Memorandum for Heads of Departments and Agencies
Managing the complex affairs of the Federal Government is an exacting task. The American people deserve, and demand, that the Government apply to its operations the most efficient management techniques available. Our programs must be both effective and economical. This requires intensive hard-headed analysis in every program of every agency.
The need for people in each department well trained in modern management methods is great. This need has been clear to me for some time and has been made even more evident with the introduction of the new planning-Programming-Budgeting System.
One way you can meet this need is to recruit as many of the best, analytically trained people as you can find.
Another way is to train the most able and promising people now on your staff in modern techniques of program analysis and management.
Therefore, I have asked the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to organize an education program in these techniques at several universities. I want you to nominate some of your most able people for this intensive training in modern, analytic methods.
The Chairman and the Budget Director will be sending you details on this program.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
Note: on July 13, 1966, the White House announced that 83 Federal employees had been selected to participate in the new training program during the 1966-67 academic year, and would devote a year to graduate study at one of seven universities conducting special management courses for them. The release stated that the 83 men and women had been selected by Charles L. Schultze, Director of the Bureau of the Budget, John W. Macy, Jr., Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, and the National Institute of Public Affairs, a private, nonprofit organization which was assisting the Government in carrying out the program.
An announcement concerning the selection of the participants in the President's Mid-Career Educational Program is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 2, p. 932).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Memorandum on the Need for Training in Modern Management Methods Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238347