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Letter to New Members of the President's Advisory Committee on Labor-Management Policy.

April 22, 1966

Dear Mr._____________ :

I am delighted that you have agreed to serve on the President's Advisory Committee on Labor-Management Policy.

This Committee has been of great help to the nation. It has focused the wisdom and experience of some of our leading citizens on the vital issues of wage and price policies, productivity, collective bargaining, and industrial relations. Through its work over the past six years, your government, the labor movement, management and the general public have benefitted from a greater understanding of the problems of a growing and dynamic free enterprise society.

Today, we are facing the basic question of how to continue our unparalleled prosperity and maintain a stable and healthy economy. The first task of the Committee will be to address itself to this most important question. With this in mind, I have asked the Committee Chairman, Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz and the Committee Vice Chairman, Secretary of Commerce John T. Connor to call the Committee together in the very near future.

I greatly appreciate your willingness to participate in the work of the Committee. Through public spirited citizens such as yourself we will find the new and creative solutions and that will move this country closer to the goal of a better life for all our people.

Sincerely,

LYNDON B. JOHNSON,

Note: This is the text of identical letters, dated April 21, 1966, and addressed to 9 newly appointed members of the President's Advisory Committee on Labor-Management Policy. An excerpt was read by Joseph Laitin, an assistant press secretary, at his news conference at the White House at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, April 22, 1966. The complete text was later made available by the White House.

On April 22, 1966, the White House announced that the Committee would meet in Washington on May 4 and 5, 1966. The Committee was established by Executive Order 10918 of February 16, 1961 (3 CFR, 1959-1963 Comp., p. 445) to study and make recommendations to the President with respect to policies that may be followed by labor, management, and the public to promote sound wage and price policies, increased productivity, industrial peace, and a higher standard of living. The Committee is composed of the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Commerce, who alternate as Chairman, and 19 other members designated by the President, 5 of whom are drawn from the public at large, 7 from labor, and 7 from management.

The 9 newly appointed members to whom the President's letter was sent were: Donald C. Burnham, president of Westinghouse Electric Corp., Edgar F. Kaiser, chairman of Kaiser Steel Corp., J. Ward Keener, president of B. F. Goodrich Co., W. B. Murphy, president of Campbell Soup Co., I. W. Abel, president of United Steelworkers of America, Arthur S. Flemming, president of the University of Oregon, Howard W. Johnson, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Page Keeton, dean of the University of Texas Law School, and Owen M. Wilson, president of the University of Minnesota.

The names of the other members, and of the 9 outgoing members, are printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 2, p. 558).
See also Item 201.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Letter to New Members of the President's Advisory Committee on Labor-Management Policy. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239308

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