As a future information professional, I am disappointed, though not particularly surprised, that with all the talk on here over the last two months about questionable Bush appointees, the appointment of Allan Weinstein as
Archivist of the United States has largely gone unmentioned. The position of U.S. Archivist may not be as glamorous as that of Attorney General or Secretary of State, but it is quite important nonetheless, as the man or woman in the position, as the head of the National Archives and Records Administration, regulates the flow of information about government activities and motivations to the public. The position is supposed to be apolitical, which is why the circumstances surrounding Weinstein's appointment are a source of much consternation to professional archivists, and should be to you as well.
Those of you in the Washington area may have noticed the editorial in the Post on
February 7 briefly discussing the issues surrounding Dr. Weinstein's appointment. For those of you who did not, I have excerpted the relevant portions below:
You could be forgiven for thinking that the archivist job is about ensuring that fading documents behind thick glass are adequately protected from the elements. As important as that is, the position involves far more. The archivist oversees and -- in the best of worlds, facilitates, promotes and prods -- the release of far less musty government documents, material essential to understanding modern American history....
[snip]
recognition of the sensitive role of the archivist, Congress created an independent agency, the National Archives and Records Administration; gave the archivist an unlimited term in office; and required that a president, to replace an archivist, must explain why. No such explanation has been offered by the Bush administration. It approached Mr. Weinstein about the job in September 2003, and a few months later pushed the current archivist, John W. Carlin, to resign, without providing any reason either to Congress or Mr. Carlin, a former Kansas governor named to the post by President Bill Clinton in 1995.
This is a good start in explaining the problem. It does not, however, note that besides the opinions of the Post Editorial Board the Society of American Archivists also has some serious reservations with the appointment. In a statement drawn up in July 2004, the board of the SAA expressed these reservations:
However, we also wish to convey again the strong reservations that the Society of American Archivists and thirty other archives, history, and library organizations have expressed about the manner in which this nomination was made. As noted in a Statement developed by SAA, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators (issued shortly after the April 8, 2004, announcement of Professor Weinstein's nomination), Congress created the National Archives and Records Administration--and the position of Archivist of the United States--to be both independent and non-partisan. In the National Archives Act (Public Law 98-497), Congress intended that filling the position of Archivist of the United States should involve an open process, with consultation with appropriate professional organizations that could speak from knowledge and experience concerning the qualifications of nominees. Attached are copies of the "Statement on the Nomination of Allen Weinstein to Become Archivist of the United States"(including the names of the organizations that supported it), as well as "Joint Statement on Selection Criteria for the Archivist of the United States" and "Joint Statement on Questions to Ask the Nominee for Archivist of the United States." We ask that these documents be entered into the permanent record of these hearings.
It is our view that this nomination was undertaken outside both the letter and the spirit of the law. We believe that the evidence is clear that the White House effectively removed John Carlin when it asked him for a letter of resignation in December 2003 after having already identified a replacement in the fall of that year. It is within the power of the President to remove the Archivist, but if he takes this action, the law calls for him to provide Congress with an explanation of his reasons for doing so. To date, no such explanation has been provided. We hope that the Committee will ask the White House to fulfill its obligation under the law rather than create another precedent that erodes the power and authority of the United States Congress. [emphasis theirs]
As the SAA noted in their Joint Statement on Selection Criteria a month later:
This is the first time since the National Archives and Records Administration was established as an independent agency in 1985 that the process of nominating an Archivist of the United States has not been open for public discussion and input. We believe that Professor Weinstein must--through appropriate and public discussions and hearings--demonstrate his ability to meet the criteria that will qualify him to serve as Archivist of the United States.
To be fair to Dr. Weinstein, the discussion that the SAA called for did, in fact, take place, albeit largely in a private, informal, setting. However, almost a year after Dr. Weinstein's initial nomination as Archivist of the U.S., the president has still not given any indication of why Dr. Weinstein's predecessor, John Carlin, was asked to resign, nor of how or why Dr. Weinstein was chosen from the hundreds of archivists or historians who would have potentially been qualified for the position.
In the end, SAA ended up neither endorsing nor opposing Dr. Weinstein's appointment, likely out of a pragmatic realization that he would be confirmed and that the country's largest professional archivist association would need to have a good working relationship with the nominal head of governmental archives activity. However, the seemingly arbitrary process that led to Gov. Carlin's dismissal and Dr. Weinstein's nomination casts doubt on the continued political independence of NARA and its associated agencies.
Carlin was dismissed right before Bush 41's papers were to become available to the public under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act; this seems unlikely to be a coincidence. As someone working in a number of archives, I know from experience that it is VERY easy for an archivist to drag his/her feet on making a collection accessible; especially for a collection as massive as the files of a President's Office, the archivist really has to want to release the files to get them out on time. Bush 43, as evidenced by his executive order earlier in his term extending restrictions on presidential papers, does not want this; in light of what appears to be an obviously political appointment, it will remain to be seen whether Dr. Weinstein will want it, or will be able to want it.
I'd like to give Dr. Weinstein the benefit of the doubt, but this kind of activity sets a dangerous precedent. If this really was a nakedly political appointment, it means that the administration has a man on the "inside" who will dictate what records can and cannot see the light of day. In light of all of the, I'll be generous and say "exaggerations", that this administration is demonstratably guilty of, it's just a few steps from keeping old presidential records under wraps to deciding, say, that fairly-current state-department bulletins are not worth releasing to the public. The Archivist of the U.S. does not have term limits; as such, a politically-tinged person in that position potentially undermines the usefulness of FOIA in particular and NARA in general.
I'm going to be keeping an eye out for Archives-related and government information-related shenanigans over the next four year. For the sake of the freedom of information in this country, I would advise anyone reading this to do the same.