ROBO LETTERS, 1975-1980

Summary:

The ROBO LETTERS are a direct response to constituent mail and their very existence indicates which issues were paramount during the Congressman's career. They also indicate, though in a more tactful manner, the Congressman's views on particular subjects expressed elsewhere in the collection:thus there are four different robo letters on abortion or abortion funding (targeted according to the opinion expressed in the constituent's letter), two on capital punishment, and two on a "pay raise" slated for Congressmen in the 94th Congress (called "pay hike" in a robo letter response to those opposing it).

The 1975 robo letters (on non-computer paper) appear in five sequences, each of increasing length, and are accompanied by three separately dated indexes. One index is annotated as to deletions and additions that were made to a later sequence.

Following the 1975 robo letters is a single folder containing 1978 "Correspondence Figures" (similar to the [1980 Robos: Tallies of Individual Robo Usage] folder which follows it). Since there are no "Tickler Reports" or "Weekly History Reports" (such as are sometimes a facet of robo letter systems) nor any actual letters from constituents whom then received robo letters, or white (addressed) copies of the Congressman's responses to them, these "Correspondence Figures" and [Tallies] are the only key to volume and type of robo mail. The "Correspondence Figures", copied from computer-generated originals, also probably indicate that the Dialcom CCS service (discussed later in this description) was instituted as early as 1978 although no 1978 or 1979 CCS robo letters are present in the collection to actually prove this.

The 1980 robos appear in a computer print-out format produced by an independent computer firm, Dialcom (Maryland) and called "Congressional Correspondence System" (CCS). While there are only two editions of the complete set of 1980 robos (July 1980 and December 1980), they range across a numbering scheme from 1002 to 32127, but with numerous original gaps or subsequent deletions (see Deletion Notebook and its index anterior to 1980 Printout #1). There are two indexes to the 1980 robos:one provided by CCS to its generic Congressional client as an aid to structuring robos by subject ("List Codes") and the other instituted by Congressman Haguire's staff and called both "Text Summary Report" (7-03-80) and "Issues List" (9-15-80). The "Text Summary Report" is a detailed robo-by-robo breakdown of the more general "Issues List" and also provides data as to date-of-last-use and quantity-to-date. There is no indication as to whether the "Text Summary Report", and likewise the [1980 Robos: Tallies of Individual Robo Usage] incorporate figures from the 1975 robos. Indeed, although there are rough similarities between the 1975 and 1980 robos, they should be considered separate units.

For a better understanding of the CCS system and its increasingly sophisticated applications, see both the [1980 Robos: Dialcom Company's literature] and [1980 Robos: Intra-office Communications re: robos] folders.

Ann Pissot and Adrienne Buchichio in Washington were in charge of the robo letter system.