Cribb, T. Kenneth, Jr.: Files, 1982-1985

Office of the Counselor (Edwin Meese); Assistant Counselor, April 1982-January 1985

This collection is available in whole for research use. Some folders may still have withdrawn material due to Freedom of Information Act restrictions. Most frequently withdrawn material is national security classified material, personal privacy, protection of the President, etc.

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Collection Date

April 1982-January 1985

Scope and Content Note

Both T. Kenneth Cribb and Craig Fuller came to the White House as appointees with Edwin Meese, the Counsellor to the President. Both individuals were quickly moved to organize and run the Cabinet Affairs office and institute the concept of President Reagan's preferred cabinet governance. Fuller became the Assistant to the President for Cabinet Affairs and Cribb was appointed the Director of the Cabinet Affairs Office. Cribb returned to Edwin Meese's staff in 1982.

The scope of this collection is very limited in comparison to Cribb's other collections in the Office of Cabinet Affairs and the Domestic Affairs Office. The Library believes it is possible Cribb removed material to take with him when he followed Edwin Meese to the Department of Justice.

Much of this material was found loose as part of a box found within the Edwin Meese collection. This material has been placed in folders, with many folders containing single documents. The Library tried to follow any filing instructions on the documents and group material on the same subjects within a single folder. Also numerous original White House Office of Records Management Subject File case files were found within this material. Preservation photocopies were made for the Cribb collection and the originals were refiled with the WHORM Subject File.

This collection consists of two series: SERIES I: Subject File and SERIES II Chronological File.

Series List

SERIES I: SUBJECT FILE

This series consists of material regarding Cribb's function as assistant to Edwin Meese, The Counsellor to the President. Multiple subjects are covered and include notes for Cribb action of recommendations for Meese actions. The material also reflects Cribb's ties to agencies after his time as Director of the Office of Cabinet Affairs. Subjects in the series are wide ranging and are almost exclusively regarding domestic issues. There is also an emphasis on filling federal jobs with Reagan supporters and backers. Cribb, even at this point in his career, had a deep knowledge of the conservative, long-time Reagan supporters. He received correspondence, policy papers, and notices of pending legislation and/or agency issues and problems from various correspondents. The most frequent correspondence was from Joseph Wright and Michael Horowitz at the Office of Management and Budget, Danny Boggs and Stephen Galebach of the Office of Policy Development, Becky Norton Dunlop in Cabinet Affairs and the Office of Presidential Personne, and Morton Blackwell in the Office of Public Liaison. Some personal material is also in this series and singles news clippings on a particular subject. This series is arranged alphabetically by folder title.

SERIES II: CHRONOLOGICAL FILE 1982-1983

This series consists of copies of outgoing memos and correspondence from Ken Cribb. The material includes Cribb actions on behalf of Edwin Meese. It mostly concerns follow-ups from Cribb to the correspondent on actions assigned to the correspondent by Edwin Meese. It also contains some information on follow-ups by Cribb on Meese action items. It includes a small amount of personal correspondence. This series does not include material for the latter half of 1983 and of all of 1984. The material is arranged chronologically.

Biography

Biography

T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr. served President Ronald Reagan for almost the entire Administration in the Office of Cabinet Affairs, the Office of the Counselor to the President, the Department of Justice, and the Office of Domestic Affairs.

Born in 1948, T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., is a native of South Carolina. He received a B.A. from Washington and Lee University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Cribb graduated in 1970 from Washington and Lee University and took his first job as national director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) from 1971 to 1977. ISI is an adjunct educational organization dedicated to promoting the teaching of core American and Western values or “educating for liberty,” as their mission states. He left ISI to complete his law degree at UVA, graduating in 1980. He became an attorney with Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer and Wood.

He also volunteered as deputy to the chief counsel of the 1980 Reagan campaign. He eventually took a leave of absence from Dewey to serve as Deputy Director of the Legal and Administrative Agencies Group, Office of Executive Branch Management for the Reagan transition team.

In the Reagan White House, Chief of Staff James Baker, Counsellor to the President Edwin Meese III, and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael K. Deaver formed a senior staff triumvirate which came to be called “the Troika. Meese’s responsibilities included the overseeing of relations between the White House and the Cabinet; organizing and running the cabinet council system of government Reagan preferred and overview of policy, planning, strategy and for the first year of the administration national security policy. Meese had a small, loosely organized staff to assist him in these functions.

Cribb began working in the Office of the Counsellor in 1981, focusing on cabinet affairs. Early in the Administration this sub-office was established as its own entity and Cribb became the first Director of the Office of Cabinet Affairs. In 1982, he returned to the Office of the Counselor to work directly for Ed Meese as an Assistant Counselor to the President. When Meese left the White House in 1985 to become Attorney General, Cribb followed him to the Department of Justice as “Counselor to the Attorney General.”

Cribb left the Department of Justice in late 1986 and worked briefly on Wall Street as an attorney. He was recruited back to the Reagan Administration in early 1987 to be Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs and the Director of the Office of Domestic Affairs.

In 1984, President Reagan appointed Cribb to the Board of Governors for the American Red Cross. He served two three-year terms while simultaneously working for the White House and the Department of Justice.

Cribb has a long and varied association with conservative organizations and promotion of conservative education since leaving the White House. He served as President of ISI from 1989-2011, and served on its board until May 2012. During his tenure, ISI expanded its educational programs. He served as vice chairman of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board from 1989 to 1992.

Cribb was president of the Collegiate Network, an association of alternative college newspapers; president of the Council for National Policy, a conservative umbrella organization; member of the Board of Advisors for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education; is counselor to the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, a conservative legal organization. Cribb also serves on the Board of Advisors of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, an educational organization that continues the intellectual legacy of noted conservative icon Russell Kirk, and on the Board of Visitors of Ralston College, a start-up liberal-arts college in Savannah. He served as President of the Philadelphia Society.

Cribb has been published in the National Review, The American Spectator, The Intercollegiate Review, Modern Age, and Human Events.

Extent

2.9 l.ft., Box 1-9

Record Type

Textual

Last Modified Date

2024-08-12

WHORM Alpha File

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Cribb, T. Kenneth, Jr.: Files, 1982-1985

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