PAUL W. McCRACKEN FILES, 1974

In September and October 1974, Paul W. McCracken served a three-week appointment as consultant to Kenneth Rush, Counsellor to the President for Economic Policy. Rush was also Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Conference on Inflation, formed jointly from the executive and congressional branches. L. William Seidman was executive director of the Conference on Inflation and became the Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs on September 30th. Seidman assumed the duties of chief economic adviser to the President from Rush, who was nominated as Ambassador to France on September 4th.

As consultant to Rush, McCracken was responsible for organizing, preparing, and analyzing materials on economic policies and projects. He aided in the preparations for the Conference of Inflation, held on September 27-28, 1974, in Washington, D.C. This summit conference was preceeded by twelve sector conferences on inflation held around the country. McCracken prepared a summary of these conferences for the steering committe, and later drafted portions of the President's economic address, delivered on October 8th and based on the conference results and departmental input.

The files created by McCracken consist of material preparatory to the final summit conference and the President's address. Included are examples of the outpouring of public mail containing suggestions on fighting inflation, and economic input received from RCA, Condecor, Incorporated, General Telephone and Electronics Corporation, and from C. Jackson Grayson, Jr., of the American Productivity Center, on productivity. In addition, McCracken received brief papers and proposals on specific economic policy issues from 16 governmental departments and agencies prior to the conference. His summary of the conferences was transmitted to the steering committee on October 1st as the "Catalogue of Economic Policy Recommendations from the Conference Meetings." This catalogue is an excellent overview of the economic policy issues, ideas and recommendations from the twelve sector and final conferences. He was assisted by members of Rush's staff, Sidney L. Jones and John E. Robson, and by John R. Brodman, Cost of Living Council.

Input from governmental departments and agencies for the President's Economic Policy Address consists of proposals and draft speech segments on specific subjects, such as energy. Also included are McCracken's handwritten speech drafts.

Related Materials (April 1983)
Materials relating to McCracken's responsibilities may be found in the files of L. William Seidman, especially the Conference on Inflation series; the files of staff members in Seidman's office; the files of Kenneth Rush; and in several White House Central File categories, including Meetings - Conferences (MC) 3-1, Economic Summit Meeting; Speeches (SP) 2-3-11, President's Message to Congress; and Business - Economics (BE).