This PDF file contains a series of memos by John S. Bragdon, President Eisenhower’s Special Assistant for Public Works Planning, during January and February 1955. The memos record a series of meetings at the White House between the Commerce, Treasury, and Agriculture Departments, the Bureau of Public Roads, the Bureau of the Budget, the Council of Economic Advisers (to whom Bragdon reported and to whom many of the memos are addressed), and White House staff.

The meetings were about what the President should do about the report of the “Clay Committee” on highways, the final report of which had been given informally to the White House and agencies in late December 1954 and formally transmitted to the President and made public on January 11 – in Bragdon’s words, “whether it should be forwarded as representing the President’s views, forwarded merely as informative, not forwarded at all, but a message written outlining major points which were thought acceptable, and various other alternatives.”

Eventually, the decision was made that the President should endorse the Clay report and forward it to Congress with an accompanying message and draft legislation (with a few low-profile changes from the Clay version). This was done in a message on February 22, 1956.

Originals in Box 37 of the Records of John S. Bragdon, 1949-1961, in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas.