Since its creation by the National Security Act of 1947 the office of secretary of defense has grown rapidly in power and influence, surpassing at times that of the secretary of state to become second only to the presidency in the government of the United States. The pivotal secretaries, according to Kinnard, are James Forrestal, Charles Wilson, Robert McNamara, Melvin Laird, and James Schlesinger.Kinnard analyzes the administration of each of these secretaries not only within the domestic and international contexts of his time but also within the bureaucratic world in which the secretary functions along with the president and secretary of state.

In 1979 Robert Penn Warren returned to his native Todd Country, Kentucky, to attend ceremonies in honor of another native son, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, whose United States citizenship had just been restored, ninety years after his death, by a special act of Congress. From that nostalgic journey grew this reflective essay on the tragic career of Jefferson Davis -- "not a modern man in any sense of the word but a conservative called to manage what was, in one sense, a revolution." Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back is also a meditation by one of our most respected men of letters on the ironies of American history and the paradoxes of the modern South.

This volume presents a record of the Ford administration. From among the many public speeches delivered by Wendell Ford during the three years he served as Governor, W. Landis Jones has chosen a representative sample that reflects the wide-ranging concerns of the Ford administration. Arranged topically, the volume covers subjects from government reorganization and party politics to health and welfare, education, highways, and energy and environment.This selection does not include executive orders or proclamations, since they are part of the preserved public record. The cross section of public speeches and press releases that are included provides an easily accessible source for historians to view the broad spectrum of issues that faced the people of the Commonwealth during the early years of the 1970s.Included also are appendixes that provide a complete listing of speeches delivered by Governor Ford during his term of office, a chart that shows the organization of Kentucky government at the end of the Ford administration, and a synopsis of the administration by Thomas L. Preston.

This fourth volume in the ten-volume series covers the career of Henry Clay during his first year as Secretary of State in the cabinet of President John Quincy Adams.Within a month after taking office, Henry Clay described the Department of State as "no bed of roses." Even though routine papers bearing his signature have been omitted by the editors, the 950 pages of documents included in this volume show that many duties filled Clay's days and nights. The evidence in autograph drafts and the meagerness of revision in the official documents indicate the need for major reconsideration of Clay's role in United States foreign relations during the presidency of John Quincy Adams.The range of issues emerging in these papers is broad, and the duties were obviously more than the limited staff of the Department of State could satisfactorily perform. But if, as a result, the United States suffered a major diplomatic defeat during the British revision of trade regulations, Clay's instructions to the Panama mission marked him as a statesman of world stature.Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

This third volume in the ten-volume series covers the career of Henry Clay from the Second Session of the Sixteenth Congress, where he engineered the second Missouri Compromise, to the presidential election of 1824, when he found himself eliminated as a candidate.Upon his return from Congress in 1821, Clay practiced law and interested himself in Transylvania University, among other things. Elected again to the House of Representatives and to the Speakership in the Eighteenth Congress, Clay resumed his leadership in national affairs; his concerns at this period were principally with the Monroe Doctrine, the Spanish and Greek revolutions, and internal improvements and the tariff. A continuing thread in the volume is the presidential campaign of 1824. Clay's correspondence illustrates the changes in political techniques brought about by the emergence of the Jacksonian type of campaign. Sectionalism, already revealed as a danger to the Union, continued as an important issue. Clay's optimistic anticipation of his election of course proved incorrect, and the volume ends with Clay in the powerful but uncomfortable position of being able, by throwing his support to one of three candidates before the House of Representatives, to choose the next President of the United States.Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Henry Clay's career spanned a half century of a great formative period in American history. The Papers of Henry Clay span the crucial first half of the nineteenth century in American history. Few men in his time were so intimately concerned with the formation of national policy, and few influenced so profoundly the growth of American political institutions. This compilation of ten volumes includes Clay's letters, letters to Clay, his speeches, and other documents identified as his personal composition. Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.