NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR. BRENT SCOWCROFT'S MORNING NEWSPAPER SUMMARIES, 1976-77

The White House Situation Room: Brent Scowcroft’s Morning Newspaper Summaries is one of many subcollections that comprise the National Security Adviser Files. The provenance and nature of the National Security Adviser Files as a whole are described in Appendix A. 

In January 1976, for reasons not apparent, the staff of the White House Situation Room began preparing reports for National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft summarizing newspaper coverage of foreign affairs/national security issues and events. They summarized articles from the Washington Post, New York Times, and Baltimore Sun (with occasional articles from the Washington Star) in short paragraphs followed by the page number on which the full story appeared. The Situation Room staff produced this news summary six days a week, Monday through Saturday, until the end of the administration. Each report runs from 3 to 10 pages.

The news summaries contain only information from the newspapers and do not reflect any private policy discussions within the Ford administration. They serve as an index to media coverage and provide a quick overview of foreign affairs and national security issues and events between January 1976 and January 1977. Included are stories on overseas crises, politics in other countries, military developments, and the activities of the CIA. Occasional stories on domestic politics also appear.

The Situation Room staff apparently maintained this set of news summaries, as it consists almost exclusively of photocopies. Presumably National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft received the originals. Occasional news summaries are missing from this set, especially during the last few months of the administration. It is not known whether this is due to the failure of the Situation Room staff to photocopy some reports or if they just did not compile a news summary on some days. 

Related Materials (February 1998)
No other issues of these Situation Room news summaries have been found in other collections.Issues of the President's Daily News Summary appear in the Presidential News Summary collection and also in the files of news summary editors James Shuman and Agnes Waldron.