Timothy Naftali: NYT editorial praises his leadership Nixon Library

One of the early acts of President Bush and the former Republican Congress was to allow the Nixon tapes and papers to be transferred to Yorba Linda from the archives’ storage in Washington. Historians who had to sue after Watergate to get at the tapes were properly suspicious (and have hardly been comforted by the Bush administration’s Nixon-class mania for secrecy and document denial).

But Timothy Naftali, respected as an apolitical historian, has taken over at the library, promising to showcase the new tapes for the public — “the good, the bad and the ugly.” This is good news, and as Mr. Naftali delivers on this mission, the nation can relish, or not, the latest revelations. In one of these, a few days before his re-election, Mr. Nixon asked an aide, “What about Watergate?” The president was assured no one was finding out much.