turned over to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Accounts for use in winding up Censorship's fiscal affairs. And all this was done within the 90 days allotted for closing the agency.

It was not to be expected that the records of all the emergency agencies could be reduced so greatly as were the files of the Office of Censorship, but the accomplishments in that case were an indication of what could be achieved by advance planning and the will to finish a job with all the odds and ends of administration neatly tied up. Especially good jobs were also done with the records of the War Relocation Authority, the Petroleum Administration for War, and other agencies that were abolished outright. The Fair Employment Practice Committee, however, was terminated so abruptly that it had no chance to prepare its records for retirement, although plans had been made, and had the National Archives not been prepared to take over, valuable records might have been lost or dispersed.

It was a far more complicated problem to deal with those agencies the functions of which, at least in part, were parceled out to permanent agencies. The functions of the Foreign Economic Administration were divided among four agencies-the State, Commerce, and Agriculture Departments, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Under the circumstances, the FEA itself could not govern the fate of its records, and the successor agencies, unfamiliar with the records and uncertain of how great their need for them would be, were reluctant to sanction disposal or transfer to the National Archives even when plans for such retirement had been made. Some records were transferred to the National Archives, but it seemed likely that the identity of many FEA records would be lost by their being incorporated into the files of the successor agencies. Practically the same situation existed with respect to the Office of Strategic Services, the Office of War Information, the Office of InterAmerican Affairs, the War Manpower Commission, and the Smaller War Plants Corporation; some of their records were transferred to the National Archives but many went to agencies that were charged with carrying on parts of their activities.

Although uncertainty as to their future hampered other emergency agencies in retiring their records, some heartening progress was made. The Office of Price Administration appointed a member of the staff of the National Archives to head its records office, and by the end of the year under review a comprehensive survey of the agency's 1,250,000 cubic feet of records was well under way and disposal schedules covering about two-thirds of them had been prepared. The Civilian Production Administration (successor to the War Production Board), Selective Service, and the Office of Scientific Research and Development also listed or scheduled many records for disposal or for eventual transfer to the National Archives.

Efforts of the National Archives to facilitate the retirement of the records of the emergency agencies received support from several quarters during the year. In July 1945 the Budget Bureau issued a guide for agency liquidation or reduction, which outlined the proper procedure for records disposal or transfer to the National Archives. To further his policy of economizing by reducing the size of the warswollen Government, President Truman in September appointed George E. Allen to study liquidation problems and to make recommendations to him. Mr. Allen's report stressed, among other things, the importance of records retirement. It urged support for agency records officials, careful selection of records for preservation, particularly of high-level policy files, prompt disposal of material of no further value, maintenance of the integrity of files transferred from one agency to another, and close cooperation with the National Archives. It also recommended the appointment of a Director of Liquidation to further the winding up of the affairs of the emergency war agencies. In January such a Director, Robert L. McKeever, who had been the administrative officer of the Office of Censorship, was appointed, and the National Archives was represented in the membership of the Liquidation Advisory Committtee. It worked closely with Mr. McKeever and his assistant, Elliott Thompson, and the resulting impetus given to records retirement was gratifying.

About two-thirds of the Government records in existence at the end of the war were held, however, by half a dozen war agencies that are either permanent or are likely to remain in existence for some time. They are the War and Navy Departments, the Veterans' Administration, the War Shipping Administration-Maritime Commission, the Alien Property Custodian, and the War Assets Administration. All except the War Assets Administration have well-established records administration offices and even that new agency has begun a records program. The War and Navy Departments, the War Shipping Administration, and the Alien Property Custodian have established intermediate depositories, where records are segregated for eventual disposal in accordance with schedules already prepared or under way. All six of these agencies have their records problems under control and no immediate crises are likely, for it will probably be some time before they will begin to transfer large quantities of World War II records to the National Archives.

There were several important developments in the records work of the nonwar agencies. The Bureau of the Budget appointed a records officer, Miss Helen Chatfield, former Archivist of the Treasury Department, who launched a simultaneous attack on the Bureau's accumulations of older records and on the control of its current records. The Bureau's position in relation to administration throughout the Government made this program especially significant. Records

officers, without whom adequate records programs can scarcely be carried on, were also appointed for the Federal Security Agency and the Labor Department. The General Accounting Office for the first time transferred records to the National Archives and sought disposal authorization; one body of pension-payment files that amounted to 35,000 cubic feet was discarded. Among other agencies that, with the assistance of the National Archives, made progress on retirement plans were the Treasury, Agriculture, and Justice Departments, and a beginning was made in inaugurating a records control and retirement program for the district courts of the country. By the end of the year very few of the older records of the Government were still outside the National Archives. Among them, however, were the important noncurrent records of the House of Representatives, but there was a bill pending before Congress providing for their transfer to the National Archives.1

Late in the year records retirement throughout the entire Government was stimulated by a drive, instigated by President Truman, to release as much Government-rented space as possible for the use of private business. Noncurrent records in storage were natural targets, and on April 22 the Public Buildings Administration asked all agencies to reduce by 50 percent the space occupied by such records and called attention to the assistance the National Archives could render. As a result there was a flood of calls for help with transfer and disposal jobs and the National Archives was able to be of real service to a number of agencies.

Definition during the year of accession policy and evaluation standards as well as an amendment to the Federal Disposal Act of 1943 helped to put records retirement on a sounder basis. The amendment, approved by the President on July 6, 1945, permitted the National Archives to prepare general schedules applicable to records, such as those relating to personnel, that are common to all or many agencies of the Government. Such schedules provide uniform and far better control of records than can be achieved by separate schedules for each agency and are obviously more economical in their application.

Although records management work is certainly not yet out of the pioneer stage of its development, there were many signs during the year that new frontiers had been established. Participation in the Interagency Records Administration Conference, the sponsorship of which the National Archives took over from the Civil Service Com

1 The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which includes a provision for the transfer to the National Archives of the noncurrent records of the First to the Seventy-sixth Congresses, inclusive, was approved on August 2, 1946. The text of this provision is contained in appendix I.

2 The text of the Disposal Act as amended is contained in appendix I.

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mission, was much broader than in previous years. More than 300 persons were active members, and the monthly sessions of the Conference provided useful forums for the discussion of records problems. Further evidence of professionalization was the ever-increasing body of literature on records administration. Besides the reports on the meetings of the Interagency Records Administration Conference, which were processed, several agencies issued publications in the field of records management; among them were the War Department's manual on the microfilming of records and the National Archives' manual on How To Dispose of Records, which was revised during the

year.

The influence of records administrators has broadened to the point where they are accepted as members of the general management staffs of Federal agencies. Concrete recognition of the importance of records administration in the efficient internal management of the Government was embodied in an Executive order drafted during the year by the Bureau of the Budget with the advice of the National Archives. This order, which was issued after the close of the fiscal year under review, places primary responsibility for records administration in the individual Federal agencies and requires the conduct of an active, continuing records retirement program in each of them. It establishes the policy that agencies in the Executive branch of the Government shall retain only current records, that useless records shall be disposed of promptly, and that valuable ones shall be transferred to the National Archives so they may be made available to the whole Government. The Director of the Bureau of the Budget is authorized "with the advice and assistance of the National Archives" to conduct inspections, require reports, and issue directives needed to carry out the order. If this Executive order is conscientiously observed, records administration in the Government will come of age.

DISPOSAL OF RECORDS

Until 1934 the main attack made on the records problems of the Government was through legislation governing disposal. The chief feature of this legislation was the authority granted to destroy records. The first Federal act to deal comprehensively and positively with Government records was the act creating the National Archives. In it disposal was relegated to its proper place as only one aspect of the larger and more important problem of preserving valuable records. Experience has convinced the National Archives that this is the proper perspective on disposal. As more has been learned about Government records problems, however, ways to improve the machinery of

3

The text of the order constitutes appendix II of this report.

disposal have been discovered and several desirable changes have been incorporated into law.

Authorization for scheduling, obtained in the Disposal Act of 1943, was a major step toward making disposal a tool for the long-range control of records, for schedules may propose the disposal, after a specified length of time, of records, either in existence or yet to accumulate, that lack enduring value. To establish control over the whole of records retirement, agencies may use the comprehensive or retention and disposal schedule, which covers all records of an agency or of one of its units and specifies for each series whether it is to be disposed of, held temporarily in an agency depository, or transferred to the National Archives.

A year's experience in the review and application of disposal and comprehensive schedules covering records of single agencies showed that general schedules covering records of certain types held by all or most agencies of the Government would be desirable. Congressional authorization for the Archivist to submit such schedules was therefore sought, and on July 6, 1945, an act amending the Disposal Act to permit this was signed by the President. In addition this act provides for the disposal by the agencies having them in custody of records authorized for disposal regardless of the fact that the lists or schedules covering them may have been submitted to the Archivist by other agencies. This is an important provision, for many records listed or scheduled for disposal have been transferred to successor agencies, which now have the responsibility of effecting the authorized disposals. On August 15, 1945, regulations of the National Archives Council implementing the amended act were promulgated. They established standards for the photographic reproduction of records when the original records are to be destroyed and prescribed the procedure for submitting lists and schedules and for the actual disposal of records. They also broadened the authority of the agencies to transfer records authorized for disposal. Such transfers may now be made, with the approval of the Archivist, to any government, organization, institution, corporation, or person that makes application for the records. Many applications were made during the year and a number of them were approved. For example, records relating to Brazilian, Chinese, and French soldiers trained by the Army Air Forces during World War II were transferred to the governments concerned.

During the year five general schedules were prepared by the National Archives. Two dealt with the very voluminous mail records. and fiscal and accounting records and had not been put into effect

4 The text of the Disposal Act as amended is contained in appendix I. 5 The text of the regulations comprises appendix IV of this report.