Archives Audit Calls Removal of Documents 'Inappropriate'. (cover story)

UNITED States. National Archives & Records Administration ; UNITED States. Air Force

The article reports on the inappropriate document removal from the shelves of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration for reclassification since 1995 at the request of government agencies. The document removals were first brought to public attention in February, after an independent historian, Matthew M. Aid, discovered that records he had previously viewed at the National Archives were no longer publicly available. Nearly 134 records had been withdrawn from the Eisenhower library, 816 documents from the Kennedy library and 318 from the Bush library. The Air Force, which had made a similar secret deal with the archives, removed the largest number of documents. The Department of Energy requested that 2,164 records be removed, in many cases because officials felt the documents contained information from other federal agencies that should be classified. Many of the removed records remain inaccessible to the public simply because archives officials have not had the time or resources to put them back in circulation.