Senator HOLLINGS. There is no international law actually governing this particular disposition?

Mr. RHINELANDER. No, sir, there is no law.

Senator HOLLINGS. What international designation has been given this area? There has been previous testimony that it has been designated as a munitions or dumping ground. It is suggested perhaps it is mainly only for mustard gas and that no inquiry or designation has been made for other things.

Am I incorrect, do you have the correct designation? What body designates, if at all?

Mr. RHINELANDER. I have a navigation chart in front of me, Mr. Chairman. In the chart there is a circle in here and it is labeled, "Ammunition, explosives dumping area.

Senator HOLLINGS. That chart was by whom?

Mr. RHINELANDER. It is a U.S. chart issued by the Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Senator HOLLINGS. So the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Department of Commerce, is designated as the one to designate this as a dumping ground pursuant to what authority?

Mr. RHINELANDER. It is designated by the Oceanographer of the Navy as a dumping ground. Notice is given, formal notice, and it is recorded on navigational charts as a dumping ground.

Senator HOLLINGS. How long has it been so designated, do you know?

Mr. RHINELANDER. I believe since the late forties.

Senator HOLLINGS. Late 1940. Has it ever been used for nerve gas dumping before?

Mr. RHINELANDER. No, sir; not to my knowledge.
Senator HOLLINGS. Senator Cook?

Senator Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rhinelander, your second to the last paragraph says that based on the information developed regarding the probable effects of the ocean dump and the findings of the Surgeon General and the Department of the Interior, the acting Secretary of State, "We decided that the findings were all right and based on theirs we decided to go along."

Mr. RHINELANDER. I think anytime you give a legal opinion you have to base it on information available to you.

Senator Cook. No. 1, I don't think there is any legal significance either in the report of the Department of the Interior or in the findings of the Surgeon General. We are talking about legal opinions now as opposed to opinions as to whether there is or is not any objection as to this procedure.

I think we have to make that distinction. Were there any efforts other than to sit down with the Department of Defense and with the experts and discuss with them in detail on the possible impact of this? I assume from your second to the last paragraph that you merely took the written findings of the Surgeon General and of the Department of the Interior and went no further.

For instance, would it have disturbed you to know that all of the bases of the Department of the Interior's knowledge of the ocean bottom at this location was based on a survey that was taken during a 7-day period in July?

Mr. RHINELANDER. Well

Senator Cook. I have never known a treaty to come out of the State Department in 7 days. I wonder if you felt whether the Acting Secretary really went into detail to find out how much had been done?

For instance, did the Acting Secretary at the time this was agreed to, know that the previous dumpings had taken place off New Jersey, that the vessels that had been sunk, that they cannot even find them? Was he aware of that fact?

Mr. RHINELANDER. I can't tell you as to what

Senator COOK. I see.

Mr. RHINELANDER. I can assure you in the Department we were aware of that.

Senator COOK. You were aware of that?

Mr. RHINELANDER. Yes, sir.

Senator Cook. And you discussed this at the time?

If you did discuss all these things, did you find them completely compatible with a decision to take over 12,000 unstable rockets and authorize their disposal in the ocean 280-some odd miles off the coast of Florida, or 190-some odd miles from the Bahama Islands?

Mr. RHINELANDER. Senator Cook, let me note that with respect to the international law in question, we are dealing with a standard of reasonable regard.

As I indicated in my prepared statement there is no codified international law which prohibits or specifically limits dumping waste materials in the ocean.

Senator Cook. But now wait, you went further than that. Because you did not confine it merely to that portion of the statute that says that you have to determine whether there is a violation of international law.

Because you say in the paragraph on the top of the page:

The disposal plan formulated by the Department of the Army was carefully reviewed within the Department of State, including the possible effects of the ocean dump on fishing, navigation, severing cables, pipelines, exploitation of the resources of the sea bed and other uses of the sea.

Now we are not just talking about your responsibility to notify other nations in regard to international law because you say yourself that you went further than this.

Mr. RHINELANDER. Perhaps I can explain that paragraph a little further, Senator. Article 2 of the Highs Seas Convention speaks of freedom of the high seas. There are four enumerated freedoms in this article. They are freedom of navigation, freedom of fishing, freedom to lay submarine cables and pipelines and the freedom to fly over the high seas. These are the four enumerated freedoms.

Senator Cook. All right, if those are things enumerated in the section, you did no more than to take the written findings of the Surgeon General and the Department of the Interior, and yet in regard to the impact of the proposed dump or the use of the seas by other States, the only people that you talked with were the people of the Defense Department; is that correct?

Mr. RHINELANDER. The only person-excuse me, I did not hear the last part of your question.

Senator Cook. You took the written report of the Surgeon General and the Department of Interior on their face, as I take it from your statement, but the only people that you had any serious questioning with was the Department of Defense; is that correct?

Mr. POLLACK. The principal discussion by the Department of State with respect to the substance of the studies was with the Department of Defense and the Department of Interior and some other private individuals knowledgeable in this area. Some of the men who served on the NAS Committee that was alluded to in the previous testimony.

Senator Cook. Who were these men that you talked to?

Mr. POLLACK. One was Mr. Kistiakowsky, on several occasions. Senator Cook. All right. If you talked to Mr. Kistiakowsky did you

Mr. POLLACK. This was some time back.

Senator Cook. He was short of being vehement about this, wasn't he, and he still is?

Mr. POLLACK. I think that all of the people who have examined this question have been very much troubled by the dimensions of the problem and by these live rockets with nerve gas warheads that are encased in concrete. I think we have all been concerned about this for some time. There is no question about that whatsoever.

Senator Cook. Well, I must say I think we all are concerned, but it took the departments of the Government an awful short period of time to agree to it.

If you want to enlarge on that remark you certainly may, but you state the Department of Public Health had about 2 weeks, and your schedule was a pretty short one.

You were advised of this on June 23. So you did not have very much time to really study this matter.

Mr. Chairman?

Senator HOLLINGS. Do you have something to add, Mr. Pollack? Mr. POLLACK. I think I would only add that I think the time pressures on this were determined in good part by the advice of the Gross committee that subsequent to August 1, the hazard of leaving these rockets in their present location became unacceptable.

Senator Cook. May I say in all fairness you are putting an onus on the Gross report and it is unfair to do so because I think it has got to be established and laid right at the door of the military itself. The military was aware of this problem in 1968 and 1969. This is when they were encasing them in concrete instead of detoxifying these as they have done on many, many other occasions.

As a matter of fact it was the military that asked for this report when they knew that they were living with an unstable condition. I do not feel that it is an outside agency that is to blame.

Senator HOLLINGS. Mr. Pollack, did you have occasion to question that August 1 date set by the military?

Mr. POLLACK. I have spoken to one or two men about this subject. I do not know that I had spoken to anyone who considers himself a qualified munitions expert which is a highly specialized field, but the information that was supplied to me led me to the conclusion that there was no basis upon which the State Department could take the responsibility to challenge that date.

Senator HOLLINGS. Did they tell you in that inquiry of any testing made of the propellant with the GB or nerve gas itself?

Mr. POLLACK. To the extent that that kind of testing occurred I think that was subsequent to the time of our inquiry. That was reported in the second Gross report.

Senator HOLLINGS. What information was furnished you as to how they arrived on August 1, the date which you said you were not in a position to question?

How did they tell you that they arrived at that date?

Mr. POLLACK. My understanding, sir, is that essentially this is the outcome of years of experience in dealing with munitions and munitions that age. There is no way, as this was put forward to me, that you could establish a date in a demonstrable manner, that is where you could conduct one and then another experiment and come out with an identical conclusion.

This is a conservative date and in dealing with human lives I understand it is sensible to be conservative, a conservative date beyond which this material should not be left in its present condition, was August 1.

August 1 is the date that was difficult to challenge on a technical or other ground.

Senator HOLLINGS. Do you have anything further, Mr. Rhinelander?

Mr. RHINELANDER. No, sir.

Senator HOLLINGS. We appreciate very much your appearance here this afternoon.

We will next hear from Dr. Martin A. Paul of the National Research Council, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, National Academy of Sciences.

STATEMENT OF MARTIN A. PAUL, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY AND CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Dr. PAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HOLLINGS. Dr. Paul, we are glad to have you.

Dr. PAUL. Senator Hollings, distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Oceanography, Senate Commerce Committee; I was staff director last year of the National Academy of Sciences' Report of the Disposal Hazards of Certain Chemical Warfare Agents and Munitions.

As you know, the National Academy of Sciences is not an agency of the Federal Government but is a private organization having as one of its primary functions, whenever called upon by any department of the Government, to investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art, the actual expense of such investigations, examinations, experiments, and reports to be paid from appropriations which may be made for the purpose, but the Academy shall receive no compensation whatever for any services to the Government of the United States.

I think you can tell by the language that I just stated that this is from the act of Congress that incorporated the Academy in 1863.

In May 1969, the Academy was requested by the Department of Defense for an assessment of hazards involved in the execution of "Operation CHASE" and alternate plans for the disposal of certain surplus chemical warfare stocks of the U.S. Army.

An ad hoc committee of distinguished scientists and engineers was convened for the purpose by the president of the National Academy of Sciences, under the chairmanship of Prof. George B. Kistiakowsky

of Harvard University, vice president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Because of the request from DOD for an early response, the committee did not conduct an exhaustive study of all alternatives and factors involved.

It did conduct an intensive study, and delivered a report to DOD on June 25, 1969, in which disposal hazards were discussed and recommendations made for each of the five distinguishable categories of materials involved.

The committee was thereafter discharged.

I am therefore not now in any sense speaking on behalf of the ad hoc committee, nor of any of its individual members, but wish to state what the Academy's role has been in this matter before you.

The Academy has taken no part in the deliberations of the Gross committee, which was established by the Army pursuant to a recommendation of the Academy committee for further study specifically of the problem of disposing of one category of the materials, the socalled "coffins" containing unserviceable M55 rockets distributed in solid blocks of concrete.

The Academy committee recommended that the Army convene a group of technically qualified individuals, including demolition. experts, to consider whether a practically feasible way could be devised to dispose of these "coffins" on an Army establishment, and failing that, two alternative sites for disposal at sea were recommended for the Army's consideration.

We understand that other recommendations of the Academy committee relating to disposal of much larger quantities of surplus, unserviceable materials, including the M-34 clusters of bomblets containing "nerve gas" in storage at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and mustard in storage at Rocky Mountain Arsenal and elsewhere, have been followed, but the Academy has not been involved in the implementation of these recommendations nor indeed does it have that kind of responsibility.

The Academy does stand back of the recommendations contained in its own committee's report as the considered advice of the best representative and disinterested group of scientists and engineers it could assemble.

That concludes my statement, sir.

Senator HOLLINGS. So Dr. Paul, your first recommendation was to dispose of this dangerous substance at an Army establishment on land. Is that right?

Dr. PAUL. Yes, sir.

Senator HOLLINGS. Did you have an occasion to study the Department of the Interior letter of June 24, the report of the working committee as described by Mr. Meacham of the Department of the Interior?

Dr. PAUL. No; that was not transmitted to the committee. There was no reason for it to be.

Senator HOLLINGS. Independent of that, has the National Academy made its own judgment that to dispose of this material would be best done at an Army establishment on land, and barring that, then into the sea?

Dr. PAUL. Yes; that is correct.