- "I smiled at my own joke, but the clerk's smile
disappeared. 'Ask again,' he hissed, 'and I will call security to remove
you from the building and have you barred as a security risk ..'"
-
- "I'm sorry," the clerk at the U.S. National
Archives says: "You can't see the Saudi Arabian documents." I'm
surprised. All the National Archive's documents are already reviewed and
then declassified or removed. In theory, whatever's there is no longer
secret.
-
- Until 911.
-
- "It's part of the Patriot Act," the clerk averred,
referring to Public Law 107-56, the hastily-passed legislation entitled,
"Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001."
-
- "The U.S. State Department records you requested
are indeed declassified and theoretically available. But they also may
contain information that terrorists can use, like names and addresses and
information of U.S. citizens." I gave a blank look. "So?"
The clerk's brow furrowed with concern. "A terrorist could come into
the National Archives and try to steal their identities or target them
for assassination."
-
- I protested: "The documents I seek are over thirty
years old and even older." Now the clerk's smile became nothing but
teeth, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
-
- I persisted: "Any person the record concerns will
be either quite elderly or already dead."
-
- The clerk's brittle smile remained fixed. "I'm sorry,
you can't look at the Saudi records even if they are a hundred years old."
-
- I tried again. "Come on. Who's identity would a
terrorist be able to steal from these records? Dwight Eisenhower's? Nixon's
or Kissinger's? King Faisel's? They're not easy identities to steal."
-
- Getting no response, I tried again. "Who'd want
to be Kissinger, anyway? I guess you could get a good table at Lutece."
-
- I smiled at my own joke, but the clerk's smile disappeared.
"Ask again," he hissed, "and I will call security to remove
you from the building and have you barred as a security risk."
-
- I was stunned by the clerk's absolute refusal, and stung
by his implication that I, a wife, mother, and published researcher and
writer, was some kind of horrid criminal. But this is only a taste of the
Patriot Act's damage to the American mind. If the mere desire to research
Saudi history is met with stern threats of arrest or detention, imagine
what it is like to be a Saudi in America today. Or a Muslim. Or someone
from the Middle East.
-
- Arrest would be shameful and inconvenient. I'm due to
take my son to the Smithsonian in a few hours to look at dinosaurs, and
I teach a law class on Wednesdays. But the true American in me refuses
to just walk meekly away.
-
- I'm a U.S. taxpayer, and some of my taxes go to support
the Archives building, its surly clerk, and others, all of whom are part
of a public trust that uniquely safeguards the records on which the continuation
of U.S. democracy ultimately depends. These records belong to me and to
all U.S. citizens. They document our common heritage and the individual
and collective experiences of our people and nation. A true democracy allows
and enables people to inspect for themselves the record of what government
has done. The clerk himself knows this because it's on the National Archives'
own website.
-
- I smile at the scowling clerk: "Could I please see
a supervisor?"
-
- The supervisor appears, as conciliatory as any diplomat,
with profuse apologies for the records being withheld. He reiterates the
problem of stolen identities and the assassination threats to leaders elderly
or already long dead. He then whispers conspiratorily, "Why are you
looking at Saudi Arabia, anyway?"
-
- "I'm researching a history of the State Department's
positions on Wahhabism," I whisper back.
-
- "Ooooooh, that's soooo interesting!" the supervisor
replies. He chats me up: "Are you writing a book or an article? Who
publishes your work?"
-
- Now it's my turn to lose my smile. In seven years of
research, no one at the Archives has ever been interested in my work. "Why
do you want to know?" I ask. The National Archives keeps all records
of documents requests by requestor's name and I've produced a passport
and other identification for my pass. "Am I on a some kind of list?"
An eavesdropping researcher at a nearby desk laughs out loud and replies,
"All of us researchers are on some kind of list now, I'm afraid."
-
- The supervisor is unflappable. He chuckles along with
the researcher. We again discuss the Patriot Act's requirement that all
archival documents be re-screened because of possible identity theft or
assassination plots by terrorists. I just chuckle and nod, not wanting
to be threatened with arrest again. "I'm sorry you were threatened
with arrest," the supervisor adds, "but a lot of people become
angry or hysterical when they're told they can't see the documents. We
sometimes have to remove them from the building." He is sympathetic.
"A lot of people come here with very little money, and it's their
one shot." I nod. That certainly describes me.
-
- He thinks: "Perhaps you can find something in the
Nixon archives on Saudi Arabia, since those have already been rescreened,"
the supervisor suggests. I agree. It's something to look at, anyway. But
all I find is a strange little set of memos indicating that in his troubled
second presidential term, Nixon decided that his valuable time would only
be spent with foreign heads of state. Kissinger had suggested that Nixon
meet with the Saudi Crown Prince even though King Faisel was the actual
head of state. The file consists of a letter from Bebe Rebozo, Nixon's
informal advisor, who mentions Adnan Kashoggi's request that the Prince
be given an audience, and then a short analysis by the State Department,
which favored a meeting. A note is jotted at the bottom of the page by
Nixon himself: "Fifteen minutes." One by Kissinger follows/:
"Lunch?"
-
- There's nothing else to indicate whether the meeting
took place or even what they had for lunch if it did. Riyad to Washington,
D.C. is a distant journey. Fifteen minutes and a sandwich seems shockingly
austere. I compare it to the hospitable splendor of lunch in the Middle
East, an event that both law and custom conspire to create an act of utter
humanity for wayfarers, whether friend or foe. I think: How different our
societies are; how difficult it will be to learn the truth about each other
and ourselves if the documents of our relations are all swept off the shelves.
-
- I leave the Archives and head for the dinosaurs, who
presumably no longer present any security risks. I pass through the Archive's
security gates uneasily, knowing that my country has lost something important.
We're hardly any safer for keeping Saudi history a secret. The 9/11 terrorists
committed a horrendous crime, but they did not take away our national security.
We have done this to ourselves.
-
- *The Author is a professor at Loyola University School
of Law
-
- Source: The Palestine Chronicle - www.palestinechronicle
-
- http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030812221737540
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