SUMMARY DESCRIPTION

At the end of his administration, Gerald R. Ford contracted with publisher Harper & Row to write his memoirs. Trevor Armbrister, a journalist and correspondent for Reader's Digest, assisted him in the research and writing of the book, entitled A Time to Heal. This collection contains correspondence, notes, audio recordings of interviews, interview transcripts, drafts of chapters, and other materials related to the writing and publication process.

The portion of the collection that is available for research are Gerald R. Ford's handwritten personal reflections on twenty-seven different topics ranging from "How I make decisions" to "Advice to a teen-age daughter."

QUANTITY
15 linear feet (ca. 30,000 pages)

DONOR
Gerald R. Ford (accession number 80-13, 83-19, 91-2, 92-20, 92-26, 94-7, and 97-22)

ACCESS
Most of this collection is unprocessed and temporarily restricted from public access.  The items listed on the container list are open.

COPYRIGHT
Gerald R. Ford has donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.

Prepared December 1993; revised March 2020.
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INTRODUCTION

While writing his autobiography,  A Time to Heal (New York:  Harper & Row, 1979), Gerald R. Ford composed a series of personal reflections on twenty-seven topics ranging from "How I make decisions" to "Advice to a teen-age daughter."  Most deal with personal principles:  the value of competition, of loyalty, of ambition.  Others concern politics and governance:  making decisions, the use of the presidential veto, or the role of regulatory agencies.  A few relate to more mundane topics such as socializing in Washington or favorite movies.  Some touch on historical topics, including a nine-page comment on how history will view Richard Nixon.

What makes these documents so unusual is not only their introspection but also their form.  President Ford recorded these observations by hand, writing in blue ball point on his favored yellow writing tablets.  The original documents are permanently preserved at the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The rest of this collection is still unprocessed and is not yet available for research.

CONTAINER LIST

The portion of the collection that has been processed and opened is in digital form. Please click on the folder titles to view the handwritten documents and transcripts prepared by the Ford Library staff.

Gerald R. Ford's Personal Handwritten Reflections

Personal Principles

• What religion means to me?
• Definition of a successful marriage
• Advice to a young man going off on his own
• Advice to a teen-age daughter
• Making and keeping friends
• Playing poker to win
• Learning how to lose
• The art of compromise
• Learning how to be alone
• Athletics and importance of keeping fit
• Revenge or forgiveness -- have I attempted revenge or extended forgiveness?
• What I've learned from blacks & other minorities
• The brilliance of the English language
• The disappearance of the personal letter
• Movies I've liked best

Politics and Governance

• My definition of a statesman as opposed to a politician
• How I make decisions
• Credo -- do's and don'ts for a young man going into politics
• The unelected representatives on Capitol Hill
• The G.O.P.'s image today -- what it is vs. what it should be?
• Regulatory Agencies -- why so big, so ineffective, so expensive? What did I try to do about it?
• How to deal with experts
• Importance of the veto
• Washington parties -- what sets them apart?

History

• Changes in the U.S.A.
• The impact of television and its consequences
• Richard Nixon's place in history