ment of Agriculture as Secretary Espy is reorganizing the Depart- 

 ment and combining the functions of the FAS and the Office of Co- 

 operation and Development. 



Mr. Condit, who will join us shortly, and myself, thought that it 

 would be valuable to evaluate existing FAS programs and to see 

 what changes, if any, are needed to maintain the competitiveness 

 of U.S. agricultural markets as we move to the 21st century. To 

 help us in that effort, we have slated several -witnesses for this 

 morning's hearing. 



I want to announce at the outset that I have been asked to tes- 

 tify before the Budget Committee at 10 a.m. I hope that will not 

 keep me away very long. But in my absence. Chairman Condit will 

 chair the hearing. 



With that understanding, I call our first panel, Mr. Chris 

 Goldthwait, Acting General Sales Manager £uid Assistant Adminis- 

 trator for Export Credits at the Foreign Agricultural Service, and 

 I would ask that he be joined at the table by Allan Mendelowitz, 

 Director of International Trade, Finance and Competitiveness Is- 

 sues, with the General Cxovemment Division of the U.S. General 

 Accounting Office. 



I would ask that you provide testimony in the order in which you 

 were introduced, and then we would proceed to questions. 



I expect that there may be issues raised by the General Account- 

 ing Office that you may want to respond to, Chris, and since you 

 will be speaking first, we will allow some opportunity for both you 

 and Mr. Mendelowitz to interact on those points, in addition to any 

 questions that surface from subcommittee members. 



So with that, Chris, welcome and thank you and your associates 

 for the hospitality extended to myself and my staff and Mr. Allard 

 and his staff last Friday as we came down to tour your division. 



STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER E. GOLDTHWAIT, ACTING GEN- 

 ERAL SALES MANAGER AND ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, 

 EXPORT CREDITS, FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL SERVICE, U.S. 

 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ACCOMPANIED BY PHIL 

 MACKIE, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, COMMODITY AND 

 MARKETING PROGRAMS 



Mr. Goldthwait. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is indeed a pleas- 

 ure to be with you this morning. 



With me also this morning is Mr. Phil Mackie, our Assistant Ad- 

 ministrator for Commodity and Marketing Programs. 



Mr. Chairman, we very much appreciated the visit you made to 

 FAS last week and I hope you got a little bit more indepth idea 

 of what we do and we look forward to receiving various suggestions 

 that you might formulate on the basis of that visit. 



My written testimony, which I will ask with your pennission to 

 submit in full for the record, covers a number of issues, including 

 the specific questions that were in your lettei* of invitation. To sum- 

 marize, I will confine myself to speaking very briefly about three 

 areas. 



First, the mission of the Foreign Agricultural Service, and the 

 new International Trade Service that we see emerging as we com- 

 bine two existing agencies within the Department of Agriculture 

 into a new agency. I will try to outline in a little more detail the 



