NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR. NSC STAFF SECRETARY FILES, (1973) 1974-77

Jeanne Davis served as National Security Council (NSC) Staff Secretary throughout the Ford administration, a role which she had also filled during the bulk of the Nixon years. She and her staff handled NSC document control, intra-staff coordination, review of staff work, management of State visits, approval of foreign travel by administration officials, and administrative services. Frequently Davis or one of her assistants took notes at meetings, although on other occasions the NSC staff member with primary substantive responsibility for the issue being discussed took on this duty.

Another major aspect of the Staff Secretary’s work during the Ford administration was information liaison with presidential commissions and congressional committees seeking access to or declassification of NSC documents or those produced by other Federal agencies. Davis’ work in this area is described in the finding aid to the NSC Staff “Convenience” Files for Information Liaison.

This collection is quite fragmentary. The chronological file, for instance, covers only about five and a half months from the last year of the administration. For the most part, it contains only routine outgoing memoranda and letters, although occasional meeting minutes and memoranda of conversations appear. Davis corresponded frequently with White House staff members James Cannon (re pending legislation), Roland Elliott (re draft responses to presidential mail), Eliska Hasek (re presidential messages to foreign organizations or American ethnic groups), members of the White House Congressional Relations Office staff (re draft responses to congressional letters to the President), William Nicholson (re Presidential invitations), and Maria Downs (re State dinners). Other frequent correspondents included George Springsteen, Executive Secretary of the Department of State, and Jon Howe, Military Aide to Vice President Rockefeller. In addition to the topics mentioned above, the primary subjects covered by the chronological file are the approval of foreign travel of administration officials, coordination of the NSC review of administration memoranda and reports, foreign meetings of Vice President Rockefeller, and NSC personnel and administrative matters.

The subject file, although it covers a broader time span than the chronological file, is small and focuses on just a few aspects of Davis’ work. Major topics include coordination of NSC input for the President’s foreign policy addresses, reviewing foreign travel plans of administration officials, visits of foreign leaders during the Bicentennial celebration, NSC reviews of Ford campaign speeches and spots, and International Women’s Year.

Related Materials (August 1997)
The NSC Institutional Files contain a series called Institutional Files - Secretariat which include the administrative materials and files of Staff Secretary Jeanne Davis. The NSC Convenience File on Information Liaison concerns Davis' work on coordinating NSC responses to requests for documents from various presidential commissions and congressional committees investigating the intelligence community and the Mayaguez incident.