JAMES B. SHUMAN FILES, 1974-76

The James B. Shuman files cover his work as editor of both the President's news summary and Presidential briefing books for meetings with the news media from April 1975 to July 1976. Also included are earlier news summaries and briefing books which he inherited from predecessors. The news summary was a compilation and distillation of printed and electronic media news articles, distributed daily to the President and about 130 White House staff. The briefing books are compilations of hypothesized questions and proposed answers. They sometimes include background information not intended to be part of the answer. Although Shuman remained on the White House staff until the end of the administration, no files concerning his work between August 1976 and January 1977 is included.

Series concerning the production of the news summaries include the raw materials clipped for use in the summaries, drafts, and published versions. While the news summaries are complete from the beginning of the administration, the drafts start with September 1974 when Philip L. Warden assumed the editorship from Lyndon K. Allin. The clippings series begin with Shuman's arrival in April 1975. These materials are useful for studying the development for the news summary and the changes it went through under different editors. It is also possible to study the manner in which the staff compiled the news summary, although the lack of an administrative file of memoranda between Shuman and his staff, his superiors, and other White House staff members makes this much more difficult.

Two series concern Shuman's work as editor of the briefing books. Included are Shuman's copies of the briefing books, President Ford's copies (which were returned to Shuman after being used), and a file of briefing material on each state. The President's copies bear only occasional annotations. While some briefing books predate Shuman's service on the White House staff, the bulk of them reflect his work.

James Shuman first joined the administration on April 3, 1975, after a career in journalism and free-lance writing. He replaced Philip Warden as news summary editor and also took over the briefing book function previously handled by Gerald Warren and Thomas DeCair. There are indications that for at least part of his service he also supervised the press office correspondence unit and the special projects unit. Among the projects handled by the latter unit was Jonathan Hoornstra's work on media analysis.

In his role as news summary editor Shuman was aided by a staff of four to five assistants who edited AP and UPI news wire stories, monitored and wrote summaries of television news broadcasts, and excerpted articles from magazines and the 40 newspapers they read regularly and 60 more they scanned. Shuman set overall policy and supervised the work of the staff, but spent more of his own time compiling briefing books.

To compile briefing books he solicited questions and answer briefing sheets (Q & A's) from executive departments and agencies, White House and Domestic Council staff members and the President Ford Committee and also drafted some himself. He combined these with state profiles, summaries of state issues (supplied by the President's special assistant for intergovernmental affairs Stephen G. McConahey), and occasional background information from members of Congress. The briefing books were apparently not distributed very widely. Besides the President and press office staff such as Ron Nessen, David Gergen and Gerald Warren, the only other person who is known to have seem them regularly is Donald Rumsfeld. A small number of briefing books which Rumsfeld retired to the White House Central Files was combined into this collection during processing.

Around August 1, 1976 Shuman gave up his news summary responsibilities to Agnes Waldron and his briefing book work to either Waldron or Anne Brunsdale. He handled general press office duties assisting David Gergen and Ron Nessen for the rest of the administration.

Related Materials (March 1983)
Among the related materials at this writing are news summaries in the Agnes Waldron files and briefing books in the David Gergen files, both covering August 1976 - January 1977; the files of his supervisor Margita White; materials in the Barry Roth files relating to a lawsuit against the White House by a former member of the news summary staff (some Shuman administrative memoranda are included in those files); and the White House Central Files subject file categories PR 16-2 (Press Conferences), PR 16-3 (Presidential News Analysis), and TR (Trips). President Ford's copies of the news summaries are among the files of the Office of the Staff Secretary.