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band a few miles to sea and a few miles iniand froin that interface. We are get- 
ting our State activities into fairly good order, and in this are perhaps somewhat 
more fortunate than some of our sister states. Progress at our State level 
has been particularly good’ during this year, and we now seem to have a good 
momentum up. 
But we must deal with such a diversity of agencies in the Wederal structure 
that it makes cur State work ali the more Cifficult. At the State ievel we very 
adly need a strong ocean oriented agency in the civilian area that can help 
us with our problems, instead of a clutch of diverse agencies who at times seem 
to be more trouble than they are worth simply because one needs to spend most 
of one’s time in liaison and communication with them rather than all hands get- 
ting on with the necessary work. 
I believe that almost everyone professionally acquainted with ocean matters 
agrees with me that the most urgent problems the naticn has with the ocean 
are those centering in the coastal zone, a few miles either side of the interface 
between sea and land. Here are the estuarine, pollution, multiple-use, aesthetic, 
industrial, recreation, social and economic problems so complex, difficult, and 
interdigitating as to try the patience of Job and the wisdom of Sclomon. I be- 
lieve, also, that most believe thiese can only be dealt with effectively at the 
local level. At least that is my experience. To do this effectively the State people 
must have the heip of a strong and coherent Federal entity such as NOAA. 
For several years I have been Vice-Chairman of the Advisory Committee 
on Marine Resources Research of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the 
United Nations. ACMRR advises the Director General of FAO on the activities 
of its Fisheries Department and has the separate additional duty of being one 
of the two official advisory bodies of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Com- 
mission of UNESCO. ACMRR works very closely with the other advisory body 
of LOC, the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research (SCOR) of the International 
Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), and over recent years with appropriate 
advisory groups from the World Meterological Organization (WMO). In these 
connections we have also had advisory relations with the Secretary General of the 
United Nations in his responses to various ocean initiatives that have arisen in 
the General Assembly of the United Nations over the past few years. I have just 
returned from ACMRR and JOC meetings in Paris. 
From this international viewpoint, where I and my colleagues work in our 
capacities as independent experts from the scientific community and not as rep- 
resentatives of the United States Government, the policies and postures of the 
United States Government appear at times almost incredible. 
The Department of State has undertaken repeated initiatives through the 
General Assembly and HCOSOC over recent years that have had the most pro- 
found effect on marine affairs, but the working level people in the Federal struc- 
ture dealing with these problems have the greatest difficulty in even communicat- 
ing with our delegation at the United Nations. 
The United Nations Development Program (for which the United States pro- 
vides 40% funding) has inaugurated a massive (and successful) program of 
fishery development on a global basis executed by FAO. FAO policy in the 
United States is established by an inter-agency committee dominated by the De- 
partment of Agriculture, which has little or no interest or expertise in ocean 
affairs. USAID ocean development activity goes on almost oblivious to these 
other activities by which the United States attempts to assist the developing 
nations. The actions of the IBRD and the regional banks, now becoming important 
in world fishery development, seem to be unrelated te any United States actiivty 
in this field. 
The World Weather Watch and Global Atmospheric Research Program of the 
World Meteorological Organization is beginning to have an ever broadening rela- 
tionship with marine affairs as it is learned that the ocean and atmopshere 
are different parts of one interconnected heat engine. Responsibility for WMO 
affairs in the United State’s Government lies with the Environmental Sciences 
Services Administration (ESSA) of the Department of Commerce. 
IMCO, the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization, has its 
United States liaison with the Department of Commerce and this is very sparingly 
related to anything else the United States does in the ocean affairs ‘field, although 
IMCO itself is beginning to cooperate very nicely with its sister agencies (FAO, 
UNESCO, WMO, WHO, and [AHA) in the international field. 
NASGO, in its 1959 Report, set out clearly the need for a more unifying agency 
in the ocean affairs field of the specialized agencies of the United Nations family. 
