Opinion ID: 594395
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: History, Custom and Practice--The Presidents' Treatment of Their White House Papers

Text: 23 History, custom, and usage indicate unequivocally that, prior to PRMPA, Presidents exercised complete dominion and control over their presidential papers. 19 It is uncontroverted that every President before and after President Nixon assumed control of his presidential (White House) papers upon departing office. 20 This tradition began when President Washington removed his presidential papers to Mount Vernon following his second term. Larry Berman, The Evolution and Value of Presidential Libraries, in THE PRESIDENCY AND INFORMATION POLICY 80 (Harold C. Relyea ed., 1981). By all accounts, this practice continued through both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 21 24 The practice of presidential removal of White House papers was dramatically portrayed by President Franklin Roosevelt, who, waving his hand in the direction of the White House file room, exclaimed, [w]hen I came to the White House there was not a scrap of paper in that room; when I retire I shall not leave a scrap. The room will be swept clean for my successor. R.D.W. Connor, 2 JOURNAL 11 (Southern Historical Collection, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), reprinted in Joint Appendix (J.A.) at 453. When asked whether the White House papers were not official papers of the government, President Roosevelt noted that every President since Washington had regarded their presidential files as their personal property and had always taken them from the White House at the expiration of their terms of office. Id. 25 Likewise, President Eisenhower's son attested that: 26 [When] my father arrived in the White House on January 20, 1953, the prior administration had removed from the White House and Executive Office Building offices all staff and central files pertaining to the work of that administration. My father informed me that the only material left for him was a single page of instructions to be used in the event of a national crisis and National Security Policy Documents. 27 Affidavit of John S.D. Eisenhower at 4 (June 30, 1975), reprinted in J.A. at 503. 28 The foregoing incidents, along with the many others described in the APPENDIX, demonstrate that the historical record is uncontestable on at least one point--every President (or his surviving heir or designated representative), both before and after Mr. Nixon, assumed control of his presidential papers upon leaving office. The United States cannot, and does not, dispute this facet of the historical tradition. Rather, the Government maintains that past Presidents took their papers only for lack of an adequate public repository, and that each regarded his possession of the presidential papers as merely custodial for the true owners--the American Public. This interpretation flies in the face of the historical record, common understanding, and the apparent acquiescence and ratification of Congress. 29 Beginning with George Washington, Presidents of the United States have, without [298 U.S.App.D.C. 258] notable exception, treated their presidential papers as personal property and have acted in ways inconsistent with the view that they regarded themselves as trustees for the American people. For instance, after President Washington removed his papers to Mount Vernon, he did not make arrangements for public access to them or donate them to the government. Instead, he ensured that they would pass by descent within his family by bequeathing them to his nephew, Mr. Justice Bushrod Washington. WILLS OF THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTS 23 (Herbert R. Collins & David B. Weaver eds., 1976) (text of the will of George Washington) (hereinafter WILLS). Likewise, Presidents Jefferson, Madison and Monroe passed their papers by testamentary gift. Id. at 40 (will of Thomas Jefferson), 45 (will of James Madison), 51 (will of James Monroe). Indeed, of the first thirty men to hold office, thirteen of them made specific bequests of their papers. HANDLING OF PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS: HISTORICAL AND CURRENT PRACTICE, Appendix 10, unpublished study, National Study Commission on Records and Documents of Federal Officials 3, reprinted in J.A. at 929. (hereinafter HANDLING OF PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS). In bequeathing these materials, the Presidents were not providing for trustee-like care, but were conveying valuable personal property in the expectation that their legatees would benefit. 22 30 Similarly, some of the Presidents made outright gifts of their papers. See, e.g., Letter from President Jackson to Amos Kendall (May 20, 1845), quoted in INDEX TO PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS OF ANDREW JACKSON at v) (giving his papers to Francis Blair 23 ); Letter from President Theodore Roosevelt to Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress (Dec. 5, 1916) (offering presidential papers to the Library on condition that no one else see them until after President Roosevelt's death), reprinted in J.A. at 368; Letter from Roosevelt to Putnam (Dec. 27, 1916) (consummating the deal), reprinted in J.A. at 373. 31 Arrangements providing for conditional gifts to the Library of Congress evolved into the modern practice of exchanging presidential papers not only for conditions on use and access, but also for the care and maintenance of a Presidential Library. The first of these exchanges was arranged by Franklin Roosevelt, who negotiated a deal with Congress in which he gave his White House materials to the United States on condition that the United States maintain them in a library to be built on Roosevelt's estate at Hyde Park, New York. 24 A proponent of the deal in Congress emphasized the President's ownership of the materials: 32 These are not public papers. They are the private property of Franklin D. Roosevelt, as papers of this sort have been the private property of every President of the United States. He could sell them, of course, for a fancy sum. They would be scattered to the four winds and no student who visited any one part of the United States would ever have an opportunity to see them. 33 84 CONG.REC. 6628 (June 5, 1939) (statement of Representative Rayburn). The practice was followed by later Presidents subject to the Presidential Libraries Act, Pub.L. No. 84-373, 69 Stat. 695 et seq. (1955) (empowering Administrator of General Services to accept and maintain Presidential Libraries) (discussed more fully infra). See, e.g., Letter from President Lyndon Johnson to Lawson B. Knott, Jr., Administrator of General Services (Aug. 13, 1965) (offering the Johnson papers in exchange for a Presidential Library), reprinted in J.A. at 697; Letter from President Carter to Robert Warner, Archivist of the United States (Jan. 31, 1981) (similar offer), reprinted in J.A. at 755. Every President from Franklin [298 U.S.App.D.C. 259] Roosevelt through Jimmy Carter, with the exception of Richard Nixon, has so donated his papers to the United States in exchange for a publicly supported Presidential Library. While a Presidential Library may seem a small price, and one that the United States would incur in any event were the materials public property in the first place, the reality is that Presidents have been able to use real leverage in negotiating with respect to the disposition of presidential papers to extract from the United States fancy sums in the form of lucrative library deals, while maintaining essential control over the materials. 25 34 The incidents of Presidents disposing of their papers by gift or devise are clear examples of conduct inconsistent with public ownership. Even more vivid, however, are the numerous examples of Presidents willfully and intentionally destroying their presidential papers. One of the earliest examples is provided by President Van Buren, who destroyed a substantial part of his presidential correspondence while he was yet in office. HANDLING OF PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS at 16. Similarly, President Garfield is said to have destroyed many of his personal and political records between the time he was struck by an assassin's bullet on July 2, 1881, and the day he finally succumbed on September 19, 1881. Id. at 16. When the Library of Congress began making inquiries regarding the papers of President Chester Arthur, the President's son wrote the Library saying, where the papers [are] is a mystery. Letter from Chester Arthur Jr. to Gaillard Hunt, Chief of Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (Mar. 13, 1915), quoted in Index to the Presidential Papers of Chester Arthur. The mystery was solved some years later when the President's grandson responded to continuing inquiries by the Library. As reported by Chester Arthur III, his grandfather had caused to be burned three large garbage cans, each at least four feet high, full of papers which I am sure would have thrown much light on history. Letter from Chester Arthur III to Thomas P. Martin, Chief of Manuscripts Division (Apr. 15, 1938), reprinted in J.A. at 351. 35 Presidents Grant, Pierce, and Coolidge 26 also had significant numbers of their papers destroyed. See Resume of Presidential Papers: Hearings on H.J.Res. 330, 331, and H.J.Res. 332, Before the Executive and Legislative Reorganization Subcomm., 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 41-42 (1955) (hereinafter Resume of Presidential Papers ). Indeed, in delivering a message to the Senate, President Cleveland expressly asserted his right to destroy White House papers: 36 I regard the papers and documents ... addressed to me or intended for my use and action purely unofficial and private, not infrequently confidential, and having reference to the performance of a duty exclusively mine. I consider them in no proper sense as ... the files of the Department, but as deposited there for my convenience, remaining still completely under my control. I suppose if I desired [298 U.S.App.D.C. 260] to take them into my custody I might do so with entire propriety, and if I saw fit to destroy them no one could complain. 37 8 A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS 1787-1897 (J. Richardson ed., 1900) 378 (Letter from President Cleveland to the United States Senate (Mar. 1, 1886)). 27 These sentiments, quite obviously, are inconsistent with the fiduciary duties of a trustee, and, in conjunction with the reported incidents of actual destruction of presidential papers, flatly contradict the notion that the Presidents considered the American people the beneficiaries of this material. 38 In short, every past President has treated these materials as private papers to hold, give away, withhold from others, transfer for consideration or bequeath as he saw fit. A concise summary of this practice is provided by President and later Chief Justice Taft: 39 The office of the President is not a recording office. The vast amount of correspondence that goes through it, signed either by the President or his secretaries, does not become the property or a record of the government, unless it goes on to the official files of the department to which it may be addressed. The retiring President takes with him all the correspondence, original and copies, which he carried on during his administration. Thus there is lost to public record some of the most interesting documents of governmental origin bearing on the history of an administration. It is a little like what Mr. Charles Francis Adams told me of the diplomatic records of the British Foreign Office. It has long been the custom for the important Ambassadors of Great Britain to carry on a personal correspondence with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, which is not put upon the files of the department, but which gives a much more accurate and detailed account of the diplomatic relations of Great Britain than the official files. The only way in which historians can get at this, is through the good offices of the families of the deceased Ambassadors and Foreign Secretaries in whose private files they may be preserved. 40 W.H. TAFT, OUR CHIEF MAGISTRATE AND HIS POWERS 34 (1916). 41