FERNANDO DE BACA FILES, 1974-76

In July 1974, President Nixon appointed Fernando E. C. De Baca as Counsellor Anne Armstrong's Deputy for Hispanic Affairs, but De Baca did not arrive at the White House until the following September. He received the new title of Special Assistant to the President for Hispanic Affairs from President Ford and served under Armstrong in the newly-created Office of Hispanic Affairs (OHA) until her resignation in December 1974. The one-person office was then placed with similar special interest groups in the newly-created Office of Public Liaison (OPL) under the direction of William J. Baroody, Jr. De Baca resigned his historic role as the first Hispanic Special Assistant to the President in March 1976 and returned to his native state to serve as Director of New Mexico's Department of Health and Social Services. His White House position remained vacant until July when President Ford appointed Thomas Aranda his successor.

The Special Assistant's function was to advise the President on the needs of Spanish-speaking Americans and to promote the President's programs within the Hispanic community and the federal government. In addition, through standard OPL procedures, he provided liaison for Hispanics requesting government assistance.

De Baca sometimes claimed direct contact with the President in constituent mail, but there is little evidence of it in the collection. Materials are present on his efforts to oversee and promote the President's policies in the federal government, especially in areas of federal employment opportunity, presidential appointment of Hispanics and minority business programs. He served on and collected material from the Domestic Council Committee for Illegal Aliens and the Interagency Council for Minority Business Enterprise but these materials provide only scant information about his own contributions. He received materials from the Cabinet Committee on Opportunities for Spanish Speaking Persons (CCOSSP), but his lobbying efforts for its extension, as well as for the Voting Rights Act and bilingual education appropriations, are similarly not well documented.

Material is ubiquitous on De Baca's energetic outreach and shared goals with Hispanics and major Hispanic organizations, through conference participation, speeches, correspondence, visits and telephone calls. The material contains the hopeful, sometimes ardent and verbose, expectations and pronouncements of a minority attempting to gain government assistance and build political power. De Baca faced occasional conflict between his loyalties to the administration and his Hispanic constituency, although this is more implied than documented in the files.

Interesting but scattered material is provided related to De Baca's efforts to define the role of the Special Assistant, the style and content of his communications, the cultural and political expectations of his constituency and his actual role in the White House. His well-documented publicly stated views were sometimes controversial and in contrast to the President's such as his endorsement of blanket citizenship for illegal aliens, statements about Cuban refugee attitudes and an Army depot layoff affecting a local Hispanic labor force.

The Chronological File and White House memoranda in the Subject File provide informative material on De Baca's activities. Included are occasional activity reports to Armstrong and Baroody, De Baca initiatives in the White House, and information requests from senior staff, in addition to more frequent and routine queries related to topics of presidential proclamations and appearances, guest lists, personnel references and even a Spanish translation request from the First Lady's Office.

The De Baca files were originally accessioned as a joint collection with those of his successor Thomas Aranda, but they easily separated into two collections during processing. Much of the material was found in a state of disarray and substantial amounts of unfiled or misfiled material were integrated into existing folders, causing many redundant, nearly empty or empty folders to be eliminated.

Related Materials
Related material is found in the collections of Special Assistant to the President for Hispanic Affairs Thomas Aranda and Deputy Assistant for Hispanic Affairs Reynaldo Maduro (late 1976). The Aranda collection contains some original De Baca material in scattered folders. Additional material related to illegal aliens is found in the collections of Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs James M. Cannon, Assistant Director for Justice, Civil Rights, Drugs and Communications F. Lynn May and General Counsel Richard D. Parsons. The currently unprocessed files of William J. Baroody, Jr., to whom De Baca reported, also may contain related files.

Additional related material exists in White House Central Files categories:

 

Federal Government: FG 6-11-1/De Baca

FG 6-15�Domestic Council

FG 17�Justice Department (OA 9281)

FG 21-17�Office of Minority Business Enterprise

FG 145 Cabinet Committee on Opportunities for Spanish Speaking Persons

Human Rights:

HU 2�Equality

HU 2-2�Employment

HU 2-4�Voting

Immigration: IM�Immigration and Naturalization