Release of 56 Presidential Briefing Books

December 9, 2025

Archival Update

December 9, 2025

Yorba Linda, CA

Nixon Library Research Room

The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is pleased to announce the release of 56 annotated presidential briefing books written by Patrick J. Buchanan. This collection of about 5,000 pages includes over 1,100 pages with President Nixon's original handwriting, with many more marked to emphasize what he thought was important. These documents, covering 1970 to 1974, were found in September 2025 in Buchanan's unprocessed White House Central Files. The Library quickly organized, preserved, reviewed, digitized, and indexed them due to their historical importance.

Contents of the Briefing Books

The briefing books mainly contain possible press questions and suggested responses from aides like Buchanan, John Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman, Henry Kissinger, and others. They often include memos summarizing questions linked to current news stories. The collection also features a few of Nixon's handwritten notes on yellow legal pads.

These briefing books are important because they cover most of Nixon's presidency, touching on various foreign and domestic topics. They show the advice Nixon received and his personal thoughts through his annotations. The materials were prepared for different types of press conferences, including both formal and informal ones, some expected to occur in the Oval Office.

Topics Covered

The briefing books cover a wide range of subjects, including:

The Vietnam War
Cambodia
Soviet relations
The Middle East
Potential legislation
The budget
Taxes
Watergate
Politics
Busing
The Supreme Court
Civil rights
Presidential appointees
The environment
Crime

The 56 Presidential briefing books and one binder for Treasury Secretary John Connally build on seven other briefing books found in the President's Personal Files and President’s Office Files. The library has created an index page to make these documents easier to access, organized by date: https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/research/briefing-books.

The index lists each briefing book and notes whether President Nixon added comments. It links to the digitized briefing books' questions and the corresponding page in the National Archives Catalog, where you can find the question, answer, and any annotations.

These briefing books provide additional context for and should be used with the President's Speech File of the President's Personal File (https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/finding-aids/presidents-personal-file-white-house-special-files-staff-member-and-office-files) and the Official Transcripts of Presidential Press Conferences in the White House Press Office collection (https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/finding-aids/white-house-press-office-white-house-central-files-staff-member-and-office-files), both available online.

This is the first release from the Patrick J. Buchanan White House Central Files collection, detailed here: https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/finding-aids/patrick-j-buchanan-white-house-central-files-staff-member-and-office-files. Future releases will include Daily News Summaries, correspondence, subject files, and news clippings. Buchanan's White House Special Files collection (https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/finding-aids/patrick-j-buchanan-white-house-special-files-staff-member-and-office-files), available for in-person research, contains a Briefing Book Back-Up series for 1969 through 1972.