*Recorded in 2020* Professor Bill Newmann joins Aughie and Nia in the first two episodes of season 9 to discuss visiting presidential libraries. The first episode covers general research visits and what types of materials a researcher can find in the Presidential libraries.
This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Announcer: Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.
Nia Rodgers: Good morning y'all.
John Aughenbaugh: morning.
morning.
Nia Rodgers: How are you all today.
John Aughenbaugh: i'm good Thank you.
William Newmann: Very good.
Nia Rodgers: hey okay so listeners once again i'm not speaking to augie clearly alone, since you've heard a second voice that would be bill Newman.
Nia Rodgers: And I also don't use y'all referring to one person because i'm from the South, and I understand what y'all means so which she said bitterly because she watches movies, all the time and points that out, you know that's not singular right.
Nia Rodgers: So anyway we've invited bill Newman back because he's been to all the presidential libraries on the earth and.
Nia Rodgers: More or less give or take.
Nia Rodgers: And, and we have we have questions about going to a presidential library, so thank you so much for coming today bill and answering this.
William Newmann: know, thank you for bringing me in.
John Aughenbaugh: A bill, how many library presidential libraries have you been to.
Okay.
William Newmann: I let me I gotta run through the.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh, you knew this question was coming come on.
William Newmann: yeah I never count so someone tell you this up okay.
either.
William Newmann: Kennedy Johnson Nixon Ford Carter Reagan.
William Newmann: George Herbert Walker Bush and Clinton, so we got there 1999.
Nia Rodgers: wow how many are there, total.
William Newmann: Well, I think.
William Newmann: There, there are the national archives libraries and then they're all the other libraries, which was which are which have documents, but they aren't necessarily formally in the national archives system, so the national archives system, I guess it starts with Hoover.
William Newmann: On and then not sure what's happening with with the trump or how that's still too early in the process and there's certain negotiating that but some.
William Newmann: wilson's in stand Virginia close by about an hour and a half away.
Nia Rodgers: Oh Okay, so I can go to one pretty easily can I go to one can regular humans go to the library, or do you have to be doing big giant researching things.
William Newmann: anybody can go.
William Newmann: yeah anybody can go it's great and when i'm there doing the kind of research that that I like to do there are people who come in and say.
William Newmann: You know my grandfather met Lyndon Johnson in 1966 and I know, there was a picture of him with the President and I don't have it, but it's got to be somewhere in the library and archivists will say okay well let's track that down.
Nia Rodgers: that's wonderful I mean that's a really cool use of that.
Nia Rodgers: of presidential i'm not saying that what you use them for is not cool sorry that didn't.
Nia Rodgers: come out right.
Nia Rodgers: Okay that's good for a moment, sorry about.
That.
William Newmann: hey there's something useful about presidential library all that stuff.
Nia Rodgers: So okay wait so first of all, does it cost money to go to a presidential library.
William Newmann: No, not at all it's to go into the museum you pay a regular museum fee, but if you want to do research that's no cost at all, all that information belongs to, we, the taxpayers.
Nia Rodgers: So are those buildings together like.
Nia Rodgers: Our most presidential libraries in a bigger building that's got the museum and the presidential library and whatever or are they separate entities within a larger complex.
William Newmann: Most of them are together the exceptions, the Ford library, the library is on the campus of the University of Michigan and you see him is in grand rapids.
Nia Rodgers: A bit distant.
William Newmann: yeah so which was disappointing to me because I wanted to get like a Gerald Ford T shirt.
William Newmann: I don't know, two and a half hours or so I couldn't do that and Obama is also doing it differently and that he's having his I guess Center or foundation and then all his actual records are going to be at the national archives.
John Aughenbaugh: Now bill.
John Aughenbaugh: nia talked about the the user experience.
John Aughenbaugh: let's talk about who pays for these libraries libraries to be built, and then to hire the staff to go ahead and organize the materials, and you know help out researchers in the public.
John Aughenbaugh: I mean, because you know you know this Congress allocate money for this or do the president's or their supporters have to go ahead and fundraise for the creation of these libraries.
William Newmann: So the creation building and things like that you actually have private foundations yeah that do that, but the materials.
William Newmann: are organized and managed and maintained by people from the national archives.
John Aughenbaugh: Okay, so the so the and that's by federal law right.
John Aughenbaugh: There are laws that actually regulate what Presidents can do with their materials once they leave office.
William Newmann: Right and once and while they're still in office.
John Aughenbaugh: There you go.
William Newmann: you write a memo.
William Newmann: And that, after you finished writing a memo that memo belongs to the American public.
William Newmann: And so you don't throw it away you don't delete the email like this is part of the record that's it so.
John Aughenbaugh: you send an email to the Chief of Staff saying.
John Aughenbaugh: You know that flunky who just dropped off papers into my office and they copped an attitude I want them fired that goes as part of the record.
Nia Rodgers: What what things do constitute part of the record in seriousness like if you send your Secretary an email saying.
Nia Rodgers: So for lunch I want a Turkey sandwich and I want to you know diet Pepsi and then not that we promote diet Pepsi but anyway um.
Nia Rodgers: But no diet coke right diet coke was the was President trump's I think button on his desk bring me a diet coke but anyway, I assume, things like that don't are not considered part of the presidential okay wait, let me back up at the library, we have what's called the presidential papers.
Nia Rodgers: i'm assuming that when they mean that they just mean things like official memorandum and and sort of speech texts from speeches and proclamations and that sort of thing they don't actually mean your lunch order from Papa john's right like they're not.
Nia Rodgers: or do they mean that.
Nia Rodgers: In the presidential library.
William Newmann: So there are different things, so you mentioned the presidential papers that are in the library So those are the public papers, with the President.
Nia Rodgers: yeah we have those.
William Newmann: At vcu is it's all the public stuff right at the library, you have basically the documentary record of what the President and everyone else in the executive branch.
William Newmann: Well, certain parts of the executive branch or we're doing right the time so right now My guess is, if you are an official and, in particular, if you're an official who's.
William Newmann: appointed by the the Senate, so your align officer, but even if you're a staff officer with you know you've got a system to the President for X, Y amp Z.
William Newmann: Right now, if you send an email that saying here's what I want for lunch that doesn't get deleted, as far as I can tell right now I have in the only administration that i've done research on where there's a big email record is the Clinton administration.
William Newmann: And I found no they want what you get is imagine a printout of all the email.
Nia Rodgers: That you read I just say that would be terrible.
Nia Rodgers: yeah like you can.
Nia Rodgers: Imagine the gossip that's in there and the personal.
hysterical.
William Newmann: What the Clinton library i'm sitting there reading and, of course, there's an archivist know sitting at the table.
William Newmann: On the other side of the room watching everything that i'm doing because of making sure that i'm not destroying any records are ruining anything or or folding the pages wrong or or things like that's all these procedures there.
William Newmann: And, at times, I burst out laughing and looking at me and i'm gonna do i'm gonna tell you, and a couple of times it's like yeah what you see, so I go open as a career.
William Newmann: And they come over and I show when you said Okay, so what is that about this, I know you gotta gotta go to like three pages down you'll see what they're referring to and they're saying unflattering things about senators are Members of the House of Representatives and it's.
William Newmann: it's there.
Nia Rodgers: So that's email right but i'm assuming in the days before email I know listeners, there were actually days before email.
Nia Rodgers: For the younger listeners in the crowd, so I would that have included notes and memos and posts and that sort of things that just were hanging around so you didn't get rid of any piece of paper.
William Newmann: you're not supposed to get rid of any piece of paper, and I assume that lunch orders and things like that now people just go okay.
William Newmann: that's fine, we can get rid of that but occasionally that kind of stuff gets in there doodles get in there right you got the legal pad and you're taking notes minutes of a meeting.
William Newmann: And then there are no doodles like in the side of the page colon Pal the great doodles during National Security Council meetings, when he was national security advisor.
William Newmann: And I always thought it was interesting that this the Reagan administration i'm going through the documents i'm going through pals minutes of nsc meetings.
William Newmann: And they're phenomenal you just see how brilliant that guy was when you look at the Minutes and how he's explaining things and how just the sophistication of the arguments that he's presenting.
William Newmann: And then you got to the point where the 1988 election happened.
William Newmann: Right and now he's the lame duck.
William Newmann: On all this stuff and then it just turns into lots of doodles and drawings.
William Newmann: i'm ready so ready to be out of here.
William Newmann: So that's all these legal pads i'm looking at i'm looking at the actual legal pad and there's no there's a picture of a boat.
William Newmann: Never level 3D boxes and things.
Nia Rodgers: So that's awesome I would hate to see what my notes would look like, if I were in one of those meetings.
Nia Rodgers: But I do have a question about redaction so let's just pretend that in that meeting.
Nia Rodgers: With Colin Powell and a bunch of other people somebody's phone number got mentioned to the group, and he noted it on the piece of paper to try to have like.
Nia Rodgers: that's who we should call for I don't know whatever reason, some innocuous reason i'm not talking about phone numbers for hookers, although I feel certain that those are somewhere in the records for some people.
Nia Rodgers: Are they redacted okay so they're not some people's private information, who aren't in the government, how is that handled when it's part of the governmental record.
William Newmann: Okay, so.
William Newmann: they've got their several laws related to all this and how they work it so you've got.
William Newmann: For the stuff that I deal with, so I usually do with classified stuff or information that was classified and it's classified for 25 years.
William Newmann: unless someone wants to declassified earlier, but the idea is there will be an automatic declassification of everything after 25 years, except in a series of categories.
William Newmann: and actually preparing for for this I finally learned what the categories are because I remember research and you'll see right you'll see a piece of paper print out or a memo and there'll be a part of it that's either blacked out or it's just.
William Newmann: it's whited out it's just it's just gone and what you'll see is like a little number next to it that will say 25 X one or 25 X four and there are 99 exemption from declassification categories.
William Newmann: So now, I actually know what those things mean so next time I go to the library, I can say odd that's why they're keeping this classified, which is interesting because it tells me something about what that information is.
Nia Rodgers: yeah, what are the.
John Aughenbaugh: academy will bill, are you talking about the exemptions listed.
John Aughenbaugh: In the Freedom of Information Act of.
William Newmann: These are.
William Newmann: they're part of executive order 13526.
John Aughenbaugh: Who was in that executive order was issued by which President.
William Newmann: This is obama's 2009.
John Aughenbaugh: Okay, all right all right all right in does that executive order list the law or the section of the Constitution that it's based on.
William Newmann: It is i've got it right here title 40 for us go title 44 chapter 21 and Chapter 22.
John Aughenbaugh: I don't know 44 you said public.
documents.
William Newmann: And then naira is chapter 21 and Presidents directors is chapter 22.
Nia Rodgers: And the executive order is 13526.
William Newmann: Yes, is that what I said yes.
Nia Rodgers: Sorry, I, the only reason i'm asking is because we'll we'll link that on the research guide, so that people can look at it.
Nia Rodgers: If they would like to look at, but i'm curious to know what the nine.
Nia Rodgers: With the nine categories are.
William Newmann: They make sense right revealing the identity of a confidential human source human intelligence source aeration that relationship with intelligence, a security service right something like that.
William Newmann: revealing information that would assist the development, production or use of weapons of mass destruction.
Nia Rodgers: here's the plans for an atomic bomb.
John Aughenbaugh: yeah we.
Nia Rodgers: feel very.
Nia Rodgers: Confident.
Nia Rodgers: mode and use that will.
Nia Rodgers: You know.
William Newmann: Internet presidential records.
William Newmann: information that would impair us crypto logic systems or activities information and I will compare the application of state of the art technology with the US weapon system.
William Newmann: reveal formally named or number of US military war plans that remain in effect.
William Newmann: And here's where it starts to get interesting reveal formal estimate reveal information, including foreign government information so most of the stuff that I find that's still classified is because it has to do with US ties to another country.
Nia Rodgers: I see.
Nia Rodgers: Which.
Nia Rodgers: We got this information from Israel, we got this information from the UK.
Nia Rodgers: We don't want people to we don't want people on the other side to know that they know.
John Aughenbaugh: Well nia think about some of the critiques of President trump's press conferences or tweets where he looked like he was telling the world where the United States got intelligence in regards to what you know the Iranians were doing, the Chinese were doing.
Nia Rodgers: etc, at one point he confirmed, we got information from Israel.
Nia Rodgers: And yeah right I started to flail because i'm like we don't confirm, where we get anything like.
Nia Rodgers: You just put Israeli spies in danger because right now the now somebody knows who to be looking for right like.
John Aughenbaugh: If we can keep a secret than those other countries are going to want to go ahead and disclose their intelligence to us, which means our job at collecting intelligence, for US national security purposes got that much tougher right that much more difficult right yeah.
Nia Rodgers: We neither confirm nor deny that there are other countries in the world and that we.
Nia Rodgers: that's what we should be saying.
William Newmann: And some of it is that we may have automatic declare the classification after 25 years but another country may have automatic declassification after 35 years.
Nia Rodgers: Okay.
William Newmann: And the conversation that I would like to see.
William Newmann: Is between someone from the United States, and someone from that other government.
Nia Rodgers: Okay, so.
John Aughenbaugh: A couple more.
William Newmann: yeah we've got reveal information that would seriously impair current national security emergency preparedness plans or current vulnerabilities of systems installations or infrastructure so they're all pretty.
Nia Rodgers: here's how you break into our nuclear plants.
John Aughenbaugh: yeah or.
John Aughenbaugh: or here's where our electrical grid is deficient.
John Aughenbaugh: or weak.
John Aughenbaugh: or vulnerable.
Nia Rodgers: to knock down that part yeah okay.
William Newmann: The last one is violate a statute review international agreement that does not permit the automatic or unilateral the classification of information that 25 years.
William Newmann: So there's that we're working with another government or another institution that says we keep this stuff classified for longer.
John Aughenbaugh: Now, but wait, but but, but the critique your bill is, and this is a critique that's often made of government agencies, using the exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act new presidential do presidents.
John Aughenbaugh: rely, over rely on these exemptions Okay, because you know that's one of the critiques of FOIA right, you know they exemptions are overused by federal agencies do white house's do the same thing Okay, particularly with potentially embarrassing information.
William Newmann: we'll see I can go only with the national security stuff so I don't know what happens on the.
John Aughenbaugh: Domestic side yeah.
William Newmann: But in the National Security stuff I found that it depends on the President.
William Newmann: depends on the administration.
John Aughenbaugh: Okay, so give us an example of a president.
John Aughenbaugh: Who was quite willing to.
John Aughenbaugh: disclose warts and all.
William Newmann: clinton.
William Newmann: When when he left office.
William Newmann: They actually went through particularly information on Bosnia and even Rwanda, which you could say boy, there are a lot of warts related to US policy Rwanda.
William Newmann: And the administration went through that stuff and they started declassifying everything that they could very quickly, so you have things from the Clinton administration, where you got a fantastic documentary record right now, whereas the Reagan administration you're still waiting.
William Newmann: For this stuff to be declassified so I I put in about I guess over 1000 mandatory declassification requests for the Reagan administration and the response I got back from them is that yeah we'll probably have an answer for you, for all of these in 11 years.
got.
William Newmann: The game, which is why there's no Reagan case study in the book that I just wrote.
John Aughenbaugh: Well i'm gonna be next decade.
Nia Rodgers: That you write that like.
John Aughenbaugh: I mean, but that's funny because in an upcoming podcast episode that will be posting.
John Aughenbaugh: We focused on the Tower Commission.
John Aughenbaugh: As part of the Iran contra affair right in one of the huge criticisms of the Tower Commission was.
John Aughenbaugh: First of all, they had very limited ability to compel people to provide testimony and evidence, but also.
John Aughenbaugh: The regular administration just didn't want to turn stuff over right, I mean they openly were like yeah that's classified we can't go, we can't tell you right yeah that's fascinating okay i'm sorry, you had a point.
Nia Rodgers: No, no, I actually had a question so.
Nia Rodgers: All right, I know this is going to sound convoluted, but I think if I were listener, and I am a listener, this is what I would want to know which is.
Nia Rodgers: So you get there and you're looking through documents and it's clear that something's missing right it's clear that.
Nia Rodgers: Either it's redacted within an inch of its existence, and you get of the and if Oliver right and that's, the only thing on the page and you're like okay that's not good you then put in a FOIA for that.
Nia Rodgers: And that's the Freedom of Information Act request which goes to like if you're at the presidential library, does it go to the presidential library, or does it go to the agency that would have.
Nia Rodgers: That would have created that document because i'm assuming that what's in the presidential papers are a bunch of the little augie.
Nia Rodgers: helped us understand that there are 10,484 million offices in the executive office of the President, right like there's.
Nia Rodgers: Everything is under that office so like do they have different rules within that or is that is that one rule and does it come out of the library, or does it come out of an agency.
William Newmann: The answer is actually less convoluted.
Nia Rodgers: Oh good, because the question was terrible sorry.
William Newmann: Really it's really cool the way that they do this and part of it tells you something about how.
William Newmann: Transparent a whole lot of people want the United States Government to be.
William Newmann: So what they do is let's say someone does a FOIA or let's say I do a FOIA a Freedom of Information Act request on.
William Newmann: Like Joe biden's national security.
William Newmann: I forget what he's calling him now his memorandum on on how to structure the.
William Newmann: The National Security Council, I can't remember if he's national screening presidential memorandum or not they usually democrats start with P and Republicans start with N, but Biden started his national security director series with N, and that has destroyed my entire brain.
I have no.
William Newmann: Because one of the core belief systems of my life has now been rearranged.
William Newmann: But let's say I submitted a foyer for that what will happen is is you'll have people who are in charge of processing that within the National Security Council staff.
William Newmann: And they'll go ahead and they'll find every document related to that you know somebody writes a memo that says, you know I saw the draft change.
William Newmann: In paragraph five change must to shall.
William Newmann: No that's that's a memo that's a record and each one of those memos every single piece of paper will be on a list.
William Newmann: right that comes from the fire, so they don't necessarily have to let you see the document that, but they have to let you know the existence of the document.
William Newmann: And then what happens is at the if the Biden library is a hands on paper library.
William Newmann: there'll be a box that will say national security directives and there'll be a folder that will say you know national city President presidential memorandum is it one or two.
William Newmann: And in that folder will be in theory, everything is declassified will be in that folder and it might be three or four different folders know folder one folder to folder three all of this is big pile and, if anything, is not in that folder because it's been exempted from declassification.
William Newmann: You know it.
William Newmann: Because there's an exemption exemption sheet in the front, it says, these are the documents that are missing, so you open up that folder the library and there's this pink piece of paper and it's no 12345 it's listed, you know 40 different memos and one know you'll see the title.
William Newmann: And there it'll be like sitting right there too it's not there, because it says no exempted, and it tells you why it's exempted, and you know that's not there sometimes there's actually even a pink piece of paper.
William Newmann: As a placeholder that says, this is where that memo would be but it's been exempted.
Nia Rodgers: And so, but they still give you the title of that memo.
William Newmann: Most of the time, there are some that don't.
Okay.
John Aughenbaugh: But.
Nia Rodgers: But generally speaking, you would know what you're missing.
John Aughenbaugh: Right yeah because in and i'll give you an example on the domestic side right bills talking to us about national security memorandums within a particular presidential administration right.
John Aughenbaugh: Think guys when Brett cavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court Okay, he at one point okay worked in the bush 43 White House okay.
John Aughenbaugh: He was the chief Okay, he was he reported directly to the President, the democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee okay had made a request for all memorandums that Brett Kavanaugh on wrote okay when he reported directly to President.
John Aughenbaugh: Because there were hoping to find dirt Okay, so that they could go ahead and not confirmed him to the Supreme Court.
John Aughenbaugh: and
John Aughenbaugh: What came out was you know, the list of bill just described, there were certain memos okay that were exempted.
John Aughenbaugh: And the democrats wanted those memos right because they were like if there are exempted, there has to be some good stuff in there right there has to be some juicy stuff.
John Aughenbaugh: That either embarrassed Kavanaugh or would embarrass Bush 43 But OK, it had already been decided, those were exempt right, so we knew they existed, we just couldn’t read them.
John Aughenbaugh: well.
Nia Rodgers: I would like to ask, though i'm assuming that a lot of times what's in those memos in fact it's not particularly juicy but it's protecting.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Nia Rodgers: Some some person or operation or.
Nia Rodgers: yeah building like that right like we were saying before.
Nia Rodgers: That just because things are exempted doesn't mean they're particularly juicy My guess is that if you got a bunch of memos that had been exempted you'd fall asleep reading them because they're not actually.
Nia Rodgers: All that exciting their detailed stuff about a particular operation that's you know and detailed at the level that unless you're really a.
Nia Rodgers: Policy wonk or a or a an operations walk I should say you wouldn't care you don't care about the time of day that something arrives at a certain port and then will be picked up by a guy named Bob and taken to another.
Nia Rodgers: You know, like you, don't care about any of that because you don't know any of the players and that kind of level of detail isn't important.
William Newmann: Sometimes the reason the memo is still classified is because of who's in the room.
William Newmann: which may be in the Member.
William Newmann: Oh, nothing that said.
Nia Rodgers: In the memos interesting.
William Newmann: It was interesting, but the fact that someone's in the room now.
Nia Rodgers: That was the day we all got lunch with Yasser Arafat wait what Yasser Arafat was in the room, wait a minute wait wait wait that changes everything.
William Newmann: could be more enticing that it's it's the often I think the level of staff people at least national security stuff the level of staff people who may be in the room.
William Newmann: That.
Nia Rodgers: Oh so.
Nia Rodgers: How may have been in the room.
William Newmann: In the room right here's I want to let me finish up because I think this is the next question that keep question so something may be exempted from declassification right you you open up that folder and you look at that.
William Newmann: That pink cover sheet you're saying, I want to see this memo right well, then you put in a mandatory declassification request.
William Newmann: and mandatory meaning i'm a citizen of the United States, I want that memo review to see if it can be declassified and that's mandatory that's the law and it has to be reviewed.
William Newmann: So i've done thousands of those and over the past six or seven years, like every few times coming in, like once every two months.
William Newmann: i'll get an email or i'll get depending which library i'll get an actual surface mail letter that will say.
William Newmann: here's the outcome of this particular memo that you asked about and sometimes it'll be full declassification or declassification with some reduction in some cases it's been nope sorry not going to happen.
John Aughenbaugh: For a whole bunch of Librarians around the United States you're annoying bill.
Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Well okay wait, but that goes back to my question so.
Nia Rodgers: We love all of our patrons.
Nia Rodgers: All of our patrons.
William Newmann: But you don't know.
Nia Rodgers: annoyed by them.
John Aughenbaugh: We just have we just had another mandatory.
Nia Rodgers: declassification we love those.
Nia Rodgers: And we can't wait to find out what the answer is.
John Aughenbaugh: From the political scientist at vcu.
Nia Rodgers: Sure does want this.
Nia Rodgers: This this information.
John Aughenbaugh: But he can't get his book published so we.
John Aughenbaugh: could move on.
William Newmann: let's send them a copy of their book i'll just.
Nia Rodgers: i'll trade you so, but the mandatory declassification request the librarian isn't determining that.
Nia Rodgers: The issue agency is determining that right or the issuing office or the office of the President or someone.
John Aughenbaugh: Like emotional.
Nia Rodgers: Because i'll be honest with you, if you asked me for something I just hand it over.
John Aughenbaugh: Right, because it was a national or.
John Aughenbaugh: Is it the national archives build it so that makes that decision.
William Newmann: So it's going to go back to the agency that classification and every agency has their own shop that decides those types of things and there's also in that executive order they created a.
William Newmann: A national can't remember the exact name of it national be classifications Center.
William Newmann: that's name i'm blowing all my name's today all the vitamins, for instance memos or national security memorandum.
William Newmann: But they're actually was created a.
William Newmann: National Center to try to streamline the process, so the individual agencies can't just sort of Barry requests.
Nia Rodgers: Which i'm going to say I my experience with FOIAs is that almost always the first answer is no.
Nia Rodgers: Like they lead with no and then you kind of have to shove them to yes, because either they're they're respecting the original person who said classify this.
Nia Rodgers: Right, for whatever reason, or there they've got so many requests that they're just buried and there and they want to weed out the people who are casually asking versus the people who are really doing research and really want to know.
Nia Rodgers: Right i'm assuming that there's some of that and I don't like that gate keeping aspect, but I also understand that.
Nia Rodgers: For some of the materials in there, especially when human sources could be affected slash destroyed because of that that you would definitely want to make sure that those people were protected.
Nia Rodgers: But D is your experience been.
Nia Rodgers: Okay, in your mandatory declassification requests are you mostly winning or mostly losing.
Nia Rodgers: Are you 50/50 at this point.
William Newmann: Well, what i've got is.
William Newmann: With the.
William Newmann: Well, we back over second you issue the mandatory the classification request you asked for it.
William Newmann: So then, you say to people when will I get an answer about this.
Nia Rodgers: And they say what's your life expectancy again.
William Newmann: Basically, so you know if if i've submitted a few thousand in particular to Carter and Reagan.
William Newmann: Where I was doing some research.
William Newmann: I say i've gotten maybe 30.
Nia Rodgers: wow.
William Newmann: At this point, and I i'd say we're into four or five years.
William Newmann: into some of this stuff and part of that actually is cutting back on the resources to do declassification.
Nia Rodgers: Right that's not well if you're I guess okay.
William Newmann: One way to slow the whole thing down is to say we're gonna have fewer people dealing with this.
William Newmann: And a lot of this stuff has become really, really hard.
William Newmann: And I connected to the.
William Newmann: polarization the United States, a lot of this stuff has become really hard to do because of the polarization because i've looked at the list of foia requests for instance for the.
William Newmann: George W Bush administration, so you can actually go online and see a list of all the foia requests.
William Newmann: And the number of foia requests that are asking for information about Hillary clinton's dealings with whitewater and Hillary clinton's dealings with child sex trafficking, and all this stuff which people have to go and say.
William Newmann: That doesn't exist, you know there's nothing there but we've got to go and see if there's anything related to that there's everybody's looking for dirt on everybody else and that's taken up huge amount of time for that could be done for a legitimate research.
Nia Rodgers: that's makes me sad I shouldn't say because I don't.
Nia Rodgers: Well, and one of those answers should be enough, there is no material here with Hillary Clinton and whitewater beyond these 10 things that we've given.
Nia Rodgers: That we've that we've made publicly available, or at least the titles of publicly available quit asking.
Nia Rodgers: like that, but I assume that they have to go look each time they get a request, so it can't just say, I know that doesn't exist because something may have been added to the archive or.
Nia Rodgers: Right like as a person who does research right for people in libraries.
Nia Rodgers: I can't just say oh somebody asked me about that last year and there weren't any there wasn't any academic work, published on it.
Nia Rodgers: Because, in the meantime something may have been published, just like in the meantime something may have come unclassified so each time they get that request, they have to go look.
Nia Rodgers: Even if they're pretty sure it's not going to be in there, so that's that's super frustrating, because it does take up an enormous amount of resources that.
Nia Rodgers: That if we stopped being gotcha culture and we stopped being sort of this idea of I want to find dirt on people, then I mean because the reality is if you've lived more than 10 minutes there's probably dirt on you in some way.
John Aughenbaugh: well.
Nia Rodgers: It also depending on how people view dirt.
Nia Rodgers: You know, like.
John Aughenbaugh: It look at the impact on.
John Aughenbaugh: A research process right, you know bill correct me if i'm wrong, but when you're making these requests to declassify material.
John Aughenbaugh: you're not looking for gotcha material about President Carter or President Reagan right, you are actually researching a phenomenon okay that was important in the history of the United States foreign policy making right right, I mean correct correct me if i'm wrong right.
John Aughenbaugh: yep no we're.
William Newmann: we're just that we record of how decisions are made.
John Aughenbaugh: yeah right, I mean we're trying to understand how okay two different or multiple different presidential administrations we're making decisions.
John Aughenbaugh: And one of the you know most important elements of international politics in the second half of the 20th century right so you're trying to get that information you're not getting it because you're like ah ha.
Nia Rodgers: i'm writing their gossip TIM.
John Aughenbaugh: On barter did this or Aha the Reagan administration was you know chock full of you know you know blah blah blahs no I mean you're trying you're trying to go ahead and understand a phenomenon okay um and you know in part of that research process is a curiosity right.
John Aughenbaugh: yeah we're trying to understand how our government works when our government was one of two superpowers in the world.
Nia Rodgers: Well, and we're also trying to.
Nia Rodgers: we're trying to compare Presidents honestly right instead of comparing them with surface things we're actually trying to compare their thought process and their advisory process.
Nia Rodgers: Because if we can figure out what works best we can say to Presidents here's how you might want to set things up in the future.
Nia Rodgers: Depending on what your personality type is or how you learn best or whatever, instead of every President starting more or less from scratch.
Nia Rodgers: Right, because the record restarts with each President, even if that person has been Vice President, you were not President.
Nia Rodgers: There were things that happened when you were not in the room, and now the learning curve is incredibly steep and and we're asking people to do that, especially.
Nia Rodgers: In a world that is so interrelated and slow so globalized that is an amazingly hard thing to do, and if we could figure out hey it looks like this is a really good sort of best practice way to kind of approach these things, then we could give a President, a leg up on on that starting.
Nia Rodgers: area and, instead, but we've got because we're polarized is nobody wants to tell anybody anything about how to do anything right and.
Nia Rodgers: And you know that's incredibly unfortunate i'm.
Nia Rodgers: I think that.
Nia Rodgers: it's too bad that we don't have you know how in a lot of committees and organizations, you have a chair and then you have a chair elect and that person like shadows, the person doing the job for a year, so that they, they can say.
Nia Rodgers: dude that is a terrible way to go about that or that's brilliant i'm totally going to keep doing it that way, because that really works like wouldn't it be neat if we had our elections.
Nia Rodgers: One year backwards, so that a President stayed on an extra year and the Vice President was actually in that last year was actually the President elect.
Nia Rodgers: And they got to sit in and learn how to I mean if it works for organizations like regular organizations, one would think it would work for the Federal Government yeah.
William Newmann: And in the national security area.
William Newmann: It used to work that way in which you had a lot of organizational memory, so you may have had people who worked for vince I just did research on Kennedy Johnson and Nixon.
William Newmann: And you have people who work for Eisenhower who stayed on and work for Kennedy and P word for Johnson who stayed on and work for Nixon.
William Newmann: And the idea was you're smart you're national security professional just because we have a new President in Office doesn't mean that US national security interests instantly changed.
William Newmann: thinking along the lines of the polarization and who's my enemy, because the National Security profession in theory that people were sort of in and outers.
William Newmann: Maybe in academia or think tanks and go back in and work for Defense or state or the nsc staff those people are professionals.
William Newmann: Right that's the thinking about them so they can work for a republican or democrat.
John Aughenbaugh: yeah and, by the way this actually ties back to.
John Aughenbaugh: A pretty foundational concept.
John Aughenbaugh: In the modern us administrative state nia that we've talked about in other podcast episodes which was woodrow wilson's idea that you separate politics from administration.
John Aughenbaugh: administration would be chock full of neutrally competent bureaucrats who could and would be willing to implement whatever policy was created by elected officials.
John Aughenbaugh: It didn't matter if it was a democratic president, a republican President it didn't matter, who was running the State Department, who was the appointed Secretary.
John Aughenbaugh: You know you had a cadre of you know well trained well educated seasoned bureaucrats who would implement policy Okay, we don't have that anymore right.
John Aughenbaugh: yeah I.
John Aughenbaugh: mean you know Presidents come in office Okay, I mean we saw this with trump we're now seeing it with Biden Okay, you know we're you know we're getting advisory boards every four years for the EPA.
John Aughenbaugh: Homeland Security.
Nia Rodgers: master general.
yeah it's.
John Aughenbaugh: And again guys, you know nia you pointed this out bill just mentioned this right i'm doing Federal Government work is difficult it's complex.
John Aughenbaugh: You need that institutional history i'm listeners, you know if you want to know how important transition is in institutional memory read Michael lewis's book The fifth risk.
John Aughenbaugh: Right okay i'm in and that's what gets lost but let's get back to the libraries okay in I know we only have a few more minutes, right here, are we doing on time.
Nia Rodgers: We only have a few more minutes.
Nia Rodgers: If phil would stay with us with another episode because there's lots more questions.
John Aughenbaugh: Okay, but okay I got two questions for you, Bill okay um what what, in your estimation share with us your most unusual presidential library experience.
William Newmann: Okay, so i'll tell you about two folders.
William Newmann: And folders.
William Newmann: And folders which were hysterical and I have pictures of them, so I can.
Nia Rodgers: Okay, why don't We ask you that question in a little bit if it's.
Nia Rodgers: The exact process of that.
John Aughenbaugh: By the way, yeah that's the title for the podcast episode two folders.
Nia Rodgers: To folder okay.
John Aughenbaugh: Okay bill Newman visiting presidential libraries.
William Newmann: that the first folder was when I found it Eisenhower library, and it was.
William Newmann: Give me one box, it was in but actually I can look it up to see what box, it was in, but it was.
William Newmann: declassified material related to national security issues, and it was a folder and it just had a sticker on the tab inside the folder and it just said banana.
William Newmann: Okay, so I assume it has something to do with the coup in Guatemala.
William Newmann: Where we just had banana and it was empty.
Nia Rodgers: Empty folder.
Nia Rodgers: Right, no, it was empty or did you say.
Nia Rodgers: Has this been stolen.
William Newmann: Oh no that just means that when you've got those documents, for instance, you may have an entire folder which has been exempted, but the folder is still inside the box.
William Newmann: So when you if you do a foia request and they will put together boxes of all these documents and if none of this stuff is declassified and i've done this before where i've asked her 18 boxes worth of information, and I will get 18 boxes filled with empty folders.
yeah.
William Newmann: Hundreds of empty folders and you'll just go through them and, through them, because maybe there's some.
William Newmann: document wow already blown my one o'clock poll from the archives, so they can't give me another 18 boxes until three o'clock so i'm stuck with these 18 boxes, so you just go through them.
William Newmann: Okay, and you look at the titles and actually the titles tell you something, because now, you know Okay, I know it's going to be here know.
William Newmann: Some days many years down.
William Newmann: The road.
William Newmann: So, and the other folder was from the Carter administration, and it was a folder related to the paperwork reduction act.
Nia Rodgers: That is August favorite act.
Nia Rodgers: Right ever.
Nia Rodgers: get into an episode, you have just made his day.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh, my goodness.
Nia Rodgers: into an episode, he is he is a happy happy man.
William Newmann: I gotta send you the picture, because it was this giant folder over stuck with paper that was disorganized and none of it was lined up, and it was just all sticking out all over the.
box.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh yeah that's the federal government.
Nia Rodgers: We actually have that picture for the.
Nia Rodgers: For the guide, would you be willing to let us put that up on the guide.
William Newmann: Oh sure.
Nia Rodgers: cuz that's hilarious.
Nia Rodgers: production.
Nia Rodgers: see this folder.
John Aughenbaugh: full of disorganized okay.
John Aughenbaugh: paperwork reduction act.
William Newmann: lined up Nice and needs so you know it's it's orderly and you open up the folder and it's all you know everything's lined up, but this one was just a disaster.
Nia Rodgers: That had to be that had to be library and having a good time that you fake just for a minute they're like Okay, this is pretty funny let me do it in this way i'm not going to destroy anything or move anything but, but I am going to make it a little bit messy for hell.
that's.
Nia Rodgers: Great.
John Aughenbaugh: You just made my day bill.
Nia Rodgers: That is a wonderful that is a wonderful way to end this episode, thank you because that's mark.
Nia Rodgers: Would you be willing to to stay with us for another episode.
William Newmann: Oh yeah sure.
Nia Rodgers: Wonderful Okay, well then we'll wrap up this one and we'll be back next week with our second episode thanks everybody.
John Aughenbaugh: Thank you, Bill.
Announcer: You've been listening to civil discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the Workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaak Hopson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discourse. As always, no documents were harmed in the making of this podcast.