Tuesday, December 22, 2009

New FRUS Volume Released



The State Department's Office of the Historian today released a new volume in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series. It's Volume E-3, Documents on Global Issues, 1973-1976, and you can read it here.

From today's press release:

The Department of State released today Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–3, Documents on Global Issues, 1973–1976, as an electronic-only publication. This volume is the latest publication in the subseries of the Foreign Relations series that documents the most important decisions and actions of the foreign policy of the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Volume E–3 is available to all free of charge on the internet. Approximately 25 percent of the volumes scheduled for publication for the 1969–1976 subseries, covering the Nixon and Nixon–Ford administrations, will be in this format.

This volume documents United States policy concerning global/transnational issues during the Nixon and Ford administrations: Antarctic resource exploitation, international drug control, human rights, oceans policy, space and telecommunications, and terrorism. Additional global issues, including energy, disarmament, food policy, population control, and women’s issues are treated in other volumes in the 1969–1976 subseries.


The Nixon and Ford administrations addressed an impressive list of global issues, including the management of Antarctic resources, drug trafficking, the promotion of human rights and the monitoring of rights abuses, telecommunications, space exploration, the redefinition of maritime regimes, and the emergence of transnational terrorism.

Regarding terrorism, the press releases states:

[A] fundamental redefinition of the problem of terrorism occurred as the Nixon administration entered its second term. The March 1973 attack on U.S. diplomats in Khartoum and increased concern about the safety of foreign emissaries at the United Nations in New York City caused federal officials to engage in a variety of measures to promote security at home and abroad.


Most unfortunately, Volume E-3's section on terrorism does not contain the one document I would most like to see (Document 206, a chronology of the Khartoum incident), because it was not declassified in time for publication.

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