Missing ‘60th Anniversary’ video

[I]Editor’s Note: Because of the length of this letter, it is being published as a four-part series.[/I] [I][B]Second of a four-part series[/B][/I]

The following is an eight-point summary of relevant information we’ve gathered concerning the overall mater, and of what we either don’t know or are unsure of about it:

1. As stated on page 40 of the official commemorative program booklet*, the 60th Anniversary Steering Committee established “two archival oral history projects” to be conducted during June 12-17. Together, they were called “The Oral History and Story Telling Project (OHP; STP).” The OHP component was to emphasize one-on-one interviews with veterans, conducted at various sites on the islands. The STP portion, which would consist of the Campfire Chat, “provides an opportunity for veterans to gather informally to recount their memories and impressions of the war.” The “product” if this dual project would be videotape documentation—records of the “filmed chats” which would be of “broadcast quality.” Copies of these films would be placed at “the CNMI Library, the [CNMI] Museum [of History and Culture], the [Northern Marianas] College, and at the [NMI] Council for the Humanities.” The project was “made possible by support from the Northern Mariana Islands Council for the Humanities, a nonprofit, private corporation funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.” Whether the Humanities Council’s “support” for the project included any funding per se was not stated.

2. To help it plan, coordinate, and implement the overall 60th anniversary commemoration, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands drew upon the Arizona Memorial Museum Association. In this connection an AMMA representative who resides on Saipan served as co-chair of the 60th of the Anniversary Committee. As stated in the program booklet’s inside cover, AMMA’s “primary purpose” is “to aid the National Park Service in interpret[ing] events at sites such as the American Memorial Park, Garapan, Saipan.” It does so via “educational outreach programs, [via the] publishing of materials relating to each park, [and by] making materials such as books and other memorabilia available.” Through its sales of such items it “raise[s] monies for the Park Service to continue its missions…”; all sales [also] benefit these ceremonies [specifically, the 60th’s] and the NPS mission in the Mariana Islands as a whole.” The AMMA “fund[s] and support[s] research programs as well.” (Note: Per page 40 of the mentioned program booklet, the Oral History and Story Telling Project films were to become “an original historical document, a new primary source for further research.”) Any financial support that the AMMA may have provided for or committed to the 60th anniversary—prior to it, and/or afterward—could presumably have been either general (all-purpose; discretionary), specifically designated, or allocated some designated funds for the production of the broadcast quality documentation. (See AMMA “hired,” and AMMA “held the rights,” in point three and four below.) Proceeds from sales of any 60th anniversary films that AMMA may have owned and may still own could, presumably, have eventually been used, and might still be used, for mission-purposes mentioned above: educational outreach; research; etc.

3. According to communication from the media (film) department of the Northern Mariana College to Mr. Boothe last year: (a) the department’s students did film the Campfire Chat; (b) the department then gave its footage of that event to a company on Saipan to produce one or more videos (VHSs or DVDs); and (c) that company had been “hired” by the Arizona Memorial Museum Association (possibly in conjunction with the American Memorial Park-NPS) to produce the video(s) in question, from the media department’s footage. Boothe and I did not try to determine if any written contracts existed for purposes of this production, since our basic immediate focus was on determining whether a Campfire Chat video did in fact exist and, if it did, on how it might be obtained.

4. That production company was, and may still be, headed by a Mr. “Butch” (Bert?) Wolf. In connection with the June 12-17 events, his working title was Executive Producer in Charge of the 60th Anniversary Documentary or Documentaries—or words similar to these. Also, in its communications with Mr. Boothe, the media department indicated that it believed Mr. Wolf’s company gave the video(s) it produced about the 60th to the AMMA’s representative—this being the individuals who, as mentioned in point two, had served as co-chair of the 60th Anniversary Committee. The media department also told Boothe that Mr. Wolf had indicated to it—the department—that he believed the AMMA “held the rights” to the produced materials, that is, to the assembled/completed video[s] that he had given to the AMMA/co-chair. (These “rights” could presumably also apply to unassembled footage of the 60th that the company might still have.)

5. Mr. Boothe and I do not know how much of the overall Oral History and Story Telling Project was “made possible” by the NMI Council for the Humanities (see point 1 above), on the one hand, and how much was made possible by—including but not limited to being materially enabled or facilitated by—the AMMA, on the other. That is, we do not know the relative degree to which, and the areas as well as ways in which, each of these entities helped make that project and its components, aspects, etc. possible, financially and otherwise. Nor do we know the extent and nature of any other entities’ possible contributions.

6. Communications from the media department to Mr. Boothe indicated, last fall, that it would (a) forward his inquiry about the existence and whereabouts of any Campfire Chat footage—footage that Mr. Wolf’s company had received from the department (Point 3 above)—directly with Mr. Wolf, and that when it did so it would also (b) request that he directly contact Mr. Boothe in that regard. After considerable time had passed and no communications were received from Mr. Wolf, Boothe made repeated efforts—all through the media department to which he had directed his inquiry—to obtain a response from him. None of these efforts yielded any reply, from Wolf to Boothe. This situation has not changed.

[B]To be continued.[/B] [B]Ted Palmer, Ph.D.[/B] [I]Sacramento, Calif., USA[/I] [I]*60th Anniversary of the World War II Battle of Saipan and Tinian Commemorative Program. June 12-17, 2004. Arizona Memorial Association; National Park Service; CNMI, 2004.[/I]