The Lloyd Bentsen Collection
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"Lloyd Bentsen's deep love of The University of Texas was at the heart of his decision to place his papers here," says Don E. Carleton, director of UT's Center for American History (CAH). "But he also recognized our exemplary record of taking care of such collections and making them widely accessible." The Bentsen Collection is the largest collection of its kind ever received by the CAH. The Center's growing Congressional History Collection houses the papers of more than 50 former members of Congress, including Senators Morris Sheppard and Ralph Yarborough, and Representatives Sam Rayburn, James Buchanan, and Bob Eckhardt.
Bentsen's papers include meticulously maintained correspondence, legislative research files, campaign records, photographs, audio and video tapes, notes, memos, and other documents from his term as U.S. Senator (1971-1992), from his unsuccessful 1976 bid to win the Democratic Party nomination for president, and from his 1988 campaign as the vice presidential candidate on the Michael Dukakis ticket. The Bentsen Collection includes audio tapes and transcripts of Bentsen's oral history of his Senate years, recorded with UT History Professor Lewis Gould, and of his years as Secretary of the Treasury, recorded with Don E. Carleton. Carleton points out that Bentsen's papers expand the collection's extensive documentation of the history of the U.S. Senate in the 1970s and 1980s. "When we take on a collection," Carleton says, "we're not just adding to the University's own research resources. Senator Bentsen entrusted us with his papers because he knew that it was more than a gift to the University. It was a gift to the state, the country, and the world." Lloyd's Bentsen's Life of Service 
Lloyd Bentsen was born in Mission, Texas, in 1921 and received a law degree from The University of Texas at Austin in 1942. He served as a combat pilot in World War II, flying 35 missions in B-24s from southern Italy with the 449th bomb squadron. At age 23 he rose to the rank of major and was given command of a squadron of 600 men. For his military accomplishments he was awarded the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the highest commendations for valor. Before completing his military service he was promoted to colonel in the Air Force Reserve. After the war Bentsen returned to his native Rio Grande Valley in Texas and served as Hidalgo County Judge and then as a U.S. Congressman for three terms. In 1955 he left politics to begin a business career in Houston, eventually becoming president of Lincoln Consolidated, a financial holdings institution. Lloyd Bentsen threw his hat into the 1970 U.S. Senate race in Texas and defeated Ralph Yarborough in the Democratic primary and GOP candidate George Bush in the general election. In 1976 Bentsen ran unsuccessfully for the presidency. While in the Senate he served as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Joint Economic Committee, and he was a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. In 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis chose Bentsen as his vice presidential running mate. 
Bentsen served as the Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration from January 20, 1993, until December 22, 1994. Lloyd Bentsen and his wife, the former Beryl Ann Longino of Lufkin, Texas, have three children. The Center for American History, UT Austin
Before the addition of the Bentsen papers, the extent and variety of the CAH's collections was already staggering. Located on the east side of campus near the LBJ Museum, the CAH's collections include more than 46,000 linear feet of archives and manuscripts. Its books, serials, and pamphlets number more than 160,000 volumes. The collections include Texas artifacts past and present--from the first book ever published in Texas to the Walter Cronkite papers. The CAH also hosts such programs as the John Henry Faulk Symposium on issues relating to the First Amendment.
The CAH's most extensive holdings are in the history of Texas, the South, the Southwest, the Rocky Mountain West, and Congressional history. Each of these areas contains treasures of incalculable historical value. The CAH Texas history collections include the Austin papers, the official records and family papers of Anglo-American colonizer Stephen F. Austin (1765-1839) and his nephew and secretary, Moses Austin Bryan (1830s-1880s); the Béxar archives, the Spanish Colonial and Mexican provincial records of Texas from 1717 to 1836; and the earliest datable photograph taken in Texas, an 1849 daguerreotype of the Alamo chapel. By Thomas Tarbox Kiersted,
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