Office of the Historian

Sources

Sources for the Foreign Relations Series

The Foreign Relations statute requires that the published record in the Foreign Relations series include all records needed to provide comprehensive documentation of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant U.S. diplomatic activity. It further requires that government agencies, departments, and other entities of the U.S. Government engaged in foreign policy formulation, execution, or support cooperate with the Department of State historians by providing full and complete access to records pertinent to foreign policy decisions and actions and by providing copies of selected records. Most of the sources consulted in the preparation of this volume have been declassified and are available for review at the National Archives and Records Administration.

The editors of the Foreign Relations series have complete access to all the retired records and papers of the Department of State: the central files of the Department; the special decentralized files (“lot files”) of the Department at the bureau, office, and division levels; the files of the Department’s Executive Secretariat, which contain the records of international conferences and high-level official visits, correspondence with foreign leaders by the President and Secretary of State, and memoranda of conversations between the President and Secretary of State and foreign officials; and the files of overseas diplomatic posts. All the Department’s indexed central files through July 1973 have been permanently transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland (Archives II). Many of the Department’s decentralized office (or lot) files covering the 1969–1976 period, which the National Archives deems worthy of permanent retention, have been transferred or are in the process of being transferred from the Department’s custody to Archives II.

The editors of the Foreign Relations series also have full access to the papers of Presidents Nixon and Ford, and other White House foreign policy records. Presidential papers maintained and preserved at the Presidential libraries and the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at Archives II include some of the most significant foreign affairs-related documentation from the Department of State and other Federal agencies, including the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dr. Henry Kissinger has approved access to his papers at the Library of Congress. These papers are an important source for the Nixon-Ford subseries of Foreign Relations.

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Research for this volume involved special access to restricted documents at the Nixon Presidential Materials Project, the Ford Library, the Library of Congress, and other agencies. While all the material printed in this volume has been declassified, some of it is extracted from still classified documents. The staffs of the Nixon Presidential Materials Project and the Ford Library are processing and declassifying many of the documents examined for this volume, but they may not be available in their entirety at the time of publication.

The presidential papers of the Nixon and Ford administrations are the best source of high-level decision making documentation for U.S. foreign economic policy from 1973 to 1976. At the Nixon Library facility at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland, a number of collections from the National Security Council (NSC) files are relevant to research on foreign economic policy. Within the main NSC collection, the Agency Files (particularly the Treasury and Council on International Economic Policy files), Country Files—Europe (especially those files related to France and the Federal Republic of Germany, but also the files on the United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada), and Subject Files all contain important documentation; the Backchannel Messages, Presidential Correspondence, and VIP Visits also proved fruitful. The Country Files—Europe—General series within the Henry A. Kissinger Office Files contains some useful material, particularly on the March 1973 monetary crisis. The NSC Institutional Files (H-Files) contain records on high-level meetings, requests for studies, and presidential decisions; they provided crucial documentation on the two National Security Study Memoranda printed in this volume. Another useful series of files at the Nixon Library is the White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files; here the President’s Office Files (both the President’s Handwriting and President’s Meeting File) and the President’s Personal File (Memoranda from the President) are key. Both the White House tapes and the Kissinger telephone conversation transcripts provided important insights into the thinking of Nixon, Kissinger, Shultz, and other top U.S. officials, particularly during the monetary crises of February and March 1973. The President’s Daily Diary, in the White House Central Files, is useful for tracking the President’s daily schedule.

The National Security Council material at the Ford Library is organized into categories similar to those at the Nixon Library, many of which are useful when considering U.S. foreign economic policy. The Presidential Subject Files contain good documents on issues such as gold, trade, and food, while the Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada contain some useful documents, particularly on France. The Trip Briefing Books and Cables of President Ford collection contains documents on the 1975 and 1976 economic summits at Rambouillet and Puerto Rico, respectively, as well as the December 1974 [Page XIII] U.S.-French meeting at Martinique. The Memoranda of Conversations collection spans almost the entirety of the 1973 to 1976 period, making it an important resource not only for the Ford era, but for the Nixon era as well. The Kissinger–Scowcroft West Wing Office Files were invaluable on topics such as the Jackson-Vanik amendment and the trade bill, the 1976 economic summit, and issues associated with France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the United Kingdom. The NSC International Economic Affairs Staff files filled in a number of gaps in the documentary record, particularly on the 1975 and 1976 economic summits. The Institutional Files, NSC “NS” Originals File contained some useful documents, as did the Scowcroft Daily Work File; note that the latter, however, is a large chronological file that requires a good deal of patience to review. The NSC Institutional Files, which is separate from the primary National Security Adviser collection, contain documents related to one of the National Security Study Memoranda printed in this volume. The Ford Library also holds a number of other important collections useful to research on foreign economic policy. The President’s Daily Diary is an invaluable resource for following the President’s daily work schedule. The President’s Handwriting File, arranged by subject, yielded important documents on gold, food aid, and the 1975 and 1976 economic summits. Arthur Burns’s Papers, particularly the Federal Reserve Board Subject File, provide a wealth of information on U.S. gold policy. The L. William Seidman Files proved useful on topics such as food, commodities, agriculture, trade, and the economic summits, while the Alan Greenspan Files, in the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors Records, contain good documents on the Economic Policy Board. Finally, the Ford Library has a microfiche set of the William Simon Papers, which are housed in their original form at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

The Kissinger Papers at the Library of Congress are valuable, although the majority of the material relevant to economic policy is duplicated at the National Archives. The best documents on foreign economic policy in the Kissinger Papers were found in the Geopolitical File (particularly the files on France) and the Subject File.

In September 1973, Henry Kissinger became Secretary of State. The same year, the Department phased out the old subject-numeric Central Files, replacing them with an electronic system, the State Archiving System (SAS), which has been transferred to the National Archives and is part of the online Access to Archival Databases (AAD). Some of the most tightly held telegrams are not on the electronic system, but appear only on microfilm reels; the same is true of all non-telegram documents, such as memoranda of conversation, letters, briefing papers, and memoranda to principals. A number of Department of State lot files are also of special value: the records of Henry Kissinger (E5403); the Transcripts of Henry Kissinger’s Staff [Page XIV] Meetings with his principal officers at the Department of State (E5177); Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s Telephone Conversations (Department of State, Electronic Reading Room, Transcripts of Kissinger Telephone Conversations); the Records of the Office of the Counselor, Helmut C. Sonnenfeldt (E5339); and the files of Winston Lord, the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (E5027). The Office Files of William Rogers (E5439) contain a handful of important documents on the February 1973 monetary crisis.

Two final collections worthy of special note in documenting U.S. foreign economic policy are the Records of the Council on International Economic Policy and the Records of the Department of the Treasury. The Records of the Council on International Policy form a sub-collection in a larger record group, RG 429, Records of Organizations in the Executive Office of the President, and contain useful documents on topics such as trade, commodities, and food. The records of the Department of the Treasury, RG 56, are an absolutely crucial resource. Two Treasury collections in particular proved invaluable in the research of this volume: the General Subject Files of Under Secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs Paul Volcker and the Records of the Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz. The George Shultz records, it should be noted, also contain a wealth of important original material from the tenure of Secretary of the Treasury John Connally.

Unpublished Sources

  • National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland
    • RG 56, Records of the Department of Treasury
      • Executive Secretariat, General Subject Files of Paul Volcker, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs
      • Executive Secretariat, Records of the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
      • Executive Secretariat, Records of Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz
    • RG 59, Records of the Department of State
    • Lot Files.
      • S/P Files, Entry 5207 (Lots 77 D 112 and 77 D 114); Policy Planning Staff, Director’s Files (Winston Lord), 1969–1977
      • S/S Files, Entry 5177 (Lot 78 D 443); Transcripts of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meetings, 1973–1977
      • S/S Files, Entry 5339 (Lot 81 D 286); Records of the Office of the Counselor, Helmut C. Sonnenfeldt, 1955–1977
      • S/S Files, Entry 5403; Records of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 1973–1977
      • S/S Files, Entry 5439 (Lot 73 D 443); Office Files of William Rogers, 1969–1973
    • RG 429, Records of Organizations in the Executive Office of the President
      • Records of the Council on International Economic Policy
        • Records of Executive Committee Meetings
        • Records of Senior Review Group Meetings
        • Study Memoranda
  • Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland
    • Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts (Telcons)
    • National Security Council Files
      • Agency Files
      • Backchannel Messages
      • Country Files—Europe
      • Country Files—Far East
      • Institutional Materials
      • Presidential Correspondence
      • Presidential/HAK Memcons
      • Subject Files
      • VIP Visits
    • NSC Files, Henry A. Kissinger Office Files
      • Country Files—Europe—General
    • NSC Institutional Files (H-Files)
      • Meeting Files, Senior Review Group Meetings
      • Minutes of Meetings, NSC Meeting Minutes
      • Minutes of Meetings, Senior Review Group
      • Policy Papers, National Security Decision Memorandums
      • Study Memorandums, National Security Study Memorandums
    • White House Central Files
      • President’s Daily Diary
      • Staff Member & Office Files, Council of Economic Advisers, Herbert Stein
    • White House Special Files, Staff Member & Office Files
      • John D. Ehrlichman
      • Peter M. Flanigan
      • H.R. Haldeman
      • President’s Office Files: President’s Handwriting; President’s Meetings File
      • President’s Personal File: Memoranda from the President; Name/Subject File
    • White House Tapes
  • Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan
    • Arthur Burns Papers
      • Federal Reserve Board Subject File
    • National Security Adviser Files
      • Institutional Files, IF/NS File for the President
      • Kissinger–Scowcroft West Wing Office Files
      • Memoranda of Conversations
      • NSC International Economic Affairs Staff Files
      • NSC Meeting Minutes
      • Presidential Agency Files
      • Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific
      • Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada
      • Presidential Files of NSC Logged Documents
      • Presidential Name File
      • Presidential Subject File
      • Scowcroft Daily Work Files
      • Trip Briefing Books and Cables of President Ford
    • National Security Council Institutional/Historical Records
    • President’s Daily Diary
    • President’s Handwriting File
    • L. William Seidman Files
      • Economic Policy Board Subject Files
      • Seidman Subject File
      • Name Files
      • Foreign Trips Files
    • William Simon Papers
    • U.S. Council of Economic Advisors Records
      • Alan Greenspan Files: Federal Agency Correspondence; White House Correspondence; Subject File; Economic Policy Board Meetings
  • Library of Congress, Washington, DC
    • Papers of Henry A. Kissinger
      • Department of State
      • Geopolitical File
      • Record of Schedule
      • Subject File
  • Central Intelligence Agency
    • Executive Registry Files
      • Job 79–M00467A
      • Job 80–M01048A
      • Job 80–M01066A
    • Office of Economic Research Files
      • Job 80–B01495R

Selected Published Sources

  • de Vries, Margaret Garritsen. The International Monetary Fund, 1966–1971: The System Under Stress. Volume II, Documents. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1976.
    • ———. The International Monetary Fund, 1972–1978: Cooperation on Trial. Volume I, Narrative and Analysis. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1985.
    • ———. The International Monetary Fund, 1972–1978: Cooperation on Trial. Volume II, Narrative and Analysis. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1985.
    • ———. The International Monetary Fund, 1972–1978: Cooperation on Trial. Volume III, Documents. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1985.
  • Haldeman, H.R. The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House: The Complete Multimedia Edition. CD–ROM. Sony Electronic Publishing, 1994.
  • Kissinger, Henry. Years of Renewal. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999.
  • Solomon, Robert. The International Monetary System, 1945–1976: An Insider’s View. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.
  • United Nations. Yearbook of the United Nations, 1974–1975. New York: Office of Public Information, United Nations, 1977–1978.
  • United States. Department of State. Department of State Bulletin, 1973–1976. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973–1976.
  • United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968–1969, Book I. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970.
  • United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1971, 1972, 1973. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972, 1974, 1975.
  • United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, 1975, 1976–1977. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975, 1977, 1979.
  • Williamson, John. The Failure of World Monetary Reform, 1971–74. Sudbury-on-Thames, England: Thomas Nelson, 1977.