712 
We found much to our surprise in our hearings that the agencies 
and departments which had a role and mission in the iaarine sciences 
did not participate as members of this Interagency Committee on 
Oceanography. 
So we stopped the proceedings long enough to request that that 
particular agency come before the committee and explain why it was 
not invited to put a person from that agency on the Interagency Com- 
mittee on Oceanography. We went through that sort of traumatic ex- 
perience over a period of time. 
Now, coming back specifically to the Commission’s report with re- 
spect to, number one, the establishment of a Government structure, in 
the hearings in 1965 and in 1966 which lasted over an extended period 
of time, we found a wide variety of views and recommendations made 
to the committee. 
We had strong recommendations from a number of members of Con- 
gress on the wet NASA. We had other people who bitterly opposed it. 
So that is the reason why in the drafting of the legislation which 
resulted in the Presidential Commission and also in the national coun- 
cil we mandated in that legislation the Commission to make a study in 
depth and recommend to the Congress, number one, if there should be 
a new central government structure and, number two, if they did 
make such a recommendation, the type of structure and what agencies 
would be involved. 
In our communication to the President in consideration of the ap- 
pointment of the Commission, we urged him not only to get the people 
for that Commission who had the background in science and teclnol- 
ogy related to oceanology and oceanography and all the marine sci- 
ences, but to get the men for that Commission who could give the time, 
and those of use who were privileged te serve, Congressman Mosher 
and myself, as the congressional advisers to the Commission, think they 
did a magnificent job. 
We were privileged to meet with them on many occasions, not to in 
any way influence them with regard to the type of report that they 
ultimately submitted to the President and the Congress, but simply 
to advise them in what we understood the congressional intent to be, 
we having been the two members of the committee that were present 
at all of the hearings, Congressman Mosher and myself, having been 
on the conference committee to write the conference report and the 
subsequent legislation that was adopted both by the Senate and the 
House, and also to attempt to interpret for the members of the Co- 
mission the congressional intent as reflected in the debate both on the 
House floor and the Senate floor. 
I do believe that it is the consensus of the preponderant majority of 
the members of the Commission that we ought to move in the direction 
that you have laid stress upon, and I think it is evidenced by the fact 
all 20 members of the subcommittee joined in sponsorship along with 
the chairman of the full committee. 
I think you would be interested, Governor, in knowing that while 
most of our witnesses have been from the pr ivate sector of our economy 
as well as the university and in the private laboratory sector, there has 
been a unanimity of agreement among all of our witnesses that we 
ought to create the national advisory committee. 
J am not talking about the Government structure. There was no 
