Flashback to 1993.
(No link, it's from the March 13, 1993 Washington Post).
WASHINGTON -- When President Clinton's top aides moved into the White House in January, many of them had trouble getting their computers to work.
That's because during the night of Jan. 19 and into the next morning -- President Bush's last hours in office -- officials wiped out the computerized memory of the White House machines.
The hurried operation was made possible only by an agreement signed close to midnight by the archivist of the United States, Don W. Wilson. The ensuing controversy has added to allegations that the archives, beset for years bypolitical pressures and slim resources, is prone to mismanagement and ineptitude in its mission of preserving for the public the nation's documentary history.
It also has raised strong doubts about the efficacy of a15-year-old law that says a former president's records belong to the people.
Just what information was purged remains unknown, but it probably ranged from reports on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina to details about Bush's Iran-Contra pardons to evidence concerning the pre-election search of Clinton's passport files. In the warrens of the secretive National Security Council, only a month's worth of foreign cable traffic was retained to help enlighten the incoming administration.
