Lewis T. Preston became President of the World Bank on 1 September 1991 and resigned on 4 May 1995. Relatively few records from his term exist. One of Preston's first decisions was to suspend the President's Council, and as a result there are no formal records of the interaction of the highest levels of management. Furthermore, Preston was in ill health and retired before finishing his term. He continued to make speeches and undertook some business travel, but the files on those activities are noticeably fuller in the early years of his tenure. No subject files exist, nor do files on his liaison activities with United Nations organizations, non-government institutions, and international banks. The few files on liaison with the U.S. Government are thin, but there is additional information on this relationship in the records of the Counselor to the President, Matthew F. McHugh.

The most complete files are those on Member countries. These include information on Bank projects in the countries, reports of discussions with country representatives, agendas for meetings, and other representational matters. The files on the Annual Meetings have some unusually interesting briefings for Preston's meetings with financial and other institutions.

The important records of the Portfolio Management Task Force (Wapenhans Report) and the follow-up to it are part of the records of the Special Adviser to the President, Visvanathan Rajagopalan.

Note that a small portion of the Chronological File series contains correspondence and executive memoranda records from the period when Ernest Stern served as acting President. These date from February 1 to May 31 of 1995.