TABLE IV

Senator ERVIN. I will address this question to either of you gentlemen.

Would you say on the whole that the record of our American servicemen tried under the Status of Forces Treaty and similar arrangements in other countries has been about the same as it has during recent years?

Mr. FORMAN. Yes, sir.

General PARKER. That is right.

Senator ERVIN. And with the exception of two countries you would say that the Treaty and these arrangements are very satisfactory? Mr. FORMAN. That is correct.

Senator ERVIN. And is it not true that as a general rule Americans who are convicted in the foreign courts are given lighter sentences than they would ordinarily receive if they were tried and convicted of the same offense in American courts?

General PARKER. That fact is attested to by reports from the various countries.

Senator ERVIN. Do you have any questions?

Senator MURPHY. I have maybe one question. There will be from time to time questions about the simple fact that the military man is in a foreign country and why doesn't he have the advantages. Do you have any prepared answers for this sort of thing?

General PARKER. You mean why doesn't he have advantages of a jury trial or something like that?

Senator MURPHY. They won't go into that. They say why does he not have the advantage of being tried in an American court rather than a foreign court.

General PARKER. We have a number of inquiries along those lines from accused servicemen who have been tried; some from their families.

Senator MURPHY. I think it would be helpful if some of the information in that detail is disclosed here, because, quite frankly, I was not aware of the minimum amount of sentences there. My goodness, I would think if I was going out on a life of crime I would go in the armed services and go abroad.

Mr. FORMAN. One of the basic purposes of these hearings is to present these statistics to this committee. And they are published not only in the hearings but summarized in the committee's report which, of course, is given distribution throughout the Congress. And when we get inquiries, we respond to them by furnishing copies of the report.

General PARKER. I might add, Senator, that it is not very much comfort for the man that is in jail, we find, to tell him that the overall tendency of the foreign courts is to give small sentences. We try to answer as responsively as we can to his particular problem.

Senator MURPHY. I have no more questions.

Senator ERVIN. The Status of Forces Treaty, which was, of course, ratified by the Senate, was an effort to balance the interests of our military against the sovereignty of foreign countries, was it not? Mr. FORMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator ERVIN. And the Status of Forces Treaty recognizes that as a matter of good relations between our Nation and the host countries, the host countries should be allowed in nonmilitary cases to retain that jurisdiction, but our hope was that in a great majority of cases, which