June 23rd, 1965
Dear Wilbur,
This is the correspondence between James Shannon and me. The net of it is that although the Senate in its report accompanying its fiscal 1964 HEW appropriations bill and Congressman Fogarty on the floor of the House during debate on the HEW appropriations both stipulate that the funds for the contract program should be reviewed and approved by the National Advisory Cancer Council, this is not done.
Lists of the contracts have been made available, and some short discussion of what has been done has been given, but the contract authority for the last two and a half years has been used entirely by the staff of the National Cancer Institute. This does not give the $40 million worth of funds involved a sufficiently wide review, and I agree with the Woolridge Report in this matter.
The contract grants should certainly be reviewed and approved by the National Advisory Cancer Council.  Before that, they should be reviewed by competent professional committees, such as the study sections constituted for the review of regular grants, to recommend approval to the Cancer Council.
If the Cancer Council doesn't know what is being done with such a major part of the Cancer Institute's overall budget, as the $40 million contract program represents, the Council's over-all understanding of what is going on in the Cancer field is not very comprehensive and it is really valueless as a central advisory body, don't you agree?
With all best wishes,
Yours,