Alexander P. Butterfield (White House Central Files: Staff Member and Office Files)

The materials of Alexander P. Butterfield cover the years 1969-1973. During those years he served as H. R. Haldeman's deputy on the President's personal staff as Deputy Assistant to the President. Butterfield served as a chief administrative officer, having responsibility for final review of all memoranda, briefing papers, and correspondence going to the President as well as the conduct of the President's daily, non-public activities. After November 1969, the Nixon Administration had no formal Secretary to the Cabinet, and Butterfield assumed those duties informally as Cabinet coordinator. He supervised the operation of the Staff Secretary's Office, the Security Office, the Office of Presidential Papers and Archives, the Office of Special Files, and the work of Presidential Receptionists. He served as liaison for the First Lady's Staff, the White House Social Secretary, the Office of White House Visitors, and the Military Assistant to the President. He also had oversight of internal security, acting as liaison with the United States Secret Service's Presidential Protective Division, Technical Security Division, and the Executive Protection Service. In a 1988 interview published in The Journal of American History, Butterfield described himself as "... responsible for the smooth running of the president's official day, and for all White House administration."[1]

Most of the materials relating to internal security and protection of the President and his family are closed. Although Butterfield had oversight of the installation and operation of the White House tapes, he did not document these activities.

The files contain memoranda, letters, and reports received by Butterfield principally in connection with his responsibilities for planning events in cooperation with the First Lady's staff, as a contact for those seeking the attention of the President, and as liaison with the Secret Service dealing with personnel and document security. The files described here were retired to the White House Central Files unit as Confidential Files Oversize Attachment 693.

This note does not describe all of the materials of Alexander P. Butterfield. The White House Special Files unit maintained files considered sensitive for reasons of either political content or security classification. An additional 4.2 cubic feet (approximately 10,000 pages) of files created, received, and maintained by Butterfield are contained, under Butterfield's name, in the White House Special Files. Those materials are described separately.  [See Also:  Butterfield's White House Special Files]

Accretion – December 2016

Separate from his official files maintained by the White House Central and Special Files, Butterfield kept a personal file that to some extent mirrored the official files, but was also more complete. These files include documents with original handwriting of President Nixon, H. R. Haldeman, Butterfield, and others. The collection covers the entire range of Butterfield's duties, including coordinating the President's schedule, the organization and reorganization of the White House Office, personnel, U.S. Secret Service, and the budget.

Author Bob Woodward used these files and multiple conversations with Butterfield in writing his 2015 book, The Last of the President's Men.

Recognizing that these "personal" materials could be covered by the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA), Nixon Library archivists traveled to San Diego in February 2016 to assess the materials. Determining that the majority of the materials were covered under PRMPA, the archivists took them and left a small amount of purely personal materials. The materials were then reviewed under PRMPA.

Additionally, the accretion contains a small amount of material taken by Woodward. A part of these materials were returned directly to Butterfield, and were then reviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Another part was returned directly to the National Archives by Woodward’s attorney. These documents can be found in the Subject File series, in the folder "Miscellaneous Sensitive Materials."

Because these materials were maintained outside the National Archives until 2016, and were used for research before that time, files sometimes include photocopies of Presidential-era documents made after the Nixon administration. When the files contained two copies of the same document, the most recent (and duplicative) copy was removed from the file. If a recent copy did not duplicate another document in the file, it was retained in place. An older copy of the document may exist elsewhere in the collection.

[1] "Conversations between Alexander P. Butterfield and David Thelen about the discovery of the Watergate Tapes," Vol. 75, no. 4, (March 1989), p. 1248.