The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was established in 1979 (as the Climate Analysis Center). The search for the origins of a concept for a diagnostics climate center takes one back to the early proposals for a national climate program. The effort to develop a climate program was triggered by a letter from geologists George Kukla and Robert Mathews to President Nixon summarizing a 1972 Conference on the Present Interglacial, and warning of a possible ice age. The global impacts of the El Niņo of 1972/73 contributed to the national concern, particularly after the Soviet grain failure. Their subsequent purchase of wheat on the world market helped drive up grain prices. The White House asked the Interdepartmental Committee on Atmospheric Sciences to respond to the Kukla/Mathews latter, and the Committee established a Panel on the Present Interglacial. Their final report was issued in August 1974 and included a proposal for the establishment of a national climate program. Personal interviews with individuals who were active during that period suggest that the concept of a diagnostics climate center emanated from that early planning. Subsequent efforts to establish the center are discussed, culminating with its creation as a NOAA entity in the National Weather Service in a series of actions from 1978 and 1979.