tee. The Water Resources Council will continue to work
with the States in this effort--anticipating that proposals will emerge
which merit both State and Federal support.

Your assignment, Mr. President, has been exciting and challenging. We
hope that our effort has contributed to achieving your dreams for this
magnificent valley.

Respectfully yours,

[signature]

Secretary of the Interior

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Enclosure

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20240

October 1, 1968

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Since early February 1965, when President Johnson asked you to develop a
program which would make the Potomac "a model of scenic and recreation
values", there has been a continuing joint effort to achieve this
exciting objective.

The Interdepartmental Task Force, which you and your fellow Cabinet
officers established, has coordinated the Federal effort. When the four
Basin State Governors and the Commissioner of the District of Columbia
acted to establish the Potomac River Basin Advisory Committee, we had a
genuine opportunity to achieve useful and effective Federal-State
cooperative relationships. As you know, our two groups have worked
together in a cordial and productive way.

We have listened carefully to the views of individual citizens and
citizen groups in a real effort to sense the needs and aspirations of
the people who live in the valley and the millions who visit our
Nation's Capital and the historic and beautiful Potomac valley.
Publication of an Interim Report two years ago proved to be a useful
means for obtaining citizen participation.

This report summarizes a series of studies made in response to the
President's directive. Although it is our final report, we urge that it
be looked upon as the next step in a continuing planning process. It
points to action to meet present and near-term needs and to the
desirability of continued planning to provide sound bases for the
further resource-use decisions which citizens of the Basin will be
called upon to make as those decisions become more timely.

The body of the report is a Department of the Interior document, couched
whenever possible in nontechnical language in the hope that it may find
a wide lay readership. The program for action, which constitutes the
final chapter, is concurred in by the Federal agencies on the
Interdepartmental Task Fo