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image Project on Government Secrecy

"It is a matter of history-- that secret history of a nation which is often so much more intimate and interesting than its public chronicles...."
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans


U.S. State Department
Advisory Committee on
Historical Diplomatic Documentation

The State Department Historical Advisory Committee oversees the preparation of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, the official historical record of U.S. foreign policy, which dates back to the Abraham Lincoln Administration. In particular, the Committee is obliged by statute (Public Law 102-138) to ensure that the FRUS series constitutes a "thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of major United States foreign policy decisions." Inevitably, this statutory obligation brings the Committee into regular conflict with the tendency of certain agencies to resist declassification of their records. Such conflicts are reflected in many of the Committee documents presented below.

Crisis in the Historian's Office (2008-2009)

Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes

Advisory Committee Annual Reports

Foreign Relations Series

Other

Resources




maintained by Steven Aftergood
Last updated May 13, 2021


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