Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney,
then-president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, talks
about the Olympic cityscape program, Nov. 14, 2001 in Salt Lake City,
Utah. (George Frey/AFP/Getty Images)
More than a decade has passed since Mitt Romney presided over the Winter
Olympics in Salt Lake City, but the archival records from those games
that were donated to the University of Utah to provide an unprecedented
level of transparency about the historic event, remain off limits to the
public. And some of the documents that may have shed the most light on
Romney's stewardship of the Games were likely destroyed by Salt Lake
Olympic officials, ABC News has learned.
The archivists involved in preparing the documents for public review
told ABC News that financial documents, contracts, appointment
calendars, emails and correspondence are likely not included in the
1,100 boxes of Olympic records, and will not be part of the collection
that will ultimately be made public.
"We don't have that stuff," said Elizabeth Rogers, the manuscript
curator at the University's Marriott Library. The decisions about what
records to donate to the library were made by Olympics officials before
they were shipped in 1,100 boxes to the university, she said. "That was
done before we got it. I just know it wasn't a decision we made.
Everything we have will be available."
The Romney campaign said it has made no effort to prevent the archive from being made public.
"Mitt Romney resigned from SLOC [the Salt Lake Organizing Committee] in
early 2002 to run for governor of Massachusetts and was not involved in
the decision-making regarding the final disposition of records," said
Andrea Saul, a Romney spokesperson, in response to questions.
The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics represent a crucial chapter in the
Romney biography -- his selection to oversee the Games came in the wake
of a bribery scandal, and he was credited with overcoming that taint to
stage an event that both earned respect and was financially sound.
Romney eventually wrote a book about the experience -- "Turnaround" --
and frequently cites the experience as part of what qualifies him to
assume the presidency.
But the absence of publicly available records that detail the decisions
he made while running the games has increasingly become an uneasy
subject for the library, which has for months been receiving inquiries
from journalists and other researchers trying to subject Romney's
version of the events to an analysis based on documents from the events.
The fact that the documents remained behind closed doors also could be
politically awkward for Romney, who has already faced criticism for his
decisions to keep secret some of his past tax records and some details
about his investment holdings. And it carries echoes of the decision in
Massachusetts by Romney aides to purchase and erase their hard drives
shortly before Romney left office as governor.
University of Utah officials, however, said they have never made
decisions about the Olympic papers with politics in mind. And in fact,
Rogers said, they have dedicated additional staff to try and organize
the documents more quickly, so they can be released to the public well
before the 2012 election.
Fraser Bullock, a close friend of Romney's who oversaw the process of
winding down the Games, said the fact that it has taken a decade to sort
the papers is the fault of the university. "It has nothing to do with
Mitt."
He said Romney's reputation was never a consideration when deciding
which documents to keep. "That was not a factor in our decision-making.
Everybody knew what happened with our Games. There were no hidden
secrets. The media had access to our records. We had an open records
policy."
That certainly was Romney's position at the time he oversaw the games.
He pledged an open-book approach at the outset of his tenure as chief
executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. He asked reporters to
expect "the most open documents policy of any enterprise." In a February
3, 2000 speech at the National Press Club he said: "All of the
documents inside our organization are available to the public. Simply
submit a form saying which documents you want, for instance -- I want to
see all the letters written by Mr. Romney to Mr. Samaranch. You'll get
'em all."
Romney later started dialing back this pledge. In an interview with Salt
Lake City Weekly later that year, he explained, "My intent was to
describe our open documents policy … but I believe there is the
recognition of exceptions to that."
Olympic Documents 'Were Just Destroyed'
The Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) spent months negotiating its
plans for gathering and archiving materials from the games, eventually
signing an 11-page "Repository Agreement" with the University of Utah.
The agreement, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News, includes a
detailed list of documents that would be included in the university's
archive. The list includes "written records of SLOC management and
departments," "meeting minutes and agendas of the SLOC Board of
Trustees," and "other administrative records that document the planning
and staging" of the Games.
The Organizing Committee hired a university archivist, Mark Jensen, to
gather documents as the Games unfolded, and to compile them into an
organized collection that would be turned over to the University of
Utah. Within the committee, each department was instructed to send
documents and records to Jensen to be preserved. Jensen said in an
interview that his work was then reviewed by lawyers to insure that
proprietary information – such as how much companies bid for competitive
contracts – was removed.
"I was acting under the direction of the legal department," Jensen said.
Not all the records made the cut. Decisions about which documents to
submit and which to hold back ultimately were given to an SLOC attorney,
and those records were sent to a separate storage site, Jensen said.
"My guess is at this point all of those records were destroyed."
Kelly Flint, who was general counsel to the committee, and Bullock both
confirmed this, saying the SLOC eventually destroyed any documents that
included legally privileged or confidential information, including
contracts with vendors and personnel records. "Anything we could
disclose, of course, we couldn't destroy that. Anything that had a legal
or contractual requirement to be confidential … they were just
destroyed," Bullock said.
Asked about Romney's personal papers, such as correspondence, emails,
and appointment calendars, Bullock said he did not think it was likely
they were saved.
"His personal correspondence and his appointment calendar? I didn't keep
mine. I don't think that's relevant to the Olympic movement," he said.
The records that survived legal scrutiny were shipped to the university
in 2002 and, according to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, were
"quite systematically organized" when Jensen turned them over.
Jensen said he provided the university "a box-by-box listing of the materials. Sometimes folder-by-folder listings."
Rogers said the library has worked intermittently over the past decade
to try and catalogue the 1,100 boxes of documents, but over the years it
never rose to become a top priority. "We have an enormous amount to go
through. It just wasn't number one on our plate," she said.
In February, when the university held an exhibition to show off the
Olympic archives on the 10th anniversary of the Games, the only items
that could be displayed were photographs -- a separate archive that had
been organized and prepared for display. The event did not involve
opening the documents for public perusal.
Walter Jones, the library's assistant head of Special Collections, said
he first realized the library had a problem when a Washington Post
reporter called asking for specific documents from the Olympic archive.
He said he and Rogers went to see what condition the archive was in and
were startled to see it largely un-sorted.
"Basically we could not field his questions," Jones said. "It was embarrassing."
Jones said the library had no intention of trying to block reporters from seeing the Olympic records.
"I think we were just caught unprepared," he said.
The library now estimates it will have the records open for public
review sometime in August. As for how many of the papers will shed light
on Romney's stewardship of the Games, that remains unclear. Rogers said
she did not expect there would be much. "It's a lot about torch relays,
Paralympics, the residences," she said. "I have not seen a whole lot of
financial documentation."
Bullock, who has deep ties to Romney through not only the Olympics, but
through Bain, and now as a fundraiser for the campaign, said the
candidate has every reason to want the record of the Salt Lake Games
preserved.
"In another few weeks it will all be totally available," Bullock said.
"We've got 1,100 boxes that people can sort through. That's a lot to
keep."
Lynn Packer is a freelance journalist based in North Salt Lake, Utah.
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