Emmett Joseph Leahy was born on December 24, 1910, in Washington, D.C. His parents were immigrants from southern Ireland.

He rejected the view of Sir Hilary Jenkinson of the United Kingdom that archivists should not be involved in this process because they would no longer be seen as impartial.

[4] During World War II (1939–1945) Leahy transferred to the United States Department of the Navy in September 1941 as director of records coordination.

[6] The navy's Archival Service established the federal government's first intermediate records centers, releasing floor space and filing cabinets for use in the war effort.

[6] This included millions of microfilm copies of engineering drawings of aircraft, ordnance and ships for use in repairs.

He introduced the "Correspondex" system of standardized letters and paragraphs for routine correspondence, greatly reducing manual effort.

[6] After leaving the navy in 1945 Leahy joined Remington Rand and worked for two years in the management consultant and microfilming divisions.

[6] In 1948 Leahy obtained funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to found the non-profit National Records Management Council.

From 1949 he acquired corporate customers including Eastern Air Lines, DuPont, Bethlehem Steel and Alcoa.

On this commission he proposed that records management should be concerned with efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and should be treated separately from historical archiving.

His task force showed that millions of dollars could be saved annually through government-wide paperwork management processes.