80 OCEANOGRAPHY EST THE UNITED STATES 



STATEMENT OF MILNER B. SCHAEFER, INTER-AMERICAN TROPICAL 

 TUNA COMMISSION, LA JOLLA, CALIF. 



Mr. ScHAEFER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Actually I 

 came here this morning to learn rather than to talk. 



Mr. JSIiLLER. Before you proceed, would you please for the sake of 

 the record identify yourself ? 



Mr. ScHAEFER. I am Dr. Milner B. Schaefer of the Inter- American 

 Tropical Tuna Commission located at the Scripps Institution of 

 Oceanography, La JoUa, Calif. 



This Committee on Oceanography was formed at the request of 

 some of the Government agencies who were most concerned with 

 oceanography, its support and its applications. 



Dr. Bronk, of the Academy of Sciences, appointed Dr. Harrison 

 Brown, professor of geochemistry of the California Institute of Tech- 

 nology, as chairman, and he in turn with the assistance of Dr. Bronk 

 and others, selected a number of persons who they thought were quali- 

 fied in various of the fields of oceanography to serve on the committee. 



The committee met periodically — mostly on weekends since we have 

 other professional responsibilities — for about the last year and a half 

 and attempted to review as well as w^e could all of the aspects of ocean- 

 ography in the United States, to identify those areas of oceanography 

 that particularly were in need of increased support and to make some 

 recommendations as to what Government agencies, in our opinion, 

 would be the proper ones to carry on certain of these researches, both 

 basic research and applied research. 



It is fairly easy to identify the problems, that is, to look at the 

 oceans and to say what things need further study. It becomes a great 

 deal more difficult when you say how you should go about doing this. 



It was impressed on me this morning in listening to the testimony 

 of the previous witnesses that apparently this is one of the things 

 in which your committee, sir, can be of the greatest help if you can 

 work out some methodology of determining how this work is to be 

 done. 



In the summary report, we have outlined in general the sort of 

 thing that we think needs to be done, and have made fairly detailed 

 estimates of the cost of doing it. 



There are in preparation detailed chapters on certain areas, explain- 

 ing the background of the basis of the estimates in a great deal more 

 detail, but the thing that impressed us as we got further into this 

 study was the great number of Government agencies that have either 

 a direct or an indirect interest in the ocean and its contents and the 

 very great need for somehow obtaining a proper degree of coordi- 

 nation. In fact, within the committee we, of course, think we have 

 some expert knowledge in oceanography. We realize that we have 

 very little expert knowledge in Government. However, we debated 

 at great length within the committee as to what our own personal 

 opinions are on how this thing ought to be done. 



Some of the members thought perhaps a central bureau, a bureau of 

 marine sciences, might be the most expeditious way of accomplishing 

 this sort of thing. 



However, it was realized that the various agencies of the Govern- 

 ment, such as the Navy, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, the 



