RICHARD B. CHENEY Deputy Assistant to the President; Assistant to the President for White House Operations: Files , 1974-77

During the Ford administration, Richard Cheney held the positions of Deputy Assistant and Assistant to the President for White House Operations, titles commonly referred to by the news media and others as "Deputy Chief of Staff" and "Chief of Staff."  He initially served as deputy to Donald Rumsfeld and succeeded him in November 1975 when Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense.  This collection contains material concerning Cheney's work in both positions.

Discussed below under separate headings are the organization and functions of the White House Operations Office, the scope and content of the Cheney files, and related materials in the Ford Library.

Organization and Functions of the White House Operations Office
The Assistant to the President for White House Operations worked with the President and senior staff to insure the smooth operation of the White House, chaired daily senior staff meetings, managed the flow of information to and from the President, coordinated the personnel appointments process, and handled liaison with political groups.  He also supervised the work of the following staff offices:

• Staff Secretary
• Cabinet Secretary
• Scheduling and Advance
• Presidential Personnel
• White House Photographers
• President's Office (personal staff of the President)

Originally the staff of the White House Operations Office consisted only of the Assistant to the President, the Deputy Assistant, Special Consultant Robert Goldwin, and their secretaries.  Foster Chanock, H. James Field, and James Reichley joined the staff between October 1975 and May 1976, with most of their duties relating to the presidential election campaign. After Cheney became the Assistant to the President in November 1975, the deputy position remained vacant until the appointment of James Cavanaugh in July 1976.

Scope and Content of the Cheney Files
The Cheney files consist partly of materials created by or addressed to Cheney and partly of materials addressed to the President by other White House staff members, campaign committee officials, friends of the President, government officials, and Republican leaders.  The President apparently transmitted most of these documents to Cheney for his information or handling.

The two topics most heavily documented in the Cheney files are the 1976 presidential campaign and the 1975 investigations of the intelligence community.

The bulk of the campaign materials (over two linear feet) concern President Ford's efforts to obtain the Republican nomination, May 1975-August 1976.  Included are such items as a virtually complete set of progress reports from President Ford Committee chairmen Howard "Bo" Callaway and Rogers Morton, July 1975-July 1976; letters from Republican leaders giving campaign advice; handwritten messages from the President to Cheney; and the President's handwritten notes concerning telephone calls to Republican convention delegates, June-August 1976.

Materials on the intelligence investigations (over one linear foot) concern such topics as William Colby's report to the President in December 1974 on alleged abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency, the establishment and operation of the Rockefeller Commission, congressional investigations, and proposed presidential actions to reform the intelligence community.

Researchers interested in the intelligence investigations or other topics relating to national defense and foreign affairs questions should be aware that archivists have withdrawn numerous classified documents during processing.  These are not currently available for research, but researchers may initiate requests for agency review for possible declassification.

The amount of material on most topics other than the campaign or the intelligence investigations is fairly small.  The collection concerns a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues, personnel appointments (including the nomination of John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court), and the 1974 and 1977 transitions.  What the files lack in quantity, they often make up for in quality.  Many folders contain the originals of significant documents addressed to the President and/or notes exchanged between Cheney and the President.

One area that is not well documented in this collection is the large number of meetings that Cheney attended.  Although the senior staff met on a daily basis, only a few scattered notes by Cheney on the discussions appear in the files.  Similarly, there are few notes from Cheney's meetings with the President and other individuals.

Related Materials (August 1985)
The files of Alexander Haig relate to his work as Chief of Staff during August and September 1974.  The Library has no collection of Donald Rumsfeld files covering his work in this position.  The files of Cheney's assistants James Field, Robert Goldwin, and James Reichley are available for research.

Related materials on the intelligence investigations can be found in White House Central Files category ND 6 and in several collections in the Congressional Relations Office, especially the files of Vernon Loen and Charles Leppert.

Collections containing material on the 1976 presidential campaign are described on the Ford Library handout "The 1976 Presidential Election: A Guide to Manuscript Collections Available for Research."