Tuesday, February 05, 2002

Giuliani's Paper Play
Irks Some Historians
Rudy documents out of city hands

By JOANNE WASSERMAN
Daily News City Hall Bureau

When former Mayor Rudy Giuliani trucked his City Hall papers to a private Queens warehouse last month, he took a step no other mayor ever has taken.


Rudy Giuliani
Backed by an unprecedented agreement signed a week before he left office, Giuliani carted away more than 2,000 boxes of memos, pictures and phone logs — material that other modern-day mayors have handed over directly to the city — and placed them in a state-of-the-art storage facility at his own expense.

While the agreement says the city "retains ownership" and "ultimate control" over the boxes' contents, it also grants Giuliani the right to withhold from the public any document he considers of "personal interest."

That agreement has put the papers at the center of an angry debate, with historians, scholars and media organizations charging that the former mayor circumvented the City Charter in an effort to craft his image as he sees fit.

Giuliani's supporters insist he is saving the taxpayers money by paying for a job that underfunded city archivists can't handle — an argument somewhat supported by the uneven condition of some other mayoral archives reviewed by the Daily News.

But where some see good intentions, others see a clear attempt to thwart laws and traditions that for decades have granted the city — not its mayors — the power to choose what is public and what is private.

"It's something that shouldn't have been done," said John Manbeck, chairman of the city Archives Advisory Board, which will meet Feb. 13 to discuss what to recommend regarding Giuliani's papers. "We have eight years of documents that are not accessible."

Added Mike Wallace, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of New York City, "People are outraged over what Giuliani did. This guy walked off with papers that never should have left City Hall."

Petition Campaign


Records from ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani's administration have been moved to private Fortress warehouse in Long Island City, Queens.
Wallace has mounted an Internet campaign featuring a petition that's received more than 880 signatures, calling on Mayor Bloomberg to terminate the contract between Giuliani and the city. Wallace and a group of archivists will hold a City Hall press conference tomorrow to present the petition to the mayor.

So far, Bloomberg has let the contract stand, saying recently, "Anything that makes it more difficult to get information is unfortunate, but some of these documents are documents that the mayor has a right to have.

"It is perfectly legal, if I understand it," he added. "We have a right to get the documents back, and you can get them under the Freedom of Information Law."

The News found that the city does not require freedom-of-information requests to see materials from any of six previous mayors, including Fiorello LaGuardia and David Dinkins. The records are public and can be accessed by filling out a simple form — and information is not edited or blacked out.

"We are not the FBI," said one Municipal Archives staffer.

Charter Regulations

Under the City Charter, the Municipal Archives has been designated to receive all city records "in connection with the transaction of official city business."

Deciding what's "official city business" has been somewhat subjective. Using guidelines created by Eugene Bockman — the first commissioner of the Department of Records and Information Services — city archivists have broadly interpreted the provision, keeping virtually all papers in the public record.

Richard Lieberman, director of the LaGuardia and Wagner archives, helped decide what was public for three mayors: LaGuardia, Robert Wagner and Ed Koch.

When the LaGuardia and Wagner archives at LaGuardia Community College raised money and catalogued Koch's mayoral papers, neither Koch nor his agents played any role in determining what should be part of the public record.

"We never went to him for any decision about what was public or private," Lieberman said. "The decision was made by us and the city."

He said that even when the brain X-rays from Koch's August 1987 stroke were found in the files, archivists decided to keep the medical records public.

Papers considered private are generally from nonmayoral years and from mayoral campaigns, Lieberman said.

In Koch's case, those papers labeled private will be made public after historian Jonathan Soffer, who is writing a biography of the former mayor, is done with them, officials said.

Since he left office, Giuliani set up the Rudolph W. Giuliani Center for Urban Affairs, a nonprofit corporation established to raise money and care for his papers.

Saul Cohen, a close friend of Giuliani's and president of the center, said last week he had hired the Winthrop Group, a private archival consulting firm, to oversee the papers.

He bristled at those who suggest Giuliani did something wrong.

"I went out and retained the finest group of private archivists, who are subject to a strict code of ethics," said Cohen, a lawyer. "If that leaves people unhappy, --- 'em."

Trade Center Files, Tapes

The treasure trove of Giuliani documents includes World Trade Center files, 6,000 files of photographs and negatives, audio tapes of cabinet meetings, e-mails and telephone logs.

The document transfer to the Fortress, a private facility in Long Island City, was reported by The News last month.

As required in the agreement, Cohen said the city received a 15-page plan from the Winthrop Group yesterday detailing how it will work with the city to catalogue the documents.

"[City officials] are the ones who are going to set the standards," he said of the Winthrop Group. "No one from the [Giuliani] Center has shown any interest in looking at the documents. The [Winthrop] archivists are going to work with the city. It's all very professional."

The archival work is expected to cost more than $1 million, which will be raised privately, Cohen said.

Still, the agreement provides Giuliani with far greater control over the papers than other mayors have enjoyed. That power flows mainly from a clause in the agreement that states:

"Whenever [Giuliani] has a personal interest or right in a document separate and apart from the interests and rights of the city, his approval shall be required before any document may be released or disclosed by the center to the public.

"Such approval," the agreement adds, "shall be in addition to, and not in lieu of, the approval of the city."

The agreement also says the center "may not destroy any document without the prior written approval of the city."

Contents Unknown

Still, some are concerned that Giuliani or his hired archivists could remove or destroy documents that they decide are unflattering to him — and no one from the city would ever know.

In the past, when city archivists received mayoral papers, they created a "finding index" that broadly lists what is in the documents. But Giuliani's documents were moved before any index could be created, leaving the city to take his word that the papers are complete.

"The city has no control," said Idilio Gracia-Pena, who was the city's archives director for 12 years. "[The city] doesn't know what [Giuliani] has, so they won't know what they'll get back."

Cohen insisted the Winthrop archivists "know what private documents are" and repeated that they would not destroy any papers without discussion with city officials.

He also insisted the city's municipal archives are not up to the task.

In a report prepared for Cohen, the Winthrop Group found the city's Department of Records had an "inability to meet accepted archival processing standards" and that mayoral records "are stored in a sub-basement ... which lacks consistent environmental controls ... [and] is subject to flooding and water damage."

However, historians and scholars who use the city's archives insist the records are not in any danger.

"I've been to the municipal archives hundreds of times over the last 20 years, and you can eat off the floors," Lieberman, the archivist, said. "I would gladly take anybody on a tour of the sub-basement and show the pristine, temperature-controlled conditions."

Cohen insisted Giuliani is in a different league from the other mayors and that his documents deserve different treatment than the city archives can provide.

"These people have a narrow view of who [Giuliani] is," said Cohen. "He is beyond a New York City mayor — he is of national interest.

"The man is a national hero," Cohen continued. "His record is of national importance, and that interest has to be preserved."