SHEILA R. WEIDENFELD FILES, (1924) 1974-77

The Sheila Weidenfeld files consist of memoranda, correspondence, briefing papers, agenda, notes, newsclippings, press releases and sundry background material compiled by Weidenfeld and her assistant, Patti Matson, during her tenure as press secretary to the First Lady from November 1974 to January 1977. First Lady Pat Nixon's press secretary, Helen M. Smith, briefly served in that capacity for Mrs. Ford prior to Weidenfeld's appointment.

The East Wing Press Office handled all liaison with the press for Betty Ford and the Ford children and notified the press about all White House social functions. This involved preparing press releases, answering all incoming mail and telephone queries, writing articles to be published under Ford family bylines, generating and researching ideas for possible appearances and speeches, preparing background, planning trips, and drafting speeches (prior to 1976 when presidential speechwriter Kaye Pullen was assigned to Mrs. Ford). Weidenfeld's specific duties involved acting as spokesperson for the family and advising them on the disposition of and approach to media requests, coordinating duties and responsibilities with the West Wing, and supervising the East Wing Press Office.

Weidenfeld's files document these activities well. Files on Mrs. Ford's daily activities and trips are particularly detailed. There are scattered events and trips for which the files are missing and some of these can be located in similar open files in the Betty Ford Papers. White House social events are documented in the State Visits File for visiting heads of state, and in the Daily Events File for all other social gatherings.

The General Subject File was developed to answer questions from the press and the public on Mrs. Ford and the Ford children, the White House, and the women's movement, especially the Equal Rights Amendment. This is a particularly rich resource and addresses some obscure questions in addition to the more obvious queries.

Most of the material in the Administrative Subject File is quite routine and deals primarily with press office efforts to handle requests for interviews and photographs. There is also an extensive set of notes that Weidenfeld took during a series of meetings with three former First Lady's press secretaries, members of the press corps, and White House staff before assuming her formal duties in November 1974.

Assistant press secretary Patti Matson did not maintain a separate file. Her materials are interspersed throughout the collection as are those of Nancy Chirdon and Fran Paris, the office secretaries, and Pete Sorum, Mrs. Ford's advanceman.

Related Materials (July 1986)
Additional material concerning Mrs. Ford's public appearances and a reference file of magazine articles about the Ford family are in the Betty Ford Papers and are available for use. Most of the Betty Ford Papers, however, are currently unprocessed and therefore unavailable for research.

The White House Central File Subject File category for Mrs. Ford,(PP 5‑1), contains invitations, correspondence on her illness, and briefing and background material and agenda for meetings and public appearances. Many items are cross-references to materials available in scattered file locations.

The files of Frances Pullen include background materials, drafts and texts of many of Mrs. Ford's speeches. Pullen was a speechwriter for Mrs. Ford.

Additional material concerning Mrs. Ford is available in the Library's collection of printed materials, in the Kay Clark oral history interview, and in the videotape of a conference on First Families held in 1984 at the Gerald Ford Museum. Betty Ford and Susan Ford Vance participated in the conference.