Correspondence with British Royal Family (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum)

Edward Blaise filed this request with the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum of the United States of America.
Submitted June 5, 2017
Status
Completed

Communications

From: Ned Donovan

Subject: Freedom of Information Request: Correspondence with British Royal Family (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum)

Email

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

Any correspondence, including letters and handwritten notes to and from the following members of the British Royal Family:

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
HRH the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip)
HRH the Prince of Wales (Prince Charles)

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Ned Donovan

From: Kennedy Library

Subject: Re: Freedom of Information Request: Correspondence with British Royal Family (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum)

Email

Hi Ned,

Thank you for your email! For future reference, FOIA requests don't apply
to the majority of the records at the Kennedy Library. Prior to the passage
of the 1978 Presidential Records Act
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.archives.gov%2Fpresidential-libraries%2Flaws%2F1978-act.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEOh_ytqnIndnlSEtoAJaRfA19NGg> (PRA),
records of a President and members of his administration were considered
the personal property of the person who owned/created them. This means that
our archival collections were donated to the Library by their owner/creator
or their heirs. The declassification review process for donated records is
known as "Mandatory Review," while post-PRA libraries use FOIA.

However, I will say that the correspondence I could find was already
digitized and available to the public, so you will not need to submit any
declassification requests under Mandatory Review, either. You can find
correspondence between President Kennedy and the Royal Family in the
President's Office Files here:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF.aspx?f=1. I would
recommend clicking "Expand/Collapse All" under the red Container List
heading to see a full description of the items in each folder. Next, you
can do a "Ctrl + f" search for the various people you're interested in.
You'll be able to view the documents in each folder by clicking on the blue
folder title. It seems that the majority of the correspondence between the
British Royal Family and President Kennedy were with Queen Elizabeth II.

If you have any other questions, or if we can help you find anything else,
please let us know!
Best,

Jennifer Skarbek
Textual Reference
John F. Kennedy Library

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