NIXON'S CACHE COMING HOME HISTORIANS WORRY IT MAY BE BAD MOVE.

Byline: Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - First, of course, there are Richard Nixon's tapes - more than 4,000 hours of surreptitious White House recordings, including the infamous 18-minute gap.

Then there are 46 million pages of documents, including the Special Files, National Security Council files, the White House Central Files and countless memorandums.

Further inside the climate-controlled vaults of the National Archives in College Park, Md., lies a stash of 500,000 photographs - famous ones, like Nixon's Oval Office meeting with Elvis, mixed with the obscure, like Nixon seated at a VFW dinner in Camarillo.

Deeper inside still are more than 30,000 presents bequeathed to the former president while he was in office, including a silk portrait rug bearing Nixon's likeness - a gift from the Shah of Iran.

``We're not in the business of throwing things out here,'' says National Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper.

With the stroke of President George W. Bush's pen, possibly as early as this month, archivists here will begin the long and arduous task of preparing every last bit of Nixon materials - a cache that could fill 13 swimming pools - for shipment to the private Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

``It's probably one of the richest collections of presidential history in the realm of 20th Century affairs,'' said John Taylor, the library's executive director and Nixon's chief aide in his retirement years.

But the impending move, set in motion by Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., and Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, is as controversial as it is historic.

Nixon's voluminous materials have remained in the Washington, D.C., area for the past 30 years for a reason: because Congress decided in the wake of Watergate that neither the disgraced former president nor his family could be trusted with them.

Now the archivists in charge of overseeing the move are proceeding with caution. Nixon historians, however, are downright worried that the new guardians - Nixon's family and former aides - will choke off access to the collection and frustrate future releases.

``I don't trust these people,'' said University of Wisconsin professor Stanley Kutler, whose 1996 lawsuit won the release of thousands of hours of Nixon tapes.

``It's a criminal outrage,'' Kutler said of the provision. With the treasure trove of historical documents housed in Yorba Linda, he charged, ``I expect the next generation of scholars to have difficulty with their access.''

Added David Greenberg, author of ``Nixon's Shadow,'' ``The whole reason they have been kept separate from other papers was Nixon's own - how to put it nicely - untrustworthiness.''

It was the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, which Congress passed months after Nixon's resignation in 1974, that denied Nixon access to his presidential holdings and mandated they remain in the Washington area.

The Nixon family has long fought the battle to regain custody of the president's materials, a struggle that has intensified since his death nine years ago.

This year, after hiring a Washington lobbying firm and enlisting the aid of Davis, a longtime friend of Nixon's daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower and a college pal of her husband David Eisenhower, they appear to have finally won.

In December, the House passed a massive spending bill that included a small provision repealing the Watergate-era law and making the transfer of materials to Yorba Linda possible. The Senate is expected to take up the legislation when it returns next week, and little opposition is expected to the Watergate provision.

``Most people, when they want to go look at the Nixon history and legacy, want to go to Yorba Linda,'' said Miller, who represents Nixon's old congressional district and whose office sports a ``Nixon room'' with old banners and campaign photographs.

``It's been 30 years. I think it's appropriate to have it all in here, and the family wants it here,'' he said. ``There's no reason in the world that all the materials shouldn't be in one place.''

When Congress rescinded the Presidential Records Act, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, insisted on language making the Nixon Library ``subject to the control of the archivist and consistent with current laws governing the transfer and storage of presidential records.''

In other words, it will operate like all other presidential libraries - with National Archives officials preserving access and deciding which future documents or tape excerpts will and won't be released.

``Nothing changes at this end,'' said Karl Weissenbach, director of the National Archives Nixon Presidential Materials.

Weissenbach's staff of 30 researchers reviews every word of every document as well as countless hours of audio tapes to determine who is saying what, as well as how much of the information should be held back either for national security or privacy reasons.

``My mission will remain the same,'' Weissenbach said. ``The National Archives will still be processing the Nixon tapes.''

Taylor also insisted that scholarship would be safe at the Nixon Library.

``It's going to be the government doing it,'' he said of future releases, like the last segment of Nixon audiotapes due out in about three years. Neither the Nixon Foundation nor the family, he insisted, will have any input regarding whether materials should be made public.

Scholars and journalists said they are skeptical.

``It's the leadership at the top that counts,'' Kutler said. And, Kutler said of Taylor's leadership, ``He's devoted to advancing the name and cause of Richard Nixon, no matter what the deal is.''

Kutler also noted that even though the Yorba Linda staff will be government employees, he doubts many of the researchers who have devoted their careers to studying Nixon will be part of the new team.

``Their careers are now down the tubes. They don't want to move to California,'' Kutler said. ``You're going to get a lot of new staff'' in Yorba Linda who, he predicted, would take their direction from Nixon loyalists in Southern California.

For their part, National Archives officials are remaining circumspect about the future of the Nixon materials and their own careers.

A National Archives team is expected to meet this week with Nixon Library staff in Yorba Linda to discuss preliminary logistics.

While the existing library is far too small to accommodate the 35,000 cubic feet of Nixon materials, the center is in the midst of a major $12 million, privately funded expansion.

It remains unclear whether the Nixon items will be stored in the new 47,000-square-foot building, or whether a new facility will be created. The full transfer could take from eight to 10 years, library officials said.

Scholars said the Nixon Library has a long way to go before historians are convinced of its academic integrity.

``Given the history of Nixon, there's extra reason to be concerned,'' Greenberg said. ``This should be scrutinized with extra care to make sure not too much control is given over to those who have the promotion of the Nixon legacy rather than open scholarship at heart.''

But, Taylor said, for Nixon's family and others who care about the former presidents legacy, ``The time has come to do this.''

Added Miller, ``Most reasonable people believe it's time to move on.''

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Archivists in Washington, D.C. will soon begin the long and arduous task of preparing every last bit of Nixon materials for shipment to the private Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda. The materials include more than 4,000 recordings, 46 million pages of documents and 500,000 photographs.

(2) While the existing Nixon Library is far too small to accommodate the 35,000 cubic feet of Nixon materials, the center is in the midst of a major $12 million, privately funded expansion.