NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 97 
pared as a framework within which the specific survey program for 
each year could be formulated. It describes the purposes and objec- 
tives of the plan, the facilities and personnel to be required, the scope 
of the work, the types of investigations and the disposition of the 
data. It also describes the data to be collected and includes the tenta- 
tive ship construction schedule. This plan is reviewed and revised by 
the Panel whenever necessary. 
In any national program it is essential that the requirements as well 
as advice of the nongovernmental oceanographic centers be effectively 
considered in making up the annual national program. Communica- 
tions from without the Government are effected by a combination of 
formal and informal means. 
On a formal basis, the Panel meets with the NASCO Panel on 
Oceanwide Surveys at least once a year, usually in connection with 
the preparation of the annual national program. More directly, the 
ICO Panel includes NASCO representation. 
In recent months, this representation was recommended for in- 
crease from one to three scientists, and from the class of observer to 
member, representing three major centers for oceanographic research 
in the United States. You may recall from the list of Survey Panel 
participants that the Executive Secretary of NASCO, with offices in 
Washington, D.C., is an alternate member. Owing to his proximity 
and rapport with the NASCO Panel, he is in day-by-day communica- 
tion with the ICO group. 
At one of the recent joint meetings, the NASCO Oceanwide Survey 
Panel heard statements from each agency on its current survey op- 
erations, funding, and accomplishments, and is presently considering 
a detailed study of the technical data. NASCO has now agreed to 
reexamine its recommendation for Oceanwide Surveys in the hght of 
these recent survey accomplishments. They will also evaluate our per- 
formance in response to their plan. The Ocean Surveys Advisory 
Panel is accumulating performance and cost data for their use in 
making this evaluation. 
Through the ONR and NSF representatives on the Panel, these 
two activities, which together fund a very large percentage of the 
oceanography conducted by academic institutions, bring to the Panel 
a detailed knowledge of the plans and works in progress carried on 
outside the Federal agencies. Of course, the benefit is extended both 
Wways—numerous cases arise in which the institutions can conduct 
work aboard Federal agencies’ survey ships, thus avoiding costly 
duplication. 
For example, on the recent Equalant I cruise, conducted under the 
International Cooperative Investigations of the Tropical Atlantic 
(ICITA), ONR-supported scientists from New York University were 
able to conduct detailed studies of a recently discovered equatorial 
undercurrent when the U.S.C.&G.S. ship Haplorer transited the 
equator on an oceanographic cruise. Costs to ONR for the shipboard 
accommodations for the four scientists embarked was the nominal 
messing bill. 
In another ocean, at this monent, University of Hawaii biologists 
and geologists and geophysicists from the Universities of California 
and Southern California, and the U.S. Navy, as well as metereologists 
from the Weather Bureau, using equipment from the Universities of 
