The President's copies of the daily news summaries compiled by Press Office staff members and distributed for reading by the President and his staff. Few contain initials or annotations by the President. This set is missing about 75 of the news summaries issued during the administration.
Series Description and Container List
Container List
Collection Overview
Scope and Content Note
The news summary was a compilation and distillation of printed and electronic media news articles and editorial opinion, distributed daily to the President and about 130 White House staff. During the Ford administration the news summaries were edited successively by Lyndon Allin, Philip Warden, James Shuman and Agnes Waldron. Details on the summary and its production can be found in the finding aids for the files of Shuman and Waldron.
This set of news summaries consists of those actually seen by President Ford, but the President seldom initialled or annotated them. They include the ribbon copy of all typed summaries or articles and the original clippings of some articles and cartoons. The news summaries received by the White House staff were apparently photocopied from these originals which were then submitted to the President. For days when the President was away on trips, the news summaries in this file are usually photocopies that were cabled to him rather than the originals.
Gertrude Fry of the Staff Secretary office, who was in charge of distributing materials from the President's outbox, apparently maintained this set of news summaries. She also maintained the Presidential Handwriting File and the Special Files Unit. This collection was originally received by the Ford Library as part of a larger collection labeled Special Files. As the news summaries came out of the Oval Office, the Staff Secretary office stamped them "The President has seen."
This collection of news summaries is not complete. For approximately 75 dates on which the news summary is known to have been published no copy appears in this file. Many of these gaps can be explained by the fact that the President was away from the White House on trips and did not return the copies cabled to him. On the other hand this collection contains 28 news summaries that do not appear in the files of the news summary editors, so researchers interested in seeing a complete set of summaries will have to consult both files.
Related Materials (November 1983)
Related materials include the files of news summary editors James Shuman and Agnes Waldron, White House Central Files Subject File category PR 16-3 (Presidential News Analysis), and materials in the unprocessed Barry Roth files relating to a lawsuit against the Ford administration by a former member of the news summary staff.
Details
17.2 linear feet (ca. 34,200 pages)
Access
Copyright
Gerald Ford donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to remain with them. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain.