I REGARD Mr. Wagner's appointment
as a recognition not only of his own career and capacities but of the loyalty
and dedication that has uniquely characterized the staff of the Tennessee
Valley Authority over the full period of its development. The ranks of
the agency can boast other men and women who like Mr. Wagner have torn
loose from their own geographical roots to devote careers to this region
that had become an eddy in the mainstream of progress.
The TVA has done a remarkable
job but the job is not done. It has demonstrated in 27 years that it has
the imagination and flexibility to grow with its times but it must prove
in its second quarter century that it can remain vigorous as it grows old.
The TVA, like every vital branch of the government, must never allow itself
to relapse into an attitude of entrenched bureaucracy.
I want to be sure also that
we lose no opportunity to share the great experience of the TVA with other
nations faced with the gap between resources and resource development.
I want the agency to study ways in which the lessons it has learned in
the Tennessee Valley may be exported abroad and applied to our great objective
of human enhancement.
Toward these ends I would like
a report from the TVA Board by April 15 so that I may know the directions
in which the agency proposes to work in the years immediately ahead.