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President’s Nomination for U.S. Archivist Draws FirePresident Bush’s nomination of Allen Weinstein as archivist of the United States has come under fire from both professional and political quarters. Weinstein works at the International Foundation for Elections Systems as senior advisor for democratic institutions and director of its Center for Democratic Initiatives. He previously founded the Center for Democracy, a nonprofit organization that assists emerging democracies. Nine organizations, including the Association of Research Libraries and the Society of American Archivists, issued a statement April 14 voicing their concern over the selection. Noting that the administration had not consulted with professional organizations of archivists or historians, the groups observed, “This is the first time since the National Archives and Records Administration was established as an independent agency that the process of nominating an Archivist of the United States has not been open for public discussion and input.” Pointing out that the 1984 act establishing NARA calls for the archivist to be appointed “without regard to political affiliations and solely on the basis of . . . professional qualifications,” the organizations asked the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs to schedule hearings to determine Weinstein’s qualifications for the position and explore why the current Archivist John Carlin is being replaced. Other groups signing the statement were the American Association for State and Local History, the Association of Documentary Editors, the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators, the Midwest Archives Conference, the New England Archivists, Northwest Archivists Inc., and the Organization of American Historians. An article in the May 3 issue of The Nation claimed that Weinstein has been criticized for failing to follow scholarly standards of openness: Random House, the publisher of his 1999 book The Haunted Wood, paid for exclusive access to Soviet KGB archives, and other scholars were subsequently blocked from seeing the documents he quotes—an apparent violation of the International Council on Archives’ code of ethics, which calls for “the widest possible access” to documents. The Nation added that Weinstein has been attacked for withholding interviews conducted for his 1978 book Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case from historians who disagree with him politically, which violates the standards of the American Historical Association. The article characterized the Center for Democracy as “a think tank whose board is studded with GOP heavyweights, including Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and Richard Lugar, House Republican whip Roy Blunt, and Henry Kissinger.” It concluded, “The American people need a better custodian of their history.” Posted April 16, 2004. |
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