About your book from october 31st, 1996. You know, this is my last campaign and maybe i will run for school board someday. [laughter] brian your book is called the last campaign. You say in the book that moment got you the title. Why . Anthony i saw that moment in a Political Science budget class in 2003 and decided to write my thesis for that semester on that idea that a president ial library is the president last campaign, not the final electoral contest. And when i finished that paper, my professor said this is a book, you should consider making this into a book. A week later, i got into an rv i had and traveled to all the president ial libraries in six weeks, the once i had not been to yet. I came back convinced that maybe there was more than a book in it. For me, going to the president ial libraries was only the beginning of the journey. Because seeing the libraries as a tourist was different from researching in the records and going to the National Archives and seeing how the libraries developed. It was because of what i found and what i couldnt find that it changed from a simple, almost a travelogue on what the president ial libraries are and what they mean to the people, into an examination of the process in which they are created and funded and administered and it became a whole different book. Brian how many president ial libraries are there . Anthony there are technically 13, there will be 14 maybe or maybe not, depending on how the National Archives or Obama Foundation work out the arrangement. It looks like from this point, the Obama Foundation will not donate like their 13 present predecessors a building to house the exhibits of the obama presidency. There might be 13. Brian we will come back to that, but in the interim he said he got into an rv. Did you have your family with you . Anthony i was married at the time and my wife was a physician at the time. Brian what year . Anthony 2003. Brian what was the first thing you noticed in where did you go first . Anthony i noticed people were gathering around one particular exhibit, a letter someone had written to president truman returning his sons purple heart. And the letter was angry and the letter said that he wished Margaret Truman was a man so that president truman should experience what he experienced in the loss of his son. The reason why that is an exhibit at the library is that when president truman died, they went through his office at the library and that letter and purple heart were still in the office 20 years later. And i see it as an understanding that the president had of the response ability of his office and when president truman kind planned at the library, he didnt want to memorialize himself, he wanted people to know with the presidency was like. To me come up more than any other exhibit at that library, that letter and that metal demonstrate that. Brian when you talk to the staff there, what did you notice with them . Anthony the staff, one of the Staff Members was there when president truman was still alive. She did confirm that the folklore he did occasionally greet visitors and it did and it did mingle and did mingle. But she also said that his focus was really on the archives rather than the exhibits. And the folks who were there worked on the records a long time were open for decades and were knowledgeable about what was there and what was not there, what i could see and what i could not see. You dont get that with the newer records. I really felt like they knew maybe the most about the records there. Brian when did you write your thesis . Anthony 2003. Brian before or after your rv trip . Anthony after. President s have to go out. They have to build their legacy. That was the notion. I had no idea to what extent they really did that. I do not have access to the records of how they planned it, the relationship between the National Archives and the private foundations that built the libraries. That came later. Brian how do you explain to the average person this story and how do we fit in all the players, including the National Archives, Records Administration . Anthony its great to start with the beginning. The beginning was president roosevelt wanted a bombproof structure to store his recordds. So he created a structure on his property. During world war ii, there was serious consideration that the records of the new deal and his personal collection will be lost. So he created a modest structure on his state. For many many months, trucks estate. S for many many months, trucks went back and forth between washington and hyde park and they created this library. From the beginning, the idea was to create a place to store has until records for prosperity. Almost as an afterthought, president roosevelt crated a small exhibit space where he could show people the gifts he got from the american people. He called it the oddities room. Also a place to display his naval prints and naval memorabilia. At the time, he had the largest collection of stamps in the world, i think 1. 2 million stamps. He wanted those preserved and a shona. Shown. He figured people would pay a nickel and see it and that would help defray the cost. Over time, the emphasis on those exhibits far exceeded the emphasis of the records. So now we have a situation where president obama is planning to build a socalled president ial library that wont have president ial records and wont be administered by the National Archives like his predecessors. Brian i want to share some video about president obama describing what his facility is going to be like in chicago. [begin video clip] pres. Obama as we envision it, it is not just a building. We are looking at transforming jackson park so that it once again becomes a peoples park. The ability to use these amazing lagoons and wooden island so that people are actually enjoying the park and the activities in the park and a sledding hill because because michelle always told me she was mad during the winter when she couldnt sled because there was no hill down here. Its about hope. [end video clip] brian your reaction . Anthony not a president ial library in terms of the model fdr created. Hes talking about historians coming to access records to write the history of the obama administration. The first time president obama made a comment about his presents a library, he was quoted in a book called the promise, where he said he would not build a traditional president ial library. He would just digitize the records. It looks like that what he that is what he is going to do. They will pay for the archives to digitize the records and get them out perhaps sooner. He is focusing more on what his institution can do for the future rather than looking back to the past. Brian go back to the fdr library which you say it was the first year. What year . Anthony 1941. Brian how much did that cost than compared to what obama is planning to spend . Anthony i think he spent 350,000 to build the fdr library and the estimate varies between 500 million and 1. 5 billion for the Obama Foundation. This was before president obama announced he would not be donating the museum. If you are president who has left office and you raise money and build a library and you donated to the government, according to law, you have to give the government 60 of the cost of building the library as an endowment to help defray the cost. 60 of 1. 5 billion is an awful lot of money and personally, i think that may have laid a role played a role in the foundations decision not to donate. Because they can build a library, or museum, they can build the obama center, they dont give it to the government, they dont have to give the government any money. Brian where can we find research being done in the future on president obama . Anthony its unclear. All the archives have said so far is that records will be housed in existing archives facilities. That was plural. One of the best benefits of the president ial library act for the initial archives is that you dont have to find space in existing locations to store and preserve and make them available. That might be a difficult thing for researchers because if it is multiple facilities, does that mean maybe the National Archives in chicago plus the National Archives in d. C. And college park, maryland . We dont know yet. Brian back in your trip, you visited the truman library. Where did you go next . Anthony the Dwight Eisenhower library about two hours away. Brian what was your memory of that . Anthony big campus, multiple buildings onsite, large chapel where he and mamie and his son are buried. I had read that the year after he died, 750,000 people came to visit his grave, 19691970. That remains the High Water Mark of any 12 month. For any president ial library. It felt most like a military base in terms of neatly laid out design of the campus. There was a military monument to him, a large statue. I also felt like it was geared towards his whole career, rather than just his presidency. There was far more about his time in the army as a general, which is often borne out by people who say he preferred to be called general. Especially postpresidency. That was the first notion i had that president ial libraries might look at things from the life perspective rather than the presidency. President clintons library is focused on the eight years of his presidency. It does not go into his previous time as Lieutenant Governor or governor or his previous bid for congress and it doesnt talk about his postpresidency. It focused on those eight years. Brian go back to eisenhower campus. His childhood home is on the property. You said the chapel there and two or three other buildings. What was your sense of value of the archive and how often has it been used . Anthony i was working mostly with records about the building of the president ial library. I was one of the first researchers to work on them. I got the sense that it was not as well utilized as some of the newer libraries. Although the catch22, the Eisenhower Library has far more records open. The reagan, bush libraries have far fewer records open but it seems to be more inches in the interest in the newer libraries in general. Thats a problem i think happens with president ial libraries. If you look at something that happened during an administration, like the cold war, you cant just go to kansas to research the cold war. You have to go to missouri and you have to go to dorchester, massachusetts, austin, texas, because these records are not in a central location. While they might not be utilized on any given day, i think that the 400 plus million records that make up the president ial Library Archives i would say the , libraries as a whole unit are the single greatest source of American History over the last 80 years. Brian go back to the number. 400 million. What . Anthony pages of records throughout the residential libraries. Brian how much of that is digitized today . Anthony probably less than one million pages, maybe a little bit more. Digitization is not a popular topic right now because of the cost. Who is going to bear it . The Kennedy Foundation credit a did it creates a fund to digitize 400,000 pages of records. There is a lot of records in the Nixon Library. When the Nixon Library was created, it was private initially. All the president of records were held at National Archives. All the personal records were given back to the foundation, the nixon. When nixon became part of the National Archives, they were joined. All the personal records brought back into the National Archives were digitized and made online. Brian where did you go after the Eisenhower Library . Anthony west branch, iowa to see the Herbert Hoover president ial library. Brian how long was a drive from that . Anthony more than a day because it was up to iowa. West branch has the National Park service as well. There is the National Park service and hoover site. There is a blacksmith shop, a Quaker Meeting House as well. He only lived there for a short period of time. He left when he was eight. He and henry hoover are buried there, as well. At the first three libraries, the archivist set a high bar because they were interested in helping, but they were also interested in someone coming to ask about their history as opposed to policy they have gone over. They were inordinately hopeful, helpful, not just in saying, you should look at this film will look at the series, but talk on breaks. I was able to interview most of that staff at the libraries, sometimes staying late afterwards. I got to speak to the director and they were helpful in making sure i had what i needed to tell the story. Brian how long would you stay at each of these libraries . Anthony first time was probably four or five days. Over the 12year period i took to write the book, i spent a month in each of the libraries except george w. Bush, which opened right before i finish the book. Brian so if we followed you around, what would we see you doing . Anthony the first thing i do would spend a day as a tourist and i tried not to read too much about the exhibits. The second day, i would go back and watch people. Maybe talk to people as they came out and some people would picnic outside and i would approach them and say, you might talking to me for a few minutes . The third day i would spend taking photographs. I learned the hard way you have to tell people you are going to take 1000 photographs of your museum. Brian what did you do for all your photographs . Anthony i use them to make sure i had a good record of the new zealand. I initially thought i would be critiquing the history. I thought that i would make an effort to say, this is what historians agree happened with this particular issue. Here is how the president ial library describes it. That got sidetracked when i got into records and looking at the process of how they were built. But it also helps to refer back and say, that Decision Point theater, they can blend together. Brian in that time, who did you want to read it . What impact did you want it to have . Anthony initially i wanted the general public to get a sense of what they are. As time went on, i got closer to what the book became, i went to wanting policymakers to have a good understanding of what goes on and what maybe needs to be changed. Brian robert caro in 2003, was at the lbj library. I want you to hear what he was saying and the program we did with them. [begin video clip] it is just baloney to say you can come in here as a historian and the work without their help. There is no way anybody can know what is in these files. For all these it years, they have been directing me to the right places. So when you say these administrations in this library has not looked in favor on my books why would that be . You have to ask them. That is quite an understatement. I will leave it like that. I think the archives here has never stopped helping me. [end video clip] brian a couple things. At that time, you cannot buy one of his books at the library. I want to show you a picture recently taken at the lbj library and there you see his books in the shop being sold. What do you think happened to change that and what does that say to you as you are doing the research that they didnt use to sell them . Anthony Harry Middleton was handchosen by president johnson, friend of the family, worked for president johnson. Generally, people believed harry was the reason why robert caros books were not sold and why he was not asked to come and speak. One of the first things he did was invite robert caro to speak and put his books in that. I saw it as a break from the first foundation, the first director, maybe more protective of the foundation. These positions running the libraries are federal positions. One of the problems i talk about in the book is that the National Archives allows the private foundations to veto their choice of the federal employee who runs the library. There is a precedence in the law that says in 1986, because there is going to be a new process by which these records are evaluated and opened to the public, sitting president can have consultation rights on the first director because they are administrating a 12 year period after the president s office with a president can hold records. So i have confidence the records would uphold the document the president could consult. That has been extended to former president s and their second and third directors. Its been extended to family members and foundations. Again, getting back to Betty Sue Flowers, i think she was making it clear that there was a new administration that there was going to be more equitable in terms of who should speak. Robert caro is the prime biographer of Lyndon Johnson and , he never spoke at the library. Brian he has since then, though . Anthony i believe so. Brian we have a photograph of some things you can buy there. Anthony this again goes back to the idea that if there is a Serious Research facility or tourist attraction or both. Some of the libraries actually have more bipartisan products. The Nixon Library, this is the animatronic lbj. This is the second incarnation of this. In the second one, he was standing in a field and wearing a cowboy hat and telling jokes. The jokes were recorded jokes from his speeches. Lbj would move in a stiff way. It was one of the morephotographed exhibits in that library. Brian what was your reaction to the shops versus the research versus the museums . Anthony the shops are interesting because some are run to foundations and some were run by the National Archives. The foundations, you would have less books, fewer touristy totchkes, whereas the foundations that run the gift shops tend to push maybe their political bent. Brian how do people find out who is running those shops . Anthony you have to ask. One of the other problems is, the way the National Archives works with the foundation, some of the libraries have been donated to the government. Some of them are under a memorandum of understanding and agreement. Some of them are corun. The Reagan Library, you pay a 26 fee but more than half of that does not go to the National Archives, which is ostensibly running the library. The rest of it goes to the foundation. Brian there is one in ohio that came along before that. Hayes. Rd b did you go to that . Anthony i didnt. The first one i want to was franklin d. Roosevelt. Brian the Hayes Library is a statesupported. Anthony just like the Abraham Lincoln one. Brian i want to show you some more video of a guy named Allen Weinstein, who tried to put this together and who was the archivist during what president . Anthony during the george w. Bush administration, 20002009. Brian lets watch. I think basically we follow the laws. The freedom of information act. It provides procedures and resources and we have a backlog of president ial libraries, a significant backlog to get everything out. Thats because we dont have the funding to have a trained archivist to help the process. Anthony i agree. Except there is a secondary point to be made. There are not enough archivist s to process these records, but they begins do not employ people. They work on the public side. They work on sometimes the gift shop, sometimes the Educational Program given school judge in coming to learn about the president. The work on exhibits, traveling exhibits, public programming. Some libraries can have Wine Tastings and hayrides and dancing lessons. The National Archives has the funds to employ those people. Maybe they need to shift the funds from that public legacy towards archiving. Brian how much money is given to the National Archives to function with the whole process, including the president ial libraries . Anthony just under 400 million, and 100 million goes to the president ial libraries. Brian how is the archivist chosen . Anthony nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate. Brian Allen Weinstein was the archivist. He is deceased. What would be the difference between Harry Middleton and Betty Sue Flowers and there were others since then that have been a head of that library. What is the real difference . Anthony the emphasis the director places on the employee employed by the National Archives. Directors that function more as an employee of the foundation that creates it. Now, up until a few years ago when david became the federal employee that directs the library and the executive rector executive director of the foundation that supports the library at the same time. He saw that as a conflict of interest which i agree. Brian how big are these foundations . Anthony up until a few years ago, the Eisenhower Foundation had a goal of raising 400,000 a year and they give all of it to gave all of it to the National Archives to use however the archive wishes. In several years in the past 15, the Reagan Library foundation has raised more than 50 million a year. That is the scope between the size of the foundation. Brian what does the Reagan Foundation do with their money . Anthony they operate a portion of the library that they did not deed over to the government so they can use it for political purposes. You cant use government buildings or Government Land under the hatch act for bipartisan political purpose. The air force one pavilion is the air force one that serves the president has a marine one helicopter. An irish pub that reagan visited in ireland. That was not deeded to the government. So every four years, the Foundation Hosts the primary debates from the candidates in the republican parties, Speakers Series and events. You can even rent, if you want to have an event and rent that part of it. Brian how much money comes from the National Archives on the federal side of it to each of the libraries . Anthony it is around 2 million for each one, i think. Sometimes three or four, im not current on specifics. Between funding of each president ial libraries and the capital fund that improves the buildings as they get older, it is about 100 million total. Brian back to your trip. We have been to truman, eisenhower, hoover, who is next . Anthony texas. Lyndon johnson, george h. W. Bush. I want to the austin one first and i have seen that as a change, the break in the modest, Simple Structures that house records and allow space for public exhibits. This is an eightstory building on the campus of university of texas austin. Like president roosevelt, it was during president johnsons term in office and has raised the bar significantly for future president ial libraries. Brian i remember when it opened it was free. Free on the university of texas austin campus. I want to go over some of the numbers what it cost to get in these libraries now. Lbj is now up to 10. Anthony that was just the past three or four years. Brian why did they change it . Anthony cost and differing the cost. They completed a 10 million renovation of the exhibits and that was one of the ways to defray the costs. Brian want to talk about some i of the list, bill clinton 10, fdr 18, george w. Bush 19, Herbert Hoover 10, George Herbert walker bush 9, which turns out to be the lowest. Abraham lincoln, which is not part of the federal system harry , 15. Truman is the lowest at 8. The highest is reagan, 29. Some of the nongovernment places like mount vernon house is 18. James madison is 22. What you think of a 29 entrance fee per person . Anthony the money is primarily going to the foundation, the not to the National Archives, number one. Some folks in the National Archives they say, well, our , role is to preserve and make available the records and we have appropriated funds for that. The foundations get to charge their portion of admission to help defray their costs. Most of the exhibits are, the stuff of the exhibit, right, physical, the screens and the printed materials and the cases, those are paid for by the foundation. The people who work on the exhibits, who help curate are a mix. There is a mix of federal and private dollars. They believe the foundations are meant to help support the ongoing efforts at public programming and exhibits at Speaker Series and Educational Programming, so they, they tend to acquiesce to the foundations wishes. Brian i want to show you a photo of a statue of lbj and the in the library that you went to and the museum and ask you who would have paid for this . Anthony that was most likely the foundation, the lbj foundation. It wouldnt have been the National Archives. Brian the public wouldnt know that . Anthony the public wouldnt know how much of their money is going to the foundation as opposed to the National Archives and how much is going towards preserving records as opposed to creating new exhibits. Brian coleman we go back to a point you just made. Brian lets me go back to a point you just made. Can you today be the director of the foundation and run the library at the same time . Anthony not the way the current archivist has made the decision but thats not set in stone. Just like an executive order a new one can come in and change that back. Brian ill show you a picture of another famous founder. His name is James Madison. There is a library of Congress Building named after him and this is a statue there. He does not have a library. He does have a home down in montpellier where you can go through and its quite expensive to go through there. Its 22. Why doesnt a man like James Madison have a library . Anthony one of the things thats happened over the past few decades is that hometown boosters of earlier president s have tried to lobby the National Archives to say can you please include us in the federal system. I know there was a push a few years ago under don wilson to have the Woodrow Wilson president ial library in stanton, virginia, included in the federal system, and even though roosevelt was the first, technically, the earliest president to have a federal library is hoover, he funded his 20 years later but there is a general acceptance between National Archives and congress that hoover is the earliest president who will have a federal president ial library. Brian when you went on your trip in 2003 did you go to every library on the same trip . Anthony i went to all the libraries i hadnt visited, as a tourist, prior to that the kennedy, carter and roosevelt libraries so i didnt include those in that trip. Brian how many times have you been back to all of these libraries . Anthony at least three times to all of them except george bush. Ive been there once. Brian what did you see, this is the george w. Bush one is a newer one. What did you see in the george w. Bush library and museum compared to his fathers, and one is in dallas and the other one is over in college station, texas. Anthony there is one similarity. They both created a significant they both dedicated a significant part of their exhibit to iraq. I would say inordinately so for the scope of their careers and for their presidencies. There are just room after room of 9 11, war on terror, iraq and afghanistan. A 6. 5 foot panel to discuss both the financial crisis and hurricane katrina. In terms of balance, it is heavily balanced toward the same general topic. What george w. Bushs library has is something called the Decision Points theater. In truman, you can sit in a small theater and be presented with decisions that president truman had been offered, and the audience gets to vote on what decision they would have made. That has been replicated at the ford library, at the Clinton Library and generally speaking, they have information after you choose to say, well, thank you for making your choice but the president made this choice and this is why. At the Decision Points theater, at the george bush museum, the president comes out afterwards and tells you kind of why you were wrong. And especially if you choose the path that the president didnt choose and you can choose between the surge, whether you send federal troops into new orleans during hurricane katrina, whether you intervene in the financial crisis, and you get its very slickly done. There is a lot of video, you can call up two competing advisers who argue about whats best to do, there is breaking news that might influence your decision and actually during the process, which takes about four minutes, youre asked to continually press a button to tell the system whether or not youre leaning towards what the president did or maybe some other decision. Kind of like live polling during a debate. At the end, the audience votes and then the president himself comes out in a prerecorded statement. Now, the number of prerecorded statements for the library that president bush has made far exceeds the total sum of all the other ones together. Thats not only because its the newest one, but because they have learned from other foundations and other president ial libraries what seems to work. Brian how many of the 13 existing libraries have an oval office . Lets see, so there is truman, johnson, nixon, ford, carter, reagan, there is a half exhibit, kind of a half an oval office at the george bush library, clinton and bush. They have kind of a set that has his desk and his chair but its not a full scale replica. Brian what do you think of it . Anthony that first day i would spend as a tourist, i tried to stop any kind of thoughts of criticism or, you know, how much is this costing the taxpayers, most of the libraries frankly are really thrilling. My two favorite oval offices are clinton and george w. Bush. The Clinton Library was the first to use Natural Light to bring into so youre not looking at, lets say a fake backdrop behind the president s desk and you can walk around it. Since the last time i visited , you can walk into it now. And be in there. And the george w. Bush library created in the corner of the building and outside is a replica of the rose garden so there is the portico, walkway and they call it the texas rose garden. It gives visitors a much better understanding of kind of what the place looks like, what it feels like, i have been, as a tourist, i have been to the real oval office a couple of times, and both of those libraries really capture the feeling and spirit of what its like to be there. Brian this book came out in what year . Anthony 2015. Brian the paperback did you have a hardback version . Anthony i did not. brian who published it . Anthony i selfpublished it, i got turned down by 29 publishers. I got one offer from one publisher, well respected academic publisher but they wanted to hold the copyright in perpetuity and i was advised, i had spent so much time and effort on it, that was bad idea. Brian how did you selfpublish . Anthony i used create space, an amazon company, and produced it through there. Brian how did it sell . Anthony moderately. I think more people in media and journalism bought it but whats interesting is that every single comment ive received has been one of either two topics. How angry people are to learn whats happening, or how flabbergasted they are to learn whats happening. I havent received any kind of mild, oh, i read it and it was okay. Brian why are they angry . Anthony they are angry about the fact we have these president ial libraries that are created to house records, especially for the most recent ones, the records wont be open for a hundred years and instead were paying for celebration and legacy building. Brian you said you had been to the jfk library. I want to show some pictures around that. The one is the corridor with the red carpeting, it looks a little bit like the white house itself. What did you see in the jfk library that you hadnt seen anywhere else . Anthony yeah, that was the first kind of feeling that you get, that youre in the white house. It is also the first thats monumental. I dont see the lbj library as specifically monumental to the president. When the foundation was created, the john f. Kennedy memorial Library Foundation was created on december 6, 1963, in the wake of the assassination and the goal of the library was not just to build the president ial library but a nations monument to the slain president , this photograph here as you walk out is one of the most inspiring vistas at any of the president ial libraries. Brian from the 1960 debates with Richard Nixon, you have as you know, one of the podiums and a picture of Richard Nixon. Anthony yes. Brian how do they treat the substance at the jfk library . Anthony i think they treat the substance less than the Nixon Library does about the same topic. There is this apocryphal tale that people who watch the debate on television think jfk won and people who listen think Richard Nixon won the Kennedy Library exhibit is geared towards that tale. Just look at the two, you get a sense of the man and you can judge for yourself. Brian so after, you were in texas, before the g. W. Bush library, where did you go on your 2003 tour . Anthony california. I went out to the reagan and nixon libraries, which, going to those two at the same time was one of two things, one of two episodes that changed the course of the book. I was at the Reagan Library, and there was most of the libraries have exhibits on the campaigns, and they will have the standard electoral map. At the time, blue was for republicans and red was for democrats and they had a 1984, little plastic sign. It was small, about this big, electoral map, and the entire map was blue except for minnesota. Which wasnt red. You couldnt see minnesota. So many people had touched it, in reaction to the fact that reagan had won 49 states, and clearly, i watched people touch it and say, look at this to their friends and families, that they had worn off the color and that little map told me, that kind of reaction that people were astonished, that people that came to the Library Mostly to see someone they admired like Ronald Reagan maybe didnt know that or remember and were so taken by just that one little fact that they touched it, that i thought, professor sutton is right, there is a book in here. Brian why is the ronald Reagan Library and museum so much bigger than all the rest . I think, did you Say Something like 200,000 feet . Anthony it was 150,000 before they built the extension for air force one. Which is 90,000. The short answer is they had the money and the long answer, i think, is by that time, by the late 1980s, the idea of monumentally commemorating a president and making sure that the history is written by the family and by the foundation and quickly, really had taken hold. And the eight years of the Reagan Administration are not nearly as much the focus of the library as is his prior career as an actor. They downplay the fact that he was a spokesman and president of the Screen Actors Guild but you can go in and act in a movie with Ronald Reagan on a blue screen and give a talk at a teleprompter and get photographed there and you can see a lot you can play an economic game where you can change the course of the benefits and have a positive impact on the economy. Brian what do you make of the fact for years now, chairman of the foundation that Ronald Reagan, a guy named fred ryan, hes also the c. E. O. And publisher of the Washington Post, and for a very long time, the chairman of the foundation at lbj was tom johnson who ran cnn and l. A. Times. Here are two media people running the foundation. Does it make a difference . Anthony making a difference to whats inside . Brian does it matter who runs those foundations and are you surprised that the post c. E. O. Would be running the Reagan Foundation . Anthony fred ryan was Ronald Reagans chiefofstaff in retirement and he actually founded the foundation and founded the president ial library. Hes the longest serving of any president ial Library Foundation director so that came first. Youre right that he was one of the cofounders and ran politico and then the Washington Post. I would argue that the coverage of the Reagan Library and the in the Washington Post is maybe not as for example, i dont remember ever rreading an article in the post that mentions that. I think it changes a couple of things. Anthony you know, when president s leave office they immediately start losing their ability to raise as much money as they could while they were in office. So you need someone with connections and reach and clout to be able to continue that high fundraising and the Reagan Foundation continues to be the highest fundraising of all. Brian one of the things tim, the First Federal director of the Nixon Library and museum wanted to do was change the watergate exhibit. I have a picture of the watergate exhibit during his time and some things that were on the wall there. Whats the background on this story and how well did he, who i assume is not a republican, weve had him here and hes not, what impact did that have and, again, you talk about your own partisan situation. So how much impact does being partisan have on this story . Anthony his first act as director was to dismantle the watergate exhibit even before they had a plan to replace it because he said it was fundamentally inaccurate, and i think most historians agreed. Tim is a historian by training and by practice. I think that while no one can completely remove partisan tendencies, i think historians strive more than many. I think he did an excellent job for what had been for 17 years a private organization that could do whatever they want into a federal system, which, not everyone in the nixon camp wanted to have someone like tim to be there because he was administering, in my opinion, in a nonpartisan governmental way rather than as a legacy burnishing brian they thought the opposite. Anthony there was a point at which the Foundation Went to sharon faucette, and said you have to fire tim, we just cant work with him anymore. This was not because of anything, i believe that he was doing that was inappropriate, its that he was producing accurate factbased history rather than celebratory legacy, and so sharon and duke, who was then and still is the director of the Reagan Library, he was also at the time, he was also the executive director of the foundation of the president ial library at reagan, they went to tim and said, well let you put the watergate exhibit in that you want to, without any interference from the nixon folks, but you have to resign. And they gave him that choice and he refused to resign. He got the watergate exhibit installed as he wanted, and several months later then on his own terms left. Brian you tell a story in your book about Richard Nixon that has never been told before. What is it . Anthony Richard Nixon stole 4,000 acres from the United States marine corps to build his president ial library in what would have been the most inspiring area. Brian how did he do it . Anthony youre not allowed to transfer, two things, youre not allowed to build president ial libraries on federal property. He had to find a way to take the property away from the u. S. Marine corps, department of the navy and the General Services administration and put it into either private or state hands. So he, against the objection of those organizations, the marine corps said it was vitally important to use that particular property, this is during vietnam, they were training, all the west coast marines to go out to vietnam, usually when a department declares a federal property excess, it goes to the General Services administration and they offer it to all the other agencies and they have to turn it down so there is a lengthy prescribed Legal Process to transfer records and Richard Nixon went around that process to lease the land to the state of california and the governor at the time was Ronald Reagan and he signed a long term lease, which is up in just a few years, by the way, to allow those 4,000 acres to be transferred to the state of california and then the plan was to have the nixon Foundation Work with the state of california to take about 167 acres in the middle of that 4,000 acres to build the library. Brian Camp Pendleton right next to where Richard Nixon had a home in san clemente. Why didnt it happen because that Library Museum is in a neighborhood yorba linda. Anthony it didnt happen primarily because he resigned from office. The point person on this was john dean and there were a lot of memos back and forth between john dean and the president saying we need to lay off the plans for the library in anticipation of the 1972 election. We dont Want Congress to get wind of the plan. This was kind of a very secret plan, if you will and then by , the time he left office, they did affect that lease and when the lease was announced it was announced it would be a state beach and park, and the big push was, that the federal government is giving back this unnecessary, unused property to the people and they can use it for recreation. Brian how can someone buy your book . Anthony through amazon, barnes noble. Brian was it worth it, all the time you spent on putting this book out . Anthony i think so. It changed my life a little bit. I went back to work for congress as a result of the book. And was actually spent time working on the subcommittee that overseas president ial libraries. Brian i want to show you a picture of a building that sits right next to the jfk library. Its called the emk institute. And this is what it looks like. Its a picture there of a replica of the senate, and the senate and the house passed a bill that put a lot of money into this thing. Its right next to jfk, what do you think of that . Anthony ive not yet been to the new exhibit. I understand they use it not just for tourists but there is an Education Program that they use it for which is clearly the most aggressive and largest of these kinds put in the place of the president or a the member of or as a member of congress, the library has a process where they bring kids in and even adults in and they have role playing, Eisenhower Library has the same thing. The Reagan Library has the same thing but its a higher level of academic and policy making. Brian is it worth several million taxpayer dollars to put this right next to the jfk library . Anthony i dont think so. I think the Kennedy Foundation could well have raised the money for that on their own. Brian the only thing in there thats really ted kennedy is the replica of his office . Anthony yes. Brian that he had. Anthony named for him as opposed to celebrating him. Brian i want to show you some video of James Billington who used to be the secretary of the library of congress. We did a tour, you may have seen it, where they put 22 or 23 president s papers, we did a live show there years ago, and, as a matter of fact, it goes back to 1999. Here is jim billington. We ordinarily dont go in here. I dont think weve ever done this before but were anxious to show your readers at the end of the long consideration of the presidency how we know things about our past leaders. How are they housed as we go down . You will find they are housed in different ways. Many of them are bound. That was the approved method of conservation until really just after the second world war. We then began putting them in acid free boxes, and within those boxes, individually in some cases, in mylar containers. The jefferson papers. Youll be able to see what hes talking about. You almost see a history of conservation as we walk through or concentration theories and philosophies as we walk through the division. You will see things inbound volumes. Youll see things in boxes. And even in some other forms. [end video clip] brian if it was good enough for George Washington then why isnt it good enough for president s today . Anthony thats a question we should ask the congress. The congress has not revisited the idea of president ial libraries and what the focus should be. Whether the money should be going towards the exhibits as opposed to the records and how quickly the records should be coming out. Brian i want to show you a video of a hearing you had something to do with from 2010. The hearing when they got together and you were working, you were working for lacy clay . Anthony is this the one in 2011 . Brian yes. Anthony you want the quick back story on that . Brian quick. Because i want to show some video. Anthony this was after the house looked in 2011. In 2010, we tried to schedule a number of hearings on the subcommittee about the relationship between the foundations and president ial libraries. And not everyone is comfortable, not every private organization is comfortable with congressional scrutiny and there were requests made through channels to have those hearings canceled. The hearings were canceled. Brian which party was in charge . Anthony the democrats were in charge at the time and when the house flipped the republicans and the leadership of the committees changed, one of the first acts of the committee was to hold a very celebratory hearing and then a symposium later that day and at the hearing one of the two it was a coled hearing, one of the two chairmen had said i want to make it clear from the outset were not here to investigate the president ial libraries or the foundations. Were here to celebrate them. Brian i want to give folks a flavor. We carry this on the network. Janet, withrson up, calvin coolidge, who does not have a library. You can get the Forbes Library at Smith College has some stuff but here we go. [begin video clip] it seems to me that there should be more oversight for important historical papers than this. That papers that are so important to the history of this country. But to in effect fund these projects as worthy as they are, well have to raise somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 million, a project that would be unprecedented in the history of the hoover president ial library. In terms of the endowment now, and tell me if im incorrect its now at 60 , for the Obama Library which is a significant amount of money. Let me address a point that came up in the discussion earlier today and that was the consternation that the foundations might be in place simply to polish the halos of the president s that they represent. I dont get private funds. 98 of my budget is salaries. Making sure we dont have leaks in the building and security. Many Kansas School districts and also some School Districts in colorado, oklahoma, and nebraska, are saying that they cant afford to come to abilene. I would like to bring us back to the digitization topic that was discussed a while back, in that were not, most of us, able to do things thus far on the scale that the Kennedy Library has. [end video clip] brian that was six years ago. What are you hearing that you want to comment on . Anthony the National Archives asked the directors to increase attendance, in any way they can, and the directors report, quarterly, to the archives saying, heres how many people came in, and it doesnt matter whether its researchers or its tourists. They get those numbers because the numbers help defend the budget, which helps to promote the numbers and it becomes this kind of circle. And so the idea that you would digitize records has for decades been a problem for some in the archives because they believe if you digitize records people wont come. They wont have the attendance figures. They wont get the budget. Im looking at some figures of attendance. Herbert hoover, in 2014, 43,000 for the year. 140 for fdr. 59,000 for truman. 186,000 for eisenhower. 296 for john f. Kennedy. Lyndon johnson, 139,000. Richard nixon, 85,000. Gerald ford, 158, jimmy carter, 52. Ronald Reagan George w. Bush was 491,000 because it just opened. William clinton was at 334. Ronald reagan, 383,000 and george h. W. Bush 136,000. Enough people . Anthony it depends on what you want to do. Certainly not enough people in the research rooms. It was difficult for me to selffund all of these trips and to spend time in the research rooms. But it also depends on what as a system what do we want the system to do . Do we want it to be a place to attract tourists or a place 20 place to preserve and make available the records of the presidency. Brian are these funds tax deductible . Anthony they are not. Brian why not . Anthony as far as donations . It would depend on how they set it up, if its a nonprofit, then yes. Brian and how much do we know about who contributes . Anthony we only know whats voluntarily disclosed by some of the foundations. There is no law that requires disclosure and there is no law that prohibits donations. Brian why do foreign governments give to these president ial libraries, saudi arabia, koreans, kuwaitis, you can go down the list, japan. Anthony i think the former president s either through their , own acts, through the administration, through their family members, exert an inordinate influence on governmental policy and procedure, and they also want to be seen. Just like any other stakeholder, whether youre a person who is boosting the hometown or whether youre a former cabinet official who wants to see your record, you know, seen as positive in terms of the administration, there are a lot of stake holders who want to give money to promote the legacy of the president. Brian the name of the book is the last campaign how president s rewrite history, run for posterity, and enshrine their legacies. As our guest said, its selfpublished. Our guest is anthony clark. And we thank you very much. Anthony thank you, brian. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer for free transcripts, visit us at q a. Org. Q a programs are also available as cspan podcasts. Announcer if you enjoyed this weeks q a interview, here are some other programs you might like. The work on the Reagan Museum in california. Historian Allen Weinstein, who served as archivist for United States. And paul spero in hyde park, in new york. You can watch these anytime or search our entire cspan library at cspan. Org. Tonight on the communicators, the Technology Fair on capitol hill for members of Congress Looking in the latest in Drone Technology and new security. Eatures for mobile phones area see lifechanging innovation, whether it is health care or navigation. That has really consequences. Watch the communicators tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan two. This morning, president of the national right to work Legal Foundation discusses right to work laws. Talks about. B. Minimum wage laws. We will take your calls and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. Washington journal is next. Good morning. It is monday, september four, 2017 peer leading the news, report out of the white house that President Trump is planning to end a program to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation. An official announcement on the program that impacts socalled dreamers will come tomorrow. And tope, the president military advisers met at the white house and offered words in response to north koreas latest nuclear test. The Security Council prepares for an emergency meeting this morning. New queio