NATIONAL OCEAN'OGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 397 



The vast bulk of the law of the sea has been coclified and accepted by the 

 nations, and is no longer in issue among them. 



Much is heard these days to the effect that the delegations of the United 

 States to these two International Conferences on the law of the sea were ill 

 prepared, poorly led, or incompetent. I served as an adviser to the U.S. dele- 

 gation to both of these Law of the Sea Conferences, as I have served on many 

 other delegations to other conferences over the past 18 years, including several 

 of which I have been chief of delegation. I can say unequivocally that these 

 two delegations had better and more complete background material prepared 

 and available to it. better diplomatic preparation made for it, was more com- 

 petently led by a chief of delegation who had superb direct support from the 

 President of the United States, the Secretary of State and a well-rounded dele- 

 gation of highly competent experts in all pertinent fields, and had the full 

 support of every U.S. mission in every country in the world more quickly and 

 ■efl&ciently at the command of the chief of delegation in Geneva, than has been 

 the case of any other delegation of the United States upon which I have served 

 or about which I have heard. 



Nevertheless we came very near to losing our shirts. Surely from this ex- 

 I>erience some useful lessons can be learned, and these should have some perti- 

 nence to the pi-esent legislation. Some of these lessons are : 



(1) Do not attempt to open up for modification any aspect of the law of the 

 sea without a very careful study and estimation of what other aspects will be 

 ■opened up at the same time by other independent sovereign nations, whether 

 friend or foe. 



It is to be noted that during the 20 years of this last hassle we had much 

 more serious trouble from our closest allies we had from our most vigorous 

 foes. 



(2) Having ascertained as well as possible what other aspects will be opened 

 Tip do not get involved in any international conference on any aspect of the 

 subject until all aspects which may be opened vip have been examined from 

 the standpoint of the general and long-term interest of the United States. It 

 is neces,sary that each aspect be examined from the standpoint not only of 

 what the United States will gain from a favorable vote, but what it will lose 

 from an unfavorable vote, and also from the standpoint of what compromise 

 may be necessary during the course of the negotiations. 



It needs to be understood that to win a vote and an issue in a United 

 Nations conference it is necessary to get a two-thirds majority vote of those 

 present and voting. On several quite important issues in all four of the con- 

 A^entions resulting from the 1958 conference the U.S. delegation required to modify 

 its desired position materially in order to line up enough votes so as not 

 to lose the issue, which would have been worse. Even then some of the 

 Avins came by only a one-vote margin, and the terminal vote at the 1960 con- 

 ference was lost by only one vote. 



( 3 ) Having examined all issles likely to rise at such a conference, and then eval- 

 uated what the interest of the United States would be if it lost on any, or 

 a few of those issues, only then is it possible to evaluate whether or not the 

 United States wishes to reopen the law-of-the-^ea controversy on any issue, 

 or whether it is not best to get along with what exists and let sleeping dogs 

 lie. 



(4) If the decision is to reopen the matter then legal, technological, scien- 

 tific, political, and diplomatic spadework must be done in depth and detail 

 which the sponsors of H.R. 5175 may not have thoroughly thought through. 



Otherwise, on the basis of our full experience of the 20 years from 1945 

 to 1965, one can wager confidently that the United States will lose more than 

 it will gain from reopening the law of the sea for modification. 



THE PRESENT SITUATION 



One must keep in mind 'that almost all aspects of these issues are quite dif- 

 ferent in 1965 from what they were in 1945, or even in 1955. An incomplete 

 list of these changed conditions may be instructive. 



(1) In 1945 the United States was overwhelmingly the dominant military 

 and diplomatic power in the world. In 1955 there was no other prominent 

 divisive power except Russia and the Communist bloc. In 1965 neither the 

 United States nor the Russian alliances are sufficiently tight so that blocks of 

 votes can be much depended upon, and there are several subsidiary centers of 

 diplomatic activity quite competent to act independently only for the purpose of 



