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Scholars Contest Presidential Records Decision
A group of scholars and associations filed suit in November, challenging an executive order issued by President Bush that would allow either the sitting president or former presidents to veto the release of their presidential records. The plaintiffs, which include the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the consumer-advocacy group Public Citizen, say that the executive order violates a federal law, the Presidential Records Act of 1978. That legislation was passed after controversy arose over the release of the records of former president Richard Nixon, and gives control of presidential records to the archivist of the United States after a president leaves office, opening most of them to the public twelve years later. Materials whose disclosure could threaten public security are exempted.
The White House characterized the executive order, which also covers vice-presidential records, as an attempt to bring order to the process of releasing the re-cords, and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer suggested that as a result of the order, "more information will be forthcoming." Many critics disagree. "We can’t get at the fundamental coin of historical research," says Hugh Graham, a professor of history at Vanderbilt University and a plaintiff in the suit.
The presidential records of the Reagan administration would have been the first released under the act; they were due to be opened in January 2001. The White House delayed three times before releasing a small portion of them early this year. Graham and colleagues scheduled an academic conference on the Reagan presidency for March 2002, acting on the assumption that the conference date would have allowed scholars a year in the Reagan archives to conduct research. Instead, he says, he was not able to see any of the documents his research required.
There is another problem with the records being kept secret, Graham says: "History shows us that there is an enormous potential for abuse of power in the executive branch. . . . The assumption that wrongdoing would eventually be discovered when records were released was an important deterrent. But now people in the executive branch can assume that they will be able to keep their activities hidden forever."
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