76 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
has entailed approximately 14 cruises to the area at an estimated total cost 
through 1965 of $20 million. 
The second major international program to be sponsored by the Commission 
was the International Cooperative Investigation of Tropical Atlantic. Initial 
impetus for the program came from the United States. This endeavor was 
divided into three efforts designated Equalants I, Il and III. During Hqualant I, 
14 vessels took part from 7 nations. Of these 14 ships, 3 were from the United 
States and 3 from the Soviet Union. Other countries that participated were 
Argentina, Brazil, Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and the Republic of Ivory Coast. 
In Equalant II, 11 vessels participated from 8 nations and during Equalant III 
there were 8 vessels from 6 nations. Equalants I and II were carried out in the 
spring and fall of 1963, respectively, and Equalant III has been completed only 
in the past month. One of the noteworthy achievements of this cooperative 
investigation has been the rapid assimilation of data at World Data Center A, 
located in Washington, D.C. All of the data from Equalants I and II have been 
received and published and a good part of the data from Equalant III is in hand. 
The total cost to the United States in this program was about $3 million all of 
which came out of regularly sponsored programs. 
Another program under the auspices of the IOC is the proposed investigations 
of the Kuroshio and adjacent regions off the coast of Japan. This program, 
now in its planning stage, has been initiated primarily through the efforts of 
Japan, Korea, Philippines, and the U.S.S.R. The extent of U.S. participation 
is still not known at this time. In addition, several cooperative oceanographic 
programs exist between the United States and Japan which have resulted from 
bilateral agreements between these two nations entered into by the Prime 
Minister of Japan and the President of the United States. 
Aside from the formal programs mentioned above, there are numerous in- 
formal oceanographic programs between the United States and other countries 
which have been carried out over many years. Perhaps the most significant of 
these has been the cooperative effort between the Lamont Geological Observatory 
of Columbia University and many South American countries. This work has 
been particularly fruitful with Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Brazil. For the past 
decade, Lamont has worked very closely with the Hydrographic Office of the 
Argentine Navy and this interest has provided the basis for most of the oceano- 
graphic research now going on in that country. Similarly, the Woods Hole 
Oceanographic Institution has worked very closely with the National Institute of 
Oceanography of England in the northern Atlantic and Indian Oceans and with 
the French in the Mediterranean Sea. Likewise, the Scripps Institution of 
Oceanography has carried out many cooperative programs in the North Pacific 
with Japan and Canada. Noteworthy of mention are the Norpac expeditions of 
1955 and the Hastropic expedition of 1956. At the present time, informal coop- 
erative programs between the United States, Peru, and Ecuador are underway 
to study the El Nino phenomenon which occurs randomly off the west coast of 
Central and South America. Also, the French bathyscaph Archimede is presently 
engaged in the exploration of the Puerto Rican Trench as part of a joint United 
States-French program. 
Coordination of the U.S. participation in these many international oceano- 
graphic programs is carried out primarily through the Interagency Committee 
on Oceanography. Under the ICO exists a Panel on International Programs 
established in 1962. The purpose of this Panel is twofold: (1) to ensure that 
U.S. participation in the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and 
other international programs proceeds in an aggressive, judicious and timely 
manner; and (2) that the Panel provides a forum whereby the various U.S. 
activities in international oceanographic programs have a common meeting 
point. This allows the ICO to be aware of all aspects of U.S. participation in 
international oceanographic programs. To date, the primary effort of the 
Panel has been devoted to the U.S. responsibilities in the Intergovernmental 
Oceanographic Commission. This has entailed the selection of U.S. delegations 
and the development of the U.S. positions on the agenda items to be discussed 
at the Commission meetings. There have been three sessions of the full Com- 
mission and five meetings of its Bureau in the 4 years of its existence. It is 
my pleasure to report that at all of these meetings, the United States has been 
far better prepared than any other of the 51 member countries. This has 
enabled the United States to assume the position of effective leadership in this 
important Intergovernmental Commission. 
