The National Archives: a small agency with a big responsibility safeguarding American and world history
The National Archives has been in the news lately, not so much for what is in its collection, but for what was missing. After former President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Biden held on to records when they left office that should have been sent to the Archives… we wanted to know more… about the small federal agency in charge of safeguarding America's past.
After a few months inside, we came to appreciate that the Archives are the country's safety deposit box, reading room, and paper shredder rolled into one.
At the heart of the institution are the documents that have been at the heart of the nation, for nearly 250 years.
Colleen Shogan: (footsteps) There's 39 steps here that lead up to the entrance. And that's 39 framers who signed the Constitution.
Norah O'Donnell: Oh, wow. Look at this.
Colleen Shogan, the archivist of the United States, is responsible for America's records. The main attractions are in a building in Washington that was inspired by ancient Rome, and built to be a temple to history.
Each year, more than a million people make the trip to see these national treasures in person.
Norah O'Donnell: This building, the Rotunda, was built as a shrine for many of these documents. But they didn't arrive until later.
Colleen Shogan: That's correct. The building was completed in 1937. But the Declaration and the Constitution did not arrive till 1952.
They were in the possession of the Library of Congress, which refused to turn them over, until President Truman got involved...and they were delivered from Capitol Hill by the U.S. military.
Norah O'Donnell: Ah, the Declaration of Independence.
Colleen Shogan: Yes.
Norah O'Donnell: Why is it so faded?
Colleen Shogan: It was exposed to considerable light and the elements.
In the 19th Century, the U.S. Patent office put the declaration on display near a window. that and other missteps did so much damage, nearly all you can make out today is John Hancock's "John Hancock."
To preserve them, these original documents that are a beacon for democracy are now intentionally kept in the dark. They are guarded around the clock, in bulletproof cases designed to remain sealed for 100 years.
All federal employees are required to take an oath to defend the Constitution. But for Colleen Shogan, it's literally her job – and the founding documents are just the start.
Colleen Shogan: We have approximately 13.5 billion paper records here at the National Archives.
Norah O'Donnell: How many feet of film?
Colleen Shogan: Oh, the film would go around the globe three and a half times.
Norah O'Donnell: How many photographs?
Colleen Shogan: We have millions and millions of photographs as well.
Norah O'Donnell: And how many artifacts?
Colleen Shogan: Over 700,000 artifacts.
Most of that massive collection is kept outside of Washington, stored at dozens of facilities all across the country that span millions of cubic feet, including four underground cave complexes in the Midwest.
Colleen Shogan: For our civilian records center in Valmeyer, Illinois, our archivists actually use bikes (laugh) because it's about a mile from one end of the facility to the other.
Then there's the stuff they don't even keep – only about 3% of government paperwork is deemed important enough to preserve for posterity. Documents can sit for years before being retained or more likely, destroyed. At the Washington National Records Center outside DC, there are 20 football fields of files, stacked floor to ceiling, awaiting their fate.
Until 1934, federal agencies stored their own records, with varying degrees of success. When the Archives was created, work began to restore 158 years' worth of dusty, forgotten documents.
To see how some of America's oldest paper records have held up, we met Trevor Plante, who is in charge of more than two billion written documents in Washington.
Norah O'Donnell: So this is original from 1778?
Trevor Plante: Yes.
During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress wanted George Washington and his officers to pledge allegiance in writing to their new nation, after they survived a brutal winter at Valley Forge.
Trevor Plante: So the irony is that the Army can barely afford to feed them, clothe them, house them, supply them with arms and ammunition. But, like, "here's all this paperwork we wanted filled-out and returned."
Norah O'Donnell: And so that--
Trevor Plante: So these--
Norah O'Donnell: --is George Washington's handwriting and--
Trevor Plante: Yes.
Norah O'Donnell: --signature?
Trevor Plante: Yes-- correct, yep. Yep.
Norah O'Donnell: And then, here.
Trevor Plante: This officer became very popular a couple years ago, Alexander Hamilton. We don't often think of him as "Alex Hamilton," but he had signed his name "Alex Hamilton"--
Norah O'Donnell: Wow.
Trevor Plante: --on his oath.
Trevor Plante has a theory about why one of his favorite documents looks so unique.
Trevor Plante: This is a resolution-- passed by Congress in-- early 1865. It-- once it was ratified, it became the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And if you notice on here, there's several different handwritings for the 13th Amendment. So we speculate that these clerks realized what a big deal this was at-- at the time, and literally wanted to have a hand in history.
Norah O'Donnell: Because the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.
Trevor Plante: Abolished slavery in the United States, exactly.
Plante likes to say Archives keeps the nation's receipts, and he means it – like the treaty for the Louisiana Purchase –
– signed by Napoleon Bonaparte himself.
There's also the deed of gift that came with the Statue of Liberty from France in 1884.
And the check Russia cashed when the U.S. bought Alaska in 1867 for $7.2 million.
In 1988, after Archives' main building in Washington ran out of room, Congress funded the construction of a state-of-the-art facility in College Park, Maryland.
From there, Deputy Archivist Jay Bosanko runs day-to-day operations.
He invited us into their most restricted vault, where cameras usually aren't allowed, to see relics of a dark chapter in world history – Hitler's last will and testament; and Eva Braun's diary.
Jay Bosanko: This happens to be from 1935.
Norah O'Donnell: How is it that the U.S. government got its hands on Hitler's mistress's diary?
Jay Bosanko: So this was-- quite literally sort of the-- the-- the spoils of war. This was captured-- by U.S. Armed Forces. Then it transferred to us at the National Archives.
Some of the items inside this vault only became historically significant with age, like this letter from a young Fidel Castro to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Norah O'Donnell: So there may be treasures like this buried in boxes--
Jay Bosanko: Yet--
Norah O'Donnell: --in lots of places.
Jay Bosanko: --yet to be discovered. You never know when you're opening a box what you might find next.
… or who might be opening it. Researchers, writers, and history buffs from around the country and the world come to the archives to make discoveries. We saw a group from Japan cataloging the American occupation that followed World War II.
And a U.S. Army unit on a special mission - combing through a million old Army files looking for Black and Native American soldiers, who were once overlooked, but might now be awarded the Medal of Honor.
Jay Bosanko: The records that we hold-- need to be made available. We need to bring the stories that are captured in those records alive.
Norah O'Donnell: There's a record here at College Park that I want to show you and our viewers. This is the resignation letter of Richard Nixon, August 9th, 1974.
Jay Bosanko: This is an incredibly important document.
Before the Watergate scandal, records belonged to the presidents who created them. But after President Nixon sought to destroy audio tapes with evidence of potential crimes, Congress took action.
Jay Bosanko: When an individual controls the records, they control the story, they control what the American people can know or not know about their presidency.
Norah O'Donnell: When did individual presidents stop owning the records that they created?
Jay Bosanko: Not until 1978 when the Presidential Records Act was signed. And so starting with President Reagan, now the records of a presidency belong to the American people and not to the president.
In 2021, former President Trump tested that law when he took dozens of boxes, including almost 340 documents bearing classification markings, to his home in Florida. Mr. Trump was eventually charged with 40 felonies, including for allegedly refusing to turn over some of the papers. The case was dismissed, but the Justice Department is appealing. President Joe Biden was also investigated over more than 80 documents with classification markings that he had from when he was vice president and a senator. Mr. Biden cooperated with the investigation and was not charged.
Jay Bosanko told us the Archives is simply the custodian of the documents all presidents are required to turn over. Enforcing the law is up to the Justice Department.
Norah O'Donnell: What is potentially lost when presidential records are not transferred to the National Archives?
Jay Bosanko: That strikes at the very heart of-- the historical record, the completeness of it, the ability to understand decisions. And so it's important for historians, and ultimately the American people to understand all of the pieces that came in and-- and made up that decision-making.
Those pieces of history start to become available to reporters and scholars five years after a presidency ends, at the 15 presidential libraries in the Archives system.
Jay Bosanko: When that five-year window hits, almost immediately we have a backlog of thousands of FOIA requests that we can't possibly respond to within the ten days under the Freedom of Information Act.
When Colleen Shogan became archivist last year she inherited a flat budget, and a mountain of Freedom of Information Act requests.
Norah O'Donnell: At the George W. Bush Presidential Library, for example, a FOIA request might come back with a 12-year wait.
Colleen Shogan: Uh-huh (affirm). That's because of the-- the-- the-- the extreme interest in those records. And I think the way that we are gonna make headway on this in the near future is going to be through technology.
The Archives' goal to scan and digitize all 13-and-a-half billion paper records in its collection seems ambitious. Only 2% of their holdings are currently available online. We obtained a recent memo drafted by senior leaders at the agency, who are concerned limited resources have put it at "serious risk" of "mission failure."
Norah O'Donnell: Is it even possible to bring the Archives into the 21st century before the start of the 22nd century without some significant increase of resources?
Colleen Shogan: I think we can do it. We will do it-- we'll-- gonna have to reprioritize, we're gonna have to look at our budget. But we will rely upon our institutions, upon Congress, and of course upon the executive branch to support us along the way.
While the Archives' path to digital transformation will be a work in progress for decades, a big change is coming soon to the rotunda. In 2026, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th Amendment will be put on permanent display. They are the first major additions to the rotunda in 72 years. It was the archivist's decision. She says it's not just to honor the nation's past, but a reminder that America's next chapter is not yet written.
Produced by Keith Sharman and Roxanne Feitel. Broadcast associate, Callie Teitelbaum. Edited by Craig Crawford.