Scope and Content Note
Part I
Part I of the papers of Elliot Lee Richardson (1920-1999) spans the years 1780-1984, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1947-1984. The collection focuses on Richardson's career as a public servant in Massachusetts and in Washington, D.C., with the emphasis on important and sometimes controversial duties during the administrations of Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter from 1969 to 1980. The papers are grouped sequentially according to Richardson's political office or association, except that the initial phase of his life is covered in a general category, titled Massachusetts Files, featuring the gamut of personal activities to 1969. Other series treat his return to private law practice in the 1980s and his unsuccessful campaign in 1984 to become the nominee for the United States Senate of the Republican Party of Massachusetts. Included are correspondence, memoranda, reports, briefing data, financial matter, appointment and scheduling information, a few family files, speeches and writings, subject and topical files, photographs, and printed matter. The Oversize series consists of scrapbooks, photographs, and certificates. The earliest item in the collection pertains to Robert Treat Paine, first state attorney general of Massachusetts, but the papers otherwise date almost entirely from the post-World War II period.
The Massachusetts Files contain material relevant to Richardson' s biography and to Bay State politics, state and federal government, and the Republican Party during the 1950s and 1960s. Among the early items of note are correspondence and other material from 1947 to 1949 when Richardson was law clerk to Judge Learned Hand on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to Justice Felix Frankfurter on the Supreme Court. Thereafter the concentration is on issues of crime, corruption, health care, education, social security, and consumer protection laws, especially as reflected on the state level but also from Richardson's vantage point as an assistant cabinet secretary and United States attorney for Massachusetts under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Featured are Richardson's association with Senator Leverett Saltonstall, for whom he was an assistant in 1953-1954; his investigation while United States attorney of Bernard Goldfine, the textile manufacturer whose gifts to White House aide Sherman Adams embarrassed the Eisenhower administration; his role as assistant secretary for legislation in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), during which he was engaged in writing the National Defense Education Act; and his election in 1967 as state attorney general. Other files document Richardson's work in the 1950s as an associate and then partner in the Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray, and his duties from 1965 to 1967 as lieutenant governor. The most voluminous group of files concern his unsuccessful campaign against Edward W. Brooke for the position of state attorney general in 1962.
Richardson's Under Secretary of State Files reflect official as well as personal responsibilities, including efforts to introduce personnel and administrative reforms in the department and to represent the department's viewpoints in a White House setting where decisions on foreign affairs generally emanated from national security advisor Henry Kissinger. Among the more notable portions of the series are Richardson's handwritten personal notations and memoranda of important conversations, discussions, meetings, and telephone calls. Scrawled with a broad felt-tip pen, these notes and transcriptions, although difficult to decipher, are centerpieces of subsequent series as well. They vary from brief personal reminders and jottings to minute transcriptions of critical expositions of statecraft and politics.
In June 1970, Richardson was President Nixon's surprise choice to succeed Robert H. Finch as secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), a position Richardson held until 1973. His papers for the period are among the most extensive and significant in the collection, covering the administration's school desegregation plans, its "New Federalism" program, and the policy battles between Congress and the White House over child care, funding authority, family welfare assistance, and health care. Sketched in the speeches and trips file is the projected mosaic of Nixon's first-term social welfare program, while other portions feature the political give-and-take between Richardson and the White House over administration policy and personnel. Especially helpful in the latter instance is the fact that his staff monitored, transcribed, and kept typewritten transcripts of important telephone conversations.
Richardson's Secretary of Defense Files reflect the brevity of his appointment, which began with the start of Nixon's second term in January 1973 and ended a few months later in May when the president appointed him attorney general. Papers from the short-lived tour are personal and administrative rather than issue-oriented, and they concentrate on his uncompleted transition to office.
Papers from Richardson's attorney generalship depict important events from the last phase of the Nixon presidency. Richardson abruptly resigned from the position on 20 October 1973, a fatality of the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre" of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. The crisis and events leading up to Cox's dismissal, plus the separate but parallel difficulties of handling Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew's resignation, are prominent topics in the series. An important segment of the Watergate-related holdings consists of reference matter and recommendations prior to the selection of Cox. Also in the Watergate files are documents crucial to the establishment of the special prosecutor's investigation and memoranda of conversations by Richardson relating to the final interplay among the White House, Congress, the Justice Department, and Richardson. Public mail regarding Cox and Richardson, most of it sent directly to Richardson during his last days in office, but a goodly portion addressed as well to Sam J. Ervin, chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee, comprise another significant portion of the series.
Richardson spent the year after leaving government as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He awaited further public service, hoping at one stage to be named vice president by Nixon's replacement, Gerald Ford, and considering at another point the option of campaigning for president in the event Ford chose not to run during the election of 1976. Neither opportunity arose, but files from Richardson's stay at the Wilson Center focus on political and electoral matters, with prominence given to the writing of The Creative Balance, an analysis of contemporary civic issues published in 1975. Although Richardson concluded his fellowship shortly before the book appeared in print, all drafts and papers regarding its publication have been retained in the Wilson Center series.
Richardson's service as ambassador to Great Britain and secretary of commerce is depicted in a format and depth similar to previous career segments in the collection. Major topics include America's post-Vietnam War policies vis á vis European and English allies and the changes imposed by the oil crisis and other transformations of the 1970s. Richardson continued to be an important political force in the Republican party, and the series from his stints under President Ford document his many associations with officeholders, party officials, journalists, educators, businessmen, and civic leaders. Also exhibited is his special connection to Harvard University, an attachment reflected throughout the papers but magnified with his reelection to the school's board of overseers in the mid-1970s.
Richardson's next important assignment was as special representative of President Carter to the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea from 1977 to 1980. Files from the appointment focus on territorial water rights, fishing limits, industrial exploitation of ocean bottoms, and debate in the United States over acceptance of an international treaty regulating the seabed. The latter question remained preeminent for Richardson even after his resignation in 1980, and it is the dominant topic as well of the series relating to his work with the Washington law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy between 1980 and 1984.
Frequent or prominent correspondents in Part I of the Richardson Papers include Morton Abramowitz, Spiro T. Agnew, Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe, Edward William Brooke, George Bush, Wilbur J. Cohen, William S. Cohen, William T. Coleman, Jr., Charles W. Colson, Archibald Cox, Richard Gordon Darman, John Ehrlichman, Paul Bamela Engo, Gerald R. Ford, Felix Frankfurter, Learned Hand, Wilmot R. Hastings, Christian Archibald Herter (1895-1966), Henry Kissinger, Richard G. Kleindienst, Tommy T. B. Koh, Richard E. Mastrangelo, Jonathan Moore, Richard M. Nixon, J. Stanley Pottinger, William P. Rogers, William Doyle Ruckelshaus, Leverett Saltonstall, Francis W. Sargeant, Jonathan T. Smith, Russell E. Train, John A. Volpe, and Charles E. Wyzanski.
Part II
Part II of the Richardson Papers highlights his association with various organizations and corporations from the latter period of his tenure at the law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Part II span the years 1977-1991, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1986-1991, and demonstrate his increasing devotion to furthering the goals of the United Nations Association of the United States of America, for which there is a large number of files. Also reflected in this portion is Richardson's association with major companies and organizations, including the British Institute of the United States, Council on Ocean Law, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, the National Commission on the Public Service, and Oak Industries.
Frequent or prominent correspondents in Part II of the papers include Morton Abramowitz, George Bush, L. Bruce Laingen, Edward C. Luck, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, William P. Rogers, and Russell E. Train.
Part III
Part III of the papers of Elliot Richardson spans the years 1946-1999, with the bulk of the items concentrated in two periods: 1962-1969 and 1980-1999, although the Speeches and Writings series includes material from the 1970s. The basic organization and many of the original folders of Part III have been retained largely as received from the donor. The researcher will find that many folder labels in the collection provide more detail than the container list. Material has often been laid out and described in basic chronological order, but the original folder information has been left in place without being recorded in the finding aid. Also, the researcher will find multiple sets of alphabetical files. These files have been maintained as created at different times by Richardson. The papers in Part III are organized into the following series: Massachusetts Files, Alphabetical File, Correspondence, Organizations File, Speeches and Writings, Classified and Digital Files.
The first series, Massachusetts Files, includes material from before Richardson's service in the Nixon administration. The series consists primarily of material from Richardson's campaigns and service as lieutenant governor and attorney general of the state as well as a general alphabetical file covering his law school years and state public service. Notable correspondents include Felix Frankfurter, Christian Archibald Herter, and Leverett Saltonstall.
The Alphabetical File in Part III includes folders with personal names, subject names, events, and places dating almost entirely from the 1980s and 1990s. Prominent correspondents include Edward W. Furia and Robert S. McNamara. In 1989 Richardson served as a representative of the United Nations monitoring the elections in Nicaragua and also as a representative of the United States for multilateral assistance to the Philippines. The Alphabetical File contains sizeable files for both Nicaragua and the Philippines as well as notable material on American Flywheel Systems, crop genetics, ocean law, and the political campaign of 1984.
The Correspondence File dates entirely from 1980 to 1999 and has been kept in its original organization.
The Organizations File, also dating almost entirely from 1980 to 1999, consists primarily of files that Richardson referred to as memberships but also includes material from his many corporate and business interests. Notable topics include the American Academy of Diplomacy, American Society of International Law, British Nuclear Fuels Limited, Council on Foreign Relations, Government Accountability Office, Comptroller General's Consultant Panel, Hitachi Foundation, Inter-American Dialogue, Oak Industries, Trilateral Commission, and United Nations Association.
The Speeches and Writing Series is primarily a chronological run of Richardson's speaking engagements and congressional testimony. Also included are files for his book Reflections of a Radical Moderate and his articles and other short writings.
The Digital Files series consists of one file received on a 3.5" floppy disk along with the paper file which is in the Alphabetical File. It is a digital file of the donors to the Presidential Legal Expense Fund, a group supported by Richardson that helped defray the legal expenses of President Bill Clinton.