n. (also pre-presidential papers or pre-Presidential papers)the personal, governmental, and other records created or received by a president of the United States of America prior to such serviceRowland 1950, 208–209The Wilson records fall into six main categories: the Executive or Official File, the Confidential File, the Personal File, the Peace Conference File, correspondence covering the period from retirement to death, February 3, 1924, and pre-Presidential letters and documents.Gersack 1961, 221Earlier, as an Army archivist, Mr. Bolton arranged and indexed General Eisenhower’s pre-Presidential papers.Goggin and Delle Donne 1973, 118Newly opened prepresidential papers include senatorial campaign material (1952), legislative files (1953–60), files of legislative assistants (1953–60), papers relating to legislation introduced by John F. Kennedy (1953–60), and political files (1956–60).Cook 1975, 313Later, in a letter dated August 8, 1974, the day he announced his intention to resign from office, Nixon wrote to the General Services Administration closing all of the pre-presidential papers deeded in 1968-69, not until the end of his administration as the original deed of gift states, but until 1985.Fenn 1979, 439Among the papers are personal and pre-presidential materials, presidential papers including the White House central files and White House staff files, and papers of the post-assassination period, reflecting the worldwide reaction to President Kennedy’s death.Geselbracht and Reed 1983, 72While the Carter office did not maintain a daily diary, it acted as the historian’s conscience to the White House. It located Carter’s prepresidential papers, assembled a book collection and a clipping file on the Carter presidency, helped pack and store White House gifts, surveyed records in White House offices, and conducted exit interviews with White House staff and oral history interviews with members of the president’s family.Leisinger 1984, 339Some of the significant events in which Karl [L. Trever] played an outstanding part from 1951 were: the transfer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States to the National Archives on 15 December 1952 and their enshrinement along with the Bill of Rights; the publication of “Charters of Freedom” in 1952; the exhibit of large-size facsimiles of the three Charters in hundreds of new public buildings throughout the United States; the floodlighting of the National Archives building, 1954; the production of the color and sound motion-picture film “Your National Archives” in 1955–56 and its extensive circulation in the United States and overseas; the preparations for and the dedication of the Truman Library in 1957, the Rayburn Library in 1957, and the Eisenhower Library in 1962; and the transfer of the Kennedy pre-presidential papers to the National Archives in 1961.Brown 2001, 9The first Nixon papers controversy centered on whether legal transfer of a selection of Nixon’s prepresidential papers to the federal government.
