336 OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 



Normally, with respect to grants to institutions of higher education 

 or other nonprofit institutions, we follow their accounting practices and 

 procedures, if we consider those appropriate. In this case, this is a 

 special situation and the matter of how it should be handled is still 

 under discussion, so that it is not settled, and your point, I think, is a 

 good one. 



Mr. Miller. While this committee is concerned with the matter of 

 what you do with respect to ships that you make grants of, I know 

 that there is some concern in another committee on which I sit as to 

 what is going to happen to the apparent plan that you are going to 

 use for making grants to scientific or learned institutions or uni- 

 versities. This is one of those mundane things that you get into. 

 You ought to keep your heads well in the clouds where you do the 

 work that you are supposed to do. This is one of the practical sides 

 of the operation; what is going to happen to the money that the 

 Federal Government appropriates to the National Science Foundation 

 and are the products of that money going to be well handled, or 

 going to be preserved to the Government. We are probing this mat- 

 ter because I am certain if the committee can be shown that outright 

 grants are the best, we will not get in your way on these grants. 

 The committee is also concerned with its responsibility for this money 

 and just making outright grants in the case of this ship. We have 

 no desire to pick on Woods Hole because this just happens to be the 

 case in point. Perhaps title to the ship should be retained in the 

 U.S. Government. The National Science Foundation, I realize, does 

 not want to burden itself by having title to and maintaining a lot of 

 ships but certainly if the time comes when any institution no longer 

 needs the ship and you withdraw your support of the ships, then such 

 a ship may be a burden. 



Could you not retain title of it and, if necessary, turn it over to the 

 GSA to dispose of ? 



Mr. RuTTENBERG. We have certain restrictions in the grant to 

 Woods Hole on the ship which I think would take care of the problem 

 you raise. One of the clauses, and we can read the specific ones, as 

 we have the grant with us, is to the effect that if the vessel is no longer 

 being used primarily for basic scientific research, title must be returned 

 to us at our request, and then we can do with the ship what we wish. 



Mr. Miller. Why should we give title in the first place, if we are 

 going to put that string on it, because they may say, "Well, we can 

 use this someplace." This is an important piece of property that the 

 Government owns. Why can we not hold title to it and let them use it 

 as long as they want it, rather than to say, "When, in your opinion, 

 you no longer need it, we are going to take it back," or they start using 

 it for some objective other than for which it was constructed, and we 

 then say, "Well, in this case, we are going to demand the ship back," 

 and then have to argue with them whether or not the ship belongs to 

 the United States. 



Mr. Ruttenberg. I think the decision would be the Foundation's in 

 that respect. One of the reasons, of course, that we have felt that 

 giving title is desirable, is that while they have the sliip it gives them 

 a freedom of action with respect to where they use and how they use 

 the ship, and so on. 



