I copied and pasted one line wrong, sorry, attributed to the questioner 
the first line of Mr. Hastings's response.  You got the gist already 
but just for the record, here's the corrected version.  Then I'll leave 
you all alone for a bit, my lunch break is just about over now, anyway, 
LOL.

I've received the couple of SAA recordings that I ordered. Here's the 
quotation from Jim Hastings of NARA that I mentioned in my posting last 
week. This is where he explains how archivists work objectively. The 
transcript is near-verbatim and is my own; I did it during breakfast 
this a.m.:

Q: "With so many people involved, how do we ensure that politics is 
left out of the selection?"

ANSWER - JAMES J. HASTINGS, present NARA, Director of Access Programs; 
former director, Nixon materials project:

"You mean the individual politics of the staff members? . . . .  In 
fact, back in the Nixon years, in the court cases pertaining to the 
Nixon materials, the Supreme Court said that the archivists in the 
National Archives have an unblemished record of impartiality. And back 
when I worked with Nixon materials, people used to say, well, it must 
really be interesting, you get to listen to the Nixon tapes. I said, 
yeah, for the first ten minutes, or so, and then, the rest of that, 
you're just applying what the rules are and what the standards are, and 
its -- . I have not encountered in all the years I've been working in 
access to records anyone who was making a decision based on beliefs. 
Because its just, well, first of all, it's wrong, it absolutely 
violates every ethical standard we have. And secondly, you have both in 
the Libraries and in the Federal records, you have the laws that govern 
what is selected and what is decided. And if you can't justify that -- 
you can't just say, I don't want to open this stuff, because it might 
hurt this person. Or it might help this person. That's not one of the 
factors."

SOURCE; "The Role of the National Archives of the United States in 
Nominations to the Supreme Court: Roberts & Alito," SAA, Convention 
Recordings, CD 2 of 2, Tracks 13, 14.

Nice answer, I liked that, it was well put!

Maarja Krusten (former NARA Nixon tapes archivist)

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