79 



ment by the General Assembly in 1968. Joshua I. Tracey of the Survey 

 assisted McKelvey during the March and August meetings of the 

 Committee in 1969, and Wang was also on the delegation for the 

 August 1969 meeting. 



McKelvey Avas also a member of the five-man drafting committee, 

 brought together by John R. Stevenson, Legal Adviser of the De- 

 partment of State, in June 1970, to prepare the draft treaty imple- 

 menting the U.S. ocean policy announced by President Nixon on 

 May 23, 1970. McKelvey is the only scientist on that committee, and 

 has been primarily responsible not only for input on the geological 

 aspects of the problem, but also for the economic and technical aspects 

 of seabed exploration and exploitation. 



During the jfirst two years of the U.N. Seabed Committee's work, 

 the principal effort of the U.S. Geological Surv^ey was directed toward 

 developing information that would assist other delegations, and the 

 Committee as a whole, in understanding the problems of the seabed. 

 As part of that effort, McKelvey and Wang prepared a set of 

 maps showing the distribution of potential subsea mineral resources, 

 the first edition of which was distributed to the Committee in August 

 1969.^-- Another contribution to tliis effort was the Symposium on 

 Mineral Resources of the World Ocean, held at Newport, Rhode Is- 

 land in 1968, under the joint sponsorship of the U.S. Geological Survey, 

 the University of Rhode Island, and the U.S. Navy.^" 



Besides the staffs of the Marine Council and the Geological Survey, 

 the Department of State had available the expertise of its own geog- 

 rapher. Dr. Robert Hodgson, who was intimately associated with 

 seabed activities on an official basis for over a decade, and its Bureau 

 of International Scientific and Technological Affairs, under the direc- 

 tion of Herman Pollack. Together with the National Science Founda- 

 tion, these sources have been represented on the U.S. Government's 

 Law of the Sea Task Force since its creation in 1970. The State De- 

 partment drew further on the following agencies and scientists, in 

 varying degrees, in the formulation of the Administration's ocean 

 policy : Dr. Bruce C. Heezen, Columbia University ; Hollis Hedberg, 

 Princeton University ; Howard R. Gould, Esso Corporation, Houston ; 

 K. L. Emery, Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute, Massachusetts; 

 John Byrne, University of Rhode Island; John Knauss, University 

 of Rhode Island ; and the National Oceanography Association. 



Scientific Advice, Policy, and Diplomacy 



It is particularly true of a democratic society that conflicts arise 

 among parties engaging in the formulation of national and inter- 

 national policy. When the matter at issue involves diplomacy and 

 international negotiation, conflicts are particularly prone to impede 

 the formulation of a generally accepted position. National honor, 

 national security, sovereignty, and territorial claims all combine to 

 intensify feelings and delay the building of a consensus. 



Despite the initiatives of the Marine Council staff and the participa- 

 tion of numerous scientists and scientific institutions toward the for- 

 mulation of U.S. seabed policy, the evolution of this policy was rela- 



'^ Vincent E. McKelvey and Frank F. H. Wang. Preliminary maps, -world subsea 

 mineral resources ; miscellaneous geological investigations, Map 1-632. U.S. Geological 

 Survey, Department of the Interior (1969). 



^^ McKelvey, op. cit. 



