Double Fold

by Nicholson Baker

  20. “We’re going places Verner”: Luther Evans to Verner Clapp, June 25, 1945, Clapp papers, Library of Congress.

  21. narrowly missing the chieftaincy: Clapp probably missed being appointed librarian of Congress because a McCarthyite senator from Clapp’s home state of Maryland, John Marshall Butler, had it in for him, according to a fascinating paper by Betty Milum, “Eisenhower, ALA, and the Selection of L. Quincy Mumford,” Libraries and Culture 30:1 (winter 1995). Clapp gave permission for the Library of Congress to display (as part of a UNESCO exhibit entitled “The Library in a Free World”) one of Butler’s campaign photographs, in a display-panel entitled “Distortion of Information.” (It was a cut-and-paste job, produced in 1951 by Butler’s campaign office with the apparent aid of Joe McCarthy’s money and staff, showing Butler’s opponent, veteran senator and McCarthy opponent Millard Tydings, in what at a glance seemed to be close conference with Earl Browder, ex-head of the U.S. Communist Party.) Butler complained, and Clapp sent an apology and substituted a different composite photo from Time. But Butler wasn’t appeased, and he and/or McCarthy seems to have set the FBI to work gathering dirt on Clapp, whose 1953 FBI report mentions an informant’s letter from 1928 in which Clapp was said to have been arrested in 1922 in connection with some suspicious fires at Trinity College—this sounds like FBI smear-to-order work. By his own admission, however, Clapp had been detained in the twenties for “lurking in an alley.” He wrote in his application form for the CIA: “I commenced action for false arrest, but was assured by my lawyer that the record was erased.”

  22. “Reduction in bulk”: Council on Library Resources, Meeting on the Problems of Microform in Libraries (Washington, D.C.: Council on Library Resources, 1958). See also “Space Problems of Large (General) Research Libraries: Report of a Meeting,” College and Research Libraries, May 1959, p. 219, in which is mentioned, as a “deferred” suggestion, a “proposal for a ‘weeding authority,’ which would roam through large research libraries and, endowed with authority derived from joint sponsorship, would recommend consolidation of collections, transfers of materials to central storage warehouses, etc.” An institution designated as “University C” (Yale, probably; see pp. 88–89) was described as “meeting the storage problem” by cutting back on acquisitions and “working through its collections subject by subject so as to discard materials of less value, replace with microtext those materials for which this may be done effectively, and transfer to a compact storage collection those items which should be retained locally but which may be assigned to a location of inferior physical accessibility.” “University D” planned to “reduce to microtext a significant segment (covering one field of study) in the library of one of the professional schools of the University” in order to test its financial feasibility and its “effects on consumers and consumer-reaction.”

  23. Minuteman missile: See “Contracts,” Missiles and Rockets, January 15, 1962. AVCO also had $5.7 million for the development of nose cones for the Titan and Atlas missiles.

  24. “A Good Beginning”: Verner Clapp, “A Good Beginning,” in Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting and Convention (Washington, D.C.: National Microfilm Association, 1959), on microfiche. Vernon Tate was on the governing board of the National Microfilm Association that year, as were emissaries from Xerox Haloid and Bell Labs.

  25. list of names: Verner Clapp, diary, November 4, 1951, Clapp papers, Library of Congress. Another who worked on the Library of Congress’s CIA projects was Burton W. Adkinson, Director of the Reference Department. Burton, a map expert and former OSS analyst, worked for the National Science Foundation from 1957 to 1971; in 1978, he wrote Two Centuries of Federal Information, a book about the history of information science in the federal government that manages to edit the CIA out almost completely. One of the CIA projects mentioned in Clapp’s notes was the “Mo. Russ. Acc. List”—the Monthly List of Russian Accessions, begun in 1951.

  26. Cold War mania: The CIA’s “Intellofax” aperture-card system was described in 1961: “The classified documents are received from scores of different major sources. . . .Since 1954 we have been miniaturizing the documents by microphotography and mounting them in apertures on IBM punched cards. Access to the document itself is indirect, through codes punched into the cards to indicate subject, area, source, security classification, date and number of each document.” Senate Committee on Government Operations, Documentation, Indexing, and Retrieval of Scientific Information, 86th Cong. 2d sess., Document no. 113 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), pp. 63–64; quoted in Robert M. Hayes and Joseph Becker, Information Storage and Retrieval: Tools, Elements, Theories (New York: Wiley, 1963), p. 168.

  27. BEST COPY AVAILABLE: The CIA’s cover letter to me says: “We apologize for the poor quality of these pages, but there are no better copies available.” According to C. P. Auger, other formulas are: “Reproduced from the best available copy” and “Copy available does not permit fully legible reproduction” and “This document has been reproduced from the best available copy furnished by the sponsoring agency. Although it is recognized that certain portions are illegible, it is being released in the interest of making available as much information as possible.” C. P. Auger, “The Importance of Microforms,” Microform Review 20:4 (fall 1991), reprinted from Information Sources in Grey Literature, 2d ed. (New York: Bowker-Saur, 1989).

  28. AMERICA’S SPACE PROGRAM: Microform Review 5:3 (July 1976). Another Xerox/UMI ad, which ran in the January 1975 issue (4:1) of Microform Review, is headlined “The Beast and the Librarian.” It tells the story of a librarian who adopted a serials collection that began to multiply and turned into “seemingly uncontrollable beasts”: “As the swelling menagerie usurped more space, the librarian realized how many thousands of dollars the animals devoured—just sitting on the shelves. . . .The librarian was in distress, about to be swallowed up by the paper monster, when who should come to the rescue but MIGHTY MICROFILM!” In 1984, University Microfilms produced an ad headlined space invaders: “Nobody knows where they came from. But suddenly, they were everywhere. In the stacks. In the aisles. And now, even advancing on the lobby” (Microform Review 13:4 [spring 1984]). Eugene Power, founder of University Microfilms, sold the company to Xerox in 1962; in 1983, Xerox bought Microfilm Corporation of America from The New York Times and merged it with UMI; and then in 1985, Bell and Howell bought UMI from Xerox and in 1999 renamed it Bell and Howell Information and Learning. See Bourke, “Scholarly Micropublishing.”

  29. “files of American and foreign newspapers”: William Warner Bishop, “Thirty Years in the Library of Congress, 1899 to 1929,” in Essays Offered to Herbert Putnam by His Colleagues and Friends on His Thirtieth Anniversary as Librarian of Congress, 5 April 1929, ed. William Warner Bishop and Andrew Keogh (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929), quoted in Paul M. Angle, The Library of Congress: An Account, Historical and Descriptive (Kingsport, Tenn.: Kingsport Press, 1958), p. 53.

  30. “badly congested condition”: Serials Division, Library of Congress, “Serials Division Report, 1949–1950” in Annual Reports, Reference Department, t.s., Library of Congress Manuscripts Division. Each department head submitted an annual report to the librarian of Congress; they are internal documents, not to be confused with the library’s published annual reports, which are beautifully produced books. In the published annual reports, the decision to buy microfilm copies of newspapers from external sources (e.g., Recordak), and to give away or throw away the bound originals in order to conserve space, is not mentioned.

  31. “merely more of the same”: Verner Clapp, foreword to J. C. R. Licklider, Libraries of the Future (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965).

  32. steady space model: Also known as the “static-capacity” model. Ann Okerson, once head of the Serials Division at Simon Fraser University Library, Burnaby, British Columbia (now a big gun in digitalism at Yale), wrote in 1985: “In anticipation of the space problem, the chief librarian had earlier proposed a ‘ste
ady space’ policy which undertook to contain the Library’s collections within the existing building until the year 2000 by various means, including microfilm alternatives to hardcopy, resource sharing, using online facilities, moving to high-density shelving for lower-use research materials, and weeding/discard.” Okerson’s library sold some of its more valuable backfiles to a dealer in Scarsdale, or swapped them for microfilm, an arrangement that “turned out to be very fruitful for the library.” Ann Okerson, “Microform Conversion—A Case Study,” Microform Review 14:3 (summer 1985). In the early nineties, Okerson advised William Bowen, president of the A. W. Mellon Foundation, as the Foundation planned its ambitious assault on paper. See Anthony M. Cummings et al., University Libraries and Scholarly Communication: A Study Prepared for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Association of Research Libraries, November 1992, www.lib.virginia.edu/mellon/mellon.htm.

  33. “It is an art”: Clapp, “Good Beginning.”

  34. “permitting the disposal”: Marley, “Newspapers and the Library of Congress,” in Veaner, pp. 429, 436n.

  35. None of this epochal activity: The closest the library came at the time to publicly revealing what was afoot was the statement that “since 1939 the Library has been engaged in preserving its newspaper files by transferring them to microfilm,” in a section describing the microfilming of foreign archives. Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1952 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), p. 62. Luther Evans makes no reference to the decision to substitute microfilm (in-house or bought) for the library’s originals in his “Current Microfilm Projects at the Library of Congress,” Das Antiquariat (Vienna) 8 (August 15, 1952).

  36. “The problem of deteriorating newspapers”: Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957), p. 25.

  37. naval warehouse: In 1972, the library moved “some 50,000 volumes of bound domestic newspapers, which are gradually being microfilmed,” to the Duke Street warehouse, “to provide space for the expansion of the overcrowded general collections.” Bound foreign newspapers were stored in Alexandria beginning in 1968. Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1972 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 36.

  38. in its Information Bulletin: E.g., “From commercial sources, major titles being acquired on film to replace the Library’s holdings include the Portland, Maine, Press Herald for January 1940–December 1944 and January 1947–May 1950, the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat and Chronicle, 1905–June 1955 [my hometown paper], the Concord, N.H., Daily Monitor, 1874–1923, the Leavenworth, Kans., Times, April 25, 1871–1950, the Topeka, Kans., Daily Capitol, 1890–June 1950, the Dallas, Texas, Morning News, 1900–April 1950, the Portland, Oreg., Daily Journal, March 11, 1902–1936, and the Milwaukee, Wis., Journal, 1891–1909 and 1921–August 1950.” “Serial Division,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 35:2 (January 9, 1976). Six months later, there were new titles: “Major domestic titles being filmed at the Library during the past half year are the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal for 1871–1874 and 1894–1950, the New York City Jewish Journal and Daily News for 1910–1915 and 1929–March 1953 (films for 1916–1928 are already available), the Portland (Oreg.) Oregonian for July 1874–December 1945, and as a cooperative project with the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Baltimore (Md.) Post for November 20, 1922–March 24, 1934.” The list continues: “From commercial sources, major titles being acquired on film to replace the Library’s holdings included the New Orleans (La.) Item for 1920–1958, and the States for January 1916–August 1933, the Lewiston (Maine) Evening Journal for 1880–1955, the Topeka (Kans.) State Journal for 1880–June 1934, the Philadelphia (Pa.) Record for 1877–August 1910, the Las Vegas (Nev.) Sun for 1951–1961, the San Francisco (Calif.) Daily Alta California for 1859–1891, the Norfolk (Va.) Virginian-Pilot for 1945–May 1955, and the Nashville (Tenn.) American for 1853–September 1910.” “Newspaper Preservation Program,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 35:28 (July 9, 1976).

  39. “Wood pulp paper” here just seems: It isn’t true, of course, that newsprint suddenly became composed of wood pulp in 1870—paper manufacturers used some percentage of rag and straw for decades afterward, and they mixed chemically digested wood and mechanically ground wood together—but it is an appealing simplification if you want to clear shelf space. The Albany Argus of March 19, 1872, for example, contained “fifteen per cent. chemical woodpulp in addition to fifteen rag and seventy straw.” Lee, Daily Newspaper in America, p. 102.

  40. detailed inventory: Library of Congress, “19th and 20th Century U.S. Newspapers in Original Format: Inventory of Volumes Held in Remote Storage,” 1998, www.loc.gov/rr/news/inventor.htm.

  41. ALL ON FILM: One of the cards for the Chicago Daily Tribune confides: “Vols. For 1900–1971 have been discarded.”

  42. “Generally we retain the inkprint”: See also “Collections Policy Statements: U.S. Newspapers,” November 1996, on the library’s website, lcweb.loc.gov/acq/devpol/neu.htm (viewed June 2, 2000): “The preferred format for permanent retention is silver-gelatin-on-polyester-base 35mm roll microfilm. . . .newspapers published prior to 1870 on ‘rag’ paper may be retained in original ink-print format if they have artifactual value.”

  43. rag-paper library editions: These titles are listed in the Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1938 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939), p. 193. See also Library of Congress, Serials Division, Holdings of American Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Newspapers Printed on Wood Pulp Paper, mimeograph, May 1950, in which a note below the listing for The Detroit News says: “Commencing July 8, 1929, the Library of Congress file of this title is printed on rag paper.” The library owns no issues of The Detroit News now. Incidentally, in the 1941 annual report, the library announced its receipt of a gift of 221 volumes of the New York Forward, 1901–1927: “This extensive file of the early years of this important Jewish paper was received by gift from the Jewish Daily Forward, of New York. It supplements the later years of the file already on our shelves.” All but a handful of these gift volumes are gone, according to the library’s 1998 online inventory.

  44. “Microfilming came at a propitious time”: Charles G. La Hood, Jr., “Microfilm for the Library of Congress,” College and Research Libraries, July 1973. La Hood writes: “Normally, the Library requires the supplier [of newspaper microfilm] to furnish sample rolls of each file for quality-control testing before ordering, so that the pulp files are not destroyed prematurely.”

  45. “crisis of space”: Library of Congress, Working Group on Reference and Research, Report to the Task Group on Shelving Arrangement (July 8, 1997, updated October 30, 1997), p. 2.

  46. James Billington: At the CIA’s Office of National Estimates, a quasi-professorial group under the direction of historian Sherman Kent, Billington wrote research reports, known as intelligence estimates, for President Eisenhower and other advisers. Richard Nixon, who as vice president paid close attention to intelligence briefings, became an admirer: “James Billington is, of course—you mention intellectuals. Now, there’s an intellectual—just to show you I have an open mind—who everybody ought to know better. He has a first-class geopolitical mind. He particularly is expert in Soviet affairs. I’d like to see him sometime—I‘d like to see him ambassador to Russia. I think he would be a great ambassador” (Richard Nixon interview with Brian Lamb, part 2, Booknotes, C-SPAN, March 1, 1992). In 1956, while the CIA’s MKULTRA drug experiments on unwitting Canadians were in full swing (formally approved by Allen Dulles on April 13, 1953), and not so long after the CIA’s 1954 paramilitary invasion of Guatemala (micro-managed by Dulles), James Billington toured the intelligence capitals of the world as Dulles’s personal assistant. See Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Hought
on Mifflin, 1994), pp. 393, 429; and James Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1999), pp. 489–92. Dulles had “this ability to make quite cold-blooded assessments while remaining warm and gracious that was quite remarkable,” Billington told Srodes. “People talk about the Cold War frenzy, but I admit I slept better after that trip knowing that some of these plans never got off the ground.” The Library of Congress doesn’t make too much of Billington’s CIA years now; a website biography of him skips past that time: “A graduate of Princeton University, he attended Oxford University’s Balliol College as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a doctorate in history. At Harvard University from 1957 to 1962, he taught history and was a research fellow at the Russian Research Center” (Library of Congress, “James H. Billington,” www.loc.gov/bicentennial/bios_billington.htm). But as late as 1959, while he was employed by Harvard’s Russian Research Center, Billington apparently still had a consulting relationship of some kind with the agency: he wrote a CIA memorandum entitled “Sino-Soviet Relationship,” dated September 18, 1959; it is footnoted in a paper published in the CIA’s in-house historical journal, Studies in Intelligence. See Harold P. Ford, “The CIA and Double Demonology,” Studies in Intelligence, winter 1998–1999, www.odci.gov/csi/studies/winter98–99/art05.htm (viewed August 22, 2000). For the relationship between the CIA and Harvard’s Russian Research Center, see Sigmund Diamond, Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the Intelligence Community, 1945–1955 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

  CHAPTER 4 – It Can Be Brutal

  * * *

  1. Richmond, Virginia, Daily Dispatch: The yellow address label reads:

  A R Spofford 12mch80

  Librarian of Congress

  2. what looks to be a butcher’s apron: Gene Gurney and Nick Apple, The Library of Congress: A Picture Story of the World’s Largest Library (New York: Crown, 1981), p. 113.