brian cassidy bookselle

questing additional information, taking issue with recent numbers,
or attempting to persuade them to gather data particularly useful to
the administration.
Material from the earliest part of the archive consists of research
submitted to Moyers and Hayes Redmon (Moyers’ assistant), including
magazine digests, reports on current events, historical research,
and poll numbers on policy issues. In addition, there are examples of
Panzer’s rhetorical contributions, including drafts of speeches and
even periodic lists of jokes the president might use. But with the
departure of Moyers and Redmon in early ‘67, Panzer became the administration’s
main liaison to public pollsters and Johnson’s primary
source for data on public opinions, eventually reporting directly
to the president.
Polling makes up an increasingly larger portion of the archive in 1967
and 1968, as the administration considered a possible reelection bid,
and as protests against the Vietnam war grew. Data and analysis —
submitted to the president three or four times per week — range
from general approval ratings to specific results based on locality
or demographics, pairings with different potential candidates in the
Republican and Democratic parties to polls on a wide range of policy
issues, the most frequent of which is the administration’s handling
of Vietnam. Civil rights and race relations, inflation, and crime are
also frequently polled. And as the archive goes on, an increasing
number of memos are addressed to the president directly, not just
his staff and advisors.
After the Johnson's decision not to seek the nomination, Panzer continued
to perform research for the administration, coordinating various
public relations campaigns, supplying ideas for speeches, and
even writing the president’s personal letters as well as official
White House responses (a fascinating file binder offering various
form responses to White House correspondence is also included).
After he left the administration, Panzer went on to work as an executive
for the Tobacco Institute where he penned the now-infamous
memo known as the “Roper Proposal,” which laid out the industry’s
strategies for avoiding regulation and liability in the face of the
growing medical consensus on the dangers of smoking.
Ten binders from the desk of Fred Panzer make up the bulk of the archive,
creating an exhaustive survey of his work at the White House.
Several additional binders of related materials (research, file copies,
etc.) round out the archive. Together, a comprehensive look at
executive branch polling, both its directions and effects, during a
particularly turbulent time in American history, all from the point
of view of a man at the center of modern political public opinion. A
binder-level inventory is available on request.
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