FOREWORD

The General Services Administration, through the National Archives and Records Service, is responsible for administering the permanent noncurrent records of the Federal Government. These archival holdings, now amounting to more than 900,000 cubic feet, date from the days of the First Continental Congress and consist of the basic records of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of our Government. In the Presidential libraries-the Herbert Hoover Library, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, the Harry S. Truman Library, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, the John F. Kennedy Library, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Library-are the papers of those Presidents and many of their associates in office. While many of the archival holdings document events of great moment in our Nation's history, most of them are preserved because of their continuing practical use in the ordinary processes of government, for the protection of private rights, and for the research use of scholars and students.

To facilitate the use of the records and to describe their nature and content, archivists prepare various kinds of finding aids. The present work is one such publication. We believe that it will prove valuable to anyone who wishes to use the records it describes.

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ROBERT L. KUNZIG Administrator of General Services

PREFACE

Special lists are published by the National Archives as part of its records description program. The special list describes in detail the contents of selected records series-that is, units of records of the same form or that deal with the same subject or activity or that are arranged serially; and it may show, as does the present one, the location in other depositories of records important for research, the originals of which are in the National Archives.

In addition to lists and other finding aids that relate to particular record groups, the National Archives publishes some that give an overall picture of materials in its custody. A comprehensive Guide to the Records in the National Archives (1948) and a brief guide Your Government's Records in the National Archives (revised 1950), have been issued. A guide devoted to one geographical area-Guide to Materials on Latin America in the National Archives (1961)-has been published. Forty-six Reference Information Papers, which analyze records in the National Archives on such subjects as transportation, small business, and the Middle East, have so far been issued. Records of the Civil War are described in Guide to Federal Archives Relating to the Civil War (1962), Guide to the Archives of the Government of the Confederate States of America (1968), and Civil War Maps in the National Archives (1964); those of World War I in Handbook of Federal World War Agencies and Their Records, 1917-1921 (1943); and those of World War II in the two-volume guide Federal Records of World War II (1950-51). Genealogical records are described in Guide to Genealogical Records in the National Archives (1964). Among the holdings of the National Archives are large quantities of audiovisual materials received from all sources: Government, private, and commercial. The Guide to the Ford Film Collection in the National Archives (1970) describes one of the largest private gift collections. Many bodies of records of high research value have been microfilmed by the National Archives as a form of publication. Positive prints of these microfilm publications, many of which are described in the List of National Archives Microfilm Publications (1968), are available for purchase.

JAMES B. RHOADS Archivist of the United States