training and developing leadership in oceanography. Recognizing 
this need, the National Research Council established its first Commit- 
tee on Oceanography (NASCO), in 1927, to consider the role of the 
United States in a worldwide program of oceanographic research. 
The Committee report had a major impact upon the scientific com- 
munity and was instrumental in obtaining—from philanthropic 
sources—funds for endowing institutions on both coasts and for con- 
structing a ship and a few shore facilities. 
During the 1930’s, such oceanographic laboratories as the Scripps 
Institution of Oceanography and the Woods Hole Oceanographic In- 
stitution became the centers of scientific excellence which were to serve 
the United States so well during World War II. Then, for the first 
time, investigations were pressed by the Federal Government in an 
effort to apply oceanography to the solution of urgent defense prob- 
lems. The small nucleus of oceanographers trained in the 1930’s was 
augmented by scientists from other disciplines, many of whom re- 
mained associated with the marine sciences after the war. 
Following World War II, oceanographic programs in the Office of 
Naval Research, the Navy Hydrographic Office (now the Naval 
Oceanographic Office), the Bureau of Ships, the Bureau of Commercial 
Fisheries, and the newly established Atomic Energy Commisison 
expanded to meet the growing problems of the marine environment. 
At the same time, the Government continued to support oceanographic 
research at universities and research institutions. By 1949, the Na- 
tional Academy of Sciences again became concerned over the relative 
growth of the marine sciences in the United States. A second Com- 
mittee on Oceanography was appointed. Rather than urge a greatly 
expanded effort, the Academy’s 1951 report stressed the necessity 
of regaining the balanced program of basic research that had 
characterized oceanography in the years before the war. Coming as it 
did in the first year of the Korean conflict, the report failed to stimulate 
effective action. However, in 1951, the National Science Foundation 
(NSF) made its first grant in the field of oceanography, and by 1954 
a significant percentage of the grants in NSF’s Environmental Biology 
and Earth Sciences programs had been made in oceanography. 
A third NAS/NRC Committee on Oceanography was established 
in 1957. At that time the United States was spending less than $35 
million annually for studies of the ocean out of a national basic re- 
search budget of well over $1 billion. Three Federal agencies with 
oceanographic programs (Atomic Energy Commission, Bureau of 
Commercial Fisheries, and the Office of Naval Research) requested 
the Committee to identify the national requirements for oceanographic 
research and to propose a 10-year program for their accomplishment. 
It was apparent from the Academy’s deliberations that the traditional 
concept of “oceanography” as basic science had changed since the 
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