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AIRMAIL 
September 15# 195+ 
Mr. Richard Merrill 
Smithsonian Institution# Division of Birds 
FO Box 9187 
Honolulu, Hawaii 968 ?0 
Dear Dick: 
Thanks for the long awaited letter concerning the list of Item 
needed from storage at Pearl City. Your negligence in not carrying out 
this request has caused myself, Maryanaa, Dr. Ely and, other Pacific 
Project oeabers considerable headaches. We selected you for this Job 
since we felt sure you would do a good job. Your actions really let us 
down. 
Considerable planning goes into one of the P-month trips'since every¬ 
thing has to be obtained way in advance and all supplies have to be carried 
which are needed. Ore can’t go to the local store for supplies in the 
middle of a trip. The items on the list stored at Bear! City were part 
of the supplies needed tor the Marshall trip, We knew the supplies were 
supposed to be out there but they could have been mic-sir.., or could have 
teen unusable. If that had teen the case we could have replaced any 
necessary item. 
You arrived in Honolulu fro© Send on July 28 and left August 5 , You 
had Wednesday, Thursday, ate Friday to go to Pearl City. It’s of course 
closed on Saturday ate Sunday. Fred tells me you were getting things 
fro® the ATP crew for the Shearwater trip ate he asked you about getting 
the things I needed at Bearl City. He said your answer was "I’ll do it 
later - I have plenty of time." Well it seem you. didn’t have time or 
didn’t oake time to go. -Other people there in Honolulu could have gotten 
things for the August .Shearwater trip. You ted teen told to get the listed 
items from Pearl City, Hew, Dr. Ely can’t be everywhere at once and ride 
herd on everyone. When be or we here in DC ask some-one out there to do 
something, we expect it to he done. If it can’t be done Dr. Ely should 
be notified st once. Dr. Sly didn’t even know where the list was after 
you left or whether the task ted teen fulfilled. Cam Kepler ate Doug 
Hackman may be at fault also for not following through, but it was your 
prise responsibility to see that it was done in July. We here in 1X3 
thought the items ted been procured until Hackman came back with the list 
