up of the Empire, wherever there was maritime law capable of enforcement, through the Dark Ages until the rise of the great maritime nations and the revival of extensive maritime commerce which preceded and gave body to the Italian Renaissance. During this disturbed and exceedingly active time Venice laid claim. to, and enforced by strength of arms, ownership of the Adriatic. Genoa attempted to do likewise with respect to the Ligurian Sea. Denmark and Sweden, sometimes under one king, sometimes as two antagonistic kingdoms, claimed the Baltic, and by fortifying both sides of the narrow Belt Sea did two things: Levied tribute on all traffic into and out of the Baltic, and laid the basis for the 3-mile doctrine by guarding these narrow straits with a cannon which purportedly could shoot for 3 marine miles and command the sea within that radius. England, France, and even Holland made extravagant claims to ownership of large areas of sea off their coasts. This new closed sea (mare clausum) concept reached its apogee in the Treaty of Tordesilla in 1494, under which Spain and Portugal undertook to divide the oceans and territories of the newly discovered non-European world between them. Spain took dominion over, and exclusive rights to navigate, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Western Atlantic. Portugal got the Atlantic south of Morocco and the Indian Ocean. The only trouble with this mare clausum concept was that it didn't work. It had to be maintained by force; it interfered with the free flow of commerce, and commerce was growing to a size where it could not be restrained from flowing. The concept did not give room for the rise of new maritime powers, and new maritime powers grew nevertheless. Before the ink was well dried on the Iberian decrees England and Holland were at sea in force equal to that of Spain and Portugal or growing in that direction. Under the first Elizabeth, Cavendish, Drake and the other famous captains harried the Spanish to distraction, traded with whom they liked wherever located, and finally broke forever the back of Spanish maritime strength by the destruction of the Spanish Armada. Even during this time, however, England, while forging the concept of freedom of the seas, claimed dominion and sovereignty over the Atlantic from northern Spain to Norway and parts of the North Sea, although Holland never ceased to challenge most of these claims and sometimes successfully. Almost immediately that England had broken the maritime power of Spain the industrial revolution began in England bringing with it during the 18th century two things: (1) Such a flow of manufactured goods and need for raw materials that ocean commerce received a boom which has not yet relapsed. Only the highways of the sea were broad enough to carry raw materials to the machine's maw, and distribute the finished goods to markets overseas. The necessity for freedom to exchange goods forced the adoption of the freedom of the seas concept. (2) The financial strength to build a British navy which could enforce the new doctrine. Lord Nelson during the Napoleonic Wars, by breaking the back of French seapower, finally clinched the day for the supremacy of Britain's rule of the sea and the doctrine of the freedom of the sea. As an extra fillip he sailed his fleet past the famous 3-mile cannons of Konigsberg Castle to capture Copenhagen without being hit once, thus proving that those arbiters of the modern breadth of the territorial sea never could command 3 miles of sea against a resolute captain. FROM THE NAPOLEONIC WARS TO THE END OF WORLD WAR II Between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the end of World War II neither the British Navy nor the doctrine of the freedom of the seas were successfully challenged more than locally and temporar ily. As manufacturing spread to New England, to the Continent, then to the Orient, the same necessity for raw materials and overseas markets drove each new manufacturing country to desire freedom of the seas for commerce and to build navies which joined the British Navy in stamping out piracy and guarding the free flow of goods. During the preceding period fisheries had played an important part in the formation of the doctrine of the freedom of the seas. The burgeoning human population of Western Europe and England brought by the industrial revolution outgrew the protein food supply which the available land could supply, a situation that was not to be corrected until the great plains of the United States and the Argentine Pampas began to pour forth excess meat in the mid and latter 19th century. The great fisheries of the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Bay of Biscay and the Grand Banks were developed to fill this need for protein food before medical science had developed to the point where it knew what a protein was or that man could starve to death amid abundance of carbohydrates if he did not have protein in his diet to aid in their assimilation. This drive for control of seafood sources led to intense, if local naval wars and campaigns, especially in the North Sea, and especially between Holland and England. In the New World the New Eng landers joined wholeheartedly with England's wars against France in order to gain better control over and access to the fisheries of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, and the adjacent banks, and never forgave England for ceding these hard-won territories back to France at the end of the French-Indian wars. The policy of the newly freed and consolidated United States was almost immediately alined with the policy of the freedom of the seas and the 3-mile belt of territorial sea in the letter from Thomas Jeffer son, first Secretary of State, to the Honorable George Hammond, British Minister to the United States (appendix 4), by the war against the Barbary pirates, and by the War of 1812. In the 100-year peace after the end of the Napoleanic Wars the final details of the doctrine of the freedom of the seas, both for com merce and fishing, was hammered out in the great fishery arbitration 2 over Bering Sea fishing and sealing rights and 1 over the fishing rights off eastern Canada and Newfoundland, all of which the United States participated in. During this period, also, numerous treaties concerning fishing rights in the North Sea, the North Atlantic, and the Bering Sea were concluded among nations. Although it can never be said that all nations were ever in agree ment on all phases of international law applying to the regime of the high seas or the territorial sea, by the time of the outbreak of World War II the following views were solidly held and enforced by those nations carrying 80 percent of the world's sea commerce and controlling all seas: (1) The belt of territorial sea pertaining to each riparian state was 3 marine miles in breadth measured from the low-tide mark and within this belt peaceful commerce of all nations not at war had right of refuge in distress (force majeure) and the right of innocent passage. (2) The remainder of the oceans of the world were high seas and open to passage by all without hindrance or payment of tribute to anyone. (3) The resources of the high seas were the property of no one until caught, and became the property of the one who first reduced them to his possession. While there was not complete uniformity among the family of nations in their views on the breadth of the territorial sea, only Soviet Russia claimed as much as 12 miles and besides the 3-mile countries there were a few that claimed 6 miles. All were in agreement that the belt of territorial sea should at least be narrow, and the rest of the ocean free to all. BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS Prior to the 20th century the resources of the sea, generally and specifically, were considered to be inexhaustible. If anyone considered otherwise it was at least little mentioned and no proof to the contrary was adduced. True, the great fisheries of Northern Europe waxed and waned and caused the initiation, abandonment or shifting of towns of considerable size as they did so, as well as the shifting of important trade routes and international political forces. But these shifts in the yield of food from the sea were taken as the manifestation of an inscrutable Providence and there could not be seen to be any relationship between the abundance of cod or herring in the sea and the activities of man in harvesting those resources. During the last half of the 19th century, however, the seed of the great American conservation move had been planted and was thriving. The passenger pigeon whose vast flocks had darkened the Midwest sun at midday had disappeared to a bird. The buffalo whose herds of incalculable numbers had made the whole midcontinent tremble with the thunder of their hooves had shrunk to a few animals in haunts isolated from man. Obviously man could by his activities influence the abundance of wild animals. The result was the growth of the wildlife conservation move which was conducted with almost religious fervor during the term of the first Roosevelt, and which still thrives. During the latter quarter of the 19th century the great Norwegian scientist, Sars, began to seriously investigate the causes of fluctuating abundance of food from the sea, and his findings stimulated the growth of the marine sciences not only in his country and in the other maritime nations of Europe, but also in America. As early as the first decade of the 20th century the Russian, Baranov, had set out the mathematical theory of how and under what conditions and with what effect a fishery could affect the abundance of fish in the sea. During the same period of time there had been growing up a maritime conservation problem of such dimension that it could not escape notice. The fur seals of the world were being hunted out of existence. In the Southern Hemisphere they were either eliminated or hunted down to commercially valueless remnants rather quickly. The process was being repeated in the North Pacific with insistence and efficiency by sealers from the United States, England, Russia, and Japan. The competition among the sealers was savage as the herds shrunk and not only was the resource vanishing but the four nations involved 50291-54-3 Senator MAGNUSON. Now, you accumulate all that which you can use, some of it formal, some informal, but it is all out in the open and can be used. Then if you want further information, say a similar case exists, do you go to the FBI in every instance Mr. DOERFER. No. Senator MAGNUSON. Or do you just pick out certain cases that you think should be-I am just trying to get the procedure now. Mr. DOERFER. Well, as I understand the procedure I have only been there a year, and we have 700 people here in Washington. As I understand it, when information comes in about a prior licensee that is given to the department that has to do with-I forget the title of it, but investigation is made and the staff presents it to us and asks for instructions and authority to investigate if it requires travel, and we generally Senator MAGNUSON. And you do that on your own and the staff comes back and reports to you Mr. DOERFER. That is right. Senator MAGNUSON. And as I understand it, you evaluate that; you may not necessarily agree with the conclusion of the staff on some of the facts, but you evaluate that? Mr. DOERFER. That is right. Senator MAGNUSON. But the point I am trying to get at, it seems to me when you go further and ask the FBI that you sort of handicap the fellow that the person has accused, and yourself, because of necessity the FBI must keep what they give to you secret or confidential. Mr. DOERFER. Well, the FBI can disclose it to us because we are all cleared for security information. Senator MAGNUSON. Well, I don't mean necessarily security information, but about a man's character. Mr. DOERFER. They do not evaluate testimony Senator MAGNUSON. I know the FBI reports very well. Mr. DOERFER. They just summarize what they have got and Senator MAGNUSON. They take what somebody told them and summarize what somebody told them and come to a conclusion? Mr. DOERFER. That is not as I understand it—not what somebody told them, but what they have concluded is a reliable witness. Senator MAGNUSON. That is true, and sometimes an FBI report will say "a witness not too reliable." Mr. DOERFER. Well, I haven't seen that. Senator MAGNUSON. They put that down so that you or whoever gets it may evaluate it fairly. Mr. DOERFER. I think what the caption is, is "of proven reliability” or "apparently a reliable witness." I haven't seen the other types. Senator MAGNUSON. Because it seems to me when you leave the matter of security, when you leave that and you are talking about general subjects, a man's character, or this and that, that you ought to have that should be done by the Commission itself so it is free and open; you know what to do about it and a man can answer it. Now, wouldn't you agree on that? Mr. DOERFER. I would agree on that. Senator MONRONEY. What was the date of the FBI full field investigation? I presume that is what we are talking about here. Mr. DOERFER. The report I got is dated the early part of October Senator MONRONEY. And when was it asked for? Mr. DOERFER. Yes. I might indicate, Senator, that there had been a previous FBI report submitted to the Commission but it did not contain the information that we got on October 4, that is, all of it. The information which is in the file-and I am presuming that that is open-is a list of the various organizations that Mr. Lamb belonged to, or allegedly belonged to-excuse me; will you correct that? Senator POTTER. One was a name check and the other was a full field investigation? Mr. DOERFER. Something, but apparently the information they had had gone back quite a time, and apparently the FBI did not furnish the Commission with the information that they had in 1948. Now, that-I hope that you understand that is a statement of mine. It looks to me as though they had that information and it hadn't been submitted. Now, what the reasons were Senator POTTER. Maybe the request had been just for the list of the organizations that he belonged to. Mr. DOERFER. Yes. Senator MAGNUSON. Well, Mr. Doerfer, there is no reason for the Commission to go to the FBI in any case except on the basis that we have set up which this committee knows about. Radio operators or television operators or those dealing in communications would be a vital part of our Nation's security if something happened. Mr. DOERFER. Very vital. Senator MAGNUSON. If that factor weren't involved there would be no reason for you on an applicant to go to the FBI, would there Mr. DOERFER. No. Senator MAGNUSON. Except to run down documents or questions of crime convictions or something of that kind? Mr. DOERFER. I assume if I were an investigator on the staff I would check the judgment roll in the various courts and go to the police department. Senator MAGNUSON. Well, the FBI is a medium to do that very quickly and efficiently for you. Mr. DOERFER. Yes. Senator MAGNUSON. Now, one more question and I will be through. Did you ever discuss this Lamb case with anyone on the outside, other than the Commission and the staff and maybe the newspaper people that have asked you? Mr. DOERFER. I have not to any great extent. The discussion about the Lamb case has always been by somebody talking to me about it, which hasn't been too numerous, but occasionally. I have always fenced that questioning, and within the realm of trying to be polite, I would discuss it very generally, oh, something to the effect "I see that you and Lamb are going to tangle," or something like that, and I would say, "Well, I don't know whether we are going to tangle or not," and it was that type of thing. Senator MAGNUSON. Well, naturally you would discuss it with the Commission and the staff and what newspaper people have asked you, and with Mr. Lamp or his attorneys or people involved in his organization? Mr. DOERFER. Oh, yes. 488:9-54-8 |