February 24, 2015

This week’s ETW Document of the Week is an exchange of memoranda from late 1970 and early 1971 between the Nixon White House, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Transportation over what routes the newly formed National Rail Passenger Corporation should serve. The paper trail shows a great degree of involvement by OMB Director George Shultz (the same George Shultz who went on to become President Reagan’s Secretary of State from 1982-1989) and White House Domestic Policy Advisor John Ehrlichman in determining which routes the NRPC should serve and how to weigh the interests of the traveling public versus those of the general taxpayer.

It was also the subject of this piece at Atlantic CityLab.