Nimetz to Flannery Letter

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

Washington, D. C.

December 21, 1967

[from the archives of the LBJ Library, Austin, Tex.]

This is in response to your request for a brief memorandum on the Task Force's recommendations concerning making additional spectrum available for police and requiring a single nationwide telephone number for police.

1. Additional spectrum-- The Crime Commission, and FCC Commissioner Johnson in an October 31, 1967 speech, spoke of the problems of frequency congestion in our largest metropolitan areas. When police departments suffer from shortage of radio frequency space, the following occurs:

b. Overtaxing of central police dispatchers during normal peak periods of operation, such as Friday and Saturday evenings;

c. Loss of personnel field time while waiting for frequencies to clear so that reports can be made;

d. Inhibition of the development of personnel radio systems which connect the officer to headquarters and provide increased protection to officers away from cars;

e. Loss of control of police departments during major emergencies such as riots. Up to this time there has been no comprehensive study made as to the actual number of additional frequencies needed by police.

There is general acceptance, however, that police are presently experiencing congestion that is hampering their effectiveness. It seems clear that any program to help the police will have to consist of two parts:

b. Making long-range provisions to reduce congestion in the most economical and coordinated manner.

With respect to short-range measures, the FCC Is making some additional frequencies available in the 450 MHz band and it Indicates that 72 new channels will be allocated for police and local government use. Dr. Emrich's conversations with several police departments., including New York, Indicate that 72 channels will not be sufficient to meet their needs. The Task Force proposes that the FCC be requested to leave flexible its allocation policy concerning these frequencies and that the Communications Policy Task Force be asked to consider an a priority basis the needs of public safety. If this proposal is followed, it appears that no public Presidential announcement may be appropriate until the Communications Policy Task Force has recommended the actual number of new channels that should be made available to police on a short-term basis. As you will recall, this was the method of operation recommended by Al Novak when we met with him.

Looking to long-range solutions, much of the problems in congestion are attributable to the failure of local governments and metropolitan areas to make effective use of the channels presently available. The Crime Commission made specific recommendations as to how the FCC could encourage local communities to use more efficiently the channels available to them: "The FCC should require metropolitan areas to submit coordinated requests for additional frequencies, with the manner in which action on a local level is coordinated left to the discretion of local governments.

The second part of the Task Force proposal is that the Communications Policy Task Force devise methods by which the federal government can encourage, if not require, local communities to help themselves.

2. Single Telephone Number-- The Crime Commission suggested the importance of a uniform, nation-wide number for police. Present work by the telephone industry on computer-based telephone operations make this the ideal time to implement this recommendation. The telephone industry has consistently argued that the telephone operator is an adequate emergency number. This argument has satisfied neither the Crime Commission, the Riot Commission, nor this Task Force. Commissioner Johnson advised Dr. Emrich that the FCC could probably require the telephone Industry to develop a single number for police, but he (Commissioner Johnson) felt that legislation was a more effective way of doing so. Our proposal envisions the Attorney General and FCC doing the spadework prior to any Presidential announcement on the matter. I am enclosing a copy of Commissioner Johnson's speech and his letter to Dr. Emrich concerning the proposals discussed above.