SUMMARY DESCRIPTION

The materials document Reichley's work on the 1976 presidential campaign, including general campaign strategy, development of long-range goals and policies, the presidential debates, and statements of President Ford's position on specific issues.

QUANTITY
2.0 linear feet (ca. 4,000 pages)

DONOR
Gerald R. Ford (accession number 77-107)

ACCESS
Open. Some items are temporarily restricted under terms of the donor's deed of gift, a copy of which is available on request, or under National Archives and Records Administration general restrictions (36 CFR 1256).

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Gerald Ford donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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

Prepared by Dennis Daellenbach, May 1984
[s:\bin\findaid\reichley, james - files.doc]

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

A. James Reichley

1929 - Born, St. Clair, Pennsylvania

1946-50 - B.A. University of Pennsylvania

1951-53 - U.S. Army, Counter Intelligence Corps

1953-54 - Technical editor, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia

1955-56 - M.A. Harvard University

1957-61 - Political reporter, Pottsville Republican, Pottsville, Pennsylvania

1961-62 - Legislative Assistant, Sen. Kenneth Keating of New York

1963-67 - Assistant to the Governor, Gov. William Scranton of Pennsylvania

1967-72 - Associate Editor, Fortune magazine

1970 - Consultant, President's Commission on Student Unrest

1972-76 - Board of Editors, Fortune magazine

1976 - Consultant, White House staff

1977-? - Senior Fellow, Department of Governmental Service, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

Author:

• The Burying of Kingsmith, Houghton Mifflin, 1957 (novel)
• Hail to the Chief, Houghton Mifflin, 1960 (novel)
• States in Crisis, University of North Carolina Press, 1964
• Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Administrations, Brookings Institution, 1981
• Religion in American Public Life, Brookings Institution Press, 1985
• The Life of the Parties, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000
• The Values Connection, Rowman & Littlefield, 2001
• Faith in Politics, Brookings Institution Press, 2002

INTRODUCTION

The files of James Reichley cover the period May-October 1976 when he served as a political consultant for White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney.

A journalist with practical experience in the political arena, Reichley assisted Cheney with President Ford's primary and general election campaigns. His broad responsibility was to consider long range goals and policies, and to generate new ideas. In particular, Reichley produced papers on campaign strategy and drafted statements expressing the President's position on a variety of issues. Although under the direction of Michael Raoul-Duval, Cheney's political assistant, Reichley usually worked most closely with Cheney himself.

As part of his work on general campaign strategy, Reichley was involved with outlining the long term "vision" of the Ford administration. This involvement ranged from writing analysis papers for Cheney on themes and programs for Ford to stress during the election, to weighing the advantages of potential campaign slogans.

Reichley's draft presidential statements are typical political campaign documents, full of fiery rhetoric about Ford's virtues and the opposition's mistakes and inconsistencies. Some of the material relates to the pre-nomination struggle between Ford and his Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan. The majority, however, covers Ford's contest with Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate for president. Subjects include housing, employment, crime, taxes, health, older Americans, and--in greater detail--the Ford-Carter debates and education. The major exception to the heavy political overtones of the files is Reichley's drafts of Ford's nuclear policy statement of October 28, 1976, which announced a far-reaching change in United States policy on nuclear proliferation.

The files consist of a relatively straightforward subject series, with multiple copies of a document often filed under a number of related folder titles. The majority of items are reports, speeches, and published materials, some dating back to 1974, which administration officials sent to Reichley for background information. Reichley's personal drafts of fact sheets, speeches, radio talks, position papers, and statements are fewer in number, but are also easy to pick out because he typed them on his own distinctive typewriter.

Related Materials (May 1984)
The Ford Library currently has available a number of other collections that are closely related to Reichley's work and the 1976 campaign. Most significant are the Michael Raoul-Duval Papers and various sections of the PL-Political Affairs category in the White House Central Files. On the issue of nuclear policy, Glenn R. Schleede's files contain a wide range of documents, including a full set of drafts leading up to Ford's nuclear proliferation statement of October 28.

SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

Subject File, 1976. (Boxes 1-5, 2.0 linear feet)
Reports, speeches, press releases, printed material, and clippings which Reichley used for background information; and memoranda, analysis papers, and draft statements and speeches produced by Reichley. Subjects include general strategy for President Ford's 1976 election campaign, and the Ford-Carter debates; and the President's position on specific campaign issues such as crime, Eastern Europe, education, employment, health, housing, nuclear proliferation, and older Americans.

Arranged alphabetically by subject and chronologically thereunder.

CONTAINER LIST

Box 1 - Subject File

• Abortion
• Acceptance Speech - Republican Convention
• Administration Agenda/Program
• Aging
• Agriculture - Addresses by Government Officials
• Agriculture - Rural Development Goals Report
• Baroody, William J., Jr. - Speeches (1)-(2)
• Bicentennial Themes
• Bill of Rights - Campaign Themes
• Blacks
• Budget - Speeches and Briefings
• Busing
• Campaign
• Carter, Jimmy - General (1)-(2)
• Carter, Jimmy - Published Material
• Carter, Jimmy - Republican National Committee Report
• Cheney, Richard

Box 2 - Subject File

• Church Property
• Cities - General
• Cities - Urban Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Report
• Common Cause
• Community Development
• Community Development - Block Program
• Constituency Analysis
• Crime
• Debates, First - 9/23/76
• Debates, Second - 10/6/76
• Debates, Third - 10/11/76
• Delegates
• Defense
• Democrats
• Domestic Policy - Speech Proposal
• Eastern Europe
• Education - Forward Planning Issues Report
• Education - General (1)-(2)

Box 3 - Subject File

• Education - Speeches by Government Officials
• Election
• Energy
• Environment
• Environment - Speeches by Russell Train (1)-(4)
• Federal System
• Food Stamps
• Ford, Gerald R. - General
• Ford, Gerald R. - "The Ford Presidency: A Portrait of the First Two Years"
• Health - Cost Estimates for National Health Insurance
• Health - General
• Housing

Box 4 - Subject File

• Humphrey-Hawkins Employment Bill
• Israel
• Jobs/Employment
• Law Enforcement - General
• Law Enforcement - Remarks by Edward Levi
• Law Enforcement - Remarks by Richard Thornburgh
• Long Range Goals
• Marsh, John
• Medal of Freedom Awards
• Medicaid
• Morality
• Nathan, Richard P.
• National Education Association (1)-(2)
• National Interest
• Nuclear Policy Statement (1)-(5)

Box 5 - Subject File

• Nuclear Policy Statement (6)
• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
• Pennsylvania
• Platform Committee
• Platforms (1)-(4)
• Political Philosophy
• Poland
• Population
• Poverty
• Public Interest Groups
• Quality of Life
• Radio Talks
• Reagan, Ronald
• Regulation
• Reichley, James A.
• Religion
• Republican Legislative Agenda, 9/8/75
• Revenue Sharing
• Rockefeller, Nelson A.
• Senior Citizens
• Skeptic (magazine)
• Smith, Mary Louise
• Social Security
• Speeches/Themes
• Strategy Meeting - 6/8/76
• Strategy/Planning
• Taxes
• Theme Speeches
• Urban
• Vision Theme
• Voting Statistics
• Welfare