OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 189 



It was tliroiigli him, for example, that in December of 1059 T 

 spent a week aboard the U.S.S. Tarawa,^ Task Force Charlie, in the 

 North Atlantic, watching ASW exercises. At the conclusion of this 

 rather interesting cruise, I filed a lengthy report with the Navy on 

 my observations. I got a polite letter of thanks, saying, "This is 

 being distributed." I have heard nothing more since. 



In this letter I made some suggestions as to where the abilities of 

 the geophysical industry might be put to use. I also made some 

 suggestions, which probably did not set too well with some people, 

 about the quality of the training that some of the officers had in 

 their technical jobs, and so on. 



Specifically, in this report, and in separate correspondence, we 

 offered the Navy a free look at a geophysical instrument that we 

 have developed, the ultrasensitive magnetometer, which might be 

 very useful for MAD work. Again we got a polite thank you, 

 but no one has even come to see it. 



Now shortly after this time Dr. Bates went over to the Advanced 

 Research Projects Agency to head up the VELA-Uniform program. 

 Since then, since his departure from the Office of CNO, we at least — 

 I cannot speak for everyone in the industry — have heard nothing 

 further from the Navy about our possible contributions in the area 

 of oceanography or ASW or anything else. 



And I might mention parenthetically that we are cooperating in- 

 formally with NASA in connection with this sensitive magnetometer 

 in connection with space shots. This is done strictly on an informal 

 basis ; no contract or anything. 



Now since Dr. Bates went over into ARPA, the industry has heard 

 a lot about VELA. He has come and talked to us at our meetings 

 and so on, and he has gotten a program going. It can be done if 

 someone in the Government will come and tell us what their prob- 

 lems are. They must not wait for us to come and drop everything 

 in their laps. An aggressive communication program gets results. 



Now I should say that with respect to the field of oceanography, 

 since we have become interested in looking into what is going on, 

 what we can find out, we have become a little uneasy. 



I would like to indicate why it is that we are not confident that 

 all is well in the present oceanographic program or in earth science 

 generally, for that matter. 



To illustrate one reason for our uneasiness, I would like to say 

 a word or two on a subject which is not really oceanography, but 

 a little bit about this VELA-Uniform program and its history. I 

 hope you will forgive me. This is one I am fairly familiar with. 



The problem of seismic detection of underground atom bomb tests 

 began, let us say, at least 4 years ago, at the time of the Eainier test, 

 in the fall of 1957. The Geneva conferences began in the summer 

 of 1958. At that time, when, of all times, the Government could 

 have used the experience of the best explosion seismologists — I say 

 "explosion," because I want to distinguish them from earthquake 

 seismologists, the best explosion seismologists in the country who are 

 in industry, not a one of us was called upon. They relied upon 

 some theoretical nuclear physicists, a few earthquake seismologists 

 from the universities. And they came a cropper. 



