The Assistant to the President Office Files of Waldemar A. Nielsen document the Ford Foundation's preparations for and responses to the Reece Committee. These files, dated 1952-55 (bulk: 1953-54), show the Committee's charges against the Foundation and individual staff members; material on its grantees and Funds gathered by the Foundation; the responses to the Committee; summaries of media reporting of the investigation; and other Foundation correspondence, memoranda, prepared statements, and press releases.

While these files do not represent all of the documents that the Foundation staff members prepared, they seem to be a complete record of those compiled by the President's Office. The documents were created by H. Rowan Gaither, Jr., Bernard Gladieux, Jane Hinchcliffe, Porter McKeever, William McPeak, Waldemar Nielsen, and other staff members. Additional records were produced by individuals at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Arthur Newmyer and Associates, and Earl Newsom & Co.

It is apparent that these documents are not in the order which they were used as active files. These records were selected, arranged, and numbered, presumably by Mr. Nielsen. Since the material is accessible in this order, no attempt was made to re-establish the original, working order of the files.

Photocopies of documents from the early Foundation years (c. 1936-50) were not retained with these records (this information duplicates records already in the Archives). Government documents and other available printed material was discarded. Foundation Staff and Consultant Reports were pulled and transferred to that record group. These reports are listed in Appendix A; cross-reference sheets mark the original location of the reports. In many cases, drafts of letters and reports have been retained since they reflect the meticulous care that was used in preparing the responses to Representative Reece's queries.

These files do not document Mr. Nielsen's other responsibilities as Assistant to the President or activities in any of his other positions at the Ford Foundation.

"The [Reece Committee] investigation continued for over a year and was conducted in a manner openly hostile to foundations. The research methods employed by the staff were crude, consisting largely of culling secondary source material to find evidence to support the prejudices of the Chairman. Sixteen days of public hearings were held -- largely confined to the foundation activities in the social sciences. With one exception, the witnesses invited to testify were known to be hostile to foundations and the studies supported by foundation. Foundation officials were given no opportunity to appear before the Committee.

"The Final Report, signed by only three of the five members, was devoted largely to a summary of the hearings, witness by witness. No effort was made to evaluate the evidence presented or to take cognizance of the written statements submitted by foundations....

"The minority report attacked the aims, methods, and actions of the Committee and its staff, and charged that the majority report contained false statements, half-truths and misleading information.

Joseph M. McDaniel, Jr. memo to McGeorge Bundy March 1, 1966