NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 423 



Governmental structure is sufficiently flexible that 3 or 4 of these things 

 could be lixetl up to make the pi-esent system work better, but how one 

 could fix up all 10 of these thuags without a major policy reorientation and re- 

 stvuctxiring of the syst(>ni is not readily apparent. Also one has difficulty in see- 

 ing how the ocean function in Government can be enlarged or improved without 

 such a fundamental restructuring of the present system. 



One must point out at the end of this section, as at the beginning, that none of 

 this reflects whatever on the personalities involved. The system is what needs 

 alteration, not the people. One may look with considerable admiration at what 

 the people invoh-ed have accomplished within the system. On coi;ld sum this up 

 into the fact that ICO has provided us with much improved facilities, much in- 

 creased professional manpower, and publications which have been both useful and 

 stimulating. In sum, ICO has done its job so well that we are now ready for 

 something better. 



THE CHANGING BUDGET PEACTICES 



The changing budget practices of the United States are having a ponderable 

 effect on the organization of ocean us'e activities in the Government. Cost- 

 effective budgeting has proven sufficiently successful in the Department of 

 Defense that Presidential orders have gone to other departmental and agency 

 heads to adapt it to their budget practices. Some of the ways this affects the 

 organization of ocean affairs in the Federal Government are the following. 



Generally speaking there are two approaches to the research sector of re- 

 search and development programs: discipline-oriented (basic) research, and 

 mission-oriented research. 



Discipline-oriented research, the kind normally but rather erroneously called 

 basic research, is the sort where a scientist or a group of scientists inquires 

 into natural processes or phenomena with a view just to finding out how nature 

 works and with no particular practical mission other than that. 



There is wide consensus that x amount of the Government's total research 

 expenditures should be devoted to this discipline-oriented (basic) research. 

 Current budgetary practice is trending in the direction of this being the mission 

 of the National Science Foundation through which at least the nuijor part (and 

 possibly eventually most) of the P'ederal Government's budget for this type of 

 research will be handled for all sciences. NSF then, by contracts or grants 

 (very largely to academic institutions), disburses these funds in accordance 

 with the advice of its own staff and of advisory committees established in different 

 fields of science for these purposes, and under the g'eneral guidance of the 

 Federal Council for Science and Technology. 



In the ocean, research field, heretofore, the Office of Naval Research of the 

 U.S. Navy has been the major source of funds for discipline-oriented ocean 

 research and it has maintained this function while the same function has been 

 growing in the National Science Foundation. ONR ocean research funds for 

 these purposes have plateaued in the last few years. The basic reason for this 

 has been the cost-efficiency budgeting system. The Department of Defense 

 budget officers increasingly tend to narrow Navy ocean research funds to the 

 use of the Navy's primary mission, which is military. 



While a good many in the ocean research field deplore this ti-end. a realistic 

 appraisal of the future suggests that increasingly discipline-oriented ocean re- 

 search funds will fall within the NSF budget, and that the Navy's ocean research 

 funds will increasingly be confined to that required for the conduct of the Navy's 

 military mission. 



This change is accompanied by another. Increasingly the Navy's ocean re- 

 search funds are limited to those of a classified character. This is under the 

 quite logical prodding of the Department of Defense budget people who say that 

 the Navy's mission is military and one keeps information that is of a militarily 

 useful nature classified and out of the hands of a potential enemy. It follows 

 from this logic that projects which are not classified are of questionable military 

 value and should be the mission of some other branch of the Government (if 

 worth while) but not of the Navy. 



The result of this trend, despite the very best intentions of Navy personnel 

 involved, is that an increasing amount of Navy ocean research results (which 

 have been the mainstay of the ocean programs of academic and civilian govern- 

 mental institutions) are classified and do not become available publicly or to 

 the civilian branches of Government for use for months or years after the 

 results are obtained. Long years of tussling with this classification problem in- 

 dicates that it cannot be solved easily or quickly. The Navy, and the military 



