---
title: "“The Biggest Giveaway in the History of the Nation”: A Legislative History of the 1962 Communications Satellite Act"
author: "Berg, C."
date: "2004-10-31"
url: "https://chrisberg.org/2004/10/the-biggest-giveaway-in-the-history-of-the-nation-a-legislative-history-of-the-1962-communications-satellite-act/"
type: "Thesis"
published_in: "BA (Honours) thesis, University of Melbourne"
pdf: "https://chrisberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/berg-2004-biggest-giveaway-honours-thesis.pdf"
topics: "Competition policy, Economic history, Internet and telecommunications, World politics and foreign policy"
---

# “The Biggest Giveaway in the History of the Nation”: A Legislative History of the 1962 Communications Satellite Act

*Bachelor of Arts (Honours) thesis, Department of History, The University of Melbourne, October 2004.*

**Summary:** In 1960 AT&T surprised the Federal Communications Commission by applying to launch an experimental communications satellite, at a time when no government body had considered how such a network should be regulated or organised. Two years later the Communications Satellite Act created the privately funded Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat) and gave it a monopoly over the commercial industry, after a bitter congressional battle in which a small group of liberal Democrats filibustered against the Kennedy administration. This thesis is a legislative history of the Act, tracing its origins in the Kefauver campaign for a public alternative, the interests of industry, and the politics and ideology of the fight.

[Read the thesis (PDF)](https://chrisberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/berg-2004-biggest-giveaway-honours-thesis.pdf)