Benjamin Franklin Bailar was named the sixty-first Postmaster General of the United States by the Postal Service Board of Governors on February 16, 1975, succeeding Elmer T. Klassen. In 1970, the Postal Service was created as a semi-independent establishment of the executive branch under an eleven-member Board of Governors. The purpose of the reorganization was to bring a more business-oriented administration to the huge federal postal system. As both the Postmaster General, and previously as the Deputy Postmaster General, Bailar sat on this board.
RELATED MATERIALSRelated materials can be found in the White House Central Files Subject Files categories FG 23 and 23/A (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare), Presidential Personnel Office Files, and the David Mathew Papers.
Dr. Dennis Barnes is a graduate of the College of Wooster, University of Wisconsin and the University of Virginia. He joined the Domestic Council staff in May 1976 and served the remainder of the year. He served as Assistant Director for Energy and Science under Associate Director Glenn Schleede and inherited a number of duties associated with general sciences that had previously been the responsibility of Kathleen Ryan.
Shirley Peck Barnes was a hospital administrator in Denver, Colorado, during the Vietnam War, and offered her facility and services to the Friends of Children of Vietnam (FCVN) adoption agency in April and May, 1975. FCVN was a participating agency in Operation Babylift, a coordinated evacuation of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American babies and children during the fall of Saigon and the withdrawal of American troops. The airlift began in late March, 1975, when Edward Daly, owner of the World Airways airline, flew 50 orphans out of Vietnam on an unauthorized but widely celebrated flight.
John W. Barnum began his career in public service as the General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Transportation in July of 1971. During his tenure he provided legal advice and counsel to the Secretary of Transportation on a multitude of initiatives within the Department. Barnum’s time as the General Counsel culminated in his nomination as Undersecretary of Transportation, a position he assumed in July of 1973, and a subsequent appointment as Deputy Secretary of Transportation in 1974, a position he held until the end of the Ford administration in January 1977.
William J.
William J. Baroody, Jr., began his career in Washington in 1961 as legislative assistant and press secretary to Republican congressman Melvin Laird. He also served as research director for the House Republican Conference in 1968 and 1969.
Major Robert Barrett served in the United States Army before being appointed as Military Aide to President Gerald R. Ford in August 1974. When Ford left office following his loss in the 1976 presidential campaign, Barrett resigned his military commission to serve as a member of Ford's post-presidential transition team and then his Executive Assistant in his California office from 1977-1981. In 1982 Barrett left Ford’s post-presidential office and opened Barrett and Associates, a public relations and consulting firm which assisted Ford during many of his post-presidential activities.
Although not a member of Ford's congressional or White House staff, Benton L. Becker played an integral role in some of the most important events of Gerald Ford's career, including the investigation of Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Ford's confirmation as Vice President, the Nixon pardon, and the disposition of Nixon's papers.
Soon after President Lyndon Johnson appointed the members of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (the Warren Commission), they began hiring a staff to assist them. The Commissioners and Executive Director J. Lee Rankin recruited a mixture of both experienced attorneys and promising younger attorneys. One of the young attorneys was David W. Belin of Des Moines, Iowa. Rankin paired Belin with senior attorney Joseph Ball and assigned them the task of determining the identity of President Kennedy’s assassin.
On November 19, 1975, President Gerald Ford learned that Ronald Reagan would challenge him for the Republican nomination for President in the 1976 election. This meant that the approaching primary season would be much more grueling than had been anticipated and the contest for delegates had now commenced.
When Gerald Ford succeeded to the Presidency on August 9, 1974, one of his first acts was to appoint his long-time friend and former law partner Philip Buchen as chief White House legal advisor and give the position Cabinet status. During his administration, Ford relied upon Buchen for advice on a wide range of issues, legislation, and actions. Like Counsellors to the President John Marsh and Robert Hartmann, Buchen handled a variety of assignments not always covered by his specific job description. The extensive files accumulated by Buchen during his service in the Ford Whit
One of President Ford’s initial acts after taking his oath of office, on August 9, 1974, was to name longtime friend and former law partner, Philip W. Buchen, chief White House Counsel. Ford elevated this position to Cabinet status one month later. As Counsel to the President, Buchen provided legal advice to the President and the White House staff, supervised a staff of attorneys in handling legal matters of the President or his staff, and served as a White House liaison with varied government agencies.
Andre Buckles, a former assistant general counsel of the United States Information Agency, began working for the Domestic Council as Staff Assistant for Housing and Community Affairs in May 1974. He was promoted to Assistant Director in October 1975 and left the administration in July 1976. During his tenure as Staff Assistant, Buckles reported directly to Tod Hullin, Associate Director. The Buckles papers do not contain any materials from the period after his promotion to Assistant Director.
The Dean Burch Files reflect the work of Burch and his staff from August to December 1974 on White House liaison with the Republican National Committee and other party organizations, political advice to the President on such topics as legislation and appointments to positions, and the President's involvement in the 1974 election campaign.
After serving as an economic adviser to presidential candidate to Richard Nixon, Arthur Burns served as Counsellor to President Nixon from 196970. In 1970, Dr.
Origin and Arrangement of the Burns PapersThe papers were created and accumulated by Dr. Burns while he was Counsellor to President Nixon, 1969 70, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, 1970 78, Distinguished Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, 1978-81 and 1985-87, and U.S. Ambassador to West Germany, 1981-85. Dr. Burns donated the papers to the Ford Library in 1981. The Library has retained the original file scheme of the papers, and material on a given topic is often located in several different file segments or series.
The Alexander Butterfield Papers exclusively concern Butterfield's July 13, 1973 interview with staff of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (Ervin Committee), which was investigating the Watergate burglary and related illegal activities. During the interview in response to direct questions, Butterfield made his historic disclosure that presidential conversations in the Oval Office and elsewhere had been secretly taped record at the direction of President Nixon. A few days later, on July 16, Butterfield repeated the disclosure in open committee testimon