We lost another political giant this week. Robert Joseph “Bob” Dole. 98 years old. He was a son of Russell, Kansas, war hero, longtime...

As a long-time employee of the National Archives in Washington, DC, I had learned to never utter the words, “well, now I’ve seen it all”. The next day would surely dawn on a new, more unbelievable set of records that would defy logic and amaze the most veteran observer. Records are the footprints of humans, and we humans are rather unpredictable, to say the least. In March of 1999, I received a call in my downtown office from Sharon Fawcett, Deputy Assistant Archivist for Pre

They say that it’s dangerous to meet your heroes in person lest your image of them be dashed on the rocks of reality. Not so with John...

When you are in the congressional affairs biz in a place like the National Archives, you are also in the tour biz. Your daily goal is to...

So, it was 35 years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and I was the Director of Congressional Affairs at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington DC. I had arrived at the Archives as a summer intern in 1971 and navigated my way through the bureaucracy to what I would describe as my dream job, the Archives guy on Capitol Hill. For most of those 35 years, the Archives had been ground zero for collection, preservation, and analysis of t

I've thought long and hard about whether to post this old letter. While as the author I own its contents, the recipient and the subject...

It was early springtime in Washington DC, and it was past time for this project to be finished. After all, it was the bicentennial year,...