December 23, 2010
The audiovisual staff has digitized a select group of audio recordings of President Ford's speeches, remarks, and press conferences from the White House Communications Agency Audiotapes. They cover such events as President Ford's swearing-in ceremony, his appearance before the committee investigating the Nixon pardon, State of the Union addresses, press conferences, and television interviews. View the list of digitized tapes.

December 20, 2010
The Library opened eight more boxes of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger to research. The collection contains communications exchanged between Henry Kissinger and staff at the White House and State Department while he was away from Washington.  Files contain Kissinger's detailed reports of his meetings with foreign leaders and the progress of negotiations he was conducting, as well as detailed summaries of concurrent events in Washington and elsewhere in the world.  Substantive materials on U.S. relations with the countries Kissinger was visiting and on foreign policy issues in general also appear. Open folders now cover August 1974 through part of July 1976. The Library staff expects to open additional increments of this collection over coming months.

December 7, 2010
The Library has completed another segment of a project to digitize White House photograph contact sheets and make them available on the web. Photographs from August 9, 1974 to January 31, 1975 are now available. Detailed reports describe the photographs taken by the White House photographers on a given day and contain links to contact sheets (1:1 images of 35 mm negatives) for each film roll.  View the reports and contact sheets.

December 3, 2010
The Library has completed the processing of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables of President Ford (9 feet). It contains primarily briefing books prepared for President Ford's trips abroad and his meetings with foreign leaders.  Files also include materials pertaining to advance work and planning, State Department and White House cable traffic, and travel communications to and from Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft.  Substantive background information on U.S. foreign relations is available on such issues as arms control, Middle East peace negotiations, the Helsinki agreements, and the international economy. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

December 2, 2010
The Library has completed the digitization of selected documents concerning Gerald R. Ford's Visits to China in 1972 and 1975. Among the documents are detailed notes on Ford's discussions with Chinese leaders such as Chou En-lai (1972) and Chairman Mao and Teng Hsiao-p'ing (1975), along with a briefing book for the Mao meeting that contains memcons for earlier discussions with Mao by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

November 24, 2010
The Library has opened to research 29 interviews with Gerald Ford's associates and others that are part of the James M. Cannon Research Interviews and Notes. Many interviews focus on the period from October 1973 to December 1974 including Gerald Ford’s nomination and confirmation as Vice President, Watergate, Nixon impeachment, Nixon Pardon, and Nelson Rockefeller’s nomination and confirmation as Vice President.  Quite a few are with members of Congress: Carl Albert, Howard Cannon, Hamilton Fish, Barry Goldwater, Mike Mansfield, and Charles Wiggins.  Others are with White House staff members: Philip Buchen, Alexander Haig, Robert Hartmann, and William Seidman. A few of the interviews have other fairly specific focuses:  Michael Deaver (1976 Reagan campaign), Andrew Goodpaster (Chief of Staff system), Richard Helms (CIA), Edward Levi (Department of Justice), Arthur Quern (Domestic Council), and Peter Rodman (Henry Kissinger/National Security Council). For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

November 23, 2010
The Library opened the collection David W. Belin Papers (28 feet) to research. The collection contains material concerning Belin’s work on the staffs of the Warren Commission (9164), investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Rockefeller Commission (1975), investigating alleged intelligence community abuses of U.S. law.  The collection also includes much on his unofficial role as a leading defender of the Warren Commission report against such critics as Mark Lane, G. Robert Blakey, and Oliver Stone. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

November 19, 2010
The Library opened the collection National Security Adviser. White House Situation Room: Former President Nixon's Intelligence Briefings (less than one foot) to research. The collection contains the periodic memoranda sent by the Ford White House to former President Richard Nixon containing reports and analysis of world events, often presenting the inside story based on various intelligence sources.  Each memorandum covers a one to two week period and is from ten to fifteen pages in length. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

November 9, 2010
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation announced the list of recipients of Research Travel Grants from the fall meeting of the grants screening committee.

November 1, 2010
The Library has posted a list of documents declassified in whole or in part through the Mandatory Declassification Review process during the months of July to September 2010. Researchers may contact us for additional information about the newly opened documents or to order copies. Please note that Mandatory Review is but one of the methods through which Ford Library documents are declassified. Many additional pages are opened each month through systematic declassification review and returns from the Remote Archive Capture project.

October 15, 2010
The Library opened eight more boxes of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger to research. The collection contains communications exchanged between Henry Kissinger and staff at the White House and State Department while he was away from Washington.  Files contain Kissinger's detailed reports of his meetings with foreign leaders and the progress of negotiations he was conducting, as well as detailed summaries of concurrent events in Washington and elsewhere in the world.  Substantive materials on U.S. relations with the countries Kissinger was visiting and on foreign policy issues in general also appear. Open folders now cover August 1974 through part of March 1976. The Library staff expects to open additional increments of this collection over coming months.

September 17, 2010
The Library opened four more boxes of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger to research. The collection contains communications exchanged between Henry Kissinger and staff at the White House and State Department while he was away from Washington.  Files contain Kissinger's detailed reports of his meetings with foreign leaders and the progress of negotiations he was conducting, as well as detailed summaries of concurrent events in Washington and elsewhere in the world.  Substantive materials on U.S. relations with the countries Kissinger was visiting and on foreign policy issues in general also appear. Open folders now cover August 1974 through part of December 1975. The Library staff expects to open additional increments of this collection over coming months.

August 31, 2010
The Library opened two more boxes of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger to research. The collection contains communications exchanged between Henry Kissinger and staff at the White House and State Department while he was away from Washington.  Files contain Kissinger's detailed reports of his meetings with foreign leaders and the progress of negotiations he was conducting, as well as detailed summaries of concurrent events in Washington and elsewhere in the world.  Substantive materials on U.S. relations with the countries Kissinger was visiting and on foreign policy issues in general also appear. Open folders now cover August 1974 through part of September 1975. The Library staff expects to open additional increments of this collection over coming months.

August 31, 2010
Recent openings from the Ford Library Project File of Documents Declassified Through the Remote Archive Capture (RAC) Program include almost 3,200 pages of documents from the files of John Marsh and Michael Raoul-Duval concerning the 1975 intelligence investigations, proposals to reform the intelligence community, and other intelligence matters. 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 these sub-collections are still unprocessed and not available for research. Since November 2008 the staff has opened 40 archives boxes of declassified documents through the RAC program.

August 26, 2010
The Library opened additional materials that complete the archival processing of the collection National Security Adviser. Legislative Interdepartmental Group Files. The Legislative Interdepartmental Group (LIG) coordinated congressional liaison activities on foreign affairs and defense matters for the White House, NSC, CIA, and the Departments of State, Justice, and Defense.  The files for many LIG meetings contain both briefing papers and minutes or a record of decisions.  The bulk of the collection dates from 1971 and 1972, with fewer meetings and less documentation for later periods. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

August 12, 2010
The Library opened four more boxes of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger to research. The collection contains communications exchanged between Henry Kissinger and staff at the White House and State Department while he was away from Washington.  Files contain Kissinger's detailed reports of his meetings with foreign leaders and the progress of negotiations he was conducting, as well as detailed summaries of concurrent events in Washington and elsewhere in the world.  Substantive materials on U.S. relations with the countries Kissinger was visiting and on foreign policy issues in general also appear. Open folders now cover August 1974 through part of July 1975. The Library staff expects to open additional increments of this collection over coming months.

August 9, 2010
The Library has completed the first phase of a project to digitize White House photograph contact sheets and make them available on the web. Photographs from August 9 to September 24, 1974 are now available. Detailed reports describe the photographs taken by the White House photographers on a given day and contain links to contact sheets (1:1 images of 35 mm negatives) for each film roll.  View the reports and contact sheets.

August 6, 2010
The Library has completed the digitization of the folder "Investigatory Records on Gerald Ford, Applicant for a Commission, 1941-1942" (22 pages) from the collection U.S. Department of the Navy. Office of Naval Intelligence. This investigation took several months, during which Navy investigators checked government records and interviewed his high school principal, former employers, friends, and others. View the file.

July 30, 2010
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library is proud to announce that Josh Mound has been chosen as the 2010 winner of the Gerald R. Ford Scholar Award in Honor of Robert M. Teeter.  Mr. Mound is a doctoral student in History and Sociology at the University of Michigan and is completing his doctoral dissertation: Inflated Hopes, Taxing Times: The Politics of Economic Crisis in the Long 1970s.  He is examining contested economic politics through the intertwined issues of taxation and inflation during the 1970s, and how Democrats and Republicans struggled to meet the public’s demands for tax reform. See additional information about this award.

July 20, 2010
The Library opened three more boxes of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger to research. The collection contains communications exchanged between Henry Kissinger and staff at the White House and State Department while he was away from Washington.  Files contain Kissinger's detailed reports of his meetings with foreign leaders and the progress of negotiations he was conducting, as well as detailed summaries of concurrent events in Washington and elsewhere in the world.  Substantive materials on U.S. relations with the countries Kissinger was visiting and on foreign policy issues in general also appear. Open folders now cover through part of April 1975. The Library staff expects to open additional increments of this collection over coming months.

July 12, 2010
The Library opened to research the folders in boxes 17-20 of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for President Ford that contain briefing books for Gerald R. Ford's 1975 trip to the People's Republic of China. Folders relating to other aspects of the trip to the Far East remain unprocessed and not yet open to research.

July 7, 2010
The Library has completed the digitization of Gerald R. Ford's congressional newsletters, 1950-1973 (a total of 1,918 pages). These newsletters provided residents of his district with news of his own activities, pending legislation in the Congress, and Federal government programs and policies. Individual stories ranged from detailed descriptions of Ford's overseas trips (such as to Southeast Asia in 1953 or China in 1972) to news notes about the births of his children. This site provides digital access to Ford's own reference set of newsletters (Ford Congressional Papers, Boxes D1 and D2). None of the issues from 1949 have survived, but the set appears to be complete thereafter. (View the digitized documents).

July 7, 2010
The Library has posted a list of documents declassified in whole or in part through the Mandatory Declassification Review process during the months of April to June 2010. Researchers may contact us for additional information about the newly opened documents or to order copies. Please note that Mandatory Review is but one of the methods through which Ford Library documents are declassified. Many additional pages are opened each month through systematic declassification review and returns from the Remote Archive Capture project.

June 28, 2010
The Library opened the first eight boxes of the collection National Security Adviser. Trip Briefing Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger to research. These boxes cover Kissinger's trips between August 1974 and February 1975. The collection contains communications exchanged between Henry Kissinger and staff at the White House and State Department while he was away from Washington.  Files contain Kissinger's detailed reports of his meetings with foreign leaders and the progress of negotiations he was conducting, as well as detailed summaries of concurrent events in Washington and elsewhere in the world.  Substantive materials on U.S. relations with the countries Kissinger was visiting and on foreign policy issues in general also appear. The Library staff expects to open additional increments of this collection over coming months.

June 28, 2010
Recent openings from the Ford Library Project File of Documents Declassified Through the Remote Archive Capture (RAC) Program include almost 4,000 pages of documents from the following collections: National Security Adviser Trip Briefing Books and Cables of both Gerald Ford and Brent Scowcroft (codeword documents); the intelligence investigations and reforms series of the Philip Buchen, John Marsh, and Michael Raoul-Duval Files; the Melvin Laird Papers; and codeword documents from the James Connor Files, Ron Nessen Files, Presidential Handwriting File, U.S. Council of Economic Advisers Records, and White House Central Files Subject File. 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 these sub-collections are still unprocessed and not available for research. Since November 2008 the staff has opened 36 archives boxes (23,700 pages) of declassified documents through the RAC program.

June 18, 2010
The Library has completed the digitization of case files concerning Republican Congressional Leadership Meetings with President Richard Nixon, 1969-1973 (a total of 1948 pages). These files often contain either minutes or handwritten notes on the discussions as well as transcripts of press conferences about the meetings and related documents. Discussions focused on such topics as the Vietnam War, the Federal budget, appointments to government positions, or the various bills pending before Congress.The documents were digitized from the Robert Hartmann Papers and Mr. Hartmann's subject file within the Ford Congressional Papers.

June 14, 2010
The Historian's Office of the Department of State has issued a conference announcement for a September 29-30, 2010, conference on American policy and the War in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975.

May 18, 2010
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation announced the list of recipients of Research Travel Grants from the spring meeting of the grants screening committee.

May 18, 2010
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: Legislative Interdepartmental Group Files and the Trip Briefing Books and Cables of Henry Kissinger (codeword documents). 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 these sub-collections are still unprocessed and not available for research. Since November 2008 the staff has opened 30 archives boxes of declassified documents through the RAC program.

May 6, 2010
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has created a new web exhibit on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first space mission to be undertaken as a joint effort between the United States and the Soviet Union.

March 31, 2010
The Library opened the collection National Security Adviser. Presidential Agency File to research. The collection contains material, organized by agency name, relating to President Ford’s involvement in specific policy decisions, budget and personnel matters, meetings, and issues affecting national security or diplomacy.  The largest files concern Department of Defense, CIA, NATO, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

March 31, 2010
The Library opened to research the Juliette C. "Judy" McLennan Papers. The collection relates to McLennan’s activities as director of the National Volunteer Desk of People for Ford during the 1976 general election campaign. The collection consists of her overview, assessment, and final statistical reporting on the National Volunteer Desk, as well as a portion of the volunteer contact information that the program compiled. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

March 31, 2010
The staff has completed the systematic review for opening of the J. Stanley Pottinger Papers. This collection had previously been made available on a review-on-request basis, allowing researchers to request the review of specific folders. Pottinger directed civil rights matters for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1970-1973), and the Department of Justice (1973-1977) during the Nixon and Ford administrations. For more details on the collection, view its finding aid.

March 19, 2010
The Library has initiated a new service for researchers. On a quarterly basis, we will post a list of documents recently declassified in whole or in part through the Mandatory Declassification Review process. The initial list covers documents opened during two quarters, October 2009 through March 2010. The next posting will be made in early July. Researchers may contact us for additional information about the newly opened documents or to order copies. Please note that Mandatory Review is but one of the methods through which Ford Library documents are declassified. Many additional pages are opened each month through systematic declassification review and returns from the Remote Archive Capture project.

February 24, 2010
The Library has completed the digitization of the entire President's Daily Diary (a total of 9190 pages). The diaries contain a detailed log of all of President Ford's activities during the 896 days he served as President. View the online daily diaries.

February 17, 2010
The Library loaded another two months of the digitized President's Daily Diary to the web site, covering September and October 1976. View the online daily diaries.

February 5, 2010
The Library loaded another four months of the digitized President's Daily Diary to the web site, covering May to August 1976. View the online daily diaries.

February 3, 2010
The Library has opened a new on-line exhibit on the 1974 summit meeting on arms control at Vladivostok, USSR. The exhibit is based on President Ford's description of the summit in his memoir A Time to Heal. Library staff have added digitized copies of key documents and photographs, including declassified "memcons" (memoranda of conversations) detailing the discussions between President Ford and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev at the summit and also preliminary discussions held in Washington and Moscow in the preceding months.

January 20, 2010
The Library loaded another three months of the digitized President's Daily Diary to the web site, covering February to April 1976. View the online daily diaries.

January 4, 2010
The Historian's Office of the Department of State has issued a call for papers for a September 29-30, 2010, conference on American policy and the war in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975. View the Ford Library's subject guide describing our extensive holdings on the Vietnam War.

January 4, 2010
The Library had added PDF files of the typed transcripts of Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns' handwritten journals (diaries) to its collection of digitized documents. These journals cover Burn's role as White House Counsellor and then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors during the Richard Nixon presidency. View the transcripts.

See News Notes for Ford Library Researchers for the year 2009