DEAR FRIENDS:
This is the sixteenth bulletin on progress by the COMSAT Legacy Foundation.
ARCHIVES
Walt McKee and I delivered 18 boxes of COMSAT films and tapes to Johns Hopkins
this week bringing to 56 the total number of boxes of COMSAT materials now in
their hands. The archivist, Margaret Burri, is temporarily without an assistant
which is delaying somewhat the processing of the records we delivered in
November. She indicates that the McLucas papers are among those dealt with so
far. We yet need to deal with slides, photos, duplicate records and artifacts.
Much of our photo collection is already on line at our web site as you may have
seen.
Scott Sacknoff of Space Business Archives was referred to us by Joe Pelton. He is in the process of disposing of 320 boxes in their archives and his first set of materials was a collection of Intelsat reports from the earliest days. I put him in touch with Johns Hopkins and these reports have been shipped there to be archived separate from the COMSAT collection. As he goes through his materials, Scott will inform us of any records which might be appropriate to include in the COMSAT collection. Also, I have connected Betty Edelson to Johns Hopkins to arrange for archiving Burt's papers.
We will probably continue to receive contributions from private sources and some interesting early documents have recently been delivered by Ruth Berman and Lorrie Gray.
VIDEOS
Several tapes were selected for digitization at Clarksburg and are stored
there in digital form. Celluloid films represent the one medium which cannot be
processed in Clarksburg and Hale Montgomery and Steve Teller have offered to
subsidize the conversion of a few films. Hale selected "Live via Early Bird"
and the first Marisat film for work at the video lab recommended to us by the
Smithsonian.
I am particularly excited by the Early Bird film which can be made available on DVD or VHS. It is a 26 minute professionally produced film sponsored by COMSAT and Macdonnell Douglas. It includes footage of the opening ceremonies for transatlantic television with the voice of a much younger Walter Cronkite in the background. Please inform me if you have an interest in owning a copy in either VHS or DVD which would be delivered in exchange for a donation to the COMSAT Legacy Fund.
HISTORY
As some of you may have heard, the owners of the Clarksburg property are
considering its sale to developers. Montgomery County is currently holding
hearings on whether to declare it to be a historic site which should be
preserved. You may wish to contact Steve Teller
(teller@iotsystems.com) if you would
like to receive more detailed information on the situation.
Ed Martin
Edward J. Martin
President
7122 Plantation Lane
Rockville, MD 20852
Telephone: (301) 770-0984
Fax: (301) 881-5726
E-mail:
edmartin752@aol.com