FG010 - WHORM Federal Government Organizations

Cabinet (0.7 ft.; boxes 1-2)
This secondary subject category contains material relating to the Cabinet and cabinet councils; meeting procedures; allowed election-year political activities by Cabinet members; solicitation of Cabinet Secretaries’ personal papers for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library; 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.

Cabinet Meetings (3.3 ft.; boxes 2-11)
This secondary subject category contains material relating to Cabinet meetings, including meetings cancelled or postponed; published and unpublished background materials on agenda items for Cabinet meetings; lists of participants; agendas; talking points and briefings for the “chair” (usually President Reagan) of the meetings; meeting minutes; and copies of charts, graphs, and other items used in presentations.

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

Cabinet Councils (22.0 ft.; boxes 11-66)
This secondary category contains material regarding 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 concerns short “flash reports” for cabinet council meetings held from 1983-1985; issue papers and reports from the working groups; meetings of the of the Exec­utive Secretaries; forming and staffing of the cabinet councils, secre­tariats, and working groups; 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 index. For specific topics addressed by each Cabinet Council, see the list “Cabinet Councils (1981-1985) – Chief Issues.”

The following Case Files from this Subject Category have been digitized:

Domestic Policy Council (6.8 ft.; boxes 66-83)
This secondary subject category contains material regarding 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 material concerns the discus­sions and recommen­da­tions of the DPC and its working groups; scheduling of DPC meetings; periodic reports on the status of issues discussed by the DPC; published articles and other analyses of the DPC; and, issue discussions and background information for broad topics of concern to both the Domestic Policy Council and the Economic Policy Council.

Economic Policy Council (6.8 ft; boxes 84-100)        
This secondary subject category contains material regarding the Economic Policy Council (EPC) . The EPC was one of the two advisory bodies formed to 1985 to that replace the seven cabinet councils of the first Reagan term 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.