152 OCEAN SCIENCES AND NATIONAL SECURITY 



agencies for Presidential staff work that disregards agency interests. Staff work 

 at the Presidential level is likely to be successful only if it is supplementary to 

 interdepartmental coordination of most issues before they come to the Executive 

 Office. 



Issue 3: Level of committee establisTiment 



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The principal levels that come under consideration when a committee is to 

 be established are as follows: (1) at the Cabinet level; (2) at the Assistant 

 Secretary, or sub-Cabinet, level; (3) at the chief of bureau or office director 

 level ; and (4) at the chief technical and professional level. 



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 Issue Ji: Method of esfaMishment and discontinuance 



What should be the method by which definitive action is taken to establish 

 interdepartmental committees, to specify their membership, functions, and au- 

 thority, and when necessary to dissolve them? 



Practice as to the method of establishing interdepartmental committees has 

 been extremely varied. A conflict is often present between the desire to keep 

 coordinating machinery flexible, so that it can be adapted to changing needs, 

 and the desire to achieve the utmost in prestige and status for the committee's 

 work. Those who favor flexibility will work for informal means of establish- 

 ment. Those who desire special status usually favor formal means of establish- 

 ment, including establishment by statute, if possible. 



The four principal alternative methods of establishment are (1) by inter- 

 agency agreement in writing: (2) by Presidential letters; (3) by Executive 

 order: and (4) by statute: the method of discontinuance would usually depend 

 on the method of establishment if the act of discontinuance is to be a definite 

 one. 



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As between Executive order and Presidential letter, the main difference is 

 procedural, since either would involve Presidential action to establish a com- 

 mittee. The Executive order method automatically results in a channeling of 

 the proposal through a clearance process before it comes to the President for 

 action. Higher standards of draftsmanship are likely to be imposed, and any 

 statement as to the terms of reference of the committee would be certain to have 

 been carefully considered. The same results would be attained for Presidential 

 letters processed through the same procedure : but if the sponsors of a proposed 

 committee are given their choice, they may quite possibly choose the Presidential 

 letter as the action instrument in order to escape exactly those procedural safe- 

 guards that have been thrown around the issuance of Executive orders. 

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General considerations affecting committee usefulness 



The committee device is most workable when the committee can be made 

 advisory to one agency, which other members of a committee accept as hav- 

 ing the primary action responsibility for matters coming within the commit- 

 tee's purview. This arrangement, when it is possible to recognize a clear 

 leadership responsibility in one agency, tends to minimize the unanimity princi- 

 ple and to allow work to proceed more rapidly. 



The reason why committees advisory to an agency of primary interest work 

 best in the American system is that committees of this type do least violence 

 to the line of command and executive responsibility. Jurisdictional issues under 

 these circumstances are not likely to plague the work of a committee, and it 

 remains the responsibility of the agency most involved to accept or reject 

 the advice given. Experience seems to indicate that in the great majority 

 of cases, the agency with primary responsibility has been willing to accept 

 and utilize such advice. 



Much of the difficulty that has been experienced with committees has de- 

 veloped in cases where primary responsibility does not reside clearly in any 

 single agency, where the terms of reference of the committee are not clearly 

 defined, or where some members of a committee are attempting to use it to 

 enlarge their own sphere of responsibility. 



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