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Watergate Items Are Available at MU
By Bryan Daniels
As the nation mourned the death of President
Gerald Ford, events surrounding one of the most memorable events
in U.S. history, the Watergate Scandal, again made news. The University
of Missouri-Columbia has launched an online catalog that provides
detailed search information about numerous
artifacts and documents from the Watergate hearings.
Preserved at the University
Archives of the MU
Libraries are nearly 140,000 papers, photographs and various
other documents belonging to Donald G. Sanders, who served as
deputy minority council for the Senate Select Committee on Presidential
Campaign Activities during Watergate. Sanders asked arguably the
most important question of the investigation: Is there any kind
of recording system in the White House? The answer set in motion
President Richard M. Nixon's resignation.
Michael Holland, head of special collections, archives and rare
books at the libraries, called the collection a treasure trove
of information that provides insights into how federal investigators
conducted their work.
“The information gives us an in-depth look at legal strategies
that lead to federal prosecutions and how to go from one lead
to another,” Holland said. “You see how Sanders was
thinking.”
During his career, Sanders worked as special agent, investigator,
legal counsel and administrator for the U.S. government and commissioner
for Boone County after returning from Washington. He earned a
law degree in 1954 and master's degree in history in 1991 from
MU.
In addition to the Watergate documents, the collection includes
correspondence, memoranda, meeting minutes, notes, reports, publications
and supporting material from Sanders associations with the FBI,
House Committee on Internal Security, Atomic Energy Commission,
the Department of Defense, Senate Select Committee on Ethics and
Boone County Commission. Holland said it took more than two years
to catalog the information.
He said among the more interesting items in the collection is
a small pocket planner that appears meaningless at first glance.
However, it contains the original notation for the July 13, 1973,
meeting when Sanders asked the pivotal Watergate question.
“It looks very unimportant,” Holland said. “It's
amazing that for its plainness, it doesn't give you the impression
that what's inside changed American government.”
Also included in the collection is a letter from Sanders to Ford
following Ford’s loss to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential
election. Sanders’ widow, Dolores Mead, donated the materials
to MU in 2004.
The artifacts and documents are available for study at the archives
of the MU Libraries.
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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