May 13, 2009
The Library announced the list of recipients of Gerald R. Ford Foundation Research Travel Grants from the spring meeting of the grants screening committee.

May 5, 2009
The Library has processed and opened two additional series from the National Security Adviser. NSC International Economic Affairs Staff: Files, (1973) 1975-1976. The chronological files in the collection ("Robert Hormats Chronological File" and "Timothy Deal Chronlogical File") are now available for research. They contain materials accumulated by NSC senior staff member Robert Hormats and his assistants and concern such topics as economic relations with specific countries, international economic summits, trade, foreign investment, energy, oil prices, OPEC, food aid, grain sales, Maritime affairs, and foreign aid. The two subject files in this collection were opened to research in 2007, so all of the series are now available. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

May 1, 2009
Deadline for the "Gerald R. Ford Scholar Award (Dissertation Award) in Honor of Robert Teeter." For more information about the Award contact Stacy Davis.

April 27, 2009
The Library has opened the Charles J. Orlebeke Papers concerning his work as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This collection focuses on the areas of housing, community development, and urban policy with much relating to the work of the President's Committee on Urban Development and Neighborhood Revitalization. Access to the materials requires advance consultation with an archivist before a visit to the Library in order to request that specific folders be added to the Library’s review-for-access queue. For more information about this collection, please consult the finding aid.

April 15, 2009
Recent openings from the Ford Library Project File of Documents Declassified Through the Remote Archive Capture (RAC) Program include documents from these sub-collections of the National Security Adviser's Files: President Agency File and the Trip Briefing Books and Cables of Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, and Brent Scowcroft (three separate collections). The Project File is intended as a convenience to researchers, affording expedited access to declassified information from unprocessed/closed collections.  It also allows returning researchers to more easily discover newly declassified information from previously processed/open collections. Although some documents are now available, major portions of several of these sub-collections are still unprocessed and not available for research.

March 15, 2009
Deadline for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation Research Travel Grants. For more information about the grants contact William McNitt.

March 4, 2009
The Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News blog has recently posted a link to a digital copy of the 243 page "Intelligence Community Decision Book for the President" transmitted by the Intelligence Coordinating Group to President Ford on December 22, 1975. The decision book was declassified in 2000 and addresses basic questions of executive authority, congressional oversight of intelligence, covert actiopn, domestic surveillance, budget secrecy, and more. The original of this document is in Box 6 of the Richard B. Cheney Files. View a copy of this digital file, along with several other items concerning the intelligence investigations and reforms of 1975-76.

February 25, 2009
The Library has opened transcripts and audiotapes for ten oral history interviews from the collection Gerald R. Ford Library Oral History Projects. This initial opening includes interviews by Library staff members with Cabinet members Roy Ash (Director, Office of Management and Budget), Earl Butz (Secretary of Agriculture), William T. Coleman (Secretary of Transportation), Thomas Kleppe (Secretary of the Interior), and Elliot Richardson (Secretary of Commerece). Other opened interviews are those with Counsellor to the President Anne Armstrong, Special Assistant to the President for Women Patricia Lindh, Col. Tom Sherman (involved in the planning of the Vietnam clemency program), journalist Hugh Sidey, and political strategist/public opinion pollster Robert Teeter. The Library holds additional interviews that will be opened to research as transcriptions are completed and deeds are signed by interviewees. For more information about this collection, please consult the finding aid.

February 3, 2009
Since our last report in November, the Library's declassification staff has opened to research several additional boxes of the Ford Library Project File of Documents Declassified Through the Remote Archive Capture (RAC) Program. The Project File is intended as a convenience to researchers, affording expedited access to declassified information from unprocessed/closed collections.  It also allows returning researchers to more easily discover newly declassified information from previously processed/open collections. The additional 4,400 pages opened in December and January are from the following National Security Adviser sub-collections: NSC Middle East and South Asian Affairs Staff Files, NSC East Asian and Pacific Affairs Staff Files, NSC International Economic Affairs Staff Files, Kissinger- Scowcroft West Wing Office Files, and the Presidential Agency File. Although some documents are now available, major portions of several of these sub-collections are still unprocessed and not available for research.

January 8, 2009
The Library has opened the series from the Roderick M. Hills Papers that concern his work in the Ford White House and as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The collection includes some correspondence from Hill's White House service, but most of Hills' work files went to his successor Edward Schmults. Hills' Securities and Exchange Commission work is reflected especially in files of his speeches and congressional testimony. The bulk of the collection concerns Hills' post-government work, but these files remain unprocessed/closed. For more information about this collection, please consult the finding aid.

See News Notes for Ford Library Researchers for the year 2008