these should make for an interesting read
State Dept. Gains Access To Kissinger Transcripts By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 10, 2001; Page A04
The State Department has finally obtained unfettered access to the transcripts of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations with presidents, heads of state, bureaucrats and reporters. They could be made public within a few months.
The 10,000 pages of records have been tightly guarded at the Library of Congress since 1976 under a controversial deed in which Kissinger said the papers could not be made public until five years after his death. In recent years, Kissinger's staff has made selected portions available to State Department historians under restrictive conditions that drew steady complaints.
"This rights a 25-year-old wrong," said Thomas S. Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, a private group that threatened to sue the government if it did not retrieve the papers. He said the courts have held that Kissinger "improperly removed them" but that only the government could take action to get them back.
State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said yesterday that, at the department's request, Kissinger this week provided the department with copies of all the transcripts made while he was secretary. Kissinger "happily consented" to the request, Boucher said, adding that the documents would be reviewed to remove personal information and then "looked at under the normal declassification schedule."
Under current rules, which provide for automatic declassification after 25 years, most of the papers, covering the years 1973 through 1976, are now ripe for release to the public under Freedom of Information Act requests. All of them will be released by year's end, Blanton said.
Sometimes called the "Dead Key Scrolls," the transcripts were made at Kissinger's behest by secretaries using "a dead key" on an extension so they could not be heard. They taped some of the conversations, took others down in shorthand, then typed up transcripts or summaries.
Kissinger has said that the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the transcripts were "private." But the court held only that private parties could not sue to see them under the Freedom of Information Act because the government no longer had them. A federal court had held that the records were "property of the United States" since they were "produced on government time with the aid of department employees, equipment, materials, and other public resources."
Kissinger's other records remain in storage at the library, but many are duplicated in government files and a large number have been declassified. By contrast, Blanton estimated, 98 percent of the telephone transcripts existed only in the collection controlled by Kissinger's deed of gift.
Still untouched are 20,000 pages reflecting Kissinger's phone calls from 1969 to 1973, when he was President Richard M. Nixon's national security adviser. Blanton said these are next on his list.
R
richard
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State Dept. Gains Access To Kissinger Transcripts By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 10, 2001; Page A04
The State Department has finally obtained unfettered access to the transcripts of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations with presidents, heads of state, bureaucrats and reporters. They could be made public within a few months.
The 10,000 pages of records have been tightly guarded at the Library of Congress since 1976 under a controversial deed in which Kissinger said the papers could not be made public until five years after his death. In recent years, Kissinger's staff has made selected portions available to State Department historians under restrictive conditions that drew steady complaints.
"This rights a 25-year-old wrong," said Thomas S. Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, a private group that threatened to sue the government if it did not retrieve the papers. He said the courts have held that Kissinger "improperly removed them" but that only the government could take action to get them back.
State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said yesterday that, at the department's request, Kissinger this week provided the department with copies of all the transcripts made while he was secretary. Kissinger "happily consented" to the request, Boucher said, adding that the documents would be reviewed to remove personal information and then "looked at under the normal declassification schedule."
Under current rules, which provide for automatic declassification after 25 years, most of the papers, covering the years 1973 through 1976, are now ripe for release to the public under Freedom of Information Act requests. All of them will be released by year's end, Blanton said.
Sometimes called the "Dead Key Scrolls," the transcripts were made at Kissinger's behest by secretaries using "a dead key" on an extension so they could not be heard. They taped some of the conversations, took others down in shorthand, then typed up transcripts or summaries.
Kissinger has said that the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the transcripts were "private." But the court held only that private parties could not sue to see them under the Freedom of Information Act because the government no longer had them. A federal court had held that the records were "property of the United States" since they were "produced on government time with the aid of department employees, equipment, materials, and other public resources."
Kissinger's other records remain in storage at the library, but many are duplicated in government files and a large number have been declassified. By contrast, Blanton estimated, 98 percent of the telephone transcripts existed only in the collection controlled by Kissinger's deed of gift.
Still untouched are 20,000 pages reflecting Kissinger's phone calls from 1969 to 1973, when he was President Richard M. Nixon's national security adviser. Blanton said these are next on his list.
