The Presidency and Antarctica

National Science Foundation
Office of Polar Programs
4201 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22230

Posted February 12, 2016

In honor of Presidents' Day, wording from a letter signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the first group to occupy the then-newly built Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957.

The current Amundsen-Scott station is the third to occupy the site: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/livingsouthpole/index.jsp

Subsequent presidents have regularly written “Midwinter’s Day messages,” to those spending the long Southern Hemisphere winter in the Antarctic in support of science.

The National Science Foundation manages the U.S. Antarctic Program under Presidential Memorandum 6646, signed in 1982: https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/ant/memo_6646.jsp