60 Minutes - 09/22/24: Scourge of Our Time, The Trustbuster, Inside the Archives

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

On Sunday night, 60 Minutes looks into the synthetic opioid fentanyl crisis, exploring its devastating impact on American communities. Bill Whitaker investigates the root causes, from prescription opioids to the Mexican cartels’ involvement in the illicit fentanyl market. Norah O’Donnell gains rare access to the National Archives, where she explores the nation’s most precious documents and artifacts. From oaths of allegiance signed by historical figures like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton to Adolf Hitler’s will and President Nixon’s resignation letter, O’Donnell looks into the Archives’ rich history. She also speaks to the recordkeepers, emphasizing the vital role they play in preserving presidential papers. The episode also covers the National Archives’ past, present, and future, including an exciting announcement: the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th Amendment will be permanently displayed in the Archives’ Rotunda in Washington in 2026, joining other iconic documents like the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights in time for America’s 250th birthday. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully, make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts.

I think he was just out having a good time and made a stupid mistake. You know, the experimental days of taking drugs in college are over. All the pills are laced with fentanyl. Sounds like you've had a crash course in learning about fentanyl. Absolutely. At the rate that fentanyl is killing people in this country, it is absolutely ludicrous that this is not on the front page of every newspaper and every news broadcast daily. Everywhere you go, people are complaining about inflation and high prices.

Tonight, you'll hear what the head of the Federal Trade Commission is doing about the cost of groceries and medicines. So instead of inflation, are you contending that it's greedflation? We've actually seen some executives boast on earnings calls about how inflation is great for their bottom line. There's 39 steps here that lead up to the entrance, and that's 39 framers who signed the Constitution. Meet the people in charge of preserving America's most important documents. And so that is George Washington's handwriting and signature. Correct, yep, yep.

When 60 Minutes gets a rare tour inside the National Archives. How is it the U.S. government got its hands on Hitler's mistress's diary? I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi.

I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex of bugs.

Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts. We are in the midst of the worst drug crisis in U.S. history. The drug is fentanyl. And unlike cocaine and heroin, it's a purely chemical, man-made drug.

It's cheap to produce, easily smuggled, and packs an incredibly addictive punch, 50 times more powerful than heroin. Nearly all the fentanyl flooding into the U.S. is made in Mexico by two powerful drug cartels, with chemicals primarily purchased from China. And as you're about to hear, it is frequently hidden in counterfeit pills made to look just like prescription drugs. It's the scourge of our time. Last year, more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl. That's a higher death toll than U.S. military casualties in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined. We were so naive to fentanyl. We thought fentanyl, you hear about it but you think oh that's just affecting people on the streets, homeless people, drug addicts. No.

It is so insidious. Angela King and Mike O'Kelly lost their 20-year-old son Jack to fentanyl last Thanksgiving. A junior at the University of Georgia, Jack had come home for the long weekend and was out late partying. He was at a friend's house, so I had gone to bed, a little worried. The next morning, he couldn't reach Jack, so he used Find My iPhone. When I could see where he was, I texted the mother of the house, who basically sent me a message back, oh, we're not there, door's unlocked, they're asleep. At 11 o'clock Thanksgiving morning, Mike went upstairs and found his son in bed, unresponsive. I noticed his chest wasn't moving,

so I immediately pulled him out of the bed. I had to perform CPR for 30 plus minutes. Mike called me, and screaming in the phone, Jack's gone, Jack's gone. And I immediately rushed over there with one of our children. And the EMT had arrived and was working on Jack upstairs. And it was the most horrific, traumatic... There's not words.

Jack O'Kelly was captain of his high school football and lacrosse teams. He was studying business at Georgia and was a popular member of his fraternity. Have you been able to piece together why take a pill? Was this his first time? I think he was just out having a good time and made a stupid mistake. You know, the experimental days

of taking drugs in college are over. They're all, you know, all the pills are laced with fentanyl. Mike and Angela found text messages between Jack and a drug dealer. He bought what he thought was Xanax, oxycodone, and a gram of cocaine, but the death certificate states fentanyl was the cause of death. He wasn't seeking fentanyl. He made a really bad decision, not one that should have taken his life, though. Sounds like you've had a crash course in learning about fentanyl.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is shocking to me because at the rate that fentanyl is killing people in this country, it is absolutely ludicrous that this is not on the front page of every newspaper and every news broadcast daily. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, a chemical cousin to morphine, originally designed for hospital patients in extreme pain. Now it is in cities and towns in all 50 states. Frequent users heat up fentanyl powder and inhale it. But more often,

it's sold in pill form, deliberately made to look like real prescription drugs. The one on the left contains fentanyl. Just two milligrams, an amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, can kill. The cartels don't sell fentanyl as fentanyl. They hide it in other drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine or heroin. They make it into these fake pills that look identical to pharmaceutical drugs that Americans would recognize, like Oxy or Xanax, Percocet, Adderall. It will be a very massive high that is very short. And that person they're betting, if they survive, will come back again and again and again to buy more. Three years ago, Ann Milgram, a former attorney general of New Jersey, took over the Drug Enforcement Administration. Since then, fentanyl has claimed more than 200,000 American lives, although deaths appear to be leveling off.

Fentanyl is impacting every part of the United States. It's impacting our communities. It's impacting our kids. It's impacting our economy. One of the things that I've learned over the last few years that really stays with me is every single week we lose 22 teens between the ages of 14 and 18. Every week. Every single week we're 22 teens between the ages of 14 and 18. Every week? Every single week we're basically losing a high school class somewhere in America. She started putting pictures of people who died from fentanyl in the lobby of DEA headquarters, a daily reminder of the drug's catastrophic impact. We're losing a generation.

That's what this is. Yes. You can see it so clearly when you look and you see Americans from all walks of life, all states, all communities, young and old, every background possible. We have folks in military uniforms. We've got babies. Oh, my God. You can see.

Someone who just picks up a pill that a parent dropped. Yes. The DEA is part of the Department of Justice and conducts intelligence gathering and counter-drug operations worldwide. Milgram oversees 10,000 employees. As complex and as massive a problem as this is, it's also not a whodunit. We know who's responsible. It's the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco cartel that are based in Mexico. They dominate and control the entire global fentanyl supply chain, starting in China, going to Mexico, coming into the United

States. Milgram told us this crisis began 10 years ago when the cartels started to wrestle control of the supply chain from China and began making fentanyl in clandestine labs in Mexico. So these two drug cartels from our neighbor, from Mexico, are responsible for almost 70,000 American deaths a year? Yes. How do you fight that? We've taken action over the last three years against every single part of that global supply chain, charging Chinese nationals with selling fentanyl precursors,

charging and indicting, investigating members of these cartels at every level, and then finally taking hundreds of millions of deadly doses of fentanyl off American streets. And we're making progress, but there's so much more that needs to be done. The majority of the fentanyl that we're seeing, about 90 plus percent, is coming in passenger vehicles. Commissioner Troy Miller, a 30-year veteran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told us almost all the fentanyl coming into the country is smuggled through legal ports of entry like here at San Ysidro, between San Diego and Tijuana. It's the busiest land port in the Western Hemisphere. What percentage of the smuggled fentanyl do you think you are catching?

You know, Bill, I don't know what percentage we're catching, but I can tell you we've seized 27,000 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2023. Miller took us for a bird's-eye view to see the magnitude of the challenge. So this is the wall. It comes right up to the port of entry. It resumes here. That's Mexico.

More than 60,000 cars snake through 34 lanes 24-7. Officers have a minute or less to decide who gets a second look, and they only have the resources to search 8% of the cars. Dogs trained to sniff out fentanyl are some of their best assets. The cartels are constantly adapting. For example, hiding pills in gas tanks to mask the scent. So we're in the seizure vault. Commissioner Miller showed us rack after rack of seized drugs locked in this massive vault. For security reasons, we agreed not to divulge its location. So explain to me why the smugglers would use the busiest port

as their main smuggling route. I mean, it seems counterintuitive. Why not do it someplace much less conspicuous? Why not come across the desert? Well, in the San Diego field office, we're seeing 200,000 people a day. Every one of these 200,000 people is presenting themselves as a legitimate traveler. We were astonished to learn two-thirds of the people arrested smuggling fentanyl are American citizens paid by the cartels. We've seen terrible trends. We've seen high school, middle schoolers

smuggling fentanyl and dropping it off to a cartel member at a high school. Do you have the budget and the manpower you need? I've been very clear that Customs and Border Protection needs more officers. We need more agents. We need more intel research specialists to distill that information. We asked him about the bipartisan border bill killed by the Senate at the urging of former President Donald Trump.

It would have provided 1,500 new border and customs officers and 100 high-tech detection machines. The bill had money for much of the stuff you were talking about. Is the political inaction, is that costing lives? Well, again, what I can say is we need more resources to do our jobs, and we need to all get on our jobs, and we need to all get on the same page and tackle this together. Sherry Hobson saw the fentanyl crisis coming. As an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, she prosecuted Mexican cartel cases for 30 years

before retiring in 2020. Cartels are very business-oriented. They look for profit. They look for perpetual power. They're institutionalized. That sounds like you're saying they're very sophisticated. They are. They do their homework. They do their analysis. She says the cartels' move into fentanyl was entirely predictable. When the U.S. opioid crisis triggered a crackdown on the drug industry and many companies were sued by ravaged communities, the supply of legal opioids dried up. But the demand from Americans addicted to the drugs did not. It's very strange to think that the pharmaceutical industry basically set the table for the Mexican cartels to come in and dominate.

That's incredible. It is. So I think what happened was they said, you know what, we have an open market. the table for the Mexican cartels to come in and dominate. That's incredible. It is. So I think what happened was they said, you know what? We have an open market. We have millions of people that are addicted to oxycodone. We can do fentanyl. We can create these counterfeit pills, and we can sell them.

So the Mexican cartels just filled this vacuum. Filled the void. Filled the vacuum. So the opioid epidemic definitely started this arc that we're on. The head of the DEA, Ann Milgram, agrees the U.S. drug industry bears a lot of blame for igniting the crisis, but says social media companies are fueling it today. The companies say they're taking steps to combat this. And what's happening on social media, the cartels use it to organize themselves, to get individuals who will carry the drugs across the border from Mexico to post ads for drugs

and to sell drugs, whether it's Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok. There are drugs being sold there every single day. And seven out of 10 of those counterfeit pills the DEA tests have a potentially deadly dose of fentanyl. Angela King and Mike O'Kelley say that's information every American needs to know. It's a war. It's a new drug war. And that drug war is totally different than anything we've ever dealt with before. Because now we're losing our young ones. And whatever the government's trying to do, I'm glad they're doing something.

It just doesn't seem to be enough. How do you reverse a fentanyl overdose? Even if someone were able to get Narcan, just one or two doses might not be enough. At 60minutesovertime.com. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash VI Porter to learn more.

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Groceries that over-deliver. Everywhere you go, people are complaining about inflation. Voters say it's their number one issue. Enter trust-buster Lina Khan, the youngest chair ever of the Federal Trade Commission, just 32 when she was named. She says much of the blame for the exorbitant prices on everything from food to concert

tickets, is widespread corporate consolidation. The FTC's mission is breaking illegal monopolies, blocking mergers that stifle competition, and protecting consumers from a system Lena Kahn says is rigged against them. But she's so aggressive that she's feared and loathed in boardrooms, seen as a zealot and a bully. And yet... Thank you so much. Thank you. At town hall meetings around the country, Lenaina Khan is often swarmed by young people taking selfies, small business owners giving her cards, union members to whom she preaches the perils of business monopolies.

Too often, fewer and fewer companies are controlling more and more of the market. And what that means is companies can start ripping you off, hiking prices, stealing from you. She calls these events her listening tours that she does in both red and blue districts. This one hosted by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Every time I go to the supermarket, I get sticker shots.

Groceries are so expensive now. What can be done to help people like me who are worried about grocery prices? Thank you. The FTC is currently in court trying to block the largest grocery merger in U.S. history. Between Kroger, that owns Ralph's, and Albertsons, that owns Safeway. Together, they have nearly 5,000 locations. Kahn says this merger risks raising food prices even higher than they are now. Grocery prices have gone through the roof. I believe that you think it's because of monopolies, but most economists say that it's because of supply

chains caused by COVID and the Ukraine war. So which is it? So there's no doubt that the pandemic and the war led prices to soar. What's been interesting is that even as some of those supply chain pressures have eased, prices have not come down concurrently as much. So instead of inflation, are you contending that it's greedflation, that these monopolies are deliberately hiking the prices? So there's a lot of discussion about what's driving the inflation. And we've actually seen some executives boast on earnings calls about how inflation is great for their bottom line. They say that?

They have said that publicly, yes. What about the argument that when companies merge, prices often come down because of efficiencies, scale? But even if those efficiencies arise, if the company is not checked by competition, it won't have an incentive to pass those benefits on to the consumer because those consumers may not have anywhere else to go. Another consumer concern, the high cost of medicine. Khan talks to independent pharmacists about the tricks and traps she says Big Pharma uses to jack up prices. For example, she zeroed in on the makers of asthma inhalers for extending their patents to keep low-cost generics off the shelves.

On these inhalers, they cost $7 in France. The same exact inhaler is around $500 in the United States. Wow. Now, something's out of whack. We agree. So we took a close look at this and we found that companies were listing patents for things like the inhaler cap or the strap on your inhaler. So nothing to do with the actual ingredients of the drug or the formulation or composition of the drug. So this is an inhaler for asthma. Show us what the innovation was that they claimed allowed them to extend the patent.

So it's this strap that they listed a patent for, this little piece of plastic. No. They were saying that they should be able to continue the patent. Generics can't come in for the medication because they put that strap on. That's right. To make sure you didn't lose the cap. That's right.

After the FTC sent warning letters to the four major inhaler makers, three of them, including this one, dropped the price from hundreds of dollars to just $35. And two days ago, the FTC filed a lawsuit to bring down the price of insulin and scores of other drugs, suing three companies the agency says are responsible

for manipulating most of the prices. These really fundamental things about people's daily material lives are affected by things like antitrust. But investment bankers, venture capitalists, and top CEOs say she's biased against them, that Lena Kahn picks on winners because they're winners, and thinks big is always bad. Actually, Kahn's doggedness represents a shift in policy, a mandate to reverse decades of a hands-off strategy toward mergers and acquisitions. It was introduced by Ronald Reagan and adopted by all presidents since, including Clinton and Obama,

until President Biden put an end to it. We are now 40 years into the experiment of letting giant corporations accumulate more and more power. And what have we gotten from it? Less growth, weakened investment, fewer small businesses. Under President Biden, the FTC and the Justice Department have unleashed a crackdown, suing scores of companies including Ticketmaster, NVIDIA, and the Big Five, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and a court just deemed Google an illegal monopoly. It's a revolution, and the face of it is Lina Khan. We're all law students, and we love you.

Can we have a selfie? Sure. Three, two, one. Thank you. Can we have a selfie? Sure. Three, two, one. When Kahn was a student here at Yale Law School, she wrote a paper called Amazon's Antitrust Paradox, contending that even though Amazon's prices are low, it's still a monopoly. This was seen as an extraordinary breakthrough, and it went viral. Less than five years later, President Biden made her head of the agency that polices Amazon. You know, Amazon is a very popular company. People like the convenience, the choice. The

prices are pretty moderate, and they're afraid that you're going to tamper with something that's good, that they like. Our investigation uncovered that Amazon's illegal practices were actually raising prices for consumers because it had illegally muscled out rivals, locked them out of the market in ways that if you had more competition that Amazon hadn't squashed, consumers would be even better off. Amazon denies doing anything illegal

and says if Kahn wins, prices will go up. Also in the FTC's crosshairs, the issue of tech giants buying up smaller companies. In the technology markets, we went through a couple of decades where we saw over 800 acquisitions by the five big players, not a single one of which was blocked. And some of those, we realized, ended up leading to significant harm. Just to give you a concrete example, there were companies that were offering Americans greater privacy, and they were promising that we're not going to use your data, we're not going to sell it, we're not going to spy on you

everywhere all the time. After some of those firms were bought up by one of the big guys, all of those data privacy policies changed overnight. And so Americans lost those privacy protections. You're talking about Facebook and WhatsApp. Yes, that's one example of that. She's now suing over Facebook's acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. Is the mandate to reverse what's gone on for 40 years, to undo some of the mergers that were approved? We've identified not just one merger, but a whole stream of mergers that some of these large companies made

that we believe were illegal, that we believe were anti-competitive. But they were approved. They were not blocked. They were not challenged. But the were approved. They were not blocked. They were not challenged. But the courts don't always side with her. The FTC has lost a couple of big cases against Meta and Microsoft. Yet her cage-rattling has had a chilling effect, where companies simply drop their merger plans.

Sometimes, you know, the companies decide that they're going to abandon the merger. If someone just says, I'm not going to go forward, that's a win. That's right. Obviously, the companies are complaining like hell, screaming, and they don't like you. They're afraid of you. Well, look, we're doing our job enforcing the law, and— They are. They're afraid you're going to tie them up in court, you're going to cost them a lot

of money, and they're saying it's just not worth it. So it's important to step back and keep all of this in context. Of all the thousands of deals that are proposed every year, the FTC and DOJ collectively investigate maybe two or three percent. That might not sound like a lot, but startup founders complain that she's spooking investors so much, she's actually stifling innovation. Others fear that her chasing the tech giants will cause a domino effect. Earlier this month, after it was reported that her counterpart at the Justice Department subpoenaed the chipmaker NVIDIA, the stock market plunged.

Do you ever worry about the power that the FTC and the chairman have that could result in a destabilizing of basically the whole economy. Of course we have to worry, but we also should worry about the destabilizing effect that can arise from companies believing that they're above the law, and then they can be reckless, take massive risks in ways that can crash the economy,

and then they can get away with just a slap on the wrist, and that creates a destabilization too. Con can be seen as a belated reaction to the financial crisis when the government decided banks were too big to fail. But has the pendulum swung too far? Corporations are pushing back with their own lawsuits to rein her in, setting up a possible showdown at the Supreme Court over the fate of the FTC. Should you be concerned that you are flirting with diminishing the powers that you have

if the court decides you're wrong? And this court could very likely say you're wrong. I think one challenge that agencies can face is when they shrink their own powers and authorities by not actually using the authorities that Congress has given them. She's obviously unlikely to survive in her job if former President Trump wins, though she's admired by vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. Well, look, I don't agree with Lena Conlin on every issue, to be clear, but I think that she's been very smart about trying to go after some of these big tech companies. She's surprisingly popular with other MAGA Republicans.

There's even a nickname for conservatives who support you. What is it? I'll let you... Conservatives. Conservatives. On the flip side, it's unclear she would keep her job if Vice President Harris wins. Some of her biggest donors are people who want her to get rid of you. They want you off the scene. And they're not just saying it privately. They're going on television. Look, you know, my focus is not listening to what CEOs are saying on TV.

You know, it's important in these jobs to really stay focused and block out a lot of the noise. If you were asked to keep this job, would you say yes? Obviously, those are conversations one has with one's family and that sort of thing. You don't want to have it with me? But absolutely. I mean, there's so much work to be done, and it's such an honor to be in this role, and it would be an honor to have that opportunity to keep going.

The National Archives has been in the news lately, not so much for what is in its collection, but for what was missing. After former President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Biden held on to records when they left office that should have been sent to the archives, we wanted to know more about the small federal agency in charge of safeguarding America's past. After a few months inside, we came to appreciate that the archives are the country's safety deposit box, reading room, and paper shredder rolled into one. At the heart of the institution are the documents that have been at the heart of the nation for nearly 250 years. There's 39 steps here that lead up to the entrance, and that's 39 framers who signed the Constitution.

Oh, wow. Look at this. Colleen Shogan, the archivist of the United States, is responsible for America's records. The main attractions are in a building in Washington that was inspired by ancient Rome and built to be a temple to history. Each year, more than a million people make the trip to see these national treasures in person. This building, the Rotunda, was built as a shrine for many of these documents,

but they didn't arrive until later. That's correct. The building was completed in 1937, but the Declaration and the Constitution did not arrive until 1952. They were in the possession of the Library of Congress, which refused to turn them over until President Truman got involved, and they were delivered from Capitol Hill by the U.S. military. They will be protected from disaster and from the ravages of time. Ah, the Declaration of Independence. Yes. Why is it so faded? It was exposed to considerable light in the elements. In the 19th century, the U.S. Patent Office put the Declaration on display near a window. That and other missteps did so much damage, nearly all you can make out today is John Hancock's John Hancock.

To preserve them, these original documents that are a beacon for democracy are now intentionally kept in the dark. They are guarded around the clock in bulletproof cases designed to remain sealed for 100 years. All federal employees are required to take an oath to defend the Constitution. But for Colleen Shogan, it's literally her job, and the founding documents are just the start. We have approximately 13.5 billion paper records here at the National Archives. How many feet of film?

Oh, the film would go around the globe three and a half times. How many photographs? We have millions and millions of photographs as well. And how many artifacts? Over 700,000 artifacts. Most of that massive collection is kept outside of Washington, stored at dozens of facilities all across the country that span millions of cubic feet, including four underground cave complexes

in the Midwest. For our civilian records center in Valmire, Illinois, our archivists actually use bikes because it's about a mile from one end of the facility to the other. Then there's the stuff they don't even keep. Only about 3% of government paperwork is deemed important enough to preserve for posterity. Documents can sit for years before being retained, or more likely, destroyed. At the Washington National Records Center outside D.C., there are 20 football fields of files, stacked floor to ceiling, awaiting their fate. Until 1934, federal agencies stored their own records

with varying degrees of success. When the archives was created, work began to restore 158 years worth of dusty, forgotten documents. To see how some of America's oldest paper records have held up, we met Trevor Plant, who's in charge of more than 2 billion written documents in Washington. So this is original from 1778? Yes. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress wanted George Washington and his officers to pledge allegiance in writing to their new nation after they survived a brutal winter at Valley Forge. So the irony is that the Army can barely afford to feed them, clothe them, house them, supply them with arms and ammunition,

but they're like, here's all this paperwork. We want it filled out and returned. And so that is George Washington's handwriting and signature. Correct, yep, yep. And then here. This officer became very popular a couple years ago, Alexander Hamilton. We don't often think of him as Alex Hamilton, but he signed his name Alex Hamilton on his oath. Trevor Plant has a theory about why one of his favorite documents looks so unique.

This is a resolution passed by Congress in early 1865. Once it was ratified, it became the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And if you notice on here, there's several different handwritings for the 13th Amendment. So we speculate that these clerks realized what a big deal this was at the time and literally wanted to have a hand in history. Because the 13th Amendment abolished slavery. Abolished slavery in the United States, exactly.

Plant likes to say archives keeps the nation's receipts, and he means it, like the treaty for the Louisiana Purchase. It was four cents an acre, which was a pretty good deal since we doubled the size of the United States. Signed by Napoleon Bonaparte himself. There's also the deed of gift that came with the Statue of Liberty from France in 1884. Two years later it'll be installed in New York Harbor. And the check Russia cashed when the U.S. bought Alaska in 1867 for $7.2 million.

Came back to the government as a canceled check. In 1988, after Archives' main building in Washington ran out of room, Congress funded the construction of a state-of-the-art facility in College Park, Maryland. From there, Deputy Archivist Jay Bosenko runs day-to-day operations. So here in the vault we have... He invited us into their most restricted vault, where cameras usually aren't allowed, to see relics of a dark chapter in world history, Hitler's last will and testament, and Eva Braun's diary.

This happens to be from 1935. How is it the U.S. government got its hands on Hitler's mistress's diary? So this was quite literally sort of the spoils of war. This was captured by U.S. armed forces, then transferred to us at the National Archives. Some of the items inside this vault only became historically significant with age, like this letter from a young Fidel Castro to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. So there may be treasures like this buried in boxes in lots of places.

Yet to be discovered. You never know when you're opening a box what you might find next. Or who might be opening it. Researchers, writers, and history buffs from around the country and the world come to the archives to make discoveries. We saw a group from Japan cataloging the American occupation that followed World War II. And a U.S. Army unit on a special mission, combing through a million old Army files, looking for Black and Native American soldiers who were once overlooked, but might now be

awarded the Medal of Honor. The records that we hold need to be made available. We need to bring the stories that are captured in those records alive. There's a record here at College Park that I want to show you and our viewers. This is the resignation letter of Richard Nixon, August 9, 1974. This is an incredibly important document. I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in. Before the Watergate scandal, records belonged to the presidents who created them. But after President Nixon sought to destroy audio tapes with evidence of potential crimes, Congress took action.

When an individual controls the records, they control the story. They control what the American people can know or not know about their presidency. When did individual presidents stop owning the records that they created? Not until 1978, when the Presidential Records Act was signed. And so starting with President Reagan, now the records of a presidency belong to the American people and not to the president. In 2021, former President Trump tested that law when he took dozens of boxes,

including almost 340 documents bearing classification markings to his home in Florida. Mr. Trump was eventually charged with 40 felonies, including for allegedly refusing to turn over some of the papers. The case was dismissed, but the Justice Department is appealing. President Joe Biden was also investigated over more than 80 documents with classification markings that he had from when he was vice president and a senator.

Mr. Biden cooperated with the investigation and was not charged. Jay Bosenko told us the archives is simply the custodian of the documents all presidents are required to turn over. Enforcing the law is up to the Justice Department. What is potentially lost when presidential records are not transferred to the National Archives? That strikes at the very heart of the historical record, the completeness of it, the ability to understand decisions.

And so it's important for historians and ultimately the American people to understand all of the pieces that came in and made up that decision-making. Those pieces of history start to become available to reporters and scholars five years after a presidency ends at the 15 presidential libraries in the Archives system. When that five-year window hits, almost immediately we have a backlog of thousands of FOIA requests that we can't possibly respond to within the 10 days under the Freedom of Information Act. When Colleen Shogan became

archivist last year, she inherited a flat budget and a mountain of Freedom of Information Act requests. At the George W. Bush Presidential Library, for example, a FOIA request might come back with a 12-year wait. That's because of the extreme interest in those records. And I think the way that we are going to make headway on this in the near future is going to be through technology. The Archives' goal to scan and digitize all 13.5 billion paper records in its collection seems ambitious. Only 2% of their holdings are currently available online. We obtained a recent memo drafted by senior leaders at the agency who are concerned limited resources have put it at serious risk of mission failure.

Is it even possible to bring the archives into the 21st century before the start of the 22nd century without some significant increase of resources. I think we can do it. We will do it. We're going to have to reprioritize. We're going to have to look at our budget. But we will rely upon our institutions, upon Congress, and, of course, upon the executive branch to support us along the way. While the archives' path to digital transformation will be a work in progress for decades,

a big change is coming soon to the rotunda. In 2026, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th Amendment extending the right of suffrage to women will be put on permanent display. They are the first major additions to the rotunda in 72 years. It was the archivist's decision. She says it's not just to honor the nation's past, but a reminder that America's next chapter is not yet written. Audio, the writing and recording of these words you're hearing now,

has always been central to what we do each week on 60 Minutes. In the words of Don Hewitt, the creator of this broadcast, I think it's your ear more than your eye that keeps you to television set. It's with that in mind that we have created a new podcast, 60 Minutes, A Second Look. CBS News' Seth Doan and team have spent the better part of a year mining the 60 Minutes archive.

You'll hear from a 21-year-old Taylor Swift. Sometimes I get really overwhelmed when I think about, like, 10 years from now I'll be 30. And Secret Service agent Clint Hill opening up for the first time about the day President Kennedy was assassinated. If I had reacted just a little bit quicker. Search for 60 Minutes, A second look wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to new episodes every week.

I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. Paramount Podcasts. At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully, make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts.