Recording the Presidency

Looking for alternative sources for my dissertation research I read "The Clinton Tapes" by Taylor Branch. The author is no expert on the Clinton Presidency, but rather is an old friend of the President! What makes the book a valuable contribution to the history of the 1990s US Foreign Policy is that it is based on recorded conversations between the author and the President during his two terms in office.

The Clinton Tapes

The opening chapter gives some insight into why the President decided to initate a series of meetings with Branch, After winning the 1992 election Clinton started to look into methods of recording the history of his presidency, it seems incredible that during the interim period before inauguration when the President-Elect would need to make political appointments and prepare to govern, that Bill Clinton would be able to think about how best to record his legacy.

Branch stated that recording of meetings such as those used by Presidents Johnson and Nixon would not be adopted because of the possibility that the tapes could be subpoenaed. Minutes would not be taken of the informal and yet important meetings between key figures in the administration again because of the fear it could be requested, but also simply because of the issue - who would actually agree to take the minutes!

In March 1993 the first taped interview took place, Clinton stated that he wanted an interviewer and not just to create a "taped diary" as an interviewer could frame the debate, ask the important questions which perhaps if Clinton had recorded himself he would have ignored.

Recording History

The reason for blogging about this book is that it starts with an interesting discussion about the debates surrounding the need to record the presidency. It was widely commented in 2009 that President Obama could no longer use his blackberry because of issues relating to recording his usage of the device.

Preserving the history of a presidency is becoming a greater issue as important political decisions are made not in official settings, such as cabinet or congress but in informal meetings, the type in the UK referred to as the "Sofa government" as it is made of just a few individuals who meet so informally that they literally are on a sofa!

Freedom of Information Acts which have been enacted do in some way preserve history, however overall it discourages politicians from using communications forms which can be requested using the FoI Act, thus making the preservation of the history even more difficult! In "The End of the Party" Andrew Rawnsley quotes Tony Blair saying he wished he never pushed for the Act to begin with!

An abundance of information

My thesis topic (NATO Expansion under President Clinton) is relatively modern, focusing mostly on the last half of the 1990s; so far the biggest difference between my thesis research and my dissertation research last year (on the US opposition to Salvador Allende in Chile) has been the volume of data available online.

I remember having one excellent book, "The Pinochet File" by a NSA archivist, Peter Kornbluh. The book compiled a significant amount of pertinent US documents which had been declassified in 1998 by President Clinton under pressure from Secretary of State, Madeline Albright.

The book was by no means perfect, firstly I can't tell you how many times I wished I had the ability to "Ctrl+f" (to search the text) it is only when you are used to using online texts do you realise how inadequate the index in most books are! Also as the book was a compilation of documents Kornbluh had to decide what documents to include. Although it is 590 pages long there was a limit to the amount of material he could include.

So far my MA thesis research has been mostly online, I decided to familiarise myself with the history of NATO in the 1990s by reading almost every article connected to the organisation in the period. Thanks to still being free to use, I didn't have to pay to access the New York Times archive (although from 2011 you will have to subscribe) or The Times, The Guardian, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

I can access the newspapers archive, and simply search for key terms such as "Nato" and there in front of me is everything I need from that website. It is so easy to find sources for my research this year that a new problem has emerged - deciding what resources are of value.

The abundance of information online presents a bigger problem for historians in the future - how are we protecting our digital history for the future. This is something I have read a little bit about today in the newspaper, and I will blog on it once I have done some reading on the issue.

Mind Mapping: A great waste of time?

I had a meeting with my thesis supervisor (Dr. David Ryan) last week. But before we spoke about resources or even discussed what I had already researched the conversation moved rapidly onto what topics and areas I would be including in my thesis. It was clear he wanted a few simple headings and topics that our conversation could be structured around - if only I had made a mindmap before the meeting!

I have been quite sceptical about mind maps in the past; I even dislike their name! I distinctly remember Mike Cosgrave's class in second year where the whole year had to make a plan using FreeMind of an essay. The software was easy to use and I liked the ability to create a simple "plan" for an essay - albeit for one I never had to do! The expereince highlighted the benefit of mind maps to me which I had used throughout my educational life; however it didn't convince me of the use of the software, why not just continue as I had always done using pen and paper?

In third year a group of my friends would often collaborate on work (we were in many of the same classes and societies), bouncing ideas off one another. Despite seeing each other every day, much of this discussion would take place online, as it could be recorded on Google Chat (allowing us to search later on for points or URLs), it would allow us to instantly search online for sources/quotes etc. We sometimes shared ideas using Google Documents which were essentially plans for essays, or bullet point mind maps. It made sense to make the plans digital as they could be shared so easily, but also they could be edited by one another.

The main benefit of XMind to my mind (sorry for the overuse of the word) is not that it is merely on your laptop wherever you are, but that you can upload your plan. Uploading a mind map online to make it accessible seems pointless if your plan is about a very specific thesis topic, but if it was on a topic in the national curriculum it has the potenial for being a very useful study aid. Sharing mind maps is useful, not just with strangers, but of most use is sharing it with your peers, which has the potential for collaboration, self-editing or positive critism.

I have uploaded a screen shot of my latest mind mapping experience. It is the document I should have brought with me to my meeting with my supervisor - a plan for my thesis (titled - "NATO Expansion in the 1990s").

It's useful as it forces me to priortise and divide ideas for my thesis into sections. I'm not going to discuss the crisis in the Balkans in the same paragraph as I discuss the domestic economic situation in the US, thus they are under seperate headings, also the Post-Cold War era as a concept is a main heading, while the need to reduce the importance of foreign policy to allow the US to focus on curing the nations social problems is of less importance. The mind map forces you to be explicit which is great to focus your mind on how to write the thesis. We write in sentances, paragraphs and chapters - something which mind mapping facilitates.