The Foreign Service Journal, June 2016

40 JUNE 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL by presidential administration. The Historian’s Office begins its work on each administration with a thorough reading of mem- oirs and the extant secondary literature of the period, as well as extensive review of the documentation at the relevant presiden- tial library. Editors create a list of probable topics, ranging from traditional bilateral foreign policy and crises (e.g., Berlin Crisis, 1961-1962 ) to themes such as foreign economic policy and national security policy. Most one-term presidential adminis- trations require 25-30 volumes; most two-termers, 45-50. With the 19th century’s nation state–centric foreign policy increasingly giving way to extranational concerns, volumes on global issues have multiplied. Early “general” chapters on inter- national concerns, like the protection of fur seals in the Bering Sea, have become volumes on, for example, the United Nations. Often, global issues volumes have anticipated the creation of functional bureaus to address those issues. Recent proposed or in-progress Reagan-era global issues volumes will be devoted to immigration and refugees and the war on drugs and terrorism. The historian working on a particular volume has two years to read, conduct research at multiple venues in and outside of the beltway, and select and annotate the 1,400 document pages (out of an almost infinite number possible) to become the 800- 900 pages of a published FRUS volume. And that’s just the first step. The manuscript then goes through a five-month review process with two readers, followed by six weeks of revision by the historian. Then, the entire timeline moves out of the hands of the Historian’s Office when they submit the documents for declassification. On average, this takes two additional years, but delays of up to six years are not uncommon. (While the Carter admin- istration volumes have nearly all been released, and the first two Reagan volumes, Conflict in the South Atlantic, 1981-1984 , and Soviet Union, January 1981–January 1983 , were published recently, three volumes from the Nixon-Ford era still await full declassification.) After this hurdle, editing and publishing the volume takes another year. The average span between policy and publication is 35 years, with 30 the goal. Since the early 1980s, when only one or two volumes were released annually, publication rates have snowballed. In just the last two years, 19 volumes have come out. In addition, the Historian’s Office has released several “retro” volumes that revisit sensitive episodes in our diplomatic his- tory that earlier FRUS editions covered poorly due to limited access, stymied declassification or political interference. In 2013 the Historian’s Office published Congo, 1960-1968 , containing records related to the death of Patrice Lumumba. This followed a retro volume on Guatemala, 1952-1954 ; another retro volume, Iran, 1951-1954 , is still in production. New perspectives on the importance of previously underappreciated areas of policymak- ing can also inspire retro volumes, as with the FRUS, 1917-1972, Public Diplomacy multimedia volume. The Historian’s Office has also undertaken the digitization of the FRUS series, creating a free, online, full-text searchable archive on the office’s website: history.state.gov. So far 260, or more than half of the 500 or so volumes in the series, can be browsed online or downloaded as e-books; and within three years, the entire series from its inception in 1861 will be online, through an exchange with the University of Wisconsin. More broadly, the office uses the website to advance its twin goals of increasing transparency and accessibility. For example, the website is secure, ensuring that pages visited by its read- ers, including overseas readers who constitute 25 percent of the site’s traffic, cannot be tracked. An update of the website currently underway will make it faster and easier to browse on mobile devices, whose users are a rapidly growing proportion of the site’s visitors. In addition, both the website and e-books are accessible by individuals with visual disabilities who use screen reader software. Further, as part of the Open Government Initia- tive, all source code and raw data underlying the site are freely downloadable, empowering researchers to do more advanced work—including textual analysis and data visualization. Just-In-Time History: Analysis for Policymakers While FRUS garners most of the publicity, and represents the lion’s share of the office’s work, the historians also serve State’s immediate needs. Since 1944, the policy studies and special projects branches of the Historian’s Office have undertaken The Historian’s Office has also released several “retro” volumes that revisit sensitive episodes in our diplomatic history that earlier FRUS editions covered poorly due to limited access, stymied declassification or political interference.