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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION   1503

Your letter of February 3 quotes a resolution of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution regarding changes in the contract for the construction of the Museum of History and Technology.

You may rest assured that the General Services Administration will collaborate fully with the Smithsonian Institution in our mutual efforts to keep the cost and the number of changes to a minimum. Only those changes which construction progress dictates as essential and advantageous to the Government will be made.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Franklin Floete
Administrator

The Committee was advised that a copy of this letter had been sent to Senator Clinton P. Anderson as a Regent of the Smithsonian and as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Construction of a Building for Museum of History and Technology for the Smithsonian Institution. Senator Anderson's reply to this letter is given below:

Dr. Leonard Carmichael
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution
Washington 25, D. C.

Dear Dr. Carmichael:

I have your letter of February 23. I have again examined the resolution of Senator Saltonstall and I thought it indicated that the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian planned to use the full amount of funds appropriated for the Museum of History and Technology, and did not want the General Services Administration to lock up or hold back the money or keep it in reserve until too late to be spent.

Therefore, I was greatly interested in the answer you got from Mr. Franklin Floete which says, "You may rest assured that the General Services Administration will collaborate fully with the Smithsonian Institution in our mutual efforts to keep the cost and the number of changes to a minimum. Only those changes which construction progress dictates as essential and advantageous to the Government will be made."

That is exactly what we did not want. We do not desire to keep the cost to a minimum, but instead, we would like to keep them to a maximum. We want to spend all the money that was appropriated and not be able to give back to the Treasury some three to five million dollars. I am tired of the business of trying to balance the budget by taking off a percentage