This is the White House file on the appointment of the President’s Advisory Committee on a National Highway Program in 1954. The file begins with the record of a July 22, 1954 meeting with the President where it was decided to offer the chairmanship of the committee to General Motors executive Roger Kyes. The file then contains a telegram from Kyes turning down the job and the record a month later of the decision to offer the job to General Lucius Clay, who accepted.
Clay met with White House de facto Chief of Staff Sherman Adams and Wisconsin Governor Walter Kohler (the head of the Governors’ Conference study committee on highways) on August 30 to come up with a plan of action. Clay then recruited four other members of the committee, who were vetted by the White House and announced to the public on September 7, 1954.