Timothy Naftali

So you begin with a lie.

First of all, it's great to be with you, David.

I had the privilege of working for the National Archives and Records Administration, and I was appointed, I didn't apply for the job, but I was appointed to be the first federal director of the Nixon Library.

After Watergate, because of concerns that the president, President Nixon, would destroy his famous tapes and the documents, Congress seized his materials.

President Ford signed the law.

And as a result, the Nixon materials couldn't leave the Washington, D.C.

area.

So Nixon could not have a real presidential library.

So he got an ersatz library.

His family built a private Nixon library.

The museum was private.

The archive was private, but it didn't have any of his presidential materials because they couldn't leave Washington, D.C.

Fast forward about 10 years for reasons that the Nixon family knows best.

The Nixon family decided they didn't want to run this private library any longer.

They wanted the federal government to run it.

Well, for that to happen, they had to get Congress to change the governing law that affected the Nixon materials.

Congress did change the law.

The National Archives would then become responsible for the Nixon Library, would rename it and would move the presidential materials from Washington, D.C.

to Yorba Linda, California.

And they needed a director for that and they appointed me.