44 MARINE SCIENCE 
Being well aware of the limitations of the yellowfin stocks in our area, and 
the abundance of skipjack, we have been seeking for the past 7 years to get a 
program of ocean research going in this area which would provide us with the 
knowledge to enable us to shift economically to skipjack fishing when our fishing 
effort on yellowfin reached the point where it required to be limited by regula- 
tion. To date our results have been modest, and that is bragging. 
Prior to the mid-1950’s, the Department of the Interior had precisely no scien- 
tists working in the area of our fishery. We backed the passage of the Salton- 
stall-Kennedy Act in 1954 in the hopes that from this new surge of funds we 
could get some ocean research started by Interior in that area. We got precisely 
nothing. 
After a White House task force from six executive departments examined our 
economic problems in 1955 and proposed expanded research by the Department 
of the Interior as one of the means to “help us help ourselves” we came very 
nearly getting a $300,000 a year program of ocean research started in the area. 
But what we actually got again was precisely nothing. 
We backed the Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 to get a program of ocean research 
going, among other things, and finally in 1957 the newly organized Bureau of 
Commercial Fisheries contracted with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography to 
begin research in the area It had no regularly appropriated funds for the 
purpose but it made a grant for beginning this research from the newly expanded 
Saltonstall-Kennedy funds. This made a very sound start on our problem. but 
the iron fist of budget officers holding down the lid of expansion of appropriations 
for ocean research has kept this project at small size and each year has threat- 
ened it with extinction. 
Our repeated economic troubles arising from cheap imports once again brought 
us to national attention in 1959. Again there were interdepartmental commit- 
tees meeting on our problems, international negotiations carried on about them, 
and great planning put afoot to see that they did not recur. All hands agreed 
that the long-range cure for our problems lay in expanded research which the 
Department of the Interior was competent to do, and that about $750,000 per 
year was sufficient to start the job. A San Diego biological laboratory was set 
up for the purpose, its director hired, and a beginning made to hire staff. It 
looked like we were in good shape at last. 
But in January 1960, when the President’s budget message appeared in the 
public view there was again precisely no provision made in the regular appro- 
priations of the Department of the Interior for research in our area. The only 
funds to be available, we were told, were from Saltonstall-Kennedy funds; they 
were in short supply, so unfortunately our tuna research would have to be cut 
back a little in 1960 rather than expanded as had been agreed in 1959 was 
necessary. As a matter of fact, we were told our research program would have 
to be cut back by at least $400,000 from the modest $750,000 program which had 
been agreed in 1959 was a minimum necessity. 
This was the time, you will remember, when the NASCO reports were getting 
maximum national publicity. The President of the United States, his science 
adviser, the Chief of Naval Operations, Time magazine, and various others were 
extolling the virtues of ocean research and the need for us to hurry and catch up 
with the Russian effort in this respect. The predecessor of S. 901 was being 
launched with good fanfare and effect. Hundreds of millions of dollars were 
going to be spent on ocean research by the U.S. Government. 
Well, budget officers do not mind the expenditure of words: they only object 
to the expenditure of money. 
They hustled about establishing the Interdepartmental Committee on Ocea- 
nography to bring this brushfire back under their control before it became a 
holocaust and got some ocean research done. ‘They shifted funds around this 
way and that in the budget so the public impression was created that they also 
were pushing hard for ocean research. But when it came to actually providing 
new moneys they were as niggardly as always. The Navy ocean research ef- 
fort actually expanded some, chiefly due to a foresighted Chief of Naval Opera- 
tions who had some strength and the will to use it. But the smaller ocean 
research outfits in the big agencies, such as the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 
in Interior, the Coast and Geodetic Survey in Commerce, and the U.S. Weather 
Bureau in Commerce actually came out somewhat worse than they were before. 
They had new responsibilities but no money. 
Our industry had one or more men in Washington, D.C., almost continuously 
from January to July 1960 wheedling, pleading, and conniving to get back our 
