An Important Records Transfer

John W. Carlin

This spring, the National Archives and Records Administration is marking a milestone in its stewardship of the records of the federal government with the receipt of the its first major body of electronic textual records. These important records are the first increment of electronic documents that contain cable communications between the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., and foreign service posts all over the world. They also include records from other federal agencies, Congress, the public, and foreign embassies and consulates in the United States. They date from July 1973 to December 1974—a historic time for our nation. After a period of processing, these history-rich electronic documents will be available to the public via the Internet through our Access to Archival Databases (AAD), the first publicly accessible application developed under our Electronic Records Archives (ERA) program.

In an April 13 ceremony at the State Department, I accepted the first increment of these electronic records from Secretary of State Colin Powell. We also signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a research partnership involving our ERA program and the department’s State Messaging and Archival Retrieval Toolset (SMART) relating to the next generation of State Department electronic records.

State Department documents and other records dealing with U.S. foreign affairs are the second most heavily used category of NARA materials after genealogical records. Moreover, these State Department records will be the starting point for American historians, students, and others who want to research U.S. foreign relations during this period. The documents will also be important for students, historians, and scholars from foreign countries where records of the decisions of their public officials, the actions of government, and events in their nation’s history are not available to the public—or simply do not exist. Now, foreign researchers can learn about their country’s history by reading what our diplomats were saying about events in their countries as those events unfolded.

The period covered by these records, 1973 to 1974—during which Henry Kissinger was secretary of state—saw some dramatic changes in the United States and the world. The war in Vietnam was winding down as the United States was disengaging itself from the Southeast Asian conflict. War erupted once again in the Middle East, followed by efforts for peace through shuttle diplomacy involving Israel and its Arab neighbors. U.S. relations with the People’s Republic of China and its Communist rulers were beginning their long road to normalization, and we were engaged in détente with the Soviet Union and its leaders in the Kremlin. The Watergate scandal, involving the break-in at Democratic headquarters and the subsequent coverup, drove Richard M. Nixon from the presidency and replaced him with a man all but unknown to the rest of the world, Gerald R. Ford.

After the records are processed, we plan to have all fully releasable cables available on AAD. There, either the document itself or a finding aid can be accessed on the Internet. In fact, it is just this kind of collection of records—the day-to-day chronicles of one of our cabinet-level departments—for which AAD was designed. Through keyword searches in AAD, researchers will be able to access all of the records except those that are classified or restricted.

The accessioning of these records comes after years of work by a number of individuals at the State Department and NARA. The Department of State’s Office of IRM Programs and Services reviewed the records for security classified materials and prepared the records for transfer. The department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, made up of historians, political scientists, archivists, international lawyers, and specialists in the field of U.S. foreign relations, performed a valuable service in moving this process along.

As the first increment of these records comes to NARA, we and the State Department are launching a joint research project into technical issues relating to the future transfer of all State Department records to NARA. The research will involve a project that will transfer test collections to NARA and evaluate archival access issues.

The accessioning of these State Department records is important not only for the rich trove they will provide for researchers from all over the world, but also for providing us a preview of the way we will operate when the ERA is operational.