Delete, Erase, Shred: Enemies Of Federal Record-Keepers

[Purveyor]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the never-ending quest to preserve the government's history, there have been plenty of weapons of mass destruction.

Before delete keys on computers, there were paper shredders, erase buttons on tape recorders and trash cans.

Think Oliver North jamming a shredder with papers from an 18-inch stack of documents during the Iran-Contra investigation.

Or the mysterious 18 1/2-minute gap in President Richard Nixon's White House tapes.

The current dust-up over access to Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails as secretary of state is causing historians and government record-keepers to take stock of what may be a best-of-times, worst-of-times moment for saving government records.

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