866 
Mr. Beces. Yes, sir; I have. 
Mr. Lennon. And the panel reports such as are in print and are 
available ? 
Mr. Beces. I have not read in great detail the panel reports. I have 
read the Commission report in its entirety, and I have scanned the 
panel reports. 
Mr. Lennon. I hope you will have the opportunity to consider them 
in some substance and detail before we have the opportunity to hear 
you again. Thank you. You may proceed. 
Mr. Bercas. Yes, sir. 
In May, President Nixon referred the organizational recommenda- 
tions set forth in chapter 7 of the Commission’s report to his Advisory 
Council on Executive Organization chaired by Mr. Roy L. Ash. 
Mr. Lennon. At that point, Mr. Secretary, I will do the same thing 
that I did yesterday, just to keep the record straight. 
On February 17 of this year, the President requested the National 
Council on Marine Resources and Engineering Development, headed 
by Vice President Agnew, to make some consideration of the Com- 
mission’s report, and on March 27 of this year the Vice President re- 
sponded to the President by letter, a copy of which was put in the 
record yesterday, in which he, among other things, sets forth the posi- 
tion of several agencies including the Department of Transportation, 
Departments of Commerce, Defense, and one other agency. 
When the appropriate time comes, we will put that in the record. 
In connection with your statement which you just made concerning 
the President’s referral of the organizational structure recommenda- 
tions set forth in chapter 7 of the Commission’s report to his Advisory 
Council on executive organization, chaired by Mr. Roy L. Ash, we have 
a copy of that memorandum of that date which also was put in the 
record yesterday, and there was some sense of urgency I gathered from 
that memorandum for the Ash committee to study this matter. 
We were concerned and anxious to know what would be the position 
of the Ash committee or when it would be in position to make some 
definitive and positive statement concerning its consideration of the 
Commission report. 
So on September 10, just a little more than a week ago, counsel 
the subcommittee, contacted the executive director of this so-called 
Ash Commission and asked him when they would be in a position, 
having been requested, I remind you, having been requested, as you 
have indicated, on May 19 by the President to make this study, and we 
assumed that in a period of 4 months that they likely would be in a 
position to make some statement to the committee. 
You can understand our disappointment when they advised us by 
letter dated September 11 to the effect that they hoped sometime to 
launch a studv within the next month or two; in other words, they 
think they will get ready to start to begin to commence in about 2 
months from now what the President explicitly asked them to do back 
in May. 
T know you are familiar with that. 
Now, do you want to tell us why the Ash Commission has not re- 
sponded to the President’s, the Chief Executive of this country, re- 
quest from early May until now in late September and now say that 
perhaps in another month or two they may get around to considering 
