My predecessor as Nixon library director, Hugh Hewitt, attracted intense and undesirable national attention for saying that journalist Bob Woodward wouldn't be welcome to consult our archival materials because he wasn't a "legitimate researcher." I was then Richard Nixon's chief of staff. Nixon had me call and say that while he appreciated the thought behind the anathema Hewitt had pronounced, he should lift it pronto.Now we learn that the Kennedy library and one of Robert F. Kennedy's sons, Max, is blocking access to the late attorney general's papers. Among other things, scholars are eager to learn what Kennedy knew and when he knew it about plans to try to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro. According to John Tierney, writing at James Fallows' blog*, when a Boston Globe reporter contacted Max Kennedy to find out why this rich cache of materials is still in Steven Spielberg's federal warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant, here's what resulted:
[C]lassic stonewalling -- some blather about scholars with "poorly conceived projects" who fail to follow "correct procedures" to seek permission to consult the papers.We'll see if the Kennedys have more luck with that line than we did. Of course in this case there may be nothing anyone can do, since all the Kennedy records were considered private property according to pre-Watergate archival practice. Still, Tierney writes:
The Kennedys don't deserve this attention and adulation if they're not willing to be open with the truth, if they remain intent on having the public see only the attractive side of Robert Kennedy's legacy. They don't deserve the unstinting praise and the undying devotion if they're not willing to come clean. If they were to do so, they might deserve the attention that comes their way now by constant management and manipulation of the family image.*I originally erred in writing that James Fallows was the author.
