Patrick J. Buchanan (White House Central Files: Staff Member and Office Files)

The materials of Patrick J. Buchanan available for research in this collection cover the period from January 28, 1970, to June 28, 1974, and consist of Briefing Books prepared primarily for President Nixon. Many of these are heavily marked up with annotations by President Nixon.

Buchanan joined the White House staff as a Special Assistant to the President the day after the 1969 Inauguration. Previously, he had served Richard M. Nixon for three years in a number of capacities. First, when Nixon was active nationally as a campaigner for Republican office seekers, Buchanan was speech writer and research director, press assistant, political aide, and lastly executive assistant. Then, during the presidential campaign of 1968, Buchanan was a speechwriter for both Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew, the vice presidential candidate.

At the White House, Buchanan’s assigned duties continued to be related to written communications. For the most part, this was in the form of daily news briefings, background information for press conferences, and political campaign data gathered for partisan purposes in the 1972 election.

Initially, among Buchanan’s responsibilities was that of preparing the President’s daily News Summary. This in-house news publication of ten to twenty pages was assembled for the President’s reading each morning and presented to him in capsule format the foreign and domestic news of the previous day and night. Included were major as well as minor news which Buchanan felt would interest the President and his most senior assistants. To a large extent, the daily News Summary was Buchanan’s succinct analysis of the contemporary news media.

Next among Buchanan’s duties was the compilation and coordination of background briefing materials for Presidential and a few Vice Presidential press conferences. The briefings--for both the larger, announced press conferences and the smaller, informal ones held in the Oval Office--related to a widespread number of topics and were in the form of probable questions which the White House staff members anticipated news reporters would address to the President. Along with the questions, were answers recommended by Buchanan, other members of the White House staff, and the heads of major departments of the government. 

Additional briefing books can be found in the White House Special Files President's Personal File and President's Office Files collections. The Library has created a consolidated index to all known Presidential briefing books, with links to digitized copies in the National Archives Catalog.

Buchanan's White House Special Files collection contains Briefing Book Back-Up Materials.

The remainder of Buchanan’s office records, including news summaries, newspaper clippings, and copies of numerous publications, will be processed at a later date.