As I sat in Lee Hall on Clemson’s campus last Thursday, surrounded by my peers to listen to Dr. Russell L. Riley, Co-Chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, present on “The White House as a Black Box,” I was unsure where a topic like this could lead. As we are all aware, the “Black Box” records the events that happen during any given flight. The “Black Box” gives investigators insight on conversations, decision and in the unfortunate event that an incident happens, the “Black Box” reveals the details leading up to the event. Dr. Riley discussed his work documenting the oral history of the U.S. Presidency as the “Black Box” of the White House. Even though Presidential records become public records upon that President’s exit from office, the documents are not released until they have been examined for security purposes. As you could imagine, this process takes quite a while.
Dr. Riley gave multiple examples, but the one that truly stuck with me was the sheer number of documents from the Obama Presidency, as listed below. During Obama’s Presidency there were more than 15,000 cubic feet of stored textual documents, 6,000 cubic feet of audio/visual documentations, and an astounding 275 MILLION emails. Each item has to be individually reviewed minute by minute or line by line. President Bush’s data that was released in 1993 is only about 25% completed. So, in 25 years after leaving office only a quarter of the information has been reviewed, and if this pace is maintained it could be another 75 years to complete his document review.
Dr. Riley’s work focuses on past Presidents and their top officials. He and his team try to interview these individuals, maybe as many as 100 interviews per presidency, to provide a first-hand account of the dealings within the White House. This endeavor is to primarily fill in the gaps and to provide the public with the “common language,” and Dr. Riley and his team believe that the people who served under the President are usually the most substantive and truthful/critical because they were the closest and know the most. They tend to be internal critics.
D. Riley also informed those in attendance on the reality of how little we know about the sitting President and that we only have access to about 20-25% of the truth and what actually goes on in the White House. It was also stated that the general public can only draw inference on the dealings within the White House. A majority of the information that we are privileged to know is typically through leaks, investigations (i.e., Mueller Report), auto-biographies, etc.
I feel privileged to have attended an event hosted by Clemson University such as Dr. Russell L. Riley’s lecture on “The White House as a Black Box.” Not only was it greatly informative, it has prompted me to start looking more in-depth about the information that is presented by the media, leaks, investigations and reports. It has also made me curious on the free resources available through the Miller Center. If you are interested in the Oral Histories, you can access the documents and videos via https://millercenter.org.