The sea and ships at sea have certain fundamental characteristics. The facts are few and simple. Their meaning is profound. Although the facts may appear evident to all, their meaning and application are understood by few. As a result of a national lack of understanding of ships at sea, the United States faces a fundamental crisis at sea. Data processing capability to handle complicated information about complicated problems sweeps simple concepts aside. Complexity seems almost a prerequisite for credibility.
Yet, simplicity does not detract from truth. The sea, for example, is one continuous highway that covers most of the Earth, about 70% of the surface. It is possible to travel from any point in the sea system to any other point in the sea system without requiring the vehicle ever to leave the system.
Conversely, less than one-third of the Earth’s surface is land area. All land masses are isolated islands in that they are separated and surrounded by water. It is not possible to travel from any major land mass to any other land mass except by crossing the sea. In addition to the wide separation of the major land areas by major sea areas, there are also deep penetrations into the land masses by arms of the open seas.
To be usable for seagoing vehicles, some depth of water is needed. The sea is deep. Less than 10% of the ocean area is inside the traditional 100-fathom curve. Here and there are hazards and shoal water certainly capable of causing grief to the navigator. However, as a portion of the total surface, the unnavigable water area is exceedingly small. Essentially 100% of the ocean area is usable.
The sea is liquid, and like all liquids, the sea tends to seek its own level. The habitable areas on land vary in elevation by many thousands of feet. By contrast, the entire sea system presents a nearly uniform surface. The widest tidal range in the world is about 50 feet.
Because the sea is liquid, it is capable of supporting the vehicles of the sea by the phenomenon of displacement. The ship floats in the sea, and the sea is a worldwide, uniform or sea-level surface.
In any other vehicle, power is required to lift the vehicle and payload either uphill on the surface or bodily in the air above the surface. In ships, the lift is supplied by displacement of the operating medium without expenditure of power by the vehicle.
The ship operates on a worldwide interconnected highway; a gift of creation that requires neither construction nor maintenance. The existence of the highway and the minimum power requirements are the primary factors that make sea surface transport the most economical mode of transportation.
As a vehicle, the ship carries not only payload, but also carries within herself a largely self-sustained community.
The lack of penalty for weight has enabled man to build ships to carry crew, provisions, supplies, tools, and equipment to an unusually effective degree.
Although, in some conditions, it may be economically desirable to provide terminal facilities, the ship does not necessarily need such facilities to accomplish her task; the necessary equipment may be carried in the ship.
As a corollary, the operation of ships is not restricted to point-to-point operation between terminals. Operation is not restricted to location. The ship’s task may be carried out anywhere on the surface of the seas: in harbors and ports, along the periphery or coastlines, and in the open ocean areas. The ship can go where she needs to go and be able to do what she is intended to do anywhere in the sea system.
These ship attributes are not the result of any 20th century technological development. Since man first put to sea in ships, his range has become global. Trans-ocean voyages are not a recent product of industrial progress; circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenicians is reported in the times of classical Greece, and Pacific and Atlantic crossings are a thousand years old.
The factors that make the relationship of the ship at sea what it is are fundamental and timeless. Man did not invent them. Man learned of them.
All modes of transport have capabilities and limitations, and for a valid comparison to be made, some reference point in time is needed—today is convenient.
The ship does not require a prepared path for transit; the number of courses and routes between any two points is infinite. On land, even a footpath requires some preparation and maintenance; wagons need roads and bridges. The more effective the vehicle, the greater the need for the prepared path and, consequently, the greater the restriction to the path. The classic result of this development is the railway, which is absolutely confined to its specialized, prepared path.
On land, the path of transit is limited by natural barriers of terrain and water.
Where the prepared pathway is required, the heavier and more sophisticated the vehicle, the greater are the demands on the path. The weight of the payload is carried in the vehicle, the weight of both are in turn carried by the path—the road and all necessary structures, such as bridges, buildings, ramps, and the like.
Movement on land surfaces requires vertical movement, uphill and down. Power is required to lift uphill. Power is dissipated in braking systems going downhill. Contrast the ship, afloat in the worldwide sea-level system.
But, what of air transport? The characteristics of air transport are great speed and unlimited range—the operating medium is above both land and water—100% of the earth’s surface.
The price paid for speed in the air is the requirement for power. The entire aircraft and contents, including payload, must be bodily lifted and carried in the air. Compared with other modes of transport this feat requires enormous power. Power takes fuel. Fuel is more weight, aggravating the problem.
Air travel is fast and expensive. Speed provides capability for high priority transport. The additional cost buys time—not additional transport.
Aircraft share with the ships the infinite choice of paths between points, but aircraft can also transit intervening land areas. While the paths are unlimited, the terminal points tend to be very definite. Aircraft operate from terminal facilities that tend generally to be fixed. Excepting for very specialized vehicles, the tendency parallels the need for paths by land vehicles. That is, as heavier and more sophisticated air vehicles are developed, the greater the requirement for terminal facilities from which to operate.
There are notable exceptions to fixed terminal facilities, particularly when air transport borrows from the sea. The seaplane can land nearly anywhere on water; facilities at the site are something else again. In special circumstances, the aircraft may take advantage of the ship’s capabilities and use the ship as the terminal facility—the aircraft carrier.
With this briefest background of the attributes of modes of transport, alternatives may be examined. The relationship between various modes and the vast array of different vehicles involves an extremely large number of variables. At the risk of oversimplification, a graphic display or spectrum may be constructed to demonstrate the relationship of a few, primary variables.
Let the left side tend toward the displacement vessel. The further left, the greater the gross vessel in proportion to her relative power requirement. Approaching the extreme limits would be the raft. Airborne vehicles appear at the right, with increased speed further to the right. At the extreme right is missile or projectile delivery.
There are gaps and overlaps, but this crude array is useful. It helps demonstrate that selection of a mode of transportation, or a vehicle within a mode, involves compromises among the variables of capacity, speed, and economy. The claims by the supporters of any one vehicle that it is the answer to all problems simply will not stand up. No vehicle covers the entire spectrum.
New and revolutionary things continue to appear—surface effect vehicles, hydrofoils, and helicopters are examples. New devices fill needs, and they fill gaps in the spectrum. But, while a new device may add a new capability, it does not obviate or displace an existing capability. The aircraft will do jobs that the ship is simply incapable of doing. It is equally true, that ships are capable of doing jobs that aircraft cannot do. In reality, the area of overlap wherein there is a reasonable choice of alternatives between air and sea transport is quite limited. Controversy regarding these alternatives frequently has been a great waste of time and effort because arguments considered only the matter of capabilities, and evaluation of capabilities without concurrent evaluation of limitations is meaningless.
Economy of operation. In any instance where ocean transport is a reasonable alternative, it is the least expensive. This is readily evident in the comparative cost of moving a few thousand tons from one place to another—using other means of transportation.
Sustained Delivery. This has two aspects; rate and capacity. Rate is defined as cargo movement—ton-miles, per-unit time. To develop this concept, it is useful to construct an example:
Assume two vehicles—
Ship | Payload | 12,000 tons |
| Speed | 25 miles per hour |
Aircraft | Payload | 100 tons |
| Speed | 1,000 miles per hour |
In one hour of elapsed time the aircraft moves 100,000 ton-miles of cargo. In the same hour the ship moves 300,000 ton-miles of cargo. The ship delivery rate is three times the aircraft delivery rate in ton-miles.
The immediate counterpoint involves the number of units and the cycle time, or number of round trips per unit. The aircraft will get there first. No contest. The aircraft is capable of more round trips per unit. However, this is not a race between units. The topic is sustained delivery.
Take a North Atlantic trade route. Assume a conservative five days of transit and five days in port at each end of the run. Four ships in operation will maintain a continuous cycle; a new ship with 12,000 tons every fifth day, 2,400 tons per day. Comparable air delivery would require a 100-ton payload arrival every hour.
Increase the number of ships and the commensurate numbers of aircraft. Operate like any major port in the world; there are simply not that many aircraft—nor the capability to handle that many aircraft, if there were.
High-speed deliveries of individual units of high priority cargo can best use air transport capabilities. A particular shipment may be accomplished best by air where minimum transit time for that shipment is the controlling factor. This cannot be extrapolated indefinitely beyond the point where capacity becomes the limiting, and therefore, the controlling factor.
In transport of significant quantity, where sea transport is an alternative, sea transport enables the highest sustained rate of delivery. The reason is capacity, not the transit speed of the individual vehicle.
Capacity is the ability to move quantity. For those who do not deal in like quantities, the order of magnitude of quantity in seaborne transport is difficult to comprehend. Assume a mid-1969 world merchant fleet of 19,415 ships of 189,480,000 gross tons. This number includes only the larger ships, 1,000 gross tons and larger. These ships move vast quantities of cargo.
In one recent year, U. S. ports moved 471 million tons of foreign commerce and 208 million tons of coastwise domestic shipping. A total of 679 million tons through the ports does not include another 655 million tons moved in Great Lakes and inland waterways.
The quantities involved—hundreds of millions of tons—challenge the imagination. It is helpful to compare with other yardsticks. Compared to this 471 million tons is the airborne foreign trade of 503.4 million pounds for the same period, or slightly more than ¼ million tons. Today, there are individual ships at sea capable of moving, in one trip, tonnage equivalent to the entire national annual airborne foreign trade.
Truly, this international trade is a vital part of national life. Four hundred seventy-one million tons is more than two tons of foreign trade per person for every man, woman, and child, in the United States.
For bulk delivery between land masses, then, sea transport is the only capability that has the capacity to carry the traffic. With the advent of large amounts of power in small packages, machinery was used as new forms of motive power on both land and sea, revolutionizing all existing forms of transportation. Rules of power use remain the same.
Further development of machinery enabled packaging of quantities of power required to generate the lift that made aircraft possible, and there was introduced a new mode of transport, with a new family of vehicles. Some attributes of that family have been examined.
The fact remains, however, that, in the history of the development and application of power to move mass in transit, whatever the form of power used, sea transport remains the most economical use of that power.
Every basic form of power that has ever been developed-muscle, wind, fossil fuel steam, internal combustion piston, gas turbine, nuclear fuel steam—has been successfully applied to ships at sea, and all are in use at sea today.
Historically, too, ships have been built of the widest range of materials, with every conceivable method of fabrication and fastening. On the one hand, ships are built out of whatever new materials and processes become available, and on the other hand, ships have been built, from necessity, with whatever materials were at hand.
Inherent limitations in operation of land and air vehicles have presented obstacles to the application of some materials and power plants. Not all have been used successfully on land or in the air. Ships, their construction and powering, are more adaptive to innovation.
What of the future? The major propulsion development being employed today, which will bear on transport in the near future, is nuclear power. Nuclear power has not yet been applied practically to land or air transport. One of the problems is the need for shielding. Shielding requires mass, which in turn means additional weight.
Nuclear reactor plants require a moderator. Among the most successful moderators is water. Water, too, is heavy, creating another weight problem. Water is plentiful at sea. The modern ship makes her own. Weight, a lesser problem at sea, becomes a greater problem on land, and greater yet in the air.
Most of the problems associated with nuclear plants seem to lend themselves to a more ready solution at sea. If nuclear power offers any relative advantage among the several modes of transport, it is clear that the advantage should be awarded to the ship.
In a very real sense, nuclear power at sea does not revolutionize anything. Nuclear propulsion restores to the ship the operating ranges that ships have always had, except for the historically very brief period when power was derived from fossil fuel.
With improved technology it is certain that changes and progress not even known today will bring further increases in capability to land, sea, and air transport. The only gauge of the future is the application and extension of what has been learned in the past.
The past has shown that whatever the technological developments to come, they will find their use in application at sea, and that whatever the power sources that may be devised and applied, they will be used most economically at sea.
Changes resulting from new developments alter the details of individual vehicles and their operation. Technological developments do not change the attributes of the transport systems. The characteristics of land, sea, and air transport systems depend on the functions of the vehicles and the media in which they operate. The fundamentals remain unchanged.
Of vital consideration in any analysis or plans for the future is the one consistent trend observed in men’s affairs. Throughout history, all aspects of organized civilization have been increasing in numbers or magnitude. Starting with the people themselves, population, then trade, produce and manufacturing, all are continuously increasing. There is no indication or reason to expect that these trends will not continue.
All these trends create a need for moving things from one place to another, a trend which is not only increasing, but also increasing at a compound rate. As a result, for all forms of transport, there is more to be moved. This increased traffic is met by increases in numbers of vehicles and increases in vehicle size.
► Trucks and Roads—The increases in sizes are limited by existing clearances and restrictions. An alternative is to increase clearances by replacing structures on limited routes, a big and expensive problem. Increased loadings increase burdens on existing highways. New highways are another big and expensive problem.
► Railroads—Severely restricted by clearances and loads, railroads are absolutely restricted by track gauge. Alternatives would require rebuilding the entire railway system, roadbed, railway, and rolling stock.
► Aircraft—Bigger and heavier aircraft require bigger and heavier runways. A new and bigger plane means fewer places it can go, or new facilities, or both.
► Ships—Ships float; this fact eases the problems and restrictions of size. Additional size means additional capacity; it also means additional weight. In other vehicles, additional weight requires additional support of the static weight of the vehicles and additional power to lift the weight when the vehicle is in motion. The sea is indifferent to the vehicle’s weight.
The sea can support a ship as large as man is able to build. The greater weight is still carried by displacement. As for any size, power is not required for lift. Peculiarly, the larger the ship, the less the amount of power required in proportion to size to achieve a given performance.
The practical limitations of ship size are the ability to develop structure. The seaway itself requires no modification. Ships have increased in size enormously in the last few hundred years, but they still use the same ports. Where any work at all is required to accommodate larger ships, it is limited to harbors and approaches. Harbor improvement is relatively simple and inexpensive and capable of further improvement in the future.
Nothing in this discussion has drawn any particular differentiation between military and commercial application of ships at sea. Where the terms seapower or maritime power are properly used, their full meaning embraces both merchant and naval shipping. In the context of transport modes and basic vehicles, there is no need to differentiate. The basic application in both the military and commercial spheres is the same. Transport moves things from one place to another. For the military, the “things” to be moved are weapons, personnel, and logistic support, and the capabilities and limitations of the vehicles operating in their respective media are the same. The relative advantages of ships apply alike to the military and to commercial use, for the ship is still a vehicle, and where weapons are borne and employed in the vehicle, the same rules of speed, economy, and capacity apply.
Other attributes of seaborne movement have particular military advantages. The sea provides 70% of the Earth’s surface for maneuvering room to those equipped and able to use it. Because the sea is a naturally interconnected system, no diplomatic footwork or permission is required for movement from any point to any other point.
Countries equipped to do so can carry their influence over 70% of the Earth. And, that is just to the shoreline. The range of influence, of course, can be extended beyond the shoreline. Only a simple exercise in geography and arithmetic is required to plot the range required to achieve a given percentage of coverage—right up to 100% of the Earth’s surface.
Of peculiar interest to the military are the physical properties of air and water. Air is quite permissive to transit by all sorts of missiles and weapons. Water is an effective shield. Air is nearly transparent to every known form of detection and observation. The sea is nearly opaque to every known form in the entire spectrum of energy propagation. Recent technological developments are moving in two directions simultaneously, further up in the air space and further down into the depths of the sea. Technological development continually enhances the advantages of operations at sea.
Parallels are easily drawn between military operations and commercial operations. The same sea may be considered as 70% of the Earth for commercial maneuvering room. For those equipped and able to use the sea, it is a highway to the rest of the world, for both the source and the market for materials and goods. To those who cannot use the sea, the commercial world is confined to their own small fragment of the remaining one-third of the world.
As long as men engage in trade and commerce, the greater part of goods and products will be carried by ships at sea. As long as men find it necessary to build and carry weapons, they will be carried and employed in ships at sea.
The sea is the dominant feature of the Earth and ships are its vehicles. In the United States, a nation of global commitments and global commerce, the sea is the dominant factor in our international life.
The preceding discussion was intended to make observations and state facts; then, having tested their veracity, to generalize on their application. A proper generalization is independent of particular circumstances or time. If there is merit in these generalizations, it should be constructive to apply them to:
Circumstances—the U. S. global military and commercial position, and time—the latter half of the 20th century.
What is the situation today? By any standard of measure the United States has the greatest global maritime commitments, naval and commercial, in the world today. The Communist nations, led by Russia, are making a determined and dramatic effort at sea, and they are achieving remarkable success in their efforts—with both merchant and naval vessels.
The U. S. Navy, in supporting the national requirements of global policy and commitments, operates a force that is steadily declining in numbers. At this writing, 50 naval ships are scheduled for deactivation as a forced economy measure. Men and equipment are operated at the limits of endurance, not in a short sprint surge effort, but as a continuing level and mode of operation. Major elements of the Fleet face block obsolescence. There are some successful efforts to recognize problems and effect remedies. To the objective observer, however, it is by no means certain that the U. S. Navy will not be eclipsed in number of units, effective age of units, and modernity of weaponry.
While the naval situation is presented with some regularity in both the popular and professional press, less popular concern is evidenced, and less professional notice is taken, of the commercial world at sea—this despite the fact that the vast bulk of the commercial trade in the world, almost the entire dollar volume of international trade, moves, at some point, by water.
Commercial effectiveness requires some degree of control, or at least assurance, of continued use and predictable costs of materials. Similarly, any business will shortly cease to function if a commodity vital to that business is either withdrawn from availability or priced so as to make continued operation economically impossible. In this sense, transportation is a commodity and is no exception to this limitation of use.
The United States is the biggest international trader in the world, importing and exporting the greatest volume of goods of any nation. Yet, this biggest of all the shippers has little or no direct control over the transportation used to move its goods. Variously quoted percentages indicate that less than one-tenth of the nation’s trade is now being carried in U. S. ships.
The cost of transportation determines the delivered cost of goods at a destination, and it does not appear rational to pursue deliberately a policy that will enable a competitor to determine the delivered cost of 90% of one’s trade.
The unhappy position of American merchant shipping can perhaps best be described by the observation that today, a reader of the PROCEEDINGS, in his middle forties, has witnessed in his adult life the decline of the U. S. merchant marine, from the largest and most modern in the world, to the status of a fifth-rate merchant fleet. He, the reader, may not have noticed, but it happened, and more depressing yet, American shipping falls further behind daily, in numbers of ships and capacity of ships and age of ships.
Consider a ranking of the ten largest merchant fleets, excluding the United States, with position determined by percentage of world gross tonnage (Source: U. S. Maritime Administration, as of 30 June 1969).
Nation | Number of Ships | Gross Tonnage (1,000s) | % of |
Liberia | 1,652 | 28,686 | 15.2 |
United Kingdom | 1,810 | 21,332 | 11.3 |
Japan | 1,843 | 20,347 | 10.7 |
Norway | 1,240 | 18,562 | 9.8 |
U.S.S.R. | 1,670 | 9,630 | 5.1 |
Greece | 1,059 | 8,828 | 4.7 |
West Germany | 915 | 6,517 | 3.4 |
Italy | 607 | 6,314 | 3.3 |
France | 473 | 5,489 | 2.9 |
Panama | 620 | 5,286 | 2.8 |
Now, where would the United States fit in? Figures that are usually quoted to show the good position of the nation are: 2,013 ships of 18,373,000 gross tons, or 9.7% of world shipping. This places the United States in serious contention with Norway for fourth place. Somehow, the purveyor of this particular set of numbers fails to mention that they include 878 ships of 6,307,000 gross tons in the government-owned reserve fleets. Elsewhere, the reader can find, too, that these ships are passing the point of total obsolescence and approaching physical disintegration.
Eliminating the reserve fleets, the figure for the U. S. merchant marine becomes 1,135 ships for 6.4% of the world’s fleet. This places the United States somewhere between Russia and Norway. However, 172 of these ships are government-owned or charter. Considering only the operating vessels in the merchant service, then, the U. S. merchant service sails 963 ships, 10,774,000 gross tons, or 5.7% of the world’s fleet. This places the United States just slightly ahead of Russia.
As dismal as such data may appear, the figures shown are static and refer to 1969. It grows worse every day.* The reader may note the significant gap between Russia and Norway. Among the major shipping nations, these might be termed the upper and lower divisions. All the major fleets in the world are on the increase, and the fastest growing merchant fleet of them all is Russia. The Russians are about to enter the upper division. The United States, by comparison, has the only declining merchant fleet. How could such a calamity occur?
To read the daily newspaper is to observe the complete national lack of comprehension of the significance of ships at sea. This lack of understanding has several facets which ultimately resolve themselves into two factors: first, misinformation—assertions not supported or supportable by facts of analysis; and, second, lack of information—just plain ignorance of details.
A portion of the problem here is superficial overfamiliarity with seaborne transportation. It has been around forever, it is old hat, it must be obsolete. If it is not nuclear, electronic or space age, it must be old-fashioned. And what of all the new wonder vehicles, each heralded as the product of a new breakthrough?
Understandably, perhaps, the press treatment of a new wonder vehicle encounters the high risk of slant where it is based on the press release material of the advocates of that particular vehicle. Typically, an article about say, a new surface effect vehicle will extol the virtues and unique capabilities of the vehicle. Little interest is expressed in the comparative capabilities and limitations of other vehicles. By some magic means the new vehicle becomes the answer to all problems everywhere. No attempt is made, for example, to analyze what might be involved when a one-ton payload vehicle would be asked to move a few hundred million tons of cargo.
Exaggeration? Hardly. Unfortunately, such coverage is not confined to the popular press, but is also found in professional and official publications. All vehicles have their capabilities and limitations which establish their place in the total vehicle spectrum—capacity, speed, and economy compromise. The advocate of capabilities who fails to consider limitations is at best uninformed, and, when so acting in an official capacity, is irresponsible as well.
This lack of information—or acceptance of misinformation—results in the expression of some ideas that seem quite remarkable in the face of pertinent, observable facts. For example: Why, some ask, should we worry about the merchant marine when we have all we need? Such a question ignores the continuing decline of a merchant marine carrying a declining part of our trade.
Why, others wonder, should we bother with conventional ships when the ships of the future—if we are to believe the plethora of artists’ renderings—are to be hydrofoil ships the size of transatlantic liners? Such a question betrays an obvious lack of understanding of fundamentals.
But, it is argued, we can pull in our horns and get along without the rest of the world. This attitude ignores the fact that the United States has changed from a “have” country to a “have-not” country, with ever-increasing dependence on importation of raw materials.
We can always rely, the naive among us persist, on cheaper foreign flag charters to move our vital supplies. Yet, even as this is being said, our military cargoes sit idle on the pier because foreign flag crews refuse to load or carry them.
Finally, there are those who say that subsidy is unAmerican, and besides, we can’t afford it. UnAmerican? The very food we eat is part of the most massive subsidy program of them all. The entire Federal appropriation for Maritime Administration construction subsidy, operation subsidy, research and development, field inspection, and operation of MarAd offices, is less than the payment of rental for space to store surplus subsidized grain.
Admittedly, subsidies are no panacea, and government participation is a large and involved topic. Some perspective is required, however, for billions are appropriated for this or that program without the public’s batting an eye. The relatively modest appropriation for the Maritime Administration causes great fiscal hue and cry, and as a result, the maritime policy of the United States is no policy at all.
* See Notebook, p. 109, this issue.
What can be done? By whom?
The maritime posture of the United States is determined by the federal government as a direct matter of policy and federal implementation and indirectly by the national economic and legal climate which is made favorable or unfavorable to maritime affairs. The determinations of the federal government are made by elected and appointed officials whose actions are ultimately responsive to the nation at large.
The majority of people may never even see the sea. Many of those who do may see it only from the shore. Few, except the seafarer, the ship operator, and the professionals, can observe the meaning of ships at sea. It is the responsibility of those who do understand—the naval establishment and marine industry—to share their knowledge effectively.
It is not enough that professionals write to each other in the professional press. Insofar as the national maritime dilemma has its roots in misinformation and lack of information, the solution is to be found in information-truthful, credible, emphatic, and abundant. The writer suggests a massive continuing program of public information—institutional advertising as it were—on a comprehensive scale.
The Navy does have support from organizations such as the Navy League. The Navy has some degree of public information coverage.
But if the Navy presentation to the nationwide public may be limited, the merchant marine’s presence is almost nonexistent. The two images—naval and commercial—are really one in the full context of a maritime nation. It is, necessary to reach out through all media—television, motion pictures, publishing, periodicals, education, public, professional, and fraternal groups. Not a one-shot proposition; what is needed is a maritime awareness as a part of the national life.
Propaganda? Fabrication is folly, and fabrication will always be a loser in the long run.
The facts are there; solid information is abundant. The United States is a maritime nation. The national economy is a maritime economy. There is a great national heritage of the sea. The U. S. flag ship at sea today is vital to every man, woman, and child in the land, it remains for those who know to share these facts. Then the man who may never see a ship, the sea, or even the shore, will nevertheless understand how important the sea and ships are to him. He can be aware and proud of his country at sea. He will know that his way of life, his material possessions, the price of buying and selling goods in the market, his livelihood—all the facets of his economic life—are dependent on the sailing of ships at sea. When he knows these things, he will not be responsive merely to maritime needs, he will demand and get a meaningful, flourishing maritime policy from his government.
These are the fundamentals of our maritime life. National understanding is vital to the survival of our national maritime life.
__________
Following service as an enlisted man in the U. S. Army, Mr. Nichols graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949 and, upon graduation, was commissioned in the U. S. Naval Reserve. He served in the USS Wiseman (DE-667) and in the Samuel N. Moore (DD-747) from 1950 through 1953. From 1958 until 1969, he was employed by National Steel and Shipbuilding, San Diego, California. He is now employed by Litton Ship Systems, Litton Ship Technology.
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“All our goals will not be accomplished overnight. Restoring the U. S. to the role of a first rate maritime power requires the cooperation of management, labor, local port authorities, and government. . . . The old ways have failed, to the detriment of the seamen, the businessmen, the balance of payments and the national defense. The time has come for new departures, new solutions and new vitality for American ships and American crews on the high seas of the world.”
Richard Nixon
25 September 1968