with a rogue's gallery of photos of Betancourt, Leoni, and Miguel Otero Silvanow a Betancourt senator-in an official Red Book. It is the most damning evidence of the secret Communist plan of Betancourt that has yet been disclosed. The significance of these Barranquilla letters can be read in the subsequent Betancourt career. A study of his life will show that he has followed most faithfully the diagram which he drew for his disciples in the early thirties.

Returning to Venezuela after Dictator Gomez's death in 1935, he carried out his "communism without the Communist name" plan by establishing a new party, the ORVE, which was declared illegal by President Lopez Contreras on the grounds that it was actually a Communist Party. Later, after going underground, Betancourt established the Partido Democratico Nacional. This, in turn, was illegalized, after a court action in which it was shown that the principal party leaders all were men with open Communist records. With the same eleWith the same elements, Betancourt then launched his Accion Democratica, the party through which he acts today. This party, as we have seen, participated with Perez Jimenez in the coup d'etat which overthrew President Medina in 1945. After 3 years of gross misrule, and communistic government, Betancourt's first administration was overthrown by a second coup d'etat in 1948, the Accion Democratica was illegalized, and Betancourt

went into exile.

However, it was in the forties that Betancourt made his second great political discovery, a discovery which he has coined into the minted gold of fabulous political success. That discovery was that if he would make a pretense of anticommunism and loudly proclaim himself as a democrat, he could obtain the support of virtually the whole body of influential American liberals. They would help him, with their press and radio connections and with their great influence in Washington, particularly in the State Department, to get back into power. Once restored to the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, he could pursue Communist aims while winning American plaudits through his anti-Communist pose. His success in his latest period is attributable almost entirely to this astute strategy.

This basic Betancourt strategy was disclosed in April 1955, in an article published in Venezuela Democratica, Betancourt's newspaper in exile, which was issued in Mexico during his stay in that country. The article was a statement of reasons why the Accion Democratica would not accept the invitation of the exiled Venezuela Communist Party to go into a united front. It stated that if

they took such a course, "We would have to renounce without any compensation, all possibility of aid from the liberal and democratic sectors in the United States, from whom we can expect useful aid." This excerpt appears in the book, "Communism in Latin America," by Prof. R. J. Alexander, himself a Socialist and a stanch supporter of Betancourt. It is a frank revealment of the motivation of the Accion Democratica in opposing communism. This motivation is not an

For over a decade, Betancourt has been the recipient of the most fulsome campaign of flattery by American liberals ever enjoyed by a Latin American ruler.

The "liberals" have been his American claque. They have shouted so loudly that they have impressed the Betancourt virtues upon a large sector of the American press, and upon the principal policymaking officials of the Kennedy administration. Today this tarnished and liberal mask-wearing Venezuelan cryptoCommunist has become the symbol to millions of uninformed Americans of the kind of leadership which the United States intends to support in the Americas. God help Latin America if such is the future which our Government has planned for them.

But, someone will ask, if it is true that Betancourt is playing a covert false-face game in Venezuela, how does it happen that he is fighting the Castroites and the Communists in Venezuela? Why has he taken recent measures to arrest their leaders?

Here again we are dealing with a situation in which Betancourt is playing with mirrors.

All evidence points to the fact that Betancourt never wanted and never intended actually to suppress the Communists. Castro himself is one of Betancourt's own disciples. It has been charged that Betancourt intervened with the Colombian authorities to save Castro from death in Bogota in 1948 when he was caught redhanded participating in the bloody Communist uprising-Betancourt was then the head of the Venezuelan delegation to the OAS at the Bogota meeting. It is incredible to suppose that Betancourt did not know that Castro was a full-fledged Communist at the time. The official leader of the Castro party in Venezuela, the MIR, is Domingo Albert Rangel. Rangel is another of Betancourt's pupils. He grew up in the Accion Democratica, and broke with Betancourt only in 1961. Raul Ramos Gimenez, leader of another proCastro group, was also one of Betancourt's henchmen in the Accion Democratica until 1962.

Even after Castro threw off the mask and revealed himself as a Communist, Betancourt continued to recognize him. Long after the United States had broken off relations with Cuba, Betancourt inoff relations with Cuba, Betancourt insisted upon continuing diplomatic relations, breaking them off only after the San Jose conference in August 1960, when he knew he would risk Washington friendship—and aid-if he persisted.

His suppression of the Venezuelan Communists has been halfhearted and ineffective. Had he wished to end com

munism in Venezuela, there was a simple and direct way to do it. He could have outlawed the Communist Party, just as half of the other Latin American countries have done. Betancourt has never resorted to this obvious measure. All along there has been something unmistakably two-handed about his highly publicized reprisals against communism and his failure, in every instance, to follow through. As long ago as October 15, 1962, Betancourt's government an

action to outlaw the Communist Party and the MIR. More than 1 year later the action has not been taken.

True, he had denied them the right to participate in the rigged December 1963 presidential election, but it is highly significant that when he came to pick his successor for the Presidency he gave the nod, not to a middle-of-the-roader, but to Raul Leoni, his old, and tested comrade of the Communist Party of the thirties.

But it will be asked, if Betancourt is a part of the world Communist conspiracy, why did he finally give the order, late this summer, to arrest Machado and the other top leaders of the official Communist Party? Is this not the sign that he has broken completely with communism?

On the surface, it would seem so. But, like so many other things that happen in the government of a crypto-Communist, the real story is not the one which is carefully fed out to friendly American correspondents to be bold-typed in the U.S. press.

Here is the real story, as given in El Diario and La Prensa, New York, the principal Spanish language newspaper published in the United States. Here is the story, by Felicino Jaspe, published in the October 30 issue:

It is secretly but well known, among important people (in Venezuela) that Betancourt went on TV to announce action against the Communists only when he was informed by one of his agents within the armed forces that they were coming to take action. The decision of the armed forces resulted from the assassination of two national guardsmen on an excursion train which was going to Les Teques, a town near Caracas. Some Venezuelans quoted the chief of the national guard as saying, "If there is no one to take armed action, I will do it myself." And here is what all Venezuelans are saying: Betancourt is being forced by the military to do things which he does not want to do himself.

How different is this story from the laudatory news stories which appeared in the New York Times and other Betancourt-praising papers, picturing the audacious Betancourt cracking down on the party Communists. If he really wanted to weaken the Communists, Betancourt had from February 13, 1959, when he was inaugurated President, until midsummer, 1963, to take the logical action of imprisoning the Machados, Faria, and the other top Communist Party officials. For more than 4 years, he gave the Machados and Faria sanctuary to continue their Communist work in Venezuela, under the alibi that they were members of the Senate, and hence immune to arrest. But when the armed

forces laid down the law to him and told Betancourt tremblingly found that he him that he must arrest the leaders, had the power to do so, and he acted.

Does this seem like the course which would have been pursued in violence-torn Venezuela by a genuine anti-Communist? of course, there is only one answer to such a question.

It is admittedly difficult to detect motives when one deals with men like Betancourt. But taking a page from the late Al Smith, let us look at the record. Sometimes what men do speaks so loud

ly it drowns out what they say. If we would carefully examine the record as a whole, it becomes convincingly clear that Betancourt does not actually want to wipe out communism in Venezuela. Venezuelans who have known Betancourt through all his twists and turns believe that the game he is now playing is to enforce the ascendancy of his Accion Democratica brand of communism over the other Communist splinter groups— the Castroites of Rangel and Villalba, and the orthodox Moscow-affiliated Compossible, he will keep the rival Communist sects alive for future purposes, but right now he is trying to render them powerless to weaken the Betancourt hegemony.

munists of the Machado brothers. If

Betancourt fools American liberals because they cannot understand the labyrinthine intricacies of the trained Communist mind. They fail to see the play within the play. And so, the American public which trusts the advice of the lib

erals permits itself to be betrayed by its own enthusiasm for the Titos, the Castros, and the Betancourts. The day of revelation, in the case of Betancourt, has not yet come.

One of the incongruities of the Washington atmosphere today is the agonized pain with which our liberal brethren greet each setback to the crypto-Communist forces in Latin America. Every reverse to the Betancourts and the Bosches is greeted as an intolerable blow to the United States. If there is a planning brain in international communism, it could not have planned with more lethal shrewdness. With the false picture of Latin America which the Communists and Socialists have implanted in their minds, nonradical Americans are actually hailing the gravediggers of Americanism as their champions in the Latin American conflict. They lamenting the fall of the Bosches and the Villeda Moraleses as if it were our loss. Not since the days when half of our State Department was hailing Mao Tse-tung in China as a great "agrarian democrat" have we been so cruelly mistaken.

are

But the latest development between the Kennedy administration and the Betancourt leftist regime is the information which has recently reached the press that President Kennedy has decided, in the event of a military uprising in Betancourt's Venezuela, to intervene in Betancourt's defense with American troops. The Allen-Scott report says:

President Kennedy has definitely decided on that, and has so informed the State and Defense Departments and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. President Romulo Betancourt also has been told of this momentous decision. * ** In preparation for possible recourse to American troops, the administration has already set the wheels in motion to get Senate backing for such explosive action.

States, which let great China go down the Communist drain, because, as we then argued, we could not intervene to save Chiang Kai-shek without United Nations agreement, is now ready to violate its signed agreements, for what?to keep crypto-Communist Betancourt in power.

Truly the Kennedy administration, if it attempts such a thing, will have come full circle in its championship of the left in Latin America. If we are willing to repudiate all our commitments under the Rio Pact and the Caracas Declaration for the sole purpose of perpetuating the rule of Romulo Betancourt in Venezuela, then statesmanship has become a plaything in the hands of political immaturity.

When the President of Venezuela came to the United States last February, I was one of a precious few who were willing to speak openly words of warning against all-out support of one who had not proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not a part of the insidious attempt to infiltrate this hemisphere with the Marxist doctrines, so deadly to the health of our civilization.

I felt then we had been sold a bill of goods without having had the opportugoods without having had the opportunity to examine it carefully to see in it nity to examine it carefully to see in it the true character of the pattern.

It is understandable that those in policy-making positions in our Government were intent on finding someone, somewhere, upon whom they could pin somewhere, upon whom they could pin their hopes as the Messiah of Latin America. The people of the United States do have the interests of the people of all the Americas at heart. We want governments to be stabilized. We would like to stamp out dictatorships and illiteracy and poverty and corruption. We want others to enjoy the stability we have gained in our own great land. A symbol of strength and leadership to the symbol of strength and leadership to the South was needed. Castro's lustre had dimmed and in the exposure of the light he was seen as he is.

"But," I ask, "just why did our State Department hitch its wagon to a star which if not the red of the Soviet Union which if not the red of the Soviet Union is certainly not the blue symbolic of loyalty of leadership in the cause of freedom?"

Within the past few months I have had contact with a teacher of science in Venezuela; conversations with a member of an honored profession; a newspaperman who spent nearly 15 years in that area and who knows Betancourt personally; a man who works for an American concern but who is neither Venezuelan or American; and several other Venezuelans who have confided to me that we are making a serious error

in our support of the present Government of Venezuela which we trust will take the leadership throughout Latin

America.

Following my remarks last February on the eve of Betancourt's state visit, a news reporter who had spent many years in Latin America and who knows the VeneLatin America and who knows the Venezuelan President personally, contacted me by letter. He wrote:

You may not have all the facts but what you have are correct. *** Romulo never indicated to me he had turned his back on communism.

We are backing a movement in Latin America which claims to be opposed to individual Communists but not to communism. Betancourt has publicly spoken against Castro but his policies are strangely in keeping with Castroism. Let us beware lest we support those whose only mission is to take control of the sprouting movement in the South of this hemisphere, who condemn all, friend and enemy, whom they oppose not because of what they believe and represent but for the position of power they hold which they want for themselves.

It is becoming increasingly evident

that our present policy in Latin America is a dismal failure. The time to change this policy in order to rectify our errors in judgment and action is now, not when the situation has so completely deteriorated that violent action on our part would be required.

However, this Venezuelan proposal is a crisis for the future. The curtain raiser for such a course in Venezuela is the present effort of a small group of Senators to stage a dress rehearsal intervention in the Dominican Republic. If we execute such an intervention, and get away with it, a similar step is almost certain in Venezuela. The irony of the present debate is that the very "liberal" voices, which are now shouting most clamorously for unilateral intervention, include some of the men who protested most passionately against unilateral intervention in Cuba. Until Betancourt and Bosch came into danger, the whole kit and caboodle of this group were the violent anti-interventionists. To liberal mind, consistency is a jewel only when it protects its own ideological friends.

As the issues darken in the Caribbean, it is Juan Bosch himself who has suddenly made the whole liberal effort to save him meaningless and dangerous to American security. The familiar chant of the liberals to justify aid to Bosch and Betancourt is that we need them to lock the gate in their nations against Castroism. Both Bosch and Betancourt have played to the American gallery by declaring their claring their last-ditch opposition to Castro.

But when Bosch was taken from Santo Domingo to the island of Guadelupe on the first leg of his trip into exile, some strange reversal to type caused him to forget the lines which he was supposed to speak. Reaching Guadelupe, he declared, as reported by UPI:

This movement (the Castro movement) is not calling for a struggle to achieve communism, but to achieve liberty.

Later, Bosch tried to shrug this off but his disclaimer is contradicted by the fact that Gonzalo Facio, President of the Council of the OAS sharply rebuked Bosch for his declaration. Facio is him

self considered to be a member of the left-liberal group in Latin America.

There is only one conclusion which we can draw from this Bosch lapse into truth-telling. Bosch, as his Dominican truth-telling. opponents have always maintained, has never actually been against Castro. I am convinced that neither is Betancourt, Castro's old mentor. I predict the day will come, to the consternation of

the advisers who have been led to assume such unrealistic policies in Latin America, when Betancourt will similarly unmask and tell us what he really wants. But until that moment comes, he will continue, like Tito, like Sukarno, to fatten on our aid and our gullibility.

While the men around Kennedy and Munoz Marin in Puerto Rico are working frantically to bring Bosch back and to reimpose him upon the Dominican

people, Bosch himself has drawn a picture of the future which he and his kind America. are planning for Latin Writing in the October 14 issue of the New Leader, a pro-Betancourt weekly,

I wonder if President Kennedy with his propensity for the Latin American

left, proposes to underwrite that "bloody, destructive and prolonged revolution." I wonder if that is the kind of leadership we would like to see throughout all

Latin America. I wonder if this is the

magnitude of which will dwarf even the catastrophe in Cuba. Can the United States afford to take that risk? Can we unquestioningly accept the word of Mr. Schlesinger, who influences the administration on many things including Latin American affairs, that the bad man of Venezuela's yesterday is now noble and admirable? Just when and where did the switch take place?

Ladies and gentlemen, I insist that

we cannot afford to take that gamble. The administration is wrong in Venezuela, just as it was wrong in Peru, in the Dominican Republic, and before that in Cuba. Let us reverse ourselves before we become mired in something which can only lead to further national humilia

tion and a weakening of the cause of freedom in the Western Hemisphere.

In summary, the reasons for my remarks today, and the sole motive behind them, are to promote the good of the United States and at the same time to aid the cause of the peoples of all Latin American countries-the cause of individual freedoms, human dignity, and a better way of life through democratic self-governments of their own choosing.

I recognize this is a complex and mon

umental challenge in any one country, to say nothing of all those among the Latin American countries where genuine reform is still a crying need and where

ASPINALL. What they had to say about wilderness legislation was of keen interest to me at the time and has since influenced me to reconsider some aspects of this important subject in the light of their remarks.

REMARKS BY COMMITTEE AND SUBCOMMITTEE

CHAIRMEN

Our chairman, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. ASPINALL], introduced

the full texts of these addresses into the

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD for October 3, 18606 and 18607. 1963, where they can be found on pages

Mr. ASPINALL himself made the com

ment that "we are continually making additional Members of the House of Representatives aware of the basic con

stitutional question requiring affirmative action by Congress in the designation of wilderness areas."

Mr. BARING assured that-and I quote him:

If there is going to be a wilderness bill, there will be provisions for affirmative action

by Congress after the Chief Executive or his

Cabinet officers have made their review and submitted their recommendations to Con

gress.

tion regarding the wilderness bill would be dependent on its proponents being, as Mr. BARING put it, "willing to move

Mr. BARING indicated that further ac-

through support of the Alliance for

I have in this speech raised the question of our official all-out acceptance of the good faith of Betancourt and Bosch because the issue has a gravity which far outweighs our natural inclination to trust the judgment of our national policymakers.

We are fighting a cold war for the security of this hemisphere. Only a few years ago, because we refused to face the deadly seriousness of this struggle, we indulged ourselves in the luxury of giving the benefit of the doubt to Fidel Castro. When three former U.S. Ambassadors to Cuba-Mr. Braden, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Gardner-warned the State Department that Castro's liberalism was only a masquerade and that he was actually an agent of the Communist international, the warnings were contemptuously dismissed as rightist claptrap. Then, as now, we were told to join the hallelujah chorus and give Castro all our support.

What was our reward for accepting this ill-advised counsel? We have lived to see Cuba, under our horrified eyes, converted into an armed and bristling Russian base, frowning at us just 90 miles away.

my lone voice will carry very far or that

it is powerful enough to be even a little effective. But what I have had to say needed to be said. It needed to be said because I feel that the American people for the most part have been getting only one side of the picture. It has been my objective here to at least let the public know there is another side; to state what in my judgment that other side includes both from the standpoint of known fact and fair and reasonable conclusion; toward the end that both the people at home and those elected and otherwise chosen to represent and serve them in government may better weigh all factors and have the benefit of all evidence in charting and following the best possible course of action throughout

the Americas.

THE WILDERNESS BILL

The SPEAKER. Under previous order of the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. SAYLOR] is recognized for 45 minutes.

The same kind of "gee whiz" minds which accepted and lionized Castro in 1959 are now whooping up a demand for unlimited support for Betancourt in his staged contest with the Castroites. the face of his 30-year Communist and revolutionary record, we are being asked to accept him as America's Latin American standardbearer against Moscow.

If we fall into this trap, we will be inviting a disaster in Latin America the

man of our Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, the Honorable WAYNE ASPINALL of Colorado, and to have as a fellow member of the panel the chairman of the Interior Committee's Subcommittee on Public Lands, the Honorable WALTER BARING, of Nevada.

The wilderness bill, with which I have so long been concerned, was not among my own assigned subjects for that day, but it was the full subject of Mr. BARING's remarks and was introduced by Mr.

NEW BILLS PROPOSED TO MEET SUGGESTIONS

During the past weeks I have been pursuing these and other suggestions by the chairman of our committee. With other proponents of the wilderness bill I have been working toward the development of a proposal that might meet the requirements of all concerned and thus merit prompt enactment.

I am today introducing the results of these efforts as a new bill, and am asking unanimous consent that its full text appear at the conclusion of my remarks.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BY CONGRESS

that this revised bill does propose and I am happy to assure my colleagues provide for what our chairman described as "affirmative action by Congress in the

designation of wilderness areas."

On June 27, 1963, in a statement to the House-a reprint of which I later sent to each of my colleagues-I sought to indicate a willingness to meet this requirement. On that occasion I saidand I now quote:

Let me emphasize that it is the purpose of advocates of the wilderness bill to see positive action by Congress in establishing a sound national wilderness preservation policy and a program to make this policy effective on the land.

And I said further:

Any proposals that provide for more positive congressional action will have our support if they likewise insure the protection as wilderness of the areas provided for in the act until Congress does take further positive action.

Accordingly, when I found that some redrafting of the wilderness bill had been attempted in the direction, as Mr. BARING put it, of the House committee bill last year, I undertook to cooperate by adapting and adopting this myself.

It is this measure that I am today introducing.

SATISFACTION IN PROSPECTS FOR AGREEMENT Before describing this bill in detail and analyzing its contents, I should like to emphasize briefly the satisfaction with which I anticipate the prospect of agreement on a wilderness bill.

If wilderness is to be preserved in our country, it must be by the firm determination of all who are concerned.

The urgency for the preservation of some of our remaining areas of wilderness has come from all parts of the Nation. It has been nonpartisan. In enacting a measure to establish wilderness preservation as a national policy, we must accordingly be nonpartisan and nationwide in our view.

It is especially important that those whose enterprises might destroy the wilderness be among the supporters of its preservation. They can see that the needs for which wilderness might be sacrificed are met outside the wilderness. They can provide the consensus which the preservation of wilderness in our culture must be based if it is to endure.

I would indeed be happy to see differences regarding the wilderness bill resolved and to see a prospect for its enactment with a broad basis of nonparti

san national support.

NEW BILL ONE ON WHICH WE CAN AGREE

The bill I now introduce, I am convinced, is one on which we can all agree. The committee may find ways to improve it, and I shall be glad to cooperate in its further consideration, but essentially, I am satisfied, it meets the criticisms made against its predecessors and meets these in a way to merit its support. It is described as follows:

DESCRIPTION OF THE BILL The revised wilderness bill (H.R. 9070) proposes to exercise congressional prerogatives with regard to Federal landspursuant to the Constitution's article IV, section 3, 2d paragraph-by taking positive action to first establish a national congressional policy for the preservation of some Federal areas as wilderness; second, provide a program for carrying out this policy through the administration of existing wilderness within the national park system, within wildlife refuges and ranges, and within certain designated portions of the national forests, by the presently established agencies; and do this in such a way as to preserve the wilderness character of the lands without interfering with their present purposes and without transferring any lands from one jurisdiction to another; and, third, make provisions to prevent the wilderness preservation program from interfering with other programs and to provide for emergency and other exceptions.

These objectives the wilderness bill would achieve through, first, the declaration of a national policy; second, the designation by Congress of wilderness areas; third, the provision of guidelines for the use and administration of the areas involved; and, fourth, certain other provisions related to gifts, bequests, contributions, inholdings, records, and reports.

The measure requires no expenditures beyond those that would be called for in any case in administering the park, refuge, or forest lands for their presently established purposes.

The bill's provisions are more fully yet briefly described as follows:

First. A national policy "to secure the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness" by establishing wilderness areas, is set forth in section 2, which likewise includes a definition of wilderness. Second. The areas designated or to be considered for designation as wilderness areas are specified, and procedures for determining the areas to be considered are set up. Any lands not provided for in this act are to be added only by a subsequent act of Congress.

Third. Guidelines for the use and administration of the wilderness areas are set forth in section 4, which says that nothing in the act shall interfere with nothing in the act shall interfere with the purposes the areas serve as park, refuge, or forest land but that these purposes shall be served in such a way as to preserve the wilderness character of the lands designated as wilderness.

Section

4 also prohibits certain uses inconsistent with wilderness preservation and makes special provisions or exceptions regarding certain nonconforming uses. The President is authorized to allow certain otherwise prohibited uses in specific areas of wilderness if he finds these uses "will better serve the interests of the United States and the people thereof." Fourth. Certain other provisions regarding State and private lands within land, records and reports, and contribuwilderness areas, gifts or bequests of

tions are in sections 5, 6, and 7.

EXPLANATION, SECTION BY SECTION

preservation as wilderness practicable. The third sentence says that for the purposes of this act wilderness shall include the areas provided for in its section 3.

3

Section 3 sets out the areas of Federal lands in national forests, in the park

system, and in wildlife refuges and game ranges which-subject to existing private rights are designated as wilderness areas or are to be considered for tablished that will assure review of every such designation. A procedure is esarea by the executive agency in charge of it prior to its designation by the Conin the act is limited to those established gress. Addition of areas not specified by later action by Congress.

NATIONAL FOREST LANDS

Section 3(a) designates as wilderness areas the presently existing wilderness, wild, and canoe areas of the national forests, and sets forth requirements that maps and descriptions of the areas and regulations regarding them be available to the public.

Subsections 3 (a) and (b) both deal with national forest areas now administratively classified for wilderness protection. tection. There are 86 of these areas, totaling some 14,731,471 acres (out of the national forest total of 186 million acres).

The 17 wilderness and 32 wild areas and the 1 canoe area have already been carefully reviewed by the Forest Service for classification as such and were classified after having been subjected to public-notice and public-hearing procedures. cedures. Section 3(a) accordingly designates these as wilderness areas without further review and sets forth re

An explanation of the measure, section quirements for maps and descriptions of them and for having maps, descriptions, and copies of notices and reports available to the public. These areas

by section, is as follows:

1

Section 1 states the title as the "Wil- immediately designated total 8,609,659 derness Act."

2

Section 2 is a statement of policy, including a definition.

Section 2(a) is a statement of Congress's belief that increasing population and human developments will occupy or and human developments will occupy or modify all areas of the Nation except those set aside for preservation in their natural condition. It is accordingly declared to be the policy of Congress to assure the Nation an enduring resource of wilderness, and for this purpose a National Wilderness Preservation System is established to be composed of approis established to be composed of appropriate federally owned areas.

Section 2(b) defines wilderness in three sentences. The first states the nature of wilderness in an ideal concept of areas where the natural community of life is untrammeled by man, who visits but does not remain. The second sentence describes an area of wilderness as it is to be considered for the purposes of the act areas where man's works are substantially unnoticeable, where there is outstanding opportunity for solitude or a primitive or unconfined type of recreation, and where there may also be ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical values-areas including at least 5,000 acres and of sufficient size to make their

acres-wilderness areas 6,409,284, wild 1,165,523, and canoe 1,034,852.

Section 3(b) deals with the 3 dozen now existing primitive areas in the national forests, the 36 areas comprising in all 6,121,812 acres. These areas are made subject to further review, half to be completed in 3 years and all within 5 years. After the reviews by the Forest Service, the Secretary of Agriculture is to report the findings to the President and the President is to make recommendations regarding each area to the Senate and the House. These recommendations may include a proposed elimination and declassification of portions not found to be predominantly of wilderness value or proposed addition of contiguous areas of national forest lands predominantly of wilderness value.

Each such recommendation will become effective only if so provided by an act of Congress. The primitive areas are to continue in their status quo until Congress has acted on a presidential recommendation or has determined otherwise.

There are other national forest areas that are in fact wilderness but have never been so classified for protection as such. such. Nothing in this bill would prevent the Secretary of Agriculture from considering such areas for preservation. Each