Regan, Donald T.: Files, 1985-1987

Office of the Chief of Staff: Chief of Staff, 1985-1987

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Scope and Content Note

Scope Note

The records in this collection pertain only to Donald Regan’s role as White House Chief of Staff. While some material has Department of Treasury origins - it pertains to the transition of Regan to the White House Chief of Staff position. Further information about the material within this collection can be found in the series descriptions.

The Donald Regan collection consists of four series and two subseries: SERIES I: Subject File; SERIES II: White House Legal Task Force File; SERIES III: Subseries A: Transition File: Office of Administration Set; SERIES III: Subseries B: Transition File: Treasury Department Set; and SERIES IV: Publications.

Series List

SERIES I: SUBJECT FILE, 1985-1987

This material is an alphabetically arranged series documenting the full range of matters that Regan dealt with, from foreign and domestic policy to internal White House administration.

The Subject File includes: material from the 1985 bilateral Economic Summit in Quebec City, Canada; documents on US-USSR relations, including the Geneva and Reykjavik summits; a “reading file” on current foreign and domestic issues that Regan took to Reykjavik during the summit; articles on the Supreme Court; reports on candidates to replace Chief Justice Burger; material on the federal budget; correspondence on trade issues from a member of the Shipbuilders Council of America; reports on national security and terrorism, which were still security classified when processed by the Reagan Library staff; gift reports and travel logs for people in the Office of the Chief of Staff; Regan telephone logs; and material pertaining to some of Regan’s planned or tentative speaking engagements. Most Regan material from his meetings with White House and Administration staff is in Series II of this collection.

SERIES II: WHITE HOUSE LEGAL TASK FORCE FILE, 1985-1987

This alphabetically arranged series consists of Regan materials collected by the White House Legal Task Force. The Legal Task Force was formed in March 1987, after Regan left the Administration, to coordinate the White House response to requests by Congress and the Independent Counsel for material pertaining to Iran-Contra. The Task Force collected large numbers of documents, and then determined which documents were relevant to particular requests.

Much of this series consists of notepad paper on which Regan made notes during his meetings with President Reagan, White House and NSC staff, members of Congress, and other individuals and groups. Many of these sheets contain additional notes, apparently taken on Regan’s behalf, from meetings that Regan may not have attended in person. The series also contains Regan daily schedules covering most of his time in the White House, and a few memos and other documents, printed from 8‑inch and 5¼‑inch diskettes prior to the diskettes’ arrival at the Reagan Library. The Library staff has transferred all diskettes to preservation storage.

Since some documents in this series are quoted or cited in Regan’s book For the Record, it is possible that Regan retained some of the material, or kept copies of it, after he left the White House. In any event, the Task Force eventually delivered all material in this series to the White House Office of Records Management (WHORM) for permanent retention.

SERIES III: 1984-1985 TRANSITION FILE, January 1985

These files contain information collected for Secretary Regan to help him prepare for his new job as White House Chief of Staff. They consist mostly of materials from the office units within the White House, which contain descriptions of the units’ roles and internal workings, lists of policy issues that they were currently dealing with, forms used within the units to manage their work, and any additional information that Regan might need to know immediately. There are also materials on the history of the White House Office and the structure and staffing of the Reagan White House, and draft Presidential schedules for early 1985. Thus, the series provides valuable information on the structure and functioning of the White House Office at the end of President Reagan’s first term.

The series contains two alphabetically arranged subseries. Each subseries consist largely of originals or copies of the same material, but they are not identical sets as each subseries contain unique information.

Subseries A: Office of Administration Set, January 1985

This material came to the White House via the Office of Administration, in February 1985.

Subseries B: Treasury Department Set, January 1985

This material was sent to Regan at the Treasury Department in January 1985.

SERIES IV. PUBLICATIONS, August 1985 – July 1986

The bulk of this series consists of issues of the Daily Report for Executives published by the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), a Washington, DC company. The Daily Reports contain news directly affecting business, industry, and banking. Topics include legal and regulatory developments, Government contracts awarded to companies, accounting and tax issues, trade issues, and economic statistics. Many issues have notations from Regan identifying items of particular interest. Issues are numbered consecutively beginning at the start of each calendar year, with a few issues missing.

There are also some December 1985 issues of the White House News Summary. A full set of Reagan Administration News Summaries is open to research in the records of the White House News Summary Office. See the finding aid for that collection for more information on them.

Arranged alphabetically by publication, and chronologically thereunder.

Biography

Biography

Donald Thomas Regan was a Marine Corps officer and a CEO of Merrill Lynch brokerage firm. He was the 66th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1981 to 1985 and the White House Chief of Staff from 1985 to 1987 under President Ronald Reagan.

Regan was born near Boston on December 21, 1918, and grew up in the area’s Irish-American neighborhoods. His family withstood the loss of his father’s full-time police job – he was fired for participating in the 1919 Boston police strike – and the death of Regan’s 12-year-old older brother from peritonitis. In his last year of parochial school, Regan passed the entrance exam at nearby Harvard University and won a partial scholarship to Harvard. He graduated in 1940, fourth in his class, with a degree in English. He also earned a scholarship to Harvard Law School and began his studies there.

But with war approaching, Regan left law school after a month for training at the Marine Corps’ Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia. He earned a regular commission in the Marines, served in Iceland in 1941-1942, got married to Ann George Buchanan during a short visit home, and then fought in the South Pacific for the remainder of World War II. Regan was discharged from active duty in 1946, as a Lieutenant Colonel. He decided to pursue a business career instead of returning to law school.

With little actual background in business, he chose a position with the brokerage firm of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fischer, and Beane largely because the company had a training school for new employees. Regan’s abilities as a stockbroker soon caught the attention of Merrill Lynch’s leaders. He became a general partner in 1954, an executive vice president in 1964, President of Merrill Lynch in 1968, and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer effective January 1, 1971.

As a stockbroker and Merrill Lynch executive Regan was involved in pushing for changes in long time brokerage customs. Regan was one of the original directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation and was vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange from 1973 to 1975. He was a major proponent of brokerage firms going public, which he viewed as an important step in the modernization of Wall Street. Under his supervision, Merrill Lynch had its initial public offering on June 23, 1971, becoming only the second Wall Street firm to go public.

During his tenure at the Securities Investor Protection Corporation and the New York Stock Exchange, Regan pushed hard for an end to minimum fixed commissions for brokers, which were fees that brokerage companies had to charge clients for every transaction they made on the clients' behalf. Regan saw them as a cartel-like restriction. His lobbying played a large part in fixed commissions being abolished in 1975.

In December 1980, Regan agreed to serve as Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. After President Reagan took office the following month, Regan took the lead in getting the Administration’s proposed tax cuts through Congress. In Reagan’s Cabinet Council system, Regan ran the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs, which advised the President on domestic and international economic policies. He served as a chief Administration spokesman on tax and economic issues, and was a strong public advocate for government deregulation, Reaganomics and tax cuts. In November 1984, Regan presented a set of detailed tax reform proposals President Reagan had requested, launching a process that culminated in the tax reforms enacted in 1986.

In late 1984, Donald Regan, the Secretary of the Treasury, and James Baker, the White House Chief of Staff, agreed to switch jobs. President Reagan consented to the exchange in a January 1985 meeting with them, and Regan began work as Reagan’s White House Chief of Staff on February 2, 1985.

As White House Chief of Staff, Regan replaced the senior staff “Troika” of the first Reagan term – Baker, Edwin Meese, and Michael Deaver – as the President’s sole top assistant in the White House. Regan was able to see to fruition the tax reform begun while he was Treasury Secretary. He was an advisor to the president on all domestic and foreign policy issues, and oversaw the running of the White House Office. His bold, direct manner as Chief of Staff was a contrast to Baker’s more cautious, behind-the-scenes approach.

Over time, Regan’s high public profile and controversial public statements led to clashes with Republican members of Congress, Administration leaders, and Presidential friends and advisers including Nancy Reagan. When the Iran-Contra affair broke in late 1986, Regan was widely blamed for allowing the crisis to develop, and becoming as severe as it did. The President’s Special Review Board (Tower Board), formed by President Reagan in the wake of Iran-Contra, echoed these criticisms of Regan in its final report published on February 26, 1987. The next day, Regan wrote a letter to the President announcing his resignation as Chief of Staff.

In his autobiography For The Record: From Wall Street to Washington, published in 1988 before President Reagan left office, Regan defended his work as Chief of Staff while criticizing Nancy Reagan and several Administration figures.

Regan retired quietly in Virginia with Ann Regan, his wife of over 60 years. In late life, he spent nearly 10 hours a day in his art studio painting landscapes. He had four children and nine grandchildren. He died of cancer in a hospital near his Williamsburg home on June 10, 2003.

Record Type

Textual

Last Modified Date

2024-11-08

WHORM Alpha File

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Regan, Donald T.: Files, 1985-1987

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