Tagged and Archived.

Yes, it’s been quiet around here again, but for once, I actually haven’t been neglecting GitM during the downtime. Instead, I’ve been plugging away in my off-hours on the archive project I started 16 months ago, fixing the categories that broke while fleeing Movable Type and adding descriptive tags to all of the old posts (or at least those going back to 2002 — the hand-coded/Geocities era remains untouched.)

In any event, after a long slog, that project is finally finished. From PhDont to Hippie-Punching, whether you’re looking for Colin Firth, Colin Farrell or Colin Powell; Bill Simmons or J.K. Simmons, the Gitmo Gulag, Zombies, Other Worlds, Corporate Welfare, RepubliDems, or The New Deal, the first fifteen years of posts are much easier to sort through now. Now, I can focus on the next fifteen.

Also, while I didn’t post any more retrospectives after 2004, I was generally glad to discover that 99.44% of the old posts were less embarrassing than I feared/remembered.

To Explore Strange New Worlds.

“It’s still one of the greatest magazines about science fiction of all time.” iO9’s Charlie Jane Anders points the way to a fully-searchable online archive of Starlog Magazine. The “internet before the internet,” as one of the commenters well put it, Starlog was one of the staples of my childhood (and the magazine that, since I was living overseas when it came out, spoiled Return of the Jedi and several other movies rotten for me.)

FDR: The View from the Inside.

“Tully took the president’s dictation for his famous Pearl Harbor speech. ‘Miss Tully had been with Roosevelt since his days as governor of New York,” said David S. Ferriero, archivist of the United States. ‘And many of his most sensitive letters, instructions, notes and even scribblings passed through her hands.‘”

The National Archives obtains 5,000 pages of new FDR documents, courtesy of the archives of personal secretary Grace Tully. (This video describes the acquisition.) “Archivists hope to have the collection publicly available by November and online by January.“

Looking the Other Way in Chile.

“In the Sept. 16, 1976 cable, the topic of one paragraph is listed as “Operation Condor,” preceded by the words “(KISSINGER, HENRY A.) SUBJECT: ACTIONS TAKEN.” The cable states that ‘secretary declined to approve message to Montevideo’ Uruguay ‘and has instructed that no further action be taken on this matter’…The Sept. 16 cable is the missing piece of the historical puzzle on Kissinger’s role in the action, and inaction, of the U.S. government after learning of Condor assassination plots,’ Peter Kornbluh, the National Security Archive’s senior analyst on Chile, said Saturday.‘”

Another piece of evidence for the prosecution in the trial of Henry Kissinger: A recently declassified 1976 cable has Kissinger canceling a warning to Chile about political assassinations, one day before the Pinochet regime murdered another critic in downtown Washington DC. And let’s not even get started on Allende…

Frosty Nixon.

“‘There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,’ he told an aide, before adding, ‘Or a rape.’” Another round of newly-released Nixon tapes sheds more light on the dark and troubling imaginings of the 37th president. “‘What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,’ Nixon said…’It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.’” Class act, this guy.

Thrill of the Chase…Letter.

Score one for eBay: After three-score years lost to the winds, a long-missing Lincoln letter is returned to the National Archives by the Arizona collector who ended up with it. “Federal officials, who have not ruled out its possible theft from a government collection, discovered it two years ago during routine monitoring of online auctions.“

Opening Windows, Closing the Revolving Door.

“‘We are here as public servants, and public service is a privilege,’ Obama said, addressing his White House staff and Cabinet on his first full day in office. ‘It’s not about advancing yourself or your corporate clients.'” Also part of President Obama’s very solid first day: An executive order kicking out the lobbyists and imposing a gift ban on White House employees. “‘We need to close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely and lets them use their time in public service” to promote their own interests when they leave, the president said.” [Official Order.]

And, in another welcome executive order, the new President also overturned Dubya’s secrecy rules with regards to presidential records, thus making life much easier for historians in the future. “[E]very agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.” (This also means Pres. Obama only has nine more left to overturn on Dubya’s worst ten.)

The People v. Dick Cheney.

“He’s saying he’s above the law…It just seems to me this is arrogant and shows bad judgment.” Also in related news, historians probably shouldn’t expect a similar classified document dump a quarter-century from now: Word leaks from a congressional committee that Cheney has refused to comply with the National Archives in preserving classified documents over the past four years and even tried to abolish the office responsible for enforcing the law. “Cheney’s office declined to discuss what it called internal matters…The Justice Department confirmed yesterday that it is looking into the issue.” Another day, another imperial prerogative attempted by these lawless yokels in the White House.

Robbing for Roberts?

Did White House officials steal a file on John Roberts’ affirmative action record from the National Archives last year? “This investigation is unresolved and the file is still missing,” says a new report by the Archives Inspector General, which Tim Noah dissects over at Slate. (Hmmm…was it reclassified, perhaps?) Still, according to the report, a White House staffer was the last person known to have the file, and “[t]he report’s findings contradicted the assertions of Archives officials, who said last August that an attendant had been in the room at all times and that the lawyers had been separated from their bags.” The mystery deepens…

Malreports from Minitrue’s Recdep.

“In short, more than one of every three documents removed from the open shelves and barred to researchers should not have been tampered with.” A recently-completed audit into the formerly secret Archives reclassification program finds that many more files were reclassified — and reclassified wrongly — than previously suggested. “In February, the Archives estimated that about 9,500 records totaling more than 55,000 pages had been withdrawn and reclassified since 1999. The new audit shows the real haul was much larger — at least 25,515 records were removed by five different agencies, including the CIA, Air Force, Department of Energy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Archives.“