MELVIN R. LAIRD PAPERS, (1941) 1953-2004

Melvin R. Laird, Jr. was born in Omaha, Nebraska, but grew up in the town of Marshfield in central Wisconsin where his family moved when he was a year old.  His family had deep roots in Wisconsin politics and business, with both of his parents and his maternal grandfather all holding elective office.  After his father's death in 1946, Laird ran for his father's seat in the state senate, becoming the youngest senator in Wisconsin history.  In November 1952, the voters of Wisconsin's 7th congressional district (covering ten counties in the middle of the state) elected him to the U. S. House of Representatives.  He was re-elected eight times, serving until January 1969.

A very energetic congressman, Laird became known for his work on both domestic and defense issues.  His long-time service on the Defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee throughout most of the 1950s and 1960s allowed him to develop an extraordinary expertise on defense issues.  Laird supported a strong defense posture and was frequently critical of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's management and decision making practices and the Johnson administration's handling of the Vietnam War.  During much of his service on the Defense Appropriations Subcomittee, he sat side-by-side with Representative Gerald Ford and they became close life-long friends.

Laird's position on the House Appropriations subcommittee handling health matters allowed him to play a key congressional role on many medical and health issues.  He often teamed up with liberal Democrat John Fogarty of Rhode Island to pass key legislation on education or health matters.  Their impact on the National Institutes of Health was pivotal in a vast expansion of health research programs and facilities.  They also sponsored the buildup of the National Library of Medicine, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, the National Environmental Center in North Carolina, and the nation's eight National Cancer Centers.  Laird received many awards for his work on health matters, including the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award and the American Public Health Association award for leadership.

Over time, Laird became one of the most influential Republicans in the House.  As Chairman of the Platform Committee for the 1964 Republican National Convention, he played a key role in the development of the party platform.  In December 1964, Laird was one of the "Young Turks" who engineered the election of Gerald Ford as Republican Minority Leader of the House.  He then succeeded Ford as chairman of the House Republican Conference, an organization consisting of all of the Republican members of the House.  In this position, he created task forces to study issues and formulate legislative proposals.  He and Ford worked closely to develop Republican alternatives to the programs and policies of the Johnson administration. 

Laird also authored or edited three books during these years: A House Divided (1962), The Conservative Papers (1964), and The Republican Papers (1968).  These further elevated his prominence in Republican circles.  Indeed, by 1968, the National Committee for an Effective Congress termed Laird the "most powerful Republican in the House."

Soon after the 1968 presidential election, president-elect Richard M. Nixon nominated Laird to become Secretary of Defense.  Laird was the first member of Congress to occupy that position.  Although not a close confidant of the President, Laird was an influential Secretary.  He achieved a smooth association with the military leadership by restoring some of the responsibilities they had lost during the 1960s.  His excellent relations with Congress enabled him to gain approval for many of his programs and budget requests.  One of his accomplishments was the institution of the draft lottery to make the draft more fair.  He later oversaw the ending of the draft and the establishment of the All-Volunteer Force.  Other accomplishments included the withdrawal of all combat personnel from Vietnam and establishing the Total Force Concept that made the National Guard and Reserve Forces an integral part of U.S. total military manpower planning.  In spite of the divisive Vietnam War and the unfolding Watergate affair, which threatened to discredit the entire Nixon administration, Laird retired with his reputation intact at the beginning of the second Nixon term in January 1973. 

Several years after he left office, the members of the Washington Press Corps who covered national security and defense issues voted Laird the best Secretary of Defense in the history of the Department.  They cited his leadership in arms control, improved procurement policy, promotion of women (for the first time) to flag rank, and the fact that Laird never lost a vote on Capitol Hill.

Laird left the Department of Defense early in 1973 to pursue opportunities in the private sector, but less than six months later President Nixon asked him to join the White House staff as Counsellor to the President for Domestic Affairs.  The unraveling of the Watergate affair had already led to the loss of several top White House aides, so President Nixon needed to replace them with highly respected individuals who were not implicated in the scandal.  Laird agreed to help out, but only on a short term basis.  He worked mainly on legislative matters and domestic issues.  Laird strongly lobbied President Nixon to appoint Gerald Ford to the vacancy created by Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation in October 1973. 

One of Laird's key aides throughout much of his tenure in government was William J. Baroody, Jr.  Baroody joined the Laird congressional staff in 1961 and assisted with a variety of public affairs, writing, legislative, and other tasks.  During Laird's service as Secretary of Defense, Baroody continued in a similar role, but also participated in the Department's long-range planning.  When Laird left the government in early 1973, Baroody transferred to the Nixon White House, assuming many of Charles Colson's former roles in public affairs and liaison with interest groups.  When Laird joined the White House staff six months later, Baroody again functioned as his deputy.  Baroody remained in the White House after Laird's departure, serving until 1977.

In February 1974, Laird left the White House to become senior counselor for national and international affairs for Reader's Digest, a position he was to hold for many years.  During this time after leaving government service, he also served on the boards of many companies and was active in many charitable causes. 

Laird established the Laird Youth Leadership Foundation in 1964.  This organization still provides college scholarships and holds biennial Youth Leadership Day Conferences to bring together Wisconsin high school students and policy experts to discuss public policy issues.  Another long-standing activity is his work with and support of the Marshfield Clinic and the associated Marshfield Medical Research Foundation in his hometown.  The Clinic was, in 2006, one of the largest private multispecialty group practices in the U.S.

Collection Provenance

The core of the Laird Papers is material that Mr. Laird created and retained without interruption until donating them to the Ford Library in installments beginning in 2001.  In addition, however, the Laird Papers include extensive files accumulated by William J. Baroody, Jr., while he worked on Mr. Laird's staff in the 1960s and 1970s.  These latter materials were in Mr. Baroody's physical custody at the time of his death in 1996.  In 1997, son William J. Baroody III transferred these materials to Mr. Laird, who later donated them to the Ford Library as part of the Laird Papers.  At approximately the same time, the younger Mr. Baroody donated to the Ford Library his late father's papers as a senior adviser to President Ford and then as head of the American Enterprise Institute.  These comprise a separate collection, the William J. Baroody, Jr., Papers.  The division of these materials was imperfect, owing to their exceptional volume and complexity.  Some errant files can be found in each. 

Scope and Content of the Laird Papers

The collection contains extensive documentation on many aspects of Mr. Laird's government service and post-government career.  There are about 20 linear feet and 24 microfilms dating from Laird's congressional years, nearly 60 linear feet and 66 microfilms from the Department of Defense period, 13.5 linear feet and part of a scrapbook from the Nixon White House, and about 32 linear feet and four scrapbooks from the post-government period.

Ford Library archivists arranged the collection in increments, as each major accession was received.  They did this to expedite release of the collection.  This decision, plus the inherent complexity of the collection, is the basis for the overall order of file series comprising the collection.

Regarding Mr. Laird's earliest years, the collection contains a small amount of material on his service in the Navy in World War II and later in the Naval Reserve, the microfilm of an early scrapbook, and some information among the interviews and research materials for a Laird memoir (see below for more about this book).

Microfilm of speeches, press releases, voting records in Congress, weekly columns, newsletters, and scrapbooks document Mr. Laird's congressional career from 1953-1969.  The Ford Library does not have the originals of these documents.  They appear to be part of the Laird Papers at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

The bulk of material in paper form begins in 1961, when William Baroody, Jr., joined Mr. Laird's congressional staff.  Much of this material from 1961 to 1964 focuses on special writing projects - Laird books, articles, speeches, and press releases.  Extensive materials from 1964 document Laird's work as chairman of the Republican Party platform committee and Baroody's issues-research for Senator Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign.

Materials from 1965 to 1968 are much broader in scope, although continuing to include public affairs and writing projects.  The change comes with Laird's election as chairman of the House Republican Conference and his emergence as one of the key Republican spokesmen on defense and national security matters.  More of the papers concern defense issues (defense budget, Vietnam War, etc.), domestic issues (especially revenue sharing and health issues), the House Republican Conference, and various Republican Party organizations.

Materials from the Department of Defense years (1969-73) are quite extensive.  Portions are open to research, but very many documents still bear national security classification markings and await declassification review (March 2005).  Ford Library staff have digitized these classified documents and referred the digital copies to reviewers in Washington.  As material becomes declassified through either systematic review or mandatory declassification review requests, Library staff open them. 

Particularly important from the Defense Department period is a large series known as the "Historical Project Files."  It contains thousands of documents on many leading  national security issues.  A special team of aides photocopied them from Secretary Laird's official files in the closing months of his service.  The aides arranged the copied documents by topic and thereunder chronologically.  They numbered each document and created "calendars" that give a full citation for every document under each topic.  The Historical Project File will, as parts become declassified, become a major resource for information on the key issues that Secretary Laird faced during his Cabinet service.

Various other Defense-era subject files concern Laird's transition from Congress to the Department of Defense, departmental administration, Laird and Baroody public activities, relations with Congress, long-range planning for the Department, and national security issues facing the Nixon administration.  Some series contain Department staff meeting minutes, Laird's speeches and congressional testimony, and briefing memoranda for daily press briefings.

These Defense series are not always complete.  Many chronologically-arranged sequences cover only for the first two or three years and are missing the last year or so (some of the missing material appears in a separate Ford Library collection - the William J. Baroody Papers).  The collection contains microfilms covering the Department of Defense years, but these are copies of material that appears in other series.

The Nixon White House series concern Baroody's work as a presidential assistant and also Laird's brief role as Counsellor to the President.  In addition to materials concerning liaison with interest groups (which gradually became Baroody's primary responsibility), the papers from early 1973 concern his work as a successor to Charles Colson in heading up the White House "Attack Group," comprised of  staff members who met daily to plan how to deal with Nixon White House enemies.  His files on this topic contain material not only from 1973, but also some folders turned over to him by Colson dating back to 1969.  Another well-documented role from early 1973 involved what was known as the "Battle of the Budget" (trying to organize support for President Nixon's budget proposals). 

Baroody served as Laird's deputy during the period when both were on the White House staff, so the collection contains numerous memoranda between the two.  The collection also documents many of Laird's speeches and public events.  After Laird's departure from the White House staff, one of Baroody's jobs was to organize support for President Nixon in his battle to avoid impeachment.  The collection contains the ribbon copies (stamped "The President has seen") of progress reports to the President on this "Impeachment Support Program".

Materials from the post-government period include correspondence, trips and events files, organizations files, and Laird interviews, articles, and statements.  Many files reflect Laird's work for the Reader's Digest.  Although no longer a government official, as a former Secretary of Defense he was frequently asked for his opinion on national security and defense matters and participated in conferences with other former Secretaries.  In addition he worked with the American Enterprise Institute on studies of various issues.

Two post-government series contain interviews, chapter drafts, and miscellaneous background and research materials for a planned Laird memoir that remains in progress.  Journalist and author Dale Van Atta conducted the interviews with Secretary Laird and his friends and colleagues and has assisted with the memoir.  These two series will not be available for research until after the book is published.

Finally, the collection also contains small and fragmentary series concerning William Baroody's later work in the Ford White House and the American Enterprise Institute.  Researchers will find much more extensive files from these time periods in the William J. Baroody Papers or the William J. Baroody Files - two other Ford Library collections.

Related Materials (June 2006)
The most closely related collection in the Ford Library is the William J. Baroody Papers.  Parts of that collection concern his work in the Laird congressional office, the Department of Defense and the Nixon and Ford White House.  The Library also holds the William J. Baroody Files, which came to the Library in 1977 as part of the Ford presidential papers and solely concerns Baroody's work in the Ford White House. 

Researchers interested in Mr. Laird's congressional years will find related materials on the House Republican leadership and many other topics in the Gerald Ford Congressional Papers and the Robert Hartmann Papers.  The Robert Peabody Interviews focus on the House Republican leadership in the 1960s. 

An important, complementary, collection of Melvin Laird papers can be found at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin's Stevens Point Area Research Center.  That collection focuses almost exclusively on Laird's early life and congressional years, although it does include a small quantity of papers from the time that he served as Secretary of Defense (these are mostly personal rather than official in nature).  A copy of the finding aid to this collection is in the Melvin Laird folder of the Ford Library Vertical File.  Some series from the Stevens Point collection are available on microfilm in the Ford Library collection.

Another collection of Laird materials, primarily scrapbooks and memorabilia, can be found at the Melvin R. Laird Center, a world-class medical research and education facility of the Marshfield Clinic, in Laird's hometown of Marshfield, Wisconsin.