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Fawcett ‘put his mark’ on NARA system
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · December 20, 2023
Folks who worked for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum like to tell a story about John Fawcett.
Exact details may have been fudged a little over the years depending on the storyteller, but the essence remains the same:
One summer day, back in the early 1960s, Bill Anderson, president of the Herbert Hoover Birthplace Society, visited the family farm of fellow Society members Floyd and Mary Helen Fawcett. Anderson wanted to discuss the ongoing construction of the museum, which the Society was spearheading.
They needed more help to wrap up the project and Anderson asked if their son, John, could join the work crew.
At that moment, John was digging post holes out on the farm.
“Is the building air conditioned?” John asked.
“Yes,” Anderson replied.
At that point, John proceeded to climb out of the hole and, according to Floyd, “never worked on the farm again.”
After that, John kept climbing — through various jobs at the museum, then on to the White House, and finally to the position of the National Archives and Records Administration’s assistant archivist of presidential libraries in Washington D.C.
More than six decades after that conversation, the West Branch native passed away on Dec. 10, at age 80, while living in the nation’s capitol.
“The Presidential Library System is stronger today because of John,” Susan K. Donius, NARA’s Legislative Archives executive of Presidential Libraries and Museum Services, said in an email interview with the Times. “He served as a mentor to me and countless others, and was always willing to work through challenges and help the libraries individually, or as a group.”
Author, historian, and finalist for a 1983 Pulitzer Prize, Richard Norton Smith served as the Hoover Museum director from 1987 through 2001. He said he remembered meeting Fawcett 40 years ago during an unusual April blizzard and watched him rise through NARA’s ranks.
“He never thought of himself as a legend or a big shot. He never forgot West Branch or the values he got from Floyd and Mary Helen,” Smith said. “But to people like us who owe our careers to John or worked with him in DC and out in the field, he was a player. John was significant — the proverbial mover and shaker.”
Tim Walch worked for Smith as the assistant director of the Hoover Museum for five years before succeeding him in 1993, remaining in that job until his 2011 retirement. He first met Fawcett in the late 1970s at a Society of American Archivists meeting in D.C.
“John and I were thick as thieves,” Walch said, and Tim and wife Vicki were close with John and then-wife Sharon.
Walch said Fawcett played a big part in the museum’s first major renovation, which was completed in 1992.
“This is like losing a brother,” he said. “Most former library directors would agree that he was a mentor to all of us. He was warm, compassionate, generous, and a visionary. He clearly will be missed. He put his mark on the presidential library system.”
Current Hoover Museum Director Thomas Schwartz was working at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum when he applied to replace Walch.
Fawcett at the time was serving as the interim director and a member of the Hoover Presidential Association, the forerunner to the Hoover Presidential Foundation.
Fawcett, as well as brother Ken and Ken’s wife, Helen, traveled to Springfield, Ill., and just “showed up … and asked to meet me,” Schwartz said.
“He was obviously a very smart guy, and kind of unassuming,” the director said. “He was not flashy. He didn’t brag. He was extremely competent and you knew you were dealing with a person of substance, a person with a strong moral core. He was genial and always friendly.”
Schwartz said Fawcett actively recruiting his replacement impressed him.
“John was very instrumental in providing institutional memory of who was who and how things got to where they were,” Schwartz said.
Hoover Presidential Foundation trustee Charlie Becker said Fawcett “will be missed.”
“Because John’s roots were in West Branch, and his family’s ties were part of the origins of the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, Hoover National Historic Site and Hoover Presidential Foundation, John always looked out for the community and for the Hoover story,” Becker said in a statement. “In our role as Trustees of the Foundation, I remember John as a natural leader, soft spoken, salt of the earth, and a role model for other Trustees.”
Becker said Fawcett “led by example” and his love of anything related to Hoover was “contagious.”
“John provided me, and other Trustees, incredible opportunities when we sat on the Advisory Board to The Presidential Libraries under the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA), he led,” he said. “John was able to open doors and introduce us to hundreds of people, who later played important roles at Hoover. John Fawcett leaves an incredible legacy, which, like Hoover, started in West Branch and took him to a great leadership position in Washington DC. John Fawcett is a West Branch treasure.”
Climbing
NARA’s ladder
When the Hoover Museum opened on Aug. 10, 1962, Fawcett was among those who followed the 31st President and former President Harry S Truman on the tour of the facility, Schwartz said.
Fawcett went on to work as a night watchman and in the gift shop.
Meanwhile, he studied physics at the University of Iowa under NASA’s famed physicist and Time Magazine’s 1960 Man of the Year, James Van Allen.
According to his obituary, Fawcett entered the military and attended the Archival Training Program.
After basic training, John was assigned to the White House to help President Lyndon Johnson establish his presidential library. He was later detailed to the Johnson Library and worked there even after being discharged.
His career then led him to serve as the Executive Director of the Hoover Presidential Association, the successor of the Birthplace Society, and he served as the assistant director of the Hoover Library.
NARA then promoted him to the position of Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries, a position he held from 1987 through 1994.
Smith called Fawcett “instrumental” in bringing the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, in 1991, and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, in 1997, under the NARA umbrella.
Fawcett’s testimony in one of many lawsuits also helped NARA eventually acquire President Richard Nixon’s tapes, including those that were part of the Watergate scandal. Further, Fawcett helped lay the groundwork for the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum, which opened in 1990, Smith said.
Smith added that bringing the Nixon Library under NARA management helped shake the library’s “scholastically suspect” reputation.
“(Fawcett) was there in a position of authority during a really critical time in the history of the library system,” Smith said. “He left a really significant legacy.”
After leaving NARA, Fawcett founded John Fawcett & Associates, a consulting firm that focused on archival issues, and he served as a trustee for the Hoover Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, and the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston.
Donius said she worked with Fawcett during the 2010s while he served with the Hoover Foundation and she served as the director of NARA’s Office of Presidential Libraries.
“He was known for his unparalleled knowledge of the Presidential Libraries and National Archives, and brought a wonderful collaborative spirit to the system of Presidential Libraries,” she said.
Storytelling
with purpose
Fawcett’s time with NARA and his consulting work “allowed him to rub shoulders with presidents,” Smith said, and hear their own personal experiences and life lessons.
Those experiences and stories, mixed with his family’s upbringing and values, enriched his life.
And it made him a great storyteller, Smith said.
Schwartz agreed, saying that Fawcett did not just tell stories to entertain but to educate.
“Especially during contentious discussions, he could step in and offer a funny anecdote and redirect the conversation toward a more productive path,” the director said. “Like an Aesop fable, it had a moral to it. There was a purpose.”
Smith told his own story about Fawcett’s successful attempt to hire him to work at the Hoover Museum. Most museum directors come from an archival background, he said, but Fawcett leveraged his relationship with Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum Director Harry J. Middleton to sidestep Smith’s objections.
“Middleton was the great innovator among library directors,” Smith said. “I remember how taken aback I was.”
Smith tried protesting, saying he was not qualified, that he was more of a speechwriter, and that he didn’t even drive a car. Fawcett said Middleton was the same in all three aspects.
“I had exhausted all of my arguments,” and gave in, Smith said.
He said that what further convinced him was that he remembered visiting West Branch in 1968 during a family trip and learning of all its “charms.”
Fawcett, like Middleton, believed that most presidential archives focused heavily on their libraries and that the museums were more of an “afterthought,” Smith said.
Smith said he liked the idea of a stronger emphasis on the museum.
“John supported me vigorously in my ambition,” he said, which encouraged him to spearhead the “39 Men” exhibit on all the presidents up to that point. “People are still talking about it … it got them inside the library, … quadrupled gift shop sales and doubled attendance.”
Walch emphasized his belief that Fawcett never allowed life inside the nation’s capitol — “The Beltway,” “Politicity,” or “The Swamp” — to affect his character.
“He was never intrusive. Never overbearing,” the retired director said. “I’m 76 now. As you age, you lose more friends. That’s always hard. I am sad that John is no longer with us. … He had a great laugh and loved a good joke. And he was a hard worker.”
And, he added, that Floyd Fawcett, who died in 2006, made one mistake when telling the story of John climbing out of the post hole: Even though steeped in D.C. work for decades, John would “slip back into town” to work with his brother Ken on the family farm.
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