The Foreign Service Journal, April 2007

A P R I L 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 Moscow’s willingness to consider an Iranian proposal to set up a coop- erative gas producers’ group a la OPEC, for example, could stir legisla- tors’ ire — in spite of Putin’s assur- ance that it could never be a cartel and the Economic Development and Trade Ministry’s prompt denunciation of the idea ( http://en.rian.ru/rus sia/20070201/60048917.html ). For all these reasons, Russia’s WTO accession is not yet a given. It remains to be seen how the Kremlin will reconcile the quest for a unique foreign policy stance with the process of normalizing bilateral trade regimes and the drafting of membership terms to win a two-thirds majority vote in the WTO General Council ( www. wto.org/English/thewto_e/whatis _e/tif_e/org3_e.htm ). — E. Margaret MacFarland, Editorial Intern Information-Sharing Program Takes On SBU Recommendations for standardiz- ing procedures for handling so-called sensitive-but-unclassified information are due to be delivered to the White House soon as part of the effort to establish smooth channels of commu- nication among federal, state and local agencies for sharing counterter- rorism intelligence. A product of the investigation into the lapses that facilitated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Infor- mation-Sharing Environment program was mandated in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The program is led by career Ambassador Thomas E. McNamara from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence ( www.ise. gov/ ). According to the implementation plan McNamara presented to Con- gress last November, the ISE aims to facilitate, coordinate and expedite access to protected terrorism informa- tion across the intelligence, law en- forcement, defense, homeland securi- ty and foreign affairs communities. “The ISE will not result in the con- struction of one governmentwide computer system containing all ter- rorism information,” the plan states. “To the contrary, and as stated, tech- nology will play the role of facilitating, improving and expanding information sharing in response to the counterter- rorism needs of ISE participants.” Besides bringing appropriate tech- nology to bear, ISE is clearing the obstacles to sharing information. One such obstacle is the proliferation of sensitive-but-unclassified documents with a bewildering array of markers — 108 have been identified by the ISE team so far — that determine the C YBERNOTES Site of the Month: Frontline Diplomacy What was it like to be present when Ronald Reagan said to Mikhail Gorbachev, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”? What was running through the minds of Foreign Service officers at the same wall years earlier, during John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech? Thanks to a new online initiative by the Library of Congress, we now have some idea. On Feb. 21, Frontline Diplomacy made its debut ( http://memory. loc.gov/ammem/collections/diplomacy/index.html ). Part of the library’s American Memory project, the Web site features the foreign affairs oral histo- ry collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. It contains an extensive compilation of primary, oral accounts of 20th-century diplomacy, and is expected to grow to include additional interviews chronicling the unfold- ing events of the 21st century, as well. The American Memory project is the centerpiece of the Library’s National Digital Library Program, launched in 1994 with bipartisan congressional sup- port and private funding. The project digitalized various oral histories, music and images that make up America’s collective consciousness. Frontline Diplomacy focuses mainly on the contributions of Foreign Service officers after World War II, and offers the personal experiences of Lawrence Eagleburger, Averell Harriman, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Winston Lord and Dean Rusk, among many others. There are first-hand stories of terrorist attacks (Beirut, 1983, and Nairobi, 1998), Henry Kissinger’s secret 1971 trip to Beijing and the Berlin airlift of 1948. As of late February, the site included the transcripts of 1,301 oral history interviews donated by ADST. — E. Margaret MacFarland, Editorial Intern