The collection is comprised of interoffice memoranda from the Office of the Director, Office of the Deputy Director, and Office of Business Administration and Office of Personnel Administration and Supporting Services, all acting organizationally as part of the JPL Divisions responsible for Laboratory administration. The uniting factor of the collection is the commonality of document type. The Office of the Director Interoffice Memorandum was an essential method of communication at JPL between the Office of the Director and the Senior Staff, as well as with the employees of the Laboratory as a whole. The interoffice memoranda are addressed primarily to the Senior Staff, individuals comprising the upper management functions of the Laboratory. The Senior Staff originally included the Director, Deputy Director, and their immediate staffs, as well as the Assistant Laboratory Directors and their Deputies, Project Managers, and Managers of Technical and Business Administration Divisions. The exact number and composition of the Senior Staff varied. The collection is divided into six series: Office of the Director Announcements, Office of the Director Interoffice Memoranda, Director's Letters, Office of the Deputy Director Interoffice Memoranda, Office of Business Administration Interoffice Memoranda, and Office of Personnel Administration and Supporting Services Interoffice Memoranda. Each series is arranged chronologically. The collection as a whole is indexed throughout, primarily by year. The first file in the collection is a general index of all memoranda issued by the Office of the Director. The index included announcements and memoranda issued by Laboratory Director William H. Pickering, Deputy Directors Brian O. Sparks and Arnold R. Luedecke, Assistant Laboratory Director for Business Administration Val C. Larsen and ALD for Personnel and Administration and Supporting Services Walter H. Padgham. Additionally, beginning in 1964, the Offices of Director and Deputy Director have yearly indexes of memoranda, located at the beginning of each year. These indexes include the memoranda number, subject and date. Office of the Director Announcements (Box 1; folder 2). During the early 1960s, a differentiation between an announcement and a memorandum was made. An announcement had to do with organizational changes and material of major importance such as policy. A memorandum had to do with more routine information. Announcement No. 1 was dated July 14, 1959. Announcements were issued until September 1964, when the practice was discontinued. This coincided with the arrival of General Arnold R. Luedecke as Deputy Director. Memoranda issued by the Office of Deputy Director were now used to convey information that the Director's Announcements once did. Office of the Director Interoffice Memoranda (Boxes 1-4; folders 3-26). The Office of the Director Interoffice Memoranda dealt more with routine information than the Director's Announcements. The Interoffice Memoranda were addressed primarily to the Senior Staff, and were numbered in a straight numerical order until 1964, when the numbering was started over at the beginning of each calendar year. Some memoranda were addressed to all personnel, although the majority of the memoranda were addressed just to the Senior Staff. In most cases, the Office of the Director memoranda were issued and signed by the Laboratory Director. However, when the Director was not present, the Deputy Director issued memoranda from the Office of the Director, either as "Acting Director," used by General Luedecke, or as Deputy Director. During the three-and-a-half month interregnum between Bruce Murray and Lew Allen, Deputy Director Charles H. Terhune was formally named Acting Director, and signed memoranda using this title. In the collection are numerous Office of the Director memoranda referring to various Source Evaluation Boards (SEB), all stamped or marked "JPL Discreet." The SEB memoranda start by 1962, but stop by the mid-1970s. In 1966, out of 85 interoffice memoranda issued by the Office of the Director, 52 were "JPL Discreet," with the vast majority relating to some aspect of a Source Evaluation Board. The last Source Evaluation Board memorandum in the collection is dated 1972. By the early 1970s, the Office of the Director interoffice memorandum was replaced as a form of information dissemination by other methods. A good illustration of this is the decrease of the total number of IOMs issued to the Senior Staff each year. The most were in 1966, with 85 memoranda issued; by 1974, only 21 memoranda were issued. During the last three years in the collection, 1983-1985, the Office of the Director issued only 34 memoranda to the Senior Staff. Interoffice Memoranda 165, dated February 14, 1963, established the JPL Executive Council as an executive forum concerned with any matter that may significantly affect the welfare of the Laboratory and its activities. Also in 1963, Interoffice Memoranda 218, dated December 24, 1963, established the Deep Space Network (DSN), by combining the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility (DSIF), Interstation Communications, and mission-independent portion of the Space Flight Operations Facility. The Assistant Laboratory Director for Tracking and Data Acquisition was given responsibility for the DSN. The repeated failures of the Ranger spacecraft missions to the Moon were of supreme importance to the Lab during the early 1960s. This is illustrated in IOM 13-64, dated February 5, 1964, which was basically a pep talk from Pickering to all Ranger personnel after the failure of Ranger 6 on February 2, 1964. IOM 14-64, dated February 13, 1964, from Pickering includes attached correspondence from NASA Administrator James E. Webb to Pickering, pledging NASA support to JPL, as well as a statement from Caltech President Lee A. DuBridge. After the success of Ranger 7, attention at JPL turned to the future projects, a lunar soft lander named Surveyor and a Mars lander and rover named "Voyager." Voyager was large-scale, using a Saturn rocket as a launch vehicle. There was a Voyager office at JPL from 1965 to 1968, when the project was cancelled. IOM 12-67, dated March 17, 1967 was titled "JPL's Voyager Role." JPL was assigned the project support task, and the Surface Laboratory System, as well as the Tracking and Data Acquisition through the Deep Space Network. In IOM 45-67, dated September 7, 1967, Pickering announced a new bulletin called "This Week," with its first issue as an attachment. "This Week" would cluster announcements from the Office of the Director, the Assistant Laboratory Directors and the Division Managers, notices relating to Facilities and Services, and Personnel Appointments. This cut down the amount of printed material distributed to individuals. Much of the information now announced in "This Week" bulletins had been previously announced in interoffice memoranda. IOM 46-68, dated July 12, 1968, "Emergency Plans," included a Department of Defense pamphlet, "In Time of Emergency" a citizen's handbook on nuclear attack and natural disasters. IOM 12-82, dated April 16, 1982, Acting Director Terhune announced the formation of a search committee for Lab Director, instigated by Caltech President Goldberger. Chairman of the Committee was John Braun, President of Bronco, Ltd., and a Caltech Trustee. Various Office of the Director interoffice memoranda also announced the deaths of people who were instrumental at one time or another with the business of the Lab, such as Clark B. Millikan, head of the Caltech Graduate Aeronautical Laboratory, in January 1966; longtime JPL Division Manager Gordon Meikle on April 12, 1978; and Thomas A. Mutch, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science, in October 1980. The death in 1979 of former JPL Director Louis G. Dunn was announced in a Director's Letter. There are two folders in the collection with unnumbered interoffice memoranda from the Office of the Director addressed to the Lab as a whole. They are arranged by date. The earliest unnumbered memo dates to 1969, although the bulk of the memos are between 1974 to 1985. The unnumbered memoranda primarily dealt with routine matters such as parking, presentation announcements, announcements of visits by important people, and charity fundraising drives. Additionally, congratulatory letters regarding Viking and Voyager were included as unnumbered memos. Director's Letters (Box 4; folder 27). The Director's Letter was instituted by Bruce Murray when he became Laboratory Director in April 1976, as a method to establish a more effective way to communicate with as broad a cross-section of the Laboratory staff as possible. Murray also used the Director's Letter to explain why certain actions were taken, and to better explain Laboratory policies and procedures. One example of this was a major Laboratory reorganization, initially announced in Director's Letter No. 12, dated July 10, 1976. Murray used the Director's Letter to announce top-level personnel moves and Laboratory reorganizations, as well as new flight projects, such as the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), Seasat, Venus Orbiting Infrared Radar (VOIR), which eventually became Magellan, and the Jupiter Orbital Probe, later named Galileo. The Director's Letter existed throughout Murray's tenure as Laboratory Director, but seems to have been largely discontinued after he left. The only known Director's Latter in the post-Murray era is dated September 26, 1984. Office of the Deputy Director Interoffice Memoranda (boxes 4-5; folders 28-36). The memoranda issued by the Office of Deputy Director was similar to that of the previous Director's Announcements, which were discontinued at the time the Office of the Deputy Director was instituted. IOM 134, dated March 13, 1964, shows the JPL Lunar and Planetary Launch Schedule, with Ranger Block III, Mariner C 1964, Mariner Block 3 1966, Surveyor Block 1, and upgrades to the Deep Space Network, from 1964 through 1966. This memorandum was initially stamped "confidential," a federal security classification, but downgraded to unclassified in 1966. The interoffice memoranda 158, dated July 7, 1964, notes changes in time card reporting with eight different examples included as attachments. IOMs 299 and 300, dated February 17-18, 1966 are memoranda establishing a security classification guide, defining what information should be deemed unclassified, classified or confidential. There was a further addendum to the classification guide promulgated in IOM 317, dated April 22, 1966. After the resignation of General Luedecke in 1967, the Office of Deputy Director was reduced in its authority, and placed directly under the Laboratory Director in Division 10. Beginning in 1968 with Admiral John E. Clark, the memoranda issued by the Deputy Director were numbered and filed with the memoranda issued by William H. Pickering. Office of Business Administration Interoffice Memoranda, and Office of Personnel Administration and Supporting Services Interoffice Memoranda. (Box 5; folders 37-41). The memoranda issued by the Office of Business Administration, and later the Office of Personnel Administration and Supporting Services have mainly to do with personnel issues, such as employee benefits, announcement of holidays, accrued vacation time, blood drives, and personnel changes. The memoranda are addressed to all personnel more often than not, although some are issued to the Senior Staff. The memoranda issued by Padgham as Manager of Personnel Administration and Supporting Services was essentially identical to that issued by Larsen as Assistant Laboratory Director for Business Administration. The bulk of the memoranda stop after 1966, when the Office of Personnel Administration and Supporting Services was moved administratively from Section 120 to Division 70. JPL Discreet materials (Box 6). Of the above materials, 23 folders have documents stamped or marked "JPL Discreet," "Executive Council Discreet," or "SEB Discreet." These have been moved to a box at the end of the collection. Their original positions have been marked with separation sheets. This material includes documents stamped "JPL Official Use Only," whose use was superseded by the "JPL Discreet" category, instituted in Office of the Director Interoffice Memorandum 84, dated January 9, 1961. A large number of memoranda stamped "JPL Discreet" pertained to the Source Evaluation Boards of various projects. These memos were handled through the Office of the Director beginning in 1962.
