OCEANOGRAPHY 205 



jack fishing will be good and comprised substantially of the large oceanic skip- 

 jack. And when, contrarily, the western Pacific gyral is strong and presses the 

 California current extension water away from the islands the summer skipjack 

 catch will be small and composed largely of the juvenile-sized fish that we catch 

 near the mainland. 



Obviously much is to be learned about what it is in the water that the fish 

 are measuring. We are not at all sure that we are measuring the same charac- 

 teristics of the water that they are. We are averaging our measurements over 

 broad areas of the ocean because we have so few. Obviously the fish are re- 

 sponding to the changes in the environment directly around it, not miles away, 

 and they obviously are not responding to averages. 



5. Basic versus applied research 



It used to be that the basic researcher and his work was a thing apart from 

 the fellow who was doing applied or engineering research. This was general in 

 science. For instance, Faraday discovered the basic laws of motor and gener- 

 ator behavior early in the l.SOO's, but it was not until near the turn of the cen- 

 tury that Edison made a practical application of these laws and built a central 

 station to generate power for his electric lights. Contrarily the lagtime between 

 basic and applied research in our time has become so short that 5 years after 

 the Bell Telephone Laboratories discovered the amplification effect of semicon- 

 ductor materials the application of transistors to communications circuits had 

 become big business. 



It is the same with the ocean sciences. We fishermen can hardly decide which 

 is the most important to us, the study that is just framed to find out something 

 about the ocean or the study that is designed to give us a useful tool in working 

 on the ocean. As noted in the discussion of sea surface temperatures and bot- 

 tom topography above, the time lag between discovery and application of ocean 

 information has shrunk like a $10 suit in the rain. We are inclined to watch the 

 ivory tower basic researcher more closely now than we do the applied researcher 

 on tiie pretty well fouudetl assumption that what the basic researcher is doing to 

 satisfy his own curiosity today may very well revolutionize our industry 5 years 

 from now. 



And we feel, without exactly knowing how to prove it, that more emphasis 

 should be put into this basic research on just how the ocean is put together and 

 how it works. Our applied researchers and fishermen seem to be using up the 

 reservoir of acquired knowledge of the ocean more rapidly than it is now being 

 gathered, and basic ocean research is not expanding rapidly enough. 



All in all, what is needed is money with which to do the research. 



STKATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF OCEAN RESEARCH 



There are a number of strategic implications of ocean research that top policy- 

 makers in the United States seem to have great difficulty in recognizing. Among 

 tliese are : 



1. Law of the sea 



In two universal conferences at Geneva in 1958 and 1960 the basic position 

 of the United States was to protect a narrow territorial sea preferably of 3 miles, 

 certainly if no more than 6 in width. The basis of the U.S. position was defense. 

 To give one of many excellent reasons for this position, the cost of maintaining 

 naval control in the Bay of Bengal from our advance base at Guam under a 3- 

 mile limit is some hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than a 12-mile limit 

 which would close the more direct straits through the Indonesian islands. It is 

 perhaps a billion or two cheaper than if the Indonesian Archipelago theory is 

 applied in international law thus requiring the creation and operation of an 8th 

 U.S. Fleet in the Indian Ocean. 



The arguments for a narrow territorial sea both for military and mercantile 

 reasons are persuasive and overwhelmingly beneficial to the v.'hole free world. 

 Yet the United States has not been able to get this concept adopted into inter- 

 national law and the reason in each case has been the defection at voting time 

 of firm allies which in some eases depend for their very national existence upon 

 the naval power which their adverse vote was putting into jeopardy. 



The reason for the adverse votes has been fish. While the countries know that 

 the United States will defend them some way or another to protect itself they 

 are not sure it will feed them and they need the fish to eat. It has been hard, 

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