634 
President clear assignments to implementing agencies. In those 
cases where the programs needed the collaborative effort of 
several, especially where the basic statutory missions overlapped, 
the Council recommended one agency assume a lead responsibility. 
It insured that appropriate resources of the Federal Government 
were brought to bear upon Presidentially enunciated goals. 
With the help of outside advisers, it evaluated Federal programs 
so as to eliminate marginal activities and in the inevitable com- 
petition for funds, made choices as to the more important. 
It developed background studies that would bring together not 
just the scientific and engineering components of marine affairs 
but also legal, economic, social, and even political considerations 
which are essential parts of the public process. 
And, last but by no means least, the Council took initiatives 
to develop programs to strengthen world understanding and 
security through international cooperative marine endeavors—to 
deal with the oceans as a community of nations rather than a 
form of parochial territorialism. 
In looking back over that interval (1966-69), I think it is 
fair to say that that new national policy and its activist implemen- 
tation bore considerable fruit. In his state of the Union message, 
in special messages to the Congress, in statements, speeches and 
appropriation actions, the President employed the potential of 
the sea to meet national needs on 65 separate occasions.”” 
With the change of administration came a decline in influence of 
the Council in policymaking. The new Vice President accorded a 
different priority to ocean affairs than his predecessor. The former 
high-level meetings gave way to a lower level Committee for Policy 
Review. Technically speaking, the lower level bureaucrats were better 
equipped to make proposals to the Council, but they were in no 
position to commit their agencies, nor would their collective advocacy 
bear the same weight as a consensus of Cabinet members.”? Interest 
in a comprehensive ocean policy was at a low point during the Nixon 
administration. The Council was allowed to die quietly in 1971, when 
the President followed a Bureau of the Budget recommendation 
requesting that the Council not be extended beyond its planned 1971 
deadline. In the last 18 months of its existence the Council met 
only once (compared with a total of 12 meetings during the previous 
3% years). 
OCEAN POLICY: THE CURRENT SITUATION 
The United States today finds itself in a situation of relative—and 
in some areas absolute—decline as a maritime power. Reorganization 
of civilian ocean-related activities in the Government are of great 
importance for better coordination of ocean activities, but reorganiza- 
tion by itself is not likely to bring about major changes in U.S. 
ocean policy. What is needed also is creative leadership and a commit- 
ment at the highest level of Government to examine the relationships 
*2Statement by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, 
Oceans and Atmosphere Subcommittee, Mar. 23, 1976, pp. 6, 7. 
23 Wenk, op. cit., p. 162. 
