Transcript of National Archives History Office Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Stephanie Reynolds
Interviewee(s): Jim Hemphill

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay, so I've got the recording started. And first, I just want to start out by saying thank you for participating in the National Archives Oral History Project. We're documenting the history of the agency by preserving firsthand accounts of the people that have actually worked here. My name is Stephanie Reynolds, and I'm based out of our National Archives facility in Broomfield, Colorado. And I'm assisting the Historian, Jessie Kratz. Today is Wednesday, July 19th, 2023. And I'm speaking with James Hemphill, whose NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] career has spanned multiple different offices: the Office of the Archivist of the United States, Presidential Libraries, and the Federal Register. So you've got a lot of perspective here. So, first, Jim, would you just go ahead and get us started maybe by telling us a little bit about your background, where you're from, your educational background, that sort of thing?

Jim Hemphill: Nice to be here. Thank you for your interest in my story. I grew up in Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania. I transferred from the college I was going to, to Georgetown in 1973, graduated in 1975 with a bachelor's degree in government. In my senior year, I had started interning in the office of Senator Mark Hatfield, a senator from Oregon. So upon graduation, I was hired on as a mail clerk and then had progressive promotions in that office, ultimately serving as his executive assistant for 12 of the 17 years that I worked for him. I've actually done a previous oral history with NARA about my experience serving on his staff during the time that NARA got its independent agency status, because Senator Hatfield was a great promoter of the National Archives and supported independence. I was the staff person who worked closely with Dr. Warner, the Archivist [of the United States] at the time, and others on the Hill on the congressional side in their efforts to bring that to pass. And just one interesting connection between that and my later career at NARA is, at almost literally the very last minute in the debate of that legislation, the remaining question was: Should the Office of the Federal Register be retained by the GSA [General Services Administration]? GSA wanted to keep it, and so we were pretty involved in negotiating that the Office come with the Archives in independence. And little did I know at that time—1985—that I would spend 25 years serving in the Office of the Federal Register! I ended my career in Senator Hatfield's office in December 1991, when I came over to the National Archives as the Executive Assistant to the Archivist Don Wilson, serving in that role until October 1993. That's when I was detailed first to the Office of Public Affairs, and then to the Office of the Federal Register for about six months in July 1994. And then I competed for and was appointed to the position of Deputy Assistant Archivist for the Office of Presidential Libraries, in January 1995. And I served there until July 1995, when I was moved back to the Office of the Federal Register with the title Special Assistant to the Director and remained there for the rest of my career. I retired from the Office of the Federal Register about a year into the COVID epidemic, in January 2021. So the last nine months of my career were spent teleworking, along with the rest of the federal government and citizens of the United States.

Stephanie Reynolds: Wow. So you've got a lot going on there from when you started out as the executive assistant then to Senator Mark Hatfield, is that correct?

Jim Hemphill: Yes.

Stephanie Reynolds: I got that right. Okay. And so I know this is your pre-NARA time, you know, but you've talked about how you were—this is when NARA was becoming independent of GSA. Can you talk a little bit about what your involvement in that was, any contributions and any discussions that were surrounding that whole time period of, okay, we're going to have NARA become a separate independent agency?

Jim Hemphill: So I shared my memories about that in an oral history that NARA already has. So, just to summarize, I was a staff person there in Senator Hatfield's office supporting the independence efforts, and I don't want to overstate my role. It was driven, of course, by Bob Warner and people in the Archives who wanted the agency to become independent, and they were looking for congressional support. And Senator Hatfield was one of the people from whom they sought help. The Senator was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, so he had a very powerful position from which to be helpful. This was in the middle of the [President] Reagan administration. And while Senator Hatfield held a much more moderate, liberal position in the Republican Party than the Reagan administration, he had some close ties in the administration and was able to run interference and help it in the process. That was very important because whenever you're separating an agency from another agency, the bureaucratic turf wars are going to be pretty significant, and you never know where your battles are going to come from, you know, because personal relationships and networks in Washington, DC, and in the government are a significant factor in policy-making. It is often very interesting—things will come out of left field. And we experienced that in the independence process. So I worked at the staff level on this process. I don't want to diminish my role, but I also don't want to overstate it. [I was] monitoring pretty carefully what was going on. Any legislation has to go through both houses of Congress. So primarily, we were involved when it was on the Senate side, with our eye on what the administration’s position was—the President could veto anything like this. And so we wanted to be sure that we're getting the administration's approval. And my recollection is that some folks who were pretty well-connected to the President through GSA were making the effort to at least hold on to the Office of the Federal Register, because it has an administrative role in government that NARA doesn't. NARA is a cultural agency NARA employees like to say, but they keep records, whereas the Federal Register is part of the administrative process in which records are created. And so an argument could be made for GSA’s point of view. But the Office of the Federal Register did not want to stay with GSA, and we felt their arguments were strong ones. So, I actually can't pull out of my memory right this moment exactly some of the dynamics that went on. But I have a funny, maybe embarrassing, but kind of interesting story from the night that Congress was going to pass the legislation on the Senate floor. That same evening there was a reception at the National Archives Rotunda for—I forget the exact group, but it was a pretty significant group, maybe the members of the private foundation that supports the National Archives. I was working pretty late trying to find out whether or not the Senate had passed it because it was caught up with some other legislation ahead of it on the calendar. And just before I left to go to the NARA reception, I called the cloakroom in the Senate, and was told, "Yes, it's happening momentarily." So I went down to the Archives, went in, walked up to Don Wilson, the Archivist, gave him the thumbs up and said, "It's passed." And so he stopped the conversations, called everybody's attention in the Rotunda of the Archives and announced that the Senate had passed the bill, and everybody cheered. And it was just a great moment. Except, Senator Dole [Senate Majority Leader] closed the Senate before the legislation passed that night because of the length of time to debate the other things going on. So I had given Dr. Wilson bad information. The Senate passed it the next day or the next legislative day. So, in effect, it was a wonderful opportunity to have provided bad information, because everybody who would have wanted to be in a room to celebrate together was there when they got the word. But it was bad intel. [LAUGHS]

Stephanie Reynolds: It was just a little early.

Jim Hemphill: So that was also a lesson to me to not pass on news that I didn't know 100 percent sure was true.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah. That's a great story. [LAUGHS] So yeah, you do have that unique perspective then of the before and after of NARA's independence from GSA. As part of maybe learning about NARA's role and their mission, did that have any impact on you wanting to then come to the National Archives, or how did that come about?

Jim Hemphill: I always, even when I was a young kid, loved Presidential history. When I made the decision to leave the Senator's office, I was looking for a job situation that would be more amenable to my marriage and family life, and also, I was hoping to move into the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. And so I went through a very structured exercise, actually, about who I was, what my gifts were, what my interests were. And I remember landing on my ideal job being the Director of the Nixon Library, not because I was necessarily a huge fan of Nixon, but because I'd been very aware of his administration in my college years and his papers were held by the Office of Presidential Libraries within the National Archives in Washington, DC. And it's just interesting that I came up with that as my ideal job and, although that position wasn't open at the time, I ended up at the National Archives, and for a period of time at the Office of Presidential Libraries. So NARA was always a place that had some interest for me.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. And then do you think having worked on the other side, you know, helping the Senator and being a part of that process there when they became independent, do you think that helped you when you did start with the National Archives, that you had a little bit of background on them?

Jim Hemphill: At the time of independence in 1985, I had no thought of going to NARA. But, yes, absolutely. I would encourage most staffers on the [Capitol] Hill who are going to have a tenure as long as mine to take a stint in the bureaucracy and then go back to the Hill. The Hill is populated by very young people, very smart people, very ambitious people, and very gifted. But they're young, and they lack a lot of experience. Now, some of them are naturally intuitive about a lot of things related to governing, but I really did not have a good understanding of the inner workings of the bureaucracy, particularly how hierarchical it is, and how you had to respect that kind of hierarchy or learn how to work within it, because the Hill, in contrast, is a very flat organization, at least inside Member’s offices. In a Senator’s office, we were working for a single person. We had a mission. Like I said, people were young. You didn't have to have been there a long time really to be rubbing shoulders with very senior and seasoned people, including senior federal bureaucrats. One thing that I think I personally didn't appreciate is the immensity of the power I was wielding when I was a Senate staffer. I had no understanding of—I did at one level, but at another level I didn’t understand the waves that are created within the bureaucracy when a member of Congress or somebody from their staff calls an agency. And, you know, that's like stepping into a China shop in a very literal sense. And you can break China very easily. I had no sense of that. On the other hand, I don't think I had adequate respect for how nimble and powerful and skilled many senior executives are. Most of them have had to claw their way to the top. You know, the federal bureaucracy is very big. The organizations are very big, and people don't reach the top without working pretty hard at it. I had come to my position pretty easily. I'd gone from a college student into this role and, well, I think my work justified my existence there. I did a good job. But I didn't have to go through that kind of battle to get my position. So you have to respect that, and it's easy not to rise to the top in the Executive branch. It was easy for me, I think, to mistakenly apply what was true on the Hill to the bureaucracy at the National Archives where it's not. Another thing about the National Archives, in specific, is that it's a very small organization by federal government standards, but it's the top of the food chain for the archival profession. Whereas engineers can get jobs in lots of other places, archivists can't. And so if you're at the top rung of the National Archives, you're at the top of your profession. And there is—again, that needs to be respected—but there's also the potential for an arrogant attitude among leaders, and a "We are the chief priests, and no one understands what we understand" attitude that, I think, hindered, at least when I was there, a lot of growth and opportunities that the Archives could have had. So when I came into the Archives, what I didn't realize is how suspicious people were of me—a political person coming in at the very top of the agency, you know, having my office on "mahogany row." And while I knew I would have to prove myself, I didn't appreciate how negatively I was probably perceived from the get-go. And so that influenced my experience. Also at the time, the Deputy Archivist was Claudine Weir, a very, very competent person, but a very powerful person to whom the Archivist, at the time, Don Wilson, really had handed over most of the day-to-day internal agency operations, while he was trying to build outside support for the agency. He was creating a foundation for the National Archives. He was working the Hill. But he kind of let Claudine do what she needed to do. And she was a creature of this process of moving up the chain. And she was a pretty tough administrator. So here I was working out of Dr. Wilson's office, and I just assumed that there would be a greater respect for him and his office than there was, because people were loyal to Claudine. They were not necessarily loyal to the Archivist. And if he had forced his authority more significantly, that would have been different. But since they realized he had allowed her to, you know, pretty much run the internal organization, they weren't going to be damaged by—that she was the one from whom they needed support. So all those dynamics I learned, after the fact, and probably learned too late to be as effective as I might have been. The resource, I think, that the Archives really failed to utilize of mine was the extent of my knowledge of Congress. And they could have put that to use, but I understand they could be suspicious of me. What was I going to do with that? You know, was I going to manipulate my way into something threatening to others? But honestly, personally, I was motivated to get to know the organization really well. So what I did was start traveling through every office in the National Archives in the Washington, DC, area, just going downstairs and upstairs, inside and outside the main Archives building, meeting secretaries, meeting people, you know. People would say, "I've never seen anybody from 'mahogany row' out here.” And they, too, I think, were pretty suspicious initially. But over time, I think, I built a lot of good feelings for myself at the working level. Ironically, that only increased the suspicion of me at the managerial level, because you know, what was I up to?—and I get it now. At the time, I thought, what could be bad about a senior manager walking through an office? But if the executive assistant to the Archivist walks into your office unannounced and is walking around talking to your people, that's incredibly disruptive. They would have to 100 percent trust me for that to be useful. And, I think, they could have trusted me, but they didn't know that. And then Dr. Wilson did not support the effort: He got some flak for letting me do that. So he pulled me back from doing that kind of thing. And, I think, he lost a lot of the benefit of the eyes and ears that could have been put to good use.

Stephanie Reynolds: Right. Yeah. With you going around meeting everyone and then, like you said, just your knowledge of Congress and how things work over there, that could have been put to better use, it sounds like. [It’s] unfortunate. So when you came to the National Archives, it sounds like this is still very much a transition period for the Archives being an independent agency. Is that pretty accurate?

Jim Hemphill: I would say that transition was pretty much completed. What I lived through was the transition from—I don't know quite how to say it. You might call it analog to digital, but it's bigger than that. It's from a more hierarchical, bureaucratic operation to one where, at least on paper, there's a greater attention to the workforce. And they have a greater voice in operations, but not as efficient, in some ways. So the processes are not as professional. That's what I would like to say. They're not as professionally performed, but they are far more efficient because of the digital and technology applications that we have access to. So, we no longer have secretaries, you know, but we don't have very well-written memos either lots of times [LAUGHS], and recordkeeping is problematic and not necessarily because people are worse at it, but just because we were in this transition of where work is done and who does it. So I would say that was the bigger transition that I observed. It was not being part of the independence, but more of this change that was the change of the century, between the 20th and 21st century.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. So when you came to the National Archives, what was your first position?

Jim Hemphill: I was Executive Assistant to the Archivist, which is a staff role. And all my career—this is pretty important, because I think I have a good fix on it and maybe other people who are in staff roles don't. And this comes out of my growing up in the [Senator] Hatfield office. I always understood that I did not have power in and of my own, or authority in and of my own position. I was always using borrowed authority. So I would pick up the phone and say, "This is Jim from the Archivist’s office." "This is Jim calling on behalf of the Director of the Federal Register." "This is Jim from Senator Hatfield's office." And so staff extends their principal's ability to hear, to see, to speak, to touch, to walk, to talk. But it's always the principal for whom you're working and whose authority you’re using. That applies not only for a staff person, but for a staff office. And I think we should always bear that in mind how it is different from the operating offices where, even in the Office of the Federal Register, the Director of Publications has authority in the position to do certain things. Any position can have a staff clustered around the person holding the position. But that staff needs to always remember that they are using borrowed power, not their own. But because staff are so closely, intimately sometimes, in daily contact with the person holding the position of power, and sort of gets to know instinctively that person's personality and their likes and dislikes, they can speak without, maybe, being specifically authorized, but nevertheless doing things that the principal would agree to. But then you can sort of step over into misbehaving by feeling like you have the authority to tell people what to do. And I see that has happened very much in NARA. I'm sure it's in every organization—but in NARA, there’s been the tendency of some of the staff offices to take control over the operational units in a way that they don't support the offices. They put onus and burdens on them—even though they are providing some support, they're more frequently demanding things from the operations offices. So I think any healthy organization needs to get that right. And I think that's been a consistent problem at NARA.

Stephanie Reynolds: So when you were the executive assistant, what were your responsibilities? What did your day to day look like?

Jim Hemphill: So, we're still talking about the Archivist, or at the Office of the Federal Register?

Stephanie Reynolds: For the Archivist. Yeah. For the Archivist.

Jim Hemphill: I wrote things for him. I reviewed things for him. I wrote speeches. He gave me a couple of special assignments: one was to study the National Historical Publications and Records Commission [NHPRC] to do an efficiency study on its operations, and to produce a report that he used to make some changes in the NHPRC. He also assigned me the project of exploring and implementing TQM, Total Quality Management, principles in NARA. TQM is sometimes called the ‘Japanese Way’ or the ‘Deming Way.’ It was how the Japanese auto industry grew up out of the ashes of World War II. And it's a very well-respected methodology and way of thinking about management. Japanese cars were selling well, and GM [General Motors] was losing market share. So people were asking: "What is their secret?" And they'd hear the word TQM. So it was becoming a buzzword that was beginning to filter into the government, as many trends do in the government. My work on TQM was a casualty of the Archivist/Deputy Archivist relationship dynamic. Because it was an internal NARA initiative but initiated without the buy-in of the Deputy Archivist, it had no support or future. But also, what was developing at the very same time—and it's a little related, but not entirely— was strategic planning in the federal government. So it may be hard to believe, but that was a novel concept in the early '90s. And, as it often is in administrative and management things, the Defense Department had really been one of the innovators of this. So I remember that a retired admiral came and gave a presentation that really knocked the socks off a bunch of NARA leaders. And so NARA then, you know, was going to do strategic planning. And then during the Clinton administration and under Al Gore's "Reinventing Government" initiative that became a mandate—strategic planning. And Congress eventually passed legislation that required it. But the strategic planning sort of washed over TQM, and that assignment, like a number of assignments I was given, sort of dwindled away. And I think it was Dr. Wilson's honest effort to make good change, but those internal changes needed to be managed by his deputy archivist, because that's the person to whom he had given the authority. And I was not in a line position, so I was just this outlier. And I'm not saying it was malicious. I'm just saying it was, I think, that they didn't really know how to utilize me. And also, NARA was a very closed organization. I mean, the leaders had grown up with each other. Outsiders often would say, "It took me 20 years to feel accepted . . . I'm still a new person, new to the Archives or an outsider." And I don't—it's probably much less than it was back then. But I experienced a number of those kinds of things. Another responsibility I had was to write a “Managers Monthly” newsletter. So I would collect information from all the managers and then produce a monthly newsletter, which was, I think, pretty valuable, and especially out in the field where there was a sense of disconnect. So those are the kinds of things I did for him.

Stephanie Reynolds: Do you know if they still create that Managers Monthly?

Jim Hemphill: No. No.

Stephanie Reynolds: They don't?

Jim Hemphill: No.

Stephanie Reynolds: Huh. I wonder why. That would just keep them abreast of things that are going on or share best practices or stories or . . .

Jim Hemphill: Well, I think today, I don't—so I'm two years away from NARA. I don't know whether the ICN [Internal Communications Network] is still there, but there are so many new social media- based or computer-based ways to communicate. Back in the day, I mean, just think about it. There was no email. I mean, there was no email. So the only communication was to pick up the phone, which you're not going to do lightly with senior leaders—you know, a Director might talk to the Archivist, but the Archivist is not going to talk to lots of those reporting to him frequently—I mean, he just doesn't have the bandwidth to do that—or send out memos, you know, paper communications and all the limitations of that. So the Manager’s Monthly was useful in its day. And, I think, newsletters are still valuable, but it would be a different form today.

Stephanie Reynolds: Right. Yeah, we do have a lot of different newsletter-type communications that go out. You're right. But yeah, just that format has changed over time.

Jim Hemphill: And maybe it's a point to say this—and here I might be showing my generational, whatever, stuck-in-the-mud-ness—but to me, the plethora of those communications diminishes the force of them. There's so much information in so many formats. And it seems to me, it would be smart to somehow minimize those or give authority to some and not to other areas. But my experience, too, is that younger people are used to that kind of plethora of inputs and can handle it maybe better and understand how to sift through it. But maybe it's a negative. I don't know.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah, I can definitely see, like, you're just inundated with information nowadays, right? So it's either you shut down and you just don't read it anymore or, I guess, maybe you learn to be more selective in where you spend your time, right? Yeah. Okay. So in your position as executive assistant to the Archivist, you were there from when? 1991 to about October of '94? Is that what you said?

Jim Hemphill: Yes, I held that title officially until October 1993. Well, actually I was detailed to the Office of Public Affairs in October 1993, and so I effectively no longer served as Executive Assistant to the Boss, even though my title remained that for two years, I guess.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. So I believe that the Archives II facility in College Park opened in 1994. Do you recall any of the planning and decisions and things surrounding the opening of that facility?

Jim Hemphill: Yes. So, the election of Bill Clinton was an earthquake event in the Archives. I don't know whether it was his election that kind of created an opening for—there was some dissatisfaction with Don Wilson as Archivist. I honestly don't know all the details. I don't know if it was purely partisan, or if it had to do with other things. And there were some problems going on, internally, with the Archives that I don't think were his fault. There were some people that were misbehaving. Anyways, in that mix of soup that was happening, some folks on the Hill, I would say, took advantage of the opportunity to make changes they wanted to make. One of which was, I think, to kind of behead the leadership of the Archives. And I don't know who all the targets were—it was Don Wilson, but it may have been Claudine and some others that were there. I don't either remember, or I may not be privy to all of that. But clearly, there was stuff going on. When President Clinton was elected, meaning the transition from Republican administration to Democrat administration, and, I think, also a new majority on the Hill, then this was an opportunity for big change. And so, interestingly, the Deputy Archivist at the time was Ray Mosley, who was ultimately my boss at the Office of the Federal Register for about 15 years. But when Don Wilson left, instead of Ray being named Acting Archivist, Trudy Peterson, who was the Assistant Archivist for the National Archives—the archivist who was over the main body of historical records—was named Deputy Archivist and, therefore, Acting Archivist. And it's my understanding or belief, she was closely connected with certain parts of the Clinton administration. And that's not a negative thing. That's just, you know, any good bureaucrat would develop their political ties. That's necessary to operate well. But I think also, Trudy was very ambitious, hopeful of being named the Archivist of the United States. She would have been the first woman to that position. She was a strong leader and gifted. But ultimately— Trudy kind of opened the door, I would say, to the Clinton administration bringing political appointees in, which was a new thing to the Archives we'd never had. For most agencies in a transition, you've got a political person coming in during transition, and then you get all your political appointees. Well, NARA doesn't have political appointees, or didn't up until that point. And we got at least four over a period of two years. And some of them had significant positions in the Clinton campaign and were very rabid Clinton supporters. And again, I'm not saying that negatively. I'm just saying, you know, they were all in on the Clinton agenda. And they were young, most of them, or not experienced in government either. So they were like me in that inexperience of the bureaucracy. But they were unlike me in that they had really strong political ties. One of them moved into my office, and the gentleman and I who had been in that office, were moved downstairs into the Public Affairs office space, which was a very symbolic and real diminishment of our stature and authority, which is okay. But without changing—you know, I still carried that title. And for a while, I thought, this was going to be good. I was ready to serve Trudy. But it became very clear that she had identified me and Don Neal, who was the Director of External Affairs, as people she didn't want assisting her. And so both of us, literally, went downstairs and, eventually, the position of head of the public affairs office was assigned to another political appointee, Shirley—I'm forgetting her last name right off hand. That office already had a press officer, Susan Cooper, who had been there a long time and knew the agency thoroughly. So Shirley was kind of layered on top. And Shirley was a force. She wasn't going to be pushed around. And yet, I don't think she ultimately was very effective. She, too, was a bit of a bull in a China shop, as it affected NARA. And I think, ultimately, there was a sense among the career staff that “this, too, will pass.” I mean, people began to realize there was a lot of noise at the front end and, you know, there had to be kowtowing to it and appreciate it. And they did some things that were valuable. But most bureaucrats know they can outlast the political appointees. And I think there was a sense of that happening. In the Public Affairs Office I had less to do, but I retained the editorship of the Manager’s Monthly. We also put out the Annual Report, which at the time was a thick booklet reporting on the activities of each subunit of the National Archives. That, like many other sacrosanct parts of the agency’s life, were dramatically transformed or eliminated as a result of the increasing availability of technology within the agency. But a highlight of my time in the Office of Public Affairs was planning the dedication of the Archives II building in College Park, Maryland. We planned, I think, a really spectacular event. That's one of the pleasures of my life. And yet, it was bittersweet, because I don't think that was appreciated. And it sort of capped for me kind of a period of disappointment, of where I was going to be at.

Stephanie Reynolds: So that was done when you were kind of detailed to the Office of Public Affairs?

Jim Hemphill: Yes, and that occurred for about a year. And then I was detailed over to the Office of the Federal Register. Actually, I was detailed twice. That office had some—I forget. Someone had left and so I was sent over to help. But I think honestly, I was a big whale that they didn’t know what to do with! I mean, being a GS-15, they had to do something with me. And so this was where they found a place for me. And I went over to OFR [Office of the Federal Register] and I, literally, moved from unit to unit to learn about the entire office. There were, I think, six units at the time, and I spent about a month in each unit, and I loved the work they were doing, and I really respected it. It felt like a place where all this noise that I'd been living with and around for two or three years was just not important. And at the end of the day, every workday, the Office of the Federal Register has to produce a book called the Federal Register. And it's a 150-page newspaper-style book. And having to get that done at the end of every day cuts through a lot of the nonsense because people there understand that when they're being told that someone needs something, they realize that they need it now, that's it's real. And so I have a lot of respect for those folks. They're really, really good. But they also are in an environment where they—you know, not a lot of people in the federal government see the product of their work every single day. And they produce not only the Federal Register, but they produce the Code of Federal Regulations and Presidential Papers volumes. So there were really tangible things that could be done, and it was a breath of fresh air to get into an environment where we were really producing something.

Stephanie Reynolds: And in between there, you said though, you were at the Presidential Libraries, or you were . . .

Jim Hemphill: Yeah. So this first time of service at the OFR was a detail, and I was still—I mean, there weren't any positions open at the Office of the Federal Register. It was a great opportunity to learn about it, and I think I helped them. But you know, what was the long-term play? And at that time, the Office of Presidential Libraries was headed by an Acting Director, Dick Jacobs, a long-time NARA employee, who had held various roles at senior levels. The Deputy Archivist for Presidential Libraries, Pat Borders, a long-time deputy, retired during that time. And I looked back to the effort I had made to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up [LAUGHS], after I left Senator Hatfield’s office, and remembered it was to head up a Presidential Library. I just thought, what a wonderful place to land, so I applied for the Deputy position. And there was, actually, some interesting background to my being selected for that post. I've learned later that—and this is how I came to understand how I had been viewed in the agency—some people involved in that selection said, "I didn't realize how qualified you were,” that, you know, I was the best candidate for that role. I was really well-suited by my experience, for being a Deputy Archivist in the Office of Presidential Libraries. So, I landed in a job I loved. And I was there for six months. And then, on a Friday [LAUGHS], I was called to the Archivist's office and told by him: "The Office of the Federal Register has a need for somebody to help them. And so we're going to detail you over to the Office of the Federal Register." And I said, "When?" They said, "Well, Monday."

Stephanie Reynolds: Oh my gosh.

Jim Hemphill: So clearly, there's a backstory, right? And, clearly, this was not a benign thing. I was being moved out. Honestly, I have some understanding, but I don't fully understand what went on. I think I crossed wires, crossed swords with the Director of the George H. W. Bush Library that was being organized at the time. There was a woman in the Office of Presidential Libraries who had a very, very strong political network with all the Presidential Libraries—and realize, Presidential Libraries are a kind of 500-pound gorilla in the room that is the National Archives, because the people that support those Presidential Libraries are people who have been in the senior positions in the White House. So even though, on paper, it's a subordinate organization within NARA, it's an outsized, powerfully outsized, organization. One Director had been communicating in backchannels with the woman in the central office. And I simply, from my perspective, told him that I wanted him to communicate through me or, at least, to be sharing the information he was sharing with her. That's the only thing that I know for sure. I know that irritated him. I don't know if that led to him getting people to have me moved, but I believe it was. Of course, maybe I wasn't doing a good job. I mean, I thought I was. I think I was. I was the new kid on the block in the Office of Presidential Libraries. But that was a very sad event for me, because I really thought I had landed, finally, in a position where I was happy and where I could make a difference. But I believe in God's control over things, and that's not what it was to be, but it was a hard pill to swallow.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. Yeah, especially since you mentioned at some point wanting to become a Director of the Nixon Library. And so that was kind of a gateway into being able to do that. And so, yeah, I don't know what happened there. Okay. So then you said from there, you went over to the Office of the Federal Register.

Jim Hemphill: [TAKES A PHONE CALL] Sorry.

Stephanie Reynolds: That's okay. So when you did go over to the Office of the Federal Register, what was your position there?

Jim Hemphill: Well, it was a detail for two months. And then I got paperwork that created me as the Special Assistant to the Director. So, once again, I'm in that supporting role with a very poorly defined job description, and the kind of position that not everybody is sure they understand, and not one that had been there before. And this is not a history about me. It's my history at NARA. But I will say, I think one of the learnings I've had about myself is that my gift is supporting someone in a leadership position. I get how to do that well, I guess I'd say. And so that's well-suited for me, whereas being in the top job maybe is not my gift. There are a lot of special talents a person needs for that. And maybe I would have liked to have held that role but, probably, I wouldn't have been as good in it. And the fact that I was not able to hold on to the position in the Office of Presidential Libraries—you know, another person with a little more political . . . little "p" skills [USES AIR QUOTES] maybe could have done it. So a person in my position in something like this, again, I had to—it was really important for me to prove to the office that I'm not a threat, particularly to the senior managers there. Again, it's a very small organization, so as you climb the ladder, the positions get much, much more competitive and, so again, my M.O. [modus operandi] has been to just go out and get to know the people and, you know, get to understand their jobs so that when I'm communicating with the boss, I'm sharing information they may not know, and I'm sharing accurate information. I'm not just making judgments off the top of my head. And when I'm responsible for telling people what to do, passing on directions from the leader, that I get how it impacts them and can maybe encourage us not to make policy decisions that are not smart. And you can only do that by really understanding the organization at the street level. And so that's what I did. And that's, I think, how I built cred [credibility] with the organization and with the staff. You know, not everybody likes you. And my job isn't to be liked, but it is at one level to be liked in the sense that that helps the Director. If they feel like a friend, if they feel like they can share with me, and I'm not going to immediately turn around and say word for word to the Director what I was told, but maybe say, "Hey, there might be some problems going on in that particular office or with that manager." And again, I'm not trying to toot my horn. I'm just saying that the fact that I stayed in that role that long, I think, is an indication that it was a necessary role in the organization, and that I was probably well-placed to be doing it.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah, it sounds like by making those connections, you were helping the Director and the program itself make better, more-informed decisions. So that would be very vital, I would think.

Jim Hemphill: Hopefully.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah, so then you were at the Office of the Federal Register for . . . how long was it? 26 years or so?

Jim Hemphill: 25 years.

Stephanie Reynolds: 25 years. Okay. So kind of taking a step back for a minute, can you just give a very brief overview of what the Office of the Federal Register does, because I feel like it's very misunderstood sometimes. And so, maybe future people reading this transcript will get a better idea of what it is that they do.

Jim Hemphill: That's a great question. I wish the office had been called the Office of the Code of Federal Regulations. I think that would solve a lot of the mystery. So the Code of Federal Regulations contains all the regulations that federal agencies issue to implement the laws that Congress passes. So our government is founded on "We the People," who agreed to a constitution, and we separated our powers. And one of the powers is to legislate. We gave that power to Congress. Congress passes laws. We gave the power to execute the laws to the executive branch. And in executing the laws, some of those agencies are given the authority to write rules, which actually have the force and effect of law. So if you don't pay your taxes under IRS [Internal Revenue Service] rules, you're going to go to jail, right? If you violate EPA's [Environmental Protection Agency] environmental regulations, you can be fined or go to jail. So rules and regulations (those words have the same meaning) have the force and effect of law, but they're written within the executive agency. And by 1935, the federal government was growing in size, and a lot of these regulatory agencies formed to combat the effects of the Depression were starting to issue regulations in areas of our economy and society in which the U.S. Government had never acted before. They had regulated railroads for a while already, and there was the Sherman Antitrust Act. But a lot of the newer New Deal agencies were doing a different kind of regulating. And there grew to be a real concern that this was extra-legal, perhaps even unconstitutional. How is it that an executive agency was writing what was, in effect, a law? And another concern was that regulation-writing was being done in the dark. Now in the legislative process we can go to the Capitol. We can watch what goes on in Congress. We can write our congressmen. But when a bureaucrat in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the AAA, was writing rules affecting farmers, who elected that person? And can I call that person on the phone? Can I write that person a letter? What obligation do they have to the citizenry? And also, some of those regulations were actually being written almost in the dark. So the regulated population didn't even know what they were, but were being called on the carpet for violations of regulations that were unknown to them. The net result of this was that Congress passed the Federal Register Act, which declared that henceforth, and first of all, we're going to collect all the regulations in one place, the Office of the Federal Register, then (as a result of an amendment to the act two years later) we’re going to codify all those regulations in a new series, the Code of Federal Regulations. That's why I think it would have been better to call the office the Code of Federal Regulations Office. Second, the act declared that from now on, before any agency issues a regulation that takes force, it must be published publicly in a new government publication, the Federal Register, so that citizens can have access to it. And then in 1948, that law was further amended by the Administrative Procedure Act that said, "Not only do you have to publicize those rules, but the process by which they're going to be created has to include notice to the public and an opportunity for the public to provide comments on proposed rules." So now, when the EPA issues a regulation, they have to first issue it as a proposed rule, publish it in the Federal Register, give a period of time for the public to comment, and then address those comments when publishing the final regulation with the date it will take effect. And when the final regulation is published, it is codified in the Code of Federal Regulations. There are so many regulations issued by agencies that the Federal Register is published every single day of the week. And you can go to the Federal Register and look at what regulations are being proposed and what regulations are being finalized. The Code of Federal Regulations now consists of about 280 volumes of regulations—a huge volume of regulations, and we're constantly publishing those. That's the primary duty of the [Office of the] Federal Register. We had some additional duties: publishing papers of the President and publishing the laws that Congress passed, actually binding them in the Statutes at Large, which is the compilation of all U.S. laws. But the primary duty is that related to federal regulations.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. And so then what were you doing within that office?

Jim Hemphill: So the office is headed by the Director of the Federal Register, which is a statutory position. The Office of the Federal Register's Administrative Committee—it's kind of an unusual animal—consists of the Archivist of the United States, a representative of the Department of Justice, and what used to be the Public Printer, now the Director of the Government Publishing Office. It used to be the Government Printing Office or GPO. So all through its history, the Office of the Federal Register has had this very tight partnership with the Government Printing Office, originally to print. We would gather all this information, and then every day, literally, a human being would walk this paper over to the Government Printing Office, and they would typeset it and print the Federal Register. And then they also printed the Code of Federal Regulations. One of the interesting parts of the OFR is that, historically, it had a greater sense of connection to GPO than it did to NARA. NARA supplied its administrative support, handled personnel matters, was our pay master, and wrote the rules by which we would operate internally. But in terms of the policy of the Federal Register, that was not NARA's job, except for the Archivist who was one of three people who—and this continues today—to be the actual policy-making authorities. The Director has a pretty significant role, as well. He's also the Secretary of that administrative body. So the bottom line is, he is the Director of this Federal Register operation or process—system. As his Executive Assistant, I was doing all sorts of things on his behalf. I did a lot of writing. Every Director I've worked with has had a senior team, usually three or four people. And I always was a member of that team and sat in on usually weekly meetings. So we were planning. We were executing. There were a number of times when I was called on to act as one of the unit chiefs when we had a vacancy. I served as the Acting Director briefly during one absence of a Director. I also had a really interesting role, which at first seemed insignificant, but—which turned out to be very interesting—related to the OFR’s involvement in the classified activities of the government. This involvement wasn’t because we publish any classified material—we don’t—but because back in the era of the nuclear threat, Cold War, if there was going to be a disaster, then there was the need to gather federal agencies to a location where they could continue government operations. And obviously, that structure of operations was a classified activity. That took on a whole new meaning after 9/11. So, I can share a little bit of that later, perhaps.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. Yeah. So was that when you were Acting Director or . . .?

Jim Hemphill: Yes, I was the person who was designated as the “continuity of government” person from the OFR. and I had a top secret clearance and access to classified materials and spaces.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. Okay.

Jim Hemphill: Yeah. But I handled our staffing, and matters like performance planning, reporting, budget, accounting, requisitions. Another thing that I think would be significant to touch on is my role as project manager for what became eDOCS, our electronic editing and publishing system. So where I really experienced the transition of analog to digital was at the Office of the Federal Register. I lived that change and was pretty deeply involved in that.

Stephanie Reynolds: So what did that entail?

Jim Hemphill: So when I got to the Office, there was one automated process, and it was basically the equivalent of you still doing all your work on paper, but keeping track of it in a tracking system. So we had a computer that was doing tracking of the paper flow, but the paper was flowing absolutely 100 percent manually and as paper. People were using stampers to stamp documents, and different colored pens to do editing and the like. By the time I left, we were receiving documents through an online portal. We were publishing 100 percent electronically with no paper and publishing it online, although we still have to, by law, publish a paper-bound volume. But we went from 25,000 subscriptions to that book, to less than 1,500 by the time I left. And those 1,500 were only libraries. Nobody was getting the Federal Register, except online. And so now, federalregister.gov is the go-to place. Also, the Code of Federal Regulations process, which literally used to be cut and paste—cut out the language from the Federal Register, paste it on pages, send it over to GPO, where it would be typeset to create the books—that codification and publishing process is 100 percent digital. The regulatory language out of the Federal Register was physically transposed into the Code of Federal Regulations when I got to the OFR. By the time I left, the office was absolutely 100 percent doing electronic editing of those books. And all of those books are now online, those 286 books. And they're not only online as static volumes, but they are changed daily. So every change that happens in them, because rules become effective each day of the week, is available. And you can go back and see what the status of a regulation was on some date in the past. It’s truly a Herculean effort, an unsung effort, a critically important effort. It’s one that anybody who's involved in the regulatory processes of the government, and people in the legal profession, understand the significance of it.

Stephanie Reynolds: It just seems so much more efficient and handier to be able to go online to view all of this.

Jim Hemphill: And the staffing went from 120 people to about 50 now, and we're doing double, maybe even triple the amount of work in terms of pages published—tripled the workload and cut the staffing by more than 50 percent. It's a living example of the benefits of technology. But we fought hard for a lot of those wins, both in bureaucratic terms and in figuring out the technological solutions. In my experience, everybody outside the process underestimated how complex what we do is. I've explained it to you. Maybe you feel like you understand it. I hope you do. But the twists and turns that are involved in that are really significant. And it takes place in a highly regulated environment—think of a bank that is changing its processes or a retail business that's deciding to upgrade. You know, they do it for efficiency purposes. What if the law constrained them in many ways as to what they could do. So not only are you building a new system, but it has to also comport to a whole host of laws. And that's what we had. We had our struggles with contractors and others in that process.

Stephanie Reynolds: That sounds like a very significant undertaking. Were there any lessons learned once you implemented this?

Jim Hemphill: Oh, boy. You know, I think there's a swing from one extreme to another in all of this. Let me give you one example. Organizations can be integrated horizontally, or they can be integrated vertically. And both are good solutions, but both have their downsides. So inevitably, in a horizontally organized organization, somebody is going to come along at one point and say, "The real problem in this organization is that we're not linked vertically." So they'll go through a reorganization effort, and now you've got a vertical organization. And that works well, and it fixes the problems associated with horizontal integration. But eventually, the problems with the vertical organization will be identified, because you don't have the horizontal problems anymore. And then the brilliant person will come along and say, "What we really need is greater horizontal integration and less vertical." And so it'll go back. So it's not that one's wrong. It's just that both have their limitations, and the operations of it within the federal government was like that. So let’s reflect upon how technology came into our office lives. It came in with a computer on somebody's desk or a fancy electric typewriter or whatever. And who became the experts dealing with that technology? Well, the people were kind of geeky, you know, who liked that stuff. At the National Archives they were archivists who had this skill set, or in other agencies they were people who were specialists in a particular occupation, but they also had this extra interest or talent, right? So what was really good about that model is that those people understood their organizations intimately, so they would not make mistakes in designing technical solutions, because they would remember, "Oh, on Wednesdays, we have to take a left. So I've got to build in that left turn on Wednesdays into this program." Whereas, the contractor knew nothing about it, and would just say, "Oh, here's a one-solution-fits-all" or was dependent upon subject matter experts not forgetting to include a particular need when defining requirements. But the problem with homegrown techies is they are eventually out of their depth. And as a computer science guru, you needed people who had a lot more smarts about what was available, [who] had their eyes out into the field, because the in-house techies were operating sort of on the basis of, "Oh, hey, I read in Time magazine, that there's this new computer program; I wonder if we could use it?" Well, that's not a very good way to develop a system. So now we began to hire people who were computer specialists. But the loss there is, like I just said, they didn't have the subject matter expertise. So now you have to have someone outside the agency come into it and interview the expert in the agency about what they do. Then that person goes to the programmer and tries to repeat everything. The programmer designs something, brings it back through that person to the group, and they sit down and go, "Well, you didn't make it go left on Wednesdays." And they acquire disdain for the programmers and the program being developed. The sharing-translating-implementing-reviewing process goes back and forth. And so it's just such a laborious, slow process. I often thought we should temporarily backfill some of our subject matter experts, put them full-time on the job of communicating directly with the programmers, and then they could get it right earlier. And then when they roll out the thing, the subject matter experts would resume their jobs, because it was easier to teach people the job to do for three months than it was to teach this person whose last job was designing an accounting system, and now they're at the Federal Register trying to design a publishing system. So in a perfect world, that would have been my solution. And what happened then—and I think this happened all throughout the government in different time frames—agencies began to say, "Oh my goodness. In Office A, they've purchased IBM computers. In Office B, they've purchased Apple computers. In Office C, they've purchased Comcast computers. And these systems don’t talk to each other, and we have to support all three. It's crazy—and no way to run a railroad. So we're going to build an office on top of all this—Office of Chief Information Officers [OCIOs]—who will now manage all this. And they’ll scoop up responsibility for operating all these systems. Well, first, we're going to have a single platform. Everybody's going to use the same machines. Again, it's a necessary thing, but it's how you do it, right? Eventually, Congress mandated CIO offices, and they have become very powerful offices. But remember, they are staff offices, not operations offices, and remember when I talked earlier about staff positions that should learn to support rather than direct? CIO offices are, to me, some of the worst offenders. They are, in my experience, very cocky, and some are very poorly informed. Clearly, I’m giving you my experience at NARA. They don't have the best people, although sometimes they have very good people. And they're very "directive-oriented" with an attitude of, "You're working for us. You have to do this and that." Admittedly, they've got some legal structures they have to abide by, reporting and similar requirements, including all the procurement rules. I get that. But that's something you have to learn how to do well. That's your occupation. That's your calling. You can't just say, "Because it's hard, I'm just going to make you work for me." And I think that happened at NARA in a really bad way. The development of the Electronic Records Archive (ERA) was really a poster child example of things not being organized well. So I don't know whether I'm answering your question. But I’m laying the foundation for explaining that in some ways we, at the OFR, were fortunate in the development of our electronic systems. The OFR’s partner agency, the GPO is basically a factory, a printing factory. So any systems being developed had to work “on-the-ground” in an environment in which those processes were tested again and again, every time something was printed. When they brought technology in, at the end of the day, you look at a printed page—Does it look right or not? Is the system printing right or not? So it was very easy to, well not easy, but the process of bringing that in was validated by ground-truth on a daily basis. And they were a very big organization, with a lot of resources whose electronic material was being funded by the income from the Federal Register “page rate” paid by the publishing agencies. The agencies pay to publish in the Federal Register a page rate that goes into a pot of money, and that money then is being used to support the publication of the Federal Register. We were not dependent upon appropriations or budget decisions within NARA to fund our development. We were kind of shielded from NARA's bureaucracy until, maybe, the last five years of my tenure, when NARA became much more aggressive about wanting to be in control of the eDOCS system. And that was a very dangerous thing, because eDOCS is the system that made the Federal Register able to be published every day and to be put online every day. And it took some scary events, I think, for some of NARA's IT [information technology] people to appreciate that we weren't just fighting for our territory—it wasn't just a turf battle. We were fighting for good operations and the good of the people who need the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations information.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah, it sounds very complex, right? And you have to have the right people talking to the other right people, I guess.

Jim Hemphill: Yes.

Stephanie Reynolds: That doesn't always happen, does it? No.

Jim Hemphill: No. I mean, that's life.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah, that's true. Well, I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the year 2020 in terms of the last Presidential election that took place. We really started to see the OFR in the media more often, and I think, again, people didn't really understand what the Office did. But do you have any comments on that and the impact of what was going on at that time in terms of the certificates and things like that?

Jim Hemphill: So, obviously, I've not even touched on the fact that a very interesting responsibility the Office of the Federal Register is to be, basically, the administrative office for the Electoral College, which simply means that every four years when this Electoral College process happens, we are the office that receives the certificates and passes them on to the Congress, if Congress doesn't receive theirs directly. It's just very interesting, and we kind of look forward to it. It's a fun role. Every election, I would say, there have been some specious certificates, you know, usually just sent by some crazy person somewhere who literally has mental health issues and is sending in a certificate saying they've been elected President. We actually keep those certificates or have them vetted. But the real certificates are those that carry the seal of the appropriate official in the state, usually the secretary of state, sometimes the governor. And our legal counsel is the person who directs these operations under the director of the Federal Register. I actually was in transition during the 2020 election cycle. I left the office in January 2021, so I missed some of the action.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay.

Jim Hemphill: I just would say, for most people, this Electoral College is an entirely new thing that they’ve never been aware of, even during election season. But for those of us involved in it, we completely understand and are familiar with this routine operation that had been going on from our office since the '50s. And before that, the State Department handled it. I mean, there's just no question in our minds about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of various certificates and how people have tried to manipulate it. And what I don't think we ever envisioned is that officials involved in the process would be perpetrators of a political attempt to do something based on partisan political reasons. So I guess I'm showing where I'm coming down on this. But I just, I don't think there's any possibility of misunderstanding the legal situation, the legitimacy of the process. And now I'm—I wasn't in the states where there were allegations of voter fraud so that, you know, I can't speak to that, but I just think the attempts to produce incorrect, false certificates is just so obvious. It's almost a no-brainer that thinking the system is broken has been able to be continued only by the repetition of lies. Just repeating something, if people are saying it so often, it's got to be true, you know? But there's no "there" there, from my perspective.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah. So with all of this happening and swirling around the Office of the Federal Register, was there any change in maybe communicating to the public on what the role of the office actually is and that this is a routine process and, well, anything like that?

Jim Hemphill: If you go back to the Gore/Bush election in 2000, our legal counsel at the time sort of took on the title, Dean of the Electoral College. And he appeared on news broadcasts, and we were really aggressive about putting out information. We very much saw ourselves as an educational organization and, I think, wanted to be that. But the controversy was in the ballots, not in the validity of the states’ certificates of voting results. Our process was never called into question. That particular legal counsel had left the office by the next election, which was less controversial. And then our budget and staffing resources were diminished, and we just didn't have the staff to do more than just manage the paperwork. What we did do, though, prior to that election was really tighten up our internal processes and document them. And I’m thankful for that in light of what happened in 2020. We now had a very well-documented statement of what we would do and where materials would be kept and how they would be processed. So I think that was fortunate, because it could have been perceived that there was some manipulating we were doing or bias that we had, had that process not been written down beforehand. We didn't change the process, just documented it better.

Stephanie Reynolds: Right.

Jim Hemphill: So I just don't think we had the capability within our office to do the kind of public relations/public education work on behalf of the Electoral College process—you've got to realize there are only a very few people involved in that. And it's not a heavy lift, but it's not like 400 people are available to go on Meet the Press or design a media strategy. [LAUGHS]

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. I was wondering if it was more about changing or better communicating what the role was and—yeah, not that it's going to change your mission or your policy per se. It's just communicating.

Jim Hemphill: And also, we can't take a position on whether the Electoral College should or [should] not exist. Right? We're agnostic. We are just saying, right now, it's a part of the Constitution. It's part of the law. And so we have to implement it. Because a lot of people were proposing to eliminate the Electoral College, we had to be careful that we didn't step into that policy debate and tried not to.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. Yeah. Trying to stay nonpolitical, nonpartisan, non-everything, right?

Jim Hemphill: Yeah.

Stephanie Reynolds: Yeah. Hey, I'm seeing I have one more minute left on the interview, but I was wondering if you would have just a quick chance to talk about . . . You kind of mentioned the classified records earlier . . . if you wanted to add anything about that?

Jim Hemphill: It might be useful to spend some more time later.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay.

Jim Hemphill: And I need to really be careful how I speak about that, because it has classified aspects to it. So . . .

Stephanie Reynolds: Sure. Okay.

Jim Hemphill: I want to be careful.

Stephanie Reynolds: Okay. Do you want me to set up another time for us to talk?

Jim Hemphill: That'd be fine, unless it's too much.

Stephanie Reynolds: Unless it's too much? What do you mean?

Jim Hemphill: Well, you were expecting an hour and a half, and if it turns into three hours, it may be more than you want [LAUGHS]. I'm not sure that what I have to share is all that significant, you know.

Stephanie Reynolds: No. [LAUGHS] It's more about trying not to take up too much of your time. But if you're willing to set up another time, then I'm more than willing to do that. And so, how about I go ahead and stop the recording now, and then I can send you some possible dates and times that might work to continue the conversation?

Jim Hemphill: Good. Sounds good.