Declassification: New Concerns, New Opportunities
On September 22, 2003, President Bush’s Executive Order (EO) 13292 on national security classification and declassification which was issued last March, came into force. The EO takes the place of President Clinton’s 1995 Executive Order 12958. The new order is not—it was argued—a wholesale rewrite of Clinton’s; rather, it has been characterized as merely an “amendment.” Most national security records analysts are generally pleased that the new EO preserves the basic structure of its predecessor though they do express concerns about some significant differences.
The new Bush EO continues the principle of automatic declassification, though, on a practical basis, it defers by a few years the effective date for full federal agency compliance. According to the implementing directive, “No later than December 31, 2006, all classified records that are more than 25 years old and have been determined to have permanent historical value will be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed.”
According to Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, “The idea of declassifying a record without review is a radical innovation that challenges the deepest instincts of security bureaucrats. But it offers the only practical hope of making the huge backlog of classified historical records publicly available. Still, it remains a hope, not yet a fact.”
According to William Leonard, director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) agency that issued the directive and oversees its implementation, “As much as we’ve been talking about automatic declassification for the last several years, we have yet to automatically declassify a single document. But now we are on a path to make that happen.”
Despite the stated goal of the EO, there remains a serious question whether any federal government agency will ever declassify documents automatically without careful scrutiny. Naysayers believe that when the new deadline outlined in the president’s EO approaches, and if an agency has not completed its review of 25-year old documents, there will be little to stop the government from issuing yet another “refining” directive that would again extend agency compliance deadlines. There is also a provision in the EO that enables an agency to exempt whole categories of records from the declassification deadlines.
Despite some grousing, agencies are resigned to comply with provisions in the EO. Some, such as the Department of Energy (DOE), for example, have moved forward and hired independent contractors to do the declassification work. Top-level DOE officials remain suspicious, though, of the quality of the contractor’s work and as a consequence have implemented “internal review procedures” designed to “double-check” the work of declassification contractors. Sources inside the DOE report that “a lack of trust of the government trained and supervised declassification contractors” continues to impede declassification efforts.
To the frustration of some Hill oversight committee staff as well as some historians and researchers, the Department of State also has its challenges in meeting declassification goals. Most recently, State implemented a high-level electronic records review procedure that permits bureau and agency officials to delay even longer the long-awaited first release of electronic records that includes State Department cables created in the mid-1970s. These electronic documents have already been reviewed, declassified, and cleared for release by professional historians and staff declassifiers, yet they have not been formally released.
Informed sources on Capitol Hill report that in addition to the issuance of the EO, the White House is finally considering making appointments to the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB). The so-called Moynihan Board was established by law in the 2001 Intelligence Authorization Act, but to date no members have been named.
The PIDB was the brainchild of the late Senator Patrick D. Moynihan (D-N.Y.) who, during his years in the Senate, spearheaded efforts for greater government openness. According to Aftergood , the PIDB “is practically the only surviving remnant of the secrecy reform agenda proposed by [Moynihan’s] 1997 Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy.” The law provides for the appointment of a nine-member board (five members are to be appointed by the president with the remaining four named by the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate). The PIDB is charged to “advise the President…and other executive branch officials…on the systematic [declassification]… of records of archival value… including records and materials of extraordinary public interest.”
According to Aftergood, the PIDB concept did not generate great enthusiasm among declassification advocates because it was to be purely advisory and without independent authority to compel declassification. However, supporters, including several members of the National Coalition for History (NCH), contend that it still could provide a valuable official venue for debate and deliberation on declassification policy.
To this end, the NCH and representatives of several other organizations that have been meeting with White House officials on a periodic basis for more than a year have been urging officials to move forward with the appointments. Letters urging the appointment have also been sent to administration officials from the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation. Another letter urging that the PIDB members be appointed is expected from the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress when the group meets in early December.
The functions and authorities of the PIDB are spelled out in Title VII of the 2001 Intelligence Authorization Act (the text of which can be seen online at http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2000_rpt/hr5630e.html#pida).
Homeland Security History Office Authorized
On October 1, 2003, President George W. Bush signed legislation (P.L. 108-90)—the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2004 (H.R. 2555)—that includes language authorizing the establishment of a History Office (HO) for the recently created department.
Language authorizing the HO was incorporated in the Senate committee report (S. Rept. 108-86) largely due to the leadership of Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), a longtime supporter of history in the federal government and the ranking member of both the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee. While there was no similar language included in the House report (H. Rept, 108-169) when House and Senate conferees met to reconcile differences in their respective measures, House managers concurred with the Senate language.
Language in the report recognizes the importance of history in the Homeland Security Department decision-making process: “Knowledge of historical precedent, historical context, and institutional history is critical to effective decision making.” To that end, once established, the HO is to “produce, oversee, and coordinate the production of a range of reference, policy, and historical background assessment papers . . . provide expert historical knowledge essential for informed decision making to maintain the institutional history of the Department . . . provide professional assistance to the historical and archival activities of the directorates and bureaus within the Department; and . . . produce such documentary collections as may be deemed necessary.”
The language authorizing the History Office is the culmination of a fourteen-month bi-partisan effort by various members of Congress and the National Coalition for History (NCH). The NCH has initiated contact with Homeland Security department officials to discuss implementation of the report language.
Private Nixon Library Exploring NARA Affiliation Options
The Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation, with the concurrence of the Nixon family, is exploring the possibility of bringing the privately funded library into the presidential library system with the goal of consolidating all the records of the Nixon administration at the Yorba Linda based facility. To advance this objective, the foundation has hired the lobbying firm, Cassidy & Associates, considered by some Washington insiders to be an influential and well-connected firm. Former President Gerald Ford has also been enlisted to assist in the effort.
The Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation retains the former president’s pre- and post- White House records but not the seized records (tapes and papers) for which the government paid $18 million to the Nixon family in 2000 after 20 years of litigation following the Watergate scandal. The balance of the Nixon collection that is currently retained by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) includes some 46 million pages, 4,000 videotapes, more than 4,469 official White House sound recordings, and 950 “surreptitiously recorded” tapes. Spokespersons for Cassidy state that under the library’s plan, preservation and access to the records would continue to be managed by NARA but that “it’s in everyone’s interest to get all the records in one place, in the hands of the archivist [of the United States].”
Archivist of the United States John Carlin has publicly stated that NARA’s top priority relating to the Nixon Papers is “processing the tapes and records and making them available to the public as fast as possible.” Should the Nixon library plan move forward, the impact that the move and any potential legislation would have on records access likely to be a high concern to the historical/archival community. In addition, should the museum be integrated into the presidential ibrary system, questions relating to what some historians refer to as the “one-sided” interpretive presentation of the Nixon story at the private museum—in particular, regarding exhibits relating to the Watergate episode—would have to be addressed.
Fordham Institute Issues History Standards Report
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a private foundation that supports research, publications, and action projects in elementary and secondary education reform, has issued a new report, Effective State Standards for U.S. History: A 2003 Report Card. The report, written by historian Sheldon M. Stern, includes a state-by-state analysis and evaluation of K–12 education standards in American history based on three criteria: comprehensive historical content, sequential development, and balance. The report concludes that, in general, state history standards “are a parade of mediocrity”—that only six states earn “outstanding grades,” while standards in the vast majority of states were either “weak” or “ineffective.” Links to the report may be found on the institute web site at http://www.edexcellence.net/institute/global/index.cfm.
