NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
477 
Chapter VIII 
ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS 
The President, with advice and assistance of the 
new Office of Science and Technology, is respon- 
sible for government-wide program planning and 
coordination. In oceanography, the Director of 
OST, who serves as Chairman of the Federal Coun- 
cil for Science and Technology, looks to the Inter- 
agency Committee on Oceanography to carry out 
this activity. The present Chairman of the ICO is 
the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research and 
Development), and ICO membership includes 
eight federal bureau chiefs. It carries out its func- 
tions through special panels on Research, Surveys, 
Instrumentation and Facilities, Manpower and 
Training, International Programs, and Ship Con- 
struction. It is an organization which is built on 
the skills and competence found in the depart- 
ments and which provides a means for the expres- 
sion of many points of view. It is considered more 
workable and responsive to the diverse and com- 
plex requirements of the broad spectrum of ocea- 
nographic management problems than would any 
single executive department vested with the same 
responsibility, an alternative which is sometimes 
suggested. 
Its panel structure is highly effective in identi- 
fying technical needs in various research cate- 
gories, devising programs and measures to meet 
these needs, identifying desirable allocations 
of technical effort among the agencies and sug- 
gesting assignment of technical leadership, and 
facilitating interagency communication at manage- 
ment levels. 
The ICO itself reviews these panel findings and 
recommendations, assures an appropriate division 
of technical effort, examines the balance of eftort 
among the different research categories and the 
adequacy of the overall program, makes findings 
concerning the technical manpower base for the 
program, and recommends management policies 
to improve the quality and vigor of the effort. 
Government-wide plans and programs, budgets 
and organizational recommendations are reviewed 
and approved by the ICO’s parent body, the Fed- 
eral Council for Science and Technology, based on 
analyses developed by staff and consultants of the 
Office of Science and Technology. 
44 
The ICO depends on the individual agencies to 
evaluate the scientific worth of projects within 
their own programs. 
Including as it does technical, operating, admin- 
istrative, and scientific people on the committee 
and its panels, and functioning as it does within 
the framework of the Federal Council for Science 
and Technology, it has been able to avoid both 
paralysis on the one hand and superficial and hasty 
action on the other, the two fates on which most 
committees founder. Nevertheless, deficiencies 
and difficulties exist. Two in particular seem worth 
noting. 
Although it has been highly successful in estab- 
lishing effective communications at the manage- 
ment level, the ICO needs to do more to improve 
communications among the scientists, engineers, 
and others at the working level. It has published 
numerous pamphlets and bulletins on the results 
of panel work of general interest: an annual inter- 
agency plan, yearly ship operating schedules, 
college curricula, Ocean Survey Plan, etc. This 
series is intended to continue and to be extended. 
It also intends to publish an encyclopedia of ocea- 
nographic instrumentation. Being considered, but 
not yet at the planning stage, are interagency ma- 
rine centers in which interdisciplinary programs 
of large scope could be carried on more efficiently 
with pooled facilities than they could on a single 
agency or laboratory basis. Finally, there is a pos- 
sibility that something of value might result from 
ICO-sponsored interdisciplinary conferences or- 
ganized perhaps around particular goals in ocea- 
nography, such as the federal goals discussed in 
this plan or those of special seagoing groups such 
as fishing, shipping, and mining. The ICO, through 
its present panel structure, is probably already 
capable of this extension of its activities if it should 
undertake this effort. 
Second, to improve its own effectiveness in 
decision-making and in planning, the ICO should 
have the support of a small full-time analytical staff 
in addition to its Secretariat. The staff should, in 
effect, work for and be responsible to the Chair- 
man of the Committee. It should be responsible 
for systematic analysis which will aid in planning, 
