(#3) POF: Series 4. Legislative Files

Administrative Information
Historical Note
Collection Overview

List of Series
Series 1. General Correspondence
Series 2. Special Correspondence
Series 3. Speech Files
Series 4. Legislative Files
Series 5. Press Conferences
Series 6. Staff Memoranda
Series 7. Departments and Agencies
Series 8. Subjects
Series 9. Countries
Series 10. Personal Secretary's Files
Series 11. Special Events through the Years
Series 12. White House Signal Agency
Series 13. Presidential Recordings (White House Meetings and Telephone Recordings file)
ADDITIONS
Addition of June 2005

Collection Description

Series 4. Legislative Files.
Boxes 49-53

Five boxes [2.1 linear shelf feet] of the Legislative Files were opened to research in January 1974. At the same time, one-tenth of a box [0.04 linear shelf foot) was closed because of donor restrictions or national security classification. Four-tenths of a box [0.16 linear shelf foot] was withdrawn for preservation and the originals were replaced in the open files by electrostatic copies.

The Legislative Files series was constructed by the staff of the Kennedy Library from a four-box nucleus of a "Legislation" series, a partial box of "Messages to Congress," and documents dealing with legislation from the subjects part of an old "Special Topics" series and from the disbanded "Daily Reports." What has emerged is a very incomplete, fragmentary file of routine reports and occasionally interesting memoranda which at least partially documents the highlights of the efforts of the White House staff to get the administration's legislative program enacted. The 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, and lists of Congressmen attending bill signings and social events at the White House.

Since much of this material covers more than one piece of legislation, it has been arranged chronologically rather than topically. This arrangement was also selected to afford researchers an overview of concurrent White House interests in many legislative activities. To assist researchers in locating information on a particular legislator or on a particular piece of legislation, the folder title list is supplemented by the names of Congressmen mentioned and topics covered in the documents (less the summary reports) in each folder. This series, being so fragmentary, requires researchers to consult other series, collections and subcollections for a fuller account. Researchers will be especially interested in the Lawrence O'Brien papers when they are opened to the public. Other collections of interest are the Theodore Sorensen Papers, the Myer Feldman Papers, and the Lee White Papers.

5.5 Boxes. [2.3 Linear Shelf Feet]