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Gerald R. Ford Library1000 Beal Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2114www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov |
ARTHUR F. BURNS
Counsellor
to President Nixon, 1969‑70; Chairman,
Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System,
1970‑78:
Papers, (1957) 1969-78
SUMMARY DESCRIPTION
The collection includes extensive files
on U.S. domestic and international financial and monetary affairs, bank regulation
and reform, administration of the Federal Reserve, and related issues. It also includes Dr. Burns' 1969-70 files
from the Nixon White House on domestic and economic issues. Note: later accessions of Burns Papers,
mostly covering 1979-87, are not described here and are not yet available to
research.
QUANTITY
187
linear feet (ca. 374,000 pages)
DONOR
Arthur
F. Burns (accession numbers 83-7, 86-28, 87-37, and 88-31)
ACCESS
Open. Some items are temporarily restricted under
terms of the donor's deed of gift, a copy of which is available on request, or
under National Archives and Records Administration general restrictions (36 CFR
1256).
COPYRIGHT
Dr.
Burns has donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his
unpublished writings in National Archives collections. The copyrights to materials written by other
individuals or organizations are presumed to remain with them. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees
as part of their official duties are in the public domain.
Prepared by:
Sandra Raub Mitchell, September 1985
Revised by:
Karen Rohrer, July 1987; William McNitt, August 1994
[s:\bin\findaid\burns, arthur - papers.doc]
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Arthur F. Burns
1925 Received
A.B. and A.M. degrees in economics from Columbia University
1926-27 Lecturer
in economics at
1927-44 Economics
instructor at
1930-68 In
addition to teaching, Burns joined the staff of the National Bureau of Economics
as a research associate in 1930. He
later served a/s the institute's director of research, 1945‑1953;
president, 1957‑1967; and chairman, 1967‑1968.
1934 Received
Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University
1941-42 Visiting
professor of economics at
1944-69 Professor of economics at
1953-56 Appointed
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers by President Eisenhower. Also served as chairman,
Advisory Board on Economic Growth and Stability.
1956 Chairman
of the Cabinet Committee on Small Business
1957‑58 Member,
U.S. Advisory Council on Social Security Financing
1961-66 Member, President's Advisory Committee on Labor-Management
Policy
1968 Economics
adviser to presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon
Jan. 1969-Jan.
1970 Counsellor
to President Nixon. Burns
also served on the Cabinet
Committee on Economic Policy
Feb. 1970-Mar. 1978 Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System
Sept. 1973-Jan. 1978 U.S. Alternate Governor to the International Monetary Fund
Aug. 1971-Jan. 1978 Member, Emergency Loan Guarantee Board
Oct. 1971-Apr. 1974 Head of the Committee on Interest and Dividends, part of
Nixon's Economic Stabilization Program
1977-81 & 1985-87 Distinguished Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research
1981-85 U.S.
Ambassador to West Germany
June 26, 1987 Died
at age 83 of complications following coronary bypass surgery.
Publications
include: Production Trends in the
United States Since 1870 (1934); Measuring Business Cycles (with
Wesley C. Mitchell, 1946); Frontiers of Economic Knowledge (1954); Prosperity
Without Inflation (1957); The Management of Prosperity (1966); and The
Business Cycle in a Changing World (1969).
INTRODUCTION
Origin and
Arrangement of the Burns Papers
The papers were created and
accumulated by Dr. Burns while he was Counsellor to
President Nixon, 1969‑70, and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, 1970‑78. Dr. Burns donated the papers to the Ford
Library in 1981. The Library has
retained the original file scheme of the papers, and material on a given topic
is often located in several different file segments or series. For example, material on legislative issues
of interest to the Federal Reserve can be found in the Federal Reserve Board
Subject File, in the Congressional Correspondence File, in files on staff
members concerned with congressional liaison, and in files relating to Burns'
congressional testimony.
White House
Files, 1969‑70
This series relates to Burns'
functions as Counsellor to President Nixon from
January 1969 through January 1970. Known
as Nixon's chief of staff for domestic affairs, Burns was charged with the development
of domestic programs and policies. As head of the White House Office of Program
Development he was also in charge of establishing task forces on numerous
domestic issues. The series documents
the whole range of domestic issues, as well as some aspects of foreign affairs
such as trade and aid. Of particular
significance are files on agriculture, labor relations, poverty and welfare,
the federal budget process, campus unrest, commerce questions, housing and
construction, urban renewal, education, unemployment, and the economy.
Federal Reserve
Board Files, 1970‑78
The files, arranged into seventeen
series, reflect the wide range of responsibilities of the Federal Reserve
System. [Appendix A outlines the
structure of the Federal Reserve System and its relationship with the executive
and legislative branches of government.]
While the System's interests lie mainly in the area of monetary affairs,
the collection also includes a substantial amount of material on fiscal matters
collected by the Fed for use in projecting future economic developments. Some major areas of concern to the Federal
Reserve Board, documented in the papers, are described below.
Domestic and
International Monetary Policy
Included is material on both the formation
and conduct of the nation's monetary policy such as minutes and background
files for meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee; correspondence with
the Federal Reserve Banks, especially the Federal Reserve Bank of New York;
correspondence with the White House and Treasury Department; and material
concerning Federal Reserve interactions with foreign central banks and
international monetary organizations such as the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), the Group of Ten, and the Bank for International Settlements.
Domestic
monetary issues of concern to the Fed included the level of the nation's money
supply, the availability of credit, and the level of interest rates. The Federal Reserve Board (although
possessing virtually no statutory authority to make international monetary
policy) also considered international issues such as the balance of payments,
swap arrangements with other central banks, U.S. gold policy, the recycling of
surplus OPEC funds, and multilateral assistance to countries in financial
difficulty, particularly Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The Board was also represented on the
National Advisory Council on International Monetary and Financial Policy.
There is a particularly large body
of valuable material relating to international monetary reform. The United States' deteriorating balance of
payments position in the early 1970s led to President Nixon's unilateral
suspension of the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold on August 15,
1971. The Burns Papers include Federal
Reserve and Treasury memoranda discussing various reform proposals and files on
numerous international meetings which were subsequently held to discuss
international monetary reform. Included
is material on the December 1971 Smithsonian meeting where the dollar was
devalued for the first time since 1934 and on meetings of the Group of Ten and
the IMF held in the next several years.
In March 1973, after the dollar was devalued a second time, a new
international system of floating exchange rates was agreed to at a Paris
meeting of the Group of Ten and European Economic Community. Final agreement on abolishing the official
price of gold and on amending Article IV of the IMF's
Articles of Agreement came at a meeting of the IMF Interim Committee in Jamaica
in January 1976, shortly following French-American discussions on the matter at
the Rambouillet summit.
Banking
Regulation and Reform
Present in the files is
correspondence with other federal bank regulatory agencies -- the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency,
and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and staff memoranda concerning banking
regulations enforced by the Fed.
Of particular interest is the
material relating to bank regulatory reform.
During the 1970s Congress considered a number of legislative proposals
relating to reform of the financial industry.
Many recent innovations in banking such as the removal of Regulation Q
interest rate ceilings on certificates of deposit, the payment of interest on
checking accounts and the approval of negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW)
accounts nationwide, and the development of creative mortgage financing were
debated during Burns' tenure as Fed Chairman.
The Burns Papers include material on the Commission on Financial
Structure and Regulation (Hunt Commission) established in 1970 by President
Nixon to study problems experienced by financial institutions such as
commercial banks, savings and loans, and credit unions. There is also material on resulting legislative
reform proposals such as the Financial Institutions Act, first introduced in
Congress in 1973 and later re-submitted with some modifications by the Ford
administration in 1975.
In addition to material on specific
reform proposals, the papers also include files on the FINE (Financial
Institutions and the Nation's Economy) Study, a massive study conducted by the
House Committee on Banking, Currency and Housing in late 1975. This study explored financial reform including
topics such as housing finance and regulation of international banking. Comprehensive reform legislation, "The
Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act," imposing
uniform reserve requirements and allowing banks and other financial
institutions to greatly expand their services, was signed into law by President
Carter on March 31, 1980.
The voluminous material relating to
banking legislation includes correspondence with members of Congress, copies of
Burns' testimony before various congressional committees, and published
congressional hearings. Staff memoranda
analyze legislative issues, report on the progress of
bills, and document lobbying done to influence such legislation.
Incomes Policy,
Government Loan Guarantees
The Burns Papers also include
material on domestic aspects of President Nixon's "new economic
policy" of 1971, especially the Economic Stabilization Program set up to
combat inflation. There are files on
several temporary agencies which were established to issue and enforce domestic
economic controls (most notably wage and price controls) and material on
legislation to temporarily extend the program.
Dr. Burns, as Federal Reserve Chairman, served as head of one such
agency -- the Committee on Interest and Dividends which issued guidelines on
the payment of dividends and the level of interest rates.
Also present in the files is
material relating to the Federal Reserve System's role as lender of last
resort. During the 1970s the Federal
Reserve was concerned with federal loan guarantees to Penn Central Railroad and
Lockheed Aircraft and provided emergency assistance to commercial banks during
the New York City financial crisis of 1975.
The files include memoranda concerning the appropriate role of the Fed
and the passage of legislation authorizing such assistance, as well as reports
and minutes of the Emergency Loan Guarantee Board.
Administration
and Reform of the Federal Reserve System
Finally, the papers also contain
material relating to the administration of the Federal Reserve System, with information
on personnel policies, budgets and Federal Reserve Bank building facilities.
There is also material on
congressional attempts to exert greater control over the Federal Reserve
System. During the 1970s several bills
were introduced to reform the Federal Reserve System, including proposals to
allow the President to appoint the Federal Reserve Chairman to a term
approximately coterminous with his own.
House Concurrent Resolution 133, a non-binding resolution passed in
March 1975, directed Federal Reserve officials to appear before House and
Senate banking committees semiannually to testify concerning monetary goals for
the upcoming year and urged the Fed to pursue monetary growth to fight
recession. The Federal Reserve Reform
Act, enacted in 1977, placed new restrictions on the Federal Reserve System,
including Senate confirmation of the President's choice of Chairman and Vice
Chairman of the Board, and required the Fed to make quarterly reports to
Congress concerning its monetary targets.
Also, in 1978, after several years' debate, Congress passed legislation
requiring an audit of certain Federal Reserve operations by the General
Accounting Office.
Unprocessed
Accretions to the Burns Papers
Since the original archival processing
of the Burns Papers, the Library has received several accretions totalling approximately 53 feet of papers. The bulk of this material relates to his work
at the American Enterprise Institute (1978-81 and 1985-87) and as ambassador to
West Germany (1981-85). The accretions
have not been processed and are not available for research.
Related
Materials (September 1985):
Several subject categories in the
White House Central Files include material relating to issues touched upon by
the Burns Papers, especially categories FI (Finance), FO (Foreign Affairs), BE
(Business-Economics), IT (International Organizations), and FG 131 (Federal
Reserve System).
The files of several White House
staff members also include related material, particularly those of staff
members in the Office of Economic Affairs and members of the Domestic
Council. The files of L. William Seidman, Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs
and Executive Director, Economic Policy Board, especially include material on a
wide range of both domestic and international economic issues. Material on banking reform can be found in
the files of Domestic Council Associate Director Paul C. Leach.
The records of the Council of
Economic Advisers, 1974‑77, include similar files on a wide range of
international and domestic economic issues.
Papers of Julius Shiskin consist largely of
published material on economic matters, particularly the collection of
statistical data.
Additional papers of Arthur Burns,
1930‑69, consisting of personal material and files relating to his
service as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, are held by the
Eisenhower Library.
List of Series
A
1‑34 White House Files
B
1‑118 Federal
Reserve Board Subject File
C
1‑16 Federal Reserve Board
Staff Files
D
1‑7 Federal Reserve Bank
Files
E
1‑44 Speeches and
Congressional Testimony
F
1‑15 Federal Open Market
Committee Published Minutes, 1962‑76
G
1-55 Federal Open Market Committee
Meeting Files
H
1-4 Federal Open Market Committee
Memoranda
I (letter
not used)
J Economic
Policy Board File (Unprocessed)
K
1‑41 Name Correspondence Files
L
1‑11 General Alphabetical
Correspondence, 1969‑73
M
1‑56 General Alphabetical
Correspondence, 1974‑78
N
1 Presidential Correspondence
O
1‑17 Congressional
Correspondence
P Personal
File
Q
1‑12 Chronological File
R
1‑16 Newspaper Clippings
S
1‑14 Publications
T Accretions
(Unprocessed)
Series Descriptions
A1-A34 White
House Files, 1969-77. (14.0 linear feet)
White House
staff memoranda, incoming and outgoing correspondence, newspaper clippings,
reports and printed material. The files
document the whole range of domestic issues facing the Nixon administration: welfare reform, the economy, housing,
education, labor relations, urban renewal, and many more.
Arranged
alphabetically by subject.
B1‑B118 Federal Reserve Board Subject File, 1969‑78. (47.2 linear feet)
Memoranda, correspondence,
reports, telegrams, briefing papers, newspaper clippings, public statements,
and printed material written by Burns or received by him, primarily from
Federal Reserve Board staff members, U.S. government officials, and foreign
banking officials. The files relate to
both domestic and international monetary affairs. Subjects include: Federal Reserve Board
organization and administration; bank regulation and reform; government loan
guarantees; the Economic Stabilization Program; the international monetary
crises of the early 1970s and subsequent international monetary reform; and
international efforts to assist countries in financial difficulty.
Arranged
alphabetically by subject and thereunder
chronologically. Material relating to
international meetings attended by Burns may be filed either under the name of
the organization or under "Trips" (if Burns attended more than one
event during the course of his travel.)
C1‑C16 Federal Reserve Board Staff Files, 1969‑78. (6.2 linear feet)
Memoranda to
Burns from fellow Governors of the Federal Reserve Board and members of the
Board staff concerning both domestic and international monetary policy. The folder title list enumerates some of the
important policy
matters that each staff member handled.
Arranged
alphabetically by name of staff member.
D1‑D7 Federal Reserve Bank Files, 1969‑78. (2.8 linear feet)
Correspondence
of Chairman Burns, and occasionally other Federal Reserve Governors, with
officers of the twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks. Also, occasionally, Federal Reserve staff
memoranda about the reserve banks, speeches given by bank officials, and bank
reports and publications. Topics include
requests and directives to the banks from the Board of Governors; personnel and
administrative matters; discount rates; bank opinions on monetary issues; and
proposed visits to the banks by Chairman Burns.
The files on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York also include material
on open market operations as well as reports on bank representatives' attendance
at meetings of the Bank for International Settlements.
Arranged
alphabetically by bank.
E1‑E44 Speeches and Congressional Testimony,
(1958) 1969‑78. (17.4 linear feet)
Files
on speeches, remarks, and congressional testimony given by Dr. Burns, primarily
as Federal Reserve Board Chairman. Most
files include a press release of the final version of the public
statement. Other material often present,
but not always, includes: drafts; background material such as Federal Reserve
staff memoranda, statistical tables, reports and printed material, bills before
Congress, and copies of speeches and testimony given by others; and published
congressional hearings. Burns made
nearly 100 appearances before congressional committees while Chairman and also
presented numerous speeches. Both
domestic and international economic topics are addressed. The subject of a particular speech or
congressional appearance is indicated in the folder title list.