As cited herein, scholars Leo Ribuffo (1980) and Michael Barkun (1994), among others, have noted that "Most of W. J. Cameron's correspondence at Ford has been lost or destroyed," and "Most of the files relating to the Dearborn Independent were destroyed," and "The office files of the Dearborn Independent were destroyed in 1963, and other records for 1920 have disappeared."
In his autobiography, Lee Iacocca, former president of the Ford Motor Company, alludes to the disinclination of Henry Ford II, his boss during the 1960s and 1970s, to put anything in writing. "Although the two of us ran the company together for nearly eight years, almost nothing in my archives from those days carries his signature," Iacocca wrote. "Henry actually used to boast that he never kept any files. Every now and then he would burn all his papers... His attitude was, 'Destroy everything you can."' (Lee Iacocca, Iacocca: An Autobiography (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), p. 105).
On April 6, 2000, in the course of my research, I wrote to Elizabeth Adkins, manager of archives services for the Ford Motor Company/Ford Industrial Archives, to inquire about the status of several accessions containing materials from the Dearborn Independent and housed at the Henry Ford
