MARGITA E. WHITE PAPERS, 1975-76

The Margita White Papers concern her work as White House Assistant Press Secretary between January 1975 and July 1976. During the early months of her service, she worked as deputy to Gerald Warren, Director of the Office of Communications. When he left the White House in the summer of 1975, she succeeded him as Director.

The Office of Communications handled relations with media beyond the White House Press Corps. It provided editors and broadcasters across the country with copies of speeches, reports, fact sheets, and other information on administration programs. It also coordinated administration public relations campaigns, acted as White House contact for media organizations and individual newspapers and radio and television stations, monitored public affairs activities in the Executive Branch agencies, arranged special briefings, set up media interviews with public officials, produced the daily news summary, and compiled briefing books for the President's media encounters. For more information on the work of the office see the finding aid to the Gerald Warren and Margita White Files. Also helpful is John Maltese's book Spin Control: The Office of Communications and the Management of Presidential News (University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

This small collection supplements the Warren and White Files by adding chronological files of outgoing memoranda and correspondence produced by the office and a small number of subject files. The chronological files concern all aspects of the work of this office and include documents drafted by Gerald Warren, Randall Woods, James Shuman, Margaret Earl, and Sandra Wisniewski, in addition to Margita White. The subject files concern office organization, personnel matters, and a sex discrimination case filed by a former news summary staff member.

Of special note are White's two folders of handwritten notes on White House senior staff meetings, June 1975 to July 1976. These are not minutes, but notes on topics raised at the meetings with occasional details on the discussion. Since no formal minutes on these meetings exist, White's notes do give researchers some sense of what went on at senior staff meetings.

Related Materials (July 1992)
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 this office. The Library also holds the files of David Gergen, who headed the Office of Communications after White's departure, and the files of James Shuman, who edited the news summary and prepared briefing books for the President's media encounters. Another related collection is the papers of Press Secretary Ron Nessen, who was White's supervisor.