Transcript of National Archives History Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Jack Kabrel
Interviewee(s): John M. Scroggins

Jack Kabrel: This is Jack Kabrel, K-A-B-R-E-L. Today is June 22, 2016, at 1 p.m. I am conducting an oral history interview with Mr. John M. Scroggins via over the phone audio recording. This is Part Two of a two-part interview for the National Archives and Records Administration History Office, Oral History Project. Thank you Mr. Scroggins for agreeing to a second part of this interview. The first one was extremely engaging and we only got about halfway through your career up until this moment here. Just to briefly go over what we had we started out from you being born in Minneapolis in 1942, working for the National Archives in the summer of ‘62, and working your way up through various positions of archivist, archives for the archival projects division, management intern for the GSA, Senior Program Analyst, now we are here in 1980, if you can follow along on our resume, as we've been doing very well following along on our timeline that you were so kind to give us. We’re looking at the 1980 to 1984 tumultuous era and we’re about at the spring of 1982 or so. My first question would be do you want to start us in from 1980 in that era that you felt was a tumultuous era for you?

John M. Scroggins: Basically I’d been in exile for a couple of years, and then because they tried to riff me and failed and didn't have anything they wanted me to do. Then they sent me off to the Federal Executive Institute in, I think it was the spring of 1982. It was a PBS slot, but the administrator had made nasty comments about the Federal Executive Institute, from what I hear, and PBS had decided not to send anybody and it offered other services the slot and the Warner or Deputy Ed Weldon decided that was a good place to put me and get me out of the building for a few weeks. I was gone to Charlottesville for the Federal Executive Institute for seven weeks.

Jack Kabrel: Can you tell me what PBS is and what the Federal Executive Institute is?

John M. Scroggins: PBS is the Public Building Service in GSA. The Federal Executive Institute is a training center for federal executives run by what was then the Civil Service Commission and is now the Office of Personnel Management. It's in Charlottesville, Virginia, and their programs have changed over the years, but at the time I was there they had a seven week residential program for 15s and SES people; in theory for SES people and 15s who were being considered for SES positions. I was a 15 and at that point I don’t think the archives was considering me for an SES position but they sent me.

Jack Kabrel: Did you get anything out of your seven weeks there?

John M. Scroggins: Yes, it was very interesting and it was helpful to me in a number of ways. One thing that was interesting is they put you in, at least at that time, they put you in seven student groups they called Executive Learning Teams and each group had an advisor. It turns out that my advisor was a very good friend and former classmate, I guess, of Bob Warner, who was then the archivist. One of my classmates who had the room next to me in the dormitory was the Town Clerk of Belfast, meaning city manager but his title was Town Clerk of Belfast, Northern Ireland because they took a foreign student or two for each class and I’ve stayed in touch with him ever since. A guy by the name of Cecil Ward who apparently was the Town Clerk for over 20 years and the Belfast City Administration Building is now named after him. Anyway, when I came back from Charlottesville, which probably would have been late April, early May 1982, they were just starting to work more on trying to get out of GSA. I wasn’t really given any assignment formally as such. I was still sitting there but I was sitting on the other side of a partition from Dick Jacobs who was very active on that so Dick started giving me stuff to do.

Jack Kabrel: When you came back from Charlotte you didn’t have any assignments whatsoever? Who was your supervisor?

John M. Scroggins: I was still on paper an Executive Assistant to the Assistant Archivist for the National Archives which is what I’d been since they found out they couldn’t get rid of me. But before I went to Charlottesville I had been sitting in a stack area without a phone. You hear about people being put in closets ‘cause they can’t be fired or something. That was me. Anyway, I ended up in Room 100 on the other side of the partition from Dick and he started giving me things to don and I started doing stuff, and one thing led to another and I started getting assigned just odd jobs related to it. I spent a lot of time on the phone with John Parisi who was on the House Oversight Committee staff talking about language or bills or arguments for bills and the archivist set up a committee. I forget what it was called, but it was Trudy Peterson, Adrienne Thomas, Maygene Daniels, and me, to go around, and I think our charter was to explore alternative arrangements if we couldn’t get onto GSA, like what other agencies might have more independence from their mother agency than we had and to sell the idea that we wanted out. We asked who was in charge and we were told nobody was in charge, so it was the four of us as a committee to pretty much work out our own charter and do what we wanted to do. One of the places we went was to the Energy Information Administration and I don’t know what the story is with that now, but the Energy Information Administration was within the Department of Energy but had statutory independence in many ways that we did not have independence from GSA if you know what I mean or not, maybe you don’t.

Jack Kabrel: Yes, I do.

John M. Scroggins: GSA had all the authority legally with a couple exceptions but the Energy Information Administration or the administrator had substantial statutory authority independent of the Secretary of Energy. Another place we went was to the Smithsonian where we had a long discussion with Phillip S. Hughes, Sam Hughes, who was then the Undersecretary of the Smithsonian. Hughes had been the official Deputy Director of the Bureau of the Budget who had written the Bureau of the Budget position paper about 1968 saying leave them in GSA, but give them more money, or something like that. Hughes admitted to us, and was willing to do so on the record, that he was probably wrong when he did that, and he supported independence now in the eighties. That was fairly significant because Hughes had all the contacts in the Public Administration community and I think he talked up the idea within the Public Administration community. I can’t remember all the things that happened at that time but one of the things I went to was a hearing that Glen English had. I'm going to go back to the group, that committee. You had Trudy and she doesn’t want to talk to you, you said. Adrienne Thomas, who later became Deputy Archivist—is Adrienne on your list?

Jack Kabrel: Yes.

John M. Scroggins: And Maygene Daniels?

Jack Kabrel: No.

John M. Scroggins: Maygene left the Archives after that and went to the National Gallery of Art as an Archivist but at independence time her husband was the Staff Director for House Oversight Committee and officially recused himself from the thing, but anyway Maygene lived close to Trudy; I don't know if it was next door or in the same block, but she was Trudy’s neighbor. Maygene also graduated from college with one of my sisters.

Jack Kabrel: Did this group that was formulated come out with a report?

John M. Scroggins: Yes, there was a report and I don’t remember what it was called. It was probably in ‘83 but I don’t remember for sure.

Jack Kabrel: This report suggested up backing it up with information from Hughes from—

John M. Scroggins: [Interposing] It had backup information and it talked about some possible alternatives I think. It’s been over 30 years.

Jack Kabrel: That’s my job to pull the information from you.

John M. Scroggins: You need to find somebody to go find the report.

Jack Kabrel: John, what was significant and how did the whole politics of independence work on Capitol Hill and who and what was significant and who are significant as far as getting that independence?

John M. Scroggins: I don’t know how it all worked on Capitol Hill. Like I said, I talked a lot to John Parisi who is on the house staff who worked for Maygene Daniels' husband. I know Dick Jacobs did a lot of talking on the phone and doing the same kind of thing with senate staff but there are a lot of other people in the Archives talking to a lot of other politicians. I went to a hearing that was held by Glen English, who was Chairman of the Oversight Committee, and his wife was a personal friend of the librarian at the time. I don’t remember; the archives librarian at the time and I don't remember her name but I believe English’s wife was a personal friend of the librarian. But we had this hearing and English asked a lot of questions with some interesting answers like ‘you didn't get this budget request’ or ‘Mr. Archivist, you didn’t ask for more money. Well why didn’t you ask for more money.’ Because the administrator—first he asked the Administrator why didn’t you give the Archivist more money. This is sort of a paraphrase; and the Administrator said because the Archivist didn’t ask me for more money. Then he asked the archivist why didn't you ask him for more money; because he told me not to.

Jack Kabrel: Circles.

John M. Scroggins: Glen English called as a witness Jess Larson who had been English’s father’s or grandfather’s law partner. Jess Larson was the first Administrator of GSA. He said something to the effect that if he’d known how the GSA-Archives relationship was going to turn out he wouldn’t have accepted it.

Jack Kabrel: That testimony right there I guess helped push towards independence?

John M. Scroggins: Yes, but you should be able to find that testimony somewhere in the Congressional Records. I couldn’t give you a citation. Probably ‘83.

Jack Kabrel: Okay.

John M. Scroggins: Then I guess it was the summer of ‘84 there was a lot of back and forth and maybe a couple of false starts and some fear that it wasn't going to pass. First we would be confident and then we weren't so confident but it did pass, I think in what, October of ‘84.

Jack Kabrel: What did it mean when it passed?

John M. Scroggins: Congress passed a bill to establish the National Archives and Records Administration to be effective, I guess, April 1, 1985. I couldn’t give you the bill number anymore or the title. We had a law that was passed, so what do we do now? About that time then probably at the beginning of November, but maybe not, I wrote a long memo to the Archivist that basically said do it now, and spelled out what I believed were the Administrator's authorities that could be delegated to the Archivist to effectively make the Archives independent. It could have been done all along but Administrators wouldn't do it. My argument was that now that it’s passed and going to be effective April 1 why don't you go ask them to do it now. I think the way that played out is Ray Kline who had been the Deputy Administrator was Acting Administrator and I think Ray Kline was sympathetic and when I went to Kline and came back with a delegation of authority to, in effect, operate independently as soon as he could work out the details.

Jack Kabrel: How did you come about this idea?

John M. Scroggins: I’d been arguing that since early in the game. I said if we get it passed then we ought to just do it. I argued even back in the seventies that the Administrator could delegate more authority to the archivist; he just wouldn't do it. If the Administrator did not delegate a lot of authority to any part of GSA from the beginning.

Jack Kabrel: Just so you can help our audience out, what’s the hierarchy of Administrator and Archivist? Who is the Administrator compared to the Archivist and how come he is able to put duties onto the Archivist?

John M. Scroggins: Under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 that set up GSA, the Administrator got all the authority of his agency with a couple of exceptions that related to the Archives. He was authorized to delegate almost all of the authority he got under that law and administrators chose not to do so. The Archivist retained the authority to be Chairman of the Trust Fund Board, Chairman of the NHPRC, and part of the disposal authority. Other than that all the authority within GSA rested in the Administrator. The Administrator was authorized to delegate to people and chose not to do so, so therefore all of the central services were centralized. I talked before about how we didn’t have a lawyer because GSA insisted on retaining all the legal services. GSA had a centralized personnel department. One of the first things that happened after they reached agreement on the do it now memo was that we took over personnel from GSA because the Administrator delegated the personnel authority for NARS to the Archivist. Am I clear?

Jack Kabrel: No, that’s a great explanation. Thank you, John. Do it now had a lot of legs and you were able to get the Administrator to give more power to the Archivist.

John M. Scroggins: Right. We got a lot of authority and more than we could use at the moment but we got the delegation, so we had a transition team that was set up to figure out how we’re going to manage the transition and I think maybe Claudine was the head of that, I forget for sure, but I was on it and I forget who all the members were. I was responsible for figuring out how to handle the field transition and part of personnel. In personnel GSA had had a fairly large personnel office in St. Louis since the GSA took over the record center in 1961 so there was a GSA personnel office in the St. Louis Record Center building that worked for the GSA Region Six personnel officer. It’s that St. Louis personnel office where I was sworn in in 1962. The people in St. Louis were very happy with that personnel office, NARA was probably 90% of their workload. They did some work for PBS or federal supply things in St. Louis but the record center in St. Louis accounted for 90% or more of their workload. Part of my argument was let’s just ask for the whole St. Louis personnel office, which we got. That's why we have a personnel office in St. Louis now.

Jack Kabrel: Would you say that the transition was a rather smooth transition?

John M. Scroggins: I think it went more smoothly than a lot of people expected. One of my responsibilities on the transition too was property inventory. We had to do an inventory of all of the property that we were transferring from whoever was the GSA property officer to whoever was going to be the NARA property officer. I came up with a scheme for bar coding all of the property and then scanning it to do the inventory.

Jack Kabrel: It seems like every time we speak that your knowledge of technology always seems to help whatever situation you’re in.

John M. Scroggins: That probably was true up until a few years ago. Anyway, we did the transition and it worked—I guess from my perspective it worked better than I would have thought but some people didn't think it worked quite as well but I think it worked out pretty well. Then at independence time before he retired, Warner handed out a bunch of awards to people that worked on independence. I guess that was the act that officially rehabilitated me. I got a $7,500 cash award for working on independence, which I believe was the smallest award of any of the people that worked on it. But it was a demonstration that I was back in management’s good graces and not banished to a closet.

Jack Kabrel: Is that due to your work or is that also due to the fact that people change and administrations change and sometimes that also plays a role in somebody’s life?

John M. Scroggins: I think probably more my work than administration’s changing. I think my going into the closet in the first place was more due to administrations changing and then Warner just accepting the status quo. I was in effect banished after Rhoads left while O’Neill was Acting Archivist. I was in the doghouse when Warner came in and I think he just maintained the status quo until the end of independence time and I think he had Ed Weldon or—is Ed Weldon on your list?

Jack Kabrel: No.

John M. Scroggins: Ed Weldon was the first head of the archives branch in Atlanta. He was later the Georgia State Archivist and the New York State Archivist and he was Deputy Archivist of the U.S. He might be a worthwhile person.

Jack Kabrel: At this time John, independence has now officially taken place, we are an independent organization. How did you get to your next duty of Director of the Field Archives that you had for eight years, from ‘84 to ‘92.

John M. Scroggins: In the last few days of the transition when it became clear that I was probably going to be rehabilitated the question was what do we do with him. I think it was Frank Burke who decided that if we were going to run the regions ourselves rather than through the GSA apparatus, and if they were going to take my suggestion that the regional archives be organizationally separate from the record centers and the regional archives work for the Assistant Archivist for the National Archives rather than work for the Record Center Director who worked for the Assistant Archivist for Federal Record Centers. If that’s how we were going to organize then Burke thought I was the best candidate to do it, to run the region or field archives program or whatever we called it at the time. They assigned me to do that. I think it was a combination of what are we going to do with him and he’s probably the person that knows the most about this.

Jack Kabrel: This is also based upon your reports that you said I believe was ‘68 microfilm?

John M. Scroggins: Yeah, but the Regional Archives Coordinator had worked for me during the seventies too when I was in the Office of the National Archives. When I was in the Office of the Executive Director I also did staff work when that had a meeting of the NARA Regional Directors. The regional directors worked for the GSA regional administrators but the archivist would meet with them every year or two and for four or five years there I was the person who did the staff work, the arrangements for the meetings and stuff or my staff did. I did it a couple times and people working for me did it a couple times. We’re going to independence and we have a field archives division which I have taken over and inherited Roseanne Butler who was the Regional Archives Coordinator which they didn’t even consider a management job I don’t think.

Jack Kabrel: Roseanne Butler would be considered your assistant?

John M. Scroggins: Yes, and we made her Deputy Director. She was better at some things than I was by far. She’s a better communicator. More sympathetic. I had a vision for the regions that I’d had all along and Frank pretty much was willing to go along with that, Frank Burke, because now was Acting Archivist then after Warner left for a while.

Jack Kabrel: I’d like to get clear on who was who. Frank Burke at this point was the Acting Archivist?

John M. Scroggins: He was Acting Assistant Archivist for the National Archives for a while and then the Acting Archivist for a while. I’m not sure how official all that was because the White House didn’t do anything when Warner left.

Jack Kabrel: Could you describe your vision for the regions and if that is also part of the manifesto maybe you can go into that a little bit?

John M. Scroggins: I saw the regional archives as being depositories for the vast quantity of records that were probably somewhere outside Washington, and I think there were a lot more records outside Washington that should have been in the archives than were. I saw it, as with the microfilm, as a way to make the records in Washington more available by putting more of the microfilm there. I saw the regional archives as a way to build a national constituency for the National Archives. It was genealogists outside Washington who supported us strongly when it looked like the Privacy Act was going to be a problem and it was genealogists outside Washington who supported us strongly in the independence fight, made calls to congressman and did things, and I saw the regional archives as an opportunity to build a national constituency among the genealogists and other people and state archivists and historians and I think Burke went along with that and I think Trudy did not, but Burke was the boss at the time.

Jack Kabrel: What was the argument against it?

John M. Scroggins: I don’t think there was an argument against it. What’s the argument against it now? That discussion is probably not part of the interview but if you want to discuss the current role of the regional archives we can do it after the interview.

Jack Kabrel: Okay.

John M. Scroggins: I thought we could build a national constituency, I think we needed a stronger presence and I’m an anomaly in my family. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs in many ways and I more or less thought we ought to try to build an entrepreneurial spirit among the regional archives people and tell them generally what we wanted but let them run things without asking every day what I have to do today. We had some pretty strict guidelines on some things and some pretty strict work plans but I didn't care in many ways exactly how things got done if you know what I mean. There were goals for arrangement, description, and for re-boxing. I wanted to see the results but we didn’t tell which employees were going to work on which things on which days. We required some kind of outreach. You need to talk to all your state archives people and let us know you need to keep in touch with state historical people. We wanted them to keep in touch with the district offices of their congress people which gave some people in Washington the willies I think, but it paid off in some ways. I put in a weekly reporting requirement; I want a weekly narrative report. It was not a new idea but I want a weekly narrative report and in turn Roseanne wrote a weekly newspaper that was pretty much based on the weekly reports plus what was happening in Washington and we sent a weekly newsletter out to them. What we did was not a whole lot different from what Herb Angel and Ed Aldridge did when they first set up the Office of Records Management in 1950. They had reports coming in from the Field Record Management divisions and they sent out a Friday memo to them every week. Then we set up a daily telephone message; everybody called it ‘dial-a-prayer.’ Remember, this was before email and computers and stuff. Roseanne would record a daily telephone message with anything they should know. At Trudy’s staff meeting today we did this or this or don’t forget this report is due or whatever and we told them to call the dial-a-prayer every day in the afternoon. Roseanne pretty much handled all those communications. We did some nationwide outreach things. Roseanne worked with the History Committee of the Federal Judiciary and we did a big thing on the bicentennial of the Judiciary Act where we had an exhibit—each regional archive had a copy of an exhibit to rotate around courthouses in their region. Working with the Federal Office Exhibits and Publications people we did a series of short radio scripts about the history of the Judiciary Act and the regional archives people were given copies of this and told to sell it to as many radio stations as they could. You heard any of this before?

Jack Kabrel: I have never heard any of this, no. I’m very excited and happy that we’re getting this on the record because I don’t think a lot of people who are in our audience may have heard of this before. I think it’s very interesting and each of the things you’re mentioning seems to be that the main ideas seem to be outreach and genealogy.

John M. Scroggins: It wasn’t just genealogy. Bicentennial and the court system is not genealogy. We did a slideshow on the field archive branches. Nancy Malon did a slide show that we sent all over the place and that ought to be somewhere in audio/visual. Nancy did a number of traveling exhibits. We worked with other people on exhibits. Carroll O’Connor's wife, you know Carroll O’Connor, Archie Bunker?

Jack Kabrel: Yes.

John M. Scroggins: His wife was something like the granddaughter of an Indian agent who had a large collection of photographs, so we arranged with her to have an exhibit of these photographs of Indian reservations in Montana on exhibit in the Seattle branch for an extended period. Got a lot of publicity in Seattle over that. One of the congressmen, I can’t remember his name, Tom [Lantos] somebody-or-other, was a congressman in the San Bruno area. San Bruno people worked with his district staff to do a number of things that were jointly sponsored by the San Bruno branch and the congressman’s staff. We did that in some other places. We pushed them to do naturalization ceremonies in the regional archives. Interesting because Kent Carter in Fort Worth did one, it was a big one and he managed to get Jim Wright, who was then the Speaker of the House, to come because it was in Wright’s district. The way Kent reported on it Wright sat in the back of the room bored. He made a brief speech but sat in the back of the room looking like he was bored silly, and then at the end of the ceremony whoever was the master of ceremonies or mistress of ceremonies got up and said there were tables for voter registration in the back of the room now that you were citizens and Wright broke into a big smile and got up and started pressing the flesh.

Jack Kabrel: At this time John, what I find to be really interesting is that you felt that the regions should have an entrepreneurial spirit, an independence of sorts, and I find that to be very interesting considering I think the climate that I have known over the last decade or so seems to be a bit of a maybe misconception that DC has of what the regions do, what their functions are, and how much work they actually do. I think their view is more of trying to get everybody on the same page instead of having independents within each of these regions. What do you say about that?

John M. Scroggins: I think that’s true but it’s not just the last few years. I think that's why I ceased to be head of the regions in 1992 because that was not viewed as favorably as it had been.

Jack Kabrel: There was a distrust from DC about exactly what the regional archives do.

John M. Scroggins: I don’t know; I wish you could talk to Trudy because if Trudy were honest with you she would probably tell you more. You might see what you can get out of Michael Kurtz on that. He was Trudy’s Deputy at the time.

Jack Kabrel: A question I wanted to ask you before we move on from this area to the next section—

John M. Scroggins: [Interposing] Let me talk a little more about the regions because we wanted a strong volunteer program and I think that the high point we probably had over 400 volunteers. We wanted extended hours and we required at least one evening and a Saturday a month but we allowed them to do more if they wanted to do more. We encouraged them to do training mainly genealogical training, but training in how to do research in the records. A lot of them would have a Saturday morning session where they would get people in and show them how to search the microfilm. We weren't too specific about some of that but you had to do something. But you know what I mean.

Jack Kabrel: Also outreach to schools too as well?

John M. Scroggins: Yeah, we had a lot of schools to work. We encouraged some… You ought to interview Roseanne. I have not talked to Roseanne for more than 15 years.

Jack Kabrel: The outreach really in many ways, that outreach was a key component of the regions.

John M. Scroggins: Yes, it was a key component. That’s a fair way to put it. I have not seen Roseanne probably since 1999. I think I saw her husband once after that. I understand that she was a uniformed tour guide in Williamsburg but I simply haven’t heard from them.

Jack Kabrel: I’ll definitely reach out to Roseanne. You had said earlier on in the last interview that we had done you said that outreach in genealogy without it we’d still be in GSA. What did you mean by that?

John M. Scroggins: I think that the biggest push for independence came from genealogists. The historians were not particularly helpful. The AHA was in favor but you didn’t have history professors calling their congressman and saying do it, if you know what I mean.

Jack Kabrel: Yes.

John M. Scroggins: I think the current Archivist has probably turned his back on the genealogical community but maybe that’s not part of this interview.

Jack Kabrel: We can talk more about that at the end when we talk about the current state of archive—

John M. Scroggins: [Interposing] I guess I’m willing to talk about some things at the end that I don’t want in the oral history interview because they aren’t history, if you know what I mean.

Jack Kabrel: We can always talk off the record. I can stop and we can speak about that. One question I wanted to ask you before we leave here is what missed opportunities do you think we had then or what opportunities do you think we missed during this time of independence and us moving forward. Did we have a chance to do things differently? Did we have a chance to gain something that maybe we never have within the National Archives?

John M. Scroggins: I’m not sure how to describe it but many of the locations were terrible. For example we moved out of Bayonne [New Jersey] to downtown New York and Philadelphia moved downtown. Not all the downtown moves were good, not all were bad. I think we missed opportunities to move to better facilities in some places or to build joint ventures with other facilities in some places. I think we missed the opportunity to really look closely at where there were significant federal records being created that we weren’t getting. Maybe there should have been more regional or maybe there should be more regional archives; maybe not. I don’t know. I was very much involved in the Alaska project. The archivist basically said that he promised Senator Stevens this would be done and it was up to me to get it done and he wrote a letter to GSA saying that I had full authority to speak for him in dealing with the GSA people in San Francisco and Anchorage. I did what needed to be done and I concluded early on that the building they had planned was too small for the records that were likely to come out of the woodwork if we had a facility there and had some bitter arguments with Claudine about size but ended up building a bigger building than was originally conceived, but for no additional money and we got the project done on time and on budget, and made Senator Stevens very happy and got the records moved without a problem. Do you know Sue Karran?

Jack Kabrel: Yes, I know her through the internal collaboration network (ICN) that we have. She’s been giving me a lot of information regarding you and comments that you had made.

John M. Scroggins: Sue was the assistant head of the Archives branch in Seattle under Phil Lothyan. I told Sue that it was her project to get the records that were going from Seattle to Anchorage and she was going with them and she couldn't go home until they were all shelved properly. She exceeded my expectations.

Jack Kabrel: I hope she got an Archive Achievement Award for it.

John M. Scroggins: Yes. She did an excellent job. But anyway what happened in Anchorage recently is beyond the scope of this conversation I guess.

Jack Kabrel: Yeah, well different era, different time.

John M. Scroggins: We can talk about that off the record when we talk about non-historical things.

Jack Kabrel: I don’t know if this question applies; I’m going to mention it here because I just wanted to mention because a lot of the things that a lot of my colleagues talk about is that the National Archives, and I want to see your take on this, doesn’t seem to have authority or power to secure permanent records from regional facilities. Meaning that we’re out here in the regions and such-and-such agency has historical records and if they don’t want to give it to us we can’t get them to give it to us. Was there ever an opportunity during the course of your career that you saw where we could have actually had enforcement powers to secure permanent records into our facility?

John M. Scroggins: In my opinion, and I’m not a lawyer, but in my opinion, which I stated many, many, many, many, many times over the years the Administrator and then the Archivist had the legal authority to require any agency to send to him any record more than 30 years old. Originally it was 50 years but the Archives went and got the law changed to 30 years and if you go look in Title 40, Chapter 21 to Title 44, read it for yourself and see if you think the archivist can ask for records. Every archivist has chosen not to enforce that to any great extent. Originally it said 50 years and when they pushed to make it 30 years I pooh-poohed it because I said you’re not willing to ask them after 50 years so why are you asking for a law so you can do it after 30 if you’re not willing to follow up. I haven’t looked at that law for 15 years or more but maybe I’ll look at it tonight. I think the Archivist of the United States has far more authority than he is willing to exercise or attempt to exercise. It may be that he’ll exercise it and get slapped down but one of the reasons we wanted the regions to build better ties to the agencies that was part of the outreach was get involved in the local federal executive groups. There used to be, I don’t know if there still is, but there were Federal Executive Boards or something owned by Civil Service Commissions and we told them if you’re not a member of the Federal Executive Board at least get on the Records Committee or whatever but ingratiate yourself with the agencies and when we set up Anchorage one of the things that I did as we were building the building was took Tom Wiltsey who was going to be the head and we went around and visited agency people telling them that we were coming to Anchorage and we’d have a place where they could retire their records that did not involve sending it to someplace thousands of miles away. I expected the regional archive people to be in touch with agencies which probably would have made it easier to get records, but in my opinion the archivist has authority he’s never exercised. You need to see if you can have somebody find a record of Buck’s conversation with Roosevelt. Buck wanted the military service records and the military wouldn’t give them to them. I think the Civil War era stuff. I don’t remember the details because it’s been 40 years probably since I read the correspondence in the file. Buck had a meeting with Roosevelt and asked for it and as a result Roosevelt sent a note to the Secretary of War saying Buck makes a good case; send him the records.

Jack Kabrel: I’m going to look that up. Interesting.

John M. Scroggins: I think Buck is the last Archivist who had a personal relationship with a sitting President and it wasn’t a close one but Buck did see Roosevelt. Of course, that was the time the Roosevelt Library was being set up.

Jack Kabrel: Let’s move on to 1992 to 1995. Tell us about how you transitioned from the Director of Field Archives Division, Regional Archives to the Director of the Non-textual Archive Division. How did that work out?

John M. Scroggins: I was called into the Archivist's office and I was told I was being reassigned. I objected. In the meeting I considered it a demotion and that there wasn’t much I can do about it but I was not happy.

Jack Kabrel: What were the politics behind it? If you don’t mind telling us.

John M. Scroggins: In ways that’s a Trudy Peterson or Michael Kurtz question and to some extent Claudine Wieher was probably involved but Claudine’s deceased. There are two women that at one time or other looked at me as their mentor in management matters. Claudine Wieher and Debra Wall. They both became Deputy Archivists. Claudine, as far as I’m concerned, turned to her dark side and Claudine was instrumental in my removal from the Office of the National Archives the first time and my removal from the Regional Archives Program.

Jack Kabrel: Why do you think that was the case, if you don’t mind speculating? If this is an area that you don’t want on the record I understand.

John M. Scroggins: I have never understood. I have really never understood. At the time Claudine retired and sort of at the urging of Debra Wall, believe it or not, I called Claudine to say goodbye, to wish her well, and to tell her maybe we should try to remember the good times rather than the bad times and she did not take that call very kindly and I gather she made fun of it to other people.

Jack Kabrel: Do you think it was something that you had done?

John M. Scroggins: I’m sure I must have done something that turned her but I don’t know. I don’t want to get into that more. I think she had some character flaws. I was assigned to the Non-textual Archives Division, a job I hated. I had less authority there than I had running the Regional Archives Program. I turned 50 very shortly after they did that and could have retired if they’d been willing to make it an adverse action like riff me or something, but Don Wilson and Claudine Wieher were not willing to make it an adverse action that would allow me to retire at that time, so I ran the division for about three years and did not like it. During that time though, Debra Wall and Jennifer Nelson, worked for me and both expressed an interest in learning more about management so I spent some time with them.

Jack Kabrel: Can you describe some of what you did? What was your job at that time from ‘92 to ‘95?

John M. Scroggins: I was over the Still Picture, Motion Picture, and Cartographic branches. I put some stuff in the 1998 resume I sent you that I don’t remember anymore. It was not a good time and I was not a happy camper.

Jack Kabrel: Okay. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about during that period?

John M. Scroggins: Let me think for a minute or two.

Jack Kabrel: Non-textual Archives Division this was a period in ‘92 to ‘95 where computers were becoming more prevalent and technology was changing. What technical advances were happening or what opportunities did you see for the National Archives to advance during this period?

John M. Scroggins: We had a card catalogue and we talked about digitizing it. I don’t think we got very far on that. Actually Debra would be a better person to talk about that project. I spent some time trying to improve the services by looking at how we did things. I oversaw moving cartographic records from the National Archives, the Pickett Street buildings, to Archives II. Then I did some stuff that was not related to that job because we had another taskforce. I was on taskforces all the time on reinventing government, responding to Gore’s performance review. That was a strategic planning team, and I don’t remember all that stuff. That wasn’t just them. All through my career, when I was in favor, if there was a committee on this management thing or that, I tended to be on it. Like independence.

Jack Kabrel: Right.

John M. Scroggins: Maybe a third of my time while I was in that job was doing stuff that was not directly related to that job.

Jack Kabrel: Was this also when the Bledsoe Group report came about and can you describe that a little bit.

John M. Scroggins: I think that's about the time the Bledsoe Group came about. I don’t remember exactly. Ralph Bledsoe, do you know about Ralph Bledsoe?

Jack Kabrel: No, no. What was the Bledsoe Report and Group?

John M. Scroggins: First of all do you know about Ralph Bledsoe?

Jack Kabrel: No.

John M. Scroggins: Okay. At that time Ralph was the Director of the Reagan Library, the first Director of the Reagan Library, and they set up a group under him to look at how we were doing things and I forget what the official title was and I forget who all was on it. Lori Lisowski was on it among other things. Barbara Berger who was in the Still Picture Branch. I don’t remember all the people. I remember some things 40 or 50 years ago better than I remember things 20 years ago. Before Ralph was director of the Reagan Library he’d had a number of jobs. He had been head of the Graduate Public Administration Program at the Sacramento Branch of USC, I think it was, when Reagan was the governor. He had been on the faculty of the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, not when I went there though. He had been head of the USC Doctor of Public Administration Program at Washington, and he had been Assistant Domestic Policy Advisor in the White House during the Reagan years. He was the White House staff member who wrote the report in the White House agreeing with the NARS independence bill. When he was the White House Assistant Domestic Policy Advisor he basically wrote the White House decision paper favoring independence, and he was very close to Philip S. Hughes. I told you when we went to see Hughes he talked to other people. Ralph was very active in the Public Administration community. Anyway, when we had this committee he was Director of the Reagan Library.

Jack Kabrel: What did this committee do?

John M. Scroggins: We wrote a report. I don’t remember what was in the report. We had a meeting out at the Reagan Library along the way. Maybe this was one of the strategic planning things or Gore things.

Jack Kabrel: Like a reinventing initiative of the nineties?

John M. Scroggins: Yeah, that kind of thing. We had a meeting at the library and Reagan and Colin Powell were there one of the days at the library and it was interesting because Tom Selleck was there and Barbara Berger who worked for me in Still Pictures at the time chatted up Tom Selleck for a long time because he was interested in Still Pictures research. Shortly after that Ralph was removed from the library and sent to Washington apparently at the request of Mrs. Reagan, and he became an Assistant Archivist and then an Acting Deputy Archivist and I don’t know if he’s still alive or not. He’d be pretty old if he is.

Jack Kabrel: Some of the questions that I might have about this era, and tell me if this is the ‘92-’95 era, about your work on automation and cataloguing, being responsible for getting public access PCs in all research rooms nationwide, and also your views on your time of troubles and a senate report that was critical of NARA in the 1990s. Did that all happen during this period?

John M. Scroggins: Yeah, I don’t know if it was exactly this period or not. I know I was blamed in part for the Senate report which I was not involved in, but some people seemed to think that I was feeding them information, which I did not do. We worked on public terminals, I don’t know if that was at the end of the non-textual period or beginning of the next period. During the non-textual period we started trying to automate the Motion Picture card catalog and what we did there, and Debra got involved in that and Jennifer Nelson more or less became the first step of what became the NAIL Program or whatever it was called.

Jack Kabrel: Okay.

John M. Scroggins: You’re talking about a time period I prefer to forget.

Jack Kabrel: What did NAIL stand for?

John M. Scroggins: National Archives Information Locator or something like that. NARA Archival Information Locator, or something like that.

Jack Kabrel: It's just another form of HMS or something like that.

John M. Scroggins: Right. When Debra got moved out of the non-textual division into whatever it was called at the time, into that kind of planning and automation programs. That’s what she was working on. You need to interview Debra, you know what? It won’t hurt to interview her on her years.

Jack Kabrel: I could definitely do that. You’re right. What do you mean by time of trouble?

John M. Scroggins: Time of troubles was your term, not mine.

Jack Kabrel: It was a term that was given to me to ask regarding questions about this era.

John M. Scroggins: I never heard it referred to that before you asked me.

Jack Kabrel: What do you think it does refer to?

John M. Scroggins: I don’t know for sure. Which period are you talking about?

Jack Kabrel: Early nineties.

John M. Scroggins: Don Wilson got a lot of flak over—there was a Senate report, there were some scandals in the personnel office, I think. I was out of the loop again. I was blamed for some things I didn’t do. I think that’s about the time that he approved the Constitutional Amendment that was questionable. What is it, the 27th Amendment, or something? Do you know about that?

Jack Kabrel: Oh, yeah.

John M. Scroggins: Oh, let me think about that a minute. You should know about that. [Pause] The 27th Amendment as I recall prohibited the changes to the salary of Congress until the next term. They couldn’t raise or lower their pay during the current term and it is an amendment that started many, many, many, many years ago and was considered a dead letter I think because it had not been ratified by all the states and a couple states finally ratified it years, maybe 200 years, after it was first proposed and Don Wilson declared it in effect because that’s his job. One of the Archivists’ jobs is to publish the laws.

Jack Kabrel: Right.

John M. Scroggins: In some ways the Archivist decides what the law is, if you know what I mean, and Don Wilson decided to publish the 27th Amendment as having been ratified and took some flak over it I believe. But I don’t remember the whole story. You ought to be able to track that down.

Jack Kabrel: That would be considered what it means by time of troubles in ‘92.

John M. Scroggins: That was one of the things in that time but there was some bad press. Okay, I just called up the last page in the 27th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States signed by Don W. Wilson. The 18th day of May, 1992, and certified by Martha Girard who was then Director of the Federal Register or Acting Director of the Federal Register.

Jack Kabrel: Okay, I can see where there was a lot of contentious issues around this period.

John M. Scroggins: There was some kind of personnel scandal at the time and I was… Oh, I don’t remember. I just don’t remember.

Jack Kabrel: Let’s get back on track with your life at this point. Do you want to move on to the next section of ‘95 to ‘98 when you were Special Assistant to the Archivist for Human Resources and Information Services?

John M. Scroggins: That was a lot of our job. I was off in a closet again but I was given things to do, if you know what I mean. I was doing odd staff jobs. I was not in charge of anything or supervising anybody. One of the things I worked on was the reimbursable funding for record centers. Steve Hannestad and I worked on that a lot. Steve worked for Claudine when she did the original NARS A-1 history. Steve was in charge of security for the archives for a while. He was around for a long time and worked for Claudine Weiher and for Adrienne Thomas. Worked for me for a short time. I guess there was something from the Bledsoe report that had to be implemented and I did something on that. I worked on the taskforce that was working on how to do the reimbursable funding for the record centers, and I was on a committee related to space planning for consolidating facilities. At that time I think Carlin was expecting me to recommend closing some of the regional archives. I was on a lot of the teams that reviewed IT contracts and other contracts related to information technology just reviewing the contracts. You had to have teams review the technical aspects of the contracts and stuff.

Jack Kabrel: Did you recommend any regional archives to be closed?

John M. Scroggins: I retired.

Jack Kabrel: Okay.

John M. Scroggins: I was starting to get asked about that when I retired and then I did not and I did some things immediately postretirement to make that more difficult for the Archivist to do.

Jack Kabrel: Going back to FRC and reimbursable funding, how did that come about the idea of reimbursable funding moving in that direction?

John M. Scroggins: It had been talked about off and on for years and I’m not sure exactly how it came about because I don’t think I was privy to the decision to go ahead and do something about it but I was assigned to work on how to do it and whether we want the courts to pay as well as the agencies and stuff and we had more than one group working on it. Steve Hannestad and I were working with all of them and we ended up with a report that had recommendations and choices to be made and we had a big powwow on. I think it was December 17, 1997, and that was the day that Carlin and Bellardo were called out to be told about the coming Post story about Mrs. Carlin. At that point, by Christmas of 1997 I was spending most of my time trying to find a job.

Jack Kabrel: Was it because you were tired of the National Archives or was it because you saw the writing on the wall that would—that you were no longer—

John M. Scroggins: [Interposing] I saw the writing on the wall. I became eligible to retire on August 14, 1998. On August 13, 1998, I went and had lunch with Ren Cahoon and I said I am not happy. I want a real job. Here are three possible alternatives that I would be happy with. You are the Archivist, can you recommend something else but I will not stay with the status quo and as soon as I find a job I’m leaving and this is your notice. It took me ‘til March to find a job.

Jack Kabrel: Ren Cahoon was not amenable to you having one of the three options that you—

John M. Scroggins: [Interposing] Ren Cahoon was not amenable to the options that was within his power to grant and the Archivist was not amenable to either of the other options.

Jack Kabrel: Do you want to talk about those options at all?

John M. Scroggins: No.

Jack Kabrel: Okay.

John M. Scroggins: I’ll mention one. That was to return to the job I had in 1970-74 in planning which they ended up giving to Jerry George and then Lori Lisowski which were reasonable candidates for the job, but that was one of the ones that I said I would be happy with. But I didn’t think they would do it anyway.

Jack Kabrel: Okay. Anything else you want to say at this period before we move on to some general questions that will stand during the course of everything we’ve talked about and then we'll get into what you did right after and at the very end of our interview.

John M. Scroggins: Let me talk about March of 1998 because I kept trying more and I sent out resumes and wrote to people. In March of 1998 Loretta Zooks who had worked for me in the regional archives in Chicago, and had left to go to Ancestry and had earlier co-authored Ancestry’s book about the regional archives program, asked if I was interested in working for Ancestry and I said I could be. She set me up an appointment with the then owners of Ancestry and I flew out to Orem, Utah, and had an interview with the two people that owned Ancestry at that time. That was like the 21, 22 or something of March and they said they’ get back to me by the end of the following week and they called me on the last Friday in March and made an offer, and I said how about I come talk to you about it again and so they set up an appointment to see me first thing Tuesday morning March 31. This is Friday afternoon. I called Steve Hannestad, who was then in charge of security, among other things and said can I clean out my office on Saturday. He said yes and he wrote out a pass for me for the guards to let me take stuff out of the building on Saturday and I went into Ren and said I’m probably leaving. I came in Saturday with my son and we took some of my personal stuff and I boxed up all the stuff that I left for Steve Heeps and I went down to Adrienne Thomas’ office and tried to say goodbye to her but her secretary said she was in a meeting. So I wrote basically a two-line note and gave it to the secretary and said well I’m leaving and I won’t be back. The secretary apparently gave it to her because as I approached the exit to Archives II Adrienne came running down the hall after me. I left a little after 10 in the morning on Monday. I went to BWI and I got a Southwest flight and I had to change planes in St. Louis. Between flights in St. Louis I called personnel in St. Louis and I said I’m probably going to retire tomorrow, can I do it by mail or FedEx, and they told me what to do. I flew out the rest of the way to Utah and I had my second interview and came to terms with Ancestry on Tuesday morning the 31 and I spent Tuesday afternoon filling out the paperwork and faxed a copy to St. Louis and gave FedEx a copy to take and called Ren the next morning and said I don't work for you anymore. I started working for Ancestry.

Jack Kabrel: How did you feel? I mean it must have in some ways been—was there a bittersweet feeling as well since you did have so much time in with the National Archives?

John M. Scroggins: Ralph Bledsoe told me when he retired, and he was not treated well the last year or two he was at the Archives, he told me that I would find it a great relief and I found that to be true. I was back in the building maybe a month or so later and Dick Higgins, who you probably don’t know, but Dick worked for Debra Wall at the time, Dick looked at me and said you know you’ve de-aged 20 years. I worked for Ancestry for almost two years. We’re done with my career at the Archives I guess. One thing I did in the immediate month after I retired is I went to meetings in New York and in Philadelphia of people trying to keep the archives from closing those regional archives branches and attended those meetings and said a few words.

Jack Kabrel: When was this? What period was this?

John M. Scroggins: It would have been the spring of ‘98.

Jack Kabrel: In some ways your connection with the regional archives was strong throughout your career. Do you think that if you were to have been kept in that position do you think things in the regions may have been different?

John M. Scroggins: Yes, I think the regional archives program would be very different.

Jack Kabrel: In what ways? Or what ways would you like to have seen them be different than they are today?

John M. Scroggins: I think you would have more records and you would be outreach engines that would have built a greater national constituency for the archives that would make it more well-known and probably have enhanced the archivist's authority to go get more records which would have made it more well-known that would have—you know what I mean? It would have gone into a feedback loop that probably would have helped the agency considerably but that's just my opinion, which is not the opinion of then or current management.

Jack Kabrel: Why do you think it wasn’t their opinion?

John M. Scroggins: I don’t know because people are controlling.

Jack Kabrel: Do you think that there’s a disconnect between College Park or Archives I and the regions that there’s a basic misunderstanding or lack of understanding of what the regions do?

John M. Scroggins: I can’t speak to the status quo because I have not—are we off the record or are we still on the record?

Jack Kabrel: We’re still on the record but we can talk about that when I finish up if you like. I’ll move on to something else and—

John M. Scroggins: [Interposing] Let me address that a little bit. I cannot speak to anything after April 1, 1998, other than what I personally did which wasn’t much. The last time I was in a regional archives facility was probably late summer of 2004 when I was in Seattle. I visited a cousin who wanted to do research at the Seattle archives but seemed afraid to go there so I took her and we spent an afternoon with Sue Karran, and the last NARA employee other than you that I spoke to was probably Connie Potter before she retired. That was at the archives exhibit, they had a genealogical meeting, which the archives doesn’t do anymore, and the last contact I had with the archives before that was probably when I had lunch with Debra Wall seven or eight years ago maybe, I forget the date, but I had lunch with Debra. The last time I was in the National Archives Building—well there were three times when I was in the National Archives Building post-retirement. Once was for a memorial service for Mable Dietrichs. They had a memorial service for her in the auditorium in the archives building and I went to that. I spent one day doing research in the 1930 census on contract—I spent one day doing research in the 1930 census selecting some images for a book illustration on contracts for Jake Gearing who then worked for Heritage Quest and had worked with me at Ancestry. Those are the last two times I was in the building to really do anything and then the third time I was in the building was before the whole new exhibit opened. They invited retired employees to come look at it.

Jack Kabrel: I think a lot of the questions that I had for you have already been answered during the course of you going through your history so I don't really have too much more to follow up on.

John M. Scroggins: Let me continue on your last question a little bit because I think the management interest in the regions and their existence or their opportunities has changed as Archivists have changed. I think Bahmer and Rhoads had one attitude and O'Neill and Warner probably either had a different attitude or didn’t care and Frank Burke was probably more Bahmer and Rhoads and Don Wilson. I’m not sure about Don Wilson because he listened to Reed Whitaker, they were fraternity brothers, and Reed is one of those people like Claudine that was once a friend and ceased to be. I think Wilson probably had some ideas similar to what I did about end results but different ideas about how to accomplish it and I think Carlin, probably more Mrs. Carlin’s influence than his influence, was the other. I don’t know what to say about the current Archivist or the current Deputy. I heard at one point that the current Deputy archivist had written a paper on the regional archives but I never saw it or have any idea what it said. If she ever discussed the regional archives with me it has not been since the early nineties when she was a trainee. I guess part of the answer to your last question was that the opinion of or the view or opportunity for the regional archives has waxed and waned over the years depending on who’s in charge of the agency.

Jack Kabrel: Yes. Do you think that the change of Archivists has affected your career?

John M. Scroggins: Yes. I think I was highly regarded by Bahmer and Bert Rhoads and I was not highly regarded by Jim O’Neill when he became the Acting Archivist.

Jack Kabrel: Do you have any regrets within your career? I know it’s a big question considering that it’s a long career.

John M. Scroggins: I thought about that question. I may have some regrets but if you ask me if I would do anything differently the answer if probably not. I have some regrets that Claudine and Reed Whitaker turned on me, but I can’t think of anything I could have done that would make that different. After reading your question I thought a lot about whether I would have done anything different and I don’t think so except maybe get out earlier.

Jack Kabrel: I know that you had said when I asked the question about what you’re most proudest of, what contributions you’re most proud of you said to tell the truth most of the things at which I was most proud of at the time had not endured. One of your contributions was the regions and the regions have endured.

John M. Scroggins: But they have not endured in the way that I envisioned them or in the way that—the regions are less important in the agency today than they were when I left or when I left the program.

Jack Kabrel: That may be true but I think due to your commitment to the regions they have at least endured to this moment in 2016.

John M. Scroggins: I think the relations with the genealogical community are important and have been important and I think they have been diminished in recent years. I think that NARS A-1 could have been the foundation for a lot of automated advances that probably were delayed by five to ten years because NARS A-1 effectively got killed.

Jack Kabrel: Can you further explain NARS A-1?

John M. Scroggins: It started out basically as a way of automating the production of finding aids and if the program had evolved and the data had been migrated we would have been way ahead compared to what happened when they effectively killed the program and tossed the data and started over.

Jack Kabrel: What was the reason why the project was killed?

John M. Scroggins: You have to ask Trudy Peterson or Virginia Purdy. I got removed. I got sent off to the Office of Records Management and then put on the shelf or put in the closet and a lot of changes were made and nobody asked me my opinion or asked me to explain why things were done the way they were done or told me what they were doing so I don't know for sure. I could say that part of it was people didn’t understand. I could say part of it was people didn’t like me but I don’t know for sure. There may have been valid criticisms of which I am unaware.

Jack Kabrel: Then I will ask those questions of the people that I interview in the future.

John M. Scroggins: I can’t believe that Trudy wouldn’t talk to you.

Jack Kabrel: I think she’s been very busy. I didn’t get an indication of a refusal to answer my questions as much as she seems to be extremely busy, but she did give me contact information for two individuals that I hope to get to.

John M. Scroggins: Dick Jacobs and Jack Landers would probably be very good people to talk to, Dick especially.

Jack Kabrel: I do have numbers for them so I will be reaching out to them. One final question I want to ask you which might be on the mind of a lot of people who are listening here. You left the archives for Ancestry.com. Do you think that Ancestry had a hand in possibly diminishing the importance of the regions?

John M. Scroggins: I think that digitizing records and in effect making microfilm obsolete might have accomplished that but I wouldn’t blame Ancestry for that. I’d blame the changing technology if anything. The fact that Ancestry did it doesn’t mean it's Ancestry’s fault, if you know what I mean. If the church had been ahead of the game or if MyHeritage or FindMyPast or one of Ancestry’s competitors had been first to it it would have been them. It’s the changing technology and partly the inability or unwillingness or whatever of the National Archives and Records Administration to keep up or to I don’t know…

Jack Kabrel: Private enterprise fills in where government maybe doesn’t have the financial resources to do what Ancestry eventually did.

John M. Scroggins: That might be part of it but I wouldn’t blame it all on the financial resources. I blame it partly on the motivation or the spirit of innovation or whatever because I think that if—the archives was involved in large-scale microfilming before most anybody else. The National Archives was innovators in distributing records on microfilm but was not an innovator in distributing records in digital form. It was not a private enterprise that innovated distributing records to the public in microform, it was the National Archives followed by the Mormon Church.

Jack Kabrel: Very good point.

John M. Scroggins: I think that the National Archives could have chosen to be the innovator in digitizing records or getting them digitized or finding someone to digitize or finding the resources to digitize them or using the genealogical community to drive demand in such a way that they would get the resources to do it and management basically chose not to do so. Whether that was an active choice or a passive choice I couldn't say. The National Archives in its basically 80-year history has been an innovator during some periods of time and a follower in others and I don’t think it's been an innovator in the last couple decades.

Jack Kabrel: Can you venture a reason why?

John M. Scroggins: The basic thing is who’s in charge and who they listen to I think. Read the Herb Angel thing. Records Management, that was an innovation that was prompted in part by the war but some of the thinking about it happened in the thirties before the war and you’ll see that more as you read the Angel thing.

Jack Kabrel: The Herb Angel transcript?

John M. Scroggins: Right. You had a management with a lot of bright people and let the bright people go do their thing. The microfilm publication program is from the same era and some of the same people. Then both the microfilm program and the records management program got pushes later on that caused more innovation and sometimes it was external things that prompted the pushes but the archives were ahead of the games in a lot of ways. I can't think of ways that it's been ahead of the game for a long time.

Jack Kabrel: In conclusion is there anything that you’d like to add before we stop the interview?

John M. Scroggins: No but there are a couple of things I’ll add after we stop the interview.

Jack Kabrel: Thank you very much Mr. Scroggins. It’s been wonderful for you to take us back and to add to the history of the National Archives. It’s very important and I think your honesty will be appreciated by generations to come.

John M. Scroggins: I guess I should say you’re welcome.

Jack Kabrel: Thank you.