[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

NHPRC Distinguished Service Award



REMARKS OF DR. JOHN BRADEMAS
PRESIDENT EMERITUS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
AND
FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS (D.-IND.)

AT A DINNER MARKING HIS RECEIVING THE
2002 DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
OF THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
AND RECORDS COMMISSION

Lyndon B. Johnson Room (S211), The Capitol
Washington, D.C.

5:30 to 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, May 14, 2002


At the outset, I want to express my appreciation to all the members of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission for this high honor and to the Commission's able and dedicated Executive Director, Ann Newhall.

I must voice special thanks to my friend of many years and former colleague in the House of Representatives, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

In 22 years as a Member of Congress, I served with many outstanding Senators and Representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, and I can tell you that few can match the impressive record of Chris Dodd.

Although you know Chris as a distinguished Senator and representative of the Senate on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, I know him in another connection. We are both members of the Council on the United States and Spain, composed of several American and Spanish leaders from the fields of government, business and the academy, and Chris chairs with great skill and impressive command of the Spanish language the US delegation.

Because I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the anarcho-syndicalist movement in Spain and five years ago created at New York University the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center for the study of modern Spain, and because Chris was in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, he and I
have long shared an interest in Spain and the Spanish-speaking world.

But I know that Senator Dodd, like Mr. Justice Souter, Congressman Blunt, and the other eminent members of the Commission are bound together by a common commitment to the preservation and scholarly use of records that document the history of our country.

My own interest in history began in childhood. My late father was born in Greece and I grew up hearing about Thucydides; my mother was a public schoolteacher and her father taught Greek, Roman and American history in schools and universities in Indiana.

So after finishing my undergraduate and graduate studies and, on my third try, winning election to Congress, I naturally sought membership on the Committee of the House of Representatives with jurisdiction over legislation dealing with schools, colleges and universities; libraries and
museums; the arts and the humanities, and I served as well on the Joint (House-Senate) Committee on the Library of Congress.

The privilege that then House Speaker Carl Albert accorded me in 1971, appointment to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, opened yet another exciting door to the world of history, American history-and I immensely enjoyed the periodic meetings at the
National Archives Building with Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, Justice William Brennan of the Supreme Court, the then Archivist of the United States, Bert Rhoads, and some distinguished American historians.

Service on the Commission, combined with the experiences of which I have told you, only reinforced my determination 28 years ago to take action to protect the papers and tapes of the Nixon Administration.

Without my reviewing here the history of that effort, I'm sure you all know of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974, which nullified President Ford's decision to turn over to his predecessor the papers and tapes of the Nixon presidency under conditions requiring their destruction.

The '74 Act, of which the chief sponsor in the Senate was Sam Ervin of North Carolina, said the Nixon materials belonged to the American people.

This is the statute, as you know, that makes possible publication of transcripts of the Nixon tapes and also triggered the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which declares Presidents' records the property of the American people and requires public access to them twelve years after a
President's departure from office

Again, as you are aware, President George W. Bush's Executive Order of last November 1 to block the release of President Reagan's papers has revived the issue of access to Presidential records.

Historians and archivists, such as Bruce Craig of the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History, and journalists have filed a lawsuit to rescind the order; and several Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have introduced legislation to do so. The leader of this group is a Republican, a distinguished Californian, and I must warn you, a former university president, Steve Horn, while another sponsor of the bill is my fellow Hoosier, the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee and, like Steve, a Republican, Dan Burton.

I admire the courage of these legislators and remind you of the editorial advice of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill: "The GOP should support the bill. Just think: in 2012 it'll permit the unveiling of all the secrets of the Clinton Administration" ("Open Up", Roll Call, April 25, 2002).

I do not think I need press upon you my view of the appropriate resolution of this controversy!

But I hope you will let me say a few words not about the papers of Presidents and Vice Presidents but those of Senators and Congressmen.

Some personal observations.

My own papers cover 22 years as a Member of the House of Representatives.

I served with six Presidents-three Republicans: Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford; and three Democrats: Kennedy, Johnson and Carter. During my last four years, I was, by appointment of Speaker Tip O'Neill, House Majority Whip.

During my service as Whip, I joined Speaker O'Neill, Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, House Majority Leader Jim Wright, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey while he lived and the other Democratic Leaders of Congress for breakfast nearly every other Tuesday at the White House with President Carter and Vice President Mondale.

I hope to make use of my notes, over two decades later, for a study of how a President deals with the Leaders of his own party in Congress.

Recently, with the help of New York University's Archivist, Nancy Cricco, my papers were brought from a Library of Congress warehouse to NYU where Professor Peter Wosh is using them as materials for a class he is teaching on the management of historical archives.

Let me make one other observation.

On the admonition of my Oxford classmate and longtime friend, the eminent historian of Russian culture and distinguished Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, I plan to use my papers as the seed for creating, at New York University, a Center for the Study of Congress.

My motive for wanting to establish a Center for serious academic attention to the Congress of the United States is straightforward.

In a separation-of-powers constitutional system like ours with, compared to European parliamentary arrangements, relatively undisciplined political parties, when it comes to the making of national policy, Congress counts!

This is a lesson, of course, that President Bush is learning daily.

So I want to establish a center in New York City that will have two principal dimensions: first, to be a place where scholars can engage in research on and study of Congress as a policy-making institution; and second, as a place to which, for conferences, lectures and symposia, to
bring practitioners: Senators and Congressmen, current and former; Congressional staffers; persons from the Executive branch; scholars; journalists; and parliamentarians from other countries to interact with academics at New York University. Such a Center would, of course, be
wholly bipartisan.

Having told you of my particular aspiration, I want now to say that I believe the time has come for the Federal Government to fashion a more rational, orderly public policy for dealing with the papers of Senators and Congressmen.

Accordingly, in preparing for a visit to the LBJ Library last fall to take part in a symposium on "The Future of Presidential Libraries", I was pleased to learn of the existence of the Congressional Papers Forum of the American Society of Archivists, a group that has been meeting for nearly fifteen years to discuss how to handle the records of former Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Indeed, the last meeting of this group was held right here in the LBJ Room of The Capitol.

So let me here recall the words of David McCullough at a Joint Session of Congress in 1989, "Two hundred years after the creation of Congress we have only begun to tell the story of Congress-which, of course, means the opportunity for those who write and who teach could not be greater".

Quite right!

I should like, in concluding these remarks, to return to the work of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

If all of us in this room did not believe deeply in the importance of preserving the records that tell the history of our country, we would not be here.

Your work is essential.

I know of the Commission's three strategic goals-to provide access to the papers of the Founding Fathers, to promote public participation in historical documentation by collaboration with State Historical Records Boards, and to encourage the nation's archives, records managers and
documentary editors to harness electronic technology to preserve, and provide access to, the nation's history.

Here I remind you that less than a week ago, the National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that "At a time when ancient cultures and conflicts are increasing American involvement around the world, American students are showing a poor command of history, according to the result of a history exam given to students by the Federal government." ("Students, Especially 12th Graders, Do Poorly on History Tests", New York Times, May 10, 2002)

Twelfth graders' scores", the survey showed, "were worse in American history than in any other subject." (Ibid.)

"Nearly 6 in 10 of the nation's high school seniors lack even a basic knowledge of US history." ("Study: History Still a Mystery to Many Students", Washington Post, May 10, 2002)

The work of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission is indispensable not only to the actual preservation of the documents of American history but as concrete demonstration that all three branches of the Government of the United States are committed to promotion of knowledge and understanding of our history.

Indeed, let me observe that at least so far as I know, this Commission is the only entity in which all three branches of our national government meet not for lunch or dinner but to make decisions. This Commission, far too little known, plays a uniquely valuable role in our country.

So Governor Carlin, Ann Newhall, and members of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, I hope that there will be strong support for adequate appropriations-you're authorized $10 million, I understand and I hope you win $10 million in appropriations for the
year-support from President Bush and from both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives.

After September 11, it is all the more important that if Americans are to know where we are going, we must know whence we came.

Yours is a noble endeavor.

All the more, then, am I grateful for the honor you do me this evening.

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>