Letter to Senator Edwin C. Johnson

August 26, 1949 TRUMAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES ANS PACOROS SERVICE ROVERNATER Dear Mr. Chairman: This is with further reference to your letter of August 1, 1949, in which you state that it has come to your attention that representatives of the Radio Manufacturers Association plan to call on me shortly to urge that I advise the Federal Communications Commission to postpone for a year or more the allocation of television channels in the ultra high frequency band. In your letter, you express the view that the Commission should not be deterred from proceeding with its pending proposals designed to revise its television allocation table by allocating channels in the very high and ultra high frequency bands. At this writing I have not received a request for an appointment from the Radio Manufacturers Association. However, I have read your letter with keen interest and I have obtained from the Commission further information concerning the subject of your inquiry. From your comments and the facts supplied to me by the Commission, it appears that the Commission's pending television proceedings are of a broad and comprehensive nature; that ample opportunity exists in those proceedings for interested persons, including the Radio Wanufacturers Association, to submit evidence in support of their claims; that the date on which the Commission's hearings on this subject begin was extended (on July 27) from August 29 to September 26, 1949, to give interested parties full opportunity to present their views; and that the Commission's proposals are designed to carry out the twofold objective of the Communications Act of 1934 - to provide television service, as far as possible, to all the people of the United States and to provide a fair, efficient and equitable distribution of television broadcast stations to the several states and communities. I feel confident that the Commission will base its conclusions concerning the issues in the pending television proceed-