Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1968 - 1981 (Creation)
Level of description
Series
Extent and medium
1.20 linear feet of textual records; 2 photographs
Context area
Repository
Archival history
This is an artificial file of correspondence originally assembled in the Archives in 1986-1987 from various files accessioned from the Office of the President on 3 June 1981. As further individual items from McNamara's office arrived, they were added to this file.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
This series contains letters and copies of letters addressed to President McNamara by heads of States, international organizations and regional development banks, government officials, U.S. Senators and Congressmen, economists and lawyers. It also contains internal memoranda addressed to the President by the Executive Directors or the staff. Incoming letters and memoranda are often annotated or accompanied by notes by McNamara or minutes of his responses. Although generally incoming items, the series also contains a small quantity of outgoing letters and memoranda. Correspondents include heads of State Indira Gandhi, Yahya Khan, and Gamel Abdel Nasser; U.S. Treasury Secretaries Henry Fowler, John Connally, William Simon, W. Michael Blumenthal and G. William Miller; UN Secretary Generals U Thant and Kurt Waldheim; various directors of WHO, FAO, the UN Environment Programme and World Food Council; and public figures such as Barbara Ward. The correspondence deals with the general issue of development, development programs of other agencies, relations with the U.S. government and Congress, and governments of other member countries, in particular India and Pakistan. The internal memoranda addressed to the President mostly concern the IDA replenishments and the situation in India and Pakistan, but there are also some exchanges on joint financing, World Bank borrowing, relations with OPEC countries, energy, the World Development Report of 1978, and a number of memoranda regarding the U.S. Congress' committee investigation on the Bank's effectiveness in reaching the poor (1977). McNamara's minutes and notes include his letter to Lester B. Pearson asking him to organize a committee to study development in the next decade (1968); letters to various U.S. Treasury Secretaries and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on the IDA replenishments and the Foreign Assistance Appropriation Bill, the Bank and the OPEC countries; memoranda of conversations with Executive Directors and notes on the IDA, the India-Pakistan war, and Bangladesh; and an annotated draft of the World Development Program proposal (1977). The series also includes two photographs of Robert McNamara with U.S. President Richard Nixon in the White House at the signing ceremony on 10 March 1972 of the bill authorizing the United States' contribution to International Development Association (IDA).
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Records are arranged alphabetically.
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Records are subject to the World Bank Policy on Access to Information.
Conditions governing reproduction
Records are subject to the Copyright Policy of the World Bank Group.
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Internal World Bank Group Archives rules based on ISAD(G).
Disclosure status
Level of detail
Dates of creation revision deletion
7 June 2006