CABINET MEETINGS FILES, 1974-76

President Ford's Cabinet met 35 times during his administration, from August 1974 to November 1976. Most meetings took place in the morning in the White House Cabinet Room and lasted from one to two hours. Notable meetings that deviated from this routine include the May 7, 1975 meeting aboard the Presidential yacht Sequoia, which sailed in the evening; the Cabinet dinner on the evening of November 6, 1975; and the January 19, 1976 "State of the Union preview," which met in the afternoon and lasted only one half hour.

The meetings were usually formal, following set agendas, although no official minutes were recorded. Participants often included Under Secretaries, Counsellors, agency representatives, White House personnel, and various assistants, in addition to the President and Cabinet members. In what they called "an historic first," a press pool attended the first part of the February 19, 1976 meeting and produced copious notes.

The collection simplifies research on Cabinet meetings by assembling in one place copies of scattered administrative materials and meeting notes. The materials were located and copied during an extensive search of the Library's current holdings. The relevant documents were scattered throughout the files and papers of various White House staff.

This collection documents the planning and execution of Cabinet meetings, but it makes no attempt to provide background materials on the topics discussed at each meeting.

Cabinet meeting notes, both typed and handwritten, should prove valuable for many researchers. However, notes do not exist for every meeting. For most meetings, there are between one and four sets of notes. Quality among the note-takers varies as well, from the brief and cryptic notes like James Cannon's of September 8, 1976, to the comprehensive typed notes John Guthrie prepared October 11, 1974. Topics include legislative strategy, press relations, domestic and foreign policy issues, political campaigns, and White House administration. In some cases, notes have been sanitized where certain passages are temporarily restricted.

Related Materials
Notes and other materials have been gleaned from the following collections:

• Philip W. Buchen Files
• Dean Burch Files
• James M. Cannon Files
• James M. Cannon Papers
• John G. Carlson Files
• Richard B. Cheney Files
• James E. Connor Files
• Robert T. Hartmann Files
• Robert T. Hartmann Papers
• Jerry H. Jones Files
• Bobbie Greene Kilberg Files
• John O. Marsh Files
• Ron Nessen Files
• Ron Nessen Papers
• Presidential Handwriting File
• President's Daily Diary
• Press Release Unit Files
• Michael Raoul-Duval Papers
• L. William Seidman Files
• White House Central Files Subject File (FG 10:1)