This series contains records relating to Reed's activities with the Business Advisory Council, International Chamber of Commerce, Committee for Economic Development, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Reed's correspondence concerning the Business Advisory Council, which became the Business Council in 1961, begins in 1955. In July 1958, Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks requested the Business Advisory Committee for the Department of Commerce to set up a Business Advisory Subcommittee on World Economic Practices to act as an advisory council to the Department of Commerce. Reed served on both committees, and their policies and operations are documented in these files.

Reed was a delegate to the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. Correspondence includes letters to Paul G. Hoffman and Edward Stettinius concerning the U. S. delegation to the San Francisco conference. There is one folder on the conference and several relating to organizational and fund-raising matters. Several articles written by Reed on international political and economic issues are also contained in this series.

Reed's papers and correspondence document his work with the Committee for Economic Development and Council on Foreign Relations. They describe the role that these two organizations played in shaping the post-war relationship between business and the state, and the impact that this had on economic and foreign policy. Because of Reed's early involvement with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), his correspondence documents much of the history of that organization. The papers include correspondence, itineraries, schedules, programs, and personal notes. Many conference programs contain speeches by Reed, especially during his tenure as President of the ICC.

Beginning in the 1950s, Reed became an advisor to the U.S. Information Agency. His correspondence with Meyer Kestenbaum, chairman of the General Business Committee of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information (USACI), concerns funding and the Committee's relationship with the State Department.

Reed joined the United States Advisory Committee (USAC) in 1948 and, through that organization, became a member of the USIA Executive Committee. He served in the USAC from 1948 to 1961. These files contain correspondence with USIA officers, as well as USIA reports to Congress, and, in a report to the Senate Appropriations Committee, a survey of U.S. information operations in Western Europe.

In December 1959, President Eisenhower directed Mansfield Sprague, then president of the American Machine and Foundry Company, to organize a commission to review the findings and recommendations of the Commission on International Information Activities. The Commission, on which Reed served, evaluated foreign information programs from 1948 to 1960, such as Radio Free Europe. The Commission terminated its activities in May 1960. Papers include news clips on the Commission and on its final report, correspondence from Lewis Douglas (with whom Reed served on the USACI) regarding Radio Free Europe, and reference to a USIA poll on international perceptions of the U.S. following the Sputnik launch. There is some correspondence regarding Reed's reaction to, and suggestions for, the final report.

Finally, this series contains correspondence documenting Reed's service on the bipartisan U.S. Committee on Information, established by President Harry Truman in 1948.