[78-L] Theft of Recordings at NARA

[Jeff Sultanof]

I agree that ultimately, for me anyway, this is more about how lax the
security was at the archive at the time. And that's just the tip of the
iceberg. There are instances of entire articles being ripped out of rare
scrapbooks at the Lincoln Center Library. Someone else at another major
collection at a university pilfered all sorts of items, which the curator
frankly told me were one of a kind. I recently had a conversation with the
director of a major collection where I wrote out some suggestions so that
important items didn't magically disappear. I've gone out to the shelves in
this collection and seen manuscripts thrown all over the place because some
idiot was looking for something and didn't bother to put the manuscripts
back in the box in proper order. I am deliberately not mentioning any names
so that no one is embarrassed.

Jeff Sultanof


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
>
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