June 23, 2009 Materials Release

NOTE: Since the June 23, 2009 opening, all of these documents have been consolidated and are available for research at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. The locations given below indicate where the documents were at the time of the opening.

 

On June 23, 2009, the Nixon Library opened additional materials from the Nixon Presidential Materials. Below are scans of 41 documents that represent the variety of subjects and wealth of historical information included in this new release.

The documents are from file segments for the White House Special Files, Staff Member & Office Files; White House Central Files, Staff Member & Office Files; and the National Security Council File series, including the Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts (Telcons).

• A selection of these documents are available online below as PDF files.
   
• Please visit the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, or College Park, Maryland (as indicated for each collection below), to research all of the documents.

The documents have been numbered on our website and this brief overview will refer to individual documents by those numbers.

The release includes significant material on the formulation of the Nixon administration’s domestic policy. Some of the scanned documents shed light on administration policy toward the Clean Air Act (4, 7), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (5), Campaign Finance Reform (1), Title IX of the Education Act (which outlawed sex discrimination in higher education) (9), and President Nixon’s support for the Equal Rights Amendment (2, 3). Chief domestic advisor Kenneth Cole’s notes shed additional light on White House discussions during the 1973 standoff with Native Americans at Wounded Knee (5), on President Nixon’s analysis of the Middle East and the American role in that region in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War (10), the circumstances surrounding the firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in October 1973 and of the reaction of prominent figures, such as California Governor Ronald Reagan, to what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre (6, 11). A detailed memorandum from Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1970 offers some of the intellectual underpinnings of White House domestic politics in that era (35) and a 1971 memorandum from Charles Colson about Peter Brennan outlines a strategy for increasing support among labor unions (26).

Also included among the newly available domestic policy documents are materials about the 1971 political investigation of the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 37, 41); about the White House’s 1969 investigation of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (33); about the strategy for handling Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri (34); on activities against the Brookings Institution in 1971 (24, 37); and about the Radford Affair, the December 1971 White House investigation of leaks to journalist Jack Anderson, and on efforts to inject the issue of homosexuality into that investigation (21, 22).

The new releases include over 5,000 pages of formerly classified materials released through the Mandatory Review process. Representing these materials is a memorandum of conversation involving Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew (18) that illustrates the Nixon Administration’s geo-political strategy in Asia in the wake of the opening to China. A memorandum of a meeting between President Nixon and Prime Minister Edward Heath the United Kingdom provides insight on alliance politics and detente with the Soviet Union (16). Also included is the transcript of an April 1970 telephone conversation between President Nixon and Senator John Stennis of Mississippi on the eve of the U.S.-South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia (20). Finally, a December 1970 letter from Prime Minister Golda Meir (14) and a National Security Council brief on US policy toward nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East (13) provide information on the history of US-Israeli relations.

Selected Documents

White House Central Files: Staff Member & Office Files:
Kenneth Cole (Yorba Linda, CA)

1.	May 7, 1971	Memo from Cole to Colson
2.	September 21, 1971	Correspondence between Cole and Ford
3.	March 14, 1972	Memo from Cole to the President
4.	February 24, 1973	Memo from Cole to the Ehrlichman, Shultz, Ash and Butz
5.	March 26, 1973	Cole Notes
6.	October 21, 1973	Cole Notes
7.	March 5, 1974	Memo from Cole to the President
8.	March 26, 1974	Memo from Cole to the President
9.	May 31, 1974	Memo from Cole to the President
10.	June 20, 1974	Cole Notes
11.	n.d.	Cole Notes Re: Archibald Cox
12.	n.d.	Cole Notes Re: Executive Privilege

Mandatory Review Documents (College Park, MD)

National Security Council Files

13.	Box 366	Subject Files -- Non-Proliferation Treaty April 1969-March 1970 [2 of 2]	n.d.	Memo on Israel nuclear capability
14.	Box 756	Presidential Correspondence 1969-1974 -- Israel Golda Meir 1970	December 1, 1970	Message from Meir to President Nixon
15.	Box 965	Haig Chron File -- Haig Chron: April 16-30, 1970 [3 of 3]	April 15, 1970	Memo from Helms to Kissinger
16.	Box 1025	President-HAK Memcons -- Memcons-The President & PM Heath December 20-21, 1971	December 20 and 21, 1971	Memo from Kissinger to the President
17.	Box 1027	Presidential-HAK Memcons -- Memcons April-Nov 1973 [3 of 5]	July 27, 1973	Memcon between Shah of Iran, Kissinger, and Helms
18.	Box 1027	Presidential-HAK Memcons -- Memcons April-November 1973 [5 of 5]	April 11, 1973	Memcon between Kissinger and Singapore PM Yew

Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversations (Telcons)

19.	Box 4	Chron File -- 1970 6-14 Apr	April 11, 1970	Telcon between Kissinger and Rostow
20.	Box 5	Chron File -- 1970 19-26 Apr	April 24, 1970	Telcon between Kissinger and the President

White House Special Files: Staff Member & Office Files
David R. Young

21.	Box 23	Subject Files: Special Report to the President from David R. Young, Memorandum for the Record	n.d.	Memo from Young to the President
22.	Box 24	Subject Files: Special Report for the President from David R. Young, Tabs 1-18 [Folder 5 of 5]	n.d.	Tab 17 of Young Report to the President

White House Special Files: Staff Member & Office Files
Charles Colson, John Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman
(College Park, MD)

Charles Colson

23.	Box 129	June 1971	June 11, 1971	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
24.	Box 129	June 1971	June 18, 1971	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
25.	Box 129	July 1971	July 2, 1971	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
26.	Box 129	July 1971	July 2, 1971	Memo from Colson to the President
27.	Box 129	July 1971	July 20, 1971	Memo from Colson to Malek
28.	Box 129	July 1971	July 27, 1971	Memo from Colson to Malek
29.	Box 130	September 1971	September 27, 1971	Memo from Colson to Malek
30.	Box 130	November 1971	November 4, 1971	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
31.	Box 130	November 1971	November 23, 1971	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
32.	Box 132	December 1972	December 8, 1972	Letter from Colson to Hallett

John D. Ehrlichman

33.

Box 20

[Edward Kennedy] 308-A, Stanley [2 of 2]

July 31, 1969

Memo from Caulfield to Ehrlichman

H. R. Haldeman

34.	Box 46	H Notes July-Aug.-Sept. 1972 [July 22, 1972 to Aug. 16, 1972] Part I	July 25, 1972	Haldeman Notes
35.	Box 48	Misc Material 1970	November 13, 1970	Memo from Moynihan to the President
36.	Box 80	Charles Colson June 1971	June 2, 1971	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
37.	Box 82	Lawrence Higby July 1971	July 8, 1971	Memo from Higby to Haldeman
38.	Box 87	Fred Malek--December 1971	December 30, 1971	Memo from Malek to Haldeman
39.	Box 105	Charles Colson November 1972	November 10, 1972	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
40.	Box 105	Charles Colson November 1972	November 29, 1972	Memo from Colson to Haldeman
41.	Box 112	Action Memos 11/72	November 15, 1972	Action Memo from Haldeman