146 OCEANOGRAPHY 



we have no authority to support development, and I early took the 

 position in the Foundation that if we have no authority to deal with 

 it in that sense it would be a mistake for us to tiy to impose our 

 authority on other agencies. I think this would be, therefore, out of 

 order. 



This was cleared up in Executive Order 10512 in 1954 which 

 specified responsibilities of agencies of the Government in research 

 and development, and here it was pointed out other agencies should 

 be held responsible for developmental work, and in fact be encouraged 

 to support basic research closely related to their missions. 



As I say — I am making a long story of it — it is essential if we are 

 to have proper coordination within the Government to have a body 

 such as the Federal Council with responsible representatives of the 

 agencies mostly concerned with i-esearch and development, in order 

 that they may handle matters of coordination in areas which include 

 not only basic research but applied research and development as 

 needed. 



Oceanography is a subject of that sort. While a great deal of 

 basic researcli is needed, as you know very well, one of the important 

 aspects of oceanography is the practical result which can come out of 

 it which leads one right away into applied research. 



Mr. Bauer. Do you initiate programs in basic scientific research? 



Dr. "Waterman. Yes, sir. We do this in a way which research 

 scientists fully understand and it has their complete approval; 

 namely, first of all we encourage them to send us applications or pro- 

 posals for what they feel they are competent to do and would like to 

 do, and an estimate of how much this would cost. Then there is a 

 system for reviewing this, and then when necessary this is reviewed 

 further by advisory committees to talk about the general plan we 

 have, and then our program consists of making a selection of the 

 applications which come to us. 



In the process of that selection there is a planning operation, so in 

 this way we select the woi'k which the scientists of the country feel is 

 most important to do from their standpoint. This is a great source 

 of strength to the country. Without this technique they would riot 

 have that power. 



Superposed on this general support, what the scientists would like 

 to do, we can sense from discussion with scientists and other agencies 

 areas which at the moment deserve more attention. In that case 

 there are various techniques one can use to encourage the field. 



But I must add, as I stated in my statement here, that if one is 

 dealing with basic research, one has to be very careful not to force 

 the issue M^ith people. A basic research person, you see, by definition 

 is a person trying to find something new. He knows best what he 

 can do to find something original. If someone else tells him to work 

 on something else because he happens to be a qualified person, this 

 can be done to a limited degree but only where the work has a very 

 high priority. If you do too much of that, you take off our best 

 research workers from the field which they themselves think they can 

 do best and put them on something else just because they are asked. 



This gets pretty close to dictation and one should not do this in 

 science. Therefore, one has to deal with this matter of handling of 

 what you might call critical areas of science with a great deal of 

 caution. That is not true, of course, on the applied and development 



