1. .
k+~cl
( 395-3881 ) .
Naomi R. Sweeney for
Assistant Director for
Legislative Reference
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4
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR ON SIMON FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEGISLATION
BY MG WILLIAM E. ODOM, ACofS FOR INTELLIGENCE
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
27 APRIL 1983
Mr. Chairman, I am again grateful for the opportunity to appear
before you and your colleagues today. The issue at hand, support
to Language Education, is a critical one in need of serious and
urgent attention. Judging from the bill you are introducing, it is
clear that you also believe that it is time to take action to shore
up our nation's pool of linguists and the educational base that
supports it. I highly commend that action, and I want to offer
whatever support I can to this vitally needed endeavor to provide
support at both the State secondary schools, colleges and univer-
sities.
The availability of qualified linguists is absolutely criti-
cal for effective operations of the Army. Given the large
number of languages with which we may have to deal for various
contingencies, the military cannot afford to train all per-
sonnel required. We must depend on civilian institutions
to provide many of these people. This is especially true
for low density requirements for Third World countries which could
expand rapidly in a crisis situation.
The need for area experts to provide adequate intelligence
collection and analysis continues to be of the highest priority. I
believe that working knowledge of the language is essential for
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true area expertise. Many of our intelligence collection require-
ments can only be met by having fully qualified linguists. The
requirements for such personnel will remain for the foreseeable
future.
The Army also has a need for large numbers of liaison person-
nel with some knowledge of particular foreign languages. In
almost any scenario we will be required to coordinate with
friendly host countries and with allied military forces.
Everything from logistics to combat operations will depend upon
accurate communications between U.S. and foreign personnel. In
NATO alone the U.S. will find itself conducting operations with
fourteen other countries speaking many different languages. It
will be critical that the plans of U.S. units be clear to an adja-
p
cent allied unit and equally critical that the U.S. unit fully
understand the plans of the allied unit. We cannot expect to find
English speakers in all the allied units to allow this rapid
exchange of information. It will be necessary to provide U.S.
liaison officers who can speak and read whatever language is
required in key allied headquarters. While the Army can train a
certain number of such personnel to meet this critical requirement,
our efforts are greatly simplified when we are provided qualified
personnel from our civilian educational institutions.
As you are well aware since World War II the Army has had
responsibilities around the world. Accordingly, emphasis has shif-
ted from one area to another from time to time--frequently on very
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short notice, complicating the problems of providing adequate num-
bers of trained linguists. It is simply not possible to anticipate
every crisis in sufficient time to establish the necessary language
training program and train enough people to meet such needs.
Europe has been and will remain our central focus for the fore-
seeable future, and the requirements for both West European and
East European languages will continue to be of the highest
priority. Of course, these are the most widely taught languages in
our civilian schools, and this has eased our training problem for
this area. These programs should not be reduced to make room for
others because the large requirement for European linguists will
remain. Recently heightened U.S. interest in Southwest Asia has
greatly increased our needs for Arabic, Farsi and other languages
which had not previously enjoyed a high priority. Even though our
military presence in Southeast Asia has been reduced, that part of
the world is still of signficant importance, and area specialists
and linguists are required.
Because of the large number of activities which require
language qualified personnel and the fact that many of these
personnel, especially officers, are managed by their technical skill
rather than their language skill it is difficult to calculate
our requirement in precise numbers. Likewise plans change due to
new mission requirements further compounding this problem.
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However, we in the Army recognize that our needs can never be fully
met through in-service training. Civilian institutions must pro-
vide quality language and area studies programs to provide us a
source of trained personnel to meet some of our requirements. This
is very important in peace time, and it is absolutely vital for
mobilization.
Once again I wish to thank the sub-committee for allowing me
an opportunity to express my opinion and concerns for this issue.
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