DAVID R. GERGEN FILES, 1974-77

David Gergen, a former Nixon speechwriter, as a speechwriter for Secretary of the Treasury, William Simon in December returned to the White House as special assistant to Ford's chief of staff, Richard Cheney, leaving his position in the Treasury Department 1975. His title was changed to Special Counsel to the President for Communications and until July 1976 his primary responsibility was drafting presidential speeches and statements. Gergen was independent of the main speechwriting staff headed by Robert Hartmann. In July 1976, Gergen replaced Margita White as director of the Office of Communications and restructured the office to reflect its augmented responsibilities.

Discussed below under separate headings are the scope and content of the Gergen files, the organization and functions of the White House Office of Communications, and related materials in the Ford Library.

Scope and Content of the Gergen Files
The Gergen files reflect his responsibilities during the presidential campaign, extensive speechwriting and editing involvement, and his routine administrative responsibilities for the Office of Communication.

The presidential speeches file includes drafts and final edited versions of speeches Gergen produced at Cheney's direction, frequently as possible alternatives to the drafts prepared by Robert Hartmann's editorial office. In some cases Gergen's was the only draft on such significant subjects as national security and busing. Although Gergen's speechwriting duties ended when he became director of the communications office he was still involved in composing broad campaign themes from which speeches were developed.

Gergen's office assisted in preparing Ford for the presidential debates, and the files include a significant amount of background material compiled for that purpose. The office was also responsible for compiling The Ford Presidency: A Portrait of the First Two Years. Gergen drafted much of the text which is scattered throughout the general subject file.

Other campaign-related materials include a detailed log of the Democratic Convention, organization and scheduling of the presidential "advocate" program, planning for the Ford-Carter debates, and a file of media requests from selected states. More routine materials include copies of the presidential briefing books, White House press releases, and White House briefing e Gergen was responsible for gathering names of nominees and conducting surveys of White House staff opinions on possible Medal of Freedom winners. Although the bulk of these selections were made at the end of the administration, Gergen's files reflect his responsibility with the matter beginning when he returned to the White House in December 1975.

Several areas are not well documented in this collection. The first is the large number of meetings Gergen attended. Only scattered notes by Gergen on his discussions appear in the files. A second undocumented area is Gergen's liaison activity with the President Ford Committee. Lastly, while there are some memoranda related to the administration of the Office of Communications the researcher will have difficulty in tracing the office's restructuring and some of its augmented responsibilities under Gergen's direction.

Organization and Functions of the White House Office of Communications
Created during the Nixon administration with Herbert G. Klein as its first director, the communications office sought to provide almost 3,000 editors and broadcasters outside of Washington with copies of speeches, reports and other information. It coordinated administration public relations campaigns, acted as White House contact for radio-television networks and independent stations, supervised public affairs activities in the federal agencies, arranged press briefings and set up interviews between newsmen and public officials.

In 1974 the communications office became deeply involved in the White House public relations response to the growing Watergate scandal. The office was then headed by Kenneth Clawson who departed shortly after Gerald Ford became president. Gerald Warren, deputy press secretary throughout the Nixon years, then took over the position. When Warren resigned in June 1975, Margita E. White, an assistant press secretary to Ron Nessen, was named director.

The post-Watergate responsibilities of the Office of Communications were considerably diminished. When Ford became president thought was given to disbanding the office. It was maintained but became an arm of Nessen's press operation with considerably fewer employees and less responsibility. The office occasionally mailed out informational material to newspapers and arranged for administration officials to speak to groups around the country. Included as part of the communications office function was the compilation of the president's daily news summary and the president's briefing book for media encounters.

When Margita White left to become a member of the Federal Communications Commission in July 1976 the office was reconstructed and Gergen was named director. Although organizationally a part of the press office, the office functioned independently with Gergen reporting directly to Chief of Staff Cheney. The office was also given a considerably broader mandate. It was responsible for communicating to the public the president's achievements during the election year and served as White House liaison with the President Ford Committee and federal departments. Under Gergen's direction the office continued to carry out its regular responsibilities of drafting the president's daily news summary, performing editorial and research functions, scheduling surrogate speakers ("advocates") for the president and arranging press interviews with administration officials.

Related Materials (May 1987)
Other available collections on speechwriting include White House Central Files category SP (Speeches), the files of Paul Theis and Robert Orben of the editorial staff, the Reading Copies of Presidential Speeches, and the files of Counsellor Robert Hartmann.

Material concerning Gergen's campaign-related activities appear in the files of Richard Cheney and Ron Nessen. Other collections containing material on the 1976 presidential campaign are described on the Ford Library handout "The 1976 Presidential Election: A Guide to Manuscript Collections Available for Research."

While the files of Gergen's predecessor Margita White are currently unprocessed and unavailable for research approximately 1,600 pages of material she prepared for Ron Nessen is accessible in the Papers of Ron Nessen.