Yet crowded letislative calendars, fragmented policy jurisdictions, and operating procedures which discourage long-term considerations often result in short-term, narrow gauge solutions. The foresight provision makes explicit the obligation to take a longer term and hopefully more systematic and integrated view of problems.

If Congress is to be a branch co-equal with the Executive, it will need to define its own alternative versions of the future. Foresight by committees is a necessary step in that direction.

W Michael Blumenthal
Chairman and President

The Bendix Corporation

Executive Offices

Bendix Center

Southfield, Michigan 48076

.The Honorable John Glenn
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

March 18, 1976

Dear Senator Glenn:

Your letter dated March 8, 1976, was received in my office on March 15, 1976. To meet your deadline of March 22, perforce dictates a brief reply. I will, therefore, respond by commenting first on the quoted material appearing on Pages 1 and 2 of your letter -- excerpts from the letter to invitees and then comment

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seriatim on the numbered questions appearing in your letter.

I endorse the thoughts in the quoted material. Our nation requires agreement on goals; direction towards which to move; appraisal of our talents and shortcomings; and an appreciation that national problems require orderly, planned, systematic measures rather than "fire-engine" responses -- to use your expression.

We have the talent to judge our future needs. Our task is to organize these talents. We arrive today at our national policies in too haphazard a manner -- often ill-prepared, sacrificing longer-term purposes for shorter-term expediency, permitting wellorganized but narrow self-interest groups to dictate and corrupt our national purposes.

The many national ills catalogued in the second quoted paragraph
are with us because we failed to anticipate them, to arrive at a
national consensus on how to manage them, and to organize ourselves
for the measures to create advantage and to thwart adversity.

The Congress clearly has a role in setting our national purposes
and in helping to assure that, organizationally, we are prepared
to identify them and to assure their achievement. No doubt, the
Senate Government Operations Committee has an important role to
play. However, the issue is broader than that of deciding whether

The Honorable John Glenn
March 18, 1976
Page 2

one committee or another should have the paramount role. This is an issue worthy of wide-ranging Congressional debate from which there might emerge a judgment that a New Joint Senate-House Committee should be created. My thoughts are quite open on the matter of how the Congress should be organized for this monumental task.

Question No. 1: I agree with the discussion under this question and particularly endorse the views that entrapment into a rigid blueprint for the future should be avoided.

Question No. 2: The statements here may need some balancing. Some agencies do long-term planning but they seldom draw an audience except in their own limited spheres. All agencies should have a long-term plan. And there should be a means for assuring that plans relate well to each other. In turn, sectoral plans should be coordinated into a single overall plan that shows the interrelated policies and action that are required if certain agreed objectives are to be achieved.

Question No. 3: I agree that improvements in planning capabilities and in planning coordination are needed. Lacking the benefit of hearing the various witnesses, I am not prepared to support each of the organizational arguments proposed within this question. In principle, however, I do favor strengthening the planning capability of the Congress and for arrangements for overall planning coordination in the Executive Branch. I have some doubts about the Smithsonian as the planning coordinator. No doubt, we can all benefit from further study of these issues. Most probably, a commission on national goals is needed and some overall planning body which can duly reflect the differing perspectives of the Executive and Legislative Branches of government is called for.

I regret having to treat this matter rather sparingly but the limited time available for my response barred anything further.

The Honorable John Glenn
March 18, 1976

Page 3

Please permit me to commend you for leadership in this important activity and to assure you of my lively interest in the matter and of my willingness to assist in further examinations of these issues.

Sincerely,

WHIJemen that

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
COLLEGE PARK 20742

18 March 1976

Ms. Rosemarie O'Hare
c/o Senator John Glen
U. S. Capitol

Washington, D. C. 20510

Dear Ms. O'Hare:

I am sending you a couple of reprints in response to Senator John Glenis letter to me of March 4th. directly on the questions the Senator asked.

They bear