American Historical Association

Nixon Library Agrees to Deed of Gift for Nixon Political Materials

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has released a copy of the draft deed of gift agreement that will be entered into by NARA and the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation once the private library is absorbed into the presidential library system. That donation is expected to take place later this year. According to NARA officials, "The Nixon Foundation has agreed to the terms [of the agreement] and will sign the deed at the time of transfer of the Nixon Library to the National Archives." Sharon Fawcett, Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries states that the Nixon foundation accepted the NARA draft "without revision."

Under the terms of the deed, the Nixon foundation will "donate and convey" to the federal government "the portions of tapes and textual materials that are determined to constitute private returnable information concerning political activities in accordance with the terms of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA)." NARA will review Nixon political materials in the Nixon tapes and historical materials held by NARA at its College Park repository as part of the package for transfer. The deed states that NARA will review the "political materials" using "the same standards that NARA used in reviewing the constitutional and statutory conversations on the Nixon records and other so called "c and s" materials from the Nixon presidency."

It is worth noting that the deed of gift in no way affects the portions of tapes and textual materials that have been or will be determined to constitute information of a purely personal nature to President Nixon or his family.

Among the items to be transferred are conversations in the Nixon White House tapes, textual and other audio-visual materials still in NARA's custody, and such materials returned by NARA to the Nixon estate that are currently located at the Yorba Linda library. Furthermore, according to the agreement, "It is the Donors wish that the Political/Returnable Materials be made available for research as soon as possible and to the fullest extent possible, in accordance with NARA's review standards."

- Bruce Craig

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