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This summer, in fact, the Brinkley family will be living in Hyde Park next to the FDR Library to research a book I am writing about New Deal-era conservation.


When I edited Ronald Reagan’s Diaries, our family moved to Simi Valley for six months. It was there that I spent long hours at the Gip- per’s beautiful Spanish-style library, which sits on a 300-acre horse country parcel between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.


Our nation’s presidential libraries hold more than 400 million pages of documents, 10 million


photographs, and 15 million feet of motion picture fi lm.


Artifacts pour off the shelves of these fi rst-rate de-


TREASURE TROVE The FDR library contains many letters of historical significance, including one from Benito Mussolini in which he expressed his admiration of FDR.


positories like the Johnstown Flood. For scholars, these grand palaces are the ground zero of their liveli- hoods; the essential place to spend days, even weeks, or years, poring over classifi ed documents when re- searching a book, article, or Ph.D. dissertation. The general public, however, only sees the smatter-


which he grew . . . He would want them to enjoy themselves in these surroundings and to draw from them rest and peace and strength as he did all the days of his life.” Today, America’s presidential li-


brary system is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Besides FDR, 11 ex-presidents have taxpayer sanc-


tioned presidential libraries: Herbert Hoover (West Branch, Iowa); Harry S. Truman (Independence, Mo.); Dwight D. Eisenhower (Abilene, Kan.); John F. Ken- nedy (Dorchester, Mass.); Lyndon B. Johnson (Austin, Texas); Richard Nixon (Yorba Linda, Calif.); Gerald R. Ford (Ann Arbor, Mich.); Jimmy Carter (Atlanta, Ga.); Ronald Reagan (Simi Valley, Calif.); George H.W. Bush (College Station, Texas); and Bill Clinton (Little Rock, Ark.). On April 25, a 13th library entered the family, when


the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas was offi cially dedicat- ed. Like FDR, Bush chose the site location because it was in his home state. Other Texas institutions, most notably Baylor University in Waco (near the Crawford Ranch) and Texas Tech in Lubbock (closer to Midland in Lone Star terms), put in bids. But SMU won out. I have toured all of America’s presidential libraries.


52 NEWSMAX | MAY 2013


ing of documents put under glass in the exhibit halls. They can be forgiven for thinking that these presidential libraries are shrines. I recently spoke at SMU’s Tate Lecture Se-


ries along with historian and friend Michael Beschloss. We were given a tour of the new three-story Bush Presidential Library, situat- ed on a prominent 23-acre site. I quickly rec- ognized that the winning tourist draw to the Bush Library will be the full-scale replica of the Oval Offi ce (including the Resolute Desk, which kids can sit behind for the ultimate photo keepsake). The White House might be closed for pub-


lic tours due to the sequestration showdown, but the faux Oval Offi ce in Dallas is ready to step into the breach. No matter how one feels about Bush’s


presidency, which has struggled in the court of public opinion, no one can deny that the library is an architectural masterpiece. Rob- ert A.M. Stern, the visionary dean of the Yale School of Architecture, deserves to win awards for his eloquence of design. SMU is surely enriched by the library’s pres- ence on its campus. Like the other 12 presidential libraries, this one has


many historical artifacts worth serious refl ection and scrutiny. That’s because while presidential libraries are all business when it comes to archives, the attrac-


LETTER/MCT/MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE/ GETTY IMAGES / ROOSEVELT/NBC UNIVERSAL/ GETTY IMAGES / BUILDING/WIKIPEDIA


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