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Nixon Library: Trustworthy?

NYT Editorial In an editorial in the NYT the paper chides the Nixon Library for cancelling the Vietnam conference and warns that Allen Weinstein, the archivist of the US, is"putting his own credibility on the line as much as the Nixon's Library" in recommending the completion of the deal to transfer the Nixon papers to the Nixon Library.

Library Agrees to Turn Over Personal Records After a group of historians plus the American Library Association last week protested the lack of public access guarantees in the proposed transfer of President Nixon's tapes and files to the private Yorba Linda-based Nixon Library & Birthplace, Nixon representatives have now assured the National Archives that the Nixon Library will donate to the Archives the"personal/political" portions of the tapes and files -- which former President Nixon and his estate litigated for more than two decades to keep from the public domain. The pledges exchanged this week do not provide the binding legal commitment on the Nixon Library's part as urged by the historians, but do seem to represent clearly the bottom-line requirements of the National Archives before the Nixon Library would join the Presidential Library system. The pledges also do not include any reference to the final recommendation from the historians' group, that the presidential libraries need an independent review board or boards to ensure maximum public access.

Dear John Taylor: A Letter to the Executive Director of the Nixon Library By Thomas S. Blanton