39 



Mr. Reedy. Of course Congress will have to take some time in 

 looking at it. What we did was to set up what we considered the best 

 form of organization that we could arrive at on the basis of the problems 

 we had studied. We are quite well aware of the fact that there may 

 be many other considerations involved. 



We were also aware of the fact that these proposals will create 

 some irritation, will create some infighting, and therefore we did 

 not make these recommendations lightly. This is not a question of 

 our coming across a series of agencies and saying they should be 

 put together regardless of the consequences. We didn't propose to 

 break up any crockery. The recommendations that we made, Con- 

 gressman, were based on our belief that they are of sufficient impor- 

 tance that it is worthwhile at this time to discuss them and try to 

 effectuate them. But also we are quite well aware of the other realities. 



Mr. MosHER. Since you do recognize it is going to take the Congress 

 some time to consider these proposals, I assume you do consider one of 

 your important recommendations that the National Council on Marine 

 Resources and Engineering Development be continued as an interim 

 body, at least until Congress and the President do determine a more 

 permanent reorganization form? 



Mr. Reedy. Yes; that is a very important recommendation. It was 

 not thrown in as an afterthought. Obviously it is the coordinating 

 agency at the moment. When the Federal Government is spending 

 seven hundred or eight hundred million dollars a year scattered 

 through a number of agencies, it is important, I think — and I believe 

 the Commission thinks so, too — that we have the luaximuin that we 

 can get of coordination and effectiveness out of this money. 



Until our recommendations are acted upon, we believe it is very 

 vital to maintain the Marine Council. 



Mr. MosHER. No further questions. 



Dr. Stratton. Mr. Chairman, may I add a comment or two to this, 

 just to underscore what Mr. Reedy said. 



In the first place, as he noted, we did not enter into this task with 

 preconceived ideas of how the Government should be organized for 

 this program of the oceans. We propose that the organization — hope 

 that the plan of organization would emerge out of the program itself 

 as we, month by month, went deeper and deeper into the whole field 

 and determine what needed to be done. Then we began to see who 

 was going to do it and there began to emerge relationships between 

 existing agencies which needed to be strengthened and clearly func- 

 tions which were not now being performed which must be undertaken 

 in the future. 



So out of that there came or began to come this concept of a group- 

 ing of existing activities and further functions wliich have to be 

 performed. I think it is fair to say that from the outset we were 

 very, very conscious of the problems involved, and that no matter 

 what kind of a proposal we made, if it had any strength whatsoever, 

 any prospect of getting on with the job, it was bound to encounter 

 controversy and difficulty and vested interests and conflict of interest, 

 all perfectly natural because of the long time and long history in 

 which this has taken place. 



We did consider from time to time the possibility of, bringing these 

 related activities together within one of the departments but it 



