Shrub Control - Judicial Branch

Story: Historians hopeful after ruling against Bush on records

Historians hopeful after ruling against Bush on records But scholars say judge didn't go far enough to guarantee access 10:40 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 3, 2007 By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON -- Encouraged by a court ruling that chipped away at President Bush's executive order that threatened access to White House records, historians and open records advocates said Tuesday that they see fresh hope for Congress to scrap the order entirely. Some of the nation's most eminent historians have urged Congress to overturn the order giving former presidents the right to seal their papers indefinitely, warning that insights into world events could be lost. A federal judge overturned that part of the order Monday. But she sidestepped challenges to other key elements, including assertions that former presidents and vice presidents may claim executive privilege and pass control of official papers to heirs. Legislation to invalidate the Bush order entirely passed the House in March by a veto-proof margin but stalled last week in the Senate. "There's a threat that we'll get a sanitized history. * It's undemocratic," said Robert Dallek, who recently published a book about Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger using declassified documents from the Nixon library. He said Tuesday that he hopes Congress settles the matter. "The country is entitled to know its history." The Bush order delayed the release of thousands of documents from the Reagan administration. White House aides say the order is necessary because in the age of terrorism, presidents need more time to review documents for possible national security revelations. The White House threatened a veto in March and continues to review the matter, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive, said the legislation "is just as needed now as it was before" because the judge's ruling leaves untouched the "substantive parts of the executive order." "It might speed up the process but it doesn't eliminate the big loophole that allows for abuse," she said. Biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin lamented the Bush order. "If we're going to learn from history, we've got to know what that history is," said Ms. Goodwin, who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book on Franklin Roosevelt and whose best-sellers have covered Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and, most recently, Lincoln. For much of the nation's history, presidents retained private control of their papers, generally donating them to universities or libraries. Congress standardized the rules in 1978, after Mr. Nixon tried to destroy some of his records. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the Bush order -- issued two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- "effectively eliminates" the discretion the 1978 law gave to the National Archives. Her ruling leaves open the possibility of future lawsuits if papers are actually withheld under the surviving provisions of the Bush order. "It underscores the need for the legislation," said Scott Nelson, the attorney for Public Citizen who filed the case almost six years ago on behalf of his own organization and several historian groups. "Congress isn't limited in a way a court is on issues of 'ripeness.. "Congress can and should act to invalidate those provisions now without having to wait." Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., blocked a Senate vote on the bill, whose co-sponsors include Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a fellow Republican. The National Coalition for History is mounting a campaign to pressure Mr. Bunning to drop his opposition. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who heads the committee that approved the bill, called on Mr. Bunning on Tuesday to drop his procedural block in light of the court ruling. Bunning aides offered no comment. "They can hide from us to what extent did Cheney have an influence on this administration," Mr. Dallek said. "To what extent was Bush really in charge of the decision-making? What are the inner workings of the Bush White House? Who has influence?" Mr. Dallek noted that researchers have dug out key insights into Lyndon Johnson's handling of Vietnam in recent years. His own John F. Kennedy biography broke ground with details of the president's Addison's disease culled from previously sealed medical files. "We have an astonishing body of information that was not available at first," Mr Dallek said. "We're entitled to know these things. These papers have all been generated by public moneys, and they're owned by the people." Ms. Goodwin said it's understandable for presidents, their aides and relatives to have an impulse to downplay embarrassing details. But she called that short-sighted. Letting analysts work with the complete record will let them assess decisions in light of political cross-currents, competing interests and limited information available at the time. For example, Dwight Eisenhower was ridiculed in his day for ceding too much authority to adviser Sherman Adams. A more flattering picture emerged once historians had the chance to pore through administration records. "It was obvious he was more in charge than we thought," Ms. Goodwin said. "*As a president you just have to hope that as the decades go by, people will come to see the context in which you were making these decisions."