396 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



order to prevent the eventual impact of a 12-mile limit. While the 12-mile limit 

 vs^oiild have put 116 important international straits under national sovereignty^ 

 the 6-mile limit would so reduce 52 svich straits and the U.S. naval people would 

 not have considered that much of a victory. 



Throughout the whole intense Conference the fishery issue was intractable. 

 There was no way in which a two-thirds vote on anything could be had because- 

 there were always enough dissident fishery votes on any formula that was sug- 

 gested so that the Russian-Arab bloc could make up a blocking third. Tlie 

 United States finally adopted a fishery position likely to be least offensive to 

 its allies, quit compromising on the fishery issue, and sought to drive its combined 

 last compromise position through by sheer diplomatic power. 



The result of all this intensiA'e work really came down to this: A simple 

 majority of nations were always, and I think still are, in favor of a 3-mile limit 

 for the territorial sea. These include the principle maritime nations. They 

 never got a chance to indicate this by any vote because there obviously was not a 

 two-third majority in favor of this limit. The reason for this was that allies, 

 some of whom wanted a 3-mile territorial limit strongly, wanted special fishery 

 concessions of one sort or another that other allies would not accept. 



In the last analysis the final compromise lost by one vote, and that was on 

 the fishery issue. There was a considerable sigh of relief that it was all over. 

 The principle of the narrow territorial sea had not only won over the Russian 

 principle of a broader territorial sea, but had won by a larger margin of votes 

 than it had done at the 1958 Conferences. Since the compromises suggested by 

 the United States to attain these votes had been defeated the United States could. 

 In good conscience and under international law, revert to its 3-mile limit 

 position, which the chief of the U.S. delegation promptly did at the end of the 

 voting. 



But it was a close thing, that none of the participants would like to see 

 repeated. 



THE AFTERMATH 



At the conclusion of the 1960 Conference on the Law of the Sea the United 

 States publicly reverted to its policy of a 3-mile breadth for the territorial sea 

 and plainly stated that the other positions it had put forward on this subject 

 during these Conferences were compromises designed to reach agreements. 

 Since no agreement had been reached, these compromise suggestions were not 

 to be taken as representing continuing U.S. policy. 



Not only has the United States said this publicly but it has backed up this 

 policy by force of arms off Matsu Island and elsewhere in the Orient in the 

 ensuing years, and is doing this now on almost a daily basis in the Gulf of 

 Tonkin. The situation of North Vietnam, the island of Hainan, a carrier task 

 force, and a small war form a precise example of why the United States, a 

 sea-air power, requires a narrow territorial sea in international law and why 

 the Communist land powers favor a broader one. 



The number of member nations of the United Nations has increased from 

 about 88 in early 1960 to about 115 in early 1965 but there has been no stampede 

 of the new countries to a 12-mile limit for the territorial sea. As a matter of 

 fact Monday morning quarterbacks looking backward could say that the 1960 

 Conference should have been postponed to about 1962. because it turned out 

 that the former French colonies since becoming independent nations have 

 mostly held to French guidance in general non-African foreign affairs, and the 

 French position has been solidly in favor of a 3-mile territorial sea. 



In the interval also the International Convention for the North Pacific Fish- 

 eries, which had in it the only international recognition of the so-called prin- 

 ciple of abstention even temporarily in any agreement among nations, has run its 

 initial 10-year period and is under renegotiation. The Japanese have stated 

 flatly that, while they are only too happy to join in on all efforts needed for the 

 conservation of the fisheries of the North Pacific, they will not agree to any 

 new treaty which contains the principle of abstention either in those words or 

 cloaked in other terminology. Accordingly that issue is dead. 



Iceland has reached an accommodation with the other European fishing nations 

 under a formula which retains a narrow territorial sea but has a 12-mile limit 

 exclusively for fishery jurisdiction. This issue appears to be quiescent and may 

 even be fully settled. 



The extravagant territorial and fishery jurisdictional claims of Latin Ameri- 

 can countries were firmly killed in 1955 and buried in 1958. 



