Lyndon Johnson: “In these last two decades, independence has come for more than 1 billion people in 54 countries.”

Your reward--and it is coming--will be seen in the faces of children who will come down the road that you have helped to open.

Sometimes it is your job to go out and scout the road, to encounter and overcome the difficulties that always accompany such a vast new venture as this.

We are grateful for the impressive gesture of good will and partnership that you have extended to us.

This program, sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization, constitutes one of the largest and most complex scientific and technological undertakings ever attempted as an international effort.