should not be regarded by its members as a

should not be regarded by its members as a sort of worldwide country club, in which an individual’s cultural and recreational opportunities overseas permit him to forget that the taxpayers of the United ^States have placed him where he is to represent their interests.

Mr. Rooney recognizes the need for a State Department, but he believes in a “no nonsense” operation with a minimum of frills, and he does not recognize any diplomatic immunity from accountability for waste of public funds.

His attitude has disturbed some persons of standing in his own party, including Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Mr. Rooney continues to put on the record, for the Congress and citizens generally to evaluate, the often lame “justifications” of individual appropriation items.

Mr. Rooney is not the only capable interrogator on appropriations, but these excerpts from his questioning of Assistant Secretary of State for Peisonnel Aaron S. Brown during State Department appropriation hearings this year are of interest as an indication of why Mr. Rooney spurred to continue digging into the figures.and why tile cost of running our Federal (iovernment is approaching $80 billion a year:

Mr. Rooney: 1 find a gentleman here, a foreign service officer, class 6. He got an “A” in Chinese and you assigned him to London.

Mr. Brown: Yes, sir. That of1 icer will have opportunities in London not as many as he would have in Hong Kong, for example.

Mr. Rooney: what will he do? Spend his time in Chinatown?

Mr. Brown: No, sir. There will be opportunities in dealing with officers in the British Foreign Office who are concerned with Far Fastern Affairs. The British have foreign language specialists as well as we do.

Mr. Rooney: So instead- of speaking English to one another, they will sit in the London office and talk Chinese?

Mr. Brown: Yes, sir.

Mr. Rooney: Is that not fantastic?