A. JAMES REICHLEY FILES, 1976

The files of James Reichley cover the period May-October 1976 when he served as a political consultant for White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney.

A journalist with practical experience in the political arena, Reichley assisted Cheney with President Ford's primary and general election campaigns. His broad responsibility was to consider long range goals and policies, and to generate new ideas. In particular, Reichley produced papers on campaign strategy and drafted statements expressing the President's position on a variety of issues. Although under the direction of Michael Raoul-Duval, Cheney's political assistant, Reichley usually worked most closely with Cheney himself.

As part of his work on general campaign strategy, Reichley was involved with outlining the long term "vision" of the Ford administration. This involvement ranged from writing analysis papers for Cheney on themes and programs for Ford to stress during the election, to weighing the advantages of potential campaign slogans.

Reichley's draft presidential statements are typical political campaign documents, full of fiery rhetoric about Ford's virtues and the opposition's mistakes and inconsistencies. Some of the material relates to the pre-nomination struggle between Ford and his Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan. The majority, however, covers Ford's contest with Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate for president. Subjects include housing, employment, crime, taxes, health, older Americans, and--in greater detail--the Ford-Carter debates and education. The major exception to the heavy political overtones of the files is Reichley's drafts of Ford's nuclear policy statement of October 28, 1976, which announced a far-reaching change in United States policy on nuclear proliferation.

The files consist of a relatively straightforward subject series, with multiple copies of a document often filed under a number of related folder titles. The majority of items are reports, speeches, and published materials, some dating back to 1974, which administration officials sent to Reichley for background information. Reichley's personal drafts of fact sheets, speeches, radio talks, position papers, and statements are fewer in number, but are also easy to pick out because he typed them on his own distinctive typewriter.

Related Materials (May 1984)
The Ford Library currently has available a number of other collections that are closely related to Reichley's work and the 1976 campaign. Most significant are the Michael Raoul-Duval Papers and various sections of the PL-Political Affairs category in the White House Central Files. On the issue of nuclear policy, Glenn R. Schleede's files contain a wide range of documents, including a full set of drafts leading up to Ford's nuclear proliferation statement of October 28.