NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR. NSC PRESS AND CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS ADVISER, 1973-76

NSC Press and Congressional Liaison Staff Files is one of many subcollections that comprise the National Security Adviser Files.

Duties of Janka and Vanderhye
Leslie Janka and Margaret Vanderhye handled National Security Council (NSC) press and congressional liaison during the Ford administration. Janka served as staff assistant for press liaison from 1971 until February 1975, working out of an office on the ground floor of the White House West Wing. Around September 1974, he also began working on NSC congressional relations (apparently sharing these duties with Robert McFarlane for several months). Janka was promoted to Senior Staff Member for Legislative and Public Affairs in February 1975. Janka then moved from the West Wing of the White House to room 376A in the nearby Old Executive Office Building and hired Cathie DeSibour and Barbara Grabon (a secretary) to assist him.

After Janka’s promotion, Vanderhye took over both his press liaison duties and his old office in the basement of the White House. She served as staff assistant for press liaison until her departure in August 1976. Janka apparently resumed his press liaison role for August to October 1976 and then left the NSC to take a position in the Department of Defense. An NSC organization chart dating from late in the administration lists DeSibour as heading both press liaison and congressional liaison.

A key responsibility of the NSC press liaison officer was to provide substantive guidance on foreign policy issues to the President’s Press Secretary. This guidance kept him abreast of developments and prepared him for his daily press briefings. Another role was to coordinate and prepare foreign affairs/national security briefing materials for presidential press conferences and media interviews. Janka and Vanderhye also provided liaison between the White House and public affairs officers in the Departments of State and Defense, Central Intelligence Agency, United States Information Agency, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. From the files it appears that at various times Jon Howe, Peter Rodman, Robert McFarlane, Peter Burke, or Kathy Troia, from the nearby office housing the assistants to the National Security Adviser, filled in for or assisted Janka and Vanderhye.

As Senior Staff Member for Legislative and Public Affairs, Janka provided substantive foreign policy guidance to the White House Congressional Relations Office and legislative analysis to other NSC staff members. Janka took notes and produced memoranda of conversations for presidential meetings with congressional leaders and other members of Congress that concerned foreign affairs and defense matters.

Janka also represented the NSC on the administration’s Legislative Interdepartmental Group, which consisted of representatives of the various agencies involved in foreign affairs and national security matters and focused on legislation and the activities of Congress. In addition, Janka monitored Executive Branch public affairs activities, domestic and international, in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives.

Scope and Content of the Materials
Three series in this collection document the work of Janka and Vanderhye on NSC press relations. The Press Guidance File contains materials they prepared for White House Press Secretaries Ron Ziegler, Jerald terHorst, and Ron Nessen to use during their press briefings, January 1973-August 1976. Included are questions likely to be asked by the news media, guidance on suggested answers, background information provided to give the Press Secretary a better understanding (with the provision that it not be shared with the press), and announcements to be made. Foreign policy issues that receive significant attention include the Vietnamese War and the Paris Peace Accords, Middle East conflicts including the Arab oil embargo and the civil war in Lebanon, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the civil war in Angola. The Subject File contains some materials similar to that in the Press Guidance File, but covering only August to October 1976.

The Chronological File contains some substantive items concerning foreign affairs and defense issues. Much of the series concerns interactions by Janka and Vanderhye with Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, and members of the NSC staff; preparation of briefing materials for press conferences; handling of media interview requests; contacts with agency public affairs officers; and answering questions for the White House Press Secretary’s office. Significant items in the file include a translation of a Le Duc Tho press conference (June 14, 1973), memoranda of conversations covering a Kissinger dinner meeting with members of the State Department press corps (September 14, 1973) and a Scowcroft interview by Ann Compton of ABC (December 13, 1975), notes from a Kissinger deep backgrounder with the press about Vietnam (April 10, 1975), and the ribbon copy of a Scowcroft memo to the President (marked “The President has seen”) concerning Ronald Reagan’s statements about grain sales to the Soviet Union (March 24, 1976).

Three series contain materials on Janka’s congressional liaison work. The Congressional Meetings File contains briefing papers and memoranda of conversations for presidential meetings with congressional leaders and members of Congress. The Chronological File includes materials concerning legislation and congressional relations meetings between September 1974 and February 1975, including significant materials on Legislative Interdepartmental Group meetings of November 21, 1974 and February 7, 1975. No materials in this series dating from after February 1975 concern congressional relations, however. Some folders of Janka’s small Subject File also contain materials relating to Congress and to legislative matters.

This collection probably does not contain a complete set of all files maintained by Janka and Vanderhye during their NSC service, but these are the only files received by the Ford Library. The congressional relations material seems to be especially incomplete. The Ford Library staff has not discovered any explanation for these gaps.

Related Materials (January 1997)
National Security Adviser collections having related materials include the Presidential Subject File which contains a large sequence of material under the heading “Congressional,” the Legislative Interdepartmental Group File containing information on the meetings of that body, and the Memoranda of Conversations File which provides records of meetings between President Ford and various congressional delegations. The Robert C. McFarlane Files include some documents on legislative liaison and the Legislative Interdepartmental Group from the fall of 1974, and materials on interactions with members of Congress appear in the Program Analysis Staff Files. Among non-NSA collections, the Robert K. Wolthuis Files include minutes of several presidential meetings with Congressional leaders.

The Ron Nessen Papers contain substantive materials on all aspects of press relations; the Ron Nessen Files include a complete set of transcripts of the Press Secretary's daily briefings. The Edward J. Savage Files include press releases, transcripts of interviews, briefing guidance, briefing books and presidential press guidance relating to various foreign policy issues.