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The Accessibility of Department of State Materials Relating to American Far Eastern Relations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
This paper aims to present an informal overview of materials available on United States relations with the Far East as found in the records of the Department of State. At the outset it might be pointed out that the policy of the Department, both with respect to access to its records and in the reasonably expeditious publication of its foreign relations documents, is perhaps the most liberal of any major foreign office. This policy conforms with a fundamental maxim in the Department of State that the Congress, the world of scholarship, and the public at large be kept as fully informed about our foreign affairs as is consistent with sound diplomacy and national security. The opportunities, therefore, of research among primary sources on United States foreign relations are probably richer than those on the foreign affairs of any other country.
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- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1955
References
This paper was delivered as a luncheon address at the Annual Meeting on March 30, 1955. The author received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago in 1949. From that date he has been employed in the Department of State, and has been with its Historical Division since 1951.
1 The following general bibliographies and guides are useful in the period before 1922: Bemis, Samuel F. and Griffin, Grace G., Guide to the Diplomatic History of the United States, 1775–1921 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1935)Google Scholar; Dennett, Tyler, Americans in Eastern Asia (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1922)Google Scholar; and Hasse, Adelaide R., comp., Index to United States Documents Relating to Foreign Affairs, 1829–1861 (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1914–1921, 3 vols.).Google Scholar
2 Concerning the appropriate regulations, see Archives, National, “Regulations for the Public Use of Records in the National Archives,” dated 03 24, 1953.Google Scholar
3 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1861–1932 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1862–1948)Google Scholar; Foreign Relations of the United States 1933–1938 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949–1954)Google Scholar. See also Dennett, for further possible topics worthy of exploration in United States Far Eastern relations.
4 An indispensable finding aid for use in the National Archives is the latter's Guide to the Records in the National Archives (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1948)Google Scholar, cited hereafter as National Archives Guide. The “General Records of the Department of State” comprise National Archives Record Group 59, described in National Archives Guide, 221–244.Google Scholar
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