Transcripts For CSPAN3 The 20240703

Good morning. Welcome to the nixon president ial library and museum. My name is joe lopez, Vice President of Marketing Communications for the Richard Nixon foundation. Were pleased to have you here today in yorba linda and a greeting to those of you watching on cspan and youtube today. Todays legacy forum is copresented by the Richard Foundation and the nixon president ial library, National Archives and administration. Weve done more than 30 of these nixon legacy forums over the past ten years, and you can find all of them on our website. Nixon foundation dot org. Id like to start by introducing Geoff Shepard. Jeff served as, associate director of the Domestic Council in the Nixon Administration and now a member of the board of directors of, the Richard Nixon foundation. Jeff, kick us off. Thank you, joe. Geoff shepard beginning in 2010, we began seeing what we call nixon forums and theyre cosponsored in the past the Nixon Foundation and National Archives as. They are usually recorded, videotaped by cspan and rebroadcast on. What they are in essence are group oral histories. They bring together the documents that are maintained here by the National Archives and people who produce them. Weve done a concert. Joe, weve done 40 of these. Nixon legacy forums since 2010. And the the archives is particularly pleased with the work that we do because. They say we make their documents come alive and we do them here or we do them in washington, d. C. We are the only administration producing programs on various Public Policy initiatives of our administration. Todays forum is going to be moderated by chris to move to my right, hes hes he and i were there together. All the panelists were there at the time. But chris and i were young. Young colleagues on president nixons white house staff, and he worked for Patrick Moynihan on urban affairs. So chaired the White House Task force on environmental policy. He then taught at harvards school and then came back under the Reagan Administration and was, in essence, deregulation czar at omb. He spent 25 years at the American Enterprise institute, including 22 years as its president. And then he spent a little over ten years as, a distinguished fellow at the hudson institute, and recently switched within the last year or so where hes now a distinguished on american thought at the heritage foundation. Hes a close friend. Hes an accomplice, a scholar. And were most fortunate to have the moderate this legacy him. Chris, its all. Jeff, thank you very much and thank you to the Nixon Foundation and to the library for sponsoring this event and your good work in producing these forums the years. Richard nixon is best known for his achievements in foreign policy, but his initiatives in domestic policy were astonishingly innovative in environmental welfare and health care policy. Was politically avant garde. Well ahead of his times. His School Desegregation actions succeeded. Where others had failed. High on this list, and perhaps the most of all was policy. The revolution in human, which has us. The global internet, smartphones in every purse and pocket, hundreds of High Definition Television Channels. And that helped us survive the recent pandemic lockdowns was launched in the Richard Nixon white house when president nixon took office, america had only three Television Networks abc, cbs and nbc, whose news programs the president thoroughly loathed Cable Television was nothing but long extension cords from antenna towers to homes in areas where the terrain interfere with home antennas. Telephones were hard wired through ma bells vast highly expensive grid of landlines that made Long Distance calls a high priced luxury. The only recent innovation in telephones had been introducing the phone as an alternative to the black telephone. Satellite communications was a sluggish, ridiculously disorganized monopoly that had managed orbit one or two low capacity units the size of a carry on suitcase. In nearly a decade, what launched the technological journey that brought us. From 1970 to 2024 was a simple, radical idea that Wireless Communications through satellites and towers could replace all of those wires at far lower cost and in far greater variety. And that private enterprise and free Market Competition could do the job. But it was an idea that engineers Business Executives and government officials did not see. And when they got wind of it, they fought to preserve the lethargic status quo. This is the story we will be exploring today. Another remarkable feature of Richard Nixons presidency was the array of brilliant thinkers he attracted to the top ranks of his administration. Henry kissinger, george shultz, daniel moynihan. Arthur burns, herb stein and. Others. Less well known. Clay t whitehead. Tom who conceived and headed the White House Office of telecommunications and assembled his own team of brainiacs, including Antonin Scalia, who would go on to become one of the greatest of all Supreme Court justices. And brian lamb, who would go on to found cspan and become one of americas greatest civic educators. Tom died in 2008, just shy of 70. Having lived to see the first fruits of his policy revolution, steve jobs had introduced the iphone just year and a half before and helping and having helped advance that revolution as. A pathbreaking satellite entrepreneur nor his legacy lives in his papers collected at the library of congress and the Nixon Library, and in the work our three distinguished panelists. Margaret whitehead was toms soulmate and his wife for 35 years. She part of his creative adventures engineering, economics, politics and business on a daily basis as ph. D. Cultural historian, she has been perfectly equipped to preserve and interpret cultural transformation. Her husband ignited. Henry goldberg was general counsel of the office of Telecommunications Policy following Antonin Scalia and was deeply involved in of its initiatives. He went on to found the washington law of goldberg godless weiner and wright, and is described as the dean of American Telecommunications lawyers. In addition to his brilliant practice, he has authored many articles and reports on communications. The First Amendment and the media and communications technologies. Thomas hazlett is hugh mccall, a professor of economics and director of the economic director. The information economy project at clemson university. Is author of the politic spectrum the tumultuous of Wireless Technology from Herbert Hoover to the smartphone and other influential books and hundreds of articles on communication policy, including regular columns for the wall street journal and the financial times. The two times white whitehead and haslett were colleagues and collaborators in the 2000, when both held professorships at george mason university. Let me say a long time student of professor work that it towers above Everything Else that has been written in the field now Margaret Whitehead margaret the flaw or i should say the airwaves are yours. Thank you, jim baron Geoff Shepard the nixon president ial library and the Nixon Foundation. This opportunity to examine the history of otp. And thank you, chris henry and tom for so generously sharing your universe acknowledged talents at this forum in 1967, when the Hubert Humphrey campaign sought the name an Economic Policy expert from the president of americas most modern think tank, rand he suggested the campaign engage rands 28 year old economic analyst Tom Whitehead after it when humphreys Team Approached him, thompson said. Im honored by your offer. But i am a republican. Having said this, tom thought to himself, if the people want me, perhaps i might help nixon. This thought changed tom writers life the story of toms path from the heartland to m. I. T. Rend the Nixon White House and later to pioneering entrepreneurship is especially american. Thomas in 1938 and raised in a small kansas town by parents trained as and the father who was a government worker on the edge of town. Toms father, with young toms help, maintained a cattle farm major events in toms life at 12, where he tested as having the highest iq, the state of kansas. For his age, and his mother gave him her fathers telegraph key. Key in hand. He bought a ham kit, built a radio, taught himself morse code, and applied to the fcc for a ham Radio License to enable his global reach. Tom and his father started the installation of a telephone pole in their backyard which tom somehow miraculously climbed without safety gear, attach his wiring, his technology in place. He proceeded to cover his bedroom with a qsl card from his ham. Rhythmic sounds of morse code dots and dashes began to pervade the way that hustled in the early 1950s, an era when laundress calls were expensive and internet tional trouble uncommon. Thomas captivated by the magic of expanding imagined universe with his ham contacts and the research he did on their countrys. This he did in three sets of prime reference books his family gave him as a for his academic achievements. Left kansas 18 to attend and my two were after his first semester. The faculty that all of his future courses at the graduate level in the ensuing 11 years spent between mit and volunteer military service, tom earned three graduate degrees. Among one was an Electrical Engineering and two more were in systems analysis and management. One of these degrees was a ph. D. In addition, these three degrees. Tom had an all but for a second page ph. D. One in economics. Im proposing that he move forward this to his mentor the legendary Professor William kaufman. Kaufman exclaimed. Tom you have done enough for, heavens sake. You are prepared. Kaufman famously defense strategist and budgetary had not mentored tom merely by teaching him, but by inserting him the work cultures of bell labs, the bureau of budget and rand. After m. I. T. , tom at rand for a year before calling bob ellsworth, a former chairman of the Republican Party in kansas who was close to nixon. Through him, tom was able to join nixons top Campaign Advisers in new york. Later, when drafted by the nixon team for six months. Toms unique credentials prompted a unanimous request from the team that he be responsible for the six science agencies reporting to the president. Among these were the Atomic Energy commission nasa and the federal Communications Commission. Once in the white house and eventually nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate as special assistant, he dealt with all six agencies. Realized as he had for some that the most burning ones not addressed by the Prior Administration were those in telecom. Tom had begun to research the difficulties and possibilities telecom, even before entering white house. Delving deeply, he deemed these issues broad and deep enough to warrant policy analysis says by an independent Agency Within the executive branch, approving toms proposal for this agency. The office of Telecommunications Policy. President nixon signed. An executive order to launch it afterward. Disappointed in not finding the able candidate he had envisioned to help. Tom finally took the job himself in 1970 at the age of 31. He was by the president and by the senate as director of otp, the immensely talented people tom due to otp. Nino scalia, henry, brian lamb, pierce, owen and dill hatfield is fundamental to todays topic. Otp transformation of telecom and, the us. And as a result, International Telecom otp allowed these brilliant people in one way or another to partake of a reformed understanding of the technical, legal and media aspects of telecom. Otp mantra many voices was in all of this. Nina scalia on to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court Henry Goldberg to establish the signature Telecom Law Firm carved into the flourish of new telecom businesses. And brian lamb founded, the groundbreaking Major Cable Network cspan, for which he won the president medal of freedom. Bersamin gained an even greater distinction in academia. Still, hatfill continued to, operate as an agent of significant and government and went on to become a national and International Telecom pioneer among. His achievements was designing and founding what today is still the largest Satellite Company in the world. Besides these brilliant colleagues, tom achieved what he did otp because he was blessed an extraordinarily good nature, intellect and country. Most especially he was blessed by Richard Nixons trusting support for tps creation and its policies of reform. Margaret, thank you very much. We will we will turn now to Henry Goldberg henry. Thank you. Thank you, margaret, for the kind words. Yes. You describe the Trump White House that i knew. Let me go back to something that chris opened up with, and that is the state of the Telecom Industry in the United States. When Richard Nixon took the oath of office, it was terrible. We had one Company Called 18 end to you that provided all of all Telecom Services in the United States except for. And more than they provided all consumer equipment that was used on the at t network. So 80 gave you a phone. Sometimes it was blocked. Sometimes. And chris said it was. But you had no choice. That was your phone. On the video side, again, as chris said, we had three national tv networks, some would say two and a half. But they call themselves three. There were local broadcast stations and there was that rudimentary cable industry that more properly was called the Community Antenna Television System that did make for clearer signals from the tv broadcasts that there was a third element, and that was the federal government. And the form of a regulatory agency, the federal Communications Commission, federal Communications Commission in those days viewed itself as protector. At t monopoly and assuring that there was no competition to national networks, particularly cable. So what what happened was the Nixon Administration and as chris called it a revolution. Yes. A revolution resulted. And it was a revolution that was based the notion that rather than a nationalized telecom system, heavily regulated, that there was more of a role for enterprise and more of a for competition. This revolution, the early 1970s, planted the seeds for the telecom indications industry that we have today. Yes, i was saying there is a direct cause of the line between the Nixon Administrations telecom and the incredible telecom indications that we have today with, well, more choice than consumers can handle and more equipment than we can afford. And. What is it relayed . How did this happen . Well, happened with the Nixon Administration, the president s choice of tom had a visionary to lead. And this made all the difference in the world. Tom believed, like the president , that a competitive market place was much better equipped and much more motivated to welcome the new technology that was on the horizon. Technology he had not been fully formed, but tom saw its potential. So while otp had this this visionary as its head and the support of the Nixon Administration and what it didnt have was many of the tools necessary washington to make its way felt it had no authority over nonfederal telecom in the United States. It had no oversight over the federal Communications Commission. What it did, how was whats called the bully pulpit of the white house and of otp could gain currency and support for its views through introducing legislation which we did through Tom Whiteheads speeches and his congressional appearances. And course, it had the benefit of the backing from the Nixon White House. So the first battle in this revolution involve Satellite Technology. And. Whitehead perceived that Satellite Technology be a very Disruptive Force in the existing telecoms. But until whitehead came along satellite. Technology could not disrupt any Satellite Technology in the early sixties, was buried internationally. A legal monopoly called which was a u. N. Organization. So putting a disruptive technology, the u. N. Treaty organization, nowhere to going to get nothing. So in the late sixties, the proposal was made that domestic Satellite Technology would be put into the same monopoly straitjacket that intelsat had placed. Satellite technology, international. So to disrupt to im sorry to unleash. Satellites, disruptive nature. Whitehead came up with what he call the open skies policy. This was a policy that said any financially, technically qualified private company could put up a satellite and provide satellite National International connections. This was a stroke of genius. I also love the fact he called it open skies. Who could have checked skies . The success of the open policy was, i cant say immediate, but it certainly was probably and it encouraged private companies to get into the satellite business and because there was competition them the charges for their nationwide interconnection were much lower than they was charging. And encourage the development of new Cable Program networks so hbo espn ted turners various networks and yes of course cspan. But the the open skies policy significance was greater than just satellite video distributed programing because it proved the hitherto controversial notion that you could serve interests and consumers interest with privatized, competitive private market and this made all the difference in the world. So that was foundational for otp and i think for the country. The next task that otp sector itself was to deal with cable cable and even though the name of our office was Telecommunications Policy this cable venture without any regard to whatsoever. I mean white had the notion that the development of cable was the best way to compete with and really reduce the power of the three national tv broadcast networks that had nothing to do with the poles. The thing that was holding Cable Development was a government policy that stifled its development. There something called the cable freeze. The fcc actually adopted this freeze to hold any future development of because there were unresolved old copyright issues and the broadcasters strongly opposed the competition from cable who brought in out of market or distance to compete with them in the market. So the first thing that otp set itself to do without for policy was to end the cable freeze. And for this white put Antonin Scalia charge and nino took a very Old Fashioned which was lets lock everyone in a room and keep them until they agreed a compromise. And the parties that were locked into the rule were the broadcasters, the Cable Companies hollywood and surprise of all. The federal Communications Commission. Well, under that kind of pressure and and ninos forceful personality, the parties ended up agreeing to a compromise and that that basic that ended the cable and that set the path for Cable Development which was ottps objective in the first place. So having the cable policy get the Cable Operators over which then turned to creating a long term policy for cable and this came in the form of a Cabinet Committee on Cable Television. And yes, it was the Nixon Administrations cabinet. It was staff and led by otp and. In looking around and thinking about a policy, a long term policy for cable, the Cabinet Committee realized that because cable essentially a local monopoly i mean, it was authorized under municipal franchising city by city, the realization was that you really werent going to have Competition Among these local cable systems. But contrary to the hardware the Cable Programing market could be open and free and competitive. The only was that and the fear was that the power of the cable owner, the cable operator over the pipeline would restore their Program Content on cable networks. So the solution for the Cabinet Committee to forbid vertical integration between ownership of the cable and ownership and control over the programing that appeared on that pipeline. So we call this the separation policy others less charitable. They call it the common carrier policy and it it it was it was controversial. And as i back on the debate about, the part that policy and what happened when the Cabinet Committee report was released it sounded very familiar. Me and those of us who were involved recently on the battle of control the internet called Net Neutrality and the same elements of that discussion on the cable policy back in the mid 1970s. To me echoed in the Net Neutrality. So the separations policy was adopted by the Cabinet Committee. We adopted drafted legislation to implement that and we submitted the legislation to capitol hill where it died a very quick death as the cable lobbyists opposed it strongly is not even Strong Enough for it. And they convinced fcc that the separation policy, if adopted, would kill investment and systems. So i guess having succeeded with the cable compromise and ending the cable freeze, but not doing so well on a long term cable policy. Otp around to make this sound sequential because, there was always an undercurrent. The the next thing that otp did accomplished was nothing than the breakup of the 18 split otp over over its few years certainly encouraged competition additions to at t and we nurtured the private companies the startups like mci that were to compete with at t. However the ceo of at t, the then president john buss, drew the line in the sand and made a speech declaring war on competition against services. Well, that was all that otp had to because we were itching to this for years, but it was the speech that gave us i cant say excuse, but gave us the cause to move quickly to counter it. And what we do. Whitehead and bruce owen and others that otp can the white house that what was needed was a new antitrust suit against at t and otp worked with the Justice Department and went back to convince them to open an antitrust case against at t. There had been an earlier one that was halted with the Consent Decree in the 1950s, but this consent really didnt stop from its overbearing monopoly of practices. So a new antitrust suit was generated and it took a couple of years. But the result of that antitrust suit was breakup of model and the at t system. So another in my view, a Great Success for otp. So thats about all i wanted to focus on. Cherokee paper. I did want to go back to one thing i said there was a direct line between the Nixon Administrations initiatives in telecom and the Telecom Industry. We have today is another to that maybe for future forum. Jeff that the change in u. S. Telecom industry led to the change in the International Telecommunity industry. And if has to become fully privatized, it certainly was to nationalize. Thats a subject for future discussion. Thanks, henry. Thank you very much. Tom thomas hazlett. Well this does take us back and the comments of Henry Goldberg are quite well informed. He was there, by the way. Ill just say not all of the panelists were there during the during the Nixon Administration. But if i had been eligible vote, sure, i would have been happy, participate. But the the comment that struck me too is that what a mess was in 1969. At the same time, there no question that the United States was far ahead of other country. And one of the ironies here is that, yes, there were a lot of challenge in the us and we knew it. We knew things werent working as they might. Had a lot of opportunities that we were not taking advantage of. But you look the world and there was no model nobody was doing it better. In fact, all our peer countries were were lost in state monopolies. So you go to the British Telecom or ntt in japan, deutsche telekom. These were countries that not only had monopoly, they had monopolies and no chance to jump ahead and to competitive world. Given their current structure. So it wasnt as if people can say, look, lets, lets, lets do what theyre doing in canada or the u. K. Or australia. Well jump right ahead. These these market models were out there and people had to think outside box. And every time do that, you of course, you bump into the immediate question, how do you know its going to work . Well, you dont know whats going to work. Obviously if you dont see that kind of evidence at home or abroad. Youve got to think hard about the problem. Youve got to become very well inform as the particulars of the industry. And there doesnt seem to be anything more complex hated than telecommunications is an industry. So these kinds of questions were not exactly conversations starters. They put an end to what could happen, and in fact, sort of a joke around the federal commission for years is somebody has a bright idea, some innovative path to follow. And the answer always comes down from the top. Cant do it. Why not technical reasons. Technical reason seems to cover everything. I always love it when lawyers have no idea what the technology is. Say technical reasons and the follow up is well, what are those technical things where you have to talk to the Engineering Department . Theyre out there at a conference in las vegas this week, but theyll be back. So this is the way the system, its its got challenges. We know might be better. But what are they and its very difficult not to answer simple questions about what we might want instead its painfully difficult politically to advance a new marketplace. And so this is the situation in in 1969. Just think about the the phone network. It was a monopoly. Was a private monopoly, was very advanced in terms of what the technologies were. We had bell labs and that oddly the greatest center of innovation and in telecommunications and Computer Technology in the world that time. But they had what deemed a monopoly and in many respects was quashing all at competition. Although there were little little green shoots coming up mci using wired Less Technology to sort of they got in on a gimmick in the 1960s this is before a little bit about were talking about but they actually sort of snuck in just providing they got permission do point to point Wireless Communications just here and there just to the side of the Telecommunications Network that at t controlled. They wouldnt destroy anything that wouldnt hurt anything. Just a little bit on the side and actually strategic manipulation of the permission that our side. Mci did an amazing thing and kind of snuck into head to head direct competition and Long Distance that was sort of on the outside. There were little, little, tiny efforts like this. This was resisted, of course, by at t that did everything it could to resist. I might just recall that in 1957, the Communications Commission, our Public Interest regulators actually stopped a company that for 30 years had been selling a device called hutch a phone pressure phone and you should google this really on images and go back to the 1920s, 3040s when they sold. These were devices, physical devices you could put on a phone. So that if you were in a cubicle. At work and people close by and could listen to your phone call, this device that came out around the phone and around head would sort of muffle the calls. So you could speak privately, had no electronics do it, but it was an attachment to the phone. According to at t. And at t had tariffs that prohibited prohibited that product from being sold in the united because it would the integrity of the telephone network. Now thats not the funny part. The funny part is the regulator that had a mandate to actually treat at t as, a common carrier that everybody could use on equal terms and conditions, actually said, yes, at t is right. And for the first time, a court took a put that that argument through some real scrutiny and found that that was too far the was out of out of control here at t was exercise a more monopoly than they needed and hush phone could could sell its product was overturned by the court a very similar case got to court again in 1968 called carter phone and at that point at t still insisted that a device that did have some electronics but didnt impact the phone network took your phone calls and that actually sent them wirelessly to others that that would 18 t thought that was a problem. They shouldnt be able to do it. It was a tiny bit of competition, but competition too much. The actually took the other side on that instead. As long as theres a protocol here that, this attachment can use the Network Without possibly disturbing anything that at t might it should be legal and that was a big forward that was in many renditions, many histories. This was an inflection point. People were starting to think that maybe little bit of competition might work. But still you had at t massively 90 of revenues in telecommuting nations and monopolies really everywhere else for the for the final 10 except surrounding error where it was cellular. In 1969. You well cellular hadnt been invented yet. Well thats actually incorrect the right answer is 1945 coming out of World War Two at bell labs. We the cellular concern maps and the architecture drawn up. It took all those years to move spectrum allocations into the new computing technol 4g because at t was just not that interested in a new structure. They didnt think going to generate much for them and they certainly didnt want it to see to generate much for others. So cellular was just sitting there nascent, no competition to the existing system, Cable Television, you might think cable hadnt been invented. Well, wrong again, weve had cable radio since the 1920s. Cable television, the United States since 1948. And what to cable was that regulators took a look and in the 1960s, actually it passed at the federal level. They had passed on anything about cable was just delivering over the air broadcast signals to outlying they couldnt get the broadcast it really harm broadcasters it competitive or complimentary but starting in the 1960s you actually had some cities like san diego, california that microwaved television, tv stations san diego and gave diego customers a chance for 5 a month to subscribe to a product that would compete local san diego channels well, that was the red. That was the red alarm. And the word went up the should be suppressed because. It was going to compete with broadcasting. Now, the real trick, this is what was happening broadcast regulation in 1962. In 1961, may ninth, 1961. You all remember that day. That was the moment of the most famous speech ever given by u. S. Regulator. According to who . According to me, you can you can disprove this perhaps. And that was you know, newton minow, the vast chairman of the fcc, stands up in front of the National Association broadcasters, the executives and owners of tv stations in america and says, i challenge you to watch your product sit in front of a television from dawn to dusk, and youll find an unending series of ridiculous sitcoms and lousy westerns, car chases and endless commercials. You have a vast wasteland and youre doing this with access to the publicly radio spectrum. Im going to go back to washington and im going to create new forms, new renewal forms thatll make it tougher for you to. Keep your stations unless you give Something Back to the public in terms some real quality programing. So this was the vast wasteland. It was actually a vast wasteland even in newton Meadows Church because of fcc licensing policy, we only had three networks, only had enough licenses for three networks. And you said well, where are we going to get a Fourth Network . What could that possibly come from . Well, again, wrong. We actually had a Fourth Network in the early 1950s on experimental licenses and some of you know the name of that network network, dumont. Yeah, the dumont network. The creators, the honeymooners, by the way, very innovative. Some things programing, you know, for one. But at any rate there were only enough licenses for three networks. Dumont screened bloody murder when the licensing plan out the big one in 1952 and put them off the air left. The trailer happily and with this kind of organized national structure, its very hard for niche programing and competition to develop and. Sure enough, there was lowest common denominator programing. Exactly what newton minow was calling out in 1961. But starting literally the following year. In 1962, the fcc took a hard line position, a hard line position, not against the vast wasteland, but defending the vast wasteland by attacking competition and in a series of rulings, 62 through 1970, bing bing, bing one right after the other, suppressed the building and operation of Cable Television systems to actually with cable. And thats we didnt get cable in the sixties and seventies until the deregulation of cable, which now would anybody look at television, call it the vast wasteland today, thousands of choices for customers. An entirely new market. Then it was virtually nothing. It was it a very tight oligopoly, very little choice. And which way to go on that satellite . Were an exciting new technology, really exciting. That was space age stuff. Literally. And in 1962, in the excitement during the kennedy administration, there been the Communications Satellite that created a government monopoly, comsat, which wanted to take advantage of lead in private sector technology, so gave essentially half the shares in the corporation to at t and it was this Public Private partnership to send out these Communications Satellite and move us forward. Chris mentioned that very little happened. There were all kinds of disputes in the organizational structure questions about what they really could do to in the market. But we were stymied by this government monopoly. We had the we had the amazing head start. We knew a lot about space. We were the leaders, but we werent using we go on and cite some of the other things that we have that werent happening. You can get a real good. Handle on this by reading a wonderful report just prior to the Nixon Administration, the socalled rostow report submitted december of 1968 on the Communications Marketplace and. Its talking about all the Great Technology changing the landscape, but hasnt been to be deployed, hasnt been used to really deliver services to the public. What are we going to do . They about using more competition . They even use words like deregulation. But at the same time, every time theres one step contemplated. Theyre always talking about. But monopoly is going to have to exist for many, not most services because for satellite, it seems expense had to be a natural monopoly. At t one system, one policy, universal service, that was at t corporate slogan and it was an fcc policy. You couldnt do it with competition, natural monopolies everywhere. Lets see if theres any place we can do any little of competition. Thats the world. Tom whitehead walked in to during that early Nixon Administration and. If i could just say this about tom. He was benefited by several things. One, he have an mit degree, and it almost didnt matter if he had learned anything at mit. He was the mit guy and when people said, this is about science and new technology, they looked at Tom Whitehead and said, well, he knows about it, but we dont. And he was given a portfolio way beyond his experience and way beyond his that served him well. And he was able to think the things that were verboten elsewhere in that political discussion. You go to the wroclaw report, theyre talking about all the things that have to happen before you have competition in Something Like satellite. And i think tom skipped a lot of that report and just got the part that said competition and when he did open skies in 1972 he didnt do all the studies and. Qualifications for where the competition could go. It was supposed to take in fact they say that in the rostow report this is going to take decades. In 1972, there was an open skies policy. The fcc wasnt thinking anything about it. Tom whitehead somehow influenced this time lifer at the fcc who was chairman of the commission at that go for it and he was impressive enough that this young 30 something mit grad talked him into it and within a couple of years there were six competitors in the satellite business. Now, again, you know, were not satellite directly. In 1975 when this is all happening but brian lamb, who founded cspan was and brian. Will tell you that competition in satellite, it would cost cspan 15 million an hour for video programing to be transmitted to the 30,000 cable system head ends america to do National Program was expensive just because of the monopoly hold up in satellite after open skies by the middle 1970s, cspan was able to launch at 100 an hour. They thats 150,000 times reduction because of opening the market. And it wasnt nuanced. It wasnt experimental it didnt take decades it got into the market quickly. An entire cable was then, in fact, deregulated, allowed to compete largely because they viable. And there was something there. There are hundreds of channels competing with what was supposed to be only three, according to fcc. And the world changed. And as henry brings up quite appropriately, it wasnt just that opening competition in satellite werent to stimulate economic growth. It was the proof of concept. There was no more obvious tough market than satellites with its huge upfront. Its high technology, its massive National International scale in terms of the idea of monopoly. In 1970 the fcc actually after all those years where Cellular Technology sat nascent, it actually created its first notice with rules for what could be the coming cellular industry and in that proceeding said cellular has to be a natural monopoly and therefore we will only issue license per market. And in fact to make sure that license says okay and viable to provide service to the public, we will make sure we issue that to an affiliate of at t couldnt just any old licensee had to be at t so it had to be part of the old monopoly to become part of a new monopoly thats now embedded in old thinking. We were. And it shows you how radical was the notion of Tom Whitehead to take an industry looks like a monopoly might be competition. Lets let competition and do the experiment. Now the fcc doesnt like to rush into anything and they finally got to this opinion in 1970. But of course, immediately, 1974, they said, well, maybe we went a little too fast on that. Well, well allow to into market took another ten years by the way to start issuing licenses through all the the fights. At t, motorola other interests involved there but this radical notion that competition save the day and chaos not the automatic result and that it wasnt just about all the science or knowing all the economic outcomes to start with. Its having some good solid principles, doing your best shot and allowing the to experiment that might get you to the next step and really deliver benefits for free speech for consumers and technology. And in that, Tom Whitehead is absolutely an american, a pioneer who i think was helped by his young, brash naivete. And the fact that he did study the science and, not get intimidated by the questions that were asked. Tom, thank you very much. Margaret henry thomas. Thank you. Those wonderful presentations id like to begin as a ghost, starting with margaret and henry. If you have any further comments based on what your co panelists have said and if you go, ive got some tough questions for all of you, i would just like to add that one of the exciting days in my life looking back at all of this is when tom came home from the white house, when night. And he just kept saying over and over again hundreds of channels, hundreds of channels. And i wondered what in the world he was talking about. Henry. This certainly dont disagree with anything that. The tom margaret said it comes down to a very simple thing in my mind, and that is tom set out to change the world and succeeded. And thats the world we have today. Dont cry. Go ahead. Yeah, ill pick up on one little firecracker that henry put out. And that was the the cable report. The cabinet cable report, 1974, led by what he and it did advocate that there be a ban between the cable operator serving local household plans with video and, then owning the video that they put out there so that if youre time warner and you have Time Warner Cable delivering Cable Service that you cant also own cnn and other time properties. That was a mistake just in terms the correct policy it it was picked up by Net Neutrality because Net Neutrality is an extension of the air weve done fine without explicit rules and do much better when there is a Competition Among Business Models and we get a lot of neutrality in and we get some non neutrality networks and it seems a particularly with a competitive environment to to work out. I believe that the and henry may want comment on it i believe that the feeling at the time was that cable was in such a compromised situation politically and had broadcasters the one side at t on the other, both powerful incumbent interests pushing against any allowance of of cable that. They the idea of the Cabinet Committee report was to forge some kind of political that cable would be allowed to come in but not own its own programing. Let me just say as a an economic or theoretical matter, this this is this is crazy. Youve got broadcasters already in the market, 100 market share, essentially. Youve got the powerful at t monopoly on the other. And youre trying get this new start up industry, cable tv to invest capital to to bring a new infrastructure lecture you know wire america very expensive these were called the cowboys of the industry. They didnt have wall street support and so forth. They were i mean, the headquarters of cable was denver back in days when denver was a dusty little western. And these the entrance the entrance dont have any market power. You theres theres theres no theres no issue that has to be dealt with with stopping them from forcing programing on customers. We want them in the market. We want all the efficiencies of allowing to make the choice. Do we need to own programing or do we do we do it our own . And owning programing. Obviously, a lot of innovators in cable have been Cable Operators. They tried to get programing that people wanted. I mean, one of the examples, by the way, is the nonprofit called cspan. Cspan is owned by the Cable Operators early on in the industry, the Cable Operators wanted something distinct from programing. There was this distinct fcc ban and that was why they supported cspan, why they still support cspan. So the integration of the programing is absolutely efficient in most situations. We have antitrust laws to pick out the you know, the special case where its not and i, i think that that that that inclusion is a very interesting inclusion. It goes the open market idea it was a regulatory idea was unnecessary it copied from common carriage was applied to at t and so forth and seems like a very to me it sticks out like a sore thumb seems to be a political compromise that really would not have been made if the political circumstances were different for that get may i may i may may i respond to that i couldnt disagree more with tom and the if it were a political decision by tom and the Cabinet Committee report it was absolutely the wrong political decision because when the report was issued, the roof fell in and lobbyists for the cable industry, not the shrinking violet of cable industry, but cable industry that hired high powered lobbyists, children. Its still a good idea if you talk to people trying to fight with apple over the app store and the control that they have running napster or what apps are permitted or on the other side of google the power of the if you want to call it an essential facility, whether its a cable system, an app store or the internet, youve got to be sure that the ones who that facility are not using their power over that facility to stifle programing and look the best programing on tv does not come from the cable industry. The cable industry, which fought broadcast properties, but from the netflix of the world. So with that, ill just with tom and stop talking i want to add something that i think is important to henrys account of the open skies policy. He emphasized that the policy can of of saying very simply any private Organization Firm that puts together technological wherewithal the financing, the organizational ability to actually launch and put orbit a Communications May do so government will not not stop. That was pretty hard to oppose and it was a wonderfully simple idea but there was a second part to it that i want to mention that i think was terrible, terribly important. Were not going to subsidize any of you guys. Youre on your own. You have to do it all yourselves and. If you fail, dont come crying to us for a bailout. Its its completely private. This is not a government sector partnership. This is simply permissive. So it was very different. For example, from todays federal toward electric and an electric car infrastructure here where it is heavily subsidized in five Different Directions if any firm gets in trouble, the governments going to be there for you. Its going to help you out with this, that and the other. There was none of that at all. The result was you would think, well, that would have things just the opposite. It was because everybody that they were going to succeed or fail on their own that they cant trade and so heavily on technology in the early that they were able to put up satellites just in a few years that were far more sophisticated and reliable than anything that had come before, where their failures certainly failures are how you learn those were the the projects that us to such a rapid progress. I have a question for two of our panelists and then has a question i i did i was in with jeff i was in the Nixon White House and i was down hall and around the corner from Tom Whitehead. I was doing things that were completely different. I didnt have any idea what this nice fellow was up to. I left to go to law school. And shortly after i got this would have been in 1971, i started reading. By this nice propose closing the proposing in public for the first time the ideas weve been discussing and it just its i just want to emphasize the radicalism of what was going on he he like some eccentric half crazed College Professor except he was this very cool collected understated young man and this was coming out the Nixon White House. I mean it was just it was in me. I couldnt understand what the world was happening. And then within a year or two, he overcame the objections of fcc, the Television Networks, the pentagon, the commerce department, at t, and hed triumph over all of them. So i want to ask. Margaret, you said that he would come home muse about hundreds of Television Channels in an era where there are only three and it seemed inconceivable there could be four. And i want to know that in public was so cool. You know, if we open this up, maybe somebody might launch a satellite very you know, he was he kind of understated everything. Was he the radical revolutionary at home over the table or at the breakfast table when hes suiting up to take the world . Was he really the cool engineer or was he the hot revolutionary . And i want to ask henry what was going on in the white house. We had a lot of very straight laced, proper conservative of senior staffers. And Richard Nixon in the oval office. What did what were they thinking and how did you guys work with them and form an alliance . Succeeded margaret well. Tom was neither the the hot under the collar revolution ornery or or or very loud in any way he he was quite quiet. He was thoughtful he never confrontational. In fact seldom confrontational. And it was fascinating to watch his political his his policy career is filled with with potential horror, all conflicts and so much controversy among companies and Large Companies and potentially in the white. It was it was so interesting to me and i, i think the reason i emphasized so as two things in my remarks was there were two things at work here. One is this. We had this person whos from kansas, whos raised in kansas, who has who was a democrat, a little d from heart. So his brain worked on the cattle form. Who who saw people in local the local community and had Three Sisters and friends and lovely parents. And then you kept off with this magnificent education on it and mighty of reasoning and Decision Making and managing it. And i think the result was very interesting. He he was it was not radical in any way except in his intellect all decisions about how the administration should proceed in dealing with all of these businesses. And there was a very amusing moment there, which really sort of speaks all of this when he went to see the of at t, who had refused come to washington to see him claiming he was who would only come to washington, see the president , which was fine with tom, said fine. Finally, id be delighted to come and see you. And he went there and began to tell the chairman of at t that the after 20 minutes of pleasant conversation that the white house was hoping, the president was hoping to deregulate at t. Well, the went into a lets just say he was exercised i wont go into detail. And he finished his remarks by saying who you to deregulate my telephone. You probably never even climbed a telephone pole and trump said, as a matter of fact, i when i climbed one of yours. So so tom was from the heartland. He had this magnificent education, and it just made for a very interesting mix of values and and approaches. Thank you. Let me, henry, add one thing to that. Tom certainly didnt look like a typical 1960s revolutionary. Theres no about that. But in his heart, he was. And if he came against the status quo that he thought was working well or not doing right thing, he took up against that status quo in telecom. But also when the ban on kite flying in the district of columbia he fought that battle to but he he he. He was at heart revolutionary particularly when what had to be overturned was something that was unfair, wrong and just not doing what should do. So to get to your other question about how did the that revolutionary manage things at the white house. Well, i dont really have firsthand knowledge. I mean, tom kind of sheltered a lot of the senate from what was going on on the white house. But one thing that i suspect is that at least initially of toms revolution scenario, ideas fit in with the president s ideas. What was wrong with the three National Broadcasts networks . And when tom said, look, my initiatives, whether theyre satellite or whether theyre cable, we are going to cut back on the power of those networks. Were going to permit competition with them. And i think that resonated not for policy reasons, maybe for political and personal reasons with the white house. They only initiative that ultimately he took that really didnt fit, that was breaking up. At t and i have no idea how he convinced white house to go ahead with the antitrust super. Thank you, henry. And i should say that what you what just said comports with the understanding that i gained over the years from talks with tom and several people that had been at white house and involved in these debates that there were a of debates at the senior level the white house there were people that did not understand what tom was doing and were opposed to them. And taking calls from entrenched interests and were very worried about. It i think the secret to success is that tom had an ally in the oval office. I think that Richard Nixon knew what he was up, thought it was worth the risks, had his back, and that every time that it came into the office, it was decided in a way that let tom and you and brian and nino scalia continue with your work. Geoff shepard well, ill have an update. Thank you, chris. I have an observer and a question. I think it was on this very stage when. That same comment was made about the all volunteer army when Marty Anderson was working on the idea of the draft and every was against it. And as marty pointed out, he had an ally. The ally was in the oval office and nixon and time after time after time comes across as innovative and open to new ideas. And one of the wonderful reasons for these forums is to record and get that out. So my my question then is, is revelatory. If my my own shortcomings this has been hugely and weve gone through skies and deregulation of cable breaking up of at t and. I was on the white house staff during time. I didnt necessarily work in this at all, but this is huge news to me and the background is news. And my question of the group where someone like me go to learn more to read about because im spear name on on the tales that youre telling. Well well i will get the ball rolling in this building can go and look at many in the Nixon Library thanks to margaret efforts and foresight by the leadership of the library congress, toms papers are collected there. Moreover, they are all digitally digitized and online and and available at ww. Blue Clay T Whitehead dot com. And i recommend that and there are many videos of colin photographs as well as papers and its just wonderful. And it would be ask if if henry margaret do you any other recommendations. Okay im going to something to tell us a little bit about a television now on apple and netflix when wire king whats that all margaret well its so interesting that jennifer manners, who was an Award Winning documentary filmmaker, but also the of the senior Vice President of, the fourth largest Satellite Company in the states in the world, found that had a gift for documentary filmmaking and won an award at sundance and can and this is shes made a second film having worked at the fcc. She has made a second film about the rise the run up to wireless which very much includes otp and she didnt know about tom tom not had a lot of press. In spite of all of these innovations and she found out about she knew henry and she went to henry and henry helped with her storyline because. He certainly knows it well. He was part of it and he was determinative to it and i provided her of the the physical papers that she needed to make the film. And its thrilling. Its an absolutely fabulous film and its actually out now and its going to be streaming its going to be streaming. And it is out when wire was king and its extremely entertaining. Its a wonderful story about our country and about Public Policy and f document docu very, very well with a lot of fascinating old footage of the mos, the the ma Bell Telephone system even has a few lily tomlin jokes in it. For those of you who are old enough, remember lily tomlin and a lot of a lot of wonderful documentary evidence of what weve been discussing. The at t antitrust case. Well, let me mention one other, which is what i mentioned, the very beginning, and that is professor lynch book, the political spectrum. Its the best book thats been written on the question. And if you read it, you will become an aficionado of of his articles and studies that are available at his clemson website. Im going to chris, let me id like to look around and i think we have time for maybe one question, if there are any from the audience . Yep, we have time for just a couple of questions right here. You. Yeah, hi, my name is mike ebbing. I came to the Nixon White House in august 1970 as a member of White House Communications agency, also known as waco, which im sure most of your panelists are familiar our our mission at that time as it is today is to provide Communications Support for the office of the president. I look back at 1970 as the prehistoric days of communication and president ial communications. Three months after i arrived with walker, i was sent to paris november 1974, de gaulles funeral probably one of the most challenging trips that i was with the president. World wide leaders. We got to paris, we got it out one of our hotel rooms that we were staying at that became basically the paris white house, our switchboard was up and operational within a few hours. And i remember i dont know how they did it, but when i was working the switchboard we had what we called long haul trunk lines back to the white house. I was abroad journalism Major University of iowa, unlike Tom Whitehead, who had his degree at m. I. T. So i had no idea how it worked. But it was fascinating that i could take a switchboard cord, plug it into a whole push a button and within seconds i would be connected to either the white house signal switchboard in the basement of the white house or the white house admin board, which was next door and the eob building. So that just amazed me that that kind of technology which now i call prehistoric but i would argue that we were the United States was among the worldwide leaders as far as provide in president ial support so its fascinating me that at the same time i was in the white house that this brain power was going on right with the tom white heads and all of this was evolving. So i just that as an observation and and i agree with jeff an enlightening viewpoint this was to learn about all of this that had taken place while i was actually also working in the white house. Wonderful wonderful. Thank you very much. If i could. There was something the london switch, which i think was a dedicated cable under the and and you remember you used to to make an appointment to make a Long Distance call. And, you know, your your slot 4 minutes at 2 a. M. And you could hardly hear on the other end of the line. But man, if you could connect through that switch it was like the person was sitting next to you. It was clear as a bell and instantaneous and reserved for very special people. If you were senior enough on the white house staff, you got a phone in your house that they would come put in. And when you picked up the phone, you didnt get a dial, walker said yes, sir. And they physi actually placed the call. I mean, was a an astonishing National Security effort to be sure. We had good you guys did in dark ages. A wonderful job. Weve got time for one last question and well wrap it up right as a docent here, as a volunteer. Those are at the library. This opens up a whole new world for us terms of sharing the president s legacy with our here. But one of my questions is with regard to the comment tom made relative to the Satellite Technology and brian lambs comment in terms of cost. So my question is, the cost came down radically, obviously, but was the cost actually the high costs previously driven fees that they were forced to pay . Or was there Something Else going on that drove the cost . So and theres the new select satellite drove it low. It was because they owned the distribution then how did that actually work . Thank you henry . Tom well, let me let me one crack at the cost was very high because of the antimonopoly, number one. Number two, particularly with respect to the national tv broadcast Networks Television video takes an awful lot of bandwidth and putting that much bandwidth through a terrestrial wireless network, a microwave network, very, very expensive, compounded by the fact that it was monopoly price. So when satellites came along, you could get that bandwidth for national interconnection for a fraction of the cost. And also it was competitively had technologies available as weve just heard, this goes back, you know, over 50 years. And now they seem trivial. But at a cost you can do it the whole progress coming forward is making these things nonexclusive of having massive scale and, allowing competitive innovation to, drive costs down. So people say in science, well, of course science is along for the ride and its very, very helpful along the way. But the institutional issue is how can you open a market and socially, get the Movement Forward . Let me just read you a quote is so wonderful. In 1962, this is where we were 1962, an economist who Tom Whitehead and others were listening to at the time, william maclean, made a grand prediction. He said saddle will enable one to call anywhere in the world. For 0. 10. And as just texted my daughter in korea zero marginal cost before our battle started you know that he was optimist but not optimistic enough. And all of our dreams of the day have been by what . Enveloped with the competitive that some people did more than imagine, but worked to make real but henry, tom, chris and jeff, you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Lets give them a round of applause. Be sure to follow us online at Nixon Foundation board for recordings of nixon legacy forum, the other 39 nixon legacy forums and exciting programs and events. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. Thank when i left my left. The militaristic that i carry in my brain, which had a lot. And i but we find out about out him a lot i think i can only really work alone but im going on a trip. I dont no one. But hes working on it. Gave me some magazines, but when im on hand. Its just like, okay feeling to find out how. Higher are a little bit higher for his kids or. This this is important. I think. Like i got i hey. He can move right now. Pull it out and have a nice crop. Thats fine ill. Want to help. But one out of my class that i have no, i never thought about. Welcome back, everyone to session