GERALD L. WARREN FILES, 1974-75 (1984)

The Gerald Warren Papers concern his work as Deputy Press Secretary and Director of the White House Communications Office between August 1974 and August 1975. He joined the White House Communications Office in 1969 as Deputy Press Secretary to Ron Ziegler in the Nixon administration, often delivering the daily press briefings as the Watergate scandal intensified in 1974. Following the resignation of Richard Nixon, Warren remained in the Communications Office, first serving as one of several deputies to Jerald ter Horst. He eventually assumed the role as Deputy Press Secretary for Information Liaison under ter Horst's successor Ron Nessen in November 1974.

As Deputy Press Secretary, Warren oversaw the functions of the White House Communications Office. This office produced the daily news summaries, and provided copies of speeches, reports, fact sheets, and other information on administration programs to almost 3,000 editors and broadcasters outside of Washington. The office coordinated administration public relations campaigns, acted as White House contact for media organizations and individual newspapers, radio, and television stations, and supervised public affairs activities in the Federal agencies. It arranged special briefings, set up interviews between newsmen and public officials, and compiled briefing books for President Ford’s media contacts.

The press clippings, briefing books, speech texts, and interview and press conference transcripts within the Warren Papers reflect these daily duties. They provide examples of how the media, especially the print media, covered events and issues during the first year of the Ford presidency. In addition, this collection supplements the existing files and papers of press office personnel, in containing several newspaper articles about and interviews with former President Richard Nixon. These clippings provide insight and examples of how the press covered President Nixon and Watergate in the decade after he left office. The Warren Papers also hold press clippings related to Congress’ 1975 investigation of a bribery scandal involving the Northrop Corporation, an aerospace firm and defense contractor.

Of special interest in this collection is a folder containing the transcripts of several Department of Defense press briefings during and following the Mayaguez rescue in May 1975. These briefings detail the military implications of the crisis and discuss how the operation unfolded, as well as casualty reports. These briefings complement the White House Press Secretary’s daily briefings on Mayaguez found in the Ron Nessen Files.

Related Materials (June 2004)
The most important related collection is the Gerald Warren and Margita White Files (14 feet) which give a much more complete record of the work of the Communications Office. The Library also holds the papers of Margita White who served as Assistant Press Secretary and later Director of the White House Communications Office after Warren’s departure. The files of David Gergen, who headed the Office of Communications after Gerald Warren and Margita White's departures, and the files of James Shuman, who edited the news summary and prepared briefing books for the President's media encounters, are part of the library’s collection. Another related collection is the papers of Press Secretary Ron Nessen, who was Warren’s supervisor.

In addition, Gerald Warren has donated a large collection of personal papers concerning his work in the Nixon and Ford administrations to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Additional material on his post-White House activities is housed at the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California-San Diego. Papers relating to Warren’s service in the Nixon White House are presumed to be part of the Nixon Presidential Materials Project.