rooter@well.UUCP (Brian Mavrogeorge) (08/21/86)
President Reagan has nominated John Agresto to be the next Archivist of the United States. His nomination was sent to the Senate on 7 May. No date for hearings on the nomination has yet been announced. Mr Agresto received a PhD in government from Cornell U in 1974 and taught political science at Kenyon College from 1972 to 1978. He was a fellow & later projects director at the Natl Humanities Center in North Carolina where he worked under William Bennett now US Secy of Education. When Bennett was appointed chairman of the Natl Endowment for the Humanities in 1982 he brought along Agresto as assistant chairman. When Bennett was appointed Secy of Education in Feb 1985, Agresto became the acting chairman of NEH and served there until May of this year. Mr. Agresto's political expertise is not what is needed for the Archivist. Public Law 94-497 specifies that the ARchivist shall be appointed by the President "without regard to political affiliations and solely on the basis of the professional qualifications required to perform the duties and responsibilities of the office of Archivist." The conference report on the independence bill stated the intention of the conferees "that he be an officer peforming professional archival and records management functions insulated from the political orientation of a particular administration." If you want to comment on this nomination, you need to write now to the members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee responsible for holding hearings and making a recommendation to the Senate on the nomination and send a copy of your letter to your own two state Senators. Write today care of U.S. Senate, WAshington DC 20510 to these committee members - Wm. Roth Jr Chairman (R-Del), Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Charles Mathias Jr (R-Md), William Cohen (R-Me), David Durenberger (R-Minn), Thad Cochran 9R-Miss), Warren Rudman (R-NH), Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo), Lawton Chiles (D-Fla), Sam Nunn (D-Ga), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Albert Gore Jr (D-Tenn), and CArl Levin (D-Mich). If there is anything genealogists know how to do it is write letters! And all of us have stamps. *we fought long and hard for an independent Archivist* We need again to express our opinions to our legislators.