Selection and Editorial Policies

Principles of Document Selection for the Foreign Relations Series

In preparing each volume of the Foreign Relations series, the editors are guided by some general principles for the selection of documents. Each editor, in consultation with the General Editor and other senior editors, determines the particular issues and topics to be documented either in detail, in brief, or in summary. Some general decisions are also made regarding issues that cannot be documented in the volume but will be addressed in editorial or bibliographical notes.

The following general selection criteria are used in preparing volumes in the Foreign Relations series. Individual compiler-editors vary these criteria in accordance with the particular issues and the available documentation. The compiler-editors also tend to apply these selection criteria in accordance with their own interpretation of the generally accepted standards of scholarship. In selecting documentation for publication, the editors gave priority to unpublished classified records, rather than previously published records (which are accounted for in appropriate bibliographical notes).

Selection Criteria (in general order of priority):

1.

Major foreign affairs commitments made on behalf of the United States to other governments, including those that define or identify the principal foreign affairs interests of the United States;

2.

Major foreign affairs issues, commitments, negotiations, and activities, whether or not major decisions were made, and including dissenting or alternative opinions to the process ultimately adopted;

3.

The decisions, discussions, actions, and considerations of the President, as the official constitutionally responsible for the direction of foreign policy;

4.

The discussions and actions of the National Security Council, the Cabinet, and special Presidential policy groups, including the policy options brought before these bodies or their individual members;

5.

The policy options adopted by or considered by the Secretary of State and the most important actions taken to implement Presidential decisions or policies;

6.

Diplomatic negotiations and conferences, official correspondence, and other exchanges between U.S. representatives and those of other governments that demonstrate the main lines of policy implementation on major issues;

7.

Important elements of information that attended Presidential decisions and policy recommendations of the Secretary of State;

8.

Major foreign affairs decisions, negotiations, and commitments undertaken on behalf of the United States by government officials and representatives in other agencies in the foreign affairs community or other branches of government made without the involvement (or even knowledge) of the White House or the Department of State;

9.

The role of the Congress in the preparation and execution of particular foreign policies or foreign affairs actions;

10.

Economic aspects of foreign policy;

11.

The main policy lines of U.S. military and economic assistance as well as other types of assistance;

12.

The political-military recommendations, decisions, and activities of the military establishment and major regional military commands as they bear upon the formulation or execution of major U.S. foreign policies;

13.

The main policy lines of intelligence activities if they constituted major aspects of U.S. foreign policy toward a nation or region or if they provided key information in the formulation of major U.S. policies;

14.

Documentation that illuminates special decisionmaking processes that accomplished the policies recorded in particular volumes;

15.

Diplomatic appointments that reflect major policies or affect policy changes.

Scope and Focus of Documents Researched and Selected for Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, Volume XIII

The documentation printed in this volume highlights U.S. policy toward European economic and political integration, U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the U.S. attitude toward the Multilateral Force (MLF) and Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF). It further discusses the position of the United States with regard to the question of nuclear sharing within the Atlantic community.

The primary institution responsible for policy formulation on these questions was the Department of State. Documents were included from the files of Under Secretary of State George Ball, who drafted many of the papers on the MLF and ANF and directed the special working group devoted to these problems. He also participated in the conversations between Secretary of State Rusk and his foreign counterparts and President Johnson and European leaders when these topics were discussed.

Because of the extensive amount of documentation on U.S. participation in NATO, the editors selected summaries of the North Atlantic Council Ministerial meetings and summary records of the visits of the NATO Secretaries General to Washington, during which long series of [Page XI] conversations were held. The editors also focused on documenting the U.S. response to French withdrawal from the NATO military command structure in March 1966. President Johnson set the tone of the response and Francis Bator of the National Security Council Staff coordinated the details of the policy. For the period after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the editors selected documentation that shows that the White House took an active role in the formulation of policy toward NATO. The editors also selected reports from posts in Brussels, London, and Paris to document U.S. policy toward the general question of European economic and political integration and toward the second British application for membership in the Common Market in 1967.

Editorial Methodology

The documents are presented chronologically according to Washington time or, in the case of conferences, in the order of individual meetings. Incoming telegrams from U.S. Missions are placed according to time of receipt in the Department of State or other receiving agency, rather than the time of transmission; memoranda of conversation are placed according to the time and date of the conversation, rather than the date the memorandum was drafted.

Editorial treatment of the documents published in the Foreign Relations series follows Office style guidelines, supplemented by guidance from the General Editor and the chief technical editor. The source text is reproduced as exactly as possible, including marginalia or other notations, which are described in the footnotes. Texts are transcribed and printed according to accepted conventions for the publication of historical documents in the limitations of modern typography. A heading has been supplied by the editors for each document included in the volume. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are retained as found in the source text, except that obvious typographical errors are silently corrected. Other mistakes and omissions in the source text are corrected by bracketed insertions: a correction is set in italic type; an addition in roman type. Words or phrases underlined in the source text are printed in italics. Abbreviations and contractions are preserved as found in the source text, and a list of abbreviations is included in the front matter of each volume.

Bracketed insertions are also used to indicate omitted text that deals with an unrelated subject (in roman type) or that remains classified after declassification review (in italic type). The amount of material not declassified has been noted by indicating the number of lines or pages of source text that were omitted. Entire documents withheld for declassification purposes have been accounted for and are listed by headings, source notes, and number of pages not declassified in their chronological place. The amount of material omitted from this volume because it was [Page XII] unrelated to the subject of the volume, however, has not been delineated. All brackets that appear in the source text are so identified by footnotes.

The first footnote to each document indicates the document’s source, original classification, distribution, and drafting information. This footnote also provides the background of important documents and policies and indicates if the President or his major policy advisers read the document. Every effort has been made to determine if a document has been previously published, and this information has been included in the source footnote.

Editorial notes and additional annotation summarize pertinent material not printed in the volume, indicate the location of additional documentary sources, provide references to important related documents printed in other volumes, describe key events, and provide summaries of and citations to public statements that supplement and elucidate the printed documents. Information derived from memoirs and other first-hand accounts have been used when appropriate to supplement or explicate the official record.