The personal chronological file contains material drafted by McNamara or his secretaries between 1968 and 1972. It includes outgoing correspondence, short memoranda to the senior staff and memoranda recording conversations, notes on special issues and notes to himself.

The correspondence consists of acceptances or declinations to speak, comment, serve on committees, join boards, lunch and dine; thank-you notes; congratulations and condolences; recommendations; the President's requests for meetings or support; letters on Bank activities and letters on private matters. Addressees include heads of States and government officials, U.S. Senators and Congressmen, bankers, scholars, publishers, journalists, art dealers and old friends. There are letters and cables to Hubert Humphrey, Edward Kennedy, David Rockefeller, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger, Pierre Salinger, Henry Kissinger, Walt W. Rostow, Edward Heath, Lord Mountbatten, and Harlan Cleveland.

The memoranda to the staff are short notes to the Vice-Presidents, the Economic Advisor, the General Counsel, and the Directors of the Development Services, External Affairs and Administration offices on particular issues of concern to their sector or department. Memoranda of conversations record discussions with members of the Board, Bank staff and government officials, including Henry Fowler, John Connally, Dean Rusk, Walt W. Rostow, Daniel Ellsberg and Maurice Strong.

Interfiled with outgoing letters and memoranda are lists of projects President McNamara drafted for himself in May 1968, April and August 1969, January 1971 and December 1972. There also are points for meetings and for the press, outlines of the Bank President's annual speech and notes and figures on the Bank's capital increase, the IDA policies and third replenishment, the budget, the Bank's organization, staff compensation, population growth, the gap between poor and rich nations and nuclear force issues.