Talk of Moving Nixon Archives Raises Concern

Old suspicions die hard.

Amid reports that the federally controlled Nixon Watergate archives might be moved from Maryland to the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda, historians and former Nixon watchers are raising fresh concerns about an old fear.

Can Richard Nixon, even in death, be trusted with his own records?

“You have to go back to the fact that in 1974 he tried to hijack all those records,” said Daniel Schorr, the veteran journalist and commentator for National Public Radio.

The nature of the Nixon papers--and his role in American history--places the collection in a unique spot among the personal records of former U.S. presidents, experts said. Not only was Nixon the only president to resign, he was the only president to have his papers seized by Congress over fears that he would destroy them.

The question of who would control access to the records should they be moved to the Nixon Library remains high among the concerns of historians.

Martin Anderson, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a former special assistant in the Nixon White House, said access worries would be unfounded if the National Archives retained control of the records, as called for under current plans.

“It might be a problem if the Nixon Library is a completely private organization,” said Anderson, who also served five years on the board that developed the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley. “But if they turn control over to the presidential library system, then I would think that, more than anything, would guarantee access to the papers.”

It’s the nature of the Nixon Library that bothers critics most.

The library opened in 1990 with a mix of revisionist fanfare and controversy. Hugh Hewitt, the initial director, established a policy that was later rescinded that would have barred more critical researchers--such as Bob Woodward, part of the Washington Post reporting team that uncovered Watergate--from using the files.

The library suffered further criticism for what has been described as a glossed-over view of the Nixon administration, a manifestation of Nixon’s backers’ desires to polish the image of the disgraced former president.

“They put up a historical exhibit that deliberately falsified the record,” said Stan Katz, a former contender to head the National Archives and current president of the American Council of Learned Societies.

One critic described the museum as “Nixonland.”

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Indeed, the issue brings fresh heat to a debate over whether presidential libraries in general serve the interests of the public and historical researchers, or merely buff the images of presidents.

“The proliferation of presidential libraries has been to the detriment of historical scholarship and public access,” said Katz, who also is a vice president of the American Historical Assn. “My own preference would be to have this stuff at the National Archives.”

James MacGregor Burns, a renowned presidential historian, said that all such presidential libraries suffer from similar problems of serving the president’s image rather than history. It’s the nature of the museums themselves, which he points out often are separate entities from the archives maintained in the libraries.

“I think you have to accept the fact that the museum is celebratory,” he said. “Some museums have critical stuff, but mainly they celebrate. I don’t think we can expect too much from the museums. But the library must be absolutely pure.”

Burns said placing such archives in libraries in the presidents’ hometowns gives the collections an added context.

“It gives you a whole foundation of understanding about the milieu these people came out of,” Burns said. “I think these are wonderful institutions where anyone can go, not just scholars, and get tremendous help on some aspect of [that] presidency.”

Yet key to their success, he said, is open access.

“That’s a particular problem with the Nixon papers,” Burns acknowledged.

The Nixon papers wound up in federal care in 1974 when, after receiving his pardon from President Gerald R. Ford, who succeeded him, Nixon reached an agreement with the General Services Administration to destroy some of his records.

Congress intervened, enacting the Presidential Materials and Preservation Act to strip Nixon of the records and turn them over to the National Archives. Nixon lost a subsequent court challenge but won the right to compensation.

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The deal currently under negotiation reportedly would reap the Nixon estate $26 million in compensation for the 44 million items in the National Archives. Some of that money would then be funneled into the Yorba Linda museum to build a facility to house the collection.

The records themselves, and the library, would be operated by the National Archives under arrangements similar to those covering other presidential libraries and museums.

Kevin Cartwright, spokesman for the Nixon Library, declined comment. R. Stan Mortenson, a lawyer for the Nixon estate, earlier this week said no deal was in the works, but that negotiations going back a decade were continuing.

Historian Stanley Kutler is among those who fears that library purity wouldn’t be maintained if Nixon’s backers play a role in directing the collection.

“It’s fair to point out that there is no Nixon Library,” said Kutler, who was part of the legal challenge that recently opened up nearly all the Nixon files to the public. “When I reviewed that place when it first opened, the only books in the place were by Nixon and [son-in-law] David Eisenhower, which you could buy at a premium.”

Kutler said he fears that moving the records to Yorba Linda without close federal control would ultimately achieve the kind of sanitized version of history that Nixon’s critics believe Nixon sought.

“All this kind of feels like Nixon is still alive,” Kutler said. “This is just what he tried to do, and his surrogates are continuing that sort of thing.”