Upcoming Deadlines
March 15, 2014 Deadline for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation Research Travel Grants. For more information about the grants contact Jeremy Schmidt.	April 10, 2014 Deadline for the "Gerald R. Ford Scholar Award (Dissertation Award) in Honor of Robert Teeter". For more information about the award please contact Elizabeth Druga.

ATTENTION RESEARCHERS: The Ford Library research room will have shortened hours on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. The room will be open from 8:45 am to 3:00 pm on both those days. Also, the Libray will be closed on Christmas Day (12/25/13) and New Year's Day (1/1/14).

December 16, 2013
The Library has opened for research the Myron B. Kuropas Papers, (1963) 1975-77 (9.8 linear feet). This collection contains materials relating primarily to Kuropas’s work as Special Assistant to the President for Ethnic Affairs in 1976, including arrangements for meetings with ethnic groups and background information on ethnic issues. A few items concern his duties in 1977 as Legislative Assistant to Senator Robert Dole.

View the collection finding aid.

The Library has also opened for research the White House Alphabetical Correspondence File, 1969-70 (7.4 linear feet) series from the Arthur F. Burns Papers. This series consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence from Burns' service as Counsellor to President Nixon. Correspondents include U.S. and foreign officials; colleagues in banking and academia; members of Congress; friends; and the general public. The correspondence includes invitations, thank you notes, transmittals of speeches and papers, as well as substantive letters concerning domestic and international monetary matters.

View the collection finding aid.

Systematic donor review is now complete for the American Citizens Concerned for Life records.

December 9, 2013
The Library has opened for research the Subject File series from the NSA. NSC Staff for the Middle East and South Asia Files (5.3 linear feet). A finding aid will be available once the entire collection has been processed. Until then, please contact the Library with questions about this collection.

The Library has opened for research accretions to the Speeches, Congressional Testimony, Interviews, and Writings File (8.3 linear feet) series of the Arthur F. Burns Papers. This material dates from 1978 to 1987. Some pre-1987 items were interfiled with earlier materials. During his period as ambassador, Burns frequently spoke of the NATO alliance, atomic weapons, democracy, international education and exchanges, youth, democracy, European and American economic situation, and East-West relations.

A new series from the Burns Papers was opened as well: Ambassador's Subject File, 1981-85 (1986-87) (2.3 linear feet). This series consists of memoranda, notes, reports, schedules, letters, and telegrams compiled by Arthur Burns during his service as the U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Included in the series is a sub-series of notes and memoranda to the file that document Burns’ meetings with West German officials, primarily Helmut Schmidt, and his correspondence with Secretary of State George Shultz and President Ronald Reagan. These documents provide insight into the political behavior of Schmidt, West German foreign and domestic policies and politics, Burns’ assessment of West German leaders and policies, and U.S.-West German relations. Other topics represented in the series include West German relations with East Germany and the Soviet Union, conditions in Berlin, arms control, deployment of atomic weapons in Europe, U.S. defense spending, NATO, trade, and international and economic conditions. Also included in the series are administrative records related to Burns’ appointment, resignation, and selection of an aid, and a register of meetings and daily schedules.

View the collection finding aid.

The Library also opened several series from the Virginia H. Knauer Files, 1969-77. A finding aid will be available once the entire collection has been processed. Until then, please contact the Library with questions about this collection.

- General File, 1973-76 (E Series) (0.7 linear feet)

This series contains reports and correspondence relating to a variety of industries, often with a focus on product labeling and safety standards. The largest component of this series is the energy conservation subseries. This subseries is related to the 1973-74 campaign to increase consumer awareness of household energy conservation, and includes meeting notes, memoranda, and several drafts of scripts for energy conservation TV spots.

- Deputy Director File, 1974-76 (F Series) (1.2 linear feet)

This series contains material primarily related to Office of Consumer Affairs administrative operations, and to a lesser degree consumer policy development. The documents pertain to personnel, travel, and organizational structure.

- Speech File, 1969-76 (G Series) (8.9 linear feet)

This series contains speeches delivered by Knauer and others working within her office at the Committee on Consumer Interests and the Office of Consumer Affairs. The speeches were delivered to trade shows, councils, and conventions, annual meetings, grassroots political organizations, schools, or served as testimony before congressional hearings and committees. The speeches addressed consumer concerns such as food pricing and labeling, product safety, the automotive industry, and the construction industry, among others. All speeches were delivered by Knauer herself unless otherwise noted in the folder title.

- Press Releases, 1969-76 (H Series) (1.0 linear feet)

This series contains press releases issued by President Nixon’s Committee on Consumer Interests, and later the Office of Consumer Affairs, and includes drafts and supplementary material such as letters from businesses and politicians.

- Publications, 1969-76 (I Series) (1.2 linear feet)

This series includes Consumer News newsletters from April 1971-January 1977 and Virginia Knauer’s “Dear Consumer” editorials from 1972-1976, as well as other publications related to consumer education.

October 30, 2013
The Library has opened for research the NSA. Staff Assistant Robert C. ("Bud") McFarlane Files, 1974-77 (3 linear feet). This collection consists of a small subject file and a chronological file concerning various aspects of Robert C. (“Bud”) McFarlane’s work as an aide to Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, and William Hyland. Major topics include his role in ensuring proper and adequate coordination of presidential decision papers, the 1975 intelligence investigations and the administration’s response, and NSC congressional relations during the early months of the administration. View the collection finding aid.

The Library has opened for research the Anne Kamstra Files, 1974-77 (approx. 47,000 cards). This collection contains index cards prepared by Anne Kamstra documenting autograph requests for President Ford. View the collection finding aid.

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 2013. You can also see lists of documents declassified in earlier quarters. 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.

The Library has completed digitization of the following series from the Ron Nessen Papers:

• General Subject File,
• Campaign Subject File,
• Domestic Guidance for Press Briefings, and
• Foreign Guidance for Press Briefings.

View the documents.

August 28, 2013
The Library has opened for research the Country File and the Visits File series from the NSA. NSC Staff for the Middle East and South Asia Files. A finding aid will be available once the entire collection has been processed. Until then, please contact the Library with questions about this collection.

August 27, 2013
The Library has opened for research the White House Central Files (WHCF). Central Reference Unit Files, 1974-77 (25 linear feet). This collection includes directories of prominent individuals and indexes to outgoing correspondence. For more information about this collection, visit the WHCF finding aid Web page.

July 26, 2013
The Library has opened for research two series from the the Charles H. McCall Files. This collection is now fully processed. The Draft Speeches and Statements Fact and Style Checking File series consists of speech drafts with notations that specific facts have been verified, related correspondence and memoranda, and briefing materials and pre-advance reports for specific trips by President Gerald Ford. In addition, the series contains background materials such as reports, publications, and newspaper clippings used in drafting and fact checking the speeches and statements. The Administrative File series consists of memoranda and correspondence relating to the operation of the research office of the Editorial Staff. View the collection finding aid.

July 11, 2013
The Library has opened for research the Staff Assistant John K. Matheny Files. This sub-collection of the National Security Adviser's files contains material concerning Matheny's work as an assistant to Robert C. McFarlane, primarily in the area of National Security Council interactions with the congressional select committees on intelligence and Ford administration efforts to reform the intelligence community. Some materials on other topics appear, including a significant file on the administration’s self-evaluation of the handling of the Mayaguez incident. View the collection finding aid.

July 2, 2013
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library is proud to announce that Amanda Hughett has been chosen as the 2013 winner of the Gerald R. Ford Scholar Award in Honor of Robert M. Teeter.  Ms. Hughett is a doctoral student in History at Duke University and is completing her doctoral dissertation: Beyond the Prison Gates: Grassroots Activism and Criminal Justice Politics in North Carolina, 1968-1994. Her work explores an interracial and multi-class movement for prison reform that emerged in North Carolina and across the nation beginning in the late 1960s. See additional information about this award.

July 2, 2013
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation announced the list of recipients of Research Travel Grants from the Spring meeting of the grants screening committee.

July 1, 2012
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 2013. You can also see lists of documents declassified in earlier quarters. 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.

May 30, 2013
The Library has completed the digitization of the Richard Cheney Files. View the documents.

April 26, 2013
The Library has completed the digitization of the Press Secretary's Press Briefing Transcripts series of the Ron Nessen Files. View the documents.

April 9, 2013
The Library has completed the digitization of the chronological series of the Presidential Handwriting File. View the documents.

April 9, 2013
The Library has posted a list of documents declassified in whole or in part through the Mandatory Declassification Review process during the months of January to March 2013. You can also see lists of documents declassified in earlier quarters. 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.

March 29, 2013
The Library has opened for research accretions to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) Subject File, FRB Staff Files, Name Correspondence Files, and Chronological File series of the Arthur F. Burns Papers. The FRB Subject File contains material related to the 1975 New York City financial crisis and vacancies on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, among other topics. View the collection finding aid.

The Library has also opened for research the National Security Council Staff Secretary Files, (1973) 1974-1977. The collection consists of a fragmentary chronological file of outgoing correspondence and memoranda along with a small subject file. Although occasional minutes of meetings or memoranda of conversations appear, the material is mostly routine in nature and the bulk of it concerns administrative matters. View the collection finding aid.

March 19, 2013
Nine additional issues of the student literary magazine The Pioneer (which also contain school news) have been opened in the collection Grand Rapids South High School Publications. They date from President Ford's senior year in high school and do contain some information about him.

March 15, 2013
The Library has completed the digitization of additional boxes of the chronological series of the Presidential Handwriting File. All documents from August 8, 1974 through August 2, 1976 are now available. View the documents.

March 15, 2013
One additional box of the Birge Watkins Files has been processed and opened to research. Box 10 contains a very complete set of typed daily schedules (with handwritten addtions and corrections) for Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs L. William Seidman. View the collection finding aid.

February 11, 2013
The Library has opened for research the Trip File series of the Arthur F. Burns Papers. The materials relate to trips made by Arthur Burns, primarily in his official capacity as the U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Although most of the material is routine trip planning records, there is some substantial material related to diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union pertaining to Berlin, and relations between U.S. military bases in West Germany and the surrounding communities. View the collection finding aid.

January 9, 2013
The Library has completed scanning and database work and posted to the Ford Digital Library the Public Papers of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger covering the Ford Administration years. These pages contain many of Kissinger's public addresses, statements, remarks, testimony, and press conferences digitized from Department of State press releases or the publication Department of State Bulletin ("The Official Weekly Record of United States Foreign Policy"). View the Kissinger Public Papers.

January 2, 2013
The Library has opened for research the Robert Quartel Papers. This collection consists primarily of materials related to the 1976 Presidential Campaign, mostly letters from the public requesting information on President Ford’s positions on issues, and the responses of the President Ford Committee Answer Desk to those letters. Also included is a series of Presidential Clemency Board reports documenting performance measurement and analyzing the process of deciding cases. View the collection finding aid.

The Library has opened for research the audiovisual portion of the Paul A. Theis Papers. The textual materials in this collection were opened in October 1999. View the collection finding aid.

See News Notes for Ford Library Researchers for the year 2012