Word of mouth
Miller Center oral histories show up in surprising places
Did you know that scholars in the United Kingdom, inspired by the Miller Center’s presidential oral histories, now interview members of Parliament after they serve in office? That in his spare time, at least one Hollywood writer reads the Center’s oral histories for fun? These are just two of the unexpected ways that people all over the world use and endorse the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History Program.
The Center’s oral histories have always been conceived of as a public service endeavor—to preserve the true voices of past U.S. presidencies for posterity. Members of former presidential administrations spend a day or more with scholars, reviewing and reflecting on their experiences in office. The transcripts of these oral history interviews provide important documentation and insight—and sometimes correctives—for every U.S. presidency since the administration of Gerald Ford.
In addition to serving as a rich source of trusted information for historians, political scientists, and other scholars, Miller Center oral histories are frequently incorporated into public commemorations of prominent government leaders. Journalists writing obituaries often quote from the Center’s interviews and rely on the detailed, professionally researched briefing books prepared before each interview by the Center’s research staff.
A recent case in point: Richard V. Allen, Ronald Reagan’s first national security advisor, was interviewed by the Miller Center in 2002 and passed away in November 2024. His obituary in the Washington Post drew on the Miller Center’s oral history interview to describe Allen’s role in the last-minute selection of George H. W. Bush, instead of former President Ford, as Reagan’s running mate in 1980.
The oral history program itself has also served as a direct model for at least two other oral history programs. RAND, a nonpartisan public policy organization with a robust research program on emergency preparedness, credited the Miller Center when they decided to take oral histories of COVID-19 emergency managers to preserve insights and lessons learned for future global pandemics. Russell Riley, co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program with Barbara A. Perry, has consulted several times with scholars affiliated with the History of Parliament Trust on their project to interview former members of the United Kingdom Parliament from the 1950s to the 2000s. Based on the success of their oral histories, the Trust is now considering a potential oral history program devoted to living prime ministers.
On a lighter note, the Center has learned that Steve Hely, an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer for shows including Veep, 30 Rock, and The Office, is a fan of presidential history. In a post on his personal blog, Helytimes, he remarked, “The University of Virginia’s Miller Center collects oral histories on recent presidents. Sometimes I go poking around in them and rarely do I come away unrewarded.” Hely offered his readers some choice tidbits from the William J. Clinton Presidential History Project, including a memory from Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. trade representative, about Clinton’s ability to multitask. Hely commented that the interviews were “compelling reading, cheers to the Miller Center.”