BYRON M. "RED" CAVANEY PAPERS, (1972) 1974-76

The Byron M. “Red” Cavaney Papers document the work of the White House Advance Office. As head of the White House Advance Office, Mr. Cavaney oversaw the planning for President Ford’s domestic and international trips. In this role he also selected volunteers to assist with the trips. 

The files typically predate the official Presidential visits by two or three weeks as staff assistants met with local or foreign officials to negotiate agendas, secure living arrangements and transportation, and diagram site locations for entry and exit routes.

The International Trip Files focus on President Ford’s foreign trips from October 1974 through June 1976 to Asia, Europe, and two Economic Summit meetings. Included in the background materials are State Department briefing books on the destination country and an overview of cultural etiquette. 

The Domestic Trip Files focus primarily on the Ford administration but trip files from the Nixon administration are also included in the collection. The background material is especially voluminous and varied for each Presidential trip with information about cultural sites, hotels, convention centers, airports, local schools, and universities. The Bicentennial celebrations in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia are well documented, as is the 1976 Presidential campaign with material on the Ronald Reagan primary challenge and the Republican National Convention in Kansas City.

The collection also contains material on the administrative aspects of the White House Advance Office, including its use of volunteers. 

Related Materials (March 2015)
Related materials are located in a number of other fully processed, partly processed, and unprocessed collections. The Trip or “TR” category of the White House Central Files is a fully processed collection of correspondence, schedules, and summaries for foreign and domestic trips. Similarly, the President’s Daily Diary offers a schedule of the President’s actions and the people he met during his trips. The National Security Advisor Security Files contains substantial material pertaining to foreign trips. The Peter Sorum Papers provide details into multiple domestic trips and the Europe trip of July and August 1975. On the purely domestic front, the Jerry H. Jones Files provide material on 1976 campaign trips. Researchers can identify the file locations of related open materials from PRESNET search reports. The personal papers of Byron Cavaney, Robin Martin, and Frank Ursomarso, and the White House office files of Warren Hendriks, William Nicholson and Warren Rustand, and Terrence O’Donnell provide additional insight into advance and scheduling operations.