WPatch,

thanks for your reply. i greatly appreciate it.

i understand your position in regard to the contributions made from "1995 on". however, do you think that i would need to pay taxes essentially twice on the contributions made prior to 1995 in this conversion process?

i can't imagine that the irs would require you to pay taxes on previous "nondeductible" contributions just because you did not take a dedcution when you could have (as long as an effort was made to reflect said contributions on form 8606). but, i could be wrong.
again, we are talking less than $3,000 in contributions over the years.

once again, thank you for your help.