Rufus Miles
American government administrator and author
Rufus Edward Miles, Jr. (June 14, 1910 – April 9, 1996) was an American government administrator and author. He held administrative positions at the Federal Security Agency and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (H.E.W.) for fifteen years. He also served as an assistant secretary to three United States Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. After his retirement in 1965, he wrote several books, including The Department of Health Education and Welfare (1974), a history of H.E.W., and Awakening From the American Dream: The Social and Political Consequences of Growth (1976), which argued that rapid economic growth was not sustainable over the long term. The latter book was a runner-up for the 1977 National Book Award.
Miles' Law
Miles is the originator and namesake of the aphorism Miles' Law, which states, "Where you stand depends on where you sit." The phrase originated in remarks Miles made in late 1948 and early 1949 while working as chief of the labor and welfare branch of the Bureau of the Budget.
References
External links
Rufus Edward Miles, Jr. Papers, 1934-1985. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University at Albany, State University of New York (hereafter referred to as the Miles Papers).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Rufus Miles” as american government administrator and author. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american government administrator and author. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q61980558. VIAF identifies the subject as 16015746. The Library of Congress control number is n50039561. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1996, 1965 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rufus Miles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.