As you know, the form that this administration will 

 take is now being worked out for Presidential and Con- 

 gressional approval by the new National Council on 

 Marine Resources and Engineering Development, chaired by 

 the Vice President. Mr. Nitze, Secretary of the Navy, 

 is the Defense Department nember of the Council. 



The advisory Commission on Marine Science, Engineer- 

 ing and Resources, headed by the distinguished 

 Dr. Julius Stratton, is vitally involved in long-range 

 goals and organization. I am a member of the Commission 

 and have been amazed at the wide-spread interest this 

 Commission has evoked across the country. A friend of 

 mine recently told me that oceanography is the sexiest 

 thing to hit the country since the transistor. 



Let me now turn to some of the areas where the Navy 

 is contributing to the non-military exploitation of the 

 ocean. 



Our undersea technology prograrai, with the associated 

 Deep Submergence and Man-in-the-Sea programs, received 

 their original impetus from the tragic loss of the 

 THRESHER and more recently by the successful recovery of 

 the unarmed nuclear weapon off Palomares. 



Perhaps it is an oversimplification, but in my mind 

 these programs can best be described as the development 

 of technology leading toward the occupation and exploi- 

 tation of the ocean bottom and the deep ocean. Although 

 our primary objectives are military exploitation, the 

 technological know-how developed by these programs is 

 identical for all types of exploitation. 



Each of our Navy's projects offers several potential 

 applications beyond their direct military objectives: 



Deep submergence search and rescue vehicle technol- 

 ogy will provide the basis for any vehicle end use--such 

 as mining, fishing, salvage, mechanical work, research, 

 and data collection. 



Sonar technology in the commercial sector can lead 

 to considerably greater efficiency for future genera- 

 tions of commercial fishermen, as the world population 

 doubles over the next thirty years. 



Man-in-the-Sea may provide a key to greater and 

 more rapid development and exploitation of all our 

 underwater resources. 



XVI 



