In addition to these members of the subcommittee, we have Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin from San Diego who will be our first witness, and Congressman Bob Wilson also from San Diego who will be our second witness. Both Bob and Lionel were very active in urging that we have the committee hearings held out here on the west

coast.

I am very pleased that we were able to get the subcommittee to hold hearings in this area. I made a brief check on the record and was informed that this is the first hearing in the Los Angeles area by any subcommittee on the problems of the fishing industry in at least 20 years. We didn't check beyond that, Mr. Chairman, but we are pleased to welcome you. The reason we wanted the hearings in southern California was we felt that it is important to have the fishermen themselves, the ones who have suffered the many indignities and the problems they have had, tell us firsthand.

One of the fishermen talked to me the other day and I won't say who he was, but he said "we were told not to make waves." Now my answer to him was, "Well we surely can't make waves back in Washington unless we know really what the story is." So our strategy is to hold the hearings out here on the west coast, so that the representatives of the fishing industry-and the fishermen themselves, can tell us the problems, you tell us what they feel, and what they think we should do. Then it will be our job to bring that information back to the full committee, to the other Members of Congress, and to the administration.

So I am very happy and proud to have the delegation here in my congressional district. I am at the same time a little unhappy-as I announced earlier at the press conference-to report that we think the 18th seizure of a fishing vessel has just taken place. We were informed that at 2 o'clock this morning San Diego time, that George Sousa, the skipper of the John F. Kennedy tuna clipper, was in radio contact with the Tuna Boat Association, and had identified their position from 100 miles off the coast of Ecuador. They reported that a patrol boat was sighted coming toward them; they didn't know at the time whether it was a patrol boat of Ecuador or not but they assume it was. They heard machinegun fire, had to turn off the radio, and have not been heard from since. The Tuna Boat Association has notified the State Department and the assumption is that the 18th seizure has just taken place. We will know definitely a little bit later.

With these remarks I think I will turn it back to our chairman, and to our first witness.

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Anderson.

Our first witness this morning is a very able and highly respected Member of the Congress in this part of the country, the Honorable Lionel Van Deerlin.

I have the privilege of serving with Mr. Van Deerlin on the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce where he is one of our most respected members for both ability and the energy with which he devotes himself to the task.

Mr. Van Deerlin, it is certainly a privilege to welcome you this morning to the subcommittee.

STATEMENT OF HON. LIONEL VAN DEERLIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my California. colleagues on this subcommittee. I shall try to skim through my testimony. There are some far more qualified witnesses from who you will shortly be hearing. I refer, of course, to the fishermen, to the boat owners, to the industry representatives, and yes, to those hearty souls who are walking up and down at this moment in front of the building outside-a peaceful demonstration in the highest American tradition.

With or without this additional seizure this morning, Mr. Anderson, these hearings could not be timelier.

The new dubious records that the nation of Ecuador started with during the month of January, surely has brought to a new crisis a festering trouble that we have been living with for the better part of two decades.

The $830,000 in fines that has been assessed against our tuna fishermen in the single month of January was more by almost double than the previous record for an entire year-the $335,000 collected in illegal fines in the year 1968. Of course the number of boats hailed into port, 17, was greater in this single month than for any previous year.

As with all of you, I would be much happier if this whole problem could be settled by peaceful negotiation, by the time-honored system of having representatives of States confer with one another on a level of honest evaluation of facts and with the intention of finding a peaceful solution.

I must confess that in the four-plus terms that I have served in Congress I have adopted an increasingly hard line attitude in my outlook on this problem. I think it is because the Government of Ecuador, despite its stated willingness on repeated occasions to establish at least a modus vivendi in its handling of this dispute, has shown no real desire to negotiate fishing limits through accepted international diplomatic channels.

On the plus side, I must list the Secretary of State's recent action invoking the Foreign Military Sales Act to suspend aircraft sales and ship repair credits to Ecuador. This is a firmer line than the State Department has shown in my memory as a Member of Congress. Hopefully, this action is the harbinger of more realistic policies yet to be invoked.

This Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee, now convened here in the district of Congressman Anderson, has done a great deal in the past to help the industry over the rough jumps that have been involved in this effort to fish off Latin American shores.

Your committee has given us legislation for cutting off military sales and economic assistance. You will shortly consider a proposal which I indorse for establishing the machinery to ban fishery imports from nations which refuse to reimburse us for fines and other penalties illegally assessed against our fishermen.

Mr. Chairman. I would like to express my gratitude to you personally. As a man from Detroit, you don't have very many salt water fishermen anywhere near the district you represent. Yet you have

played the role of tiger on behalf of our fishermen more than 2,000 miles from your home District, a role that was reflected in your remarks to the press conference just moments ago.

But even the new measures of economic retaliation may not be enough, for despite stringent laws already on the books, our fishermen continue to be the pawns in strange political games that are played by the rulers of Ecuador. If recent history is any guide, we can expect the Ecuadorean Government to continue to interfere with the rights of our fishermen on the high seas if we apply economic pressures only. Needed also, in my view, is a selective application of military strength. By this I mean the employment of Armed Forces personnel to establish an urgently needed physical barrier to further harassment. Either military guards could be placed on the fishing boats, or a warship escort provided for the fishing fleet. I personally am inclined toward the assignment of military personnel to individual tuna boats as perhaps being a less provocative than the deployment of Navy ships would be.

At the same time, the placing of guards on the fishing boats with suitable advance notice, would serve the same basic purpose as a warship escort; it would firmly establish the presence of our Government-and the majesty of our Government-in a role which, while purely defensive, would also be a powerful deterrent to continue high seas assaults on our tuna fleet.

No one disputes that our fishermen, like all other Americans, are entitled to their Government's full protection when they leave home shores on legitimate enterprise.

We now have sky marshals on our airliners helping protect them against hijackers. Consistency, plus legal and moral traditions going back many years, demand that we do as much for our fishermen.

I introduced a "sense of Congress" resolution in the House of Representatives just yesterday, urging the assignment of armed guards if other approaches fail.

There is an old slogan in the commercial fishing industry-and as a commercial slogan it is unobjectionable; but America herself must never become a "Chicken of the Sea."

Thank you.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Van Deerlin, the committee is grateful to you for your very helpful testimony this morning and I wish to commend you for your very thoughtful statement and also for the great deal of effort that you have put into the matter in which this committee. is now inquiring.

Were there any questions of our good friend and colleague Mr. Van Deerlin?

Mr. LEGGETT. I might add, Mr. Van Deerlin, we are pleased to have you here before us and our committee, and I am not surprised of the leadership you have shown and the suggestions you have made. You indicate that the State Department showed real courage on the abatement of these military sales to Ecuador. Hadn't we abated that some time ago anyway; have we been giving military assistance to Ecuador?

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Yes; the amount as far as I am able to determine of about twenty-five and a half million dollars a year. The figure

is either to Ecuador alone or to Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, the nations with whom we have been periodically involved in these acts of piracy. Mr. LEGGETT. My impression was that there was nothing to abate as far as current military assistance but how be that?

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. I think the gentleman is in error there, but I have long found it unprofitable to argue facts with the gentleman from Vallejo.

Mr. LEGGETT. Let me ask you this. What are your views on these armed guards? Would you think that a few guards on a tuna boat could be effective in deterrence of capture physically, or would they be more psychologically-a psychological deterrent?

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. I think as few as one per vessel, Mr. Leggett. It would advise, in advance, the nations who harbor these aggressive tendencies against our fleet, that they are going to be dealing with the uniformed personnel of the U.S. military. I think they might just have second thoughts on that, where going after a few fishermen who are not equipped to deal in a military manner with the attack, might not deter them.

Mr. LEGGETT. There was some question a while ago as to what firm, immediate action this committee was going to recommend. Are you satisfied that we have had firm, immediate negotiation by the State Department on this subject today?

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. There is no question the State Department has done its best by negotiation, and the State Department as long ago as 1963-late 1963-had a modus vivendi worked out with Ecuador which was quite effective for 2 or 3 years. But the government has changed there, and I am not unmindful of domestic pressures on the Government of Ecuador. There is a very strong Castro-Communist intrusion in the political affairs of many of these South American nations. But I just cannot see permitting Americans who are engaged in time-honored and legitimate commercial enterprise, to be the victims of these power games in Latin America.

Mr. LEGGETT. Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. ANDERSON. I just want to make an observation, You first mentioned the friendly pickets who are outside. I might add that one of them carried a big sign "Welcome, House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries."

It is good to be able to observe a picket line welcoming Members of Congress like that. When I first saw the sign I was a little afraid it would be something other than welcome, so I want to echo your tribute.

I kind of like your suggestion of the symbolism of having even just one uniformed American serviceman on each of these ships. The fact that there might not be any physical action on his part and the symbolic position of his being there, could be of great value. I want to commend your suggestion.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Thank you.

Mr. ANDERSON. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Van Deerlin, we are grateful for your very helpful testimony.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Thank

you.

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you very much.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a presentation. We had invited some of the surrounding Congressmen, particularly the two distinguished Congressmen from San Diego. One of them told us he was coming and so we had a nameplate prepared for him, and the other one didn't. Congressman Van Deerlin, we have a place for you with your nameplate. Congressman Bob Wilson, you are going to have to come up and sit without a nameplate, but I might report we are making one for you.

Mr. DINGELL. The Chair is happy to extend on behalf of our committee the invitation to our good friend and colleague, Mr. Van Deerlin, to join us and participate in these proceedings.

Mr. DINGELL. Our next witness is a very able, respected senior Member of the House of Representatives, our friend and colleague, the Honorable Bob Wilson, who has had a long and sincere interest in this and has worked very closely with the Chair and the other members of the committee with regard to the problem now before us.

Mr. Wilson, it is certainly a privilege to welcome you before the committee today.

STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN BOB WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I am not only happy to be here to welcome you as an out-of-stater to our State. It was a rather earth-shaking welcome we gave you, but we are happy to have you here.

Despite what Mr. Van Deerlin said, I know while you don't have any fishermen from the sea in your area, they buy a hell of a lot of automobiles and I am sure you appreciate that.

Mr. DINGELL. We want to keep that two-way traffic moving.

Mr. WILSON. This is an opportunity for me to be here, not only because of my colleagues being here, but so many of my constituents are in the room behind me. This is a problem that affects many fishermen in San Diego, and has been affecting them for all the time I have been in Congress.

I came to Congress in 1953 and that is about the time the seizures started. I hope it wasn't the cause and effect, but until the seizures in January, we had a total of 66 vessels that had been seized and fined, and most of the fines of course were reimbursed. Those fines which were levied against the fishermen were reimbursed later by the State Department under the Fishermen's Protective Act which incidentally I was the author of many, many years ago.

Nobody envisioned at the time that bill was passed that picking up tuna boats would become a million dollar business.

I think we have taken the profit out of it as far as the countries are concerned. I believe the fines are more or less symbolic because the countries should recognize that when they seize a boat and fine it that thy are going to pay the fine themselves through diminishing of foreign aid and so forth.

I believe the pickets are wrong when they say deny foreign aid to Ecuador because as Mr. Van Deerlin pointed out, that is being denied. The only real assistance that is being given to Ecuador is in terms of