Department of State and Related Foreign Affairs Agencies.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu greets Vice President Al Gore, May 10, 1994 (NAID 24717040) Bishop Desmond Tutu died on December 26, 2021. He was best known for his human rights and nonviolence activities while the Anglican bishop of Johannesburg and then the archbishop of Cape Town, the first Black person to hold either position. Tutu was a hero of … Continue reading Desmond Tutu, October 1931-December 2021
The murder of U.S. diplomats overseas is usually considered a modern phenomenon – a result of increased terrorist activities beginning in the 1960s. While some American diplomats were murdered overseas earlier, John Mein, then U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, was the first sitting American Ambassador to be killed overseas. He died on August 28, 1968, during … Continue reading Attempted Assassination of a U.S. Ambassador, 1921
Additional Department of State records are now available online. The newly-posted records stem from one of the Department’s original functions later transferred to another agency – oversight of affairs in the territories of the United States. You will find a description of other Department of State records now online in this series of occasional posts. … Continue reading Department of State Territorial Papers Now Available Online
The National Archives is pleased to announce that more records of the Department of State have been digitized and are now available online through the National Archives Catalog. This is the fourth in a series of occasional posts. It is the final post describing the records that constitute the “central files” of the Department for … Continue reading More Department of State Records Now Available Online: Diplomatic Instructions, 1785-1906 & Consular Instructions, 1801-1834
Previous posts, described some of the Department of State’s actions relating to the publication of the “Pentagon Papers.” One key point in the government’s argument against publication was that it would provide aid and comfort to America’s overseas opponents. As the Department’s June 17 telegram about the repercussions of the publication of the documents predicted, … Continue reading The Pentagon Papers, 1971: Use By American Adversaries
As noted in a previous post, the legal battle over publication of the “Pentagon Papers” by the New York Times took place in the Federal court in New York, where the Times was located. To support the government’s position in court, the Department sent information to its officials in New York City through the U.S. … Continue reading The Pentagon Papers: The Department of State Supports Action in the Courts
On June 13, 1971, the New York Times began publishing articles based on a “Top Secret” Office of the Secretary of Defense study of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The study had been leaked to that newspaper by Daniel Ellsberg, one of the analysts who worked on the project. The study, entitled … Continue reading The Pentagon Papers: The Department of State Reacts
The National Archives is pleased to announce that more records of the Department of State have been digitized and are now available online through the National Archives Catalog. This is the third in a series of occasional posts. The first post described the microfilm digitization project and the first foreign affairs records made available through … Continue reading Department of State Records Now Available Online: Despatches from Special Agents, Notes to Foreign Missions, and Notes from Foreign Consuls, 1789-1906
Today's post was written by David Langbart, archivist in Textual Reference at the National Archives at College Park, MD. In August 1921, the Department of State sent a circular to all American diplomatic posts asking for answers to a multi-page questionnaire soliciting information to clarify “the needs of the Government in the matter of appropriations … Continue reading A Founder of the United States Foreign Service Writes: Joseph Grew on the Importance of Diplomatic Service, 1921
Today’s post was written by Lynn Nashorn, textual processing and accessioning archivist at the National Archives at College Park. Called many names from the Iran-Contra Scandal to the McFarlane affair (after National Security Advisor under President Ronald Reagan Robert McFarlane) to simply Iran Contra, the Iran-Contra affair involved United States officials illegally funding Central American … Continue reading The Iran-Contra Affair: Faded in Time, but not Forgotten
