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until Executive Order 13233 is rescinded, to remove impediments to access to historical presidential records. See: Transparency Groups Push Obama on Agenda, November 12, 2008
http://www.propublica.org/article/transparency-groups-push-obama-on-agenda-1112
Executive Order 13233 - Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act, November 1, 2001.
http://www.archives.gov/about/laws/appendix/13233.html
This order allows a former president's private papers to be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.
Enacting Executive Order 13233 was not the first time Bush and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales had resisted clear law about Freedom of Information in Government. It had also occurred as then-Governor Bush was leaving office in Texas, when 1,800 boxes of papers became “the center of a tug of war between Mr. Bush and the director of the Texas state archives.” The Governor kept these papers out of reach by placing them in his father’s Presidential Library. [See: “Battling Over Records of Bush's Governorship” NYT, 2/11/2002] http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E7D8103CF932A25751C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
The Bush Administration had to get Executive Order 13233 written and signed quickly because President Reagan’s papers were about to be released because of the PRA [his were the first, since the law was enacted in 1981] Cheney, Rumsfeld and GHW Bush had all been in that [Iran-Contra] Administration. Bush and the Cheney-gang made three attempts to withhold those records before they “decided” to take the “executive privilege” tack. See: “Bush keeps a grip on Presidential Papers” NYT:] http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E0D71130F931A35752C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&page
A Controversial Choice for the Position of Archivist of the United States: Part of the Bush Administration's Secrecy Strategy?, by John W. Dean, 4/23/04 http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040423.html
Unfortunately, while George Bush understands tough talk, it seems the Democrats don't. Thus, Bush and Cheney will no doubt get away with robbing history of the truth of their presidency, just as they have robbed the public of that truth while in office.
