News of the Profession

Clinton Papers Release May Be Delayed

In accordance with provisions of the Presidential Records Act (PRA), former president Bill Clinton will have to receive President Bush’s approval to release his presidential records before his library can release them to the public. Clinton would like to make available some 100,000 documents concerning his administration’s domestic policies when his presidential library opens this November. According to library officials, there may be a delay though officials declared, “we’re going to made every effort to open as much as we can.”

Under provisions of the PRA, records of a president are closed a minimum of five years. (Under certain circumstances select types of records can remain closed for up to twelve years or even longer depending on whether they pertain to national security.) One PRA stipulation requires that the current president approve the release of any record before the five year minimum has elapsed. Clinton’s Presidential Library is slated to open on November 18, 2004, only four years after his presidency ended.

At this juncture, when the library opens, the only records that definitely will be available to researchers are the 500,000 pages collected by the health care task force headed by the then first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. These records include closed-door meetings relating to the task forces proposal for a universal health care system. According to Library officials some 20,000 searchable pages of Clinton’s public utterances are already posted on the web.

While Clinton hopes to see the records of his administration opened quickly, there are no plans to release documents relating to the Clinton’s legal defense in the Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, and Paula Jones investigations.

­&emdash;Bruce Craig

PBS to Air Documentary on Japanese Internment

An upcoming documentary chronicling Japanese Americans held at internment camps in Arkansas during World War II is set to air on PBS in 2005. “Time of Fear” describes the experiences of more than 16,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated at the Jerome and Rohwer War Relocation Camps in Southeast Arkansas from 1942-1945. The documentary will premiere September 24 in Little Rock at the conference, Camp Connections: A Conversation about Civil Rights and Social Justice in Arkansas. The documentary and conference are part of Life Interrupted, a project of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Public History Program, in partnership with the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

While no specific date has been set for the PBS airing of the documentary, it will be shown in Little Rock in November during the Reel Film Festival as part of the grand opening week celebration of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center. For more information about the Life Interrupted project, visit <http:// www.lifeinterrupted.org>.