~2— of major operational changes had been instituted. On January 26th, Mr. Otter- man and HWaxry Brown arxived in Kwajalein via MAC. I was requested by Mr. Brown to "keep the medical survey team away from the ship" for a period of three days duc to the hazardous conditions posed by off-loading a large amount of equipment. On January 29th, Mr. Otterman, Mr. Brown and I mct aboard the ship; at this time I was informed of major changes in the logistic support for the forthcoming survey. 1. Charter/Contract Deficiencies: During the initial contract negotia- tions in San Diego, Mr. Otterman presented a brochure outlining his proposed e . method of operation for transferring patients from ship to shore. I assumed since he was an experienced naritine contractor, that he had studied the charts carefully and knew of the existing oceanographic charactoristics of the beaches he was attempting to approach. In essence, what he proposed was bringtng the ship as close as possible to the shore, bow on, and then positioning a set of barges to provide a walk-on capability for the paticnts from the island. I informed him at the time that the beach was extremely shallow at Utirik. I asked him specifically "what was the minimum draft, trimming the ship? feet. forward obtainable by He indicated that he could reduce the forward draft to four (Please see enclosure 1, copies of his initial proposal.) During those initial negotiations, I had indicated both to Harry Brown and to Wayne Munk from Nolmes & Narver that I considered the ship marginal in size but that the walk-on capability swung the decision in favor of U.S. Oceanuyraphy. Therefore, any change in that plan of operation should have been transmitted to me immediately. It was not. During our initial discussion on 29 January, I was informed thot if I "insisted" on using the barge concept there would be a two te c 2 csi im co cs to three week delay in the sailing of the ship. Since we were already four