PROLOGUE THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00764R000400040016-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 3, 1998
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: January 1, 1971
• Content Type: REPORT

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PROLOGUE
THE
JOURNAL
OF THE
NATIONAL
ARCHIVES
Spring 1971 Volume 3 Number 1
Published Three Times Yearly-Spring, Fall,
Winter-by the National Archives and Records
Service of the General Services Administration.
Page
The Historian and the Federal Government: A Proposal for a
Government-Wide Historical Office. By Louis Morton
3
Comments on "The Historian and the Federal Government."
By Herman Kahn
12
New Approaches to the Study of the Administration of Indian Policy.
By Francis Paul Prucha
15
Our Heritage in Letters-The Timber Is Mine.
By Robert M. Kvasnicka
20
Documentation of Machine Readable Records and Research:
A Historian's View. By Charles M. Dollar
27
News and Notices
32
Publications of the National Archives and Records Service
35
Accessions
40
Book' Notes
58
Contributors
63
The Archivist's Calendar
64
Picture credits: Unless otherwise noted photographs are from the National Archives and Records Service.
Cover design: An adaptation of the National Archives emblem by Antoinette Dibrell.
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THE HISTORIAN AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT :
A PROPOSAL FOR A GOVERNMENT-WIDE
HISTORICAL OFFICE
LOUIS MORTON
Almost since its inception, the federal
government has supported the publica-
tion of historical works related first to
its founding and later to its subsequent
activities and relations with other na-
tions. Imbued with a sense of history
and aware that they were embarked on
a great adventure in government, mem-
bers of the early Congress authorized
the printing of The Journals of the
Continental Congress. In 1818 the gov-
ernment printed The Journal of the
Constitutional Convention and two
years later The Secret Journals of the
Continental Congress, followed in 1832
by the Diplomatic Correspondence pre-
pared by the State Department.'
During the next few years, the federal
government took a new approach to the
publication of historical sources. Instead
of having the work done directly by the
government, it used the same method
employed in the purchase of other goods
and services-by contracting out for the
work. In 1832 it contracted with. Gales
and Seaton, publishers of the Annals of
' For a detailed description of the history and
organization of the historical programs of the
various agencies of the federal government, see
Walter Rundcll, Jr., "Uncle Sam the Historian:
Federal Historical Activities," The Historian
33 (November 1970) : 1-20. The author has
drawn heavily in the survey that follows on
this excellent summary as well as his own per.
sonal knowledge and interviews with partici-
pants in these programs.
Congress, and with Matthew St. Clair
Clarke and Peter Force for two separate
series of documents. The first, com-
pleted in 1861, resulted in the American
State Papers in thirty-eight volumes; the
second, completed in 1853, in the nine-
volume Documentary History of the
American Revolution, popularly known
as Force's American Archives. The For-
eign Relations series was inaugurated in
1861, the year the American State Pa-
pers was completed, and has been pub-
lished continuously since. Other major
collections of documents published by
the federal government include James
D. Richardson's Messages and Papers of
the Presidents and The Official Records
of the War of The Rebellion, the larg-
est and most expensive documentary
collection published up to that time.
When completed it numbered 128 vol-
umes (not counting the thirty naval vol-
umes) and cost almost three million
dollars. The Territorial Papers of the
United States was begun in 1931, first
under the aegis of the State Department
and later of the National Archives. By
1971 the Territorial Papers consisted of
twenty-seven volumes, with another
scheduled to appear in the near future.
The federal government has also sup-
ported in whole or in part the publica-
tion-of the papers of the Founding Fa-
thers and of some of the most important
figures in the nation's history. This
program began in 1840 with the publi-
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cation of James Madison's papers, a new
edition appearing after the Civil War.
The papers of Adams, Jefferson, and
Hamilton followed shortly after. Be-
tween 1931 and 1944, thirty-nine vol-
umes of Washington's papers edited by
John C. Fitzpatrick were published. An-
other edition including incoming letters
is now in preparation by the University
of Virginia with the assistance of the
National Historical Publications Com-
mission, a part of the National Archives
and Records Service. The commission
has also provided guidance and financial
support from public and private funds
for editing the papers of many of the
great figures in American history-Ad-
ams, Jefferson, Webster, Calhoun, Clay,
and others. More recently, the commis-
sion has supported the microfilming of
major collections of documents, which,
like the Library of Congress microfilms
of presidential papers, are available to
scholars everywhere on interlibrary
loan.
Until fairly recently, virtually all his-
torical works published or sponsored by
the federal government consisted of doc-
umentary collections. The publication
of documents and other source materials
rather than narrative histories raised
few problems for government officials.
Documents that were restricted or confi-
dential in nature could easily be ex-
cluded and each reader could draw
whatever conclusion he wished from the
published documents. Editorial com-
ment could be kept to a minimum; and,
allowing for a sufficient period of time
between preparation and publication of
the documents, little harm could be
done by making them available. On the
other hand, sponsorship of critical nar-
rative histories by the federal govern-
ment raised a host of thorny problems.2
'Louis Morton, "The Writing of Official
History," Army 11 (May 1961) : 38-39; Martin
Blumenson, "Can Official History Be Honest
History?" Military Affairs 26 (Winter 1962-63) :
153-161.
`r-
Could historians working for a govern-
ment agency or under contract to the
government write objective history?
Would they have access to all the rec-
ords? Would other historians have
equal access so that they could check the
work or disagree with the interpreta-
tion? For what audience should govern-
ment history be written-for officials
within the government or for the pub-
lic? Who would pass on the qualifications
of the authors to write history? Who
would review the finished manuscript
and pass on its publication? Should gov-
ernment history be anonymous, like
most government publications, or
should authorship be credited? If so,
does responsibility for the contents rest
with the individual author or with the
agency? These and other considerations
prompted Secretary of War Newton D.
Baker to veto the proposal for a narra-
tive history of American forces in
World War I.
The bar to critical narrative history
written under government sponsorship
was broken by Franklin Roosevelt dur-
ing the early years of the Second World
War when he directed that "an accurate
and objective account" of the war be
prepared. The military services, which
were most directly involved and already
had historical offices, responded by
organizing historical programs staffed by
professional historians in uniform to
write a narrative history of the war.
Those government agencies that did not
already have historical offices followed
suit, though not all elected to prepare
narrative history. The results achieved
by these World War II historical pro-
grams, though spotty, warranted their
continuation after the war and the es-
tablishment of additional programs
when new agencies were created. At the
present time, nine of the twelve execu-
tive departments and four independent
agencies maintain historical programs of
some sort.
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It would be tedious and quite unnec-
essary for our purpose to describe each
of these programs in detail. Largest,
most varied, and perhaps the best
known of the government programs are
those of the Department of Defense,
which include historical offices with the
secretary of defense, the joint Chiefs of
Staff, the army, navy, air force, and ma-
rines, as well as the major commands of
the services in the United States and
overseas.
Each of the historical sections of the
military services has published narrative
histories of its participation in World
War II and Korea, some of which is of
high professional caliber, and continues
to publish histories of past and present
operations. In addition, they perform a
variety of other services for the staff,
some of which is only distantly related
to.history. Neither the office of the sec-
retary of defense nor the joint Chiefs of
Staff publish histories, though the histo-
rians of the joint chiefs do write narra-
tive histories. These manuscripts are
highly classified, however, and their use
is restricted to authorized personnel.
The histories of World War II
proved that historians working under
official sponsorship and even under di-
rect military control could produce
objective narrative history equal to the
best efforts of academic historians.3 Per-
haps the best of these is the U.S. Army
in World War II. This series, produced
under the editorship first of Kent Rob-
erts Greenfield and more recently of
Stetson Conn and Maurice Matloff, is
based on primary sources and maintains
a high level of historical scholarship.
Numbering now almost seventy vol-
umes, the series includes studies of stra-
tegic planning, logistics, manpower, and
Louis Morton, Writings on World War II,
American Historical Association, Service Center
for Teachers of History Publication no. 66
(Washington, 1967) ; Morton, "Sources for the
History of World War II," World Politics 18
(April 1961).
combat in all theaters. For the student
of the Second World War it constitutes
an absolutely essential source. The air
force series, issued separately though the
air force was part of the army during
the war, comprises seven volumes pub-
lished under the editorship of Wesley
Frank Craven and. James Lea Cate by
the University of Chicago Press. Like
the army series, it was prepared almost
entirely by professional historians who
had received their military experience
during the war and elected to continue
their work after the war.
The navy took a somewhat different
tack in preparing its history of World
War II. An administrative history, writ-
ten by professional naval officers under
the supervision of the Naval History Di-
vision, was published by the Govern-
ment Printing Office, but the widely
read fifteen-volume History of U.S.
Naval Operations during the war was
the work of Samuel Eliot Morison writ-
ten under contract with a commercial
publisher but with full access to the
navy's records and support from the
Naval History Division.
Nothing comparable to the World
War II histories, either in quality or
quantity, resulted from the war in
Korea, although each of the military
services by now had a large and experi-
enced historical staff. The navy and the
air force each published a volume on
the war, the former under a contract
with James A. Field. The army has four
volumes planned for Korea, only two of
which have been published so far. Each
of the services including the marines has
published other materials intended for
internal use. None has yet published a
history of the war in Vietnam, but the
army has unveiled plans for an ambi-
tious eight-volume operational series,
and the other services have plans of
their own.
Second only to the Defense Depart-
ment's historical program in terms of
manpower and publications is that of
HISTORICAL OFFICE 5
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the State Department. Its major activity
continues''. to be the documentary For-
eign Relations series, an indispensable
source for all students of American for-
eign policy.' The series is up to date
through 1945, but with the increased
role of the United States in world affairs
after World War II and the multiplica-
tion of records and functions of the
State Department, it is becoming in-
creasingly difficult to keep the series cur-
rent. This problem is a matter of seri-
ous concern for historians since State
Department archives are open for re-
search, subject to permission, through
those years covered by the series, that is,
up to 1945. Records more recent than
that year remain closed.
Other executive departments that
maintain historical offices arc the De-
partments of Agriculture, Interior,
Health, Education and Welfare, Labor,
and Transportation. The first has had a
historical program under, a different
name since the 1920s and has published
several works of importance for agricul-
tural historians-a Bibliography of the
History of Agriculture in the United
States, a history of the Department of
Agriculture, and other works. More re-
cently, its duties have been expanded to
include the publication of bulletins,
staff studies for the secretary, and other
materials. It serves also as the secretariat
for the Agricultural Historical Society.
Interior's historical activity is confined
to the National Park Service, which not
only publishes handbooks familiar to
the thousands of visitors to the various
historical and battlefield sites, but also a
more scholarly series dealing with his-
torical places and themes such as Indian
affairs. Established more recently are the
historical offices in the Departments of
Labor, Transportation, and HEW,
which have published little thus far.
Historians in these agencies seem to be
concerned mostly with records, bibliog-
raphy, oral history, and with providing
information and background studies for
their superiors.
Of the independent agencies, two
have developed substantial historical pro-
grams: the Atomic Energy Commission
and the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration. The first, with a
very small staff headed by Richard Hew-
lett, has concentrated on writing a full-
scale narrative history of the agency,
two volumes of which have appeared so
far, both published by a university
press. The first of these, The New
World, is one of the best histories pro-
duced in any government historical
office; the second volume has only just
appeared. The NASA historical office, es-
tablished in 1959, has published a series
of detailed chronologies on space and
several historical volumes written under
contract with private scholars. The most
recent of these is Constance Green's his-
tory of the Vanguard project.
In addition to these historical pro-
grams and published histories, the fed-
eral government supports in one way or
another a variety of activities of interest
to historians. Certainly the activities and
programs of the National Archives and
Records Service and Library of Congress
are of vital concern to all A
i
hi
-
mer
can
s
' Richard W. Leopold, "The Foreign R.ela- torians. But these two agencies do more
tions Series: A Centennial Estimate," Missis-
sippi Valley Historical Review 44 (March than collect and' maintain original
1963) : 595-612. sources; they prepare inventories of
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their holdings, calendars of papers, find-
ing aids to specific collections, and elab-
orate guides, such as those relating to
the Civil War and World War II.? Since
1951 the National Archives through its
National Historical Publications Com-
mission has been publishing the Writ-
ings on American History-a task it will
soon discontinue. The National Ar-
chives also conducts conferences on
topics. of interest to historians, main-
tains a publishing program of its own,
and publishes the journal Prologue.
The presidential libraries, which are
also under the National Archives, have
their own publication programs. The re-
cent three-volume Franklin D. Roose-
velt and Foreign Affairs, a collection of
documents edited by Edgar Nixon and
published by the Harvard University
Press, is an example. The publication of
these documents by Harvard has be-
come the focus of a controversy as a re-
stilt of charges made by Francis L. Loe-
wenheim of Rice University.,'
The Library of Congress, especially
its Manuscript Division, also prepares
finding aids and guides, including the
multivolume National Union Catalog of
Manuscript Collections. In addition, the
library maintained a center for the coor-
dination of foreign manuscript copying
and publishes a Quarterly Journal that
contains articles of interest to many his-
torians.
The Smithsonian Institution, devoted
primarily to science and technology, of-
fers the historian documentation of a
different kind, a rich and varied collec-
tion of physical, nonliterary sources of
the American past. Though it maintains
perhaps the most popular tourist attrac-
? II. G. Jones, Records of a.Nation (New
York, 1968).
Sec the Final Report of the Joint AHA-
OAH Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate the
Charges against the Franklin D. Roosevelt
Library and Related Matters, Aug. 24, 1970,
and "A Statement in Rebuttal" by Francis L.
Loewenheim, Dec. 12, 1970.
Lion in Washington, the Smithsonian's
first duty is the advancement of knowl-
edge and for this purpose it has a corps
of resident scholars. During the past few
years, the Smithsonian has paid increas-
ing attention to history and expanded
its activities in fields of interest to histo-
rians, including an American studies
program. Recently it has added to its
staff Daniel J. Boorstin of Chicago. It
has even offered grants and other forms
of financial assistance to historians, a
practice made possible by the fact that
under its charter it is partly a private
institution with its own board of re-
gents. In 1966 it began publication of
the Smithsonian Journal of History, but
the venture did not prosper and has
since been discontinued. It has also es-
tablished its own press and now pub-
lishes pamphlets on a variety of topics as
well as books.
This brief survey of the federal gov-
ernment's support of historical activities
hardly does justice to the variety and
complexity of government history pro-
grams or the variety of tasks performed
by government historians. If nothing
else, it makes clear the commitment of
the federal government to history and
the importance to the historical profes-
sion of ensuring the continuation of
these programs while seeking to main-
tain and raise the quality of historical
work produced in these programs.
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Closely related to this matter of qual-
ity is personnel. The problem for all
historical agencies in the government is
to find qualified historians who are will-
ing to leave academic life for govern-
ment employment. And even if they do
find qualified historians, it is not always
possible to hire them under civil service
regulations. Aside from the question of
numbers-and we do not really know
how many "historians" are employed by
the federal government-there is the
question of nomenclature. It is not at
all clear that all those whom the Civil
Service Commission classifies as histori-
ans would be so regarded by their aca-
demic brethren. Moreover, some govern-
ment historians write for internal
consumption rather than the public on
the theory that the expenditure of public
funds is only justified if it contributes
to the performance of the agency's func-
tion. And if the work is classified, it can-
not be judged by other historians. Such
an arrangement is hardly calculated to
attract high caliber professionals whose
reputation and mobility rest on the
judgment of their peers. It means, fur-
ther, that historians in the government
can be and are assigned all sorts of tasks,
useful to the agency perhaps but which
bear little relationship to history. It is
true that some of the agencies that
maintain historical offices have advisory
committees consisting of outside schol-
ars, but these meet once or at most
twice a year, usually for one day, and
8 PROLOGUE-SPRING 1971
they can have little or no effect on day.
to-day operations. Finally, there is the
problem of security and access. This is
not a simple problem, nor is it confined
to the military services. Census data since
1890 are barred to outsiders, and so are
recent records of the State Department.
The U.S. government has no single rule
on access such as a thirty-year rule; each
department and agency makes its own
rules and in some instances even con-
gressional records are not open.
There is no ' doubt that much, if not
most, of what is now closed to private
scholars could be made available with-
out any damage whatever to national in-
terests or to individuals. But in the mass
of classified material there are undoubt-
edly many documents, perhaps ten
percent, whose disclosure would violate
individual rights, reveal vital informa.
tion to a potential enemy, or inhibit the
effective exchange of confidential and
private communications between gov-
ernment officials. How to identify and
separate this ten percent from the rest is
the nub of the problem and no one has
yet found the answer, though a number
of proposals have been made.7 To sepa-
rate the sensitive material, considering
the bulk of the records, would be a
vastly expensive and time-consuming op-
eration; to open all records twenty or
thirty years old is risky. And the tend-
ency of bureaucrats always is to play it
safe.
The major impression one is left with
after surveying the government's histori-
cal programs is the diversity and une-
venness of historical activity in Wash-
ington. As academicians we are
accustomed to finding historians assem-
bled in one place on a campus-a his-
tory department, usually in a division of
'See Ernest R. May, "A Case for 'Court His.
torians,' " Charles Warren Center for Studies
in American History, Perspectives in American
History 3 (1969) : 413-432; Herbert Feis, "The
Shackled Historian," Foreign Affairs, January
1967, pp. 332-343.
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the social sciences or the humanities.
Within the government, however, we
find historians organized in a variety of
ways and allied with activities and func-
tions unrelated to what we regard as the
work of the historian-with public rela-
tions, intelligence, and records. In some
agencies, historians work near the top of
the bureaucratic hierarchy; while they
profit from this access to the source of
power, they are also most exposed in
time of crisis. In other agencies, histori-
ans are placed in the very bowels of the
bureaucracy, safe from interference but
far removed from the action.
We are accustomed also, as academi-
cians, to finding historians performing
simultaneously two tasks-teaching and
research-unless they are unfortunate
enough, as so many are, to be called to
administration. But government histori-
ans, while they perform many adminis-
trative chores, do not teach, though per-
haps it would be well if they could
occasionally give a lesson in history to
policymakers. And not all of them do
research or write history. In fact, a great
many do not function as historians at
all. What do they do then? They keep
records or assure that proper records are
made and preserved, prepare reports for
their superiors, provide information for
the staff and the public, write speeches,
prepare background studies for internal
use, and perform a number of other
service functions. On occasion, histori-
ans may serve in a staff or operating ca-
pacity as intelligence or policy analysts,
as they do in the Central Intelligence
Agency and the State Department.
Historians may even serve in policy-
making roles, though it must be admit-
ted that the number who have done so
is very small. It is not at all clear, as a
matter of fact, that the historian has
anything unique to contribute to the so-
lution of current problems, or that he
possesses any special qualifications not
possessed by others for the analysis of
policy and the making of decisions.
Moreover, it is doubtful whether the
historian in his professional capacity
should concern himself with current
policy issues. After all, how contempo-
rary can the historian be and still retain
the perspective and objectivity on which
he prides himself-assuming that the
records he needs are available to him? 8
Even when historians function in
their professional capacity in govern-
ment agencies, they may perform quite
different tasks. Some may be utilized es-
sentially as editors of documents-the
oldest type of historical activity by the
government and one that perhaps has
greater validity for a government agency
than narrative or interpretive history.
And even those who write narrative his-
tories for a government agency do not
always pursue their work in quite the
same way historians usually do. Ordinar-
ily, historians work at a slow pace com-
pared to the schedules of government
activity, which are established on a
weekly or monthly basis. They may
work for months or longer with nothing
to show but notes. To say the least, this
can be terribly frustrating to their ad-
ministrative superiors, who may insist
on written drafts at regular periods.
8 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., "The Historian
and History," Foreign Affairs, April 1963, pp.
491-497; Louis Morton, "The Cold War and
American Scholarship," in The Historian and
the Diplomat, ed. Francis L. Loewenheim (New
York, 1967), pp. 123-169.
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Also, most of us write with the hope of
publication and ultimately of judgment
by our peers through reviews in learned
journals. This is the way ordinarily that
quality is insured and objectivity tested.
But much of the history written for the
government-how much we do not
know-is never tested in this way sim-
ply because it is never published, not
for lack of a publisher but because it is
regarded as a document for internal use
rather than to inform the public. How
can we judge such work and who profits
from it? And some histories, such as
those written for the joint Chiefs of
Staff, are so highly classified that they
are, in effect, written for the files. So far
as we know, literally no one except a
handful of officers can read them.
The histories that are ultimately pub-
lished vary greatly in scope and quality.
Some of it is very good, meeting in all
respects the standards of the profession;
some indifferent and inferior. They
range in size from a single volume cov-
ering the activities of an entire depart-
ment over a significant time span to mul-
tivolume series covering in the greatest
detail the operations of a single office.
Sheer bulk is no guarantee of complete-
ness and often the most important activ-
ities of a department or agency, those
that would most interest the public,
may not be treated at all. Nowhere in
this vast array of historical activity is
there any sign of a single directing intel-
ligence, any evidence of a plan to pro-
duce an integrated history of the whole
or to insure that essential matters are
covered.
The proposed history of the war in
Vietnam by the military services is a
case in point. Each of the services has
ambitious plans for a history of its oper-
ations and presumably the historians of
the joint Chiefs of Staff will write their
own history which none of us will see.
But there will be no overall history on
the Defense Department level and, more
importantly, none that will treat those
aspects of the war that are of greatest in-
terest to the public. Such a history
could only be written at the White
House level, or perhaps within the Ex-
ecutive Office, with access to the files of
the National Security Council, State,
Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA,
and other agencies of the government.
How do we secure such history? How
do we assure that important policies and
activities of the government are not neg.
lected or overlooked, that when new
agencies or offices are established a histo-
rian is present to record its birth and to
watch its painful growth? How do we
eliminate duplication of effort? How do
we make sure that historians are utilized
properly and not as speech writers or
reference librarians or public relations
officers, that they are given professional
status and adequate compensation?
What measures must we take to guaran-
tee the quality, accuracy, and objectivity
of the history written? What can we do
to open the records while safeguarding
national interests and individual rights,
to ensure that all private scholars are
treated equally in government archives?
There are no easy answers to these
questions and I do not pretend to have
any. But I do have a suggestion. The
greatest weakness, it seems to me, is the
lack of a single, coordinating body, a his-
torical office on a high enough level to
cut through departmental bureaucracy
and to establish government-wide pol-
icy. The creation of such an office,
headed by a distinguished (perhaps
emeritus) historian, in the Executive
Office of the President or the Office of
Management and Budget would do
much to meet some of the problems. It
need not be a large office; perhaps three
or four people-an assistant and one or
two secretarial aides. It would have no
responsibility for writing history-only
insuring that it is written. It would
not review the work of historians, but
would see to it that review procedures
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were established and that such review
would not be a cloak for censorship. It
would attempt to secure quality in the
only way that it can be obtained: first,
by finding the best historians possible
for the federal government; second, by
creating the conditions necessary for re-
search and writing and protecting histo-
rians from interference; and, finally, by
assuring open publication with author-
ship credit so that historians can be
judged by their peers.
One man cannot do all this alone, but
properly placed in the hierarchy he can
do much. His directives concerning gen-
eral policies would come from the high-
est level, backed by the authority of the
Executive Office. If necessary, these
directives could be followed by personal
visits. Freedom to deal directly through
professional channels with historians in
all departments and on every level
would have to be established. If this
were done, information could flow
freely both ways.
A historian on the level of the Execu-
tive Office would be a powerful voice
for the profession, in and out of govern-
ment. He would provide historians with
direct access to the White House, and
perhaps even to the president himself,
much as the scientists and economists
have been able to do through the Office
of the Scientific Adviser and the Coun-
cil of Economic Advisers. Such an ar-
rangement would undoubtedly raise the
prestige of historians everywhere in the
government and make government em-
ployment more attractive for historians
than it now is.
There are many other services a histo-
rian in the Executive Office might per-
form for the profession. He could serve
as a link between professional historical
organizations and the government. Pre-
sumably his relations with the executive
secretary of the American Historical As-
sociation would be close, and one would
expect that the two would work ' to-
gether frequently on a number of
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matters. He could deal with the Civil
Service Commission on the problem of
attracting qualified historians into the
federal service, with the National Ar-
chives, the Library of Congress, and the
Smithsonian Institution. One can imag-
ine also that he might very well be help-
ful in dealing with the Congress on mat-
ters of appropriations, and with such
departments as HEW in matters of
teacher training, research, and educa-
tional programs. He could also repre-
sent the historians' interest on matters
of security, access to records, declassifica-
tion, and publications policies before
the appropriate government agencies.
Perhaps he could even urge on the pres-
ident or his close advisers the advan-
tages of a historical office on the NSC or
cabinet level to prepare the kind of
overarching history we need of such
major national efforts as the war in
Vietnam, civil rights, and the war on
poverty.
I have no illusions about the difficul-
ties of establishing a coordinating his-
torial office on so high a level. Every
agency from the Executive Office down
could think of a dozen reasons why it
should not be done, and I doubt very
much that the idea would be greeted
with enthusiasm by existing historical
offices. Historians in a bureaucracy react
much the same as other bureaucrats.
Nor would I minimize the difficulties
facing anyone taking on the task of co-
ordinating the various government his-
torical programs. He would meet oppo-
sition in all quarters, even from his
fellow historians; he would encounter
bureaucratic hurdles that might well
throw him; he would have to hack his
way through a jungle of rules and regu-
lations. But if he had behind him the
support and prestige of the historical
profession he might accomplish a great
deal. In view of the stake historians
have in the historical activities of the
federal government, the effort is cer-
tainly worth making.
HISTORICAL OFFICE 11
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COMMENTS ON "THE HISTORIAN AND THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT"
HERMAN KAHN
Professor Louis Morton has unique
qualifications for writing this stimulat-
ing article, which has all the qualities
one would expect from a distinguished
scholar who has spent many years as
both a government and an academic his-
torian. He has put the whole subject of
the relationship of the historian to the
federal government into sharp focus by
summarizing the available information
and by asking the right questions.
The first part of his paper is a careful
survey of the historical activities of the
federal government from its earliest
days. For those who bemoan what they
believe to be the undue recent expan-
sion of federal activities, Morton's arti-
cle is a useful reminder that during
most of the nineteenth century our gov-
ernment was far more active in docu-
mentary publication than during the
first half of the twentieth century. Only
recently, with activation of the National
Historical Publications Commission
about twenty years ago, has the federal
government again begun to assume its
former role in historical publication.
My comments will be confined to
Morton's view of the present relation-
ship of the historian to the federal gov-
ernment. Implicit in his entire discus-
sion is the concept, almost universal
today among American academic histori-
ans, that one can truly function as a his-
torian only when standing before a
class, conducting a seminar, or engaging
in research that will lead to a published
monograph. From this special definition
of "historian" and this limited view of
his proper career arise some of the ques-
tions that trouble Morton about the his-
torian in government. He says, for in-
stance: "The problem for all historical
agencies in the government is to find
qualified historians who are willing to
leave academic life for government em-
ployment." Morton clearly implies that
all qualified historians are in academic
life. Yet many able history graduate Stu-
dents would be willing to serve in gov-
ernment but for the fear-and Morton's
paper reinforces that fear-that their
peers will not regard them as true histo.
rians if they choose a career outside the
academic community. This point is
borne out by Morton's statement that
"high caliber professionals" are not
likely to enter government because their
"reputation and mobility rest on the
judgment of their peers," which assumes
that no historian can gain permanent
career satisfaction except in academic
work. This assumption is further dem-
onstrated by the statement that "histori-
ans in the government can be and are
assigned all sorts of tasks, useful to the
agency perhaps but which bear little re-
lationship to history," which is a reflec-
tion of the academic belief that activi-
ties other than teaching, research, or
writing "bear little relationship to his-
tory."
Here lies the crux of the problem of
recruiting historians for the federal gov-
ernment, archival agencies, and docu-
mentary publications projects. By the
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time they finish their graduate training,
most history students have acquired the
mind-set of their teachers and advisers
and believe they cannot be true histori-
ans outside an academic environment. If
they do not already unconsciously ac-
cept this assumption, it is made vividly
clear to them when they begin thinking
about permanent employment. Nor-
mally, the faculty does not even suggest
to better students the possibility of non-
academic careers. During the present
employment crisis, however, a student
may be advised to accept temporary gov-
ernment employment if lie cannot possi-
bly find a teaching position. He is not
told that a historian may make a free
and voluntary choice from among a
number of careers. He is not told that
employment in government service, ar-
chival work, documentary editing, mu-
seum work, or historic sites adminis-
tration are equally acceptable with
teaching, and that he should follow his
own tastes and inclinations. Rather, he
is given the overwhelming impression
that the only truly acceptable occupa-
tion for a historian is college teaching;
another job is only a temporary expedi-
ent "until the market opens up." Given
this approach by faculty advisers, it is
not hard to understand why nonaca-
demic historical activities do not easily
recruit able persons, although there is
plenty of evidence to suggest that many
talented young historians would prefer
not to go into academic work and only
do so because of the open and obvious
distaste of their faculty advisers for any
kind of historical activity other than col-
lege teaching and research. In fact, as
Morton's paper shows, in academic cir-
cles nonacademic historical work is
usually not regarded as true historical
employment.
Those who worry about the difficulty
experienced by nonacademic historical
activities in recruiting able personnel
must face the fact that there is only one
solution to the problem. The historical
profession must be persuaded that its
members who prepare historical analyses
of federal policies and problems for gov-
ernmental use, administer masses of his-
torical source materials, edit collections
of historical documents for publication,
or interpret historic sites and museum
collections are in fact functioning as his-
torians. Unless the profession can be
brought to agree that there are many ac-
ceptable occupations for true historians,
none of which is inherently superior to
the others, young men and women who
have decided to be historians will con-
tinue to believe that they cannot choose
any except an academic career without
forfeiting the esteem of their teachers
and fellow students.
That it is not impossible to persuade
a learned profession of the validity and
worth of the work of its nonacademic
practitioners is shown by the experience
of economists, political scientists, statisti-
cians, and physical scientists in the last
generation. We must continue to hope
that the view which the historical pro-
fession takes of its proper role and func-
tions can be broadened.
Morton rightly emphasizes the impor-
tance and complexity of the problem of
restrictions on access to governmental
records. The first step in untying this
enormously complicated knot is to keep
clearly in mind the important differ-
ences between the separate categories of
restricted papers, because there must be
a different approach in resolving the dif-
ficulties in each of these categories. This
Morton does not do. His discussion
treats as a unit documents which are re-
stricted by Executive Order 10501 be-
cause of alleged reasons of national secu-
rity; are closed for various reasons by
acts of Congress; or are restricted by the
agencies that created them because of
reasons of privacy, ordinary standards of
propriety, or "executive privilege." He
speaks of the "mass of classified mate-
rial" but includes in this class papers
COMMENTS 13
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,moo, %w
"whose disclosure would violate individ-
ual rights." It confuses the issue to
speak of materials whose disclosure
would be a violation of individual
rights as "classified materials," a phrase
more properly used to designate security-
classified documents. Morton also fails
to mention the important effect on this
problem of the Freedom of Information
Act of 1966 and the fifty-year provision
of the Federal Records Act.
Before substantial improvement can
be made, these matters must be given
close analysis by persons outside the fed-
eral government acting in the spirit of
an informed and not unfriendly "con-
sumerism." Recently an eminent histo-
rian discussed this whole problem at
some length in the pages of the New
York Times Book Review, but did not
even mention Executive Order 10501
and the large number of agency security
officers who individually and unilater-
ally administer and interpret that order.
This is a prime example of a discussion
of Hamlet with no mention of the
prince of Denmark. Grease is of no help
unless it is applied to the wheel that
squeaks.
The historical profession has never
really organized to make its weight and
influence felt in reaching rational solu-
tions to restrictions problems. Most his-
torians approach this matter from the
position of wishing to gain special or
privileged access for themselves to mate-
rial that is closed to others. To one
longtime observer, at least, it seems that
if all that individual energy and influ-
ence had been combined and wielded as
one tool by the profession acting in uni-
son the problem would be much closer
to solution.
Morton has made the interesting sug-
gestion that a central directing or coor-
dinating office be set up to oversee all
historical activity in the executive
branch. This proposal has been infor-
mally advanced at least once before
(during the Kennedy administration).
The idea was confidentially commented
on and kicked about in various histori-
cal offices in Washington at that time,
but it came to nothing chiefly for the
reasons so cogently summarized by Mor.
ton, who has not exaggerated the diffi-
culties that would be encountered in es-
tablishing such an office.
The president could more easily
designate one of his White House assist-
ants to coordinate historical affairs in the
executive branch. This would be in har-
mony with the pattern that has been de-
veloping in the White I-louse Office for
overseeing policy when related functions
are carried on in several agencies of the
executive branch. It would not now re-
quire new personnel, funds, and admin.
istrative orders. It would add prestige to
the government's historical activities
and would strengthen the position of
government historians in their relation-
ships with their nonhistorical colleagues
in their own agencies. As a beginning,
the White House staff member assigned
to this task could at least require a
monthly meeting of responsible heads of
historical activities in all agencies. At
such meetings they could exchange in-
formation and ideas and devise methods
of working together on the personnel
and access problems discussed in Mor-
ton's paper. At present there is distress-
ingly little exchange of information and
ideas among historical personnel in
Washington, and there is no doubt that
each would benefit greatly from a better
knowledge of what other government
historians are doing. If this kind of reg-
ular meeting, presided over by a mem-
ber of the president's staff who had
some historical training, could be insti-
tutionalized and made a permanent fea-
ture of the activities of the White
House Office it might eventually de-
velop into the coordinating office that
Morton envisages. It would be much
easier to begin in this way and it would
at least be a beginning.
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CONTRIBUTORS
The Reverend Francis Paul
Prucha, S.J., is professor of
history at Marquette University.
He received a B.S. degree from
Wisconsin State College at River
Falls, an M.A. from the Univer-
sity of Minnesota, and a Ph.D.
from Harvard University. His
research interests have been
the western military frontier
and United States Indian
policy. Among his publications
are Broadax and Bayonet,
American Indian Policy in the
Formative Years, and The
Sword of the Republic.
Louis Morton, chairman of
the history department at Dart-
mouth College, is a specialist
in military history currently en-
gaged in a comparative study
of coalition warfare. Ile holds
B.A. and M.A. degrees from
New York University and his
Ph.D. from Duke University.
During World War II he served
with the U.S. Army in the Pa-
cific, becoming deputy chief
historian, Department of the
Army. In this position he wrote
The Fall of the Philippines and
Strategy and Command: The
First Two Years and supervised
the preparation of ten other
volumes for the army series on
World War II. lie is the author
of Robert Carter of Nomini
Hall: A Virginia Tobacco
Planter of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury, Writings on World War
II, and numerous articles. He
is also general editor of, the
Wars of the United States se-
ries currently in preparation by
Macmillan.
Herman Kahn received his
B.A. and M.A. degrees from the
University of Minnesota. After
teaching for a short time, he
began government service in
1934. He has had a distin-
guished archival career, holding
various positions with the Na-
tional Archives and Records
Service, including director of
the Franklin D. Roosevelt Li-
brary and assistant archivist for
presidential libraries. He is cur-
rently associate librarian for
manuscripts and archives at
Yale University. A recipient of
the General Services Adminis-
tration's Distinguished Service
Award, he was president of the
Society of American Archivists,
1969-70.
CONTRIBUTORS 63
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