PHILIP W. BUCHEN PAPERS, (1962) 1973-1992

One of President Ford’s initial acts after taking his oath of office, on August 9, 1974, was to name longtime friend and former law partner, Philip W. Buchen, chief White House Counsel. Ford elevated this position to Cabinet status one month later. As Counsel to the President, Buchen provided legal advice to the President and the White House staff, supervised a staff of attorneys in handling legal matters of the President or his staff, and served as a White House liaison with varied government agencies.

Some of Buchen’s most important duties included aiding Ford in the legalities of the Nixon pardon. Buchen garnered information from Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski as to how long a Nixon trial might last, and whether President Ford had the right to grant a pardon prior to an indictment. Though he agreed with the necessity of the Nixon pardon, Buchen strongly discouraged the President from conferring pardons to each Watergate defendant or Spiro Agnew. Buchen, along with Benton Becker and Jack Miller (Nixon’s legal counsel), also attempted to settle the Nixon papers dispute, eventually agreeing that while the Nixon papers would be housed in a National Archives facility, Nixon would have ultimate access control. (The Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974 nullified this arrangement.) Moreover, Buchen worked on the amnesty program, which offered clemency to those who had avoided serving in the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War.

Buchen’s position as Counsel to the President, in addition to being laborious, was also a ceremonial role. He and his wife, Beatrice (AKA Bunny), were soon fixtures on newspaper society pages as they attended numerous White House, State, and Embassy dinners. The Buchens also represented the United States at the coronation ceremony of the King of Nepal, Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, in February 1975.

Following Ford’s defeat in the 1976 presidential election, Buchen played a role in donating Ford’s presidential papers to the federal government. Upon leaving government service, Buchen became a partner in the firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, in Washington, DC, where he worked until his retirement in 1995, as well as served as a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation until his death in 2001.

Scope and Content Note
In representing Buchen’s administrative role, the collection showcases his most well-known undertakings, namely the Nixon-Ford Presidential transition and the Nixon pardon. The collection is strongest in bulk in documenting the social aspects of being the President’s Chief Counsel. A significant portion of this collection is made up of newspaper clippings from major news arteries such as The New York Times and Washington Post, which attest to social functions and events the Buchens attended. A large photograph compilation, boasting White House fêtes, private functions, and administrative photos from both the Buchens’ personal snapshot collection and the White House Photo Office, has been transferred to the Library’s audiovisual department.

The collection’s Correspondence File and Bunny Buchen’s desk calendars in the Subject File are intriguing because they document the public and private worlds the Buchen’s lived in following Ford’s oath of office. Some of the correspondence and notations in the calendars depict the Buchen’s as parents and grandparents, while others depict them as friends to the Presidential family, ambassadors, and celebrities.

Notable are the opinions that come forth in this collection, specifically from Philip (in his speeches and participation in various conferences) and Bunny (in her “diary”). The estimations of others are also well-represented, especially regarding the Nixon pardon.

A shortcoming of this collection is the absence of materials dating from the beginning of Ford’s and Buchen’s friendship to the time of Ford’s Vice Presidency. There are references to this period and the Ford and Buchen law firm, particularly in the oral histories, and some of the clippings and speeches, but for the most part, this period is left undocumented.

Related Materials (June 2004)
As the bulk of this collection is more social rather than organizational, the following related materials/collections also document the social aspect of Philip Buchen’s relationship with President Ford: the Betty Ford Papers, the Vice Presidential Papers of Gerald R. Ford, the Sheila R. Weidenfeld Files, and the Eric Rosenberger and Douglass Blaser Files.

For extensive information on Buchen’s role as Counsel to the President, see Philip W. Buchen Files.

Interviews or oral histories with Philip Buchen can be found in: the A. James Reichley Interview Transcripts, the Grand Rapids Oral History Collection (covers only the years 1938-1948), the Composite Oral History Accessions, and the William A. Syers Interview Transcripts.

Additional related material, including more extensive background information on Buchen, may be found in the Gerald R. Ford Library’s vertical file, under “Buchen, Philip W.”.