Well-known presidential scholar Stanley Kutler will give the talk, Liberating the Nixon Tapes and Other Encounters, at 7:30 PM Thursday, March 29, in the Alumni Lounge of the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St. The event was free and open to the public.
Kutler, Professor of American Institutions and Professor of law at UW-Madison, will focus on his adventures with the Freedom of Information Act and his lawsuit to force the National Archives and Richard Nixon to liberate the president's tape recordings.
He is perhaps best known as the author of the acclaimed Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes and writer in a wide number of fields of American history, particularly concentrating on American constitutional history and the twentieth century.
His books include The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon; The American Inquisition, winner of the Silver Gavel Award, American Bar Association, 1983; Privilege and Creative Destruction: The Charles River Bridge Case; and Judicial Power and Reconstruction Politics. In addition, he has authored or edited more than half a dozen textbooks in various fields of American history, including The Supreme Court and the Constitution and Looking for America. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading history and legal periodicals. Most recently, he has edited the four-volume work, Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century America, awarded the prize for the best reference work by the Association of Book Publishers, and The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. Currently, he is editing the revision of the Dictionary of American History, a 10-volume work. He founded Reviews in American History, and edited it from 1972-1997.
Kutler also has worked as a consultant on a number of film projects, most recently as the historical advisor for the Emmy-winning BBC documentary, Watergate. Currently, he is the historical advisor for a forthcoming Showtime film, The Day Reagan Was Shot. Finally, his recent books, Abuse of Power and The Wars of Watergate are being adapted for a Broadway play, to be produced by Metropolitan Entertainment.
