FRANK A. URSOMARSO White House Staff Assistant, Office of Presidential Advance, 1973-77: Papers, 1973-2006, Bulk 1974-1977

From 1973 to 1977, Frank Ursomarso served as a White House Staff Assistant to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the Office of Presidential Advance. As an advanceman under President Ford, Ursomarso planned various domestic and foreign presidential trips, including nationwide campaign travel and tours of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Basin. Ursomarso coordinated motorcade and Air Force One arrangements, lodging accommodations, meeting schedules, security, and more. Conducting pre-advance work and frequently traveling with the Presidential party, Ursomarso played a key role in planning many of President Ford’s most significant trips, from his 1974 visit to Japan to his 1976 campaign whistlestop tour across his home state of Michigan. Ursomarso later served as the television production coordinator for the 1976 presidential debates and briefly as Director of the White House Office of Communications in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan.

Comprised of a Trip File, a General Subject File, and a Newspaper File, the Frank Ursomarso Papers document Ursomarso’s planning activities in service of the Office of Presidential Advance primarily during the Ford administration. The Trip File contains planning materials such as schedules, diagrams, manifests, and publications that document travel to various domestic and international destinations. The Trip File provides unique insight about myriad aspects of trip planning, including local and national logistics, secret service and security, public perception of the president, and more. The materials in the Trip File demonstrate the many factors that influence decision making processes regarding presidential travel in each of these areas. The General Subject File contains materials pertaining to a variety of subjects such as advance office correspondence and planning materials, advance office and personal financial materials, White House staff memoranda and regulations, motorcade and Air Force One specifications, and planning materials for President Ford’s 2006 state funeral. These materials document President Ford’s travel from a unique perspective, including items such as Ursomarso’s personal campaign travel notes and narratives of notable events such as the assassination attempt in 1975 and the selection of Bob Dole as Ford’s running mate in 1976. The Newspaper File complements these materials, containing entire issues of local and national newspapers documenting Ford’s domestic and international travel.

Related Materials (June 2018):
Related materials providing insights into White House advance and scheduling operations can be found in the files and papers of Byron M. “Red” Cavaney, Director of the White House Advance Office; and the files of Warren Hendriks, Jerry Jones, William Nicholson and Warren Rustand, and Terrence O’Donnell.   Additional material can be found in the papers of Robin Martin and Peter Sorum.

The Trip (TR) category of the White House Central Files Subject File contains correspondence, schedules, and summaries for foreign and domestic trips. 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.