MARINE SCIENCE 49 
so badly need in their bellies. At the risk of immodesty, we do not think there 
is anything the Russians can do about harvesting the sea that the combined 
talents and energy of the U.S. Government and the U.S. fishing industry cannot 
do better. 
With this in mind we have brought these matters to the attention of Mr. 
Henry Labouisse, the new Administrator of the International Cooperation 
Administration, and to Gov. G. Mennen Williams, the new Assistant Secre- 
tary of State for African Affairs, by means of the attached letters and by 
personal conversations with them and their staffs. We are prepared to do any- 
thing we appropriately can do to aid the U.S. Government should it decide to 
embark upon any of these ventures. 
The pertinence of this to the present bill is that one of the main things these 
African countries want is a competent, comprehensive, joint fisheries-ocean- 
ographie survey of the seas off this coast. They want this quickly. They want 
this so badly that they do not care whether they get it from East or West. 
I have been told this personally by officers of these governments who are not 
presently unfriendly to us. The question is can the U.S. Government move as 
swiftly into this situation as the Russians can. Nothing I have seen or heard 
in the last 3 months leaves me sanguine. 
Nevertheless, we put this ocean-fish survey off West Africa in our third rank 
of priority. In doing so I wish to point out clearly that we expect little or no 
benefit from it to ourselves. We know where the tuna are in the area that 
we want. We have two companies and five vessels in the area working on an 
experimental basis at the present time. If these operations yield a profit, as 
we expect, we will move in more heavily no matter what the U.S. Government 
does in these matters; if they do not yield a profit we will move out. 
As a matter of fact, we can only expect some damage to come to us from 
having brought these matters to the attention of the Government because it will 
probably only serve as a new excuse for the budget officers of Interior and 
the Bureau of the Budget to hold down the development of ocean research in 
the eastern Pacific where it would help us. Nevertheless, these suggestions 
on fishery activity by the United States in west Africa make too good diplomatic 
sense for us not to suggest them. 
Having said all this, we once more say that we are strongly in favor of the 
passage of S. 901 in its present form and will do what we can to help it. 
If I have said anything that is offensive to Budget officers as a group or 
was inclined to imply that they have exercised extreme myopia in their handling 
of the Nation’s ocean research interest, it was because I meant to. I am re- 
minded of a comment recently made to me, in no confidence, by a highly placed 
officer of the U.S. Navy. His comment was that if the Department of State 
could induce the Russians to adopt the budgetary system of the U.8. Government, 
oe expenditure for Polaris and other weapons systems could be made a good 
eal less. 
APPENDIx I—CHAPMAN STATEMENT 
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 
FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, 
BUREAU OF COMMERCIAL FISHERIES, 
BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY, 
San Diego, Calif., March 8, 1961. 
To All Members: EPOC (Eastern Pacific Oceanic Conference), Committee on 
a Cooperative Program of Study of the Eastern Tropical Pacijic Ocean. 
GENTLEMEN: The first meeting of the EPOC Committee on a Cooperative 
Study of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean was held in Mr. John Isaacs’ of- 
fice at Scripps Institution of Oceanography on February 17, 1961. Attached is 
a copy of the minutes of this meeting. Those of you who were not present are 
entitled to a word of explanation since you were not advised of the meeting. 
After Dr. Sette, HPOC chairman, notified me that he had invited each of you 
to serve on this committee, I thought that it would be useful to call a meeting 
immediately. I saw difficulty in being able to get us all together within any 
reasonable time and felt that, since our report is due in September 1961, we 
should get started immediately. Therefore, I called together the members 
resident in the San Diego area. 
