For Public Library, a Trove of New York Times Records
Unhappy that The New York Times had published confidential information on American troop deployments, the administration sent a letter of complaint: “I cannot feel any sense of security either for the safe conduct of the affairs of this Department or for the lives and welfare of the soldiers of the United States on the Mexican border, if information of a highly confidential and delicate matter is likely to appear in a newspaper, either through a lack of loyalty on the part of the persons in the War Department or an improper acquisition of news by newspapermen.”
Disputes about printing confidential national security information have flared in recent years, but this particular letter is dated July 11, 1916, and was sent by Newton Baker, Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of war. It is part of a vast collection of personal letters, financial documents, confidential reports, photographs and more — more than 700,000 pages in all — that The Times has donated to the New York Public Library.
“In the history of my tenure at the library, this is one of the single most important collections,” said Paul LeClerc, who has been president and chief executive of the library for 14 years. “We are deeply grateful to the family.”
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Disputes about printing confidential national security information have flared in recent years, but this particular letter is dated July 11, 1916, and was sent by Newton Baker, Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of war. It is part of a vast collection of personal letters, financial documents, confidential reports, photographs and more — more than 700,000 pages in all — that The Times has donated to the New York Public Library.
“In the history of my tenure at the library, this is one of the single most important collections,” said Paul LeClerc, who has been president and chief executive of the library for 14 years. “We are deeply grateful to the family.”