STATEMENT BY MR W C WILLS, PRESIDENT FAIRFAX COUNTY CHANGER OF COMMERCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP63T00245R000100160003-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 15, 1955
• Content Type: STATEMENT

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STATIII',1JT BY MR !' C 'ILLS, IRESIDENT
FAIRFA:X COWTY C'i94EFR CF COi412RCE
Fairfax, Virginia
Before Defense Subcommittee, Senate Aprropriations Committee, July 15, 1955
Room F39, Capitol, D C
MR CHA IPNAN AND PZ ;BLI 3 CF THE C OI` 24I T I :
My name is C `,:ills, I am a business man, living in Annandale, Fairfax
County, Virginia. I appear before you with your kind permission to speak for the
500 members of the Fairfax County Chamber of Com:,erce, of which I em the President.
Mr Chairman, the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce he~rtily welcomes the
CIA to the proposed headquarters site for it at Langley, in Fairfax County. Our
500 members represent the great majority of the front rank business and civic
leaders of Fairfax County, representing every locality in the c.unty, and about
every significant field of business and the professions.
Among all our 500 members I do not know of a single one who is not in
favor of locating the CIA at Langley. We have many members of the County Chamber
in the Langley.4VIcLean area, the community closest to the proposed site, and all
these members from whom we have heard are enthusiastically hopeful that the
Langley site will be chosen.
The County Chamber has collected copies of resolutions and letters from
various organizations and individuals in the Langley-McLean area, establishing
what we view as an overwhelming majority sentii:rent in favor of the CIA there.
In the letter from the Grange, for example 242 Grange members are represented.
A copy of this has been sent to the Honorable Chairman of this Committee, along
with others such as the letter from the McLean Business Association, indicating
the weight of sentiment for the CIA at Langley among Langley-McLean area residents.
Our information is that the few residents who do not join in this welcome
to the CIA at Langley are a very small n.;:n_ority. We think their fear that the
CIA will "injure the eo: unitya is based on e'ren':oug ideas of the s .sl.;lr nd;.d
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federal agency, whose hj gh stand, r - ?lrs tell known to most of us.
We believe that a vote in most of Fairfax county would show close to 100
per cent for the CIA at Langley, and that in the locality immediately concerned a
vote right now would show at least 2 to 1 and probably much more in favor of the
Langley site. Certainly the objectors appear to have been all along a very minor
fraction. And of ti is nuiaber, some of those formerly op-osed are now ardent
advocates of the Lan[;ley site, because they have learned n., re about the CIA, and
because they recognize that such a tract of government-owned land is likely to be
taken soon by some major agency, and that the CIh is the one most to be preferred.
For these and the other reasons outlined, the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce
respectfully urges your api,roval of the Langley site, and your allocation of the
funds for construction of the CL headquarters there. I thank you.
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