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Statement on Signing Executive Order Establishing the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

February 14, 1969

TODAY by Executive order I have created a new office, the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, to operate under the immediate supervision of the Vice President. This order provides a center through which one of the most important objectives of this administration can be carried out: the strengthening of Federal, State, and local relations.

By this action the Vice President will become more directly and vitally involved in our effort to move government closer to the people and to make it more responsive to their will.

Specifically, I have asked that, in addition to his other duties, the Vice President undertake responsibility for helping to administer the domestic functions of government in several critical areas.

He is to act as my liaison with the executive and legislative officials of State and local government.

He will encourage the development of maximum cooperation among the various Federal agencies and their State and local counterparts.

He is to help make the Federal executive branch more sensitive and receptive to the views of State and local officials and to serve as the focal point where specific difficulties may be resolved.

He is to work closely with and is to encourage the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in its activities.

He is to inform the Council for Urban Affairs regarding general intergovernmental issues so that the Council may readily advise and assist me.

The Office of Intergovernmental Relations has been established to assist and advise the Vice President in carrying out these important responsibilities. It will aid the Vice President in his liaison responsibility between myself and the State and local officials.

Among its many functions, the Office will assure State and local officials access to the highest offices of the Federal Government, especially those having a direct impact on intergovernmental relations, so that Federal programs, policies, and goals will be more responsive to their views and needs. It will seek to strengthen existing channels of communication and to create new channels among all levels of government.

While aiding in the formulation of proposals to develop a broad and relevant dispersal of authority, the Office will be helping to create many centers of power in the place of one. Thus it will help to establish more decision making authority at the Federal regional offices and will facilitate an orderly transfer of appropriate functions to State and local government.

Under the supervision of the Vice President, the Office of Intergovernmental Relations will have as its overriding objective the bringing together of Federal, State, and local government in order to provide a more balanced system of government.

Note: Following the President's signing of Executive Order 11455, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, in a news briefing released by the White House Press Office, announced the appointment of Nils A. Boe, former Governor of South Dakota, as Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

A list of officials who attended the signing ceremony in the Cabinet Room at the White House is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 5, P. 258).

Richard Nixon, Statement on Signing Executive Order Establishing the Office of Intergovernmental Relations. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240252

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