Preparing for a Nixon Library within NARA

John W. Carlin

As many of you may know, on April 8 President Bush nominated Allen Weinstein to be the next Archivist of the United States. I pledged to the NARA staff that I will remain in my position as archivist until the nominee is confirmed and sworn in. In the meantime, I believe it is important to continue moving forward on the many challenges NARA faces and the many strategic initiatives we have underway. To that end, I want to explain the impending changes in how the records of the thirty-seventh president of the United States are to be preserved and made available to the public.

Since Richard M. Nixon resigned thirty years ago this summer, the official White House records of his administration have resided not in a presidential library, as is the case for ten other former presidents, but with the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland, in compliance with the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA) of 1974. Those records, however, are finally being transferred to a NARA-operated presidential library in Yorba Linda, California, where the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace Foundation currently operates a private Nixon Presidential Library.

A remodeling and expansion project is under way at the library in Yorba Linda. When the work is completed and is certified as in compliance with NARA requirements, a Report to Congress of the Proposed Richard M. Nixon Library will be submitted to lawmakers for review. Congress will have sixty session days to review the proposed plan. Upon approval, the library will be turned over to the National Archives and the transfer of Nixon records from College Park to Yorba Linda will begin. Once there, all the records of Richard Nixon’s career--in the House, the Senate, the vice presidency, the presidency, and his active postpresidential years--will be in one place for historians and the public to view.

The records of the Nixon Presidency (1969-1974) are important because they document a tumultuous time in our country’s histor--one that saw major shifts in our foreign policy, large-scale civil unrest at home, the creation of new domestic programs, and the landing of men on the moon. Ultimately, the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the subsequent series of events that led to President Nixon’s resignation have made Watergate the most well-known legacy of the Nixon Presidency.

The PRMPA required that these records be retained by NARA in the Washington area. We first kept them in our building in downtown Washington, later at our annex on Pickett Street in Alexandria, Virginia, and now in our College Park facility.

The PRMPA also stipulated that those Nixon Presidential materials and tapes that were relevant to the understanding of “abuse of governmental power” and Watergate were to be processed and released to the public as quickly as possible. NARA completed that work many years ago. Since then, NARA has been reviewing, declassifying, and opening the historical materials relating to constitutional and statutory duties of the president and his White House staff. However, the law also required that, as NARA reviews records and tapes, we must segregate and return to the Nixon estate any materials identified as "personal private" or "personal political."

Our FY 2004 appropriations legislation stipulates that none of the Nixon records can be transferred to Yorba Linda until the archivist certifies to Congress that a suitable archival facility exists to house the documents and that the spaces for the public, staff, and storage meet the required standards developed under the Presidential Libraries Act. The point at which the library will be a federal facility will depend on how quickly existing space can be retrofitted and new construction completed according to NARA standards and requirements. At the moment, there is no precise timetable for transferring the Nixon records to California. However, because we do not expect our College Park review of the Nixon tapes and many of the Nixon materials to be complete until 2008 or later, it is likely that the library will open as a federal facility even as some materials are still being reviewed in College Park.

Once open, the library will be staffed by NARA personnel employed by the federal government in accordance with federal personnel recruitment and hiring procedures. And at some point, a new director for the library will be appointed. The Nixon Foundation, which now operates the private library in Yorba Linda, will still have a role at the library through sponsoring programs and raising funds for activities not financed with congressional appropriations. However, it will be the NARA staff working at the library who will be responsible for access to the records in accordance with the laws and regulations governing NARA and the PRMPA materials and in accordance with the deeds of gift for other donated materials at the library.

In addition to the records at College Park, other Nixon records currently stored in the NARA-Pacific Region archives at Laguna Niguel, California, will be moved to Yorba Linda. Bringing all the records of President Nixon’s White House tenure together with records of other parts of his career will make a NARA-operated Nixon library a major research center for studying post-World War II America as well as the career and presidency of Richard M. Nixon.