NORTHWEST
Saturday, December 23, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 3A
Hatfield’s Senate papers tucked out of view until 2022
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — The records of former Sen.
Mark Odom Hatfield, one of Oregon’s most
prominent politicians, won’t be made public
until July 12, 2022, on what would have been
the Republican’s 100th birthday.
Hatfield, who died in 2011, climbed to
national prominence over the course of three
decades in the Senate and built a reputation
that close supporters still protect.
The Dallas, Oregon-born politician served
in the state Legislature before being elected
secretary of state in 1956. He served as
governor from 1959 to 1967, when he ventured
to Capitol Hill to represent Oregon in the U.S.
Senate, a post he held until 1997.
Records that observers say could be of
national significance — he chaired the influ-
ential Senate Appropriations Committee and
opposed the Vietnam War and the nuclear
program — are kept at Willamette University
Claire Withycombe/Capital Bureau
in Salem, a hearty stone’s throw from the state The Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette University in Salem. The university is the
capitol.
depository for Hatfield’s Senate papers, which will not be opened to the public until
Representatives of the university, a private July 12, 2022, on what would have been his 100th birthday.
institution, can’t say much
through the collection
about the specific contents
in 1985, 12 years before “And the longer those papers
of the collection. The trove
Hatfield left the Senate.
includes speeches, corre-
stay locked up ... it could be
Staff of the university’s
spondence, memos, legisla-
harder to find a context for
Hatfield Library took over
tive records, photos, videos,
processing in 1992.
campaign records, artifacts,
him or his story. I hope not.
Generally, the archiving
and other items spanning
process tries to preserve the
2,200 linear feet of storage
I think it would be a terrific
original order of the papers,
space, including 2,000 boxes
story, but I don’t know.”
said Willamette University
of paper records.
Archivist Mary McRob-
Hatfield’s widow, Antoi-
— Brent Walth, an Oregon journalist
inson. The archival process
nette, said the release date
also includes describing
was chosen after he died.
what the records contain, the New York Times. He was rebuked by the
“Well, I would rather
making them easier to Senate Ethics Committee in 1992.
have them (made public)
Jim Moore, director of the Tom McCall
navigate for researchers.
after I was in the grave, to be
It’s not apparent what Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific Univer-
truthful, because I couldn’t
sity, says the collection could shed more light
the collection may reveal.
Courtesy Kirk Hirota/George Fox University
answer any of the questions
Hatfield’s legacy perme- on those incidents.
they would ask about his The late Mark Hatfield, R-Ore-
“He had some major scandals in the 1980s
gon, after his retirement from ates the Beaver State. He is
papers,” she said.
credited with creating the and people would really, really, really like to
Mrs. Hatfield, who now the U.S. Senate.
research powerhouse that know what documents he has on that and what
lives in Portland, maintained
that she was not involved in her husband’s is now Oregon Health and Science University, he was thinking,” Moore said.
The papers of two former Oregon senators
and the 1986 designation of the Columbia
political affairs.
also held at Willamette are not yet publicly
“I didn’t do anything in his office over the River Gorge National Scenic Area.
But he also made well-publicized missteps. available either.
years,” she said. “It was not my business.”
Some papers of Republican Sen. Bob
In 1984, Antoinette Hatfield was paid
She said that Sen. Hatfield’s 100th birthday
Packwood
— his Senate papers and records
“seemed like a nice round number to have $55,000 in real estate fees by Basil Tsakos, a
Greek businessman who wanted to build an of the annual Dorchester Conference, which
them come out.”
The papers generated by federal legislators oil pipeline in Africa and sought help on the he founded in 1965 — are stored offsite and
are considered their personal property, not project from Sen. Hatfield, according to Willa- available to researchers by appointment.
However, the university could not say when
public documents, said Karen Paul, the archi- mette Week’s 2011 obituary of Hatfield. The
vist for the U.S. Senate. It’s their responsibility Hatfields donated the money to charity and in the Packwood collection will be public, or
to have them boxed and ready for shipment to 1987, the Justice Department said it wouldn’t when the whole collection will be available to
the location of their choice the day before their investigate Hatfield, according to the New York researchers. Packwood, who was elected to the
Senate in 1968, resigned his Senate seat in the
Times.
final term ends.
In the early 1990s, Mark Hatfield was wake of a sexual harassment scandal in 1995.
Hatfield got a jump on the process. Willa-
The papers of Republican Sen. Gordon
mette began preparing the collection even investigated by a federal grand jury for gifts
Smith,
who served in the Senate from 1997 to
he’d received but hadn’t disclosed from a
before he left the Senate.
A spokesman for Willamette said Richard university president in the 1980s. At the time 2009, won’t be public until 2029 at the earliest.
Jones, a historian at Reed College, was of the gifts, Hatfield was weighing a $16.3
initially hired by the university to start sorting million grant to the university, according to
There’s often a delay in making political
papers public. Supporters tend to guard the
reputations of revered figures such as Mark
Hatfield, Moore said.
“When you open up that archive, that kind
of becomes secondary, and it’s new stuff,”
Moore said. “And people get nervous about
that.”
Brent Walth, an Oregon journalist whose
authoritative biography of former Gov. Tom
McCall was published in 1994, said he was
approached on two separate occasions by
people close to Hatfield asking whether he’d
be interested in writing a book about him.
Walth told the interested parties that he’d
need complete access to Hatfield’s papers and
need interviewees to be open with him about
all aspects of Hatfield’s life. He heard nothing
more about the idea.
Walth doesn’t know why they didn’t follow
up, but noted there could have been a number
of reasons why he wasn’t contacted again after
those discussions.
The Hatfield papers also raise questions
about when records created in the course of
official business should be public. Not all of the
records are under seal: Some correspondence
of Hatfield’s is scattered among other U.S.
institutions and available for public scrutiny
there, according to the Biographic Directory of
the United States Congress.
And oral history interviews with Hatfield
and his staff are kept at the Oregon Historical
Society and OHSU, according to the directory.
Unlike Senate papers, records created
by the state’s top executives are considered
public. Since 1991 — decades after Hatfield
was governor — state law has required that
records created by the governor, secretary of
state, attorney general and treasurer be turned
over to the state archivist, says State Archivist
Mary Beth Herkert.
Before then, turning over the records to
the state archives was the implied rule under
the state’s public records law, but it wasn’t
followed, Herkert said.
“It was just getting to the point where you’re
losing out on these records,” Herkert says,
“And that’s not right because you’re alienating
a public record, which is not allowed to be
done.”
Nearly five more years will pass before
Oregonians can see the collection for them-
selves.
Walth, the journalist, noted that memory
fades the longer that someone is out of office,
and once someone is no longer living. Public
interest in Hatfield may also fade as time goes
by.
“And the longer those papers stay locked up
... it could be harder to find a context for him
or his story,” Walth said. “I hope not. I think
it would be a terrific story, but I don’t know.”
———
The Capital Bureau is a collaboration
between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
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