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Notes and Sources, page 267.

ing a system...", Nunn explained, " ...the feeling in the White House apparently favors taking a position on principle which the succeeding administration will be obliged to overturn if it does not concur. Rogers said that this was unrealistic. Their aim was to find a way of supporting the White House's stance in favor of the private sector without "seeking to nail down the conclusion concerning what the government will or will not do in future."

A memorandum for the special assistant to the administrator at this time spells out AT&T's dominance of international communication. The voice segment (cable and radio) was operated exclusively by AT&T. Some nineteen companies competed for telegraph traffic (NASA History Office).

A number of policy documents and internal ODR&E memos point out that the solar minimum of 1964 to 1966 would reduce radio communication circuits by up to two-thirds. These include a letter from Jerome "Wiesner, who wrote on July 7, 1961, to Robert McNamara urging him to give his personal attention to the strengthening of the Defense Communications Agency.

The cooperation between NASA and the DoD with respect to which organization would develop which satellites (at least at the highest levels) is apparent in a letter from James Webb to Robert McNamara, secretary of defense. On June 1, 1961, Webb wrote, "I also wish to take this opportunity again to make clear my firm intent that you are kept informed of activities concerning communication satellites and that your views and interests are kept in mind at all times." At lower levels, and even within the separate organizations, relationships were not always so open. A memo from James Webb to Hugh Dryden, dated June 16, 1961, says, "I think it important that we not ever indicate that some of our military friends, particularly those down the line in the services, may not have had full access to all the information, documents, and so forth relating to the kind of decisions that Mr. McNamara, Mr. Gilpatric, and I have made on the big program" (David Whalen from NASA History Office).

The issue being discussed at this time was NASA's involvement in sychronous altitude, or 24-hour, communication satellites. The succeeding agreements that NASA and the DoD had, first that NASA should develop only passive satellites and then that it develop only medium-altitude satellites was explained to me by John Rubel.

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