News that National Archives investigators raided and removed boxes of materials from the Rockville home of a retired Archives audio and film department head came as a complete surprise to members of the professional sound preservation community, many of whom described Leslie Waffen as a committed scholar.

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Waffen retired in June 2010 after more than 40 years with the National Archives, most recently heading up its Motion Picture, Sound, and Video branch. During his time there, Waffen had access to many of the nation’s most treasured audio and film recordings, including the only known audio recording of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Zapruder film, the famous 8mm color home video of the assassination.

From 1979 to 1983, Waffen was executive director of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings. More recently, he served as the chairman of the group’s archive committee.

Archivist Sam Brylawski, former head of the Library of Congress’ recorded sound division, worked alongside Waffen at ARSC and said that “there were audits and committees who oversaw his work, and he did an outstanding job.”

Brylawski and others, who mainly associated with Waffen on a professional level, say they hadn’t heard any rumblings of frustration from Waffen as he neared retirement.

“He retired because he has grown children and grandchildren and he did have [the] years. I was not under the impression there was frustration,” Brylawski said. “There was never a bad word, that type of thing. Les is pretty easy-going.”

William Murphy once served as Waffen’s supervisor before he retired from the National Archives 10 years ago. He said the news of the seizure was “a tragedy.”

“I’ve known Les for a very long time and he’s always been very conscientious and upstanding,” Murphy said. “I thought he was just like me, enjoying his retirement. So, holy mackerel, I’m just shocked.”

Waffen was very active with ARSC until his retirement when he dropped his position as archive committee chairman, ARSC executive director Peter Shambarger said.

Shambarger also said that Waffen played a big role in the National Archives’ major 1994 move to its current College Park facility. Waffen oversaw that much of the audio collection was moved properly and helped ensure the public’s access to documents.