Sold – President Truman Appoints the Nation’s First Telecommunications Advisor

After the end of World War II, there was an explosion in use of the nation’s air waves. Commercial radio stations increased in number, but they were not the only ones scrambling for places on the broadcast band. The armed forces, airline traffic control, and such new entrants as the two-way radios of the U.S. Secret Service, Internal Revenue agents and other agencies, had more than doubled the use of government frequencies. Television began to make regular broadcasts in 1948 and by 1950 became the rage as stations proliferated. President Truman came to believe that he needed expert advice in the field of broadcasting and in 1951 he asked an electronics engineer named Haraden Pratt, vice president of the American Cable & Radio Corp., to become his telecommunications adviser, charged with the task of untangling the nation’s air net. This was a newly-created post and the President gave Pratt the responsibility for such problems as broadcast frequency allocations, international radio agreements, and planning for the day when, in case of a national emergency, the government might have to take over U.S. telecommunications.

Document Signed, large folio, Washington, October 9, 1951, naming Haraden Pratt “Telecommunications Advisor to the President of the United States.” The document is countersigned by Dean Acheson as Secretary of State. It is mounted to a thin board.

A valued man in a non-partisan position, Pratt retained his office under President Eisenhower. After leaving government service, Pratt became president and director of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an organization of engineers with expertise in aerospace systems, computers, telecommunications, power generation and consumer electronics. As a legacy, they established an award in his name.