The dissident novelists of the former Eastern Bloc — writers like Milan Kundera and Josef Skvoercky — often took as their theme the manner in which history was distorted by the communist regimes, the way officials who had fallen from favor would be airbrushed from the official narrative.
I wonder what they would make of this:
In December 1989, one month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, President George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Malta and, in the words of a Soviet spokesman, “buried the cold war at the bottom of the Mediterranean.”
The Russian transcript of that momentous summit was published in Moscow in 1993. Fourteen years later American historians are still waiting for their own government to release a transcript.
The reason for this is a 2001 executive order issued by President George W. Bush that gave
sitting presidents the power to delay the release of papers indefinitely, while extending the control of former presidents, vice presidents and their families
and
changed the system from one that automatically released documents 30 days after a current or former president is notified to one that withholds papers until a president specifically permits their release.
The Bush system has given working historians fits and seems more suited to the closed societies of the old Soviet satellite states — which is consistent with the Bush administration’s devotion to secrecy and its attempts to broaden the powers of the chief executive. Thomas S. Blanton, executive director of an independent research institute called the National Security Archive at George Washington University,
said he believes the Bush White House is primarily concerned with reversing what it sees as an erosion of presidential power after Watergate. “It has the added advantage of giving the incumbent a lot more control over history,” he said.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is reviewing legislation that would overturn the executive order — it could go to the full House next week for a vote. The it would need Senate approval — and a signature for the man looking to limit access, meaning the legislation is likely to fade away along with our democracy.
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Hank Kalet 