NARA Announces Death of Legendary Archivist John Taylor
Press Release Β· Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Washington, DC
John E. Taylor, a long-time archivist at the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ whose encyclopedic knowledge of World War II intelligence records and his ability to locate them made him legendary among students, journalists, authors, and historians, died September 20 at his home. He was 87.
Mr. Taylor had been in declining health in recent years, but was at work at the Archivesβ College Park facility last week. A memorial service is planned for mid-October.
A ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ employee for 63 years, Mr. Taylor joined the agency the week World War II officially ended in September 1945, before most employees at the Archives were born. Often asked when he would retire, his standard answer was, βNot this week.β
Over the years, Mr. Taylor assisted thousands of individuals -β from best-selling authors to college students -- researching books, dissertations, articles, and term papers. Researchers from around the world have cited him for his grasp of history, an ability to recall historical events, and where the records about them could be found.
Accordingly, he was approached with a near-reverential tone by young authors and researchers. Said one young Archives employee in a U.S. News & World Report article in 2003: βMr. Taylor knows everything.β
Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein met Mr. Taylor first as a researcher himself.
"John Taylor was the first person I met at the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ many years ago while searching for a dissertation topic,β Weinstein said. βWith me as with everyone, Mr. Taylor was generous with his time and with his ideas. His distinguished career brought honor to the dogged research enterprise which the Archives embodies. He is irreplaceable, of course, and he will be sorely missed."
Mr. Taylor was honored by a number of organizations for his work in assisting researchers. Among those awards was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Society Distinguished Service Award in 2006; the OSS was the forerunner of the CIA.
In 1997, the Japanese embassy honored Mr. Taylor for his assistance to Japanese historians and journalists over the years. The National Intelligence Study Center honored him for providing guidance to authors who write about U.S., British, and Russian intelligence. And the American Jewish Historical Society gave him its first βDistinguished Archivist Awardβ for a lifetime of work as an archivist.
The ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ has a collection of 857 books on intelligence and espionage, based largely on research at the Archives, which are included in the John E. Taylor Collection. Most of them are signed by the author and cite Mr. Taylorβs help in the acknowledgements, and many were from Mr. Taylorβs personal library.
A Washington Times article in 2003 referred to Mr. Taylor as a βwizard of researchβ and βone of the least well-known yet most revered men in Washington.β At that time, he received a βlifetime achievementβ award from the Scone Foundation, established by Stanley Cohen to honor important yet unknown professionals.
βHeβs like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat,β author David Kahn (author of βThe Codebreakersβ) told the Washington Times, saying Mr. Taylor could produce βamazingly useful documents from the immensities of the archives (that) makes all of us writers look like wizards of research.β
Besides his work with researchers at the Archives, Mr. Taylor had direct contact with highly-placed individuals in law enforcement and intelligence, such as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA Chief William Casey.
Over the years, hundreds of authors have cited Mr. Taylorβs help in their research at the Archives. In a 2003 article, the Baltimore Sun observed: βThere may be no [other] American whose name appears in the acknowledgements of so many books.β
At the Archives, Mr. Taylor handled records dealing with the War Production Board, intelligence activities in World War II and the immediate postwar years and with Nazi and Japanese war crimes.
Timothy Nenninger was working on his masterβs thesis in 1967 when he first met Mr. Taylor, then again two years later when he was working on his doctoral dissertation. He then got a job at the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘.
βI was one of his gophers,β Nenninger recalls. But for the past 10 years, Nenninger was Mr. Taylorβs supervisor.
Nenninger said that despite Mr. Taylorβs failing health in the past decade, he was on the job in College Park to assist researchers with their work and point them to the records they needed. And if Mr. Taylor didnβt know where certain records were, he would refer them to one of his colleagues. βHe clearly liked researchers,β Nenninger said.
Mr. Taylorβs routine usually involved an early arrival and a late departure from the Archives facility in College Park. There, he was ready to assist everyone who came to the Archives for his help.
Even though he knew where many, many of the records were filed in the Archives, Mr. Taylor never lost his excitement about the arrival of new records at the Archives, from his first day in 1945 onward. He worked at the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ Building in downtown Washington for 50 years, then moved to the new College Park facility, where he worked for the past 13 years.
βI remember walking from the front door through the stacks to 8W (one of stack areas), and what I noticed was the smell of the records,β he said in an oral history interview for the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ Assembly several years ago. βThat was the first thing I noticed.
βAfter I had been there for a few days, or a few weeks, I started to open the boxes, of course, to see whatβs inside all these boxes. I was fascinated, and I have been fascinated ever since.β
Mr. Taylor was born in 1921 in Sparkman, AR, and graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1945, but took the Civil Service exam while still a student. He was blind in one eye, which made him ineligible for military service.
After graduation he first went to Los Angeles, where his parents had moved. One day, he got a letter from the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ with a job offer. He took it.
βWhen I first got to Washington, I lived in a boarding house,β he said in a 2001 article in Washingtonian magazine. βIt was coed, which I liked. I lived in a number of them. One of them was at 16th and R. As I was moving in, I saw two women upstairs. One said, βThereβs a new boy moving in.β And the second said, βI see him.β That was Dolly, the girl I married six years later. We were married 44 years.β
His niece, Claudia Taylor Walsworth of Ketchum, ID, said she talked to him every week. βIβm so proud to say heβs my uncle,β she said. βHis whole life revolved around his work.β
She said he enjoyed dining at Clydeβs Restaurant in Friendship Heights, just down the street from his apartment building. His favorite dessert at any meal, she said, was a Shirley Temple drink and vanilla ice cream. Also, she said, he βloved white coconut cakeβ and, even when it was difficult to get around, would make it to the nearby supermarket to get a piece to bring home.
In addition to his niece, he is survived by a nephew, James Lee Taylor Jr. of San Ramone, CA. He was predeceased by his wife, Dolly, and a brother, James.
In his long career at the Archives, Mr. Taylor came into contact with all kinds of researchers because he did what is called βreference work,β as opposed to projects that would involve little or no involvement with the public. In the oral history interview, he said he thought βprojectsβ was a lonely job, so he did everything he could to avoid them, even risking the ire of supervisors.
βAs a matter of fact,β he recalled in the interview, βone supervisor said to me once, many, many years ago, βTaylor, the problem with you, is you want to do what you want to do.β I plead guilty.β
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