Kathleen,

This is none of my business, and I realize that this decision was probably 
not yours to make, but it does beg the question, "Why open the time 
capsule so soon?"  1956 was only fifty years ago, and it's unlikely there 
would be any information in the time capsule that is not already known or 
could not readily be found elsewhere.  To my way of thinking, a time 
capsule should be kept sealed for at minimum a century, and preferably for 
five or ten centuries.  It's a bit like opening the oven ten minutes after 
putting the cake in to see how it's cooking.  Myself, I would be much more 
interested in unsealing a time capsule from 956 or 1456 than one from 
1956. 

BTW, my organization also has a time capsule.  It was sealed--or actually, 
the box was locked--in 1990, on the 50th anniversary of Public Debt 
becoming a bureau of the Treasury Department.  The plaque asks that it be 
opened in 2019, on the centennial of our predecessor, the Public Debt 
Service.  Never mind that our mission, financing the federal government, 
as well as our records, predate the founding of the U.S. Government and 
the American Revolution.  Although I will retire well before 2019, I 
intend to bury--or disguise--that time capsule so deep in the archives 
that it will be forgotten and inadvertently kept sealed for a long, long 
time <wink>.

Like I said, your time capsule is none of my business, so take my two 
cents for what little it's worth.

Harry

Harry G. Heiss, Archivist
Bureau of the Public Debt
Department of the Treasury
799 Ninth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20239

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