ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512080067
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: HARRY F. ROSENTHAL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETAILS TELL the story: The chronicle of America can be found in police blotters, comic books and canceled checks.
In a meticulous hand, the metropolitan police blotter for April 14, 1865, records at 7:30 p.m. that a saddle cover, halter and three fishing lines had arrived at the precinct. Hardly the stuff of history.
The next notation, at 11, was.
``At this hour, the melancholy intelligence of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, President of the United States, at Ford's Theater was brought to this office and the information obtained from the following persons goes to show the assassin is a man named J. Wilks Booth.''
Little threads like these, woven in with blockbuster events such as the Louisiana Purchase, the only resignation of a president and the recognition of the state of Israel, are the fabric of American history. And they are part of a display opening Friday at the National Archives.
Along with the historic, visitors can see the cover of a Superman comic book the Navy developed as a literacy training tool in 1945. Another aid to literacy - the phonetic spelling of ``Ich bin ein Berliner,'' (Ish bin ein Bearleener) on a card used by President John F. Kennedy for making his famous, flawed 1963 speech in Germany - is also on display.
The forgotten police officer in Washington could be forgiven for misspelling John Wilkes Booth's middle name, as he recorded word of Lincoln's shooting less than an hour after it occurred. Lincoln died the next day.
The show contains 50 original documents displayed beside the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the Archives Rotunda, which gets a million visitors a year.
There is something for everybody.
For the young: The 1882 indictment of Jesse James and Frank James for fraud and robbery, a 1960 telegram from comedian Bud Abbott to Richard Nixon on his nomination as president and the $7.2 million check, canceled, that the United States paid for the purchase of Alaska in 1868.
For those who love books: One of 44 pages of alternative endings to ``A Farewell to Arms'' in Ernest Hemingway's handwriting. And the last nine pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald's commentary about that book.
For those fascinated by a country's growing pains: The 1866 petition for universal suffrage signed by Susan B. Anthony; the 1954 Senate resolution condemning Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis.; the letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, in which she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution after the DAR denied its Constitutional Hall stage to black singer Marian Anderson.
For those interested in the United States' rise to greatness: The 1774 Richard Henry Lee resolution proposing independence from Great Britain; the 1803 treaty buying the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte of France for 60 million francs - $11.25 million; Roosevelt's 1941 address to Congress, asking for a declaration of war against Japan.
Finally, the display includes the July 20, 1969, White House phone log that recorded this unprecedented call between 11:45 and 11:50 p.m.: ``The President [Nixon] held an interplanetary conversation with Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, on the moon.''
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. This 1945 Superman comic book, developed by the Navyby CNBas a literacy training tool, is one of the "American Originals" on
exhibit.