CONTRIBUTED TO THE LAFAYETTE SUN
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Auburn Class of 1983 James E. Patterson, VHS Class of 1973, saved a “lost” video archive about the Vietnam War. He was researching government archives in the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. When he could not locate an important archive, he contacted the Librarian of Congress. Patterson, from Valley, is a former U.S. diplomat and life member of the American Foreign Service Association.
A library archivist explained: “It was on a legacy Library server that wasn’t fully copied over to a new server during a website update several years ago, so we had to do some digging.” The archivist added, “Thank you for bringing the missing video to our attention. Because of you, we’ll be able to restore it and serve it to future patrons.”
Patterson’s work was praised by veteran network news reporter and author Marvin Kalb, whose brother Bernard, was a panelist on the lost video.
“Thank you for your determined and successful effort to recover the record of my brother’s role in the recollection of the 30th anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam,” Kalb wrote in a personal letter to Patterson. “That the Library of Congress now has the record of that panel discussion, thanks to your prodigious effort, will certainly be helpful to future students of the Vietnam War,” he wrote.
