Nixon records (very long post) (#23582)
by Maarja, former Nixon archivist on November 17, 2003 at 10:03 PM

Modern Presidential records are administered under three different controls. (1) Before Watergate, Presidents donated their papers as personal property, imposing access restrictions on them through transfer deeds of gift. (2) Nixon's tapes and files were placed in Government custody by a 1974 law requiring release of the "full truth" about Watergate, as well as material of “general historical significance.” (3) Starting with those of Ronald Reagan, Presidential records are considered Government property, to be administered under objective standards for release.

The National Archives, which houses Nixon's records, preserves the "essential evidence of governmental action." Its nonpartisan, objective archivists apply laws to screen historical information for public release. I once was one of them. (I left the Archives in 1990 to take a job as a government historian at another federal agency, where I am still employed.) The nonpartisan, professional standards of archivists do not always mesh with the political and emotional objectives of Presidential families and Foundations. Here’s why that culture clash now looms over the government archivists working with the Nixon tapes and records.

In 2002, the Washington Post's Paula Span asked who really runs Presidential Libraries: "The archivist of the United States appoints each library's director after "consultation" with the ex-president, but that's a euphemism. . . .foundations don't dematerialize after the libraries get turned over to the National Archives; they still wield purse-string power, funding exhibits and setting priorities, sometimes in ways the professional staff appreciates, sometimes not."

More than any other Presidential foundation, the California-based Nixon Foundation has reflected an aggressive sense of advocacy which is at odds with the professionalism and objectivity of the employees of the National ArchivesHugh Hewitt, director of the private Nixon Library, said in July 1990 that if he had his way, researchers "seen as anti-Nixon would be denied access." He singled out Bob Woodward as a researcher who would be denied access. In September 1990, John Taylor took over as director of the Nixon Library. He described an epiphany about Nixon, saying, "I would find it personally distressing to recall that I had not been loyal to him before, because my feelings run so deep." A California politician agreed: "John is a gut-level and fiercely devoted Nixonite. . . someone who recognizes the enormity of the contribution . . . not distorted by the vicious liberal media that harangued [Nixon] so many years."

It is too late to debate the fairness of the Nixon records statute, which called for disclosure during a President's lifetime of "abuse of power" information, before release of other historical information about his Presidency. Nixon resented that during his lifetime -- it must have grated on him that most Presidential Libraries first released the most innocuous files about former Presidents, while the law called on the Archives to concentrate first on screening information about Watergate and other abuses of power.

As a former government archivist with the Archives’ Nixon Project, I personally would like to have seen the “abuse of power” material opened along with other historical information, in order to provide a broad picture of what was happening during his Presidency. Be that as it may, the courts decided those issues long ago. And by now the Archives has been able to open enough general historical information about Nixon that a fuller picture of his Presidency is beginning to emerge. But Dr. Kutler's alarm is justified.

The biggest problem for overnment archivists, past, present and future, lies in the tactics used by Nixon’s advocates to pressure the National Archives. Instead of focusing on public access standards in fencing with the government, the Nixon lawyers and spokesmen repeatedly have attacked the professional staff of the National Archives. They have referred to archivists as "junior prosecutors" The former President's lawyers unfairly charged my former boss at the Archives, a highly regarded Vietnam veteran who had voted for Nixon, with anti-Nixon bias. I, too, did my job so dispassionately when I worked for the Archives with the Nixon tapes, John Taylor slapped me with the "liberal" label. He couldn't tell from my work that I had voted for Nixon and Reagan—and that is how it should be — archivists are supposed to be neutral and objective. Only after Nixon died was the Archives able to release the Watergate tapes. Even then, John Taylor sneered after release of Watergate tapes that "the archivists have done their worst."

If acting in conformance with law and with the Archives' core values provided us government employees no protection during the 1980s and 1990s, what will protect our successors now that a deal may be struck to allow the tapes and documents to be transferred to California? The Archives' silence through the years in the face of attacks on its staff by Nixon spokesmen only shows the enormous power of Presidential foundations. That doesn’t bode well for my former colleagues at the Archives’ Nixon Project.

Unfortunately, the historical community mostly has been silent on these important but complex issues, except for Dr. Kutler and a few others. (Just look at the H-net discussion logs, almost no mention of the Nixon records issue in recent times.) Although it takes time to unravel the complexities, the Nixon records issues merit a hard and close look.