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The article focuses on the poised threats to the integrity of access to documents and artifacts of national importance following the controversies that have arisen in the scholarly community in the U.S. These controversies are the permission of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration for some federal agencies to withdraw classified documents from public view, the agreement of the Smithsonian Institution with Showtime Networks Inc. to create an on-demand cable-television channel, and the intent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to search the papers of the late investigative journalist Jack Anderson. According to historians these controversies should be a matter of concern to the entire scholarly community and the largest public because if these continue, all threaten the Americans' understanding of the past, and the present.