Reviews progress in the military satellite program (IDCSP), as well as DOD procurement of communication satellite services.

Conventional assumptions hold that U.S. government research and development efforts produced the satellite communications industry. David J. Whalen has looked deeply into the history of the industry and presents remarkable new information to tell a much different story. He finds that most of the satellite technology was privately developed by AT&T and Hughes Aircraft Company, and that the market for satellite communications existed before the government stepped in. In this detailed history of satellite communication's earliest years, Whalen explains that NASA, the White House, and Congress intervened in satellite communications development to show the world that the U.S. was in the space race and that the billions of dollars the U.S. government planned to spend would result in practical applications. He traces many different outcomes of government intervention, such as the marginalization of AT&T, who designed and paid for the first real communication satellite, Telstar 1; the positioning of Hughes as the dominant commercial satellite manufacturer; and the establishment of geosynchronous Earth orbit as the preferred orbit. Had the market been allowed to operate freely, AT&T would have launched their commercial low-earth-orbit telephone satellite in the 1960s. Many previous histories of satellite communications have emphasized government contributions; this version is the first to focus on the industry's contributions.

Considers problems of proposed commercial ownership of U.S. communications satellites systems.

Considers problems of proposed commercial ownership of U.S. communications satellites systems.

In early 1970 President Richard M. Nixon created a new executive office, the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP), and appointed Dr. Clay T. Whitehead as OTP's first director. (Whitehead had previously been on the staff of Peter Flanigan, a presidential assistant responsible for telecommunications policy at the White House.) What was the motivation behind this action? Were political interests being served? With what results? Thomas Will believes that these and other questions must be raised in view of the history of the Nixon administration. In an attempt to answer them, he examines the development of telecommunications policy in the executive branch from 1900 to 1970. Dr. Will reviews the early executive branch involvement in radio telecommunications, the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934, the technological advance of radio telecommunications and its effect on the executive branch before and after World War II, the. appointments of telecommunications advisors to presidents from 1951 to 1967, and the creation of the President's Task Force in 1967 to deal with the problems created by an inherently limited radio spectrum. He traces the steps taken to create the OTP and analyzes the extent to which the office reflected a traditional progression of executive branch telecommunications authority. His study and conclusions are directly and essentially relevant to the current debate on telecommunications policy.

Pt. 1 discusses feasibility of joint military-civilian use of COMSAT global satellite system.