OF SHIPS AND BUTTER

each of us in our everyday lives has a job to do the job of a sailor is to sail a ship every day in ports at home and imports around the world our Navy ships get underway and for the man of the sea no matter how many times he has done it before there's always that tinge of excitement on lifting anchor or leaving a dark on becoming a moving part of a busy port so it has been since men first ventured upon the sea sea ports are safe haven or points of departure with ships of every reagan description water the sounds and the motion the docks the piers the gangways and the lines all within the confining Harbor walls but these clean gray hulls are fitted for deep blue water they were made to take our country's flag wherever it is needed on this earth and as for our Navy and its men even though they may not stop to think about it the work they do has a broader meaning than the sailing of ships that were designed to fight for the truth of the matter is that our Navy pays us many extra dividends large and small all the time we Americans spend more than 20 billion dollars a year for our Navy we think of this Navy as a fighting force defending our shores protecting United States interests abroad and projecting our policies abroad and in wartime denying the Seas to an enemy but we get much more than military and naval power for our money the twenty billion dollars spent to operate and maintain an effective naval force returns to us several times over in direct and indirect benefits which affect our daily lives even into our living rooms and kitchens yet we seldom think of this spinoff when we tally the costs of Naval Operations a great fighting Navy costs a lot of money so does butter and there may be a closer relationship than you think between your Navy and the butter on your table merchant ships sail the seas to bring us much of what we need to live and to carry around the world the products we make that help us by those things we need most of the things we need and the things we sell to others move across the commercial sea lanes of our busy world if we think about it at all it probably is in terms of the romance of the sea bright pennants in a sunlit breeze of ships cargo Laden & Tall Ships a journey's end from some faraway place and the men who command at sea it is so easy to forget that each ton lifted across the oceans is a brick in the foundation of our national economy that each container holds an essential part of that prosperity at home we have almost come to take for granted our strong Navy assures freedom on the sea lanes one of the things our 20 billion dollar investment in the Navy does for us is to provide a capability to protect our multi billion dollar export-import trade if that kind of protection ever becomes necessary the import side of this trade is most significant it boils down to this without it we would not have the life we know our highly developed technological and consumer society could not survive for when it comes to certain essential raw materials whether we like it or not we are a have-not nation we have built in our country that greatest capability the world has ever seen for the manufacture and fabrication of useful products but the appetite of our factories and industrial plants for raw materials is enormous and the hunger for raw materials grows as technology and consumer demands keep creating new products and new processes the time is long since passed when that part of North America which is the United States contained the greater portion of all those natural resources required for our growing industry and our economic health for a long time the flow of materials and primary resources coming into our country has been the difference between a limping national industry and a great one to sustain our world and the security and relative prosperity with which all Americans live we do not have enough and must import iron or tin mica copper manganese tungsten rubber sugar fibers asbestos bauxite chrome I we also must bring in for American industry petroleum cobalt nickel columbite zinc thorium zircon tantalite uranium antimony barrel in one way or another these materials elements and ores are necessary to all of us most critical of these raw materials we import our elements used in making high test metal alloys we also import many of the basic materials used in plastics and exotic fuels our huge tire industry is partially dependent upon imported rubber the delicate pieces in our electronic sub-assemblies contain many materials from other parts of the world it is because we can bring these things into our country that we have much of the glittering hardware to make our modern world go almost all of these imports find their way into ordinary objects scattered around the places we live matches are brightened by antimony asbestos roofs buildings it also covers floors pots and pans begin as bauxite and soda children's toys there's barrel in spark plugs cobalt hardens tools imported chromite in stainless steel there's copper in our coins rockets missiles and our space hardware depend on niobium and tantalum to resist metal creeping and fatigue and so it is for those raw materials we import they are in daily use iron ore fibers Lynn all of them yes from asbestos to zircon and all the things in between manganese rubber sugar and Tim we're surrounded by products made of imported raw materials as big and important as our import trade is our export business is also important we now ship from this country almost 35 billion dollars worth of products and merchandise and like our imports most of it goes by sea american-made products shipped around the world in addition to other things help strengthen our international ties and take bits of America to foreign lands it is not a case of making other people's dependent upon us it is the circumstance of helping them to know what the American Way of life can produce in the international trade sense American exports represent our national profit from this high velocity industrial machine we have one way to express it is to say that we take many of those imports of raw materials turn them around and export them as finished products in the process millions and millions of jobs are created and we make a profit to boot and there is a point here not to be missed it is that the overwhelming bulk of this trade we have been talking about has to go by sea these american-made products are shipped around the world and do more than strengthen international ties and broaden our foreign markets our exports are vital in maintaining a balance of trade that has a direct effect on the value of our money the health of our economy and our standard of living all this the bringing of raw material into American ports and a shipment of American goods to foreign markets is too important to be left to chance or to the shifting political winds that blow from east to west across the seas on what could we depend to keep the lanes of Commerce open across the seas we have to sail without a Navy of our own our Navy one element of American sea power ensures that our critical foreign trade can continue without interruption to ensure this freedom of the seas to keep our sea lanes open during the technological revolution since nineteen forty the Navy has had to do more than simply keep up with research and development in the many scientific fields we've had to say ahead the search for better ships and weapons has always gone on the evolution of threat and counter threat is as old as warfare up on the scene since the use of steam naval operations have become increasingly tech since 1900 increasingly sophisticated and complex most of the Navy's research facilities date roughly from the turn of the century working to stay ahead of any potential threat the Navy contributed much to making the sophisticated world in which we live today these laboratories followed closely on the early development of improved steam power and steel hulls our research facilities grew in the years when the use of oil radio communication planes and submarines we're all coming about here I test steel and metal alloys airframes power plants and the instrumentation that first made high-speed flight possible were tested and improved special photographic techniques were devised medical knowledge was advanced all were either born or their development pushed ahead in navy research and development laboratories a very complex nature of our dynamic society long ago involved American industries large and small in navy research and development the growing size of the u.s. fleet the widening scope of its operations and the increasing number of scientific and technical problems to be solved led to a growing need for industrial help ever since the 1940s when it proved so effective in helping to develop the planes the ships and the weapons of world war two the research and development facilities of American industry have helped bring about a more rapid rate of technical progress than the Navy could have achieved on its own this process has also helped America grow over a billion dollars a year are spent on Navy research and development programs in private industry navy contracts for the production of all the hardware developed in this way amount to 13 billion dollars a year plowed back into the civilian economy creating new jobs new opportunities more growth as all this equipment has increased in complexity as submarines ships aircraft and their weapons have grown more sophisticated the skills and understanding of those who serve in the Navy have had to increase within any similar grouping that can be found the Navy has one of the highest levels of education among its people about seventy four percent of all naval officers have at least a bachelor's degree about eighty four percent of all enlisted men and women have at least a high school education almost all continue to study and to learn professional or technical skills throughout their naval careers consider the impact of these figures on the American community nearly a million men and women served with the Navy now over a hundred thousand of them go to one of the Navy's more than 200 schools each year several hundred thousand more are always taking some of the Navy's hundreds of correspondence courses because the big Navy ships are in reality small cities under themselves the Navy teaches almost all imaginable civilian skills as well as the military ones we don't stop to think about it very much but Navy trained men and women do return to the civilian workforce of our country by the tens of thousands each year bringing with them the workmanship they have learned taking their places as productive Americans in their community you won't have to look far for the Navy trained doctor the TV repairman the skilled mechanic the Navy trained dentist and think of the equipment they use x-ray the drill the plastics all this stainless steel the lamp filament all this comes to you in part at least because there is a United States Navy and that's not all the radar that helps bring in your returning plane the radar operator the pilot of your plane it's radio altimeter and other complex instruments the type that Prince your newspaper the paper itself lipstick painting the smile that says you're safely home the gaskets Pistons bearings tires in the cab that brings you home even the wires to your doorbell foam rubber in your chair and the carpet on your floor by now you know the Navy does more than patrol the Seas to help ensure the peace and military security with which Americans lived you see how many things in your daily life the Navy brings how the Navy helps to shape the texture of your world its richness and its depth that big overall multi-billion dollar return really is a dividend on the nation's investment in its fleet for instance next time you're called remember almost half the 31 raw materials in your telephone came from somewhere else in the world by sea where does this extra dividend or civilian application of Navy research and naval operations end a recent example of the Navy's engagement in American life can be found in operation Sealab one of a series of experiments in underwater living which may have in the long run a most significant impact on the future of all of us projects like sea lab and tektite were designed to test how long men can be expected to live at the ocean depths how much work they can be expected to perform and how well they can do it why because men are beginning to see the oceans themselves as the last great frontier on earth one that contains a greater wealth of natural riches than was ever found on land coming generations are going to reap the harvest from ocean space they are going to find the oceans as valuable as the land and for the same reasons the wealth of all kinds it will give up and the life it will support to extract what the sea has to offer our children and their children are going to have to live and work in the sea and they will if you have a clock on your wall you have the Navy on your wall because the Navy gives us the precisely accurate time from which all our time is clocked to set the time standard the most accurate method now known is used the atomic clock and the Navy even refines that by using 16 atomic clocks from which a computer takes the average across them there is a growing need in our complex age for precise time in very small amounts a split second just isn't good enough anymore we cut seconds into 1 million parts or microseconds for near absolute precision in Satellite launchings and for space flights our vast television networks and relays are controlled to the micro second the same precision is needed for air traffic control for our telephone systems and for scheduling the users of our high-speed computers we could almost say if you have time on your hands thank the Navy it may not be too long before a famous American saying falls by the wayside it was in 1890 that the Hartford Courant editorialized everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it but for some time our Navy has been a weather expert simply because storms at sea can damage the best of ships to say nothing of influencing the outcome of battles in recent times the tyros weather satellite developed by the Navy has improved weather prediction naval pilots the hurricane hunters have found and watched little storms that grew into killers and the Navy has tried to break up hurricanes and to change their course but it all may be in preparation for the future where there are those who believe that the oceans and their study will someday provide the keys to weather and climate control on the planet Earth it is not easy to end the list of ways the Navy helps to make life richer and better for all Americans yet at the same time the Navy cannot forget its primary purpose its first reason for being to defend the sea approaches to the United States to express the political and military intent of our country in places far from our homeland and to be an integral part of our total national defense team america today has the most powerful navy the world has ever known and is as a mighty force for peace its men its planes it ships and submarines are also ready to fight if that is the will of our nation perhaps the reason our Navy is a great one is that even though it is far at sea it touches the lives of all of us every day