This is a November 1956 three-page memo from Maj. Gen. John S. Bragdon – President Eisenhower’s special advisor for public works planning – proposing “a program for comprehensive and coordinated long-range planning based on measured needs and relative urgencies for all types of works at all levels of government. The immediate need of the ‘basic program’ is legislation to provide for Federal grants-in-aid (a) to States who establish comprehensive public works planning units; (b) to ‘Special Metropolitan Governments’) established to provide central jurisdiction over metropolitan areas in lieu of present overlapping authorities.”

The three-page memo is followed by a 24-page slide presentation on the importance of long-range planning for public works at the federal, state and local levels.