News from the Archivist of the United States

After completing my first year as Archivist of the United States, I feel more strongly than ever the awesome responsibility I have in heading this public trust. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) safeguards the records on which the people of a democracy depend for the continuity, accountability, and credibility of their national institutions. Open, accessible records are essential for open, accessible government. If we do our job effectively, we will help rebuild the trust of the American people in their government.

As I make the final changes to our new strategic plan that will guide NARA for the next decade, I think often about this role and our mission. Last summer I refocused NARA's mission to support our role as a public trust. NARA's mission is to ensure, for the citizen and the public servant, for the president and the Congress and the courts, ready access to essential evidence--evidence that documents the rights of citizens, the actions of federal officials, and their effects on the national experience. During the last year, this mission has served the American people well as we worked to preserve and make available essential evidence. Let me explain with two examples. In April I was able to announce an agreement that pleases me as much as anything that has occurred since I became Archivist. By law, NARA is charged to review the Nixon White House tapes and open the portions that the public is entitled to hear. But the release of Nixon tape segments, except for a very few, has been tied up in legal disputes for years. This spring we broke through that barrier. I reached an agreement with representatives of the Nixon estate and other parties that will accelerate release of taped material. There still is a process to go through. But as early as this November, the public could at last have an opportunity to assess President Nixon's Administration on the basis of his own recorded as well as written words and those of his associates.

The assessment will illuminate not just the achievements or failures of his particular presidency. The assessment will illuminate issues of appropriate conduct for government officials in a democracy. In another equally important example, we are forging a new records partnership with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). NARA and IRS are making progress in addressing problems identified in our 1996 evaluation of IRS's records management program. Since February, a group of high-level officials from both agencies have met monthly to address a number of outstanding issues concerning specific IRS records series. These include access to both the current and past files of the Office of the Commissioner and Investigative Case Files created and maintained by Criminal Investigations Division (CID). Proposed records schedules for both former and current commissioner's files have been submitted to NARA by the IRS. Our appraisal archivist, working within the access restrictions of 26 U.S.C. 6103, recently completed a review of the former commissioners' files and is now working with IRS records, disclosure, and CID staff members to review the CID case files. In addition, IRS records staff transferred one series of photographs to NARA and is developing identification criteria for other permanent audiovisual records; it also has begun inventorying the records of the IRS National Office, including the sizeable volume of records collected by the former agency historian. In response to NARA's evaluation report and as required by Federal regulation, the IRS has submitted an action plan to NARA that outlines their proposed implementation of the report's recommendations. The plan addresses each recommendation, including those directed to field sites, and contains estimated completion dates for each action. NARA is in basic agreement with the plan. The first progress report is due September 30.

The value of records, such as those of the IRS or the Nixon presidency, for evaluating the conduct of public officials is undeniable. Accessible records are essential for accessible government at every level in our democracy. The need for analysis of actions and thus the need for accessible records is ongoing because the ultimate evaluator of us all is history. Informed citizens need to make judgments in the broader light of historical perspective. They need a continuing analysis of the nation's experience as a whole. At NARA we are committed to ensuring ready access to essential evidence. In a democracy, the records that constitute our archives belong to the citizens, and providing ready access is no incidental service.