Impact of FY’85 Budget on Cultural Programs. On February 1 the President presented to Congress his FY’85 budget recommendations, which included an uneven treatment of cultural programs. A few received modest increases but most face cuts or total elimination. The President proposed a slight increase for the Library of Congress and a larger increase for the Smithsonian Institution with an allocation of special funds for the restoration of buildings. While the National Archives and Records Service showed a$6 million increase, the budget failed to address the problems of serious appraisal, preservation, and declassification backlogs. Of major concern to historians is the elimination, once again from the President’s budget, of funds for the grants program of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Although Congress passed legislation during the last session of Congress authorizing $4 million in FY’85 for NHPRC, the President has recommended zero appropriation for this important documentary editing and records preservation program.
Funding for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and for the state historic preservation grants program has also been eliminated from the President’s budget. The Institute for Museum Services faces a 50 percent reduction and the National Endowment for the Humanities a 10 percent cut if Congress accepts the President’s budget. Commenting on these recommendations for cultural programs, Representative Sidney Yates (D-IL) remarked that these figures are “way behind the times—woefully inadequate.”
The next step in the budget process will be congressional hearings at which time historians will be on hand to comment on the President’s proposals. House and Senate Appropriations Committees will then develop their respective budgets. Floor action, adjustments of differences during conferences, and the President’s signature are due for completion by September 30, the last day of the fiscal year.
National Women’s History Week. Congressional resolutions passed in 1982 and 1983 proclaiming National Women’s History Week have served a major impetus for stimulating the expansion of programs that enrich the public’s understanding of women’s history. Last year thousands of school districts, communities, women’s organizations, public libraries, and an array of other public and private institutions held observations to recognize and celebrate the contributions of American women to the history of our nation. House Joint Resolution 422 introduced by Representative Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senate Joint Resolution 204 introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) designate the week beginning March 4, 1984, as Women’s History Week. There are currently over 200 cosponsors of this resolution in the House and its passage before March seems certain.
National Security Decision Directive 84. Unless Congress acts before April 15 the Administration will proceed to implement Directive 84, which would impose a lifetime censorship on federal officials with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information. Over one hundred thousand federal employees, including virtually even senior policy-making official, would assume a lifetime obligation to seek prepublication review by the government of anything they write that might contain classified information, or even unclassified information on intelligence matters.
Representative Jack Brooks (D-TX) has just introduced H.R. 4681 to prohibit prepublication review beyond the intelligence agencies. Senate hearings, requested by Senator Charles Mathias (R-MD) who has led the Senate opposition to this measure, will also explore ways to amend Directive 84 to exclude the lifetime prepublication portion of the directive. Historians are in consultation with Mathias’s staff and will prepare a statement for the hearing.
The National Park Service. The NCC director recently attended an issues briefing at which the National Park Service Director, Russell Dickenson, expressed a strong commitment to improving the park interpretation program. In the year ahead the National Park Service will target the need for expanding the number, variety, and quality of interpretive programs. Since over half of the sites are cultural or historic, this should mean increased attention to the research and presentation of historical programs in the national parks.
CIA Exemptions from FOIA. During February the executive director represented the member organizations of the NCC at a House Intelligence subcommittee hearing on a bill that would exclude the operational files of the CIA from the freedom of information process. In both the Senate and House hearings, historians have pressed to have a ceiling on the period of exemption with specific procedures for obtaining eventual access to these documents, even if it is after a forty-year period. (See page 3 for Dr. Gammon ‘s testimony.)
