Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, U.S. Senator and Representative, businessman, Texas county judge, and decorated World War Two veteran, was born in Mission, Texas, on February 11, 1921. He ran for Vice-President of the United States in 1988 on the Democratic ticket with then Massachusettes governor Michael Dukakis. He served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1994. Bentsen kept up a full schedule until 1998, when he retired after a decline in his health. He died on May 23, 2006.
Correspondence, printed material, creative works, legal documents, financial documents, minutes, photographic materials, sound recordings, and works of art make up the papers of Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. (1930-1994, bulk 1971-1993). Bentsen and his staff created the bulk of the material during his term as United States Senator from Texas (1971-1993), though the papers also contain records from Bentsen's term as United States Secretary of the Treasury (1993-1994). A limited amount of the material documents Bentsen's career in business and his private life. Few records exist from his term in the United States House of Representatives (1948-1955).
The material is organized in ten subgroups. The first seven subgroups consist of records from Bentsen's Senate offices.
Casework and personnel files are restricted for 75 years after creation, up to the year 2068.
Use of some audio and video materials is by appointment only; please contact sound archivist.
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A portion of these papers is stored remotely. Advance notice required for retrieval. Contact repository for retrieval.
Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr., Papers, 1921-1998, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin
Click on a subgroup link below to view the detailed inventory for that subgroup.
Senator Bentsen's state offices were responsible for significant constituent service duties and for campaign coordination, including fund-raising. Bentsen maintained offices in Austin, Houston, and Dallas. The Austin office had the largest staff, including Bentsen's State Director. The Dallas office was opened in 1977.
Constituent services undertaken in Texas included projects, cases, and academy appointments. The Austin office coordinated project work undertaken on behalf of municipalities, businesses, groups, and non-profit entities in Texas. Austin staff, occasionally in collaboration with Bentsen's Washington staff, performed most project work. The state offices also undertook cases for individuals, investigating and resolving problems with federal agencies. Dallas staff handled a small proportion of cases, but most were resolved by staff in Austin. Cases originating in Houston were forwarded to the other offices or resolved with telephone calls. (See Constituent Services Subgroup for project and case files.) Staff members in Houston also worked with high school students who contacted Senator Bentsen in an effort to gain appointments at Unites States military service academies.
In addition to processing service academy applications, Senator Bentsen's Houston office was responsible for maintaining the Senator's campaign funding accounts. Senator Bentsen's business had been based in Houston, and his office there included personal items documenting his life before his election to the Senate.
Bentsen's Dallas office performed some casework and sent congratulatory letters and telegrams to Texans. (See Correspondence Subgroup for those files.) Staff in Dallas also maintained clipping files. Prior to 1987, while the Dallas files were in General Services Administration storage at the Federal Records Center in Fort Worth, a series of scrapbooks and up to 25 boxes of political files were mistakenly destroyed. The material included documentation of Bentsen's 1976 Presidential and Senatorial campaigns.
Staff in Bentsen's offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston performed constituent service and campaign work. This subseries contains records created by Bentsen's State Directors (based in Austin), personnel, and work tracking records, as well as campaign and clippings files. Items from Bentsen's Houston office include personal materials, photographs, and scrapbooks documenting Bentsen's life before his election to the Senate.
Correspondence, printed material, scrapbooks, photographic material, sound recordings, and artifacts characterize materials from Bentsen's Houston office. The Houston office files contain a mixture of personal and political materials, as well as records related to the function of the office and its services to residents of South Texas. Many of the records among the personal materials document Bentsen's life and career before he was elected to the Senate. Three series: Personal/Political Files, 1921, 1942-1991 (37 cubic feet); Constituent Service Files, 1990-1992 (6 cubic feet); Office Administration Files, 1954, 1956-1987 (7 cubic feet); Artifacts, 1971-1992 (5.5 cubic feet)
Personal/Political Files stored in the Houston office include personal mementos of Bentsen's political career and rich documentation of his 1970 Senate campaign. Also among the personal materials are significant items related to Bentsen's military career (1942-1965). The Political/Personal Files series includes three subseries, Mixed Files, Political Files, and Scrapbooks. The Mixed Files contain limited documentation of Bentsen's campaign for and career as U.S. Representative (1948-1953), and his continuing involvement in Texas Democratic Party politics after leaving the House. The latter includes his involvement in the 1956 State Democratic Convention and his exploratory Senate campaign (1963-1964). The files include correspondence with numerous Texas politicians, among them Sam Rayburn, Jim Wright, John B. Connally, Dolph Briscoe, and Price Daniel. Correspondence with national political figures, including letters from and artifacts associated with Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, also forms the Mixed files. The Mixed files contain numerous files related to Bentsen's 1970 Senate campaign, including correspondence and printed material. Political Files contains records from Bentsen's 1976 Senate campaign against Alan Steelman, Campaign finances records (1971-1991), Videotapes (1970-1971, 1974-1976), and Audiotapes (1970-1972, 1974-1975). Most of the 1976 campaign material relates to Bentsen's Harris County organization. Financial records include Federal Elections Commission reports (1971-1991), bank statements (1977-1990), and cards recording contributors to Bentsen's campaigns (1975-1991), in addition to other materials. Videotapes and audiotapes include advertisements from Bentsen's 1970 campaign. Scrapbooks and clippings includes a subseries of eleven scrapbooks (1921, 1946-1970) and a Newspaper clippings subseries, 1975-1990. The scrapbooks contain valuable information on Bentsen's early political career, his work as a businessman, and about the 1970 Senate campaign. The scrapbooks are available on microfilm.
Constituent Service Files consist of telephone inquiries (1990-1992). Binders contain logs of these calls, many of which concern issues of the day.
The Office Administration Files also includes documentation of Bentsen's life before joining the Senate. It includes Appointment and address books (1954, 1956-1990), Daily logs (1971-1987), Mail reports (1973) and Congressional directories (1953, 1971-1987, incomplete). A few related records, including a guestbook, office manual, and office study, are among the Mixed files in the Personal/Political series.
Artifacts from the Houston office include plaques, paperweights, pins, coins and medals, textiles, and keys to cities in the United States and Canada.
[photo scrapbook separated?]
[several photos, including Dr. Fernos-Isern, Commissioner of Puerto Rico]
Clippings and other printed materials predominate in Bentsen's Dallas office files, which also include financial and legal records and correspondence. Political/office management files from 1988 include political and constituent correspondence, information on 1988 Senatorial opponent Beau Boulter, and various financial and legal documents related to managing the Dallas office. Clippings files maintained in Dallas make up the bulk of the records (12 cubic feet). The clippings date 1983-1993, and are extensive for the years 1990 and 1992.
Dallas staff created routine constituent correspondence, such as congratulatory letters, using the Correspondence Management System. See Correspondence Subgroup.
In late 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton selected Senator Bentsen as his nominee for Secretary of the Treasury. Bentsen stepped down as Chairman of the Finance Committee and resigned from the Senate to take the position. Jack DeVore, his press secretary since 1972, accompanied him to the Treasury, as did some members of his legislative and administrative staffs.
As Treasury Secretary, Bentsen worked to lower international trade barriers. Important accomplishments included passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. He also advised Clinton and helped with strategy on non-finance issues, such as a 1994 crime bill containing significant gun control measures.
Bentsen took the oath as the sixty-ninth Secretary of the Treasury on January 20, 1993. He stepped down in December 1994, at what would have been the end of his Senate term.
Bentsen's Secretary of the Treasury files contain detailed documentation of his day-to-day activities, the information he received from his staff, and his public statements. Five series: Schedules and Briefing Books, 1993 -1994 (4.4 cubic feet); Correspondence Files, 1993-1994 (10.3 cubic feet); Speech Files, 1993-1994 (3 cubic feet); Press Relations Files, 1981-1994 (5.3 cubic feet); Personal Materials, 1993-1994 (2.5 cubic feet).
Schedules and Briefing Books Series contain schedules, reports, talking points for meetings and press appearances, and background material including copied clippings and correspondence.
Correspondence Files Series consists of two subseries, Letters chron and Memos chron. Both files consist of photocopied correspondence filed in binders. The letters files contain copies of Secretary Bentsen's outgoing correspondence. Many of the letters are to members of Congress regarding pending legislation, reports, and nominations. Letters to private citizens include thank-you correspondence. A few letters are addressed to foreign dignitaries. The memoranda files contain copies incoming memos to the Secretary from his staff. Memos to Bentsen primarily consist of factual reports on issues and Congressional affairs, background material for telephone calls and meetings, and queries about decisions and courses of action. These record copies include Bentsen's notations in response. A small number of memoranda in the files are from Bentsen to President Bill Clinton or to White House staff. They concern issues and appointments.
Speech Files Series includes files for Secretary Bentsen's speeches before business and political groups, his testimony before Congressional committees, prepared material for official and ceremonial functions including meetings, and for remarks to the media. Most of the files contain speech cards and printed versions of the addresses. A small number of the files include memoranda.
Press Relations Files Series include press summaries and clippings. Some of the clippings in the series were originally filed in Bentsen's Senate office, and include coverage of his family and the 1988 presidential election. Treasury-era files created by Jack DeVore, Bentsen's Press Secretary, are listed as part of the Press Section subgroup, Office of the Press Secretary series.
Personal Materials Series includes a small amount of photographic material, items from December 1994, when Bentsen announced his retirement, appointment certificates, souvenir legislation, and a banner commemorating a speech at the Beijing Institute of Social Sciences.
(photocopy)
(laminated photocopy, incomplete)
(laminated)
Lloyd Bentsen stepped down as Secretary of the Treasury in December, 1994. He joined the Verner, Liipert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand law firm's Houston office.
In addition to printed material about Bentsen, the series contains a letter from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan about an issue in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987, and a letter to Bentsen from his long-time friend, Joe M. Kilgore (1918-1999).
Lewis L. Gould, Professor, Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, wrote widely on American politics and the presidency. He undertook an oral history project with Senator Bentsen and interviewed him several times, 1989-1992.
The subgroup includes printed material, notes, correspondence, ephemera, and magnetic media. Transcripts of Gould's interviews with Bentsen and his press secretary, Jack DeVore, constitute a significant part of the sub-group. Gould's research files on Bentsen, which include clippings and material collected from other repositories, are a significant source of information concerning Bentsen's career, 1948-1970. Correspondence with Bentsen and his staff concerning the oral history project is also included in the Gould files.