[78-L] Theft of Recordings at NARA

[Michael Biel]

From: Paul Christenzen <picz65 at gmail.com>
> Puh-leeze.... is this "Over-reaction Thursday" and nobody told me? The 
> world's goin' to he** in a handbasket, the economy's in the tank, etc, 
> etc, etc and we're whining over a few records that somebody probably got 
> a hugely inflated tax deduction for? Write your letters about something 
> important!

Thank you, Paul.  I did not want to post anything about this situation,
but I and many other friends of Les have been heartsick over this for
the past year.  We have been asking each other why did he do this.  A
number of us are getting together next week for quite another reason,
but I have a feeling that we'll bring this up and maybe have a good cry
over it.  We really are heartbroken, and we just can't join into the
hatefest.

I happen to know that the donor did get a hugely inflated tax deduction
for the record in question -- far more than what it sold for on ebay.  I
want to remind everyone that the sound on that disc probably existed in
the Archives in other forms despite this "original master copy" being
taken.  That being said, many of you -- and most of the archival
community including Les -- know that I am always needing to inspect the
original artifact.  A tape copy is often not good enough for me to
authenticate an item.  I am indeed worried about some things that Les
had shown me at the Archives over the years, but I would doubt that
non-dups would be in his stash.  Last year, shortly before he retired, I
took Leah to the Archives for the first time.  I asked Les to show her
some things she knew about in my research.  He couldn't come up with the
exact disc I had seen and photographed in 1977 of the Woodrow Wilson
1923 Armistice Day broadcast, which had a mailing envelope to FDR's
Press Sec. Stephen Early with it, but that had been on courtesy storage
from the FDR Library and might have been returned.  But he did come up
with another copy of the disc for us to see.  Since this item is a vinyl
Compo pressing, with the exception of that envelope, this is an
identical artifact to the other one.  I would hope that the items he
took might have been in this category -- identical duplicates.  The
items that Lennick discussed a day or two ago as having been culled from
the Syracuse archive are in this category, identical duplicates.  Of
course David paid for them legitimately, while Les did "purloin" them.  

I hope this will temper the discussion down a few notches.  I do not
condone what Les did, but I am trying to understand what he did and hope
that our heritage was not really compromised.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  




bruce78rpm at comcast.net wrote:
> I am not sure what they charged him with, but the charges should have been numerous, including but not limited to, theft of government property, mail fraud, selling stolen property, violations of interstate trade, among others. Where do we send letters to urge that this Crook gets what really should be coming to him ? I want this thieve thrown in the slammer for a long long time, and I want his pension, that you and I paid for, to come to a screeching halt. Can you imagine, we have been paying this guy to protect what he was really stealing for the past few decades.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Biel"<mbiel at mbiel.com>

> I, and many other friends of Les, are awaiting the list, but it is
> evident that in all probability access to the recorded sound was not
> lost, not even potentially lost, to the American people. All had
> probably been transferred, and many were probably duplicates. The item
> actually discussed in the plea bargain was apparently from a collection
> that itself contained apparently stolen items. But if you bought items
> on ebay from Hi-Fi_Gal, they are part of the stash.
>
> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
>
> From: bruce78rpm at comcast.net
>
>
> This fellow was a high ranking Public Official who seriously betrayed
> the Public Trust ! It will be interesting to see what he actually gets
> for a sentence, since according to the article he cut a Plea Deal with
> Prosecutors ! He will probably get some kind of wrist slap. They should
> not only toss him jail for a considerable time period, but he should
> lose his Government Pension as well. Sadly, neither of these scenarios
> will probably happen.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Lennick"<dlennick at sympatico.ca>
>
> T'row da bum in wit' Boinie Madoff and t'row away the key!
>
> dl
>
> On 10/6/2011 11:58 AM, gdkimball at cox.net wrote:
> 
>> I thought this might be of interest to the list. I attended a
>> 
> security presentation by National Archives officials yesterday, and this
> case came up.
> 
>> Gregg
>>
>>
>> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/former-employee-admits-stealing-recordings-from-national-archives/2011/10/04/gIQAB1kzLL_story.html