fessionals throughout the world inviting them to give their suggestions and
advice, "so that there may be assembled a body of information and opinion that
will be useful in determining what kind of organization is desirable and what
shall be the steps to be taken to bring it into being."26
Despite problems caused by the fact that much of the information in the
1934 directory of archival institutions was outdated, a mailing-list was drawn up
and over one hundred prominent archivists all over the world received the
letter.27
Eventually half of the addressees responded, although many of the responses
came in with considerable delay, due to language or terminology problems,
political and competence complications.28 Answering the first question of the
questionnaire the archivists showed a remarkable unanimity: everyone agreed on
the necessity of an international archives organisation. This unison was missing,
however, in the replies to the questions about the preferred basis of represen
tation and the issue of membership. Should members be organisations, institu
tions, professional archival associations, individuals, or should a combination be
favourable?
Undeterred by the obviously lurking disagreements Unesco at its General
Conference in Mexico (November 1947) upheld its earlier decision to encourage
the establishing of an international archival organisation and assigned the
modest sum of 4,000 in order to convene a group of prominent archivists
which should be entrusted with the preparation of a concrete plan.
An exclusively US-made preliminary constitution29 was discussed at a
meeting which was held in June 1948 in the Unesco headquarters in Paris, where
delegates from Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway,
the United Kingdom and the United States met with Unesco representatives.30
The American draft constitution suggested that all archival institutions,
associations and organisations should be entitled to become members of the
new organisation and have the right to vote. Individuals should have a voice but
no vote. As expected, opinions differed on this vital point. The majority of the
conference wanted, as Unesco did, to confer primacy to official national delega
tions by allowing voting rights only to their representatives. An amendment
restricting membership rights in this sense was adopted, leaving the rest of the
proposal unchanged. In this way the International Council on Archives was
born.
The alteration of the draft constitution entailed the introduction of inter
national politics into the world of professional archivists. That was exactly the
thing the Americans had wished to avoid. They held that ICA should deal
exclusively with archival matters and not with politics but did not realise that
this refraining from politics could be considered to be political by others.
Democratic policy making within the organisation came under fire when the
official delegate of Czechoslovakia, supported by representatives of other
countries, tried to torpedo the programme of the new organisation.31 Although
this attack was beaten off, it added to the disappointment of the Americans and
caused them to doubt of the attainability of their ideals.
At the inaugural meeting the participants declared themselves to be a
Constituent Assembly, the authoritative body of the new Council, with Charles
Samaran, director of the Archives de France as its president. Solon J. Buck became
president of the western hemisphere and Hilary Jenkinson, whom we already
met as a participant in the deliberations of 1931, was entrusted with the vice-
presidency and the presidency of the eastern hemisphere. The first secretary-
general was Herbert O. Brayer, one of the co-authors of the draft constitution;
treasurer was elected the general state archivist of the Netherlands, D.P.M.
Graswinckel.
Unesco-Europe (geographical Europe with North America and Israel) was almost
identical with the archival world of those days. Outside Europe the archival
landscape was as Joshua Enwere put it "a wilderness punctuated only here and
there by signs of progress".32 But changing this picture was not the first priority
of the supranational body. Top of the agenda was the exchange of information
and the process of getting acquainted with one another. The best way to start
was the organisation of periodical congresses. France not only furnished ICA's
first two presidents and set up a secretariat for the new organisation but also
took responsibility for preparing the first international congress on archives.33
This congress was held in Paris in the summer of 1950. The interval between
the first two successive international congresses had almost exactly lasted four
decades, the Brussels congress being held August 28-30, 1910 and the Paris
congress August 23-26, 1950.
With its first congress ICA became truly operational. About three hundred
and fifty archivists from twenty-four countries came together in the French
capital. Official delegations from Germany and Spain were not welcome,
although their archivists joined as private persons.34
The early years of ICA's existence are characterised by the construction of a
solid organisation.35 A network of correspondents was set up in order to gather
and channel information quickly. Thanks to the financial support of Unesco,
very soon (in 1951) the first volume of Archivum was published. For some years
the ICA yearbook, in which along with the proceedings of congresses also infor-
DE PROFESSIE
26 Solon J. Buck, "Letter Sent to Archivists of Foreign Countries Concerning the Organization of an
International Archives Council", American Archivist 10 (1947), pp. 227-231.
27 The figure "over one hundred" is mentioned by Holmes (p. 292). According to Daniels (p. 415) only eighty
letters had been sent out.
28 Holmes, pp. 292-293.
29The draft was made by Solon J. Buck, Oliver W. Holmes (Buck's programme adviser at the National
Archives) and Herbert O. Brayer (state archivist of Colorado and Unesco's Honorary Consultant on
Archives).
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JAN VAN DEN BROEK FROM BRUSSELS TO BEIJING
2.6 The International Council on Archives: the early years
30 German archivists had not been invited, but, at the insistence of Buck, a competent delegate of the US
Military Government of Germany took part in the deliberations.
31 Remark of Brayer in a letter to Holmes, June 21, 1948. Daniels, p. 417.
32 Joshua C. Enwere, "Archival Europe and the archival world", Janus 2 (1992), pp. 327-334. Here: p. 328.
33 Charles Samaran was ICA's first president (1948-1950), his successor Charles Braibant served from 1950
until 1953. As Holmes (pp. 295-296) put it, "it was the felt desirable that the president should still be
close to the Unesco headquarters."
34 Cf. Holmes, pp. 295-296; Rhoads, p. 318.
35 Eckhart G. Franz, "Der Internationale Archivrat: Vergangenheit, Gegenwart, Zukunft", Archivum 29
(1982) pp. 155-173, gives a thorough and elaborate survey of the development of ICA.
163