WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF RECORDS MANAGEMENT

Subject File, 1981-89

 

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZATIONS: CABINET & CABINET COUNCILS

 

DESCRIPTION OF SECONDARY FILE CODES

 

ALL CATEGORIES ARE AVAILABLE FOR RESEARCH USE

 

FG010                   Cabinet (0.7 ft.; boxes 1-2)

A secondary category containing mat­erial that relates broadly to the Cabinet and cabinet councils.  Topics include: meeting pro­cedures; Cab­inet secretaries’ election-year political activities; and, the soli­ci­tation of Cab­inet members’ papers for the Ronald Reagan Pres­iden­tial Library.  Also present are: documen­tation of Cabinet secre­tary travels in 1985-1987; a 1984 Cabinet dir­ectory which includes cabinet council and work­ing group rosters; and published writings on the Cabinet, including a book draft covering the years 1961-1985. A few records relate to Cabinet, cabinet council, Domestic Policy Council, and Economic Policy Council meetings and discussions (see FG010-01, FG010-02, FG010-03, and FG010-04), and White House Office of Cabinet Affairs meet­ings.

 

FG010-01               Cabinet Meetings (3.3 ft.; boxes 2-11)

A secondary category that contains material pertain­ing to Cabinet meet­ings, including those cancelled or post­poned.  Most material is organized into case files which document spec­ific meetings.  These case files include:  published and unpublished background materials on issues; lists of meeting partici­pants; agendas; “talk­ing points” and briefings for whoever chaired a meeting (usually the President); meeting minutes; and copies of charts, graphs, and other items used in presen­ta­tions.  Also documented are:  the scheduling of Cabinet, cabinet council, Domestic Policy Council, and Economic Policy Council meetings; proce­dures for the routing of matters dis­cussed by those bodies; pro­posals for Cabinet discussion items; and questions of who could attend Cabinet meetings.

 

Note: For more information on Cabinet meetings documented in this subject category, please refer to the “Index to Cabinet Meetings.”

 

FG010-02               Cabinet Councils (22.0 ft.; boxes 11-66)

A secondary category that contains material docu­ment­ing the cabinet councils, cabinet council secretar­iats, and cabinet council working groups which func­tioned between March 1981 and April 1985. The cabinet councils (Commerce and Trade, Economic Affairs, Food and Agriculture, Human Resources, Legal Policy, Management and Administration, and Natural Resources and Environment) discussed virtually all domestic policy matters. Most cabinet councils had a secre­tariat, chaired by the Executive Secretary, who announced meetings, compiled agendas, and supplied other support. Working groups were formed to study specific issues, and make recom­menda­tions to a particular cabinet council.

 

Most of the material consists of case files docu­menting cabinet council meetings. These case files include: record types such as those which document Cabinet meetings in FG010-01; short “flash reports” for cabinet council meetings held 1983-1985; and issue papers and reports from the working groups. Also present are: documentation of meetings of the Exec­utive Secre­tar­ies; records docu­menting the formul­a­tion and staffing of the cabinet councils, secre­tariats, and working groups; records which document the scheduling of both Cabinet and cabinet council meetings; a few 1985-1986 records relating to the Domestic Policy Council and Economic Policy Council (see FG010-03 and FG010-04); Congres­sional and other correspondence regarding the cabinet councils; and published articles about the cabinet council system.

 

For the file location(s) of material docu­menting specific cabinet council meetings, please refer to the cabinet council meeting indexes. For specific topics addressed by each Cabinet Council, see the list “Cabinet Councils (1981-1985) – Chief Issues and Topics Addressed.”

 

 

FG010-03               Domestic Policy Council (6.8 ft.; boxes 66-83)

A secondary category that contains material docu­menting the Domestic Policy Council (DPC) and the working groups which reported to it.  The DPC, along with the Economic Policy Council (EPC), were formed in 1985 to replace the seven cabinet councils of the first Reagan term.  The DPC dealt with domestic policy matters that were not pri­marily economic in nature. (In the first Reagan term, such issues were usually handled by the Cabinet Councils on Human Resources, Natural Resources and Environ­ment, Management and Admin­istration, or Legal Policy.) 

 

Most documents relate to the discus­sions and recommen­da­tions of the DPC and its working groups, and include case files and other materials such as those found in the subcategory FG010-02.  There are also:  documents relating to the scheduling of DPC meetings; periodic reports on the status of issues discussed by the DPC; published articles and other analyses of the DPC; and, records documenting matters which relate to both the Domestic Policy Council and the Economic Policy Council.

 

FG010-04               Economic Policy Council (6.8 ft; boxes 84-100)        

The Economic Policy Council (EPC) was one of the two advisory bodies formed to 1985 to that replace the seven cabinet councils of the first Reagan term (cf. FG010-03). For the most part, the issues addressed by the EPC were those that would have fallen to the former Cabinet Councils on Commerce and Trade, Economic Affairs, or Food and Agriculture.

 

This category contains materials relating to: minutes of Economic Policy Council meetings (1985-88); U.S.-EC trade relations; minimum funding waivers; agricult­ure enhancement programs; the Natural Resource Subsidy bill; “junk bond” legis­la­tion; “grey market” goods; U.S.-Japan trade relations; agriculture credit policy and farm bills; Section 201 and 301 cases; Alaskan North Slope and Cook Inlet oil exports; trade legislation strategy; FMHA lending; U.S.-Canadian FTA; space commercialization/Space Shuttle contracts; Brazilian Informatics case; Airbus; superconductivity; multifiber arrangement negotia­tions; and tariff relief for the domestic wood shakes and shingles industry.