NCC Washington Update 2:12, 4/12/96

[mwidener@mail.law.utexas.edu (Mike Widener)]

NCC Washington Update, vol. 2, #12, April 12, 1996
  by Page Putnam Miller, Director of the National Coordinating
  Committee for the Promotion of History <pagem@CapAccess.org>

1.  A 30% Personnel Cut Anticipated at Center of Military History
2.  Agreement Announced on Access to Nixon Tapes

1.  A 30% Personnel Cut Anticipated at Center of Military History --
As a part of the agency downsizing, a reorganization team for the Army
is expected to make a recommendation on April 16 that will call for a
30% cut in the staff of the Center of Military History. The Center
prepares the official history of the United States Army, provides
direct support to the Department of the Army Staff and Secretariat,
and supervises or assists all historical programs within the Army at
large.  The Center also supports the use of military history by the
Army's service schools in the teaching of strategy, operations, and
tactics.  With a staff of less than fifty, the Center has several
divisions, which in addition to the headquarters office, include a
division that writes histories, one that provides research and
analysis, a museum division, and a field programs and historical
services component which includes declassification responsibilities.

Besides the reduction is staff, the reorganization will probably also
include a repositioning of the Center within the Army hierarchy.
Instead of reporting directly to a general at the Pentagon, it appears
that the Center will be placed under the command of the War College at
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.  It is anticipated, however, that the
Center will remain in the greater Washington area.

Its seems that the Center of Military History may be targeted for a
disproportionately large personnel cut, for other offices within the
Army appear to be slated for staff reductions that are closer to 10%.

2.  Agreement Announced on Access to Nixon Tapes --
On April 12 the estate of former President Nixon, the advocacy group
Public Citizen, University of Wisconsin history professor Stanley I.
Kutler, and the National Archives filed a 19 page agreement in U. S.
District Court for the District of Columbia.  This agreement spells
out the conditions and procedures for releasing the tape recordings
made during the Presidency of Richard Nixon.  Of the approximately
4,000 hours of tapes only 63 hours have thus far been released.  This
agreement comes as a result of 14 months of court ordered mediation in
the case which began in March 1992 when historian Kutler sued the
National Archives for repeatedly ignoring his legitimate requests for
access to the Nixon tapes.

In announcing the agreement, U.S. Archivist John Carlin said this
pleased him as much as anything that has occurred in his 10 months as
head of the National Archives.  Kutler also commended the agreement.
In his remarks, Kutler noted that the National Archives had completed
its review of the tapes in 1987 but had "put themselves in Nixon's
service, and not the nation's or the scholarly community's as they
were obliged to do."  Thus he had reluctantly decided to sue the
National Archives for access to "an important primary source" that
Kutler stated will "give us a history different from that driven by
Nixon's and others' self-serving memoirs."

Under the terms of the agreement, the first segment of tapes to be
released will be the 201 hours dealing with "the abuses of government
power."  The National Archives will deliver these tapes to an agent of
the Nixon estate no later than April 15.  The Nixon estate has until
October 1 to submit objections to their release on the grounds that
the National Archives has inappropriately designated them as "abuse of
government power."  Any objections will be referred to a panel of
three Presidential Library archivists:  David Alsobrook, Frances
Seeber, and Claudia Anderson.  The hope is that this segment will be
available to the public by mid-November, 1996.  The next scheduled
released will be the 278 hours of Cabinet Room tapes, which are
targeted for release in late 1997 or early 1998.  This will be
followed by the releases of five remaining segments.  Since the
processing will involve tape review, preparing tapes for
declassification review, tape editing and production of finding aids,
the agreement states that it will take from 15 to 23 months to process
each one of these five segments.

The one point on which the parties were unable to reach an agreement
was the National Archives' retention and maintenance of the original
tape recordings in their entirety, including those segments deemed to
be private or personal to former President Nixon.  The government
believes that it is complying with the Presidential Recordings and
Materials Preservation Act by retaining the original tapes and a
preservation copy. The Nixon estate contends that the law which gave
the government the right to take possession of the tapes prohibits the
Archives from retaining any personal and private materials on the
tapes.  Thus the Nixon estate is calling for the portions of the
original tapes that contain personal and private materials, as well as
the preservation copy, be turned over to them.  The parties have
agreed to litigate this issue on an expedited basis.  Public Citizen
and Professor Kutler have agreed to file a brief supporting the Nixon
estate's position.

The agreement filed with the court sets goals but does not include
fixed deadlines.  In commenting on the agreement, Alan Morrison, the
attorney for Public Citizen, said that there will need to be a
vigilant eye devoted to the monitoring of the agreement to ensure that
it is followed.  He expressed optimism but observed that the best
intentions may go unrealized.  He stated that, if the agreement is not
followed, that Public Citizen will be prepared to go back to court to
ensure public access to these tapes.  While this agreement does mark a
major breakthrough in the Nixon tape controversy, the implementation
of the agreement will take many years.  Even following the process
outlined in the agreement, it may well be over 10 years before there
is public access to all the Nixon tapes.

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