Stories from the Past Help Plot the Future

Photo from the Nixon Library

Lost in a busy week of worry about Kim Kardashian's fragile marriage, Rick Perry's memory lapses and Jerry Sandusky's indiscretions is the news that Richard Nixon believed the 18 minute gap in the White House tapes was created accidentally. The National Archives and the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California have released an enormous amount of material in response to an order from a federal court that took the unusual action of opening the files of a grand jury investigation. The mere fact that the action was taken demonstrates the importance of the testimony to the historical record.

It would be fair to say that the editors of a web site that deals with making stories available would be delighted to have this material as part of the public record, and we are. Credit to the archivists who went beyond the minimum to include a list of audio recordings as mp3 files along with the list of pdf's of documents, court records and evidence gathered by the grand jury. Four dictabelts containing a lengthy memorandum dictated for H.R. Haldeman about Nixon's early morning excursion to the Lincoln Memorial where he had a non-confrontational exchange with students gathering in protest of the bombing of Cambodian supply lines were just released.