Vanishing archives

Documents wind up missing from public archives for many reasons. Sometimes they’re shelved or labeled incorrectly, or lost, and sometimes they’re even stolen. But at the U.S. National Archives, documents have been disappearing since 1999 because intelligence officials have wanted them to. And under the terms of two disturbing agreements - with the CIA in 2001 and by the Air Force in 2002 - the National Archives has been allowing officials to reclassify declassified documents, which means removing them from the public eye. So far 55,000 pages, some of them from the 1950s, have vanished. This not only violates the mission of the National Archives; it is also antithetical to the natural flow of information in an open society. As time passes, the need for secrecy, which should always adhere to a very strict standard, usually diminishes. Apparently the CIA wants to turn back the hands of time.

The new director of the National Archives, Allen Weinstein, rightly put a stop to this nonsense as soon as he heard about it. But he will need to do more than just abrogate these suspect agreements with the CIA and the Air Force. He will need to figure out how they came about in the first place. The former director, John Carlin, has said he knows nothing about them. They appear to have been signed only by the assistant archivist.

What makes this all seem preposterous is that the agreements themselves prohibit the National Archives from revealing why the documents were removed. They are apparently secret enough that no one can be told why they are secret - so secret, in fact, that the arrangement to reclassify them is also secret. According to the agreement with the CIA, employees of the National Archives are also prohibited from telling anyone that the CIA was responsible for removing reclassified documents.

It’s hard for us to imagine why a declassified document from the 1950s - one that has perhaps been read and referenced by many scholars - should suddenly be deemed too sensitive for public access. Unfortunately, given the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, it’s all too easy for us to imagine why that may be true of more recent documents. It’s worth remembering, after all, that the contents of the National Archives represent the raw materials of history.

Documents wind up missing from public archives for many reasons. Sometimes they’re shelved or labeled incorrectly, or lost, and sometimes they’re even stolen. But at the U.S. National Archives, documents have been disappearing since 1999 because intelligence officials have wanted them to. And under the terms of two disturbing agreements - with the CIA in 2001 and by the Air Force in 2002 - the National Archives has been allowing officials to reclassify declassified documents, which means removing them from the public eye. So far 55,000 pages, some of them from the 1950s, have vanished. This not only violates the mission of the National Archives; it is also antithetical to the natural flow of information in an open society. As time passes, the need for secrecy, which should always adhere to a very strict standard, usually diminishes. Apparently the CIA wants to turn back the hands of time.

The new director of the National Archives, Allen Weinstein, rightly put a stop to this nonsense as soon as he heard about it. But he will need to do more than just abrogate these suspect agreements with the CIA and the Air Force. He will need to figure out how they came about in the first place. The former director, John Carlin, has said he knows nothing about them. They appear to have been signed only by the assistant archivist.

What makes this all seem preposterous is that the agreements themselves prohibit the National Archives from revealing why the documents were removed. They are apparently secret enough that no one can be told why they are secret - so secret, in fact, that the arrangement to reclassify them is also secret. According to the agreement with the CIA, employees of the National Archives are also prohibited from telling anyone that the CIA was responsible for removing reclassified documents.

It’s hard for us to imagine why a declassified document from the 1950s - one that has perhaps been read and referenced by many scholars - should suddenly be deemed too sensitive for public access. Unfortunately, given the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, it’s all too easy for us to imagine why that may be true of more recent documents. It’s worth remembering, after all, that the contents of the National Archives represent the raw materials of history.

Documents wind up missing from public archives for many reasons. Sometimes they’re shelved or labeled incorrectly, or lost, and sometimes they’re even stolen. But at the U.S. National Archives, documents have been disappearing since 1999 because intelligence officials have wanted them to. And under the terms of two disturbing agreements - with the CIA in 2001 and by the Air Force in 2002 - the National Archives has been allowing officials to reclassify declassified documents, which means removing them from the public eye. So far 55,000 pages, some of them from the 1950s, have vanished. This not only violates the mission of the National Archives; it is also antithetical to the natural flow of information in an open society. As time passes, the need for secrecy, which should always adhere to a very strict standard, usually diminishes. Apparently the CIA wants to turn back the hands of time.

The new director of the National Archives, Allen Weinstein, rightly put a stop to this nonsense as soon as he heard about it. But he will need to do more than just abrogate these suspect agreements with the CIA and the Air Force. He will need to figure out how they came about in the first place. The former director, John Carlin, has said he knows nothing about them. They appear to have been signed only by the assistant archivist.

What makes this all seem preposterous is that the agreements themselves prohibit the National Archives from revealing why the documents were removed. They are Documents wind up missing from public archives for many reasons. Sometimes they’re shelved or labeled incorrectly, or lost, and sometimes they’re even stolen. But at the U.S. National Archives, documents have been disappearing since 1999 because intelligence officials have wanted them to. And under the terms of two disturbing agreements - with the CIA in 2001 and by the Air Force in 2002 - the National Archives has been allowing officials to reclassify declassified documents, which means removing them from the public eye. So far 55,000 pages, some of them from the 1950s, have vanished. This not only violates the mission of the National Archives; it is also antithetical to the natural flow of information in an open society. As time passes, the need for secrecy, which should always adhere to a very strict standard, usually diminishes. Apparently the CIA wants to turn back the hands of time.

The new director of the National Archives, Allen Weinstein, rightly put a stop to this nonsense as soon as he heard about it. But he will need to do more than just abrogate these suspect agreements with the CIA and the Air Force. He will need to figure out how they came about in the first place. The former director, John Carlin, has said he knows nothing about them. They appear to have been signed only by the assistant archivist.

What makes this all seem preposterous is that the agreements themselves prohibit the National Archives from revealing why the documents were removed. They are apparently secret enough that no one can be told why they are secret - so secret, in fact, that the arrangement to reclassify them is also secret. According to the agreement with the CIA, employees of the National Archives are also prohibited from telling anyone that the CIA was responsible for removing reclassified documents.

It’s hard for us to imagine why a declassified document from the 1950s - one that has perhaps been read and referenced by many scholars - should suddenly be deemed too sensitive for public access. Unfortunately, given the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, it’s all too easy for us to imagine why that may be true of more recent documents. It’s worth remembering, after all, that the contents of the National Archives represent the raw materials of history.

Documents wind up missing from public archives for many reasons. Sometimes they’re shelved or labeled incorrectly, or lost, and sometimes they’re even stolen. But at the U.S. National Archives, documents have been disappearing since 1999 because intelligence officials have wanted them to. And under the terms of two disturbing agreements - with the CIA in 2001 and by the Air Force in 2002 - the National Archives has been allowing officials to reclassify declassified documents, which means removing them from the public eye. So far 55,000 pages, some of them from the 1950s, have vanished. This not only violates the mission of the National Archives; it is also antithetical to the natural flow of information in an open society. As time passes, the need for secrecy, which should always adhere to a very strict standard, usually diminishes. Apparently the CIA wants to turn back the hands of time.

The new director of the National Archives, Allen Weinstein, rightly put a stop to this nonsense as soon as he heard about it. But he will need to do more than just abrogate these suspect agreements with the CIA and the Air Force. He will need to figure out how they came about in the first place. The former director, John Carlin, has said he knows nothing about them. They appear to have been signed only by the assistant archivist.

What makes this all seem preposterous is that the agreements themselves prohibit the National Archives from revealing why the documents were removed. They are apparently secret enough that no one can be told why they are secret - so secret, in fact, that the arrangement to reclassify them is also secret. According to the agreement with the CIA, employees of the National Archives are also prohibited from telling anyone that the CIA was responsible for removing reclassified documents.

It’s hard for us to imagine why a declassified document from the 1950s - one that has perhaps been read and referenced by many scholars - should suddenly be deemed too sensitive for public access. Unfortunately, given the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, it’s all too easy for us to imagine why that may be true of more recent documents. It’s worth remembering, after all, that the contents of the National Archives represent the raw materials of history.

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