64 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



You speak of the unofficial study made by members of the officers 

 of the Coast Guard recognizing a very vital problem of determining 

 the wave action as a part of sea rescue work. This is a very fine 

 thing that perhaps this committee should get into and say, "Has 

 enough been done in this field? Should we do more in this field?" 



I think the very fact that one of your officers, after leaving your 

 service, could head up such an institution as Woods Hole indicates 

 the great potential capability of the Coast Guard to do a great deal 

 of work in this field. 



AVliere we are going to divide the work, where we are going to de- 

 fine what must be done, where we are going to get the money to do 

 it are some of the things that the subcommittee must seek to answer. 



The work of the Ice Patrol is of great importance. If we get an 

 atomic icebreaker, as we hope to do, surely it would play a great 

 part in the studies in the future. 



Do you think so ? 



Admiral Kichmond. I would say such an icebreaker very definitely 

 would. There is no question that it would particularly in the arctic 

 region, which is all a part of the overall subject of oceanography. 



Mr. Miller. I do not know a thing about currents but it just seems 

 to me as a layman that a thorough knowledge of the oceans in the 

 Arctic and Antarctic must be very pertinent to that subject, are thev 

 not? 



Admiral Eichmond. I think the chairman will remember that last 

 year when we had the hearings on the atomic icebreaker bill that one 

 of the witnesses appearing before this committee was a retired officer 

 of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thomas who has, largely on his own, 

 contributed quite a great deal to, you might say, the study of arctic 

 conditions. He was in command of our icebreakers and, because he 

 had a particular penchant for that type of research, he did it on his 

 own as an extracurricular activity because the vessel was not engaged 

 in scientific research but in operational commitments. On his own 

 he has gone forward with his studies and, of course, he would be quite 

 an enthusiastic witness, I might mention, because he has tried to con- 

 vince me over the last several years that we should send our icebreakers 

 into the ice carrying scientific crews from private institutions and 

 otherwise, which we would be very happy to do except for the fact 

 that our icrbreakers are very busy on official commitments and opera- 

 tional commitments and we cannot spare them for that purpose. 



He feels that there is a tremendous amout to be done, particularly 

 in the Arctic as well as the Antarctic. 



Mr. Miller. I believe that your testimony today sums up the fact 

 that maybe we should expand the activities of the Coast Guard to 

 give you some responsibilities and money to carry out the work in 

 this field. 



You would not object to that ? 



Admiral Richmond. No; I certainly definitely would not. 



Mr. Miller. Should we perhaps have some governmental commit- 

 tee at this time composed of representatives from those agencies of 

 Government to try to correlate and evaluate the activities of the sev- 

 eral agencies and try and bring out some lines of demarcation and 

 assign specific duties which would then be brought to the Congress to 

 have enacted into law to expand and bring tliis work about more 

 quickly ? 



