Statement by the President Upon Making Public His Report to the Congress on Communications Satellites.
THE YEAR 1963 has been a time of fruitful achievement aimed at reaching the objectives set by Congress in the Communications Satellite Act.
The program to establish a global communications satellite system to meet the many objectives of the act is progressing well in light of the complexities of the problem.
An entirely new long-haul communications transmission system is being fitted into the complex technical and organizational arrangements of the growing international communication structure.
These efforts are going forward with ingenuity and determination on the part of the Government, the Corporation, the U.S. international communications carriers and 'telecommunication entities overseas.
The national program of the United States moves forward aggressively toward the fulfillment of the policy and purposes of the Congress.
Note: The statement was made public as part of a White House release summarizing the "Report on Activities and Accomplishments Under the Communications Satellite Act of 1962," dated February 10, 1964. The report is printed as House Document 225 (88th Cong., 2d sess.).
The report stated that plans for a commercial communications satellite system were well underway; that the policy of the United States continued to be that communications by means of satellites be available as soon as possible and on a global and non-discriminatory basis; that the Corporation would investigate both synchronous and medium altitude satellites for its basic system. It further stated that the Space Radio communication Conference held in Geneva during October and November, 1963, had allocated frequency bands for the satellites.
The report listed as among the interesting demonstrations of the capabilities of communications satellites conducted during 1963 the transmissions via Syncom II between the delegates at the Space Radio communication Conference in Geneva and the United States representatives in New York and Ambassadors in Washington; also signals were transmitted via Syncom H between the Navy satellite communications ship in Lagos, Nigeria, and Camp Roberts, Calif., over 7,000 nautical miles.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Upon Making Public His Report to the Congress on Communications Satellites. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239929