Theft and Mutilation at the National Archives

Once upon a time Sandy Berger returned some documents he lifted from the National Archives and Records Administration while the United States National Security Advisor under President Bill Clinton.

He handed them to an archivist hired later by the Center for Information Policy at the University of Maryland in College Park, where I was director of research. The archivist became the star researcher on our NARA project focusing on ways to prevent document theft.

More recently, a noted historian corrupted a vital piece of history in NARA's holdings. He confessed to changing the date on a letter pardoning a Union soldier in the Civil War to make it look like one of President Abraham Lincoln's last official actions on the day he was assassinated, wrote David Ferriero, currently the 10th archivist of the United States, in the March/April 2011 issue of Archival Outlook, published by the Society of American Archivists. Doing so gained fame for the document and the now-disgraced historian.

If you see a priceless document you believe was lost by or stolen from the National Archives, please report it. To contact NARA, write to: MissingDocuments@nara.gov, or call 301-837-3500 or 1-800-786-2551. You also may write to: Missing Documents, Office of the Inspector General, National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, Maryland   20740.

Many thanks. Ferriero recently tightened security at NARA.