103. Memorandum From the National Development Adviser, Program Coordination Staff, Office of Policy and Plans, United States Information Agency (Marcy) to the Director (Shakespeare)1

SUBJECT

  • Wednesday, August 26, Women’s Liberation Day Observances on the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting American women the right to vote.

On short notice and with very little advance planning, several members of IPT and I have cooperated in setting up the following program in Room 1100 from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on next Wednesday.

We have engaged two very knowledgeable speakers to make brief presentations and then engage in a discussion with all Agency personnel who are interested in—or puzzled by—this social development in the U.S.

Vera Glaser, Correspondent and syndicated columnist for Knight Newspapers

Member of President Nixon’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities

and

Susan Ross, recent graduate of New York University Law School: co-founder and first President of Women’s Rights Commission in New York: currently teaching a course at George Washington University Law School on “Women and the Law”: also a full-time staff member of the Equal Opportunity Commission

We realize that the scheduling competes with your Staff Meeting. But we hope at its conclusion that you and the others present might find it worthwhile to stop in at the symposium in Room 1100—before you go to the noontime rally in Lafayette Square:2

  1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1968–1972, Entry A1–42, Box 15, Policy and Plans (IOP)—Women’s Activities 1970. No classification marking. Sent through White. Shakespeare initialed the memorandum. A typed notation in the top right-hand corner of the first page of the memorandum reads: “Wednesday, 8/26 after STAFF meeting.” Attached but not printed is an August 24 USIA announcement entitled “WOMEN’S LIBERATION Is it ‘a matter of simple justice’?” inviting USIA employees to attend the August 26 discussion.
  2. Shakespeare placed a vertical line in the left-hand margin next to this paragraph. On August 26, the Washington Post reported that members of the Federally Employed Women (FEW) organization would disseminate, at the Lafayette Square rally, the results of a mail survey of senators regarding the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). (“2 Rallies Planned By Women in D.C.,” p. A10)