The White House announced December 20 that 8,000 pages of former President Ronald Reagan’s confidential papers would be released January 3 at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, despite a delay created by an executive order signed by President Bush restricting access to the records of incumbent or former presidents. Critics of the restricted-access order say that the entire 68,000-page collection should be made available under the 1978 Presidential Records Act.
Presidential historian Hugh Graham, one of a group filing a lawsuit to release the records, said he was “underwhelmed” by the pending release. The problem with the executive order, Graham said in the December 21 Washington Post, is that it gives past and present presidents “the authority to withhold any document without explanation and without time limits.”
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales said the action shows “President Bush intended the order to facilitate the expeditious release of the records.”
Posted December 24, 2001.