The 22nd annual meeting of the Advisory Committee on Historical Documentation met in Washington on November 3, 1978, with the officers and staff of the Historical Office of the U.S. Department of State, and with other officials in the Bureau of Public Affairs, the Department and the government who are concerned with the release and publication of historical documentation on American foreign relations. The Committee, formerly called the Advisory Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States, continues to be concerned chiefly with the Foreign Relations series as the major form of the Department's historical documentation.

The leitmotiv of the meeting—continuing from last year—was the problem of the appropriate adaptation of the series to fiscal constraint. The problem is the more acute because the Foreign Relations series is now dealing with the 1950s, where it confronts a veritable explosion of documentation involving other agencies of government as well as the Department of State. This expansion of the relevant historical record comes at a time when increases in the budget have barely been able to keep up with the pace of inflation, thus holding practically constant the real resources available for publication.