A Collector on CPAC: Looking Back

Papers filed by the ACCG and its supporting bodies in a FOIA request served on the US State Department include a declaration by Jay Kislak.

It is worth remembering Kislak's comments about CPAC in a report from the New York Times (Jeremy Kahn, "Is the U.S. Protecting Foreign Artifacts? Don't Ask", April 8, 2007 Sunday).

But the committee's current chairman, Jay Kislak, a real estate magnate and collector of pre-Colombian artifacts, bristles at the secrecy under which the State Department has the panel work.

''In my opinion the restrictions, regulations and lack of transparency under which we are asked to operate in pursuing our duties at C.P.A.C. are to say the least unusual, and in many cases they are unbearable, immoral and maybe either extra-legal or in contradiction'' of the law, he said.

Is it usual, tolerable, moral and legal (and not forgetting ethical) to acquire recently-surfaced archaeological objects (including coins) that have no recorded collecting history prior to 1970?