Archive of White House Memoranda and Other Documents from Lyndon B. Johnson Pollster Fred Panzer

Group of binders containing primarily inter-office memos from Lyndon B. Johnson pollster Fred Panzer, dating from January 1966 to January 1969.

• Sold as a set of 10 binders.
• (Washington, D.C.): n.p, (1965-1969).
• Primarily carbon, some typed and some photocopy on a variety of paper stocks.
• Various other documents: photocopied reports, newspaper and magazine articles, et cetera.
• Also includes: two 3" binders dating from July 1966-Feb 1967 containing memos by or to Tad Cantril; two 3" binders containing research for a position paper addressing the "credibility gap"; two 1.5" binders containing information on administration accomplishments from 1965; two folders containing transcripts of the LBJ Library Oral History Project interview with Panzer; and relating ephemera.
• Approximately four linear feet in all.
• Original binders unsalvageable and now perished; rehoused in new three-ring binders, maintaining original divisions and order.

An exhaustive archive of polling, public opinion, and related papers (including memos and other internal communications, research materials, and like) belonging to Fred Panzer, President Lyndon B. Johnson's chief pollster.

More than any other president preceding him, Johnson relied on polling. Similar statements could also have been made of JFK (and arguably Truman…and even FDR), but Johnson commissioned more than four times the number of polls as Kennedy. And while Kennedy utilized polling primarily in crafting his message, LBJ was the first president to extensively use polls in his decision- and policy-making. Therefore polling — and by extension Fred Panzer — helped shape the presidency in a way that hadn't been seen before.

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.