Nixon library joins the fold

[question everything]

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Nixon library joins the fold

After a sometimes bumpy transition, a deed crafted by the National Archives and accepted by the library in December will merge two archives into a single repository.

By CINDY ARORA
The Orange County Register

YORBA LINDA - Richard Nixon could be credited with inspiring today's system of presidential libraries. In the next few months, his library will finally join it.

(snip)

Watergate - and the ensuing scandal and resignation - prompted the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974 to ensure Nixon wouldn't destroy key materials upon leaving office. Before the act, presidents decided what materials to hand over - and retained the power to pull items they deemed sensitive. The Kennedy Library deed, for example, gives the family the final say over materials. After the act and its 1978 update, presidential materials automatically come under federal control.

Nixon fit into neither group.

Nixon's library and museum houses papers from his early years in the political arena, when he was vice president and from his life after leaving office. His presidential materials were required to stay near Washington, D.C., under a law amended in 2004. Nixon and his estate challenged the records seizure for decades, winning some battles to keep materials private, but eventually ceding the materials to the government in exchange for an $18 million settlement. Now, a deed crafted by the National Archives and accepted by the library in December will merge the two archives into a single repository, managed by the federal government in Yorba Linda.

Usually, presidential records are divided into two categories - public and personal. Public materials remain in the archive; personal ones are returned to the president and his family. For Nixon, and because of Watergate, the National Archives needed three - personal, political and public. Private political documents include personal views and campaigning by presidents. But an abuse of power allows the government to retain those materials.

(snip)

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/atoz/article_967131.php

[LiberalEsto]

1. Do they have hidden microphones?

Just to tape visitors' comments.

[question everything]

4. The library, of course, is in Orange County

still a center of rabid freepers.

Some ten years ago we visited the library - a fascinating walk down memory lane, really, for aging baby boomers.

When we entered the room where the Watergate transcripts were in closed cases, there was one woman still sniffling at the fate of her beloved president.

[Sparkman]

2. Hasn't the abuse been by the public servants, ie *'s burning records?

Both Bush presidents have destroyed documents, public records, in contrast to the 1979 law?
Criminal conspiracies rely upon secrecy and oral record "keeping".

[calico1]

3. Watch what you say if you go in there! n/t