Nine Historical Archives That Will Spill New Secrets
Declassified records and journals to be released in coming decades will shed new light on pivotal 20th-century figures and events
- By Mark Strauss
- Smithsonian magazine, August 2010, Subscribe
With archives still to open, historians look to learn more about pivotal 20th-century figures and events. Central Press / Getty Images
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The past looks quite promising. Over the next several decades, governments and universities will shed new light on historic figures and events by opening long-sealed archives.
Take the Harvard University Archives, which, in 30 years, will unseal John F. Kennedy’s responses to questionnaires and psychological tests he was first given as an undergraduate. Robert Dallek, a historian and author of the JFK biography An Unfinished Life, speculates that the papers could reveal fresh insights into the 35th president’s character. “Did he have any focus on social issues as a young man?” Dallek wonders. “Or maybe there will be a picture of a very vacuous young man, preoccupied with his self-indulgences, because that was another side of him.”
Keeping in mind that history never ceases to be rewritten, here is a collection of must-know archives scheduled to open in coming decades:
2011: The State Department’s Office of the Historian expects to begin releasing volumes on Nixon and Ford administration foreign policy initiatives, including potentially new details on the energy crisis, NATO and the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
2019: The papers of the poet T. S. Eliot, who died in 1965, include 1,200 personal letters that have remained off-limits: his correspondence with Emily Hale, a girlfriend whom biographer Lyndall Gordon described as Eliot’s “muse.” In 1959, Hale bequeathed the letters to Princeton University.
2026: As chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986, Warren Burger presided over cases concerning abortion, capital punishment and the Watergate scandal. In 1996, the year after Burger died, his son, Wade, donated the justice’s personal papers—some two million documents—to the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, with the understanding they would be sealed for 30 years.
2027: The FBI spied on Martin Luther King Jr. in an unsuccessful effort to prove he had ties to Communist organizations. In 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy granted an FBI request to surreptitiously record King and his associates by tapping their phones and placing hidden microphones in their homes, hotel rooms and offices. A 1977 court order sealed transcripts of the surveillance tapes for 50 years.
2037: A decade ago, Oxford University’s Bodleian Library released ten boxes of documents pertaining to the 1936 abdication of Edward VIII so that he could marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson. But one collection of “sensitive documents” (Box 24) was to be withheld for 37 years. British news media speculate the documents include embarrassing revelations about the Queen Mother’s alleged support for negotiating peace with Nazi Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II.
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Related topics: World History Archives
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Comments (13)
is there any history of the 42nd ststion complemp sqd, that served wiith th 379th bomb group in kinbolton england during ww2 the eight air force thsnk you;
Posted by alton burchett on November 21,2010 | 06:54 PM
Now, if only we could get the governments to release documents without blacking out the incriminating evidence - then we'd REALLY learn something that'd be shocking!
Why, then, are these documents only to be released after anyone who might be mentioned in them will be dead? To protect the guilty, of course!
Posted by Glenn McGrew on November 2,2010 | 08:08 AM
Hi, does anyone have any info on the Hebrew artifact found at the Ohio mounds in the 1800s that has just been discovered in a box at the Smithsonian?
Posted by mary muncy on August 20,2010 | 06:36 PM
The length of time that some of these records are sealed seem extremely rediculous to me. 100 years? What could be so devastating to the American public that we,as free thinking citizen of the United States, can not deal with? Perhaps it is more the embarrassing truth's about persons of historical record. We are all human, no one is perfect and these selective restrictions on documents is not any different than the Nazi book-burnings. They burned these books to keep the truth from the people, so that they could control the masses, easier. Why does our government feel the need to control the citizens of the United States? This is exactly what is happening by restricting documents of historical importance.
Posted by Ruth Suite on August 5,2010 | 10:22 PM
The last records which are identified to be opened, the RCAF files on radar, are not actually closed until 1945. The Access to Information Act which governs access to records in the hands of the Canadian federal government has no provision to close information for a century. In fact, as someone who has worked with this legislation and with the military records held by Canada's national archives, Library and Archives Canada, I am sure that the records in question, which deal with the RAF No. 31 Radio School in Clinton Ontario (later RAF No 31 Radio Direction Finding School, and even later RCAF No. 5 Radio School) can be found on the Library and Archives Canada website (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/lac-bac/search-recherche/arch.php?Language=eng).
Posted by Daniel German on August 3,2010 | 04:21 PM
Irvin J.Weeks remembers there was a 1960 Republican campaign file folder labeled "Jackie Kennedy's clothing spending" found in President Nixon's papers but when it was opened it was empty.It may have been the basis for Nixon's "plain cloth coat" speech.Edmund Morris wrote in "Theodore Rex" that most of the letters about the Panama revolution of 1903 are missing from Theodore Roosevelt's papers and Secretary of State John Hay's papers.Irvin J. Weeks would like to get work as an archivist,jiweeks47@yahoo.com
Posted by Irvin J. Weeks on July 17,2010 | 04:18 PM
In response to James. I agree with you. It seems antidemocratic to hide issues that no longer have any impact on national security. Some of these archives appeared to be sealed for privacy issues, but many are sealed to hide embarrassing government mistakes. No transparency here.
Posted by John Sorrells on July 14,2010 | 06:17 PM
When do we get to peek at most of the dirty secrets of the Bush/Cheney administration? That's what I think the public should see now!
Posted by James Mach on July 14,2010 | 11:23 AM
Hi, does anyone know anything about a soldier who served in the RAF during WW2? His name is Frank William Gibson.
Here is the info I have:
P Man 4a (2) a
Bulding 248
HQ RAF Personnel and Training Command
RAF Innsworth
Gloucester
GL3 1EZ
Any information would be much appreciated. Thanks! maparfett@yahoo.com
Posted by Michelle on July 13,2010 | 06:58 AM
The State Department sized German records of Nazi dealings with Americans even as they were captured. Its said they can not be believed. Will they ever be un sealed?
Posted by DAN BROWN on July 12,2010 | 02:03 AM
Any further archives from USSR coming up for air?
Posted by rich wargo on July 7,2010 | 06:12 PM
At the time of the Warren Report following the assassination of President Kennedy, I recall there being documents that were ordered sealed for 75 years. Are these included in the article. If not, Why?
Posted by Edward Rockman on July 7,2010 | 01:33 PM
Great news! As a World War II "buff", I'm always interested in anything related to WWII. In 2045 I will be 99 years old - if still alive. It's now 65 years after the fact. Why can't they release this information NOW while somebody still cares about reading it ???
Posted by Frank Gibson on July 7,2010 | 01:10 PM