President's Office Files (#3)

A Register of His White House Office Files, 1961-1963
In the John F. Kennedy Library
National Archives and Records Administration

Administrative Information
Historical Note
Collection Overview
Collection Description


Administrative Information

Abstract
President's Office Files 1961-1963
The Presidential Papers of John F. Kennedy.
President of the United States (1961-1963). A subcollection of the Presidential Papers of John F. Kennedy consisting of the working files of President Kennedy as maintained by his personal secretary, Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, in the Oval Office of the White House. Series include: general correspondence, special correspondence, speech files, legislative files, press conferences, staff memorandums, departments and agencies, subjects, countries, personal secretary's files, special events through the years, White House Signal Agency, and Presidential recordings.

Access
Open. 

Usage Restrictions
According to the letter of transfer 1965, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States.  Documents in this collection that were prepared by officials of the United States as part of their official duties are in the public domain. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish.

Provenance
The President's Office Files were donated to the Kennedy Library in 1965 as a part of the papers of John F. Kennedy.

Extent
About 153,600 pages (103 linear feet, 3 linear inches ; 118.95 cubic feet), 28 rolls of microfilm, 127 audiotapes, 73 dictabelts.

Classified Items Withdrawn
Selected files may contain withdrawal sheets where documents containing national security classified information were removed from this collection.

Withdrawn Items
Documents which, if published, would result in unwarranted invasion of personal privacy have been removed and placed under seal. Document withdrawal sheets have been inserted in the file where items have been removed. The Library will review this closed material upon request for the purpose of opening items which no longer require restriction.

Date Opened

Processed by
William W. Moss, Senior Archivist
Francis Harrington, Supervisory Archivist
Megan Floyd Desnoyers, Archivist
Brenda A. Beasley, Archives Technician

Revisions
Finding aid revised and edited by Ronald E. Whealan, Head Librarian, November 1993, May 1996
Finding aid encoded in August 2001 by Ron Whealan
Finding aid updated in December 2005 by James M. Roth 

President's Office Files

Historical Note
The President's Office Files are not a formal or complete record of the Executive Office of the President or of the White House Office. They were originally a set of working files kept by President Kennedy's personal secretary, Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, for his immediate convenience as she interpreted it from day to day. They were kept in the office of the personal secretary, just outside the Oval Office of the President in the White House.

For documents relating to the various component offices of the Executive Office of the President, researchers should consult other collections and subcollections in the Kennedy Library in addition to the President's Office Files. The finding aids of these other collections and the assistance of Library staff members will be required to draw together the disparate parts of the record from various files and collections.

Shortly after Lyndon B. Johnson became President, the files of President Kennedy's personal secretary were removed from the White House to the Executive Office Building next door, where Mrs. Lincoln was assigned an office. Both the files and Mrs. Lincoln then moved to the National Archives Building in August 1964, where she continued custody of the material until it was transferred to the National Archives and Records Service as part of the papers of John F. Kennedy, deeded to the United States in the latter part of 1965. For a number of years these files were known as the "Evelyn Lincoln Files," much as the National Security Files were known as the "McGeorge Bundy Files."

The staff of the Kennedy Library processed and rearranged the files prior to opening them to public research. A preliminary folder title list and a survey of the files made in 1968 indicated that the filing was whimsical and uninformed and that the whole set of files would require careful study and some reorganization to make it a useful research source. The files were found to include documents not only from the administration period but also some pre- Presidential papers, some personal family files, and some files accumulated by Mrs. Lincoln in the period 1964-1965. Numerous folders were poorly identified as to contents, and series titles were not adequate to describe the rational order of the files.

Approximately 12 linear shelf feet of pre-Presidential material (general files, 1960 task force reports, and 1960 campaign and post-campaign correspondence) were removed from the President's Office Files and placed with the Pre-Presidential Papers subcollection of the Papers of John F. Kennedy. About eight archives boxes (3.2 linear shelf feet) of personal material were removed by representatives of the Kennedy family and were not donated with the remainder of the files. In general the files accumulated in the post-Presidential period of Mrs. Lincoln's custody have been set aside to form the nucleus of a new subcollection of all post-Presidential material that has come to the Library.

The remaining files were studied carefully by the staff and put into the order indicated in the series and folders listed in this finding aid. In some cases loosely coherent files were broken up and redistributed among established series. For instance, a set of "Secret Books" (briefing books for visits of foreign dignitaries, and in no way a complete set) was divided among the appropriate country subseries of the Countries series, where other similar material was already filed. A series entitled "Daily Reports" file was apparently a post-1963 construction by Mrs. Lincoln and perhaps others trying to reconstruct the daily activities of President Kennedy by illustrating his appointments calendar with representative documents from the files. While it was impossible to know the original files locations of the documents with precision, the staff placed them in logical topical files as seemed appropriate.

Even within series that were accepted and maintained by the staff there was still need for considerable arrangement and rearrangement. Overly thick folders in which papers were being damaged by overcrowding were broken down into smaller segments. Files arranged under "London," "England," and "Great Britain" were combined into a "United Kingdom" subseries. At times material found in wrong folders (such as a Sukarno letter in the Pakistan file) had to be replaced in proper files, and frequently items had to be returned to alphabetic or chronological order.

Collection Overview
The Presidential papers of John F. Kennedy consist of several major bodies of research material. The White House Central Subject File is the principal White House file. The White House Name File contains copies of most incoming correspondence arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent and is cross-referenced to the Subject File. The Chronological File contains copies of documents prepared for the President's signature and is also cross-referenced to the Subject File. The Social File contains the records of the White House Social Office and includes the correspondence of the First Lady. The President's Office File contains the papers maintained by the President's personal secretary for his use. The National Security File contains the records of the staff of the special assistant to the President for national security affairs.

In addition, in what were called in the White House "storage" or "overflow" files are found various miscellaneous materials and the records of the offices of most members of the President's staff. The files described in this finding aid constitute one of the series of White House staff files included in the Presidential papers of John F. Kennedy.

The President's Office Files contain, with some few clearly identified exceptions, documents from the period of the Kennedy administration (January 1961 through November 1963). The order of the twelve series and the series titles were imposed on the files by the staff of the Kennedy Library in 1973 on the original random arrangement of variously titled files.

One hundred and thirty-eight boxes [57.5 linear shelf feet] of these files were first opened to research in December 1973-January 1974. At the same time, 37.9 boxes [16.05 linear shelf feet] of material were closed due to donor restrictions or national security classifications (the latter accounting for about 90% of the closings). Also at the same time 16.7 boxes [6.94 linear shelf feet] of valuable original documents were withdrawn and replaced by electrostatic copies.

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