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Copyright © 1997 by University Publications of America. All rights reserved.
President President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963
Part 1: Special Correspondence, Speech, Legislative, and Press
Conference Files
Part 2: Staff Memoranda File
Part 3: Departments and Agencies File
Part 4: Subjects File
Part 5: Countries File
[This item added to Web July, 1997.]
Overview
These office files, which constitute the heart of the administrative record of the
Kennedy White House, should provide researchers with valuable insights into the tone and
mission of that prematurely short administration. From Richard Neustadt's pre-election
concern (expressed as early as September 15, 1960) about the expectations the public had
since Roosevelt's time about the "first hundred days" an impression, Neustadt
noted, that "feeds on reality" and cannot be "sustained by mere `public
relations' "--to the administration's belated battle for civil rights legislation,
the sense of conflict between idealism and reality becomes unmistakable.
These papers also offer insights into Kennedy's administrative style. He cared little
for the minutiae of day-to-day routines, preferring to operate on a direct
person-to-person level. His collegial manner ("He was the center of the wheel,"
Walt Rostow has recalled; "he was capable [of maintaining] more reliable, bilateral
human relations than any man I have ever known") worked best with small groups. He
used the cabinet sparingly, minimizing full and extended meetings and considered his
department heads useful if they were informative; if not, he was easily bored.
Typically, matters requiring resolution were directed to more than one person, which
gave the president more freedom to pick and choose, a process that subordinated rank to
the president's interest, temperament, and need to know. Even when making some crucial
diplomatic decisions, as during the Cuban Missile Crisis, such trusted aides as Theodore
Sorenson were more influential than Kennedy's secretary of state.
To the everlasting frustration of researchers into the inner workings of the Kennedy
presidency, it is a safe assumption that some of the most important exchanges were never
committed to paper and were often transacted over the telephone with whomever happened to
be Kennedy's most vital source for that particular need--and sometimes only because he
happened to be the person who was in the right place at the right time.
Kennedy, the first president born in this century, was also the first whose use of
modern technology left important gaps in the written record. Researchers will accordingly
also want to make use of the Kennedy Library's extensive oral history collection.1
Whatever the need, however, the Office Files constitute a logical place to start.
Through the years since the institutionalization of the Executive Office after the
recommendations of the Brownlow Committee in the New Deal era, the number of personnel in
the office has varied considerably, ranging from fewer than a dozen to well over six
hundred. Just between Truman's time and Eisenhower's, the staff nearly doubled. One
temptation has been to attribute such growth to the creation of an "imperial"
presidency, but the reasons are more complex and have little to do with any particular
president. Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's time, there has been an increased need for
communications and oversight with a greater number of federal agencies as well as with
members of Congress and the public. Growth of government has also been accompanied by
needs arising from modern communications technology and even the complexities of the
presidential primary system that have emerged in more recent years. Changing conditions,
often beyond control of any individual president, determined the size of the staff.
Compared with his successors, the Kennedy operation was small. Interestingly, the
president accepted the advice of Clark Clifford that "the staff should consist of no
more persons than can conveniently have succession on a day-to-day basis." Sorenson's
office, for example, worked with only two assistants to handle a variety of matters,
politics, speeches, messages, action programs, etc.
Sorenson's role also tells us much about Kennedy's personal approach to the presidency.
Although he has since denied that he functioned as a chief of staff, insisting that the
president himself took care of that job, the formal roles were often blurred. Much of the
Kennedy approach to problems, such as his establishment of a special executive committee
to deal with the missiles in Cuba, was ad hoc. Several writers have made the point that
Kennedy used his White House staff as "emergency repair crews."
These files, which were maintained by his personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, therefore
were primarily designed to serve the president's immediate needs rather than the research
requirements of future historians. Documents often appear under different categories, and
duplicates can be found in files organized not only according to chronology, but also by
subject matter or under the names of members of the staff. Occasionally, one will even
find information that has been classified in one category inexplicably appearing in
another. This sort of contradiction should come as no surprise.
Part 1
The collection, one of the eight major groups of files constituting the Kennedy White
House papers, is reproduced here according to the five categories that have been somewhat
reorganized by government archivists. They vary in length and emphasis. Part 1 of the
microform edition of the office files, consisting of special correspondence, speeches,
legislative, and press conference memoranda, does offer some additional interest. Here is
where researchers can get some sense of the Kennedy world through his contacts with such
individuals as Pablo Casals, Robert Frost, Pope Paul VI and Pope John XXIII, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Winston Churchill. Their
letters, in fact, constitute an elite section of correspondence that differs from the
working materials of the great body of the collection.
Ceremonial and polite as most of them are, the letters nevertheless reveal much about
the Kennedy style. Casals appears somewhat overwhelmed and grateful. His invitation to
play the cello at the White House meant that the president chose the artist despite an FBI
check that showed his hostility to American cold-war policies.
Part 2
The staff memoranda file is especially valuable for substantive material. Papers from
the files of Larry O'Brien, who headed the legislative liaisons team, as well as from
Charles Horsky, Mike Manatos, and Charles V. Daly offer fascinating glimpses into the
White House's relationships with Capitol Hill. Some individual documents are especially
revealing. Take, for example, papers from the O'Brien file that document the care given to
maintaining records of favors requested and granted for certain senators and congressmen.
Six single-spaced pages detail reasons for the obligation of Congressman William J. Green,
Jr., of Philadelphia, to the White House. Included in this remarkable compilation are the
dates and numbers of the congressman's constituents who, presumably at the request of the
congressman's office, were extended the courtesy of special White House tours. Such trivia
is enumerated together with specific information on the millions of dollars of federal
contracts that corporations in his district received from the federal government.
Presumably nothing was too insignificant to be omitted, and the implicit message
discernible from a simple reading between the lines was that such lists were valuable
tools when it came time to call in the "I-owe-yous" when the White House needed
the votes of Green and his colleagues on Capitol Hill.
All in all, the O'Brien files are essential. Collectively, the papers from the
legislative liaison chief and other members of his staff are supplemented by a number of
other useful papers, all providing an overview of the administration's contacts with
Congress. These naturally cover virtually every subject imaginable. Several reflect the
frustration of dealing with Ways and Means Chairman Wayne Hays, who, in these papers,
emerges as at least as great an obstacle as some of the most intransigent Republicans.
They also provide insights into such specific issues as distressed areas legislation,
taxes and civil rights, trade legislation, patronage, foreign aid (see, for example, the
memo from Daly to O'Brien regarding Hays on this matter, Reel 2, Frame 0311),
redistricting, and the problems of the aged.
A memorandum from the chairman of the Council of Economics to the president on December
16, 1962, will sound familiar to those who have followed the "supply-side"
economic arguments during the Reagan presidency. There, at that early date, the Keynesian
economist Walter W. Heller presented the case for a tax cut as a stimulant over the kind
of increased public sector spending favored by such liberals as John Kenneth Galbraith. In
words made more familiar by conservatives in later years, Heller summed up his case by
arguing that "a vigorous economy, stimulated by tax cuts, will provide a broader
economic base and an atmosphere of prosperity and flushness in which government programs
can vie much more successfully for their fair share of a bigger pie." In a discussion
with Heller on August 15,1962, Kennedy agreed that action on taxes "was our hottest
domestic issue." After Kennedy stated his case before the Economics Club of New York
on December 14,1962, he telephoned Heller and said, "I gave them straight Keynes and
Heller, and they loved it." Sorensen later remarked that "it sounded like
Hoover, but it was actually Heller." Galbraith, by then the ambassador to India,
wrote to Kennedy from New Delhi that "you gave the tax-cutters enough support to
qualify as the most Keynesian head of state in history. Do put a picture of the Master in
your bathroom or some other suitable secluded place."
Moreover, the Heller papers, when used in conjunction with documents from the Sorensen
and Galbraith tiles, enable the researcher to trace the administration's efforts to
placate angry businessmen after the vigorous efforts in the spring of 1962 to rollback
attempted increases in the price of steel. Kennedy's Democratic government, by thwarting
the operation of the market, had confirmed the preconceived fears of most industrialists.
The White House then set out to repair the damage in a campaign to make amends with
businessmen and, subsequently, to enlist their support for the forthcoming fiscal
policies. A particularly useful statement of the administration's determination appears in
Sorenson's memo of June 20,1962.
Of additional interest are some political and diplomatic items. Chester Bowles, who
opposed the administration's "acceptance" of the Bay of Pigs mission from the
Eisenhower planners, continued to serve as the house dove. Contending with the quandry of
how to respond to the obdurate Diem regime in South Vietnam, on March 7,1963, the normally
expansive Bowles contributed his views on how to break the impasse. The Bowles memorandum
came after the mission to Southeast Asia by Michael Forrestal and Roger Hillman. Their
report with its expressed misgivings about the concentration of power in the hands of Diem
and his family, together with Bowles's anxieties--anticipated by a matter of weeks the
more vigorous repression of Buddhist opponents by the government. The Kennedy
administration's failure to extricate itself from the region quickly proved to be
disastrous.
Gradually, the difficulty of continuing to back Diem became more apparent. Choosing a
military solution instead of trying to liquidate the U.S. involvement, Kennedy agreed to
allow Diem to be overthrown by opposing generals. That was exactly what happened in early
November, but the revolt went beyond Kennedy's gamble. Just three weeks before the
American president left for Dallas, Diem was arrested, removed from power, and then
killed. The result was a new period of instability in South Vietnam, with a rapid
succession of different governments, and precisely what Bowles and the other doves
feared--a deepened American responsibility for the outcome of the war.
Researchers should, in this connection, not ignore the informed memo from Myer Feldman
that is also available here. Writing at a moment of irresolution in Vietnam, and following
Kennedy's open endorsement of the civil rights movement and Limited Nuclear Test Ban
Agreement with the Soviet Union, Feldman trained a wary eye on resurgent right-wing groups
within the United States. The differing views of the world as seen by such influential
individuals as W. W. Rostow and Jerome Wiesner are essential for an understanding of the
predicament faced by the president in what turned out to be his final days.
Part 3
The third subdivision under the heading of Departments and Agencies provides further
in-depth understanding of how the administration responded to some of the key issues
mentioned above. Here, more than in the staff files of individuals can be found further
documentation about such economic concerns as balance-of-payments and fiscal policy. How
these issues were viewed by such departments and agencies as the Bureau of the Budget, and
the departments of Commerce; Health, Education, and Welfare; Interior; and Treasury are
supplemented by more detailed papers of the Council of Economic Advisers. Heller and his
associates, James Tobin and Kermit Gordon, worked to "educate" the president
about economics.
Edward Flash's study of the Council, Economic Advice and Presidential Leadership
(1965) concluded that Heller led "a strong Council composed generally of very able,
well-led, aggressive, amazingly hard-working, and productive professionals." Under
Heller's driving force, they became "a round-the- clock scout on the New
Frontier." Still, a closer look at fiscal decision making during the administration's
first six months, especially the handling of the decision not to request an income tax
surcharge as part of the mobilization for what was regarded as the coming showdown over
Berlin, suggests otherwise. For all the advice given by the council, the Kennedy
administration responded through its own perceptions of what was politically possible, and
the president himself never departed from his characteristic caution. As noted in a July
26,1962, memorandum for the files by Gardner Ackley, Tobin's replacement on the council,
after discussion the question of a tax cut, "once again, the balance of payments is
the key to everything else."
The wide ground covered by papers in this part of the files suggests that the same
careful, deliberate approach applied across the board. Not only did balance-of-payments
continue to be a preoccupation right to the end (and a factor predictably crucial during
later years), as shown, for example, by Secretary Luther Hodge's memo to the president of
April 19, 1963, but researchers will find a similar tone when reading memoranda from Dean
Rusk on the resumption of nuclear testing, Sorensen on candidates for Supreme Court
appointments, and David Bell's preliminary recommendations on the 1964 budget.
Part 4
Still, the best examples of the cautious approach to controversial issues by an
administration that was launched with promises about a dynamic New Frontier remain to be
found in the Subjects File, which serves as a useful introduction to a number of areas.
Brought together are various publications of the Democratic National Committee, including
press releases and weekly reports. Since there is no other central repository of such
party documents, researchers must depend on holdings such as those at the Kennedy Library.
An additional introductory source contains negotiations pertaining to the Test Ban Treaty.
Of special interest to many will be the polling surveys of various states, a handy
compilation for many purposes. A number of miscellaneous items constitute the rest of the
collection, and, except for the reports of political attitudes, most are of greatest
utility for those who will turn to other files for more extensive information.
That is also true for another important part of this category, civil rights. Certainly,
researchers interested in this vital area should see the files of the Justice Department
and the papers of such individuals as Robert Kennedy, Sorenson, and Myer Feldman. No other
section within the president's office files, however, offers a similarly well-organized
collection of materials dealing with the topic that has been used more than any other to
illustrate the conflict between promise and performance. Other than a general
chronological file covering the subject, there are also memoranda dealing with
negotiations with Governors George Wallace of Alabama and Ross Barnett of Mississippi.
Most revealing here is the caution shown by the White House during the March on Washington
of August 28, 1963, when the president distanced himself from the rally until he saw that
the event had concluded without the much- feared violence. Then he invited the leaders to
the White House and appeared with them for a group photograph.
Even these papers are sufficient to convey the administration's sense of apprehension
that existed from the outset about the wisdom of calling for new legislation, a strategy
that was then also endorsed by such leaders as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and
Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Only later,
as pressure mounted for Kennedy to sign an executive order banning discrimination in
housing constructed with federal funds and after the obstructions presented by Wallace and
Barnett, did the administration's conservative strategy seem especially inadequate. Dr.
King's Birmingham campaign in 1963 aimed at desegregating that major city, but it had the
secondary objective of forcing the president to offer his moral and executive leadership.
Papers in this file reflect the meetings that Kennedy held with attorneys and labor and
religious leaders in the days after he made his dramatic civil rights speech and call for
reform legislation on June 11,1963. From that point, having taken his position, he could
only press for the early passage of his recommendations and hope to minimize the
conservative backlash against him in Congress and elsewhere, especially in the South. In
this connection, researchers should consult the Sorensen papers for a memorandum of June
10, 1963, detailing the behind-the-scenes advice given by Vice-President Johnson, who,
even at that time, left no doubt about where he stood on the subject.
Part 5
The final selection features position papers and advisory memoranda, most generated by
the State Department, but some, such as those by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., by the White
House staff itself. Essentially far from complete and largely awaiting advances in the
declassification process, the papers nevertheless offer some indispensable insights into
the Kennedy administration's world outlook; or, to put it another way, how policy planners
then viewed geopolitics. The U.S. reply, for example, to the Soviet aide-memoire on
Germany, which followed the Kennedy-Khrushchev meetings in Vienna, should be read in
conjunction with the memo for the president from J. Patrick Coyne. This document, located
in the Department and Agencies File (Part 3), draws on the Sprague Report, an
intelligence estimate that was prepared during the last years of the Eisenhower
administration. Formally entitled "Conclusions and Recommendations of the President's
Committee on Information Activities Abroad," it advised that the Soviet Union is seen
as pressing for "expansion and ultimate world domination," not necessarily
through overt military means, because it probably prefers to avoid war, but "by the
continuous employment of economic, diplomatic and informational instruments as well as of
subversive and conspiratorial action." Communists in the "developed world,"
it went on to advise, were exploiting adverse political and economic conditions by trying
to establish "front organizations of labor, youth and the like which seeks to prevent
the establishment of democratic institutions in the new states, and elsewhere to undermine
already established and functioning free governmental institutions." Such warnings
were particularly applicable to Asia. There, the Chinese Communists were seeking to extend
their power and influence, which included an apparently successful "Hate
America" campaign. Of importance for researchers is the realization that copies of
the report, which was then, of course, classified, were circulated among members of the
incoming Kennedy administration.
The documents in the Countries File (Part 5), whether pertaining to Latin
America, Europe, or Southeast Asia, reflect the zenith of cold-war tensions. The briefing
papers prepared for President Kennedy before he went to Paris and then onto Vienna for the
meetings with the Soviet leader indicate the gravity with which the conflict was then
viewed. Kennedy, who was a president who did his "homework," was prepared by the
voluminous background materials from the State Department for a confrontation with a
Khrushchev who was dead serious about making the Americans squirm over the sovereignty
status of East Berlin. He was also determined, Kennedy read, to exploit the forces of
anticolonialism by pushing the so-called "wars of national liberation," a point
he had stated forcefully in a speech delivered some three weeks before Kennedy's
inauguration.
The aide-memoire, Khrushchev's "greeting" to Kennedy at the outset of
the talks, foreshadowed the somber climate of their discussions. It was uncompromising in
its condemnation of the West for the rebuilding of German military power and confirmation
that West Berlin was, as Khrushchev had earlier put it, a "bone" in his throat.
He wanted, instead, a free, demilitarized city, something he had threatened to force back
in 1958 when Eisenhower was still in office. A peace treaty would end occupation rights.
West Berlin would become "strictly neutral" and the United States would have to
deal with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as it would with "any
sovereign state." The aide-memoire as a secret diplomatic document used for
negotiating purposes was one thing; for it to be published and read by the world, as was
subsequently done, was another.
Departing from the talks, Kennedy ominously told his Russian counterpart that it would
be a "cold winter" and returned to Washington prepared to demonstrate his
resistance by mobilizing U.S. military strength, which included home-front preparations
with advice to civilians to construct bomb shelters for protection against nuclear bombs.
Kennedy, young and inexperienced at those first meetings with Khrushchev, underwent his
first test of leadership since the Bay of Pigs of less than two months earlier. In what
was to become characteristic of his responses to crises, and very much as he behaved
during the missile crisis at the end of the following year, he reacted with a combination
of strength and prudence. As even he later acknowledged, provoking hysteria about air raid
shelters was the one area of overkill.
During the tense summer that followed, Khrushchev implicitly demonstrated that he
understood the message. Russian and American tanks were soon placed "eyeball to
eyeball" across the barriers of the divided Berlin, but not a shot was fired.
Finally, on August 13, the world learned that the Russians were constructing an enormous
permanent separation of the city, the Berlin Wall. Kennedy, rather than "knock it
down," as some advised, understood the severe, self-inflicted propaganda damage done
by the Russians, not least of which was the admission of failure to retain the working
population of East Berlin.
Kennedy was convinced that World War III, if it ever came, would start over Berlin. He
was supported by public opinion surveys that showed some three quarters of the American
people agreeing that protecting the city's western sector was more important than avoiding
war. Documents in the Country File, such as those by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., about how to
handle Castro's Cuba, and those that track the difficulties with Diem in Saigon until the
coup in November should be read with Berlin in mind. There was little question that
Kennedy believed that American resolve was being tested in those relatively peripheral
areas. He had to hold on until the message was clear.
When viewed in their entirety, then, this portion of the Kennedy record contains
invaluable insights into the deliberations of key players on a wide variety of subjects.
The coverage alone reveals the preoccupations of those thousand days: balance of payments;
Vietnam; Cuba; tax policy; press relations; politics, regional and national; civil rights;
the space program; presidential transition; Berlin; political extremism; foreign aid;
defense; nuclear testing; relations with business; Latin America and the Alliance for
Progress; the Middle East.
Users should understand that the papers fail to provide the sense of intimacy that one
might expect to find when dealing with someone as charismatic as John F. Kennedy.
Memoranda with his initials are relatively rare, and even those are often brief and
impersonal.
Researchers should also be alerted to the ongoing declassification of documents, which
will result in further access to both the Kennedy Office Files and the Kennedy National
Security Files.2 Together, these collections, which are located at the Kennedy
Library in Boston, comprise a treasure trove for studying the Kennedy presidency.
Horbert S. Parmet
The City University of New York
1. Many oral histories are available on microfilm or microfiche, published by
University Publications of America (UPA) in its collection The John F. Kennedy
Presidential Oral History Collection. Part 1 is The White House and Executive
Departments and Part II is The Congress, the Judiciary, Public Figures, and
Private Individuals.
2. UPA publishes a separate microfilm series, The John F. Kennedy National Security
Files, that contain White House files on national security, international relations,
and the affairs of U.S. allies and adversaries worldwide.
UPA's micropublication, President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963, is
drawn from the President's Office Files at the John F. Kennedy Library. The President's
Office Files constitutes one of the eight major groupings of files in the Presidential
Papers of John F. Kennedy. The others include: White House Central Files, White House
Classified Files, White House Name Files, White House Chronological Files, White House
Overflow Files, White House Social Files, and National Security Files. The President's
Office Files were originally a set of working files compiled and maintained by President
Kennedy's personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln. These files were kept in Mrs. Lincoln's
office, just outside the White House Oval Office, and were available for President
Kennedy's immediate use. These files reflect the various daily activities, the formulation
and execution of policies, and the crises affecting the president and his administration.
The President's Office Files are divided into twelve series. These series include:
Staff Memoranda File; Subjects File; Countries File; Departments and Agencies File;
Legislative, Speech, Press Conference, and Special Correspondence Files; General
Correspondence; Personal Secretary's Files; "Special Events through the Years";
and White House Signal Agency. [The General Correspondence, Personal Secretary's Files,
"Special Events through the Years," and White House Signal Agency Series have
not been included in UPA's micropublication of the President's Office Files.] The series
in this part of UPA's micropublication is described below.
Part 1: Special Correspondence, Speech, Legislative, and Press Conference Files
of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963
Special Correspondence
The Special Correspondence Files, originally called the "VIP Alpha" Series,
is a unique collection of correspondence and memoranda received by President Kennedy from
various prominent public figures and close friends. The Special Correspondence series is
distinguished by the notoriety of the people included, their particular relationships with
President Kennedy, and the personal and friendly nature of much of their correspondence.
There are three types of correspondence in this series: notes and letters from or
concerning President Kennedy's family and friends; correspondence from members of the
White House staff, advisers, and nongovernment officials; and letters from public figures.
Former presidents, foreign heads of state, religious leaders, distinguished congressmen,
and well-known artists and writers are among those whose letters were placed in this
series by Evelyn Lincoln. Of particular interest are letters from Chester Bowles, Pablo
Casals, Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Kenneth Galbraith, Lyndon B.
Johnson, Mike Mansfield, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Pope John XXIII. For the most part, the
material in this series is of an unofficial nature, but represents the personal feelings,
thoughts, and advice of a variety of writers on matters not falling under official
responsibilities.
The material in this series is arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent, but in
some cases by the person discussed in the correspondence. Within each folder, the
documents are arranged in chronological order and have been numbered by the Kennedy
Library staff.
Speech Files
The Speech Files contains speeches, remarks, announcements, and proclamations that
President Kennedy made during his three years in office. A large portion of the material
in this series consists of the official press copy of speeches. There are also numerous
reading copies, drafts, memoranda, schedules of visits, and other supplementary
information and background material on the various speeches. The speeches and remarks vary
significantly as to subject and reflect President Kennedy's schedule of visits to cities
and foreign countries, meetings with heads of state, greetings to visiting groups and
dignitaries, messages to Congress, remarks at various political and nonpolitical state
receptions and banquets, and official proclamations. This series is rich with President
Kennedy's and his advisers' notations and comments on the various drafts and reading
copies of his speeches. This series highlights President Kennedy's influence and thoughts
on a wide variety of topics.
The material in this series is arranged chronologically according to the date of the
speech, remark, announcement, or proclamation.
Legislative Files
The Legislative Files were constructed by the staff of the Kennedy Library from two
small series and portions of two other series. The Legislation Series forms the nucleus of
this series with the addition of the Messages to Congress Series. Documents dealing with
legislation in the former Special Topics Series and from the former Daily Report Series
have also been included. What has emerged is a series of reports, memoranda, and
correspondence that partially documents highlights of the White House staff's attempts to
get the administration's legislative program enacted. This series includes notes for
meetings with congressmen, summary reports on the progress of legislation, messages to
Congress, memoranda about specific pieces of legislation, and the interests and concerns
of individual congressmen. There is also a small amount of material on congressional
social events at the White House and lists of congressmen attending bill signings.
Since the material in this series covers more than one piece of legislation, has been
arranged chronologically, rather than topically, by the Kennedy Library's staff. This
arrangement provides an overview of concurrent White House interests in many legislative
activities. The documents within each folder have also been arranged chronologically.
Press Conferences Files
The Press Conferences Files contain the transcripts for President Kennedy's regular
White House press conferences throughout his three years in office. These press
conferences were held biweekly and the materials reflect the regularity of information
needed for these briefings. In addition to the transcripts, this series includes executive
department and agency summaries of activities and briefing papers on such issues as
disarmament, foreign trade, civil rights, and employment. There are also draft press
releases and miscellaneous newsclippings. This series does not include transcripts from
the various special or impromptu press conferences by President Kennedy.
The material in this series is arranged chronologically. The documents within each
folder have also been arranged chronologically.
Part 2: Staff Memoranda File of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files,
1961-1963
The Staff Memoranda File was established by Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln to contain memoranda
from the president to the White House staff members and from White House staff members to
the president. A sample of staff members includes: McGeorge Bundy, Ralph A. Dungan, Walter
Heller, Walt W. Rostow, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Tazewell Shepard. This series
highlights the various transactions between President Kennedy and members of the White
House staff on a variety of topics.
The beginning of the series consists of a small collection of outgoing memoranda
(Notebook of Memoranda to Staff) dictated by President Kennedy to Mrs. Lincoln. This
collection is subdivided alphabetically by name of staff member. [Note: Not all staff
members are represented.] The remainder of the series consists of correspondence and
records of memoranda from the various staff members to President Kennedy on a wide variety
of subjects. The folders in this series are arranged in alphabetical order by the name of
the staff member. The material in each folder is arranged in chronological order.
Part 3: Departments and Agencies Files of President John F. Kennedy's Office
Files, 1961-1963
Originally referred to by Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln as the "Departmental Files,"
the Departments and Agencies series was reorganized by the John F. Kennedy Library's staff
to include two small groups of files entitled "Cabinet Meetings" and files on
miscellaneous government boards and commissions; these were found among the
"Subjects" series and "Special Topics" series of the original file
scheme. While these files are not a complete record of President Kennedy's relations with
the various executive departments, agencies, and commissions, they do highlight President
Kennedy's relations with various elements of the federal bureaucracy in dealing with the
major issues and concerns of his administration.
The Departments and Agencies series is divided into three subseries. The first consists
of correspondence, reports, position papers, and miscellaneous congressional material
between the president and the major departments and agencies. The folders in this series
are arranged in alphabetical order by department, agency, or board name. The material in
each folder is arranged in chronological order. Highlights of the various issues contained
in the Departments and Agencies series are described below.
The various economic and trade issues (i.e., "Boost the Economy" Program,
balance of payments and monetary reform, government reorganization activities, and labor
issues) are well represented in the files pertaining to the Agriculture Department, the
Bureau of the Budget, the Council of Economic Advisors, the Commerce Department, the Labor
Department, and the Treasury Department. Other domestic issues include business welfare,
consumerism, housing, social welfare, and labor-management relations. These issues can be
found in the files of the Agriculture Department, Council of Economic Advisors; Federal
Home Loan Bank Board; Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and the Labor
Department. Foreign affairs issues and concerns the Alliance for Progress, Cuba issue,
Berlin issue, and foreign aid and policy) are well represented in the files pertaining to
the Agency for International Development, Commerce Department, Food for Peace Program,
Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Department, and U.S. Information Agency. National defense and
armed forces issues (i.e., Cuba issue, Defense Production Act, "Failsafe issue, force
capabilities. and federal emergency plans) are well represented in files from the Air
Force, Army, and Navy Departments, CIA, Defense Department, Justice Department, and the
Office of Emergency Planning. Science and technology issues are also well represented in
the Departments and Agencies series. These issues include nuclear energy, nuclear testing,
supersonic transport, conservation, space, and water. These issues can be found in the
files of the Atomic Energy Commission, Federal Aviation Agency, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, Office of Science and Technology, and the President's Science
Advisory Committee.
The second subseries consists of reports, correspondence, and other miscellaneous items
picked up by Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln following various cabinet meetings between January 1961
and October 1963. This subseries also contains an Inter-Cabinet Briefing Book for the
March 12, 1962, cabinet meeting and an Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence
translation of "Che Guevara on Guerrilla Warfare." The folders in this subseries
are arranged in chronological order by cabinet meeting.
The third subseries consists of the files of various minor executive branch committees,
boards, commissions, and offices. These files include correspondence and reports on such
issues as airline regulation, equal employment, youth and physical fitness, aging, and
mental retardation.
Part 4: Subjects File of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963
The Subjects File Series was created by the staff at the Kennedy Library out of several
small original series that did not belong in any of the other well-defined series in the
President's Office Files. Three of the largest groupings of files, originally separate
series, are on civil rights, the Democratic National Committee, and polls. Additional
files were transferred to the Subjects File Series from the "Special Topics"
series, the "Daily Reports" series, and from a large and varied group of
"Miscellaneous" series. The resulting series includes files relating to
non-government and quasigovernment organizations, such as patriotic societies; states and
territories; foreign relations and policy issues, such as disarmament, the [Belgrade]
Non-Aligned Nations Conference, NATO, and the UN; and domestic social and political
issues, such as civil rights, the Democratic National Committee, federal-state relations,
senior citizens, and political attitude polls. There is also a significant number of files
on the various political trips by the president at home and abroad (i.e., Paris in 1961,
Costa Rica in 1963, and [West] Germany in 1963). The Subjects File Series consists
primarily of correspondence and reports. A small portion of the documents in this series
are position papers, public opinion mail, and press items. The folders in this combined
series are arranged alphabetically by topic. The material in each folder is arranged in
chronological order.
Part 5: Countries File of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963
The Countries File was established by Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln to contain memoranda,
correspondence, policy papers, and other reports from the president, various White House
staff members and various executive departments pertaining to U.S. relations with other
countries. This series also contains many State Department cables, reports, and memoranda
on the many crises affecting the United States during the Kennedy administration. There
are also materials on the more formal aspects of U.S. foreign relations, including letters
of credence and recall of ambassadors, arrangements by the State Department's Office of
Protocol for visits of state, and briefing materials for President Kennedy's visits with
foreign dignitaries and heads of state in Washington and abroad. While this series is not
a complete record of U.S. foreign policy in the Kennedy administration, it effectively
highlights President Kennedy's participation in the formulation and execution of U.S.
foreign policy and control of crises abroad.
The Countries File is arranged alphabetically by the name of each country. Within each
country the documents are arranged in chronological order. Many countries contain
subseries with documents also arranged in chronological order. The "Security"
subseries originally contained classified documents that had been segregated from the rest
of a country's various subseries. In some cases there are topical subseries within the
"Security" subseries, such as material relating to visits by certain heads of
state. Apart from the "Security" subseries, there are also topical subseries
such as the Vienna Conference between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev. There are
also subseries relating to the various visits by President Kennedy with foreign
dignitaries and heads of state, at home and abroad; chronologies ( i.e., Congo crisis);
and specific reports (i.e., Averell Harriman's Congo Report). There are some odd-titled
files that were maintained, such as "Ismali Moslem Sect" and
"Antarctica" At the end of the Countries File there are two small subseries. The
first consists of briefing material prepared for President Kennedy in 1963 that details
the background and performance estimates of foreign ambassadors accredited to Washington
(this subseries consists exclusively of withdrawal sheets). The second subseries consists
of miscellaneous wire service extracts from 1961 on various aspects of U.S. foreign policy
and its implementation.
The documents reproduced in this publication are donated historical materials from the
Presidential Papers of John F. Kennedy in the custody of the John F. Kennedy Library, a
unit of the National Archives and Records Administration. The donors have dedicated their
literary rights to the public.
UPA's President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963 consists of selected
series from the President's Office Files and has been published in five distinct parts.
They are: Part 1: Special Correspondence, Speech, Legislative, and Press Conference Files;
Part 2: Staff Memoranda File; Part 3: Departments and Agencies File; Part 4: Subjects
File; and Part 5: Countries File. With the exception of Part 1, each part of UPA's
micropublication corresponds to selected individual series within the President's Office
Files. UPA has not microfilmed the following series: General Correspondence; Personal
Secretary's File; "Special Events through the Years" series; and the White House
Signal Agency series. These series have been omitted due to their security classification,
in the case of the White House Signal Agency series, and/or general nature, in the cases
of the General Correspondence and Personal Secretary's File, which are composed of
letters, greeting cards, clippings, articles, and schedules.
Part 1: Special Correspondence, Speech, Legislative, and Press Conference Files
of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963
Part 1: Special Correspondence, Speech, Legislative, and Press Conference Files of UPA's
micropublication of the John F. Kennedy Library's President's Office Files has been filmed
in its entirety. UPA has microfilmed all folders as they are arranged at the JFK Library.
The folders in the Special Correspondence portion have been arranged in alphabetical order
by name of correspondent or subject of correspondence. The folders in the Speech,
Legislative, and Press Conference portions have been arranged in chronological order. The
documents in each folder have been numbered by the JFK Library and are arranged in
chronological order. UPA has also microfilmed the "Document Withdrawal Sheets"
in each folder. The document withdrawal sheet itemizes the documents that have been
removed (withdrawn) from the folder due to national security and/or privacy restrictions
by the JFK Library.
Part 2: Staff Memoranda File of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files,
1961-1963
Part 2: Staff Memoranda File of UPA's micropublication of the John F. Kennedy
Library's Presidential Office Files has been filmed in its entirety. UPA has microfilmed
all folders as they are arranged at the JFK Library. These folders are in alphabetical
order by name of White House staff member. In some cases a White House staff member will
have more than one folder, and additional folders are then arranged in chronological order
and/or in alphabetical order by specific subject. The documents in each folder have been
numbered by the JFK Library and are arranged in chronological order. UPA has also
microfilmed the "Document Withdrawal Sheets" in each folder. The "Document
Withdrawal Sheet" itemizes the documents that have been removed (withdrawn) from the
folder due to national security and/or privacy restrictions by the JFK Library.
Part 3: Departments and Agencies File of President John F. Kennedy's Office
Files, 1961-1963
Part 3: Departments and Agencies File of UPA's micropublication of the John F.
Kennedy Library's President's Office Files has been filmed in its entirety. UPA has
microfilmed all folders as they are arranged at the JFK Library. The documents in each
folder have been numbered by the JFK Library staff and are arranged in chronological
order. There are three subseries: departments and agencies; Cabinet meetings; and minor
commissions, boards, and offices. The folders in the first subseries are in alphabetical
order by name of department or agency. The folders in the second subseries are arranged in
chronological order by cabinet meeting. The folders in the third subseries are arranged in
alphabetical order by name of commission, board, or office.
UPA has also microfilmed the "Document Withdrawal Sheets" in each folder. The
"Document Withdrawal Sheet" itemizes the documents that have been
removed--withdrawn--from the folder due to national security and/or privacy restrictions
by the JFK Library.
Part 4: Subjects File of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files, 1961-1963
Part 4: Subjects File of UPA's micropublication of the John F. Kennedy
Library's Presidential Office Files has been filmed in its entirety. UPA has microfilmed
all folders as they are arranged at the JFK Library. These folders are in alphabetical
order by topic. The documents in each folder have been numbered by the JFK Library and are
arranged in chronological order. UPA has also microfilmed the "Document Withdrawal
Sheets" in each folder. The document withdrawal sheet itemizes the documents that
have been removed--withdrawn--from the folder due to national security and/or privacy
restrictions by the JFK Library.
Part 5: Countries File of President John F. Kennedy's Office Files,
1961-1963
Part 5: Countries File of UPA's micropublication of the John F. Kennedy
Library's Presidential Office Files has been filmed in its entirety. UPA has microfilmed
all folders as they are arranged at the JFK Library. These folders are in alphabetical
order by name of country. In some cases a country will have additional subseries folders;
additional folders are then arranged in chronological order and/or in alphabetical order
by specific subject. The documents in each folder have been numbered by the JFK Library
and are arranged in chronological order. UPA has also microfilmed the "Document
Withdrawal Sheets" in each folder. The "Document Withdrawal Sheet" itemizes
the documents that have been removed--withdrawn--from the folder due to national security
and/or privacy restrictions by the JFK Library.
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