Wesley McCune Papers

Size: One linear foot (ca. 2,000 pages)
Access: Open, with the exception that a few pages are closed in accordance with the requirements of the Executive Order governing the administration of classified information, and with restrictions contained in the donor's deed of gift.
Copyright: Wesley McCune donated his copyright interest in any of his writings in this collection to the Government of the United States. Documents prepared by U.S. Government employees in the course of their official duties are also in the public domain. Copyright interest in documents which do not fall in these two categories is presumed to remain with the writers of the documents.
Processed by: Niel M. Johnson

1916, June 6		Born, Kansas City, Missouri
1937		B.A., University of Colorado
1938		Attended the law school of the University of Colorado
1939		Employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
1940-42		Reporter for Newsweek magazine
1942-45		Service in the U.S. Merchant Marine
l943		Author, The Farm Bloc
1945-46		Reporter for Time magazine
1946-48		Reporter for Kiplingers' Changing Times
1948-53		Executive Assistant to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan
1l953-56		Assistant to the Deputy Chairman, The Democratic National Committee
1956		Author, Who's Behind Our Farm Policy
1l958		Author, Ezra Taft Benson: Man with a Mission
1956-62		Director of Public Relations, National Farmers Union
1962-mid-1990s		President, Group Research, Inc.
2003, September 22		Died, Washington, DC

The papers of Wesley McCune document primarily his work as Executive Assistant to Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan from l948 to l953. Most of the material in the collection relates to the Truman administration's agricultural policies and to the issues that affected American farmers during Brannan's tenure as secretary. A large part of the material is devoted to explaining, promoting and defending Truman's agricultural policies, including the so-called Brannan Plan. Also documented are the political debates surrounding the shortage of storage facilities for corn in l948; Secretary Brannan's disagreements with conservative farm organizations, particularly with the Farm Bureau; and the work of the Defense Mobilization Board, on which McCune sat as Secretary Brannan's alternate.

The collection is divided into two series, a Correspondence File, which consists primarily of copies of outgoing correspondence, and a Subject File. The small amount of material falling outside the period from l948 to l953 relates primarily to McCune's writings on agricultural policy, and to Group Research, Inc., an organization devoted to the study of right-wing organizations in America.

Related files and collections in the Truman Library's holdings include the Official File, the President's Personal File, the Senatorial and Vice Presidential Papers, the Charles W. Jackson Files, and the papers of Charles F. Brannan, Clinton P. Anderson, Ralph R. Will, Ivy W. Duggan, Joseph M. Mehl, and Raymond C. Smith.

The Archives staff has selectively added information, in brackets, to some of the folder titles listed in this finding aid. In particular, some of the correspondents represented in the Correspondence File have been listed following the letter designations that comprise the folder titles in this series.

Container Nos.		Series
1		CORRESPONDENCE, FILE, l948-53
		Copies of outgoing correspondence relating to McCune's work as Executive Assistant to Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan. Includes letters to legislators, columnists, editors, businessmen, and farm lobbyists relating to such issues as the Brannan Plan, price supports, tariffs, grain storage by the Commodity Credit Corporation, rural electrification, interest group pressures, especially involving the Farm Bureau, the tax status of cooperatives, price controls, trends in farm income and farm size, the grain futures market, and the school lunch program. Arranged chronologically.
2-3		SUBJECT FILE, l942-89
		Correspondence, memoranda, press releases, reports, legislative bill drafts, charts, clippings and other printed material relating to such topics as price controls, the family farm, the Farm Bureau, the grain storage issue, trends in farm income, price supports, the Production Marketing Administration, President Truman's speeches on the role of farmers in America's economy and on the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. One folder contains minutes of the meetings of the Defense Mobilization Board. Arranged alphabetically.

Box 1

CORRESPONDENCE FILE, l948-53

• A [George Aiken, Frederick Lewis Allen, Clinton P. Anderson, et al.]
• B
• C [Reo Christenson, John Coppock, et al.]
• D [Elmer Davis, Homer Duffy, et al.]
• E [Allen Ellender, et al.]
• F
• G [Roswell Garst, Albert Gore, et al.]
• H-J [Hubert Humphrey, Charles Hardin, Lyndon Johnson, Henry Jackson, et al.]
• Kline, Allan D.
• K-L [Harley Kilgore, James P. Kem, Herbert H. Lehman, et al.]
• M [J. Howard McGrath, Blair Moody, Charles S. Murphy, et al.]
• N-O [Edwin G. Nourse, et al.]
• P [James Patton, Percy Priest, et al.]
• Q-R [J. S. Russell, James Roosevelt, et al.]
• S [Stuart Symington, Charles Sawyer, et al.]
• T-V [President Truman, John M. Vorys, et al.]
• W-Z [John J. Williams, John C. White, et al.]

SUBJECT FILE, l942-89

• Articles by Wesley McCune, l942-l958 [farm policies and lobbies, the Truman Committee]
• Cooperatives
• Defense Mobilization Board--Minutes of Meetings, l950-52
• Economic Stabilization and Price Controls, l948-53
• Family Farm
• Farm Bureau
• Grain Storage, l948
• Grain Storage [l95l-52]
• Group Research, Inc.--Clippings and Newsletter [activities of right-wing organizations]
• Kem Letters [Senator James P. Kem of Missouri]
• Kem's Voting Record
• Liberalism, l960
• McCarthy [Senator Joseph P.]
• McCune Speech and Article [farm production and income; Secretary Brannan's farm program]
• Miscellaneous [Hoover Commission report, farm lobbies, potato dumping, law and agriculture, etc.]
• Political [l952 presidential campaign, U.S. foreign policy, the Democratic Party's agriculture policy]

• Presidential Campaigns, l948 and l952
• "Price Rigging"
• Price Supports
• Press Releases by the Secretary of Agriculture
• School Lunch Program
• White House [speech material for the President]
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