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APPENDIX 12

REPORT OF THE YICE-PRESIDENT FOR SOUTH AMERICA, 1973-1977

In common with his colleagues this Vice-President interpreted the privilege of writing his report of personal assessment of the main lines and items of development in geotechniąue in his region as an honour in trust# to serve his member Societies within the International community.

However, having waited for their direct Communications/ especially reąuested by letter, so long as to incur deserved personal criticism for failing to meet all deadlines for submitting the report, he now begs leave to use the case as the cue for earnest apologies to the Officers and Executive Committee members of the International Society, for this and other failings in prompt actions and Communications. Perhaps those among you who have given our eager young region the privilege of working with us may be kind enough to attest to the fact that it is far from the traditional connotation of "leaving things for tomorrow", sińce what assails us is the accelerating pressure of civil, mining, and industrial engineering works that are "required for yesterday", in the face of which the persons are all too few, and the petty technicalities to overcome quite exhausting. The spirit is indeed strong, as strong as we have had the honour to encounter anywhere:    it is

the tremendous ratę of change of things around us, enveloping us, that set us back in our effectiveness.    Doubtless the

greatest homage that we of South America may render to the deeper leadership of such "gurus" as Terzaghi, Taylor, Skempton, Casagrande and so many others at whose feet we learned, is to recognize that no other field of professional endeavour in our countries has so continually stimulated enthusiasm and personal effort at the level at which some of our colleagues dedicate themselves to soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering.

The present summary report is based on the formal replies received within the past week from the Brazilian and Equatorian National Societies, besides data from personal fileś.

1. Generalities suggesting principles

for orientative action.

The actions of the Vice-Presidents on behalf of the Society have hitherto had little possibility of crystalizing into effective measures:    there has been no transfer of

files from the outgoing to the incoming holder of the Office, and, within the activities of the National Societies and of the International Society itself, there has been no specific function accompanying the Office along with the recognition,

friendly and honouring, attached to the election. The Office is essentially passive, and thus the report presentation at the end of the four years would naturally limit itself to a summary compilation of the activities developed by the National Societies. However, besides such a recording of the really smali items that punctuated the four years of Office, the following simple thoughts are offered to futurę Vice-Presidents as useful, within the expectation that the Office will naturally grow into some executive importance.

1.1    With the kind support of the Venezuelan Society a permanent file has been organized for all documents and correspondence concern-ing the South American Vice-Presidency.

The election to the Office will rightly continue to seek a judicious balance between personal attributes and the need for some circulation in geography:    but the

institutional requirements of the Society are for a permanent organized repository of all papers that reflect the problems and Solutions hitherto faced. It is hoped that all Vice-Presidencies will likewise institute their permanent-file Secretariat.

In consideration of item 1.3 below, the Caracas Vice-Presidencial file has been instituted simultaneously for the South American Vice-Presidencies of Rock Mechanics and Engineering Geology.

Moreover, considering the acute lack of technical publications in South Amerdca it is hoped that the present permanent Vice-Presidencial file will be automatically extended to icnorporate a technical documen-tation centre; it is earnestly requested that all institutions that distribute geotechnical literaturę of any kind (whether gratis or paid for) automatically send to the permanent filing Secretariat a single copy of each and every paper or publication.

Thus, as a futurę step, the South American geotechnicians and their National Societies may be served by a copying service for distribution of papers on special request.

1.2    It is very important in our region to recognize that things are most often done on the basis of individual enthusiasms, and that the men of greater initiative generally hołd affiliations and may seek Office and leadership in a number of closely related Societies. Thus efforts must be madę, on the basis of personal contacts, to strike a balance between favouring the enthusiasms, individual and cyclic, and avoiding a successive splint-ering of Societies and technical bulletins. Taking Brasil (and possibly Colombia) as examples, it must be emphasized that most

of the geotechnical activity has been concen-trated on earth-rock dams, and the dominant

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