This introduction to our Annual Report deals with a few selected elements in our present work. The Ford Foundation is a large enterprise, and its activities engage the energies of hundreds of talented men and women. The full report gives an account of all that we did in fiscal 1966. As the years pass I will hope to offer my own comments on all aspects of our work. This first year I have tackled three subjects of present concern: first—the role of the Foundation in discussions of public issues; second—our concern with the financial resources of higher education; and third—the internal arrangements of the Ford Foundation.

Public Issues, Philanthropic Foundations, and Straight Talk

This year we have had to think about the proper role of this foundation in the discussion of public issues because we have been discussing one. For reasons summarized below on page 1, the Ford Foundation in 1966 decided to respond to the call of the Federal Communications Commission for advice on the future of domestic communication satellites. This decision was required, in our judgment, by the great importance of this question for the future of noncommercial television—a subject with which this foundation has been closely and expensively concerned for more than a decade.

In the sea of documents called forth by the F.C.C. proceeding, our purpose remains clear—to focus attention on the needs of educational television and the special promise of free satellite channels for its full development. We are encouraged by the public response to this purpose. A major national decision impends; the Foundation knows more about some parts of the issue than anyone else in the country; we have some fresh ideas and the means to seek further expert comment. Our right to speak was plain in law; our duty was clear in the record of what we had learned. The call of the F.C.C. was thus a challenge and an opportunity for the friends of educational television, and we decided that to keep silent in such a situation would be irresponsible.

But this proceeding does take us into an arena where there are great commercial interests. Can we be charged with "interfering with other people's business," when that business is concerned with a national decision on public policy? No such charge has been made by the leaders of the affected industries. They do not all agree with us—or we with all of them—but they recognize our right to speak. They appear to accept our view that the competition of ideas is the life of regulated trade.

I think there is a wider principle here: that no public interest is served by any convention under which one part of our society remains silent whenever someone else is thought to have a special interest. The churches, the government, the businessmen, the educators, the unions, the farmers, the doctors, the lawyers, the press, yes and the