Today's post is written by David Langbart, Archivist at the National Archives in College Park. This blog post is derived from an article published on the web site “American Diplomacy: Foreign Service Despatches and Periodic Reports on U.S. Foreign Policy” An essential aspect of the U.S. foreign policy program, especially since the 1930s, is the use of … Continue reading Diplomats Expressing Displeasure
Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. In 1935 the State Department asked the United States Embassy in Moscow for copies of documents from the Russian archives relating to the American purchase of Alaska in 1867. The Embassy responded in 1936 by sending along copies, and in some cases translations, of 45 documents which … Continue reading From Buchanan’s Blunder to Seward’s Folly, Sort Of
Today's post is written by David Langbart. Public comment about what is now called the lack of transparency about U.S. foreign policy is not a new phenomenon. The issue goes back to at least World War II, if not before. Recognizing that it needed to better inform the public about its activities, in 1948, the Department … Continue reading Keeping the Public Informed
Today's post is written by David Langbart. To a large degree, working with the records at the National Archives is a never-ending series of fascinating encounters with the original documentation of U.S. history. The following document, a memorandum of conversation (memcon) drafted by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in January 1954, gives an idea why … Continue reading Why working at the National Archives is so interesting
By David Langbart Jazz great Dave Brubeck died on December 5, one day short of his 92nd birthday. Since then, there have been many retrospectives – in print, on television, on radio, and on line. Almost all of those remembrances mention the goodwill tour of Poland and the Far East that Brubeck and his quartet … Continue reading Remembering Dave Brubeck
By David Langbart In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago today, agencies of the U.S. government swung into action. The Army and Navy immediately went on a war footing as did American diplomats in the Department of State and at embassies and consulates around the world. Since the formal … Continue reading Remembering Pearl Harbor
By David Langbart Thanksgiving is considered by many to be the quintessential American holiday. As Thanksgiving 1918 approached, Americans had more reason than the usual to give thanks. On November 11, 1918, Germany signed the armistice that brought World War I to an effective end. In the wake of that event, the United States made … Continue reading Thanksgiving around the world
By Jason Clingerman In February 1963, the United Nations (UN) held the UN Conference on the Application of Science and Technology for the Benefit of the Less Developed Areas (UNCAST) in Geneva, Switzerland. This conference, held at the peak of the Cold War, brought together about 1,600 delegates from 96 countries, including delegations from both … Continue reading Political Sensitivity at the Peak of the Cold War
By Alfie Paul Tomorrow we are all Irish. So, to celebrate St. Patirck's Day I had a look around our holdings to see how The Text Message could celebrate Eire. As always I used our Online Public Access (OPA) system and found some expected things: Consular records in RG 84 (Records of the Foreign Service Posts … Continue reading Irish American Heroes
To assist researchers interested in records of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, the most heavily used records in the National Archives, the Textual Archives Services Division has launched a newly revamped set of pages on the Archives' website for providing an introduction to foreign affairs records. The conduct of foreign affairs … Continue reading Launch of new web pages on Foreign Affairs records
