19 
to present a full report of their findings to the committee immediately on 
their completion of the visits. 
The committee requested that NIH staff discuss the committee's plan with 
appropriate officials in the NIH and the PHS and convey back to the committee 
any reasons why it should not proceed according to these plans. The committee 
said it did not wish to waste time and effort trying to carry through plans 
that would not be acceptable or practicable. 
The committee decided to meet again on September 5, 1959, in Bethesda if funds 
were appropriated in Fiscal Year 1960.-2^' It was agreed to try to make site 
visits and have reports available by the September date. If funds were not 
appropriated for Fiscal Year 1960, the site visits were to be made and com- 
pleted for a meeting of the committee on November 4th. 
At the meeting of the committee on July 17, 1959 , ( 14) the members did not 
know that Congress would decide not to establish a national station of the 
kind the committee wanted, but only an as yet undetermined number of regional 
primate research centers. But the planning ideas of the committee were such 
that the bulk of them could be put to use in the development of regional 
centers. It was at this meeting that agreement was reached as to who would 
visit which potential site. 
During this period, events were leading to the first appropriation of funds 
by the Congress in support of the new primate program. The House and Senate 
Appropriations Committee conferees agreed on an appropriation of $2 million 
to the NHI: "To Establish two primate colonies during the year-^ as author- 
ized by section 433(a) of the Public Health Service Act. The funds may be 
used for such construction as may be required to establish the two colonies."— 
The Senate committee appropriation language included the following: 
"The committee notes the testimony of several witnesses in connection with the 
need to establish within the continental limits of the United States one or 
more primate colonies which would permit heart disease to be studied over the 
lifespan of the animals, including studies related to heredity. Based on 
such testimony, it is the committee's judgement that such primate colonies 
would be most useful to medical science if there were several such colonies 
geographically distributed and created as a part of a university environment. 
Under these circumstances, the colonies could serve the purposes of several 
programs and could be more economically administered than would be true if they 
were established as separate resources. The committee will provide increases 
29/ The Fiscal Year 1960 began July 1, 1959. 
30/ Fiscal Year 1960. 
31/ From "Congressional Record-Senate, 13443," July 30, 1959. 
