Related
Posting
Historians Ask Congress to Suspend
Nixon Transfer
Press
coverage
"Nixon
Library Can't Be Trusted Not to Play With His Words," by David
Greenberg, Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2005
"Director
of Nixon Library Agrees to Make President's Political Tapes Public,"
by Scott Shane, New York Times, March 18, 2005
"Library,
government make deal on Nixon papers," by Amy Taxin and Erica
Perez, The Orange County Register, March 18, 2005
"Nixon
Library Stirs Anger by Canceling Conference," by Scott Shane,
New York Times, March 11, 2005
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Nixon
Library to revise exhibits, participate in new Vietnam conference,
Donate most pre- and post-presidential materials to National Archives
Including "personal/political" 700 hours cut from tapes
with razors; No mention of independent review board requested by
historians.
Washington, D.C., March 17, 2005 - 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 from the Nixon Library are described in a March
14, 2005 letter from the new Archivist of the U.S.,
Allen Weinstein, to John H. Taylor, the Nixon Library director,
Taylor's reply
of March 15, 2005, and a summary
of the Weinstein-Taylor exchanges prepared by the National
Archives and posted today on the Web site of the National Security
Archive, which posted the
historians' protest letter on March 10.
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.
"I'm tempted to do what one senator suggested to LBJ on Vietnam,
declare victory and get out," commented Thomas S. Blanton,
director of the National Security Archive and a signer of the historians'
letter. "Isn't it amazing what outside scrutiny and pressure
can accomplish? But until there's a binding legal agreement, and
the donations are in hand, we need more independent review of all
these deals."
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