OCEAN SCIENCES AND NATIONAL SECURITY 155 



point to an area like oceanography as an outstanding example of where such 

 a department could function to establish priorities in various fields of science 

 and to organize support in a more straightforward and less time-consuming 

 method than had to be used in this case. 



Indeed, several of the scientists who appeared before the Jackson committee 

 this month, while opposing a Department of Science, suggested that in the case 

 of areas like oceanography, which are so fragmented that there is no one who 

 really feels responsible for the area as a whole, the National Science Founda- 

 tion might be used to present a unified program to Congress and then distribute 

 the appropriations to the operating agencies, as it now distributes research 

 funds to nongovernmental agencies. 



This would alleviate the sort of problem that was run into when the House 

 subcommittee handling Commerce Department appropriations cut out the $300,000 

 of the over-all program assigned to the Weather Bureau. To this subcommittee 

 the Weather Bureau is only a minor function of the Commerce Department, and 

 when they began looking for things that could be cut it is not surprising that 

 they questioned the necessity of the Commerce Department supplying the 

 Weather Bureau with funds to do research in the ocean. 



A considerable amount of effort, both in the executive and in Congress, has 

 been going into such organizational improvements. In fact, there is a good 

 deal of experience that suggests that more organization, by removing authority 

 one degree further from operating responsibility, often succeeds only in further 

 complicating the problems it was intended to cure. So the desire to seek 

 organizational solutions is tempered by the recognition that there is a limit 

 to the degree to which neat organization charts can really solve administrative 

 problems. 



The problem of diffused organization is no less serious when the 

 Congress is faced with evaluating dift'erent programs of different 

 departments, and with the corresponding appropriations. The vast 

 number of Government bureaus enumerated previously all become the 

 subject of responsibility of a wide number of congressional committees. 



Equally important, the legislative branch in its function of monitor- 

 ing the executive branch might desire to hold one particular organiza- 

 tion rather than a large number responsible, particularly if the area 

 is one deemed in the national interest by the Congress as needing 

 acceleration. To crystallize a coherent program out of the sum of the 

 various parts holds enormous potential for frustration. There are 

 questions as to whether the Congress could hold a panel or sector of 

 the FCST to account in matters of this land, in view of the special 

 position that the FCST holds, vis-a-vis the Executive, and the reluc- 

 tance of any Executive to forgo executive privilege by making his 

 staff activities freely available to the Congress. 



