Dead Presidents

Rico says it's not just a movie, but an on-going problem, at least as far as an article by Adam Nagourney in The New York Times would have it:

When Republicans gathered at the Ronald Reagan Library & Museum in Simi Valley, California for the presidential debate last week, the backdrop was an overhauled exhibition on the Reagan presidency, done under the watchful eye of Nancy Reagan. It is intended, in part, to be a more complete depiction of the Reagan presidency, replacing one that many had seen as a bit too worshipful and airbrushed. But another exhibition that just opened at yet another presidential museum not far away— the Watergate installation at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda— has offered a stark challenge to the Reagan tribute here, exposing both the different ways that these two museums have chosen to remember their subjects and the different positions that the two former presidents hold in the nation’s and the Republican Party’s memory.

“The Reagan library is the way presidential libraries have been in the past,” said Jon Wiener, a history professor at the University of California at Irvine. “The Nixon library represents the new kind of museum that presents more of an historic view, warts and all.”

The Watergate exhibition is so detailed, searing, and unapologetic— “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” asks a panel that greets visitors— that it was shunned by Nixon loyalists. They did not attend the opening ceremony this year, and provided it no financial support, and last week, one museum docent resigned his post in protest.

By contrast, the revamped Reagan library— “He fought for freedom; he set out to change the nation,” attendees are informed in the introductory film— was financed and developed by the Reagan Foundation, and Mrs. Reagan approved much of the content, library officials said.Attendees at the invitation-only debate of the presidential candidates were encouraged to view the display, which opened to the public in February.

Both museums are run by the National Archives, after being built by supporters of each President. The Reagan Foundation’s influence over the museum reflects both the extensive network of family, friends, and contributors who are part of the foundation, which finances many of the museum’s activities, and Reagan’s enduring popularity.

What is more, the Nixon Foundation, as part of long negotiations that led to the National Archives’ taking over the museum and transferring Nixon’s papers there, yielded a great deal of authority to the Archives in revamping the museum.

The result at the Reagan library is a decidedly modest accounting of the Iran-Contra affair, the major scandal that hit the administration, which avoids laying blame on anyone. There is also a sympathetic accounting of the impact of Reagan’s economic policies that has drawn questions from Democrats and economic historians. The mention of Reagan’s first wife, the Oscar-winning actress Jane Wyman, is so fleeting that it is easy to miss under the flurry of exhibitions about Nancy Reagan’s gowns and dedication to her husband. While the Nixon library marked the fortieth anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers by declassifying the documents— a gesture 

that was more symbolic than anything else— there is no plan to mark the 25th anniversary of the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan museum officials said.

What is at play here— in the sole metropolitan region that can boast of having two presidential libraries— is an uneasy debate about what a presidential library is supposed to be: a celebration of its subject or a dispassionate depiction of an American presidency.

“They should be honest to history, because they are run by the National Archives,” said Benjamin Hufbauer, a professor of fine arts at the University of Louisville who wrote a book on presidential libraries. “The Reagan library is better than it was before— it’s better than the clean whitewash it used to be, when it didn’t mention Iran-Contra at all. But it tends to be a celebration of Reagan, a shrine.”

As a historian, Professor Wiener said: “I am much more interested with what the Nixon library was able to do, which took a long time. The Reagan library is still committed to the idea of defending him against his critics.”

Reagan library officials defend the revised exhibition here as an accurate and balanced depiction of his time in office, particularly with the revisions that took account of the Iran-Contra scandal.

“I think our mission is to educate these people,” said John Heubusch, the executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, which financed the library. “I think that these new exhibitions do a good job of education.” Heubusch said he had not visited the Watergate exhibit so he could “not comment on how 'tough' it is.” But he said he was satisfied with the way Iran-Contra was now addressed, particularly after it had been ignored before.

At the Nixon library, the Watergate exhibition has stirred such tensions that a docent resigned with a blistering attack on Timothy J. Naftali, the director of the library and curator of the Watergate exhibition. “The president, who admirably redeemed himself in the sunset of his life from the monstrous shadow of Watergate, is now being enthusiastically dishonored at his own library by a ‘Manchurian’ figure, Dr. Timothy Naftali,” the docent, Will Alexander, wrote in his letter of resignation last week. “Presidential libraries are built, in large part, to showcase the accomplishments of the presidents,” Alexander wrote. “It would be disingenuous to ignore a president’s failings, mistakes, and frailties; they all had them. But it’s far worse to revel in those failings in a way that keeps a dark cloud hovering over their accomplishments.”

Naftali said he viewed the mission of his museum as trying to present a historically complete portrait of Nixon. “The library has a nonpartisan mission,” he said. “It’s a nonpartisan federal institution. And it has an obligation to provide exhibits that encourage the study of history.”

Larry Hackman, the former director of the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, said directors of presidential libraries had to deal with pressures from family members and close supporters of the president. Hackman, who encountered such pressures as he pushed that museum to deal with questions about Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons, says that the process got easier with the passage of time, as family members and supporters began to die off. “The fatal continuing flaw are those private foundations,” said Hackman, who ran the library from 1995 to 2000. “They will tell you they are a great deal because of all the non-federal money they are bringing in. In my opinion, there are hidden and, in some cases, there are some odious strings that come with that money that keep the library directors, no matter how well intentioned they are, from developing certain exhibitions or programs.”

James Gardner, who was named last month as the National Archives executive in charge of presidential libraries, said he anticipated this to be a regular source of tension in his position. “What I would look for is a balance between history and memory,” Dr. Gardner said, as he talked about balancing conflicting demands. “There should be room for both.”

Rico says he can hardly wait for the Monica Lewinsky room at the Clinton library...