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]