Posted on 11/16/2001 1:23:51 PM PST by Judge Parker
WASHINGTON -- With a stroke of the pen on Nov. 1, President Bush stabbed history in the back and blocked Americans' right to know how presidents (and vice presidents) have made decisions. Executive Order 13223 ended more than 30 years of increasing openness in government.
From now on, scholars, journalists and any other citizens will have to show a demonstrated, specific "need to know" in requesting documents from the Reagan, Clinton and two Bush presidencies — and all others to come. And if someone asks to see records never made public during a presidency but deposited in the National Archives by a former president, the requester will now have to receive the permission of both the former president and the current one.
My response was to send President Bush a couple of books on recent presidencies, along with a note saying they might become valuable artifacts because his order could prevent writers from doing similar research without approval from two presidents. I also attached a letter from his father to me explaining how important it is to document presidential decision-making.
Archival research is grinding work. It takes years of perseverance to follow the paper trail documenting how the nation goes to war or raises taxes, or how presidents choose their staffs. But the search becomes worthwhile when you see John F. Kennedy's initials on a memo talking of the possibility of a Berlin wall weeks before the Communists put it up, or when you find Richard Nixon asking Henry Kissinger, in a note, "Is it possible we were wrong from the start in Vietnam?"
There are rules upon rules about which presidential papers become available and when — and some of them defy all reason. For more than 25 years, an inscription by the Irish writer Brendan Behan to President Kennedy was withheld from researchers by the National Archives and Records Administration, apparently because it was written on a copy of Evergreen Review, a literary magazine considered racy in those days. But the complicated rules have been changing in the direction of more access since the Freedom of Information Act became law on July 4, 1966.
From 1981, when the Presidential Records Act went into effect, until Mr. Bush issued his order, a citizen could request to review some presidential papers five years after the end of a presidency, or ask for all but the most sensitive records after 12 years. Ronald Reagan's records were the first to become available under the 12-year rule — except that they did not become available, because the Bush administration chose to review the policy for the past nine months.
That review resulted in the recent order. The White House reassured me that you can still go to court if an administration denies you access to archived information. Right. If you have years and tens of thousands of dollars to spare to take your case to the federal courts.
The White House argues that premature disclosure of decision memos and the like could stifle dialogue among presidential advisers. But this has been true for years, and the republic has managed to survive. The administration's second reason — to make the process more "orderly" — is simply ludicrous. It is hard to see how double presidential oversight will speed things up, unless the idea is to just say no.
And I think that is the idea. There may be Reagan-era records that could be embarrassing to some men and women now back in power with the second Bush administration.
Perhaps even more pertinent, they may not want to spend their retirements, 12 years after George W. Bush leaves office, defending the wartime decisions they are making now.
Richard Reeves is author of "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" and "President Nixon: Alone in the White House."
If that were true, Richard Reeves would be all for it!
Clinton is merely awaiting his turn.....
Secrecy in government, Surveillance for citizens
Yeah, those are the hallmarks of a free society.
It's things like this that make me glad I voted for Browne.
Sounds pretty socialist to me...
But wait, there's a REPUBLICAN in the White House... So it's okay then...
He does have a point, though. Once the presidency is over, it is history and all historians have a "need to know" information that does not compromise living persons or intelligence sources and methods.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Every time I start thinking that GW is a lot better than I thought he would be, something like this comes along to snap me back to reality.
Even under the FOIA it's very difficult to get information, so now one must assume it will in fact be impossible. So much for freedom of the press as a watchdog of government for the sheeple. Small comfort that the lapdog media will still prosper.
From the NARA site:
"In the past, Presidents had tremendous power to dispose of their papers as they saw fit. Of the first 30 men to hold the Presidential office, only 13 made specific bequests of their papers. Presidents Van Buren, Garfield, Arthur, Grant, Pierce, and Coolidge are among those who destroyed significant numbers of their papers. President Van Buren destroyed a large portion of his Presidential correspondence while he was still in office. Similarly, President Garfield destroyed many of his Presidential materials in the 2 months between being shot by an assassin and his death in 1881. President Arthur apparently burned three large garbage cans filled with his papers.
Franklin Roosevelt negotiated an arrangement with Congress in which he gave his White House materials to the United States on the condition that they be maintained in a library to be built on Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, NY. A historian is said to have asked Roosevelt why his papers did not come within the class of official government documents. The President replied that he was following the precedent set by Washington: "When I came to the White House there was not a scrap of paper in that room; when I retire, I shall not leave a scrap. The room will be swept clean for my successor."
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 terminated the long-standing historical tradition of private ownership of Presidential papers and hence the reliance on Presidential giving for the government to acquire legal custody."
It's V8 Hot most mornings. Montepulciano d'Abbruzzo most evenings. I'll digest anything.
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