The Office of the President, Office Files of McGeorge Bundy, consist of 32 archives boxes of correspondence, memoranda, drafts of policy statements, meeting dockets, agendas and minutes, rapporteur notes, trip itineraries, briefings and notes, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings, press releases, interview transcripts, and photographs.
The records document Bundy's stewardship of the Foundation from 1966 to 1979. They cover a range of topics and reflect his activities and responsibilities as President of the Foundation from 1966 to 1979. Two key matters faced by the Ford Foundation during Bundy's presidency were economic inflation, which necessitated curtailment in Foundation expenditure, and increasing government scrutiny of foundations with the attendant demands for public accountability.
In 1967, 1971, 1974 and 1975, the decline in the stock market caused the Foundation to implement reduced support for its programs. The drop in investment assets combined with economic inflation compelled the Foundation to review its long term commitments with dependent organizations. Bundy's records contain significant documentation of this issue. The most severe retrenchment occurred in 1975 when the Board of Trustees instructed Foundation officers to reduce management costs and program budgets by 50 percent. Via task forces and other assessment strategies, Bundy and the officers reviewed grant-making and programmatic decisions in order to re-assess program priorities. The 50 percent reduction in grant funds was accompanied by staff reductions of the same percentage. An Advisory Management Committee was appointed to advise on staff cutbacks. .
During Bundy's term, the Ford Foundation's program planning and evaluation activities increased substantially. The files include records with information about the self-studies and program reviews that took place during Bundy's presidency. The 1971 "self-study" group interviewed program staff on: program objectives and evaluations; foundation communications; decision-making; and program personnel roles. Merrimon Cuniggim was hired in 1973 as Program Advisor on Management to examine the following topics: the practice of awarding grants to individuals; grant evaluation; relationships with grantees, with the federal government, and with other foundations; affirmative action in the foundation; and institutional priorities. His findings are covered in the 1975 Summaries of Major Reports and Selected Memoranda (report #002789).
Less well documented in the files is the Board of Trustees' "Mt. Kisco meeting." This meeting culminated in the 1976 Future Program Planning Project (report #003450). In addition to these formal self-studies, the budget files are useful summaries of current and retrospective analyses of program policies.
A trend towards increasing professionalization of its philanthropic activities and documenting and regularizing policies and procedures, marked the Ford Foundation during the Bundy era. Two major factors in this development were the abovementioned economic constraints and government inquiries. The Ford Foundation drew close scrutiny from the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. The 1969 Tax Reform Act legislated greater public accountability than foundations had faced previously: a minimum payout of 6 percent of assets, grant "expenditure responsibility," and a 4 percent excise tax on net investment of income. Further, the economic climate forced a recognition that, despite its size, the Foundation did have limited resources. Therefore, program priorities and choices had to be carefully identified.
In the late 1960s and the 1970s, the Ford Foundation increased its grant-making in public policy development. Start-up grants were given to the Council on Legal Education and Professional Responsibility, the Energy Policy Project, and the Police Foundation, in addition to large grants to the Brookings Institution and other public interest organizations. The Ford Foundation established the Committee on Public Policy and Social Responsibility in 1972 to administer grants in this area. This grant-making is covered in Bundy's records.
School decentralization is another issue covered in Bundy's subject files. In 1967, Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed the Mayor's Advisory Panel on the Decentralization of New York City Schools with Bundy serving as its Chair, to recommend a plan for decentralization and greater community control of the city's public schools. The files have records of panel meetings, reports and correspondence with other Panel members as well as the Panel staff, some of whom were also Foundation staff (Mitchell Sviridoff, Mario Fantini, Richard Magat). For additional information about decentralization, see the grant files that supported this activity, the files of Richard Magat--Office of Reports and the records of the Mayor's Advisory Panel (ACC91/3).
The office files include information on the impact of affirmative action on the Foundation's work. Policy development and implementation of internal and external (grantee) affirmative action are covered in the subject files under: Ford Foundation and Women, Co-ordinating Committee on Women's Programs, and External Affirmative Action. Supplemental information on this topic is in the operations and administration files under: Merrimon Cuninggim, Howard Dressner, and Arthur Trottenberg.
Subject files--Television include materials covering the development of a plan for a model communications satellite system that was submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1966. This plan called for a private, nonprofit satellite that would charge commercial networks for use. Revenues of the satellite were to be used toward funding nonprofit educational television. The development of the Broadcasters' Nonprofit System (BNS) proposal is documented in FCC filings, letters, and memoranda. Key figures in the development of the model communications satellite system proposal include Howard Dressner, Fred Friendly, David Ginsberg, Abraham Katz, and Lee Marks.
Material regarding the social responsibility aspect of investments is contained in the office files. In 1968, the Foundation initiated program-related investments (PRI), a philanthropic mechanism of equity investments and loans to support work relevant to the program areas. In June 1971, the Trustes formally adopted a 'socially responsible' investment policy: "The Foundation's investment policies, and their administration, shall serve the Foundation's scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, for all the public welfare." Correspondence among Bevis Longstreth, David Rosenbloom, Roger Kennedy and McGeorge Bundy provides useful documentation on the Development of the socially responsible investments policy.
Additional topics in the subject files include: rights for the underprivileged; the development of public interest law and policy; the balance of U.S. payments overseas; higher education and government sponsored research; equalizing educational opportunities; the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) program; arms control; and relationships with grantees. In the correspondence files, there is extensive correspondence with the following Foundation staff: David E. Bell, Merrimon Cuninggim, Howard Dressner, Fred Friendly, Harold Howe II, W. McNeil Lowry, Richard Magat, Mitchell Sviridoff, Arthur D. Trottenberg, and F. Champion Ward. There is also substantial correspondence with: Isaiah Berlin, Norman Cousins, John W. Gardner, David Ginsberg, Bevis Longstreth, Michael Mansfield, Lee Marks, Manning Pattillo, Alan Pifer, and Yasushi Sugiyama.
Two areas that receive unexpectedly limited documentation in Bundy's records are: the Travel and Study Awards given to the former staff of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and the Common Fund for Nonprofit Organizations (the college endowment management program). There are only occasional letters and memoranda which make references to these issues. Information is available in other archival holdings on these and other areas not significantly documented in McGeorge Bundy's office files.
