NIXON LIBRARY : LIBRARY CHRONOLOGY

* 1969--President Nixon establishes the nonprofit Nixon Foundation to build a museum and library to house his papers and mementos. It is to be built in San Clemente, next to the Western White House.

* 1970--Whittier College announces that it has offered Nixon 30 to 100 acres next to the college for a library.

* 1970--Cal State Fullerton offers two pieces of undeveloped property in North Orange County for the library and museum. Private owners of the parcels are willing to sell them.

* 1974--Nixon resigns as president and moves to San Clemente.

* 1975--Nixon and USC announce plans to establish a Nixon library on campus.

* 1980--Nixon and his family move from San Clemente to New York City.

* 1981--Duke University administrators seek the library for the school’s Durham, N.C., campus and win agreement from Nixon. Alumni, faculty and student opposition are then partly responsible for Duke withdrawing its offer.

* 1983--Whittier’s City Council offers to donate 20 acres for a library.

* 1983--Cal State Fullerton Faculty Council proposes establishing the Nixon library on the campus and the museum in Yorba Linda.

* 1983--UC Irvine’s Academic Senate votes to seek the library but requires that Nixon yield all claim to control over his papers and tapes. Nixon library officials call the conditions “totally unacceptable” and rule out UCI.

* 1983--Nixon library officials narrow the contenders to Whittier, San Clemente and Fullerton/Yorba Linda.

* 1983--Nixon tours and approves another site for the library, on oceanfront bluffs in northern San Clemente.

* 1987--Library foundation officials schedule a July 1 deadline for action by San Clemente, after approval process drags on because library is linked with a development project.

* 1987--San Clemente’s deadline passes without action, and Nixon library officials pick Yorba Linda as the site.

* 1988--Ground is broken in Yorba Linda for the library.

* 1990--Museum opens, with archives scheduled to open in 1991.