We Got Our Mojo Working -- But Why So Well?

At her new blog, Maarja Krusten, from the National Archives team that first processed Richard Nixon's White House tapes, is exploring why a collection that was ready to be opened by the late 1980s won't be fully public until 2012.

Pressure from Nixon's lawyers and staffers (including me) was just part of the story. A disgraced former president wouldn't have had that much mojo. I'm just speculating, but did one or more incumbent presidents decide that slowing down the opening of Nixon records might be in their own interests once they were out of office and trying to control the release of sensitive documents of their own?

Be that as it may, when the former Nixon White House aides who now control Nixon's foundation went to war against NARA's man on the scene, it was deja vu all over again for Krusten:

Had Nixon Presidential Library director Tim Naftali not come under fire from the Nixon side during 2009-2010, I probably wouldn’t have started blogging. In all candor, I do not know whether Naftali will receive more support from NARA than we once did. It’s probably pretty obvious to all the readers of the blog (a few people are reading it, thank you!) that I don’t want to see anyone go through what we did. I believe Naftali deserves better than that — I admire and respect him — and hope that he fares better than we did.