Willens to headline NMI lecture series

The NMI Council for the Humanities will sponsor two lectures by noted lawyer, author, and political consultant Howard Willens presenting important new research materials about the recent political history of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The first lecture, “The Kennedy Administration and the Mariana Islands, 1961 to 1963,” will take place in the American Memorial Park Visitors Center from 6:30pm to 8pm on Thursday, Sept. 29.

Willens will discuss confidential correspondence and notes from White House staff to President Kennedy about the situation in the Marianas, including previously secret documents detailing Kennedy’s policy decisions about the future of the Mariana Islands and the Trust Territory.

The lecture, illustrated with a slide show, will also cover documents revealing Kennedy’s frustration with the Interior Department’s inability to make progress in the Marianas and his decision to hire his own consultant to make recommendations. These recommendations subsequently would be made in the Solomon Mission’s secret report submitted to Kennedy in 1963.

On Thursday, Oct. 6, Willens will present “The Nixon Administration and the Mariana Islands, 1969-1974,” which will be held at the American Memorial Park Visitors Center from 6:30pm to 8pm. He will cover Nixon’s thoughts about annexing the Marianas to Hawaii, the White House’s frustrations with the Micronesian negotiations, and plans for the future political status of the Mariana Islands, which ultimately led to the creation of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The slide show will provide Nixon’s annotations on memos sent to him by Henry Kissinger and others making suggestions about how to handle the Marianas issues.

Willens’ lectures are based on materials he and Deanne Siemer collected during an 18 month research project that reviewed documents in 10 presidential libraries—from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton—in order to identify and copy or scan documents relating to the Northern Mariana Islands. This project, supported by a $15,949 Humanities Council grant and a very substantial personal contribution by Willens, resulted in a fully searchable digital collection of over 11,000 pages of primary source materials that will be widely distributed for public use. (PR)