Innovating in the Support 

 of Naval Operations 



by 



Admiral Horacio Rivero, USN 



Vice Chief of Naval Operations 



The Office of Naval Research is like my office part of the 

 shore establishment of the Navy, and the reason for its exist- 

 ence, as it is for the rest of the shore establishment, is to serve 

 and support the operating forces of the Navy — the Fleet. I can 

 truly say that we would be very happy if all parts of the Shore 

 Establishment had as good a record as ONR in support of the 

 Fleet. 



In the first place, ONR has distinguished itself by flagrant 

 violation of Parkinson's Law. In 20 years its staff, at head- 

 quarters and in the field, has grown less than one-third from 

 some 3,750 to not quite 4,900 people, while the program it 

 administers has multiplied about seven times — from |50 mil- 

 lion to some $325 million. This is an accomplishment which 

 well deserves emulation. 



The substantive and broadly recognized contributions that 

 ONR has made to the strength and technological advancement 

 of the Fleet are too numerous to relate this morning. More- 

 over, many of them would be difficult to identify as such 

 because of their indirect nature. To illustrate this indirectness, 

 let me choose a minor but current example as illustration: 

 Our recent operations off Palomares, Spain, to recover that 

 nuclear bomb would have been impossible had we not been 

 able to draw on the research activities being supported by 

 ONR and on equipment the existence of which was owed 

 strictly to research purposes. What must be emphasized is that 



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