GEORGE H.W. BUSH LIBRARY George Bush Drive West College Station, TX (979) Fax: (979)

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "GEORGE H.W. BUSH LIBRARY George Bush Drive West College Station, TX (979) Fax: (979)"

Laurel O’Neal’
5 years ago
Views:

1 GEORGE H.W. BUSH LIBRARY 1000 George Bush Drive West College Station, TX (979) Fax: (979) Biography George H.W. Bush was the 41 st president of the United States and served a single term from January 20, 1989 to January 20, Bush was the son of a U.S. Senator from Connecticut and enlisted in the Navy when he graduated from high school. He flew torpedo bombers from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific during World War II and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and other medals for his service. After the war, Bush attended Yale University and then moved to Texas where he was a pioneer in offshore drilling, Bush ran unsuccessfully for a Senate seat in 1964, and was elected to the House of Representatives in He won a second term in the House, but lost a second bid for the Senate in During the 1970s, Bush served as Ambassador to the United Nations, Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1980, he ran with Ronald Reagan and served two terms as Vice President. In 1988, he became the Republican nominee and was elected. While president, Bush dealt with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the end of the Cold War and the restoration of democracy in Eastern Europe, the arms reduction treaties, START I and START II, which were the first agreements to dismantle and destroy strategic weapons since the advent of the nuclear age. Bush pursued a policy of free trade, pushing to lower trade restrictions and tariff barriers in the GATT talks. In the hemisphere, these efforts included the Enterprise for the Americas initiative and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Bush marshaled a 30 nation coalition in 1991 to oppose Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Domestically, the Bush Administration pushed educational reform, home ownership, and environmental protection. The Americans with Disabilities Act and the revision of the Clean Air Act were significant milestones. Nature of the Document Search We visited the Bush Library on December 15, The Library has about 40,000,000 pages of holdings that document the Bush vice presidency and presidency, but relatively few are available to the public. The Bush Library is subject to the Presidential Records Act, which mandates release after 12 years, a period that expired in 1

2 January 2005, shortly after our visit. However, even with the imminent expiration of the protected period, the Library has been slow to process its records. 1 We searched the White House Office of Records Management (WHORM) subject file for materials possibly relevant to our project. The subject file has 58 primary categories, each of which is divided into subcategories. All told, the WHORM Subject File contains a total of 370,000 individual documents. At the time of our visit, 45 primary categories (including all subcategories) were available for research. The remaining thirteen primary categories, including those relevant to this project, were unavailable or only partially available for research. (Eight of these had at least one subcategory processed and available.) Most of the WHORM materials on Micronesia and the Marianas were found in the State Government (ST) files which cover individual states and territories. We also searched Federal Aid (FA), Foreign Affairs (FO), and International Organizations (IT). The Library has declassified certain National Security Reviews and National Security Directives, but none that are available pertained to Micronesia or the Marianas. The Bush Library released only 13 documents relevant to Micronesia and the Northern Marianas, none of which were significant in terms of policy decisions. For that reason, we made a detailed request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking access to documents that the Library was withholding from public access. This request is attached. 1 The only collections available to the public are the Office of Appointments and Scheduling (Daily Diary), the White House Press Office, the White House Office of Speechwriting, the White House Office of Records Management (WHORM) Subject File, and completed and pending Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. 2

3 HOWARD P. WILLENS, ESQ. WILSIE CO. LLC 4242 MATHEWSON DR. N.W. WASHINGTON, D.C TEL. 202/ FAX. 202/ December 15, 2004 BY HAND DELIVERY Robert Holzweiss (FOIA) Supervisory Archivist George Bush Presidential Library 1000 George Bush Drive West College Station, TX Re: Freedom of Information Act request Dear Mr. Holzweiss: This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records held by the Bush Library with respect to the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Guam that had not been processed as of the date of our visit to the Bush Library on December 15, We have a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to collect materials from 10 Presidential Libraries related to these areas and to make them available in both hard copy and digital formats. The hard copy materials will go to regional archives such as the Commonwealth Archives in the Marianas, the Micronesian Area Research Center in Guam, and the Micronesian Seminar in the Federated States. The digital materials will be distributed on CDs to the smaller libraries throughout the region so that students and others can have better access. Specifically, we need to locate documents that deal with U.S. policy, federal programs, communications with government officials, and meetings with respect to these territories. We have attached a printout of a search done for us by Ms. Oriabure indicating folders that were not available, and we have indicated with check marks in the status column the folders that we are requesting. We request that the documents in these folders be provided. If it would speed the release of portions of the documents, please divide this request into separate requests as necessary. Because we must convert the paper files to digital files in order to complete our project, we would appreciate it if any copies could either be digital scans (if your copier has scanning capability) or copies on white paper. White paper is necessary because your standard blue paper will not scan, therefore we would have to copy your copies again (to get them on white paper) before scanning and OCR processing. We would lose clarity in that process and the OCR would be less effective. I will pay the applicable fees. 3

4 I can be contacted at (phone), (fax), and ( ). My residence address is 4242 Mathewson Dr. N.W., Washington, D.C Sincerely, Howard P. Willens Managing Director Wilsie Co. LLC 4

5 5

6 6

7 7

8 8

9 9

10 10

11 11

12 12

THE HOWARD P. WILLENS COLLECTION

THE HOWARD P. WILLENS COLLECTION The Howard P. Willens Collection is comprised of historical and Presidential documents about the Northern Marianas and Micronesia. The historical documents collection was