INTRODUCTION At the invitation of Roger Ray, NVOO; Bill Forster, BAR; TIT and Bill Robison, LLL, I attended the Marshall Islands Work- shop at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to take part in the research discussions. One the first day and part of the second each principal investigator presented an apstract of his study. This was followed by extensive in-depth discussions of selected -segments of the overall program. It is pertinent to note that this was the first time that all concerned with this pro lram, tives from AES, gators Hawaii, from BNL, BER, LLL, and OBS; i.e., NVOO; the technical repressanta- SAN; and principal investi- University of Washington, University of Bowling Green State University had met. Since I was the only technical person present who was not _ closely associated with the program, 1t was agreed by Bill Burr, Bill Forster, and Roger Ray that my written perceptions of this workshop would be useful. I agreed to do this, but it should be borne in mind that IT may have missed some of the finer points in the technical and political discussions. acting as a rapporteur for the workshop. details were presented, In no way was I While many project I will restrict my comments to four major areas’ that I feel need ERDA senior management attention PROGRAM ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE It was apparent that there was an overall lack of direction in this program with the result that AES has a number of projects that do not necessarily share the same philosophy or objectives. From the discussions the problem appears to exist mainiy at HO, particularly between OES and BER, With BER. with and, to a lesser degree, The issues and program objectives are not clear the result that there is no coherent program in place, nor have the priorities been identified. --