Executive Order 8248: Establishing the Divisions of the Executive Office of the President and Defining Their Functions and Duties

Why it was signed

Roosevelt signed EO 8248 on September 8, 1939, to implement the Reorganization Act and reorganization plans made effective July 1. The signed order itself took effect September 11. These three dates describe congressional framework, presidential implementation and the order’s own effective date; none should be substituted for another. Original presidential text.

The 1939 Executive Office contained a White House Office, Bureau of the Budget, National Resources Planning Board, Liaison Office for Personnel Management and Office of Government Reports, with an emergency-management office if needed. It did not contain the later-named Office of Management and Budget in 1939. Original part I.

NARA’s online codification incorporates amendments to EO 8248 and now prints “Office of Management and Budget” in places where the original read “Bureau of the Budget.” Its footnotes identify later amendments, including EO 10452 and EO 12608. A guide that treats every word of this updated codification as Roosevelt’s exact 1939 wording would be wrong. NARA amended text; 1939 text.

What the text authorized

Part I set out the EOP’s principal divisions, while Part II detailed roles. The White House Office was to handle the President’s immediate communications and clerical work. Administrative assistants could gather and summarize information for him but had no authority over other departments’ personnel and could not interpose themselves between the President and department heads. Part II.

The Bureau of the Budget helped prepare and administer the federal budget, reviewed management practice, coordinated departmental legislative advice and improved statistical services. Those assignments were administrative support to the President, not a grant to spend money without congressional appropriation. Bureau provisions.

The National Resources Planning Board addressed broad planning and conservation; the personnel liaison coordinated administrative staffing. The order thus allocated distinct planning, fiscal and workforce functions. An EOP division list from 1939 is not a current agency map, as later plans and orders changed or ended individual bodies. Original division descriptions.

Part V required a consolidated Executive Office budget through the Bureau of the Budget. The order also required internal rules for the non-White-House divisions with presidential approval. This defined a management process for the new office rather than conferring unrestricted command over every executive department. Parts IV–V.

What happened in practice

NARA traces the White House Office as established by EO 8248, supporting actual institutional implementation rather than just aspirational prose. The finding aid concerns that constituent office and should not be read as proof that every other 1939 division survived unchanged. NARA White House Office history.

In 1970 Reorganization Plan No. 2 changed the Bureau of the Budget into the Office of Management and Budget; EO 11541 prescribed functions in that new arrangement. This is why a current codified text can show OMB without making it the name Roosevelt used when he signed EO 8248. Later OMB order; Original.

The codified NARA page explicitly states a 1953 amendment to Part I and a 1987 amendment to parts I and V. That editorial record is direct later evidence of textual change. Its updated office names must be reconciled with the original before claims are made about 1939 signatures or the status of the personnel liaison. NARA annotations.

The original order included an emergency-management office only in the event of an emergency or threat, as the President determined. It did not on September 11, 1939 automatically establish every subsequent wartime agency within that mechanism. Later orders establishing particular offices are separate legal acts. Part I original.

In the White House Office clause, the executive clerk had document and correspondence duties and the secretaries managed rapid communication with Congress, agency heads and the public. These concrete assignments are unlike the Bureau of the Budget’s fiscal tasks. The order illustrates a distinction between close presidential staff support and administration of the executive branch’s budget. Original Part II.

The 1939 text described the personnel liaison as an administrative assistant designated by the President and assigned coordination duties. The National Archives’ later consolidated page contains changes to the original division list; a reference to its present codification therefore needs its amendment notes. It cannot alone prove the personnel liaison remained an identical division into the late twentieth century. Signed order; annotated codification.

Roosevelt directed most divisions to prepare internal governance regulations for his approval, while he would prescribe rules for the White House Office. This allocates responsibility for operating procedures; it is not a general statement that every federal employee became a White House employee. Subsequent administrative records are necessary to understand how particular offices implemented those internal rules. EO 8248 part IV.

Reaction and legacy

The Executive Office still exists, but its original component list and nomenclature changed. A status of “in effect” without qualification would wrongly suggest the 1939 Bureau and personnel liaison retain their original positions. The more accurate conclusion is continuing institutional lineage with amended and superseded components. Original; NARA annotations.

This case demonstrates why an amended archival codification and an original signed text answer different questions. The former helps track later legal language; the latter shows what Roosevelt actually directed in September 1939. Direct citations to both make the difference reviewable. 1939 transcription; NARA codification.

The order organized executive support pursuant to a congressional reorganization framework. It is not the sole source of today’s presidential staff authorities, and the EOP’s present offices require current organic statutes, plans and orders to assess. Order preamble; 1970 successor.

The 1939 reorganization sequence

Congress enacted the Reorganization Act, Roosevelt sent reorganization plans, and EO 8248 specified the divisions and duties of the Executive Office of the President. These were related but different legal steps. The signed order came on September 8 and specified an effective date of September 11; the reorganization plans had already taken effect in July. Treating all three dates as one event makes it harder to understand which instrument created a component and which one described its work. EO 8248; NARA codification.

The order listed constituent offices and then assigned tasks. It was an organizational charter for presidential support, not a general transfer of every cabinet department into the White House. Distinguishing the White House Office from the Executive Office as a whole is especially important: the former was one division within the latter. The order’s title and parts are the most direct evidence of that relationship. Primary order.

A later office may share a familiar name with a 1939 component while holding powers from later statutes or orders. Organizational continuity does not mean every duty has remained fixed. The order offers a snapshot of what Roosevelt assigned in September 1939; a modern chart requires current authorities. This matters when explaining what a presidential adviser, budget official or liaison office can do today. NARA codified order.

White House support and budget work

The White House Office handled the President’s immediate administrative and communications work. Administrative assistants were to gather information and help the President, without becoming independent policy departments. That division of labor helps explain why an assistant’s influence could be substantial while formal authority remained with the President or another legally empowered official. The text defines office functions; it does not establish a separate lawmaking power for staff. Part II of EO 8248.

Budget work was integrated into the Executive Office as part of the reorganization. The Bureau of the Budget’s then-current duties and its later successors should be distinguished from a claim that EO 8248 alone invented federal budgeting. Congress’s fiscal statutes and prior bureau history also matter. A 1939 placement within the President’s organization changed the line of administrative support; the budget process itself involved agencies and Congress. EO 8248 text; NARA EOP records.

The order described personnel and planning functions in a particular administrative setting. Those divisions were not all permanent under their original names. A claim that one office “still exists” must say whether it means the 1939 unit, a successor with a different mandate, or a general type of presidential support. The archival record preserves the historical component and its files; it is not a present-day organizational chart. Record Group 130.

Records of actual operation

The National Archives treats the White House Office and related Executive Office material as records of operating federal institutions. The finding aid is useful evidence that the reorganization moved beyond a paper announcement and generated correspondence and administrative files. It cannot, by itself, tell us how every presidential decision was made or prove that staff recommendations determined a specific outcome. For that, a dated decision file and other contemporaneous evidence are needed. National Archives Record Group 130.

The archival series also help a researcher locate responsibility. A question about a 1939 budget proposal belongs in a different documentary chain from a question about the President’s immediate correspondence. That is exactly the distinction the order’s component list makes. Later office mergers and renamings can change where relevant files are kept, so the year of the action is as important as the modern name used to search for it. EO 8248; NARA records.

A reorganization order can change access to the President and administrative coordination without quantifying the policy impact of that change. Claims about increased presidential control should be framed as an inference from structure unless supported by records of actual decisions. The 1939 text clearly places named support functions together; it does not supply a measured account of every later President’s use of the Executive Office. Codified text.

Later change and present status

The Executive Office continues, but its membership has changed repeatedly. EO 11541, for instance, documents later budget and management reorganization. That separate instrument illustrates why the 1939 Bureau of the Budget arrangement cannot be presented as the current arrangement without qualification. The original order remains foundational to an institutional history; later orders and statutes determine the names and powers of contemporary offices. EO 11541; EO 8248.

The precise legacy is the formal definition of presidential support divisions at the start of the modern Executive Office. That is narrower than claiming EO 8248 created every office that has since worked for a President. A guide to a modern component should trace its own founding authority. This historical guide instead explains what Roosevelt established and how subsequent reorganization altered the arrangement. 1939 order; NARA EOP history.

For source checking, compare the September text with the earlier plans and the relevant record group, then read a later instrument for any office claimed to persist. This avoids two symmetrical errors: reducing the order to a ceremonial founding date, and projecting its exact 1939 component list into the present. NARA codified order; Record Group 130.

What a presidential support office can prove

The division list created a place for budget and administrative support close to the President. Proximity can shape coordination, but EO 8248 does not itself record the content of later policy advice or show that one assistant overruled a department. A claim about influence in a specific decision needs memoranda, correspondence and testimony from that decision. The order establishes the formal setting in which such evidence might be found. EO 8248; NARA RG 130.

The White House Office’s immediate clerical and communication functions should not be collapsed into the budget bureau’s broader work. The order put different duties in named components. When an archive labels a document “Executive Office,” identify the issuing division before attributing it to the President personally. An institutional record and a presidential decision are different forms of evidence. 1939 order; EOP archival guide.

Administrative assistants were intended to help the President obtain information and manage work. Their office did not give them an independent constitutional office or a free-standing power to legislate. This is a narrow reading of the text, and it protects against a common oversimplification that the modern presidency was entirely created by a single 1939 order. The document organized support within the legal system then in place. EO 8248 duties.

The effective date in September matters when dating an action to the order. Earlier July reorganization plans are part of the causal history, but a file created between July and September may reflect a transition or another authority. A source-led chronology uses the date of the specific instrument that moved or assigned the relevant function. NARA codification.

A later order such as EO 11541 changed the budget component’s organization. It is evidence of institutional evolution, not proof that the original 1939 charter was meaningless. The Executive Office survived precisely because its parts could be adjusted for later administrations and laws. A status statement should distinguish the continuing umbrella from changed constituent offices. EO 11541; EO 8248.

For a present-day office, use its current authority. For a 1939 office, use the original charter and contemporaneous files. This research discipline prevents the familiar name “Executive Office” from erasing changes across decades. The historical significance of EO 8248 is concrete: it defined the divisions and responsibilities of a newly organized presidential support structure at a particular date. EO 8248 text; NARA EOP records.

The enduring institution and changing offices

The Executive Office’s survival can make its founding arrangement seem permanent. Yet the White House Office, budget component and other divisions had different histories. EO 8248 assigned specific duties in 1939; later orders changed some components while retaining the broader presidential support structure. A reader should avoid treating the umbrella name as proof that every original part retains its original authority. 1939 order; later EO 11541.

Budget coordination provides an example. Its placement close to the President had institutional significance, but budget requests still involved executive agencies and congressional appropriations. The order cannot be cited as a presidential power to spend money without Congress. It describes administrative organization, not a replacement for fiscal law. EO 8248.

The National Archives’ record guide helps locate early Executive Office files, but archival preservation is a different kind of evidence from a live legal rule. A file can establish that an office operated in a certain year; a later order or statute can show what replaced it. Read them in time order to answer a status question. NARA RG 130; EO 11541.

The order is best described as a formal charter for presidential support after the 1939 reorganization. That is a substantial institutional change, even though the text does not measure policy outcomes. It explains the architecture in which future Presidents worked while leaving their individual decisions and later organizational reforms to their own records. NARA codified EO 8248.

Common questions

When was the order effective?

Roosevelt signed it September 8, 1939; the text made it effective September 11. Original ending.

Did it establish OMB under that name?

No. The original named the Bureau of the Budget; later amendments appear in NARA’s current codification. Original; NARA.

Does its original office chart remain current?

No. Constituent offices changed by later plans and amendments. Annotations.