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."
Some refer to it as creeping fascism.
Absolutely. What happened to "of the people by the people and for the people?"
The hard part is to do it in a Constitutional way!
Good vote, at least you didn't waste your vote supporting $billions more for the socialist Education Departmen, supporting the Bush/Clinton immigration policies, supporting Communist Vietnman and China, supporting the Islamic terrorists and drug-runners in Kosovo, etc. etc. etc.
First, what do you think Bush would want to hide about the war on terrorism - twelve years after he has left office? Sources and methods are protected indefinitely as things stood before Bush decided to make America a more secret country. [I agree with keeping sources and methods classified. I don't agree with keeping classified great mistakes, cowardly mistakes, outright treachery, blatant criminality, etc. But I guess the point can be debated.]
Can you name anything which has been released from any Presidential Library which caused great harm to our country?[I and close friends have done considerable research in a couple of Presidential Libraries. The secrecy was already stifling. Much WWII information will not be made public while anyone alive still lives. I don't like that kind of America, but I guess you and most Americans do.]
I believe he is afraid of many things from the Reagan years, things his father had a big hand in. But, as long as America remains ignorant of great mistakes and crimes, I guess it's ok, it's the kind of people we are.
Good point. If he didn't, he's a scum sucker.
It may be that in Reagan's day, the various agencies, like the CIA, were more hamstrung by regulation and oversight and less apt to behave as they had earlier, so more was done through the White House. This will result in a skewed view of the Reagan administration when the White House documents eventually do come out.
I'm not a big fan of either Bush, but I can't get worked up very much about this. Reeves mentions nothing that Clinton has done that might come out if the archives are opened. In other words, he's angling for a specific audience here, and most of us aren't in it. That doesn't mean his points are invalid, but it does turn me off.
The whining about how archival research is such hard work also strikes an ugly note. Reeves has been milking his Kennedy books for years, cannibalizing them for material, and using them as a crutch. It might do him some good to get back out in the real world.
In other words, he may have a valid point, but I don't think he proves it or wins my support. You could say this is how we lose our liberties, but I don't think so. I think we wait to see if someone else can make a better, less partisan, more balanced and considered case for Reeves' point than he himself does.
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