In 1942, to carry out Executive Order No. 9066, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt was designated military commander for the western region of the United States. In that capacity, he created the Wartime Civil Control Administration; its mission was to forcibly remove and incarcerate people of Japanese ancestry to detention camps. DeWitt placed the Administration under the immediate direction of Col. Karl R. Bendetsen, in San Francisco.

One portfolio of miscellaneous reports, procedural manuals, memoranda, forms, orders, official announcements, and newspaper clippings concerning the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. Most items are from the San Francisco office of the Wartime Civil Control Administration; one report is addressed specifically to Col. Bendetsen in San Francisco. Most of the material is dated 1942, although a 1940 alien registration form is also enclosed. A bibliography on Japanese in America is present, compiled by an unnamed Senior Archivist, War Relocation Authority, Washington, D.C.