Appointment of Edwin L. Harper as Assistant to the President for Policy Development

The President today announced the appointment of Edwin L. Harper as Assistant to the President for Policy Development. He will succeed Martin Anderson, whose resignation is effective March 1, 1982.

Mr. Harper is currently Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. As head of the Office of Policy Development and Assistant to the President, Mr. Harper will report to Edwin Meese III, Counsellor to the President. He will brief the President regularly on domestic matters.

Mr. Harper will prepare the domestic policy agenda for the President and will be charged with seeing that policy development and the decision process are moving in a timely manner. He will also be an ex officio member of all of the Cabinet Councils.

Prior to assuming his present position as Deputy Director of OMB, Mr. Harper was in private business, holding positions with INA Corp., CertainTeed Corp., and Emerson Electric Co. in 1973-81. In 1969-72 he served in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and Assistant Director of the Domestic Council. Mr. Harper was at the Brookings Institution and Rutgers in 1965-68.

Mr. Harper has served as Chairman of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, the coordinating body of agency Inspectors General and others involved in the President's campaign against fraud, waste, and abuse.

He graduated from Principia College (1963) and received his Ph.D. in 1968 from the University of Virginia. He is married to the former Lucy Davis, and they have two children: Elizabeth, 14, and Peter, 6. Mr. Harper is 40 years old.