Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on the Communications Satellite Program.
To the Congress of the United States:
A new communications era has begun. The first commercial satellite is in orbit over the Atlantic Ocean, in an unchanging location linking millions of people, thousands of miles apart, in reliable telecommunications between North America and Europe.
The flights of our astronauts, the Olympic Games, international policy discussions, and other occasions of broad interest and major importance have been transmitted throughout the world by way of communications satellites. Today information is made available for improving health, warning against major storms, and increasing agricultural output.
This historic space bridge will be enlarged. Satellites scheduled to be launched later this year are to span the Pacific and expand coverage over the Atlantic.
The commercial satellite service will advance to provide this new and unique telecommunications capability to other areas of the world.
In the foreseeable future, entire newspapers and service from the world's greatest libraries will be able to enter the homes of all those eager for knowledge.
This dramatic effort follows from the Communications Satellite Act of 1962, which called for the establishment of a worldwide commercial communications system as soon as practicable.
With the Communications Satellite Corporation as the United States representative designated by the Act, an international consortium of participants in this global venture continues to grow. Forty-eight countries are now engaged in this joint venture, with the Corporation acting as manager on behalf of all participants under the international agreements.
In the forward movement of the communications satellite program, all agencies of the Government and the committees of the Congress have assisted in carrying out the objectives and purposes of the Act.
Under Section 404(a) of the Act, I am transmitting to the Congress a report on this national program, which is successfully advancing communications satellite technology to the benefit of the people of the United States and the world.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
The White House
March 3, 1966
Note: The Annual Report on Activities and Accomplishments Under the Communications Satellite Act of 1962, January 1-December 31, 1965 (17 pp., Executive Office of the President) is also printed in House Document 400 (89th Cong., 2d sess.). A summary was released by the White House on March 3, 1966 (2 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 315).
On the same day the White House also made public the annual report of the Communications Satellite Corporation for the year 1965 (February 1966, 25 pp.).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on the Communications Satellite Program. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238474