WILLIAM GOROG FILES, 1975-76

William F. Gorog, a businessman and developer of the computerized legal research system, LEXIS, joined the Ford administration as deputy to L. William Seidman, Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs in May 1975. In March 1976 his title was changed from Deputy Director for Domestic Economic Policy to Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs. From November 1976 until the end of the administration, Gorog served a recess appointment as Director of the Council on International Economic Policy. In 1977 he and his wife, Gretchen Gorog, founded the Arbor Group, a firm specializing in international investment management services.

As a deputy director for the Economic Policy Board, Gorog was responsible for coordination and liaison with departments and agencies on domestic economic policy issues and for coordinating domestic economic policy studies and reviews undertaken by the Economic Policy Board. In addition, he was responsible for strengthening White House liaison with business and outside interest groups and economic policy issues. Occasionally Gorog studied the economic implications of non-economic issues such as the proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1976. Gorog was frequently asked to make presentations and speeches concerning various aspects of domestic economic policy and often appeared when L. William Seidman was unable to do so. Gorog's title change to Deputy Assistant to the President does not appear to have involved any change in his responsibilities.

The Gorog files are uneven in that they heavily represent Gorog's spokesperson and liaison functions but include substantive materials for only a few policy issues. Much of the latter material was incorporated into the files of L. William Seidman. There are several subjects in the Gorog files, however, which include substantive issues material. Those subjects include the domestic footwear industry, product liability insurance, air brake standards, the New York City financial crisis, the Task Force on Questionable Corporate Payments Abroad, and the proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act.

In January 1976, T. Coleman Andrews became executive assistant to William Gorog. He prepared briefing papers and decision memoranda for Gorog and worked closely with the congressional relations staff on the Ford administration's legislative proposals in the field of domestic economic policy. Andrews worked very closely with Gorog and other administration officials to block passage of the Clean Air Act amendments in 1976. Gorog acted as the administration's spokesperson on this issue although his files reveal the Andrews did much of the background work.

The files are divided into two series. The first, a general subject series, includes materials for May 1975 to May 1976. Each major subject, letter, invitation, or memo originating after May 1976 was indexed by a computer and arranged in numerical sequence. These files and a computer-generated index constitute the second series of the Gorog files.

Related Materials (July 1982)
Many of the briefing papers and analyses that Gorog prepared do not appear in his files but are in the Seidman collection and can be located by using Seidman's name file or the appropriate subject designation in the subject file. There are also related materials in the Marvin Kosters collection. The Gorog material does not include any material from his tenure as executive director of the Council on International Economic Policy.