Other mutual assistance provisions enable or require agencies to produce or procure goods or services for other agencies under certain conditions. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act required the Corporation, upon the requisition of the Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy to manufacture for and sell at cost to the United States explosives or their nitrogenous content. Upon the requisition of the Secretary of War the Corporation was to allot and deliver without charge to the War Department whatever power was necessary in the judgment of the Department for use in operation of all locks, lifts, and other facilities in aid of navigation.[708] The Helium Gas Act of 1937 permitted the Army, Navy, and other government agencies to requisition helium from the Bureau of Mines, which agency was charged with responsibility for the production of helium.[709]
The Maritime Commission was assigned responsibility, in July, 1941, for meeting the shipping needs of defense agencies.[710] The Secretary of the Air Force was directed to make available to the Civil Air Patrol by gift or by loan, sale or otherwise, with or without charge, obsolete or surplus aircraft and aircraft parts to permit utilization of facilities of the Air Force, and to furnish to Civil Air Patrol the fuel needed to enable it to complete any specifically assigned mission.[711]
CO-ORDINATION
If co-operation involves working together, co-ordination is the process whereby things are placed in position relative to each other and to the system of which they form parts. Administrators may work together, or co-operate, toward the end of co-ordinating their programs. But joint decision-making, or co-operative programming are vitally, if subtly, different from the co-ordination of programs. In the first place, joint decision-making or co-operation have the purpose of focusing the judgment and resources of many agencies upon the execution of one program, whereas co-ordination involves the relating of many similar, or possibly diverse, programs. Secondly, to indulge a tautology, joint-decision-making and co-operation (as provided for in the statutes just reviewed) involve a positive, creative elaboration and execution of programs, whereas co-ordination consists of minimizing conflict of purpose among two or more programs.
The Commissioners of the District of Columbia were authorized in August, 1950, to set up an Office of Civil Defense for the District, which office would, among other things, plan for integration of the District’s civil defense effort with that of the federal government and nearby states, and co-operate with governmental and nongovernmental agencies and co-ordinate the activities within the district.[712] The National Science Foundation’s functions include that of correlating its scientific research programs with those undertaken by individuals and by public and private research groups.[713] The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 authorized the Commissioner of Immigration and the administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs of the Department of State to maintain direct and continuous liaison with the Directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency and with other internal security officers of the Government for the purpose of obtaining and exchanging information for use in enforcing the provisions of this Act in the interest of the internal security of the United States. The Commissioner and the administrator are to maintain direct and continuous liaison with each other with a view to a co-ordinated, uniform, and efficient administration of this law, and all other immigration and nationality laws.[714]
There were some statutes with regard to which it is difficult, if not impossible, upon the basis of reading alone, to determine whether the purpose was to bring the facilities of many agencies to bear upon the administration of one program, or to enhance the prospect that the program would be administered in a manner consistent with the objectives of other related programs. A study of the legislative history and the administration of these provisions would probably disclose that the legislative intent was mixed, or that in the process of administration both objectives were joined.
We might include within this category the Neutrality Act of 1935 which set up the National Munitions Control Board, to be composed of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, and Navy. The Board, acting largely through the Secretary of State, was the agency for execution of the neutrality program.[715] The Contract Settlement Act of 1944 set up an Office of Contract Settlement, headed by a Director, and a Contract Settlement Advisory Board, with which the Director was required to advise and consult. The Board was composed of the Director, the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Treasury, the Chairman of the Maritime Commission, the Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Chairman of the War Production Board, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, and the Attorney General.[716] Any of these officials might appoint representatives.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 contained provision for a Military Liaison Committee.[717] The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, created to supervise the scientific study of the problems of flight, under a 1948 statute, was to be composed of not more than seventeen members appointed by the President including two representatives of the Department of the Air Force; two of the Department of the Navy, from the office in charge of naval aeronautics, two of the Civil Aeronautics Authority; one of the Smithsonian Institute; one of the United States Weather Bureau; one of the National Bureau of Standards; the Chairman of the Research and Development Board of the National Military Establishment; and others.[718]
Are these representative of congressional efforts to organize co-operation, or to organize co-ordination? We think the latter, although it is clear that reasonable men could differ, and a careful legislative history might prove us wrong.