Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm2002084843
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of James R. Schlesinger were given to the Library of Congress by Schlesinger in 2001. An addition was given by his daughter, Ann Schlesinger, in 2016.
Part I of the papers of James R. Schlesinger were arranged and described in 2012 by Melinda K. Friend and Ernest J. Emrich with the assistance of Kimberly L. Owens. Part II was processed and the finding aid was revised in 2022 by Laura J. Kells with the assistance of Ernest J. Emrich, Maria Farmer, Kathleen O'Neill, and Kimberly L. Owens. The material in Part II was found in two storage facilities owned by the Mitre Corporation and consisted primarily of loose, unsorted material when it arrived at the Library of Congress. An arrangement scheme was created by the archivist.
Digital files were received as part of the James R. Schlesinger Papers on a variety of storage media, each of which was assigned a unique digital ID number. Use the digital ID number to request access copies of the files associated with each media. A description of the standard processes taken on all born digital records can be found in the Processing History Note: Born Digital Collection Material at https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.digital.
Items have been transferred from the Manuscript Division to other custodial divisions of the Library. Sound recordings and videotapes have been transferred to the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. Photographic negatives and a halftone cartoon have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division. All transfers are identified in these divisions as part of the James R. Schlesinger Papers. Patrons are encouraged to contact these divisions in advance of a research visit.
Copyright in the unpublished writings of James R. Schlesinger in these papers and in other collections of papers in the custody of the Library of Congress has been dedicated to the public.
Restrictions apply governing the use, photoduplication, or publication of items in this collection. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division for information concerning these restrictions. In addition, many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Government regulations control the use of national security classified items in this collection. Manuscript Division staff can furnish information concerning access to and use of classified material.
Digital files are largely text documents, images, and presentations along with spreadsheets, websites, audio-visual, and databases files. The predominant file formats include text files in Adobe Acrobat v.1.3-1.6 (.pdf); Microsoft Word for Macintosh v.3-5 (.doc), Microsoft Word v. 95 and 6.0-2003 (.doc), plain text files (.txt); image files in JPEG v.1.00-1.02 (.jpg), GIFs v.89a (.gif), Portable Network Graphics v.1, and TIFFs (.tif). Other files formats include Microsoft Excel v.4.0 (.xls), Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation v.97-2003 (.ppt), and Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac v4 (.ppt), Audio/Video Interleaved Format (.avi), MPEG-1 (.mpg), QuickTime (.mov), Video Object File (.vob), Windows Media Video (.wma), WaveAudio (.wma), html v4.01 (.htm), and OLE2 Compound Document Format (.db). In most cases, these files are accessible with modern software and file viewers. The Microsoft Word v.3-5 files that lack file extensions tend to render as originally intended, lacking formatting and including garbled text and symbols.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number or digital ID number, James R. Schlesinger Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of James Rodney Schlesinger (1929-2014) span the years 1863-2013, with the majority concentrated between 1969 and 2013. The collection consists of two parts. Part I covers his career in various government and cabinet positions that included assistant director of the Bureau of the Budget, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, secretary of defense, and secretary of energy. Part II pertains to Schlesinger's activities and the issues he focused on in the subsequent years. Further descriptions of each part follow.
Part I of the Schlesinger Papers spans the years 1863-1980, with the bulk of the material dating from 1969 to 1978. The papers are organized into the following series: Personal File , General Correspondence , Chronological File , Subject File , Briefing File , Classified , Top Secret , Restricted Data (Classified) , Restricted Data (Top Secret) , Secret Compartmented Information (Classified) , Secret Compartmented Information (Top Secret) , North Atlantic Treaty Organization , Oversize , and Artifact.
The Personal File contains appointment books and telephone logs covering Schlesinger's last year in the Department of Defense through his second year in the Department of Energy, a time that also includes his two-year hiatus from government service during which he wrote and spoke about national security issues. The mail logs and the travel files largely cover Schlesinger's years at the Atomic Energy Commission.
The General Correspondence contains correspondence and memoranda relating to Schlesinger's personal and professional life. Congratulatory letters to Schlesinger upon his various appointments are sometimes filed separately. Correspondents include Bruce C. Clarke, H. S. Clayman, Thomas Keith Glennan, Amrom H. Katz, Elliot L. Richardson, Francis J. “Bing” West, Richard J. Whalen, and Albert J. Wohlstetter. The Chronological File consists of correspondence and memoranda relating to Schlesinger's years at the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy.
The Subject File is focused on Schlesinger's career in various government and cabinet positions. Appointed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969 as assistant director of the Bureau of the Budget, later Office of Management and Budget, Schlesinger left the Rand Corporation where he had served as the director of strategic studies working on the strategic analysis of nuclear weaponry, atomic energy issues, and nuclear proliferation. Many of his writings, and a large number of those of his colleagues at the Rand Corporation, traveled with Schlesinger to Washington, D.C., and are part of his Bureau of the Budget files. He apparently used these writings for reference as his new position involved national security issues, scientific and technical programs, and energy policy and its impact on the environment. His main effort was on defense issues. Other items in the Subject File include Schlesinger's speeches and congressional testimony. Charts, notebooks, and copies of transparencies used in briefing the president and others are located in the Briefing File .
On 17 August 1971, Schlesinger was sworn in as the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. That November the controversial Cannikin Project was carried out on Amchitka Island in Alaska. The project involved the underground detonation of a nuclear weapon, the largest underground test ever conducted by the United States. Material relating to Cannikin includes correspondence concerning permissions needed to carry out the project, congressional testimony by Schlesinger, a notebook of newspaper clippings for and against the detonation, and a notebook of photographs documenting Schlesinger's attendance at the detonation and Amchitka Island flora and fauna. As with the Cannikin Project, Schlesinger was involved with environmental issues that are represented in his congressional testimony, speeches and statements, and files on environmental organizations. Always a proponent of national security, he sought defense applications of nuclear power, and the papers reflect his involvement with nuclear weapons and naval nuclear propulsion.
Schlesinger served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from February through June 1973. The papers document his efforts during the Watergate Affair to turn over all information to congressional oversight committees regarding any agency involvement including his memorandum to agency employees to report to him any activities outside the Central Intelligence Agency charter. Although the memorandum was directed at Watergate, it lead to the discovery that the agency had opened mail sent by citizens of the United States to the Soviet Union. The subsequent leak of that information led to legal suits against the government of which Schlesinger was a defendant. Memoranda, briefs, and other legal papers relating to the suits are in the litigation files.
In July 1973 Schlesinger became secretary of defense. The action memoranda, comprised of memoranda and correspondence involving a myriad of topics including visits by foreign dignitaries, thank-you letters, military promotions, interactions with other departments, and documents requiring Schlesinger's approval or signature, provide an overview of the work carried out under his leadership at the Department of Defense. Schlesinger's concern that the Soviet Union not surpass the United States in defense matters is borne out in the papers through files on the Soviet Union, mutual and balanced force reduction, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, various weaponry, and other files relating to national security. Notes for meetings with Henry Kissinger are included with background files kept on the then secretary of state. Of interest is a group of files concerning retired army colonel Richard R. Hallock who had been sent to Iran by Schlesinger as a special envoy to assist in the sale of American arms to Iran and to supervise contracts. Schlesinger's dismissal by President Gerald R. Ford on 2 November 1975 is covered in the news reports and letters from various persons in the General Correspondence .
In October 1977, Schlesinger became the first secretary of energy. The papers reflect his integration of the energy powers of more than fifty agencies under the Department of Energy. Covered also in the papers are Schlesinger's involvement with the comprehensive nuclear test ban, nuclear nonproliferation, and oil. Material related to oil, nuclear matters, and foreign countries is also located in the files of the Central Intelligence Agency. President Jimmy Carter replaced Schlesinger in July 1979.
The Briefing File contains charts, notebooks, and transparencies used by Schlesinger during briefings for the president, congressional committees, and others while serving at the Atomic Energy Commission, Bureau of the Budget, and Department of Defense. A majority of the material relates to the Department of Defense and budgets.
Part II of the Schlesinger Papers spans the years 1943-2013, with most of the papers concentrated between 1990 and 2013. It is comprised almost entirely of a Post-Government File series covering Schlesinger’s activities and areas of interest in the years after those documented in Part I. It has a similar focus on the areas of defense, energy, national security, and nuclear weapons. Included are files pertaining to the numerous governmental and corporate advisory boards, commissions, committees, and task forces on which he served. Schlesinger served as chair of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations, which was convened after abuse of detainees in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was discovered in 2004, as well as the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board, and the Secretary of Defense Task Force on DoD Nuclear Weapons Management. Schlesinger was chairman of the board of trustees of the Mitre Corporation for over twenty-five years. Some documents are addressed to his administrative assistant there, Carol Padgett, who appears to have printed emails and relayed information to him. Digital files include minutes, PowerPoint presentations, and other material pertaining to meetings of the Mitre Board of Trustees.
Documents are grouped by topic, organization, person, or type of material. Featured are large groupings of material concerning climate, energy, the Global Positioning System, oil, nuclear weapons, spectrum management, the Iraq War, and topics relating to various aspects of the War on Terrorism. These subjects relate to issues covered in Schlesinger’s committee work and are also the focus of many of Schlesinger’s speeches, writings, and congressional testimony from this period included in this section of the papers.
Also included in Part II are three other small series Restricted, Classified, and Oversize.
This collection is arranged in two parts composed of eighteen series:
Part I:
Part II:
Appointment books, correspondence, honorary degrees, mail logs, memberships, photographs, telephone logs, and travel files.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material or topic.
Letters and memoranda, including attachments, between Schlesinger and friends, acquaintances, former colleagues, military personnel, government officials, congressional representatives and senators, the public, and others relating to personal and professional activities.
Arranged chronologically by year and therein alphabetically.
Correspondence and memoranda relating to Schlesinger's years at the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy.
Arranged chronologically.
Correspondence, memoranda, reports, articles, writings, notebooks, notes, photographs and a scrapbook, press releases, speeches and statements, congressional hearings and testimony, printed matter, campaign material, and charts related to Schlesinger's career in government.
Arranged alphabetically by name of government agency and therein by topic, name of person or organization, or type of material.
Charts, notebooks, and transparencies used by Schlesinger during briefings for the president, congressional committees, and others. The master file of transparencies kept by Schlesinger consists only of photocopies. Transparencies arriving with the collection were photocopied by Manuscript Division staff, where possible, and those photocopies filed under “copies of original transparencies.”
Arranged alphabetically by name of department and therein by type of briefing with the transparencies arranged by topic.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series and folders from which the items were removed. Includes an oversize item.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series and folders from which the items were removed.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series and folders from which the items were removed.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series and folders from which the items were removed.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series and folders from which the items were removed.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series and folders from which the items were removed.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series and folders from which the items were removed.
Scrapbook, charts, and a transparency.
Arranged and described according to the series, containers, and folders from which the items were removed.
Polaris flag.
Arranged and described according to the series, container, and folder from which the item was removed.
Correspondence, memoranda, reports, speeches, writings, testimony, briefing materials, photographs, press clippings, and other papers pertaining to Schlesinger's membership on various commissions, advisory boards, and study groups, and on topics such as energy, the Global Positioning System, homeland security, the Iraq War, nuclear weapons, spectrum management, and terrorism.
Arranged alphabetically by topic, name of person or organization, or type of material. The file structure of the digital content maintained as received.
Document with classification markings limiting access.
Arranged and described according to the series, container, and folder from which the item was removed.
Government-security documents.
Arranged and described according to the series, container, and folder from which the item was removed.
Print of drawing
Arranged and described according to the series, container, and folder from which the item was removed.