NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 601 



domestic manganese and cobalt and nickel ores. These techniques are now 

 largely lying fallow because it is more economic to buy these materials from for- 

 eign nations at a great cost in dollars rather than develop our very low-grade 

 domestic resources. Over the .years the Bureau of Mines has expended tens of 

 millions of dollars in developing techniques to mine and process our domestic 

 reserves of low-grade manganese ores. Despite this heavy expenditure of funds 

 we now mine hardly any manganese in the United States, but annually purcha.se 

 about 2 million tons from various foreign sources. Manganese is absolutely 

 essential in the production of steel and thus a highly strategic mineral for the 

 United States. Also, our Government has, in the past, invested in excess of 

 $300 million to develop the cobalt-nickel deposits of Cuba only to see these mines 

 and process facilities fall into the hands of the Communists. Such an investment 

 in the ocean floor mineral deposits would not only free us of many politically 

 unstable sources of strategic minerals but would provide us with those minerals 

 at a greatly reduced cost as well as open up essentially luilimited sources of 

 these minerals which are politically and royalty free sources. We would also 

 be developing technologies which are militarily significant and thereby steal a 

 page from the Russian mode of operating its great fishing fleet. 



While we presently have no dii-ect evidence that the Russians are building 

 equipment to exploit the mineral resources of the sea, we do know that much of 

 the significant exploration of these deposits is being done by Russian oceanog- 

 raphers and that pronouncements in the Russian literature are constantly char- 

 acterizing these deposits as, "great new resources for the peoples of the world." 

 Much of the best information we have concerning ocean floor deposits of minerals 

 off our own coasts comes from the Russian literature which they are generous 

 enough to send us. I often wonder about the information they have gathered 

 which we do not see. And what a tragedy it will be for us to one day find the 

 Russians, perfectly legally, mining strategic minerals off our own coasts the 

 way they presently catch many of their fish. While we, by our niggardly 

 expenditure of research funds for oceanography, and total absence of funds for 

 mineral resource development, fall, again, by the wayside, and, then, must 

 resort to a crash program to catch up. For in failing to develop the resources 

 of the sea, we are not only losing the propaganda battle with the Russians, but 

 infinitely more important, we are failing to develop a resource which can provide 

 a great deal of real wealth for the people of the United States. 



If propaganda is the object of spending money for research, and in the space 

 program, it surely is the motivation for much of the money spent, then the 

 development of the resources of the sea can be considered one of the great 

 propaganda victories of all time. For in developing the technology of winning 

 minerals from the sea we will present to every nation of the earth the where- 

 withal to obtain many of the essential basic raw materials necessary for an 

 industrial society. Coupled with the development of the food resources of 

 the sea, essentially all materials necessary for an acceptable and adequate 

 standard of living in an industrial society can be gained by all nations from 

 the sea. Because of the unbelievably vast extent of the resources of the sea, 

 there would be sufficient material for all peoples of the earth for the foreseeable 

 future, assuming the simple guidelines of conservation are observed. Thus, one 

 of the historic causes of war, that of the need for raw materials and food for 

 an expanding population and economy will be removed. There will be suffi- 

 cient food and minerals for everyone that might wish to secure them. By 

 giving the technology to secure these materials to the rest of the nations of Hio 

 world, the United States could gain a propaganda victory over the Communists 

 which would overshadow all others. For in doing so, we would make available 

 to these undernourished nations materials of real value, materials that they 

 desperately need, and materials that we desperately need. 



The development of such a technology should not markedly nffeet production 

 from present land sources of such commodities, in fact it would exert a sta- 

 bilizing influence in the production of such commodities. For any nation 

 that realizes that the commodities we now buy from them are equally as 

 available from other sources, tends not to be so truculent in expropriation pro- 

 cedures or in charging exorbitant royalties and taxes on materials mined from 

 deposits within their jurisdiction. 



But the technical and economic advantages of exploiting the mineral re- 

 sources of the sea are even more important than the political. For. in the 

 sea, we find materials that are available without removing any overburden, 



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