Dear Mr. President

During a recent visit to Washington DC with my family, I took every opportunity to visit the bookstores located in most of the city's wonderful museums. Naturally, The offerings at each was reflective of the theme of that particular museum. But being a person of eclectic tastes, I took an interest in (and purchased a book at) almost all of them.

My favorite, however, was the store at the National Archives. While there, I selected a title called "Dear Mr.President: From the Files of the National Archives." The Archives, which occupies a prime location between Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues, is best know as the place where the Charters of Freedom are on public display: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In addition to these treasures, a recently opened exhibit call The Public Vaults exhibits and offers commentary on numerous other documents: the Instruments of Surrender signed by Japan at the close of world War II, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc. The larger portion of the building reserved for researchers contains literally millions of pages of manuscripts, memos, multimedia documents, etc. documenting the working of the federal government throughout the nation's history.

Letters featured in the book are written by citizens and non citizens, both famous and obscure and speak volumes about the writer, the era of its authorship, as well as the chief executive to whom it was sent.

Of the millions of letters addressed to the President, some 85 were selected for the book, spanning from 1861 until Clinton administration. To add realism, each letter is presented as an actual reproduction of the original-showing its letterhead, typeface and, in some cases, penmanship.

Examples include a correspondence from Annie Oakley to William McKinley in 1898 offering the service of "fifty lady sharpshooters" to help in the Spanish American War. Another is from Rabbi Steven Wise of the American Jewish Congress to Franklin Roosevelt in December of 1942 expressing deep concerns over stories that had begun to circulate reporting the mass extermination of Jews in Europe under Hitler. The word "holocaust" had not yet been appropriated to the event.

On a lighter note, a letter to Lyndon Johnson dated October 31, 1968 from Tom and Dick Smothers offers their apologies for their occasionally over the top anti war parodies. My personal favorite is from Queen Elizabeth II to Dwight Eisenhower and dated January 24, 1960. It gives her personal recipe for scones she had promised to send to him during his recent visit to Balmoral.

"Dear Mr. President" along with a host of other interesting titles can be ordered online from the National Archives at the National Archives website, www.archives.gov