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National Archives
Historian Denies Tampering With Lincoln Document
By not in system - AOL NewsMcLEAN, Va. - Colleagues of a Virginia historian accused of altering a presidential pardon signed by Abraham Lincoln to make it appear he had made a major discovery say he betrayed the trust that had been placed in him. The accused historian - Thomas P. Lowry, 78, of Woodbridge - denied Tuesday that he actually tampered with the document despite a written confession he gave to the National Archives earlier this month. The National Archives announced on Monday that Lowry used a fountain pen with special ink to change the date on a presidential pardon issued by Lincoln to a Union army deserter ...
Researcher Faked Date on Lincoln Document, Officials Say
By not in system - AOL NewsA Virginia man has confessed to trying to rewrite history by altering a date on a document penned by Abraham Lincoln -- a move that enhanced his own reputation as a scholar, the National Archives said today. Longtime Lincoln researcher Thomas Lowry, of Woodbridge, Va., admitted that he changed the date on a presidential pardon issued to Patrick Murphy, a Union Army soldier who was court-martialed for desertion during the Civil War, said David S. Ferriero, archivist of the United States. Lowry altered the date on the document from April 14, 1864, to April 14, 1865 -- the day John Wilkes ...
Presidential Commissions: Gone and Often Forgotten
By Laura Parker - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- As presidential commissions go, the Oil Spill Commission's moment in the sun may have lasted longer than most. It convened its first session when the oil was still gushing in the Gulf of Mexico, then staged a series of hearings, enlivened by its sharp-spoken co-chairmen, that held the spotlight on its work. But with the release of the panel's final report, the show is over. In 60 days, the commission officially goes out of business. Its records will be trucked off to the National Archives in College Park, Md., where they will join the records of hundreds of other presidential ...
Former NSA Chief Called CIA 'Out of Control'
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL NewsThe CIA is "out of control" and often refuses to cooperate with other parts of the national security community, even undermining their efforts, said former National Security Agency head William Odom, according to a recently released record of a 9/11 Commission interview. "The CIA currently doesn't work for anyone. It thinks it works for the president, but it doesn't and it's out of control," says a report summarizing remarks made by Odom, a retired three-star general who served as director of the NSA from 1985 to 1988. Odom, who also served on the National Security Council staff during the ...
JFK Library Goes Digital on 50th Anniversary of Camelot
By Mara Gay - AOL NewsThe JFK Library and Museum has unveiled the nation's largest online presidential archives, making the writings, speeches and personal correspondence of John Fitzgerald Kennedy available to more people than ever before. Fifty years after Kennedy's inauguration on Jan. 20, 1961, the days of his presidency have come alive online. Visitors to the digital library can view the president's most famous speeches, click through telegrams from civil rights leader Medgar Evers imploring Kennedy to get tougher on racial discrimination and listen in on his conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt about the ...
US Archivist Preps for July 4 on 'Real' Independence Day
By Andrea Stone - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (July 2) -- David Ferriero stands inside a chilly vault deep within the National Archives building here and looks on as an archivist reads from an original resolution passed 234 years ago today by the Continental Congress: Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. At the bottom of what became known as the Lee Declaration are 12 hash marks in the ...
National Archives Digs Deep for New Civil War Exhibit
By Andrea Stone - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (April 27) -- There are no tattered wool uniforms or rusty rifle muskets in "Discovering the Civil War," a new exhibit opening Friday at the National Archives. But the paper relics that make up most of the display are in some ways much easier to grasp. Take the 1862 letter from seamstresses at the U.S. Arsenal in Philadelphia to the secretary of war. In it, they complain about losing work to a contractor who paid them half what the government did and note that many were sole wage earners because their husbands were away in the Army. ...
Nixon Aides Pushed Race-Driven Strategy to Divide Democrats in 1972
By David Sessions - Politics DailyDocuments released by the National Archives reveal that aides to President Richard Nixon hoped to stir controversy among Democrats before the 1972 election by fueling a push for black candidates, CNN reports. A report titled "Dividing the Democrats" outlines a plan for "spreading out into the ghettos of the country" to convince black Americans to run as Democrats and turn white voters against the Democratic Party. ...
Government Secrets Can't Last Forever
By Tamara Lytle - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (Dec. 30) – About 400 million pages of government documents – from World War II through the Cuban Missile Crisis to the final days of the Cold War – have been sitting in boxes for decades, their secrets hidden. But a new order by President Barack Obama will declassify them within four years unless they meet narrow exceptions. It's the first time a president has has laid out in writing that executive branch documents cannot be classified forever – a sea change, according to William J. Bosanko, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, which is ...
Judge Orders Cheney to Preserve Records
By Christopher Weber - Politics DailyOn Saturday a federal judge ordered Dick Cheney not to destroy files from his nearly eight years as vice president. The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, along with a group of historians and archivists, sued Cheney and the Bush administration to make sure that no presidential records are destroyed or in any way kept from the public. Cheney's main defense has been to insist that his office is not part of the executive branch but rather attached by the Constitution to Congress. The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is a setback for the Bush ...
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