Rush, Kenneth

Counsellors to the President

KENNETH RUSH

Counsellor to the President for Economic Affairs:

Files, 1974

SUMMARY DESCRIPTION

Fragmentary files concerning his work in coordinating economic policy and advising President Ford on economic matters in the first three weeks of the Ford administration. Topics include: food production and pricing, crude oil price equalization, wage and price policies, and the FY1975 budget.

QUANTITY

0.25 linear feet (ca. 500 pages)

DONOR

Gerald Ford (accession number 77-107)

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

Gerald Ford has donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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, February 1982

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Kenneth Rush

Jan. 17, 1910 Born, Walla Walla, WA

1930 A.B. in history, University of Tennessee

1932 LL.B., Yale University Law School

1932‑36 Associated with the law firm of Chadbourne, Stanchfield and Levy, New York

1936‑37 Assistant Professor, Duke University Law School

1936; 1937‑69 Union Carbide CorporationVice President, 1949‑61; Executive Vice President, 1961‑66; President, 1966‑69; director, 1958‑69; Executive Committee member, 1966‑69; and Chairman of the General Operating Committee, 1965‑69

1964‑69 Director, Foreign Policy Association; Member, Council on Foreign Relations; President Johnson's Committee on Foreign Trade Policy; and U.S. Department of Commerce Advisory Committee on Foreign Direct Investment

1969‑72 Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany

1972‑73 Deputy Secretary of Defense

1973‑74 Deputy Secretary of State (including service as Acting Secretary)

May-Sept. 1974 Counsellor to the President for Economic Policy

1974‑77 Ambassador to France

1977‑ Director, El Paso Company; Member, the Atlantic Council

INTRODUCTION

As Counsellor for Economic Policy to President Nixon, a position of Cabinet rank, Rush became the President's "primary adviser for and the coordinator of foreign and domestic economic policy". He was often called upon to mediate disputes between other presidential economic advisers, particularly Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon and Office of Management and Budget Director Roy L. Ash. His responsibilities included preparing and following‑up on Economic Policy Memoranda (EPM) and Economic Decision Memoranda (EDM); reviewing and coordinating economic speeches, statements, messages, and press releases; and consulting with economists and business leaders outside of the administration. Rush also chaired the daily 8 a.m. meeting of key economic advisers and attended senior staff meetings at the White House. As Counsellor, he sat in on meetings of the National Security Council and served as chairman of the Council on International Economic Policy (CIEP), the President's Committee on East‑West Trade Policy, and the President's Food Committee.

After Gerald Ford assumed the presidency on August 9, 1974, Rush also became chairman of the Council on Wage and Price Stability and the presidential ‑ congressional steering committee for the Conference on Inflation. On September 4, 1974, Ford named Rush as Ambassador to France and L. William Seidman assumed Rush's duties as White House economic adviser.

The Rush files consist only of a small amount of material concerning his activities in the first month of the administration. Included are memoranda on food production and pricing, crude oil price equalization, wage and price policies, and the FY1975 budget. Since the files are so fragmentary, it appears that Rush may have transferred some of his files to other staff members upon leaving the White House.

Related Materials (February 1982):

Other collections with material on economic concerns include the Council of Economic Advisers records, the papers of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur Burns, the files of Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs L. William Seidman and his assistants, and several categories in the White House Central Files.

Container List

Box 1 Subject File

Cabinet Committee on Food Meeting, 8/16/74

Conference on Inflation ‑ Transcript

Crude Oil Price Equalization, 8/23/74

Economic Forecasts, 8/14/74

Economic Policy Recommendations (1975 Budget), 8/12‑13/74

General Motors Price Hike, 8/16/74

Pan American Airlines ‑ Financial Aid, 8/23/74

Rush, Kenneth ‑ Personal Correspondence

Senate Committee on the Budget ‑ Rush Testimony, 8/14/74

Wage and Price Policies, 8/74

Gerald R. Ford Library

1000 Beal Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2114