All the President’s Men

This chapter identifies the administrative personnel responsible for the creation of a council record and their relationship to the bishops and officials in charge. It advocates the key distinction of an official secretariat tasked with the production of the ‘official’ record from other clergymen present and also skilled in the techniques of stenographic recording. It disproves the notion of alternative records created by such men and demonstrates the reliance instead on ‘memory’ by those challenging the official records. The examination further refutes hypotheses of part-records made for individual participants and only subsequently accumulated. The official secretariat instead creates a single official record in close collaboration with, and on the direct instructions of the council’s leadership.