Nixon Library Could Get a Lift in 2007 Budget

The 2007 federal budget that was sent to Congress this week includes $10.6 million for the privately funded Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda to begin its transformation into a presidential library run by the National Archives.

If approved by Congress, $6.9 million will go for a new library wing and $3.7 million for National Archives staff to oversee the processing and display of 46 million pages of documents from Nixon’s presidency. The material is now stored at a federal warehouse in Maryland.

The money would nearly complete the library’s bid for acceptance into the nation’s presidential library system. It is the only privately run presidential library and currently holds just the pre- and post-presidential papers of the 37th president, who in 1974 became the only chief executive to resign.

“This is a magnificent and amazingly helpful gesture by the Bush administration to help put President Nixon and his legacy in line with the other presidents,” said John Taylor, executive director of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation.

The foundation is upgrading the facility to meet government standards, including building a $2.5-million suite for archivists and curators within the existing library. Once the work is complete and accepted, officials from the National Archives will ask Congress to authorize the facility as the 12th official presidential library.

A handoff ceremony is being planned for July, Taylor said.

The funding request came through Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-Diamond Bar), who has been working with the library for the last several years to bring Nixon’s papers together at the same site.

“It is only appropriate that we combine all of Nixon’s life work into one research facility for others to analyze and learn from,” Miller said Tuesday in a statement. “And what better place than where it all started, his hometown of Yorba Linda.”

The transfer of Nixon’s presidential papers and tapes, agreed upon in 2004, was delayed last year because there wasn’t enough funding in the 2006 budget. Last year, Congress appropriated only $500,000 that went toward planning the archivists’ suite, Taylor said, which should be completed this summer.

If approved this year, the new money would go toward an 18,000-square-foot building in the library’s west parking lot, where the archives’ presidential material would be housed. Construction is expected to take a year to 18 months.

The goal is to transfer all 46 million presidential documents -- as well as 350,000 photographs, 4,000 videotapes, 2.2 million feet of film, 4,500 official White House recordings and 950 secret recordings -- to the library in stages through 2010.

Adding Nixon’s presidential papers is seen as critical for the library to gain legitimacy as a research center on a par with the 11 other presidential libraries. The other National Archives facilities house the materials of every president since Herbert Hoover.

The rest of the Nixon library and birthplace will continue to be run by the private foundation and will display Nixon’s pre- and post-presidential papers. Last year, the foundation agreed to redesign its exhibits to conform with National Archives standards in what Taylor described as “a more strictly factual account” of the events leading to Nixon’s resignation.

Some critics had insisted the presidential papers remain separate and under control of the National Archives for fear the private foundation would attempt to color the historical record to be more favorable to Nixon.