Government Publications Review, Vol . 16, pp . 331-345, 1989

0277-9390/89 $3 .00 + .00Printed in the USA . All rights reserved .

Copyright e 1989 Maxwell Pergamon Macmillan plc

A GPR INTERVIEW

"PRESERVING THE INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY"An Interview with Scott Armstrong, Executive Director of the National Security

Archive1755 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA

Interviewed by Bruce Morton, Associate Editor, and Steven D, Zink, Editor-in-Chief

SCOTT ARMSTRONG

Abstract - In this interview with the editors of Government Publications Review, ScottArmstrong, Executive Director of the National Security Archive, discusses the organiza-tion's conceptual basis, its funding, operation, and aspirations . This discussion takesplace against the background of the critical issues and problems relating to governmentclassification, reclassification, and declassification of information . The interview wasconducted in Washington, DC, on January 8 . 1989 .

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INTRODUCTION

In the midst of the Reaean years there came on the Washington scene a new organization, theNational Security Archive, headed by Scott Armstrong . a seasoned Washington insider andex-Washington Post reporter . Although governmental-sounding, the Archive should not beconfused with such entities as the National Security Agency, the National Archives, or the NationalSecurity Council . The National Security Archive serves as a nonpartisan, non-governmentalrepository for national security affairs documents, many of which have been retrived throughvigorous use of the Freedom of Information Act .

Founder of the Archive . Armstrong brings to this challenging task impressive credentials . Heserved as a senior investigator for the U .S . Senate's Watergate Committee, assisted BobWoodward and Carl Bernstein with their hook, The Final Days . and co authored with Woodwarda bestselling book on the Supreme Court . The Brethren .

Under Armstrong's close direction, the National Security Archive since 1985 has attempted tofree the Potomac of the ice jams created by the executive branch to stanch the flow of nationalsecurity information to the public . The National Security Archive has taken on the executivebranch of government with a zeal that is seldom seen inside the beltway . Mr. Armstrong spokewith GPR's editors concerning the establishment of the Archive and a wide range of criticalgovernment information issues at his office in Washington, D .C ., on January 8, 1989 .

GPR: What is the National Security Archive?

ARMSTRONG: The National Security Archive is a coalition of information-access professionals(librarians . scholars, journalists, public interest organizations, and farmer or current governmentofficials) who need, use . or desire to have access to national security information . The Archiveidentifies, assembles, indexes, and disseminates national security information, which can bebroadly defined as foreign, defense, intelligence and international economic policy materials .

GPR: How is the Archive funded?

ARMSTRONG : The Archive is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that can be used by anybody :there are no use charges or fees . At the present time the Archive, with a small exception from thesale of some publications, is completely foundation funded . We hope that we shall be able toincrease the amount of revenue from disseminated materials by distributing everything that wehave to subscribing institutions around the country . By more widely distributing the material, it ishoped that a greater breadth of the citizenry will have the opportunity to use national securityinformation or to take part in the broad policy debates that always surround national securitypolicy .

GPR: What situation did you perceive that led you to create the National Security Archive?

ARMSTRONG: In mid-1985 the National Security Archive was just a glimmer of an idea . Thecountry had a president and a cabinet government that found facts to be fungible, convenient toolsthat could be changed, reshuffled, or revised at a moment's notice . There was no such thing as afactual predicate in the national security area . The information that was available to documentparticular positions was largely in the control of the executive branch and often in control of a fewindividuals in the executive branch. Even the internal dissent within the executive branch had been

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largely silenced by controls over information . We saw the journalistic, scholarly, and public-interest communities, and even the Congress, less and less able to cope with such executivemanipulations of information . These constituencies were increasingly willing to go along with thisstate of affairs, as if facts do change ; the only reality was what was said by the president .

CPR: Were there not avenues in place by which the real facts could be acquired?

ARMSTRONG: It remained possible to get information through traditional mechanisms such aspublic information releases, the use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), court filings, etc .The system had not changed, but it had become moribund by virtue of the fact that in the nationalsecurity area the executive branch of the government could out-wait anybody else's need for theinformation . Generally speaking, people would fold their tents and go away before the informationthat they had requested was made available . Not only was there no accountability since there wasno information widely available, but there was not even accountability on the issue ofaccountability. People generally withdrew their requests or did not pursue them after they werefiled . I believe this practice was true across the board, regardless of whether it was congressionalcommittees, journalists, or members of the scholarly community .

GPR: So the National Security Archive was conceived as an antidote to this state of affairs?

ARMSTRONG: The National Security Archive was founded as an organization that would outlastany particular bureaucrat in the federal government - an organization that would pursue mattersuntil someone finally could get the information that was appropriate for release . Probably the mostimportant reason for founding the Archive was to provide an organization that would not only keeprequests active but also retain released material in the public domain . In the past, if one person didget something released and that information was cited in a publication or informally disseminated,any other individual who wanted to examine the original evidence would have to begin the accessprocess all over again. As a result, the four years the first person waited might be followed by ayear or two entailed by the process of publishing or disseminating the information released . Thiscould then be followed by another four years for another individual to obtain the original documentneeded to refute or otherwise examine the material because the government has a policy of notmaintaining records of what materials it has released . In total, it might take the second individualup to 10 years in order to refute or otherwise examine material released to an earlier individual .

GPR: Has this situation developed because of a blind spot on the part of the bureaucracy, or doesit have some rational basis in policy?

ARMSTRONG: We saw the need for an organization that would keep materials that were once inthe public domain truly accessible within the public domain . The constant problem of cabinet,interagency government is that it is elaborate and has many players . Information from as many as30 to 40 different agencies can come into play on certain issues . All of this information is broughtto the decision-making process - what might be termed the conference table . After a governmentdecision is made, the information gradually goes back to its points of origin where there is abouta one-in-two chance that any given document will be destroyed . There is no appropriate orstatutorily required document retention in the U . S . government today; document retention is almostrandom. There are certain agencies that do better than others, but none of them do well . If one issatisfied that government accountability can wait until the materials of an earlier era are

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declassified through the normal process and review, then in 50 years it is likely that 50 percent ofit is likely to be found to be missing . By acting quickly and by, if you will, taking a snapshot ofthe actors at the table during the decision-making process, we at the National Security Archive findourselves in a position to benefit our large coalition of constituents by at least beginning to developsome hooks into the materials so that it will not be totally destroyed or otherwise lost .

GPR: Do you regard the situation that you have just described as being peculiar to the Reaganadministration or endemic in the executive branch of government?

ARMSTRONG: I think it is endemic to any large bureaucracy . The cult of national security secrecyis a product of a bipartisan effort over a number of administrations . It was probably as energeticallydeveloped under Democratic administrations as Republican administrations . It has a self-protectingpurpose to avoid scrutiny . There are many otherwise well-meaning, dedicated, talented bureaucratswho do not feel that it is the public's right or business to be involved in national security affairsdecisions . They feel that they are keeping the republic safe, they are the praetorian guard, and theydo not want citizen involvement . They see Congress as the most clownish version of citizeninvolvement. pandering to all sorts of private interests . The closer one gets to having aconstitutional ability and appropriate framework for getting some of this material, the more of athreat the bureaucracy feels .

The Reagan administration took that natural inclination to make such matters secret anddeveloped it into an art form . By using existing controls, it began to protect more and moreinformation under the guise of protecting the national security from espionage, inappropriatedisclosure, and other compromises that could weaken the United States in the face of hostileadversaries . It manipulated information to appear that the administration was speaking with onevoice from the executive branch with a partial list of facts (if based on facts at all) without theability of others within the bureaucracy, or outside the bureaucracy for that matter, to respond .

GPR: Who should be the final arbiter of what is necessarily secret and what is not? Who is todecide who should decide? Who should decide the consequences of information being madepublic? Are not, to some extent, the people placing this responsibility in the hands of their dulyelected government?

ARMSTRONG: Yes, but there is no uniformity or defined set of guidelines by which this is or couldbe done . The public has no basis for confidence in its government in this matter . Most citizens donot have access to the information . Even if they do, access is controlled by the right to polygraphor the demand to review any released materials prior to dissemination or articulation . These actionssimply quiet those people that might otherwise be viewed as the nonpartisan part of thebureaucracy . The Reagan administration altered what was designed by the bureaucracy to protectitself into a tool to protect political appointees to allow them to be able to manipulate the press, theCongress, and the public at large . The contractor community loved this . The way thingsdeveloped, fewer auditors and oversight committees could look at their material . Contractors wereless likely to be prosecuted for fraud . Even if prosecution were pursued it would be less likely toresult in serious consequences since the information could not be disseminated widely. Therefore,contractors could handle problems quietly and continue to make money on what otherwise mighthe viewed as predatory pricing schemes that are endemic in the national security area . Ali of thesematters came together to create precisely what it was that President Eisenhower urged Americansto fear the most - a coalition of the national security government forces with a large contractorcommunity working in such a way that they began to see the definition of the nation's security in

terms of their own interests and not the other way around .

GPR: But it would seem apparent that some information requires national security classification .What body in the government should be the arbiter of what is to be and what is not to remainclassified?

ARMSTRONG : Executive Order 12356 (2 April 1982) says that the Information Security OversightOffice, which is a part of the General Services Administration, but policy-wise a part of theNational Security Council, has the responsibility for making sure that information is secure and isnot inappropriately withheld or classified . It is an office with 13 employees that oversees anenormous business and contractor community . It is clear that the Information Security OversightOffice cannot do the job adequately . This is no small part of the problem . It needs to be able toaudit, conduct inspections, and issue policy . It also needs to be able to get the attention of thepresident, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the director of the CentralIntelligence Agency . If this agency could do these things, it would be able to inform responsibleofficials of the enormous harms that are caused by over-classification. The second part of theproblem is that in certain areas it obviously is appropriate to classify materials dealing withintelligence sources and methods . The tradition had been that the originating agency must reviewthe material and make a determination as to whether something should be released . For example,the Secretary of State cannot declassify information unilaterally that has been gathered by theDefense Intelligence Agency . The State Department must go to the Defense Intelligence Agencyand ask for its permission to release it. The intelligence agencies are the only ones that knowwhether the information that they have received is based upon a truly sensitive source and if thatsource would be compromised by the dissemination of the information .

GPR: Then wherein lies the problem?

ARMSTRONG: The system that is in place, which does deserve protection, is made totallyineffective when, for instance, the Defense Intelligence Agency takes news clippings and classifiesthe information simply because someone is trying to fill their intelligence production . That kind ofabuse results in such broad skepticism that one finds bureaucrats all over the governmentblurting out information that they know is classified but which they assume is meaningless .Consequently, the few times that there is an inadvertent disclosure that reveals a source that needsto be protected it usually can be attributed to an administration official simply blurting somethingout to facilitate some policy premise without recognizing what was truly sensitive . Rarely does theinformation come as a leak from the inside . There must be developed a genuine sensitivity in allof the agencies that if one wishes to protect sensitive information one has to define it clearly andit must be a reasonable amount of material . What Justice Stewart said in his concurrence is thePentagon Papers case, "when everything is classified, then nothing is classified," strikes me asbeing true . We at the National Security Archive are in an odd coalition between ourselves and whatwe see as the most conservative elements of the government who believe that the securityclassification system must be overhauled dramatically so that the government can protect trulysensitive material . Their approach would be to declassify virtually everything . I do not believe thisis going to happen . However, I have to admit that most of the material could be released and wewould like to have it .

GPR: In general, what are the steps that the Archive follows in gaining access to national security

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material, and what are the costs and time involved?

ARMSTRONG: It is a very labor-intensive process . In each instance we conduct an analysis ofsystems that have never been analyzed before . Our government does not work according to thecivics textbook model that we would like to think - it works in informal and often repetitive

ways; there are very complicated and intriguing formulations of activity . Agencies are interde-

pendent in ways that were never anticipated . It is quite common for intelligence reports to includeinformation that was garnered out of the newspaper because it is the easiest way for the analyst to

get information . What we try to do is examine from all angles the way a system functions thatwould likely result in information being produced on a particular topic . We begin each topic byanalyzing what agency or individual is likely to have information that would be useful fordecisionmakers outside of government or scholars . We then look at how those portions of thegovernment function and what they do bureaucratically . We attempt to have in our possession such

things as agency telephone books, agency record retention schedules, internal agency proceduresand manuals that will tell who is supposed to do what within an agency . We then go to former

officials, but sometimes to current officials, and interview them in much the same way a journalistwould to find out who knows what and how they came to know it. We put together a review panel

consisting of the congressional actors, journalists, scholars, public interest organizations members,and former and current officials to help us outline what the most important elements of theinformation are . Sometimes much of that information may be already in the public record oraccessible to the public record and is just not known .

GPR: Can we make this more concrete by using a topical example?

ARMSTRONG: If we were interested in something concerning Stealth Bomber technology, the firstthing that we would probably look into are lawsuits in which workers have sued the defenseindustries or the Department of Defense itself because of manufacturing processes that might havebeen injurious to their health . We would probably find in the court record that a lot of this

information has been declassified for purposes of litigation . That would give us a place to start . W e

would go to people who have had access or might have filed FOIA requests on related topics . Otherindividuals might have received information from a process of mandatory declassification review .

As you know, under the current executive order any U .S. citizen can ask to have any documentdeclassified at any time without going through the Freedom of Information Act . They simply

request to have a specific document declassified . The agency must go through the document . They

may deny the request or may declassify pans of the document . There are individuals, particularlyformer officials who leave government to work for a major contractor, that are likely to obtain a

lot of this type of information . We will certainly obtain everything that an agency has released for

the public record before we begin to file FOIA requests . We will get every relevant presidentialnews conference, every State Department news conference, and every Pentagon news conferenceon a particular subject . When all this work is complete, we start filing FOIA requests based on a

chronology that we have built from the public record .

GPR: Would there he any significant differences in the process if you were dealing with an issuethat was more volatile politically - U .S .-Nicaraguan relations, for instance?

ARMSTRONG: In dealing with geopolitical matters in which a United States representative wasclose at hand, we know that if there had been a coup or some military actions that there will have

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been reporting by the embassies or consulates in the area . We would ask for informationgenerically about particular topics . At the same time, we would ask for information by internalgovernment bureaucratic subject definitions . For example, the State Department has what is calleda TAG system that is subject matter indicators. When we wished to find information concerningthe revolution in Nicaragua and the U .S .-Nicaraguan negotiations in late 1978 or early 1979regarding Somoza's exit from power, we asked for information about those news items that hadappeared in the public record - particular uprisings, particular visits by U.S . officials toNicaragua, visits by Nicaraguans to the United States . etc . For the same period of time we wouldask for all cables that were sent between two specific dates that have specific subject tags such as'Nu' for Nicaragua amd `PINS' for National Security . By defining a group of subject TAGSbetween specific dates, we can generally get a slightly broader view of information, but sometimesit is classified differently . By proceeding in this manner there is no overt attempt by thegovernment to withhold a particular piece of information because when they see a requestsubmitted generically they are not quite sure for what you are looking .

When one puts these two processes together you often get a much more complete picture . Wethen try to piece the record together using all of the documents that have come in and compare themwith the chronology, all the while adding and amending the chronology so that there is a betteroverview of the sequence of events . The documents often identify new individuals involved whomay not have been previously known to us . We go to them and ask for other information relatingto these activities . They may recall meetings or events about which we had not previously soughtFreedom of Information Act materials . This may cause us to ask for a new round of documents .Sometimes released documents will cite other documents . This also will cause us to seek otherdocuments .

GPR: How can you be certain that you are always receiving the documentation that you want, sinceyou seem to be throwing a pretty wide net?

ARMSTRONG: Certain documents are denied us . The pattern by which they are denied usuallyindicates the sensitivity or the importance that the government puts on a given event or meeting .If it is deemed to be an appropriately classified area we may abandon the search and take forgranted that it is not something that will be released for 5, 10, 15, or even 50 years . In otherinstances, when we perceive that something is being hidden on the basis that it may simply be anembarrassment, we will continue pursuit of the information . We will appeal the decision and giverationales why we believe that the materials can be released lawfully . If necessary, we will litigateand go to federal district court and ask for the information there . Quite often we find ourselvespursuing not only the Freedom of Information Act requests that we bring to the government, whichare not all that many, but a group of requests which is perhaps three to fivefold as many that arebrought by other individuals who are pursuing materials for books that they are writing, for theirmemoirs . or for public policy reasons . As a result, we frequently are pursuing other individuals'FOIA requests and helping them file appeals and litigation .

GPR: What happens after the Archive obtains all the information that it will get on a topic? Howis it processed?

ARMSTRONG: When we have gathered together as much as we think can be retrieved within areasonable period of time that portrays a useful and relatively complete story, we try to group thematerials together. This is exactly where we are now with our first sets of material . At that pointwe thoroughly index the materials so that any reference to a proper name, organization, or

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transactions can be quickly located in the documents . For example, in our El Salvador collectionone might be interested in documents shedding light on U .S. aid or international land reformpractices and not be interested in the politics of El Salvador per se or the circumstances underwhich the land reform program was implemented . One might also be interested in coffeeproduction in Central America or even in one particular coffee producer . One could go directly to

that specific information contained in the documents . One could also go directly to the name of a

general or politician that might correlate with certain death squad activities . Information that is fiveor six years old could be as relevant to what is going on in El Salvador today as a cable that was

written the day before . Similarly, Congress can go in and look at material that would be relevantto confirmation hearings or review the performance of government agencies in a particular context .By having this kind of thoroughly cataloged and indexed set of documents, the utility of theinformation is multiplied many times over . The value of a relatively modest collection of 5,000 or6,000 documents comprising about 20,000 pages can be as useful as several hundred-thousandpages of material that are 30, 40, or 50 years old but only indexed at the file level . In the former

case, one can lay a hand on every reference to any particular individual or event .

GPR: What is there to insure that a reasonably generic Freedom of Information Act request willresult in the release of information and that particularly embarrassing material will not be withheld?

ARMSTRONG: Embarrassing material is frequently withheld . Most bureaucrats who are involvedin the Freedom of Information Act at the professional fulfillment level and who service the requestsare very honest and really care about the public record. Unfortunately, those people must pass of

the material along to people who arc political actors or political appointees who see themselves aspartisans and may have some interest in editing the record .

GPR: Are there no safeguards built into the system to guard against his happening?

ARMSTRONG: The fact that most decisions involve dozens of different agencies and mostmaterials front any one agency get disseminated to other agencies helps to thwart withholding ofinformation . For example, even if the State Department does not circulate material to theCommerce Department, the State Department's account of what happened in an interagency

roundtable discussion on U .S . policy in a given country will be included in a report filed about thediscussion by the Commerce Department's representative . When we do not get that StateDepartment document from the State Department, one is moved to begin asking where it is . When

they say, "Well we searched the records of the obvious person," the fact of the matter is that onthe bottom of somebody else's copy will be the list of all of the participants of that meeting . There

is a probably a second or third State Department person whose records should be checked .

Eventually we are likely to get the material. Of course we do find that we are unable to fill somegaps, but in most cases we have been able to explain what happened and sometimes there is frankadmission that the materials have been destroyed, either inappropriately or inadvertently .

CPR: As you know, the legislative branch of government has exempted itself from the Freedom

of Information Act . Do you find it worrisome, in view of congressional oversight of nationalsecurity matters, that congressional records arc not necessarily accessible by such an Act?

ARMSTRONG: We would love to have something that would amount to FOIA-type access tocertain congressional materials . However, it is clearly secondary to having that ability in the

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executive branch . Let me tell you why . Congress has a series of recurring processes by which itis largely accountable through publishing its proceedings on a daily basis . It also publishes itscommittee work on a fairly regular basis, although less often than used to be the case . Not manycommittee prints are now being distributed, except to depository libraries . A lot of that informationis not being published at all . I have found that over 50 percent of what the present-day Congressdoes is published only in the sense that it holds a hearing and a record is made available and thatthe rest is never printed . In the national security area I would suspect that the figure would bepushing 75 percent . I am constantly looking in the CIS Index, knowing that the date of hearing,and finding that there is no reference to it . We find that the committee never printed the report butthat a transcript is available in a committee office and it never got any further . At any rate,Congress does publish materials on a daily basis and there is a natural incentive for elected officialsto be as publicity hogging as possible . As a result there is a certain degree of natural incentive toget congressional information out .

Where I do find fault, however, is really twofold . One is easily solved in that Congress asks forinformation on a regular basis from the executive branch, In its wisdom Congress has often askedfor that information to be given to it in an unclassified or declassified form . For example, sales ofU.S . military equipment sold abroad above a certain dollar amount must be reported to Congressin unclassified form . The problem has been that the executive only makes the information availableto Congress. Congress generally does not make it available to the public unless someone goes andfights for it, and even then, there is only a very short window of opportunity in which to do that .On the other hand, the executive will not make the same information public again other than toCongress . The executive has resisted doing this under the Freedom of Information Act on the basisthat it is congressional material, For that problem, which extends to such topics as budgetjustifications that go to Congress, there needs to be a policy stating that Congress will makeavailable in unclassified or declassified form everything the executive provides to it . The NationalSecurity Archive will be pushing for action in this area in the 101st Congress . This problem issoluble, it is reasonable, and it would not be that expensive to provide this information .

GPR: You mentioned other problems with Congress?

ARMSTRONG: The other congressional problem is the information that it receives behind closeddoors at the executive's request . This information is not part of required reporting systems and doesnot become a part of the public record . What I am talking about here is a sort of closed doorlobbying that occurs . For instance, on such issues as the Airborne Warning and Control Systems(AWACS) sale to Saudi Arabia there were representations and presentations made behind closeddoors that were not properly recorded . Some of these materials are maintained by the executive andsome can be gained through the Freedom of Information Act . What is more pernicious, using thesame example, is when the government of Saudi Arabia, a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia, or a lobbyistfor the aircraft industry make various representations to Congress about the capabilities of theaircraft or in what ways the aircraft is to be used . Some of this information may be worth protectingand classifying . Most of the information, however, is being used to argue pork-barrel politics andshould be in the public domain . Under the present system it is not . Congress should have amechanism for identifying and making accessible the information that it is receiving from suchvested interests . I would not go so far, for First Amendment reasons, as to require that allinformation sent or submitted to Congress be logged in, but there must be something between thatextreme and the kind of slippage that we have now . There are systems by which people who lobbyCongress are supposed to report their activities ; they are not uniformly reporting their activities .The area needs more enforcement . The National Security Archive hopes to play some role inimproving that situation .

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CPR: How would you propose that such all accountability be undertaken?

ARMSTRONG: For example, since lobbyists are required by law to report when they have madecontact with a congressman (to the Clerk of the House if a Representative or to the Secretary ofthe Senate if a Senator) on a particular issue, it would seem to he reasonable that any materials usedin that presentation be submitted to either the Clerk of the House or the Secretary of the Senate .Such information would he voluminous, but extraordinarily insightful . This would not get done inevery instance because some presentations that are now written would become entirely oral . Interms of educating the public in what the true interests of their elected representatives may be, thesematerials would be enormously edifying . I would not call that a Freedom of Information Act, butI think it would substitute very well .

GPR: Why must the Congress set a second standard for itself? Why would you settle for asubstitute for the Freedom of Information Act?

ARMSTRONG: The fear that Congress always has shown when it faces the Freedom of InformationAct is that it has such a deliberative role that its discussions and internal communications willbecome too exposed to the public . In so far as congressional deliberations are supposed to beexposed, they are disseminated through the Congressional Record and through records ofcommittee meetings . Beyond that, Congress truly requires some privacy . That is nothing more thanthe equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act exemption that already exists for the executivebranch . This exemption maintains that there are certain deliberative processes and information thatare protected to ensure that people get candid and complete advice . On the other hand, if the adviceis adopted, then the information is supposed to be accessible through the Freedom of InformationAct. There is a similar parallel on the legislative side . If something actually becomes a law or issubmitted in the form of a bill to a committee and somebody lobbies on it, the materials involvedin this process should become part of the public record .

GPR: Has the Archive done any work on a contractual basis for specific groups or individuals?

ARMSTRONG: No, with one exception. Early in its formation, the Office of the IndependentCounsel of the Department of Justice in the Iran/Contra affair asked us to prepare a chronology sothat they could use it on a computer . We had already compiled such a chronology in a slightlydifferent form, so we modified it for them and they added classified material to our chronology .That document is now classified . I assume our part of the document will resurface when theydeclassify the materials . That was a special project that we did in order to facilitate their work .They paid the Archive for the cost of the materials ; I am not sure that we received any money forlabor. They have also paid us for copies of our publications on a regular basis . We have done workat the request of several congressional committees, but we have never charged them . The Archivefunctions very much as a regular library reading room ; we try to help any requester that comes in .

There are some fairly elaborate projects that we have provided for newspapers ; I do not think thatwe have ever charged for them. There have been a couple of times that when faced with theprospect that my staff was going to be tied up for a long period by one outside organization to thedetriment of staff members' health and weil being, not to mention their loss to other Archiveprojects, I have asked the organizations to reimburse my people directly for any extra time that theyspend . We generally trv to avoid that because we do not want to be perceived, for example, byABC as being a captive of CBS or by the Washington Post as being too closely associated with the

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New York Times . We have tended to be available to just about anyone who has come in . One ofthe most elaborate preparations on which Archive staff have spent extra time was the lead-in forthe explosive Dan Rather interview of George Bush during the presidential campaign . Thebackground was prepared by some of our staff members who spent their own time working on iton weekends and evenings . It was suggested to us that we prepare the organization of materials andfiles on behalf of the government of the Philippines in preparation for litigation against the formerMarcos regime . We were rather uncomfortable with that . However, we volunteered to organize thematerials if we could have them but we were not interested in working on a contract basis .

GPR: So contracting out services is not the direction in which the National Security Archive isheading?

ARMSTRONG: The questions for us are just too difficult in terms of the partisan nature of theactivity and the subject matter . The Archive has scare resources . We have to make our alliancesand our decisions based on the kind of productivity that best suits our purposes . For example, avery prominent journalist from a news magazine came to us concerning an elaborate project thathe will be doing over the next couple of years . The kinds of information and material that wouldbe involved in the project would be wonderful for us to have . His name, abilities, and insight willhelp us to get the material and I think that we shall work closely with him . On the other hand, Ido not want to work so closely with him that people at competitive news magazines will think thatwe have become a captive of that organization . In any case, we shall not take any money from him .

GPR: How many people are employed by the National Security Archive?

ARMSTRONG: We have 32 paid employees and about 8 full-timers on some other basis, such asinternships .

GPR: What sort of official response to your activities has the Archive had from members ofCongress and the executive branch?

ARMSTRONG: It has varied depending on the perspective and goals of the individuals who havecome in contact with us . In the executive branch we have relatively good relations with the peopleat the line levels who complete the Freedom of Information Act processing and who have had directcontact with us. A couple of agencies have more or less forbidden their people to have contact withus . Sometimes this is due to lingering misunderstandings that have yet to be resolved . The politicalactors have varied. The Reagan administration has been very hostile to the Archive : at one pointit went way out of its way to characterize us as an entrepreneurial activity that was going to becomecommercial. They urged that we should be taxed and not be granted Freedom of Information Actfee waivers available to educational entities . That persisted for about a year and a half until theyhad everyone in the government receptive to their message . As a result we started having troublewith a variety of agencies . The Archive now is attempting to resolve this issue in the courts . I donot anticipate that it will take too much longer and I am sure that we shall prevail . In the meantime,the person who was really behind that effort, Steve Markman, an Assistant Attorney General anda former legislative aide to Senator Hatch, has changed positions . He has been in here and has hadlunch with us several times. We have talked with him and he now takes the position that we arelike any other requestor and are not commercial . He does not see us as educational . We think thatwe are both educational and journalistic under the definitions that are provided in the statute .

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GPR: And the Congress? And what about the incoming Bush administration?

ARMSTRONG: We still have to clarify our relations with the incoming gentler and kinder Bushadministration. The Congress has varied dramatically depending on what service we haveperformed . At one point there was a senator who was giving us a request almost every day forassistance on how to get information on a particular topic relating to his service on the SenateIntelligence Committee . What was becoming apparent was that the briefings that the Committee

was getting were very limited - seemingly high-level, detailed, and appropriate - but in factlacking information critical to the matter at hand . They were not really hitting on the issues withthe information that he needed. The Archive advised him on where to get the information . Thatwork got to be burdensome since we were helping him but it was not resulting in informationgetting into the public record, which is where we put our priorities . I have briefed all of the new

legislative assistants in each new Congress about what we do, but we do not encourage theCongress to use us for fear that our relatively small staff would be overwhelmed . We are not theCongressional Research Service (CRS) and we do not intend to become so . What has worked better

for us has been two work with CRS people when they need information .

GPR: Has the Congressional Research Service been useful to the Archive?

ARMSTRONG: Absolutely. One of the first places we go when we define an area or start to builda chronology is to look at what CRS has done already .

GPR: What products of the Archive will become available through your recent arrangement withChadwyck-Healey, Inc .

ARMSTRONG : We were looking for an organization flexible enough to let us try to evolve amarketing scheme that would actually reduce the costs of our activities over time . That is the chiefreason that we ultimately came to an agreement with Chadwyck-Healey . As we get bigger andstronger and more able to disseminate more material, we would like to abandon the traditionalformulations and pricing mechanisms that exist in microform today . We have been told by manylibrarians that the current pricing mechanism for research microform products is predatory and thatthey pay a great deal for poorly organized and virtually inaccessible material, which is rarely used .

We are searching for ways in which once we cover our costs of creating the value-added indexing,we would gradually decrease the cost of producing the microform materials themselves whilemaintaining archival standards and quality . We would like to get away from the idea that a certainamount of microfiche should be sold for an incremental amount of money . Profit margins are veryhigh in certain parts of the microform materials area .

There are also some very high risk factors . We represent probably as high a risk factor as you

could have . We hope that with some flexible policies and pricing a little bit below where the markethas traditionally been for microform research materials, to keep costs low and to work withlibraries on other value-added packages that may be more useful to their missions - moreaccessible, better indexed, and as a result, more used . We are very interested in developing othermaterials derived from the documents sets themselves that are more directly useful to theclassroom. We would like to produce materials other than those that might be useful to researchscholars dealing with very arcane subjects . We want to develop materials that undergraduatesmight use on virtually a daily basis . It will be a while before we evolve all of those tools, but that

is our planned next step . I think Chadwyck-Healey is enthusiastic about being a partner in that

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process. Finally, in our discussions with possible microform publishers, uniform quality was veryimportant to us . Chadwyck-Healey had a reputation for producing items that were well done andthat if there were a problem or defect, it would be immediately replaced .

GPR: Will Chadwyck-Healey provide the needed in-depth indexing that you have previouslydescribed?

ARMSTRONG: The backbone to what we do here is our own very thorough indexing . The standardfor indexing government information up to this point has been what the Congressional InformationService, Inc . (CIS) has done . We do not believe that even the CIS level of indexing is sufficientfor the kinds of materials that the Archive has been and will be handling . We are looking for adifferent level of refinement, not at the document level, or even the paragraph, but each individualreference . To attain the quality of the indexing we deemed necessary, it was decided that we wouldhave to do it ourselves . Once we made that decision, it opened up a lot of opportunities andalternatives for us because we did not have to look to a partner who had indexing capabilities .

GPR: What are your thoughts on federal information policy? Is there such a thing? Is it possibleto have such a thing? Is it desirable?

ARMSTRONG: There de facto has to be only one underpinning to any federal informationpolicy - the Constitution of the United States . I have not heard anybody use the words federalinformation policy and Constitution within the same speech, let alone the same paragraph . It thinkthat the founding fathers had a very clear federal information policy in mind when they debated andfinally arrived at the Constitution the way it is . Much has been made by critics of openness ingovernment that the founding fathers had secret debates about the Constitution and met in secrecya great deal . Yet, if you look at the arrangements and debating structure that they created, theyobviously were trying to create something better than the process that they had just been through .I find myself reviewing on a regular basis the papers of Madison and other founding fathers . I thinkthat there is a clear constitutional mandate for openness in government . The coalition of people andorganizations with which we find ourselves working on a regular basis can now prod Congress topreserve and protect that mandate for openness in government . While Congress may never quiteclean up its act, it can be given a list of priorities that need to be accomplished . Congress canrequire priorities on the part of the executive, and we can end up de facto with an informationpolicy that allows the broadest and greatest dissemination of information to the greatest portions ofthe public .

GPR: Finally, do you see a role for the private sector in realizing that goal?

ARMSTRONG: The private sector can accomplish certain dissemination with maximum costeffectiveness . No one is suggesting that there are not plenty of roles for privatization . but thefederal government has a responsibility to make available information about what it is doing . If thegovernment chooses not to do something any more, then it seems that it does not feel a need todisseminate information about it . We must be clear that operational cessation is what has occurred .Instead what we are finding is that the functions continue to grow in the federal government, themuscles and sinew continue to grow, but the nerve fibers that explain and allow any outsideelucidation of what is going on are being reduced . Unless the private sector is willing to pick upthe information slack, the American people are being abandoned . In the national security policy

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area where we work, there has never been much information with which to work . However, in thearea of economic and fiscal statistics and other similar vital information, when the federalgovernment abandons its dissemination, it often becomes too expensive for research organizationsto be able to obtain the information on a continuing basis and the subject is literally abandoned .