National Archives Gone Missing: Lincoln Civil War Telegraphs, Photos Of The Moon, And More

WASHINGTON — National Archives visitors know they'll find the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the main building's magnificent rotunda in Washington. But they won't find the patent file for the Wright Brothers' Flying Machine or the maps for the first atomic bomb missions anywhere in the Archives inventory.

Many historical items the Archives once possessed are missing, including:

_Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln.

_Original signatures of Andrew Jackson.

_Presidential portraits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

_NASA photographs from space and on the moon.

_Presidential pardons.

Some were stolen by researchers or Archives employees. Others simply disappeared without a trace.

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And there's more gone from the nation's record keeper.

The Archives' inspector general, Paul Brachfeld, is conducting a criminal investigation into a missing external hard drive with copies of sensitive records from the Clinton administration. On the hard drive were Social Security numbers, including one for one of former Vice President Al Gore's daughters.

Because the equipment also may include classified information, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, calls it a a major national security breach.

Brachfeld has documented thousands of electronic storage devices, including computers and servers, that have gone missing over the past decade from the National Archives and Records Administration.

Grassley, who has demanded an accounting of all missing items, said the loss of historical documents "robs our nation of its history and is completely unacceptable."

The Archives' stewardship of the nation's records has been questioned before. In a well-publicized incident, former President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, took documents from the Archives in the fall of 2003 while preparing, along with other ex-Clinton administration officials, for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission.

In September 2005, Berger was sentenced to two years of probation, 100 hours of community service, a $50,000 fine and loss of his security clearance for three years.

Some records have been missing for decades from the Archives' 44 facilities in 20 states and the capital, including 13 presidential libraries.

"When I came here nine years ago, there was no acknowledgment that we had a problem," Brachfeld said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Since then, he has started a recovery team that attends trade shows and Civil War re-enactments, and enlists the help of dealers and researchers to recover historical items that belong to the government.

The agency has two missions that sometimes are in conflict: preserving documents and making them available to the public in monitored research rooms with surveillance cameras.

"We do not have item-by-item control," said Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper. "We can't. We have 9 billion documents. We don't know exactly what's in each of those boxes. There's no point in preserving materials that cannot be used."

Each missing historical item has its own story.

_From 1969 to 1980, the patent file for the Wright Brothers Flyer was passed around multiple Archives offices, the Patents and Trademarks Office and the National Air and Space Museum. It was returned to the Archives in 1979, and was last seen in 1980.

_In 1962, military representatives checked out the target maps for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The maps have been missing ever since.

_In May 2004, one of FDR's grandsons asked to see a portrait of his grandfather at the Roosevelt presidential library in Hyde Park, N.Y. It couldn't be found, and hasn't been seen since 2001.

_Shaun Aubitz, a former employee at the Archives' facility in Philadelphia, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 2002 for stealing _ among other items _ 71 pardons signed by Presidents James Madison, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes and Lincoln. The Archives recovered 59 records. They had been sold to manuscript dealers and collectors.

_In 2005, researcher Howard Harner was sentenced to two years in prison, two years probation, and a $10,000 fine after pleading guilty to stealing more than 100 Civil War-era documents from the Archives between 1996 and 2002. Fewer than half were recovered.

_A 40-year-old National Archives intern in Philadelphia stole 160 Civil War documents. About half were sold on eBay. The documents included telegrams about the troops' weaponry, the War Department's announcement of Lincoln's death sent to soldiers, and a letter from famed Confederate cavalryman James Ewell Brown Stuart.

A financially strapped Denning McTague was sentenced in the case to 15 months in prison in 2007. He had told a psychiatrist that he was angry that his internship was unpaid.

___

On the Web:

List of missing items: http://tinyurl.com/kvmmd2

Archives home page: http://www.archives.gov

Comments

[Amunaka]

Hey whats Fawn Hall been up to these days....


Hall Testifies of Necessity 'To Go Above Written Law'
North Walked 'Fine Line,' Ex-Secretary Says

By Dan Morgan and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
June 10, 1987;

In her testimony Monday, Hall laid out the story of how, at North's direction, she had altered and shredded documents and, several days later, on her own initiative, smuggled highly classified papers out of the Old Executive Office Building. She told of concealing the papers in her boots and dress in order to elude an NSC official who was there to prevent such removal in the face of a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe.

Yesterday she faced a barrage of questions on her motives and those of North, and expressed no remorse except at the fact that she had failed to complete the assignment to alter crucial documents, replace them in the files and destroy all originals.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/scandal/fawnhall.htm

[teddybobby]

Sandy Berger?

[AllenFromAtlanta]

I think I saw all those items on the 'American Road Show' being appraised for sale.

[polarcap2]

yeah, wasn't it Sandy Berger getting them appraised?

[atomic]

When Republicans are in charge everything goes missing ... in this case it was our country. Good luck getting it back ... Corporations run the country ... we have been co-opted in a hostile takeover by transnationals ...

We need an amendment to our constitution separating corporation and state ...

[LaShanda Jackson]

Check in Cheney's undisclosed bunker for the missing items...

[mmgbizgirl]

and Bush.

[OverIt]

If anyone is looking for the missing items, I suggest they start on ebay.

[polarcap2]

or Sandy Berger's house

[OpposingViewpoint]

This shouldn't surprise anyone. Our futures and our children's futures have already been stolen, now they are stealing our history.

[jsgaetano]

Looks like more than just money was plundered from America during the Bush kleptocracy.

[thereseanne]

Let's see. The federal government cannot keep track of Lincoln telegrams and the American people are going to trust them with our health care, our auto industry, our banks and billions of dollars of bail out money., Hmmm.

[CaddylackSprings]

You are going to trust private bean counters with your life

Hmmmmmmmmmm

[Tommygun264]

Let's see, you think that the National Archives are going to be put in charge of health care, our auto industry, our banks. Hmmm.

[KimberlyKay]

What, you think after our recent Wall Street calamities that only government officials steal?
Perhaps we should spend less time insisting that greed is good and more time on helping our children comprehend that theft -- any kind -- is wrong-- even the theft of good health because a person does not have the means to afford the most expensive health care on Earth.

The United States of America is a great Country, but our health care system is ridiculous-- we have the most expensive care and are 37th in the world overall. Absurd. Mr. Einstein coined a term for folks who want to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Do try and raise yourself out of that insanity, inanity cycle.

[Tracy Hale]

Yea...I'll trust the government from the country I was born in versus the greedy corporation who only care how much $$ I have in my bank account.

Enjoy your Wal-care!!

[RedDogBear]

Most of these thefts "have gone missing over the past decade" in other words this is just one more example that the Bush administration couldn't do anything except funnel money to their buddies and f*ck up the country. If Bush were still president I would agree with you, better not even to bother than to let that administration try to do healthcare.

[IndyReader]

Hey, a new movie plot for Nicholas Cage! Didn't he work for the National Archive in "National Treasure"?

[Tracy Hale]

I smell another sequel.

[plzchuteme]

OMG I hope not!

[jsgaetano]

OMG... his movie taught all those people how to steal from the National Archives!!!

[SeattleCharles]

Apparently this has been going on for a long time. Now attention is being paid and presumably better tracking and surveillance technology, plus fear of the risk of being caught, will reduce this to a minimum. Whoever rips off the patrimony of the country is a complete worm.

[RoveRoveRoveYourBoat]

...my neighbor "borrowed" one of my hammers 3-years ago !

[Whinger]

It's hard to get good help these days, a truly lamentable loss!

[phredralf]

This is a disgrace, but not nearly as bad as our letting the Iraq's loot their national museum.

[Littlewords]

They should open a short amnesty window like 90 days to return any ill gotten artifacts and treasures with no questions asked then congress should enact a tough set of laws on such class of national historical items with incredibly long mandatory sentences for anyone later found associated with the theft of the missing items or commits a crime in the future to take such items Further since the crime is the taking of American treasures, those caught should lose their personal treasures to the American people as compensation for the loss of the artifacts and because the treasures of the people seem to matter not to these thieves.

(hey I hear many of the cells in Gitmo may soon come available; they could be a great 20+ yr home for anyone caught aiding in the theft of said items).

[deepintheheartoftejas]

Except for future thefts, such a law would be an unconstitutional ex post facto law