This article was downloaded by: [Auckland University of Technology]On: 09 November 2014, At: 16:13Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,London W1T 3JH, UK

Diplomacy & StatecraftPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fdps20

The foreign affairs oralhistory programRichard J. Aldrich aa University of NottinghamPublished online: 19 Oct 2007.

To cite this article: Richard J. Aldrich (1993) The foreign affairsoral history program, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 4:2, 210-216, DOI:10.1080/09592299308405882

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592299308405882

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of allthe information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on ourplatform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensorsmake no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy,completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Anyopinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions andviews of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor& Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information.Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities

whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private studypurposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution,reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of accessand use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14

The Foreign Affairs Oral HistoryProgram

RICHARD J. ALDRICH

One might be forgiven for concluding that the United States remainssomewhat ahead of Great Britain in terms of the interest in and effortdevoted to oral history. Over the years many researchers have drawnupon the well-known and generously supported oral history projectsmanaged by the Presidential Libraries, particularly those associatedwith Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy andJohnson. There are other important American centres such asColumbia University with its long-established historical interviewproject. Moreover, in the United States, both serving and retiredofficials appear to be remarkably willing to talk about subjects thatare either very recent or still somewhat sensitive.

However, there are important and extensive collections of oralhistory transcripts located elsewhere in the United States, whichremain surprisingly neglected, indeed to British researchers some arealmost unknown. This short article seeks to say a little about what isavailable at one such archive and, in parenthesis, to mention severalothers that seem to hold promising materials for those studyingdiplomacy and statecraft in the twentieth century.

The Foreign Affairs Oral History Program was set up in 1988 bythe Association for Diplomatic Studies in cooperation withGeorgetown University.1 It is based in the Lauinger Library atGeorgetown University, Washington DC under the active direction ofCharles Stuart Kennedy, himself a retired diplomat. By the summer of

Diplomacy &C Statecraft, Vol.4, No.2 (July 1993), pp.210-16PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14

FOREIGN AFFAIRS ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM 211

1992 this continuing project had interviewed over 1,000 personneland transcribed the resulting material for access by researchers. Thesubjects for these interviews include career and non-career ambassa-dors, attachés, consuls and United States Information Agencyofficers. Many of these interviews are very detailed with some tran-scripts running to over 100 pages. Duplicate copies are also depositedin the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute.

The interviews are largely conducted by the staff of the OralHistory Program itself. Others have been conducted by the UnitedStates Information Agency Alumni Program or the Foreign ServiceFamily History Project. Accordingly, many of the interviewers arethemselves retired Foreign Service personnel and this often results inan intriguing line of enquiry, for example concerning diplomaticprocedure or career structures, areas about which the academic re-searcher might not immediately think to ask. Although the interviewsfocus primarily upon policy-making at a senior level, the intention isto capture something of all aspects of American diplomacy and toconstruct a unique record of the role of the individual in the makingof foreign policy. Consequently, attention has been given not only toWashington DC but also to approximately 200 overseas posts andmissions. Typical of the diplomats who have been interviewed are DrRobert Bowie and ambassadors Marshall Green and DouglasMacArthur II.

For contemporary historians and political scientists alike the valueof this material is enhanced by the extensive time period that has beenaddressed, the 1930s all the way through to the 1990s. For thoseworking on subjects later than the early 1960s, a period for whichmost primary documentation is not yet open to public inspection, thisoral history material is especially valuable. Its utility is furtherenhanced by the increasing delays now encountered in screening,processing and releasing some American records pertaining to the1950s (typically many State Department Lot Files).2 The interviewtranscripts themselves are mostly available without restriction.

Although the Program attempts a broad coverage of all Americandiplomatic activity, there are a number of areas that have receivedparticular attention. A special project on the United StatesInformation Agency has recently been completed and further specialprojects are under way focusing upon relations with the People's

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14

212 DIPLOMACY & STATECRAFT

Republic of China, administration of the Marshall Plan and the workof consular staff. Further initiatives under consideration include re-gional projects on Central America, the Middle East and SouthernAfrica. There are also plans to begin a further project to expandspecific intelligence holdings. The latter proposal is partly intended tocomplement the famous Bowen Collection of published intelligenceliterature, held in the same building.3

The utility of this oral history collection is increased by the carefulcross-indexing of the material that has been undertaken by the staff.The transcripts are obviously listed by name of interviewee. Moreimportantly perhaps, there is also a subject and geographical locationindex which allows a researcher to identify quickly material on, forexample: the United States Information Agency (35 interviews) orPolicy Planning (nine interviews) or New Delhi (14 interviews) orBerlin (13 interviews). Once the specific interview transcripts ofinterest to the researcher have been located, each interview is itselfcarefully indexed by name and subject. Research is further facilitatedby permission to self-photocopy from the transcripts.

Precisely what sort of material awaits the researcher at George-town? Two areas, the 1962 Nassau conference concerning thePolaris Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile System (SLBM) andsome intelligence matters, have been chosen here to provide briefexamples.

A number of transcripts shed light upon thinking at a high levelwithin the State Department on the American transfer of SLBMtechnology to Britain in the early 1960s and in particular upon therespective positions taken by various sections of Kennedy's adminis-tration over the issues of Skybolt and Polaris. There are also materialsgenerated by those who, like Assistant Secretary of State Willis C.Armstrong, attended the conference at Nassau with Kennedy andMacmillan.

Armstrong's recollections are particularly interesting. He remem-bers Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, as generally Anglophile, butmore interested in Asia than in Europe. Moreover, Rusk was notconsidered to be Anglophile in military matters and, as in the case ofSkybolt, 'was not a man to argue with the military' over procurementdecisions. Although Rusk and Kennedy were reasonably well dis-posed towards Macmillan over nuclear issues, Armstrong recalls that

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14

FOREIGN AFFAIRS ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM 213

in Washington there remained two centres of strong opposition toBritain's acquisition of Polaris. Firstly, the United States Navy:

To get the U.S. Navy to go along with this was very hard work.The U.S. Navy does not believe in giving any other navy any-thing except the back of its hand. They had to be draggedkicking and screaming into this . . . Then afterwards how doyou implement the agreement? How do you keep the U.S. Navyfrom sabotaging the whole thing, which a lot of people sus-pected they would try to do?4

The negotiators at Nassau were also required to counter a secondcentre of opposition. There was an undercurrent of resistance, includ-ing Europeanists in the State Department, who saw this as 'an absol-utely beautiful moment to eliminate the British independent nucleardeterrent'. He continued: 'A lot of people thought the Britishshouldn't be allowed to have one any more than the French should beallowed to have one; only we should be allowed to have one.'5

Equally interesting material abounds on the subject of intelligence.Although a major project to interview intelligence officers per se isnot yet under way, the collection provides a very useful (perhapsunique) window upon intelligence from the perspective of the pro-fessional diplomat, perhaps sharing the same concerns, but often withdifferent roles and responsibilities. Moreover, the strong collection ofUnited States Information Agency interviews sheds light not onlyupon publicity work but also upon areas related to black propa-ganda. Predictably, there is a great deal of material recounting theproblems that American diplomats experienced with foreign securityservices. One official who served in post-war Vienna recalls theimpact upon American diplomatic missions of the famous bugging ofan ornamental seal in George Kennan's office in Moscow:

The business of surveillance was a tricky one . . . We werewarned about this. I was once told that the Germans hadperfected photography so that they could photograph a piece ofpaper through a window from 200 feet away and then wouldenlarge it . . . In Vienna later, we had little radios put in ourembassy offices and when I had anyone in for conferences, wewould put on the radio so it would play music. This was after it

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14

214 DIPLOMACY & STATECRAFT

was discovered in Moscow that Ambassador George Kennan'soffice seal had been tapped and our security boys were up on theroof once and they heard Ambassador Kennan dictating to hissecretary. They were able to pick it up there . . . This was in theearly '50s.6

There is similar material illustrating the impact of security prob-lems upon intelligence liaison between Britain and the UnitedStates. Typically, a prominent ambassador, reflecting on the pro-cess of Anglo-American information exchange in the 1960s,recalled: 'We'd worked very closely with the British. We exchangedvery sensitive information with them in the early and mid '50s,really until the Philby and Suez crises came along.' He emphasizedthat Kim Philby, the Soviet agent within Britain's Secret IntelligenceService (MI6), had

. . . just exposed things to the Soviets all over the place. Well, Ifound that we had some ongoing relationships with the Britishthat were — you could oversimplify by calling them piecing-off[sic] relationships. In other words there were things we weredoing with them simply to have them think that Philby and theSuez Canal crisis hadn't had all that much effect on our relation-ships. [Laughter] But at the same time we were being very, verycareful about what we really did with them. But we had tocontinue these relationships outwardly.7

Are there other, similar, treasure troves of neglected materials await-ing the researcher in the United States? The answer is yes, but many ofthe other collections are not so readily accessible. The United StatesAir Force holds extensive oral history materials in its history libraryat Boilings Air Force Base in south-east Washington DC and at itshistorical centre at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. The UnitedStates Army also holds a great deal of material at the US ArmyMilitary History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, abouttwo hours' drive to the north of Washington DC. The United StatesNaval Institute at Annapolis, Maryland, located about an hour'sdrive to the east of Washington (although not visited by the author) isalso considered to hold a very extensive collection of transcripts ofinterviews with senior naval officers.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14

FOREIGN AFFAIRS ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM 215

British researchers should however be advised that they would bewise to write to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London requestingadvice many months before visiting some of these service institutions.The applicant will be asked to go through a security vetting procedureadministered by the International Visitors Clearing Office (IVCO) atthe MoD. IVCO are most cooperative but inevitably this is not aquick process. The vetting process is undertaken at the request of theUnited States because there is growing concern about security threatsto sensitive sites such as Boilings Air Force Base, with its largeDefense Intelligence Agency establishment and elaborate presidentialcommunication facilities. Understandably the American authoritiesare unhappy about unknown people just ambling onto the base.

The US Air Force wish foreign visitors to have a letter of introduc-tion from the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force(International Affairs). This is something of a formality, but can onlybe obtained by British visitors subsequent to the IVCO process at theMoD or, if the British visitor is already in the United States, throughthe attache's offices at the British embassy. Although the military staffat the British embassy are very helpful, they will need to refer to theMoD in London and the whole process is much simpler if completedbefore departure from the United Kingdom. Researchers should notbe deterred by the IVCO process, which consists primarily of com-pleting a fairly straightforward questionnaire.8

University of Nottingham

NOTES

The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of the American Council of LearnedSocieties, the ESRC and the Fulbright Commission in conducting research for this essay.

1. Those requiring further information on the holdings at Georgetown University shouldcontact Charles Stuart Kennedy, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, LauingerLibrary, Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057, USA, telephone: 202 6874104.

2. Ironically, these delays are partly due to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).Departmental staff normally allocated to the routine release of records are increasinglydiverted to deal with the growing volume of FOIA requests. The net result is a decreasein the amount of material being released.

3. Both the Bowen Collection and the interview transcripts are held in the Special

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14

216 DIPLOMACY & STATECRAFT

Collections Department on the fourth floor of the Lauinger Library at GeorgetownUniversity. This is normally open weekdays 9 am to 5 pm other than holidays.

4. Transcript of an interview with Assistant Secretary Willis C. Armstrong, 29 Nov. 1988,Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, pp. 35-7. Among this opposition group wereGeorge Ball, Bob Schaetzel and Henry Owen, the latter serving in the Policy Planningsection. This transcript will also confirm the views of those who have some methodologi-cal reservations about oral history. The Polaris system under discussion at Nassau isreferred to by the subject erroneously as the Trident system and then as the Poseidonsystem.

5. Ibid. Armstrong also recalled details of the unwelcome intrusion of the Canadian PrimeMinister, Diefenbaker, into the conference before the discussions over Polaris had beencompleted. Neither Kennedy nor Macmillan liked Diefenbaker very much and after anawkward lunch Kennedy reportedly remarked that 'We sat there much like three whoresat a christening'.

6. Transcript of an interview with Chester H. Opal, 10 Jan. 1989, Foreign Affairs OralHistory Program, p. 14.

7. Transcript of an interview with Ambassador Harrison M. Symmes, 25 Jan. 1989, ibid.,p. 36.

8. International Visitors Clearing Office, Ministry of Defence, D MOD SY 5C1/IVCO,Room 2/1, Metropole Building, Northumberland Avenue, London WC2N 5BL, tele-phone 071 218 0073.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Auc

klan

d U

nive

rsity

of

Tec

hnol

ogy]

at 1

6:13

09

Nov

embe

r 20

14