PRESIDENT'S PAPERWORK LOGS, 1974-77

The presidential paperwork logs (daily item by item listings of material crossing the President's desk) were compiled in the office of the Staff Secretary. That office coordinated the routine flow of paperwork to and from the President. Log entries were primarily made by staff assistant Dianna Gwin through early June 1975 and thereafter by Trudy Fry, head of the Special Files Unit. The logs appear to be complete for items which the President placed in his outbox. Many items which ended up in the outbox, however, were not logged in through the Staff Secretary's office before going to the President. These items were apparently handed to the President at meetings or during trips.

Items which the Staff Secretary's office logged in included documents requiring the President's signature such as bills passed by Congress, executive orders, and personnel nominations and commissions. Also logged in before being routed to the President were memoranda regarding policy issues and personnel decisions which required presidential action as well as occasional memoranda provided for the President's information. Material listed as coming from the President's desk but not previously logged in included documents such as the daily news summaries, schedule proposals, background material for presidential meetings, briefing papers, reading copies of presidential speeches, memorandums recommending telephone calls, personal correspondence and handwritten notes of President Ford, and occasionally newspaper clippings and printed material.

The daily listings usually note the time of day that documents were sent to the President's desk (if the Staff Secretary's office logged them in), the time returned to the outbox, and the subsequent disposition of the items. Material which could be filed at this point was sent to Central Files (CF), Central Files- Confidential File (CFC), the news summary file (NSF), the Presidential Handwriting File (PHW), or, prior to June 1975, to Trudy Fry (TF of TFI) for a filing decision. Paperwork which required further action was forwarded to the appropriate White House staff members: often Chief Executive Clerk Robert Linder (RL or BL); Director of Correspondence Robert Elliott (RE); Dorothy Downton (DD), personal secretary to the President; Susan Yowell (SY), Office of Staff Secretary; the Presidential Personnel Office (PD); Brent Scowcroft (BS), national security advisor; or Henry Kissinger (HAK).

Related Materials (March 1984)
Additional material on White House mail can be found in White Hose Central Files categories WH 4-1 Mail and WH 4-1-1 Mail Reports. The Ford Library also has a log, kept by the Special Files Unit, listing material which Special Files sent to Central Files during the period through June 11, 1975.