17 



because when we have made this sort of an evaluation, we will be 

 in a position then to take a very definitive position and to proceed 

 from that point. 



Mr. Pritchard. I would say this. It isn't so much that you have 

 sent a signal, even though there are perceptions of different inter- 

 ests groups as to what their position is or will be. 



What I am saying is, the timetable you have set up makes it 

 impossible to have a meaningful treaty. If every one of these coun- 

 tries — and there are about 50 of them now out of the 150 that have 

 elections and change administrations — are going to have to stop for 

 a 9-month review after each election, I don't know how we could 

 even complete this negotiation. 



Your approach gives our country a very arrogant position by 

 setting out this timetable. I am disappointed that my administra- 

 tion, which came in, in January, can't give an answer in August. 

 This is a deep disappointment to me and, I think, many Members 

 in Congress. If you are getting some static from the Senate, well, so 

 be it. They have produced more static in the last 20 years than the 

 House ever has. I really worry about our ability to participate in 

 long-running treaty negotiations if we have the attitude that we 

 start from scratch. It looks to me that you have started over, 

 particularly since you threw out almost all the people who were 

 working on the process. 



I am not a lawyer. The administration sounds like a group of 

 Wall Street lawyers that have come to tell me, a businessman, why 

 they aren't ready to go to court, why it is going to take twice as 

 long to get ready and why it is also going to cost twice as much 

 money. They are saying why they can't do it, rather than why they 

 can. I guess I will have to say, as one Member, that I feel very 

 disturbed by it. 



I have no further questions. 



Mr. Malone. If I might just respond to the Congressman, I would 

 hope, certainly, that we will have largely completed this by 

 August. We want to move forward as rapidly as we can. 



You made a point with regard to the fact that we had discharged 

 everyone that had previously been involved. It is true that we 

 made some changes. As I noted 



Mr. Pritchard. You knocked out the key players. 



Mr. Malone. But we certainly did not discharge everyone that 

 was involved. 



We made some changes, because we felt that the situation neces- 

 sitated that, in order to permit us to undertake our review and the 

 steps that were necessary to facilitate that effort. But we certainly 

 are going to move ahead and we are going to complete this as 

 rapidly as possible. 



I would just also like to refer to a little matter of history very 

 shortly here in reference to what might seem to some to have been 

 the continuity of this matter through previous administrations, 

 both Democratic and Republican, and call to the committee's atten- 

 tion a statement that was made in 1977 by Ambassador Richardson 

 when he was then Special Representative of the President to the 

 Law of the Sea Conference, at the United Nations, on July 20, 

 1977. 



And I quote: 



