Date

Dec 28, 1981

Description

When the National Archives had a Diplomatic Branch with a large staff, the late Milton O. Gustafson was one of its chiefs, and he was a font of knowledge. With this paper from 1981, Gustafson provided a detailed review of the role of the Library of Congress in housing the papers of Secretaries of State and of the early controversies surrounding the Kissinger telcons, including Kissinger’s donation to the Library in 1976, the National Archives’ early attempt to get access to the telcon collection, and the lawsuit by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. As he noted, the Supreme Court ruling in the Reporters Committee lawsuit “implicitly invited agency action to recover the documents,” but it would take two more decades before that became possible.

Source

National Archives, Research Services Staff Reference Files

Document published in following posting(s):

The Kissinger Telcons: The Story Behind the Story

Feb 13, 2024

Milton O. Gustafson, “The Records of Henry Kissinger and Other Secretaries of State: Some Archival and Legal Anomalies,” Presentation at Session 78, The American Historical Association, Ninety Sixth Annual Meeting, Los Angeles CA, 28-30 December 1981