At the end of his administration, Gerald R. Ford contracted with publisher Harper & Row to write his memoirs. Trevor Armbrister, a journalist and correspondent for Reader's Digest, assisted him in the research and writing of the book, entitled A Time to Heal. This collection contains correspondence, notes, audio recordings of interviews, interview transcripts, drafts of chapters, and other materials related to the writing and publication process.
The portion of the collection that is available for research are Gerald R. Ford's handwritten personal reflections on twenty-seven different topics ranging from "How I make decisions" to "Advice to a teen-age daughter."
Series Description and Container List
Container List
Collection Overview
Scope and Content Note
While writing his autobiography, A Time to Heal (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), Gerald R. Ford composed a series of personal reflections on twenty-seven topics ranging from "How I make decisions" to "Advice to a teen-age daughter." Most deal with personal principles: the value of competition, of loyalty, of ambition. Others concern politics and governance: making decisions, the use of the presidential veto, or the role of regulatory agencies. A few relate to more mundane topics such as socializing in Washington or favorite movies. Some touch on historical topics, including a nine-page comment on how history will view Richard Nixon.
What makes these documents so unusual is not only their introspection but also their form. President Ford recorded these observations by hand, writing in blue ball point on his favored yellow writing tablets. The original documents are permanently preserved at the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The rest of this collection is still unprocessed and is not yet available for research.
Details
15 linear feet (ca. 30,000 pages)
Gerald R. Ford (accession number 80-13, 83-19, 91-2, 92-20, 92-26, 94-7, and 97-22)
Access
Most of this collection is unprocessed and temporarily restricted from public access. The items listed on the container list are open.
Copyright
Gerald R. Ford has donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to remain with them. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain.
Processed by
Prepared December 1993; revised March 2020.