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Grassley, who has demanded an accounting of all missing items, said the loss of historical documents "robs our nation of its history and is completely unacceptable."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

[FS Gilbert]

It is all about greed in this country. We have a bad case of My-itis. Bigger houses, faster cars, and we don't give a hoot about anybody or anything until we are brought low. Then we whine instead of rolling up our sleeves and getting to work to correct the problem and admit our mistakes. No, we blame someone, anyone, but not us!
Say one kind word this weekend and do one kind thing to show what this country is about without expecting acknowledgement or a reward. Give back to the grace that has been shown to you that others will learn that lesson also. As we are shown, so shall we learn and pass on. This is the lesson of greatness of America. Not what we have or can get!

[GoodFeathers]

I always thought something fishy about Cheney insisting that he himself would carry the few boxes of papers when he moved from his resident in January.

[FredDobbs]

Wait until we are all forced into Obamacare and the bureaucrats lose our medical records.

[USADownUnder]

Fred,

I hate to break this news to you, but the life insurance companies already have access to your medical records.

[harloquinn]

Good point.

[henrypapillon]

Yes, they don't lose them , they just sell them.

[Sally Williams 1]

and you think this can't or doesn't happen in private healthcare systems around the country?

[navy62802]

Moon photos...mhmmm

[polarcap2]

you mean they let Sandy Berger back in there even after catching him stealing incriminating Clinton memos and stuffing them into his underwear????!!

[FredDobbs]

Wait until they catch Berger trying to leave the archives wearing a stained blue dress.

[white mende man]

Better check Ch eney's home, after all here is a guy that had access to stuff even Bush didn't.

[clearlythinking]

This sickens me. However, by their own admission there are 9 billion documents and they don't know what's in each of those boxes. Maybe they were misfiled. Maybe a simple solution is to create a database, like in a library, of all of your holdings and who has looked at them. etc. Require those wishing to view the documents to give their driver's license or something. You have to return the item to get yours back. Maybe you require a refundable deposit to view things. Are there viewing rooms? Create viewing rooms that have a guard in each. I don't know but there has to be a way. I truly don't understand how they cannot control this. Okay, employees stealing, that I understand would be hard. Maybe put one of those security alarm stickers on each item? If you leave with it alarms go off, etc. As for the 40 year old angry about the unpaid internship. Perhaps he doesn't know the meaning of internship. Good heavens. I am obviously bothered by this.

[harloquinn]

Your are ideas are good and make sense. They would probably give the reason for not implementing them as "cost." As if money isn't completely wasted by the government on trivial pursuits every second of every hour. This is anything but trivial.

[mikemBC98]

There is actually a process in place to research in the National Archives in DC - you get an ID card, your computer, notes, etc. are all examined both on entering the building and on entering and exiting the reading room, and by and large (with the typical exception of Census information), it's not a place that you can just stroll into. Putting security tags on these items is a nonstarter for 2 reasons: 1, it would most likely degrade a lot of the older documents, and 2, there are billions and billions of pieces of paper, most of which are sorted into folders, folders then placed into archival boxes. It simply can't be achieved logistically. I think a lot of the materials are also stored off-site (they are definitely stored off-site at most smaller archival and research institutions), which also provides difficulty in terms of keeping track of documents and boxes in transit. There is security in the reading room already (again, at least in my experience in DC).
The problem is really that the volume of information and documentation is almost impossible to keep track of. Clearly from the article the NARA needs to better enforce its preservation and security policies, but it's a tremendously complicated problem since there is SO much information (and which is only growing on volume). It's not a particularly partisan issue, nor one of the "government" being incompetent.

[offred]

Cataloguing and attaching security strips to each and every Archives item would have been a good stimulus project.

[st0ked]

Yes, it would be, and is obviously way overdue, from like 1950 . Ah, the promise of easy money , or just *having* such a rare or important item ; the temptation is just too much for some people. For all those who think this is a problem in the USA alone , lol . Humans are selfish and greedy , by nature . Sad but true . One must first have a standard of morals before those standards can be tested .

[lcdbsez]

Well, of course, if funding is cut (consistently, too) for maintenence, security, oversight, etc., these things are going to happen.

But, stewardship of the nation's past is not a priority for the Neocon(victs), is it? And never has been.

If there's not a buck to be made off it (for Big Biz interests), it's not important.

It's called "limited government" -- and this is just one of the consequences of that delusionary attitude.

[Vieux Charles]

If you'd read the article you'd have noticed that almost all of the incidents took place when a Democrat was in the oval office. Coincidence perhaps (with the exception of Sandy Berger) but certainly enough to debunk your absurd contention that these are due to a lack of funding by neoconservatives (as if you even knew what that meant).

[polarcap2]

pay no attention - just a group of ignora nus'

[macohmz]

This doesn't surprise me. The government as a whole is poorly managed and has been for years. Theft is a mainstay of the federal government.

[Dynamohum]

Maybe the Republican controlled government! I can guarantee you as a lifetime resident of Washington DC that this is a REPUKELICAN scandal. While Sandy Berger took some things, he was fined and put them back. In most other cases, the republican't who signed or took them out NEVER brought them back. Lack of oversight and budget to maintain all of this has endangered physical proof of many of histories biggest moments. This is disgusting. This is what the tax cut for the 1% does. Not only did they get rich, they stole and made money off the nation's sacred history.

[GoodFeathers]

Yes, our army is poorly managed and it can't compete with the army of Congo. Our postal system is poorly managed because you don't get your mails within three days no matter where you posted it in the country. Medicare is poorly managed. IRS is poorly managed. FBI and CIA are poorly managed. Our GPS satellites that can tell you where you are within a meter of accuracy are maintained by the government and are poorly managed. Our NORAD system that can alert us about the missile launches anywhere in the world within a minute is poorly managed. Yes...I can go on and on about how badly our government manages things.... Oh by the way, I am a teabagger!

[Grant Morrison]

..

Blah, blah, blah...the government is BAD. I'm SICK of Rrepublicans who CAN'T realize that they live in a SOCIALIST country, a country that's been SOCIALIST for its ENTIRE history.

YOu use PUBLIC ROADS, PUBLIC UTILITIES, your food is protected by a PUBLIC commision, your society is watched by PUBLIC POLICE.

You don't even KNOW your own country, KNOW-NOTHING.

Read a BOOK. Free your MIND.

.

[madisonhack]

'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."'

Hey Chuck! If you wanted good security maybe you should work for a prison. Wasn't that what Grassley said to a person about health insurance recently....that they should work for the Federal Government if they wanted good health insurance?

[Fabini]

The psychological motivations for stealing and secretly possessing historical records is fascinating. It is an interesting look into impulse control. Imagine the overwhelming desire to posses - pick your document - over the knowledge that it is housed for all in a national museum.

[polarcap2]

Imagine the motivation for Berger stealing the Clinton memos - and not just copies as someone said, but the originals - I think you are trying too hard to find a shrink reason for these rubes

[ignorantwillyharper]

It must be really hard to find good help in D.C.

[Dynamohum]

Most of the "HELP" in DC comes from all over the country, every corner of it. As a lifetime resident (54 years) I can attest to this. Most everybody in Washington DC is from somewhere else in the country.

[breakingpoint]

the system is too big to fail

I'm actually amazed it's still afloat, but now with the growing lay off of government workers, pay cuts and wage reductions, think they are going to get the major slows fast which is going to make any recovery that much harder.

[SamKnause]

Clinton's national security advisor got no jail time and only had her security clearance taken away for three years. Employees all got jail time. Our justice system in this country is a joke.

[wndrwrthg]

I don't recall Sandy selling off the documents.

[SamKnause]

Thank you for your reply. Maybe he did not sell them, but they were classified as secret, and I think that deserves jail time just as much, if not more then theft.

[twofish]

Sandy Berger is a he.

The documents he took were copies of material classified as secret, which is what pissed everyone off. He did not take the originals, which presumably are still in the archives.

[SamKnause]

Thank you for your reply. I could not tell from the first name if it was a male or female name.

[polarcap2]

the docs he stole were the originals, not copies - only he knows what he stole

[Kevbo68]

I imagine this kind of stuff can only be sold easily overseas. Few experts here would want to touch it.

"We have 9 billion documents. We don't know exactly what's in each of those boxes."

Yeah, and obviously you're not even trying to keep tabs on some of the big stuff. Our tax dollars at work!

[SurrealPumpkin]

There is a big black market in stolen items here in the States. Some collectors aren't all that picky about the legality of their collections.