The Scholars Win One: Lessons from a Little Known Chapter in the History of National Archives Independence

Ray Smock

Almost thirty years ago a group of academic historians, documentary editors, archivists, and public historians played a key role in the movement to create an independent National Archives. That group was led by the Organization of American Historians President Pete Daniel. But this is less a story about Pete than it is a tale of how much can be accomplished when the historical community, broadly construed, works together to affect how this nation keeps and preserves its own records.

In 1979, the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) Admiral Rowland G. Freeman III got the bright idea that it would save money to disperse federal records housed in the National Archives to various regional archives, where shelf space cost less. This plan would destroy the integrity of rechicord groups and cause researchers to travel to numerous regional archives for records once housed in a single location. More alarming was our concern that many of these records, once out of public sight, would be systematically destroyed in the name of management efficiency. The National Archives had been under the control of the GSA since 1950 and various GSA administrators had proven inept in understanding that historical records were in a different category than other “paper” supplies the GSA had on shelves.

Several newspaper stories in late 1979 leaked information about this pending plan but little was done to stop it. Few people outside the National Archives realized the scale of what was about to happen. Complicating matters was the fact that the position of archivist of the United States was vacant at the time. A letter-writing campaign was already underway to urge the GSA administrator to select a competent archivist with historical and archival experience.

Pete Daniel had just left his tenured position at the University of Tennessee and was working at the time as a legislative assistant to U. S. Senator Robert Morgan (D-NC). Pete played basketball with a group of employees at the National Archives. Over beer after one of their games the archives decentralization plan came up. Pete was shocked to discover that many records had already been packed in crates ready to go out the door.

At Pete’s suggestion Senator Morgan wrote to GSA administrator Freeman, urging him to halt the transfer of records pending further investigation. Pete then invited a group to a meeting in his basement apartment on 2nd Street, not far from Union Station, to discuss a plan of attack. The first meeting, on January 10, 1980, was attended by eleven persons: Pete Daniel; Richard A. Baker, the Senate Historian; Ira Berlin, University of Maryland; Charlene Bickford, of the First Federal Congress Project at The George Washington University; Gerald Haines, National Archives, Diplomatic Branch (one of Pete’s basketball buddies); Maeva Marcus, Documentary History of the Supreme Court; Anna Nelson, The George Washington University; Nathan Reingold, Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution; Martin Reuss, Army Corps of Engineers Office of History; Walter Rundell, Jr., University of Maryland; Thomas Grubisich, a reporter for the Washington Post; and myself, then coeditor of the Booker T. Washington Papers at the University of Maryland. Others would attend subsequent meetings including Edward Gleiman on the staff of the House Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, who later would be instrumental in the National Archives independence movement.

We formed an “Emergency Committee to Preserve the National Archives.” Walter Rundell, Jr., was named secretary and I was treasurer. We passed the hat and also raised a few hundred dollars from other sources. Our paltry treasury, totaling about $300 was used for letterhead and postage. We issued a public statement on the Archives records issue, we wrote letters to Admiral Freeman, President Carter, members of Congress, and to historians and archivists around the country.

The success of our lobbying effort rested on the support we got from leading historians and archivists who allowed us to use their name on our letterhead, and who willingly wrote letters and met with government officials: Ira Berlin, University of Maryland; Maynard Brichford, President, Society of American Archivists; Ann M. Campbell, Society of American Archivists; Lester J. Cappon, President, Association for Documentary Editing; Carl Degler, President, Organization of American Historians; Sidney Fine, University of Michigan; John Hope Franklin, President of the American Historical Association; Frank Friedel, Harvard University; Herbert Gutman, City University of New York; Sheldon Hackney, Tulane University; H.G. Jones, University of North Carolina; Donald R. McCoy, University of Kansas; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., City University of New York; John Toland, National Archives Advisory Council; Frank Vandiver, Rice University; Robert M. Warner, University of Michigan; William A. Williams, Oregon State University; and C. Vann Woodward, Yale University. Six of the names on our letterhead represented past and future presidents of the OAH, not counting Pete Daniel.

We issued a public letter in January 1980 calling for an immediate stop of the planned transfer of more than 300,000 cubic feet of government records. Tom Grubisich of the Washington Post continued to write about the issue and give it national attention that spread to other newspapers and newsmagazines. Within a month the GSA capitulated. The records were saved from immediate transfer to an uncertain fate. An editorial by Marvin Stone in U.S. News and World Report (Feb. 4, 1980) was titled “The Scholars Win One.” Stone wrote, “Good sense has scored a rare victory against the bureaucracy in a confrontation over the American heritage.”

The Emergency Committee to Preserve the National Archives continued to meet regularly in Pete Daniel’s apartment. Our effort shifted to independence for the National Archives. In the midst of our efforts, in July 1980, a new Archivist of the United States, Robert M. Warner, took office. He would prove to be a masterful leader in the independence movement. On Capitol Hill, Pete Daniel convinced Senator Morgan to introduce a bill calling for the creation of an independent National Archives. This bill, unfortunately, lost its momentum when Senator Morgan was defeated in the Reagan election of 1980. The Morgan independence bill served as the catalyst for a later independence bill (S.905) championed by senators Thomas Eagleton (D-MO) and Charles Mathias (R-MD) which was introduced in 1983 and passed in 1984.

The Emergency Committee to Preserve the National Archives ceased to exist in early 1981, after a year of work. Many of us gravitated to a new upstart lobbying effort to save the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and to continue working for Archives independence. The new group was the Coalition to Save Our Documentary Heritage, led by the indefatigable Charlene Bickford, Page Putman Miller, and others. By this time the issue of National Archives independence had been taken up by many concerned institutions. But many battles, with GSA and with Congress, remained to be fought before victory was achieved.

This chapter in the history of the National Archives independence movement shows what academic historians and their colleagues in government service can do together. It took insiders at the National Archives to alert government historians, archivists, and other users of the National Archives. It took prominent names in the fields of history and archives to get national attention. It took House and Senate staff to push the issue. It took faith in the sometimes shopworn cliché that you should write letters to Congress. It worked.