The First Amendment; Dan Fenn /John F. Kennedy Library

The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University now presents the First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s the host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Reuben. My guest on today's program is Mr. Dan fan the director of the Kennedy Library. He's been director since 1971 and also a lecturer at the Harvard School of Business. And for those of you who have been following Washington work you know he's been in the government for nine years prior. He was with the Tariff Commission as the chairman and a member of that commission and has been for three years. He has worked for three years as a staff assistant to President Kennedy. My co-host today is Professor Otto Lipman of the school of public communication at Boston University down the John F. Kennedy Library

now located in Waltham Massachusetts will sometime in 1999 move to Columbia Point to its new building and will be taking its three major activities the museum the educational activities in the archives. And when I look at what's involved it's staggering just to read off one or two items 28 million pages of documents four point five million feet of movie film 35000 volumes and so on I think the first question then fan is this. What does a presidential library do. What do other presidential libraries exist for. And how are you aiming your work differently. Well that's a good that's a big place. So yeah I'd call a can opener question the presidential library system I guess you could call it there are seven presidential libraries now

and including the Ford Library which was activated this summer. They are all part of the National Archives and I think that there's a great deal of confusion in people's minds about this we keep reading getting letters or reading letters in newspapers or editorials and so forth saying that presidents really ought to give their papers to the government instead of setting up these big private establishments and so on. Well of course that's exactly what they've been doing since Franklin Roosevelt and as a matter of fact after Franklin Roosevelt set up the Roosevelt Library Herbert Hoover's friends thought it was such a neat idea that they went back and did the same thing in West Branch Iowa. Well all presidential libraries are parts of the National Archives that are run by the National Archives. Have a great deal of trouble getting this across to people because they assume that it's a UMass institution or a Kennedy family institution or something like that. But actually all of us are on the all of our income

comes from the Congress all of us who work at the library now are on civil service roles so we all get paid by Uncle Sam every two weeks and so on so that they are government institutions just as much as the private transportation or environment mental Protection Agency or anybody else. The whole business started because as matter of fact the presidential papers had always been considered to be the personal property of the president himself. So that I think George Washington started that tradition I guess he rented a U-Haul saurian and picked up the two trunks full of papers from me but served as the executive office in Philadelphia and took him up to Mount Vernon. And every president since has done that. That's a very dangerous thing because you lose a lot of good stuff that way. So Franklin Roosevelt came up with the idea of giving his papers and memorabilia to the United States government to the National Archives to

take care of it to provide it to scholars and to the general public. And it talked to a group of his friends into building a building to house that. And that tradition has been followed ever since the Kennedy Library building now. Now going up at Columbia Point is being built with donations given by people from all over the world between 64 and 66. When the fund drive was conducted and that building which is essentially the decisions on that building it being made by the family when that building is completed it will be turned over to the United States government essentially to us to own and operate and we will continue to run it from there on out. Dan is the is the motivation behind these archives changing Now you mentioned earlier that perhaps they're becoming gigantic tourist attractions. These are ways for the

hometowns of presidents to get placed on the map is the tourist aspect beginning to dominate the scholarly aspect is there a danger of that in the future. Oh I can't conceive of any any danger of that. We don't we don't look at that. Our institution is divided between the scholars and the tourists. We see ourselves as an educational center in politics and government and the career in administration of John Kennedy and Senator that that is blessed with an extraordinary range of sources from documents to films to oral histories to books to three dimensional object and an educational center that is. Able to and designed to serve a variety of publics for the researcher who is only interested in looking at the Burke Marshall papers or they can go

papers or Tip O'Neill papers or the John Kennedy papers the Robert Kennedy papers that's fine. We hope that the visitor to the museum is going to come out of that experience knowing more about the Kennedy years and also more about American politics and American government. And he or she knew when they went in and we hope that there's least for some of them the exhibits will serve as kind of a vestibule and to the other resources and they'll get interested in some topics or some questions and and use some of the other kinds of material so that so that I think that that. The two pieces fit together work together and we will be using and are using now all the resources and different kinds of combinations for different sorts of people. So I don't think I don't think that's a problem. And I know as a young and going on a virtual pilgrimage to Hyde Park to the Franklin Roosevelt Library I

saw this as a place to see the cape and where Follow was was tied and all of that. And I also know that people like Joseph lash have used it as a place to write Eleanor and Franklin in the years alone and along with the judge Roseman papers and so on. But I have the feeling and correct me if I'm wrong that this function of providing. Not only materials about that administration but about continuing the education for all scholars for all students as a kind of a constitutional building exercise to build interest in our government in its processes is becoming more and more important with each new library I think perhaps even more important as you think about what you want to do even than it was when they opened the doors at the Johnson Library even though the Johnson Arbor does a notorious amount of that work. Is this a fair statement that the libraries are becoming much more living things

rather than roost for presidential materials. I think there is no question about that I think that to a degree true of archival institutions generally and certainly true of libraries. I think that the two major departures that we have made and they are the activities which which marked the Kennedy Library which has been in operation since 1969 now. It mark it off from the other libraries is one. This concept of an educational center not just just a block of tourists over here. A lot of tourists and a small handful of scholars but but a variety of kinds of service to a variety of types of people. The second one is that we we have been very conscious since the beginning of our library that we have

here an enormous resource not just in the Times and the events and people of the Kennedy years but also really raw material I guess for examples of how American politics and American government operate so that our educational programs when we do much more of this than any of the other libraries we've been really sort of the innovators in groundbreakers in this this whole area. The education programs are aimed at giving people a better sense of a real feel of health politics and government decision making function. I think that's the museum will do the same thing. And it's specifically designed for to enable groups of people to come through and to focus on those kinds of issues as well as the personalization of John Kennedy and his dime.

Dana are these differences in services then expressed architecturally if you look at the planes for the Kennedy Library. Are there different kinds of buildings different equipment perhaps in different media that may be used. Oh no not really the the building at Columbia Point will have a couple of 300 seat movie theaters in it designed to enable a visitor to see a film before the visitor goes into the exhibit area is this new danger to other museums also have the others have theaters but they are not. Most of the. In varying sizes but they are not sort of build into the museum experience you can go in and see a film or not it's just like the Williamsburg experience where you see the room before you walk through.

Let's right now but the Eisenhower Library is sort of like when you aspire again that they have an auditorium with a film as a part of a complex of buildings in ours it will be in the building so that when you come into the building you go through the theater and then down into the exhibit. But otherwise from then to there from a construction standpoint our building isn't going to be that much different We're going to have facilities for small groups and and for various kinds of activities but to varying degrees the others do too. I think it's much more what we have done with the materials and will do with the facilities that that marks the Kennedy Library off from the other the other six. Are you going to have resident scholars I was the Hoover librarian at Stanford University which is not the presidential library but the Hoover library at Stanford University on war and peace has. Have you given any thought to that so that people might actually have not only access to materials but might come from other parts of the world of the country too.

To dig into them over an extended period where we've talked about it and I think UMass Boston has been talking about it. Perhaps some of the other educational institutions here and here the other variation on that is the possibility of developing some research grants. I'm a little nervous about the research grant business because presidential libraries have been accused of being legend builders and the sort of mouthpieces for the glorification of particular presidents in particular administrations and we are very very sensitive to that. We see ourselves as Custos of materials rather than people with a point of view and the material is there for anybody to come up with whatever point of view they have and develop their own. Understanding and commentary out of that so that if we do get into research

grants we're going to figure out it's a good good thing to do. We're going to figure out a mechanism whereby the selection of the people who come not done by us. For instance last summer we got a grant from any age to bring eight community college teachers from four states to the library on a competitive basis to see Kansas Florida Massachusetts and Maryland. And they spent six weeks at the library developing curriculum materials from the resources that we have for their courses. We did not choose the eight out of the 35 or 40 applicants we we set up a committee of mostly faculty from institution to end here two year institutions to make that selection for us precisely because we don't want to get into that selected researcher business. I think you're wise. The latest wrinkle I guess in libraries

of the presidential timber kind is not to do with the prize it has not to do with the president that's the friends of Hubert Humphrey I gather. Are importuned in the Congress and in private parties that a library should be built for him. And with the the adulation if you would have every now very strong I would suspect that that will be the next library in line or am I wrong. I don't know. I think an Everett Dirksen library is merely Stevenson center there is a CME Raeburn library of some kind. I think that there are there have been several people since the since the presidential library idea started to have sort of picked up the same thing. But of course the big difference is that they're not part of the federal government. They're not part of the National Archives they're private institutions which is a very different sort of concept.

It would be good would it not if Hubert Humphrey was the made the one exception because the links between him and President Kennedy are indefinable but but always complete it would seem that that was a tender relationship that inspired both that depressed both their invigorated both. The presidential library system was set up by the Congress and presidential libraries act and I would assume that if it was going to be a Hubert Humphrey library as a part of the National Archives Congress would have to would have to make that decision and establish it or suggesting it might even be a good idea if it became part of the JFK Library system because it's part of the same invigorating breath of history in large measure. I think they both started in the Congress about the same time about the same time.

In looking at the uses that educators and scholars are going to make of the Kennedy Library all there are any legends or themes that they're trying to build on. I'm trying to get a little idea of some of the subjects that are going to emerge the way the history books will be reflecting the materials in the Kennedy Library. Oh I just can't tell you. We've had about twelve hundred researchers out there using the resources since we opened for business in 1969. Great variety of people senior scholars Ph.D. candidates elementary school junior high school just journalists and an enormous range of topics. I would see no reason to think that that same pattern wouldn't wouldn't continue. Our own assumption is that with the increased visibility which

which the building is going to provide that number of researchers will will go up substantially. But I wouldn't I wouldn't think that the pattern would change much nor the pattern of topic everything from you know the Bay of Pigs to civil rights to Kennedy's speaking style to material from James were bricks papers or whatnot just didn't raise any attempt made by you or other members of the staff to keep track of the ways in which the libraries used in terms of for example the themes that are looked for. Is this of interest to you. Well we do. It isn't of interest to us because as I say we're just Odeon's and whatever use people want to make of these things and however they want to interpret them is up to them. We do have a pretty we

have a complete list of course of the researchers the things that they looked at the topics they were working on. In most cases we have copies of the results of whatever they were doing. As well as dissertations which you've written about Kennedy in the Kennedy years without with a relationship to the library and seeing that you've written on the subject of the social audit that also includes social reporting what kind of a report do you see yourself making on how well the library is used. What sort of things do you see yourself saying about it. Well the traditional uses of the presidential library of course are the museum visitors and we anticipate I don't know maybe a million people a year or something like that going through that that segment and then the research use.

I think that as I said earlier that I major departure has been other kinds of uses but other sorts of groups. And there's a very exciting program that the University of Massachusetts Institute of Learning and Teaching and the library and the Paul Devore school at Plan-B point. Were involved in last year on a pilot basis to see how primary materials can be used in elementary school. A lot of work done on that and other schools too we've developed a series of curriculum packets which you've been used in high school since the community college thing that I mentioned in a series of film festivals through research seminars that have been Ron various kinds of speakers programs. We developed a curriculum teaching film essentially called a stroke of the pen which is now being used nationally. It's an interesting thing it's the bent 10 minute movie and it starts off and says OK

you're president the United States. It's October 1962. During the campaign you said that all it would take to do segregate federally assisted housing is a stroke of the pen. It's been 19 months you haven't picked up the pen yet. Are you going to do it aren't you. And then describes the legal and economic and political and. Congressional situation and then the film just cuts out and says OK you be president what are you going to do. And it's a great discussion starter. And we've also used it with voting machines. We're going to do something like this in the in the new building where you can vote YES I WOULD No I would then see how other people vote. Now the point of this game back to something that I said earlier the point of this is not to highlight an historic event because it didn't turn out to be all that important historically nor certainly do put President Kennedy in a good light or anything like that. But it does push the viewer into for a moment into the position of having to make a

tough substantive decision in a political context to get a little feel of what that government decision making is all about. So that kind of use of these resources both inside and outside the building or for it seems to us tremendous potential the standard research you snoozed musing of is to use. Of course we all do. And I have done some I'm with continued downtrend. The library's interests don't stop with the Kennedy administration I have read it and I don't know where that. You're very active in updating in carrying out the themes was the war on poverty or the desire to make civil rights more a living testament of our society whatever it might be. Any of the things that happened in the Kennedy administration. Your interest in pursuing those point. To what degree are you able to do that. Well two way is we do it we do it in our acquisitions

policy. We have President Kennedy's papers of course Robert Kennedy's papers and then about two hundred fifty collections of other people and when we pick up a collection we don't just just take the can of the related material from a man's woman's file. But we take all their professional papers from their whole careers so that Lincoln Gordon his paper start to guess with his service in the Marshall Plan in Europe and go through his presidency Johns Hopkins and ambassador to Brazil on assistant secretary of state and so forth and so on. Tip O'Neill the same way I can go Braith I mentioned so that the end and we are continuing to go after things we thought we were going to pick up about 800000 pages a year but we acquired four and a half million last year alone. We have a little trouble with our boss at the

National Archives on this because we say we're interested in mid 20th century American government and politics. And they say what do you mean by mid 20th century and I say well you know sort of 1910 in 1995 and David Broder just gave us a large collection of his working papers for his various writings and so on. So that in that way we continue to follow it. And the other way I guess is that because we're interested in politics and public affairs and not just things which were of concern during the Kennedy administration. The seminars and conferences that we have run and will continue to run will be on and will cooperate with other people it will be on current topics in politics not just Star. This isn't this isn't essentially a backward looking institution. Dan I know you're stressing politics but I'm sure you're aware that at some of the TV producers have been showing a lot of interest in the private lives even the

romantic lives of former presidents. To what extent will your library contain such materials. Secondary sources say materials books and and we don't clip but we do have microfilm of New York Times and Boston Globe and so forth and so on. I guess that if you look in a person's office files and that's essentially what we have you find the gas bills and you find the letter to the principal of the School of the daughter's performance and that kind of thing that gets into your files and mine in the office. But probably there's not an awful lot of documentation of the kinds of things you talk about I don't know and.

I would if there is documentation probably isn't in the person's up as for us. We do we do have people coming looking for those things periodically but I don't think we are we satisfied the very with your acquisition policy include trying to get such materials. We don't we don't have an inquisition policy in the sense of saying gee we've got a gap here we ought to get more on this. Then it's an acquisitions policy built at this point and maybe this is wrong. It's built more around people whose papers rather than filling in interest to CS. Well it takes it takes a hundred years anyhow I watched Julie Harris doing Mrs. Lincoln the other day and it takes many many years before the introspective study of a person can come out so at best I would think all you could do would be to to maintain the collection and let the course of history and the fads of psychological interpretation take their take their run discussed Odeon's of the documents is

really not up to you. I am very pleased to have you Dan fan the director of the Kennedy Library and we're all looking forward to your movement to Columbia Point not as much as I. You. Are you going to miss dear old time. Oh yeah it's about five minutes from home and that's kind of nice but that site at Columbia Point is gorgeous and I am really all of us with those 35 people out there working there plus 35 volunteers and we're getting awfully sick and tired of that warehouse. I don't blame you. Well on behalf of the Institute for democratic communication I want to thank you Dan fan and also my co-host on a live professor at Boston University. This is Bernard Drew been saying goodbye for this day. The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at

Boston University has presented the First Amendment as a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s the program is produced in the studios of WGBH Boston. This is the eastern Public Radio Network.