Minutes of the 1967 Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States

PARTICIPANTS

• The Advisory Committee:
  • Hardy Cross Dillard, Dean of the School of Law, University of Virginia (American Society of International Law)
  • W. Stull Holt, Professor of History, University of Washington (American Historical Association)
  • Stanley D. Metzger, Professor of Law, The Georgetown University Law School (American Society of International Law)
  • Philip E. Mosely (absent), Director, European Institute, Columbia University (American Historical Association)
  • Elmer Plischke, Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland (American Political Science Association)
  • J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford University (American Historical Association)
  • Robert B. Stewart (chairman), Professor of International Law and Organization, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (American Political Science Association)
• The Bureau of Public Affairs:
  • Richard I. Phillips, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs
• The Historical Office:
  • William M. Franklin, Director
  • Richardson Dougall
  • S. Everett Gleason
  • Edwin S. Costrell
  • Arthur G. Kogan
  • Fredrick Aandahl
  • Rogers P. Churchill
  • Ralph R. Goodwin
  • Howard M. Smyth
  • Velma H. Cassidy
  • Herbert A. Fine
  • Marvin W. Kranz
  • Neal H. Petersen
  • John G. Reid
  • Charles S. Sampson
  • William Slany
  • David H. Stauffer
• The Publishing and Reproduction Services Division:
  • Jerome H. Perlmutter, Chief
  • Peter A. Smith

1. Opening Remarks

Mr. Franklin opened the meeting at 9:35 a.m. by welcoming the Committee and pointing out that the entire staff looked forward to its coming each year as a source of ideas and inspiration. He then introduced Mr. Richard I. Phillips, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, who greeted the Committee on behalf of Assistant Secretary Dixon Donnelley, who could not be present. Mr. Phillips expressed the gratitude of the Department of State and the Bureau of Public Affairs for the time and effort contributed by members of the Committee in helping with the problems and challenges facing the Historical Office. In addition to the work on Foreign Relations, the Historical Office was regularly called upon to meet a wide variety of current demands by the Department, and the Bureau of Public Affairs derived great benefits from the excellent standards of performance that it had maintained. Secretary Rusk and other high officials frequently asked P/HO to provide information or analysis on all sorts of questions. Looking at the 22 or 23 year gap that now prevails between events and the publication of Foreign Relations, Mr. Phillips then speculated on the problems that the editors and the Committee would face in 1990 when they tried to compress into a few volumes the complicated events of 1967. As a form of recognition for the valued advice and services of the Committee, Mr. Phillips concluded his remarks by suggesting that the members be named in the preface of each volume. Repeating his thanks to the Committee, Mr. Phillips then withdrew, stating that he would see the members again at luncheon.

Mr. Franklin (as ex officio chairman) then brought up the question of selecting a chairman for the group. Every sort of procedure had been employed over the years, but this year he ventured to point out that there was only one senior member present, namely Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart offered a counter-proposal, but he was chosen Chairman by acclamation.

2. Reports on Status of the Series and Publication Plans

Mr. Aandahl distributed copies of a progress chart, “Status of Volumes, November 1967” (annexed to these minutes), which showed that after some lean years several volumes were coming out this fall and winter. He pointed out that some recent volumes had been very large, so that there had not been much decline in actual output of pages as compared to earlier years. He gave a short account of the clearance process in the Departments of State and Defense and other agencies and foreign governments to the extent that they are involved. Mr. Franklin noted that business with the Department of Defense was increasing because the series was regularly concerned with interconnections of foreign policy and military strategy in the postwar world. In response to questions by Mr. Dillard and Mr. Stewart, Mr. Gleason pointed out that the Defense historians (Mr. Winnacker of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the historians of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Chief of Military History) often made useful suggestions for improving the text. In addition, they were more systematic about the process of clearance than many offices in the State Department.

Mr. Metzger said that he was struck by the inordinate delay shown on the chart between completion of manuscript and the beginning of clearance. Mr. Franklin said that most of this time was spent in technical editing and preparation of galley proof, and that Messrs. Perlmutter and Smith of the Publishing and Reproduction Services Division (PBR) would be present at 11 o’clock to discuss this aspect of the work.

Mr. Gleason referred to the large number of volumes scheduled to appear in the current fiscal year (the last one for 1944 and the first five for 1945). Some years ago Secretary Rusk had approved the principle that the series should be maintained at twenty years from currency. Under present conditions there was no hope of attaining this goal, but through more detailed advance planning, more rigorous selection of documents, and various editorial devices we at least were able to keep from slipping further behind the 20-year line. Mr. Gleason then stated that we were trying to do three things: (a) reduce the number of annual volumes to six or seven, (b) keep the volumes under 1,000 pages, and (c) compile a year in a year. We were making good progress on the first two. There are eight volumes for 1947 compared to twelve for 1945 (including conferences) and eleven for 1946, and we had considerably reduced the average number of pages. The third objective, to compile a year in a year, seemed unlikely of achievement because of staff shortages. We did not have enough historians to review and edit the mass of documentation for a given year and also attend to our other duties.

The bottleneck in technical editing, Mr. Gleason continued, seems susceptible of improvement. Some indexing work and technical editing had been contracted out to World Publishing Company in Cleveland, and this has eased the pressure on PBR’s own staff, which had not been able to process the various volumes fast enough. We are not yet sure, he said, that World can maintain the high standards of the series, but if they can do an acceptable job on some of the tasks, PBR should be able to keep the whole process moving on schedule and still maintain the necessary level of quality.

Mr. Holt questioned Mr. Gleason’s statement that progress was being made when the series was continuing to fall farther and farther behind, as shown in the time lag from the 1945 to the 1947 volumes. Mr. Gleason said that the series was still falling behind but at a slower rate, and Mr. Stewart commented that so long as it was impossible to compile a year in a year, falling further behind was inevitable. Mr. Franklin added that if we actually did a year in a year he would find it much easier to apply pressure to other offices to speed up clearance and technical work.

Mr. Stewart asked if this meant that the need for additional historians was the number one problem. Mr. Franklin said that over the years the Committee has several times recommended an increase of five or six historians, but this was never taken seriously. Perhaps the appointment of even two more would enable us to compile a year in a year. We had tried to be very realistic.

Mr. Sterling asked if this were a budget problem or a recruiting problem. Mr. Franklin answered that it was a matter of budget and “job slots”. Contracting out was fashionable and money was available for it, but there were no funds to hire new people to work in the Department. Messrs. Stewart and Sterling then asked what the Committee could do to help. Mr. Franklin summarized previous actions by the Committee and said that things would no doubt have been worse without these concrete indications that the scholarly world and the foreign affairs community were actively interested in the series, but little practical assistance had been forthcoming. The Department of State is always involved in some kind of international crisis, and priorities are necessarily given to emergency task forces rather than to Foreign Relations and other non-priority, continuing operations.

Mr. Gleason felt that what was really needed was an awareness among senior officers in the Department that there would be some practical advantage in having the 1945-1947 documents available now to show the origins of the Cold War. A new revisionism is growing up, but desk officers seldom appreciate the great value of a candid presentation of American foreign policy. Mr. Stewart asked if it would not be possible, given the tumultuous state of American public opinion on international questions, to ask for temporary measures to get these volumes out now in time to provide a sound factual basis for decision. Mr. Stewart thought that the Committee might wish to draw up some recommendation to this effect.

Mr. Franklin mentioned that the Committee would be having lunch with Under Secretary Katzenbach, who might be interested in these thoughts. His predecessor, Mr. George Ball, had shown a lively sense of history and had sent us a variety of urgent inquiries, many of which could be answered rapidly only because the material had been compiled for Foreign Relations.

Messrs. Churchill and Goodwin then described the current work of the Eastern and General Branches, calling particular attention to the vast amount of documentation available and the difficulty of compressing it into a few 1,000-page volumes.

Mr. Dillard asked about the delay in publishing the China volumes. Mr. Franklin explained that they were originally compiled in the 1950’s on a special speed-up basis, but that after publication of the first one, for 1942, Secretary Dulles had ordered the publication stopped. Secretary Rusk has agreed to the principle that the China volumes should be published with other volumes for the same year, and that is what we have done for the China volumes for 1943 and 1944. We hope to do the same for the 1945 volume.

3. Report on Wartime Conference Volumes

Mr. Franklin explained that objections by the Bureau of European Affairs (EUR) to publishing certain documents on the Azores had led us to transfer the records of the Third Washington Conference of May 1943 to the next volume. In addition to the volumes on Cairo-Tehran (1943), Malta-Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945), already published, the series will include: “The Conferences at Washington, 1941-1942, and Casablanca, 1943” (now cleared for paging), “The Conferences at Washington and Quebec, 1943”, and “The Conference at Quebec, 1944.” Mr. Dougall pointed out that he was now completing work on the first Quebec conference, but that it too contained material on the Azores. So this Trident-Quadrant volume may have to be held in galley for a while. Messrs. Stewart and Metzger expressed surprise that the Azores question could still cause trouble, and Messrs. Franklin and Gleason pointed out the steps that P/HO had taken to convince EUR and Embassy Lisbon that the main lines of the story had already been widely publicized. EUR held, however, that this was not the same as printing the documents in our own official publication.

Report on Problems of Technical Editing

Messrs. Perlmutter and Smith of PBR arrived at 11 o’clock to discuss problems of copy editing, preparation and correction of proofs, and indexing. Mr. Perlmutter said that he was pleased to report that nine volumes would be published during the current fiscal year. Much of the editorial work was being contracted out to World Publishing Company of Cleveland, which had established a special unit of four or five people to work exclusively on Foreign Relations. World had sent some of its executives to Washington to talk to Messrs. Franklin and Gleason, and P/HO had been very helpful in working out arrangements and explaining what needed to be done. Mr. Perlmutter felt that the picture was the brightest he had seen since becoming Chief of PBR.

Mr. Holt noted that last year’s minutes showed that Mr. Perlmutter had said five volumes would be published in fiscal year 1967, but only three had come out. Mr. Smith explained that the two late volumes had been delayed by indexing problems of private indexers other than World Publishing Company. World, on the other hand, had now prepared three indexes on time and in reasonably good shape, and he thought they were building up good experience for future indexes.

Mr. Holt asked if work were still being done by PBR directly, and Mr. Perlmutter replied that it was doing more than half of the technical editing for the series. Mr. Dillard asked what kinds of decisions the technical editors had to make, and Mr. Smith explained that these all related to style, typography, consistency, etc., whereas the historians retained full responsibility for the contents and general accuracy of the volumes. Mr. Perlmutter added that he thought there was a considerable financial saving to the Department in contracting out. Mr. Metzger asked why this was so. Mr. Perlmutter said that under the established accounting procedure PBR had a fixed charge of $6.75 per hour for its services, whereas World Publishing Company had a much lower rate, about $4.00. Mr. Metzger asked how this could be, when World was earning a profit. He wondered if contracting out really saved the taxpayer’s money or if this was only “playing with figures”. Mr. Perlmutter estimated that there was an actual saving of about 40 per cent.

Mr. Sterling stated that what Mr. Perlmutter was saying was that the United States Government should get out of the editing and publishing business. Mr. Franklin pointed out that the technical editors at PBR were in fact highly skilled, and it was not yet established that World could match the quality of their work. Mr. Dougall added that senior historians had had to spend much time reviewing and correcting the indexes produced so far by World, and this was certainly a hidden cost.

Mr. Franklin noted that the Department did not have at present any choice between hiring additional editors or contracting work out. That was not the issue, for PBR did not have enough staff to handle the entire job, and they were not allowed to recruit additional editors and indexers. So some of the work would have to be contracted out, as matters now stood. Mr. Stewart said that there clearly was a difference of opinion on matters of quality and cost. Mr. Perlmutter stated that he was a great champion of maintaining the integrity and standards of Foreign Relations but that he was also aware that many of the most skilled editors at PBR were approaching retirement. Mr. Franklin suggested that some replacements would certainly be necessary, but Mr. Perlmutter replied that the present outlook was that no new editors would be hired. When one retired, the “job slot” was taken away. Mr. Holt called attention to the two-year lag between clearance and publication, and Messrs. Perlmutter and Smith agreed that this was too long. They were trying to speed up the various stages, and had worked out a better schedule with the Government Printing Office (GPO). Mr. Metzger said that he was not prepared to accept a priori the idea that contracting was best, which seemed to be a “theological” attitude of PBR. Mr. Smith replied that under present limitations and circumstances PBR felt that there were pragmatic advantages to contracting out, given the present staff and workload. Mr. Metzger said he “decried” the idea of not hiring replacements to do a job that he felt properly belonged in the Government.

Mr. Stewart then asked if there was any way of reducing the two-year interval between clearance and publication. Mr. Dillard thought that this was much too long. Messrs. Perlmutter and Smith agreed, and they withdrew after saying that they thought that six to nine months could be saved, and that they were looking for new manuscript.

Mr. Gleason said that he was glad that the state of euphoria at the beginning of the discussion had been dispelled. Noting Mr. Perlmutter’s remark that his people at PBR were slow, Mr. Franklin said they were slow because they were accurate. Mr. Dougall added that the reason Mr. Perlmutter’s staff is relatively expensive is that he has not recruited any junior members lately.

Summing up, Mr. Stewart said that he sensed a feeling of frustration in the meeting as to exactly what the Committee could recommend about technical editing.

[The question of technical editing came up again briefly in the afternoon session. In connection with editorial procedures Messrs. Franklin and Gleason described various steps taken by P/HO to improve the condition of the manuscript and to eliminate the need for various tasks previously done by PBR. Despite the increased use of photocopies there were still many problems of legibility, marking for the printer, etc., and we needed competent technical editors as much as ever. Referring to the staffing problems described by Mr. Perlmutter, Mr. Holt then asked why the technical editors should not be transferred to P/HO, which was obviously interested in their work and dependent on it. Mr. Franklin said that until 1946 they had been part of the Division of Research and Publication, P/HO’s predecessor, but that as part of a general reorganization the editing function was one of the central services transferred to the Bureau of Administration. Their return to P/HO would probably offer no particular benefit except that we would put up a stiffer fight to obtain suitable replacements for the editors who retire.]

4A. Problems of Access to Department of State Records

Mr. Stewart said that the Agenda did not refer to problems of access to records but that he thought the Committee should take note of the recent news item about a book by Mr. Arthur Morse on the question of Jewish refugees in World War II. He wondered if the Historical Office had been under excessive pressure to make the records available, and whether this episode had any bearing on the proposal by the Ford Foundation to undertake a major project on the diplomatic history of the postwar years. [This discussion was interrupted when Messrs. Perlmutter and Smith came to discuss Agenda Item 4.]

In response to Mr. Stewart’s question about the Morse book, Mr. Franklin described the access policies of the Department, which are administered by the Division headed by Mr. Kogan. At present the open period extends to 1937, the restricted period to 1944, and the closed period from 1945. Mr. Morse received no special access but he received the benefit of our decision to treat the records of the War Refugee Board (and several other wartime agencies) as “restricted” all the way through to the end of the war rather than to keep the last two years closed. Recalling that Dr. Stewart had posed his question in connection with the proposed Ford Foundation project, Mr. Dougall stated that Mr. Morse had worked only in the restricted period, whereas the group that had Foundation backing was interested in the closed period.

Mr. Metzger asked why there should be a restricted period at all, in view of the difficulty of administering it. Mr. Franklin agreed and said that it was gradually being phased out. The open period keeps to thirty years of currency, while Foreign Relations gradually slips backward toward that point, thus squeezing out the restricted period. Mr. Kogan had come up with an even more radical plan, namely, to try to get the files opened for the entire war period as soon as all Foreign Relations volumes were published for 1945. The open period would then be held there until 1975, when it would again begin advancing a year at a time. Mr. Franklin thought that this plan had a fair chance of being accepted by the policy bureaus, if we pushed it vigorously. Since these bureaus had to review a lot of notes in the restricted period, they also had some real interest in having the files either open or closed.

The meeting recessed at 12:20 p.m.

6. Efforts to Expedite Output

a. Clearance

During the morning session Mr. Dillard had asked whether recommendations by desk officers and others for deletion were made in writing, whether reasons were given, and who had the final decision in the matter. Mr. Franklin had replied that objections were in writing, that reasons were usually provided and could be asked for if needed, and that cases of disagreement could theoretically be carried to the Secretary but in practice rarely went above the Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Mr. Dillard then asked if any material published in Foreign Relations had ever actually caused the Department real embarrassment. Mr. Franklin said that he did not know of any cases that were serious. There had been various minor flurries, almost always on material not expected to be troublesome. We had some difficulties because of the large number of elderly statesmen still in power, but many of these were more frank and realistic than their younger colleagues.

When the subject of clearance came up again in the afternoon session, Mr. Gleason summarized the current situation as “mixed”. The three-month deadline for return of galleys was seldom met, but on the other hand we had fewer cases of long delays of a year or more. With faster returns we were getting more requests for deletions, many of which showed a lack of awareness of what has gone before. The job of reviewing our galleys was usually assigned to very junior officers, who were hypercautious. With much effort we had been able to refute a great many objections and persuade the desks to withdraw them, but this was a very inefficient and laborious process. One promising development was the suggestion by Mr. Francis T. Murphy, Executive Director of the Bureau of Public Affairs, that senior officers awaiting reassignment be asked to undertake the clearance of galleys. The long-delayed documents on Palestine for 1945 had been cleared in this manner. Mr. Metzger suggested using retired Foreign Service Officers in the same way, but Mr. Franklin thought there might be security problems.

Mr. Gleason then noted that despite forebodings in some quarters the China volume for 1944 had caused not a ripple in the United States and only a small reaction in Taipei. Mr. Franklin added that we now publish the volumes without issuing a press release but instead include a routine announcement in Mr. McCloskey’s noon briefing. This helps to dispel the suspicion that the Department is publishing the volume for some special purpose. Mr. Plischke asked if there would be any advantage in releasing the volumes at regular intervals, perhaps quarterly. Mr. Franklin agreed that the automatic feature would be helpful but said that there would be difficult problems of scheduling and storage.

Mr. Dillard asked if definite guidelines had been sent to the bureaus responsible for clearance, and Mr. Franklin explained that a sheet with such guidelines accompanied each set of galleys sent out for clearance. The present one bore Mr. Franklin’s signature, but he felt that it might now be time to revise the document and have it signed by a higher officer. Mr. Stewart asked that a copy of the guidelines be included in these minutes.

Mr. Plischke, noting that under present arrangements the desks were delegating clearance to junior officers, asked if there were not some way to assign more of the responsibility to P/HO. Could not the historians assume the primary responsibility? They would naturally consult the desks in doubtful cases, but surely the historians were better informed than the desks on “the state of the question” except in very current matters.

Mr. Stewart asked if P/HO would be willing to accept this responsibility. Mr. Gleason replied perhaps, but that he wondered if the Department would be willing to grant it. Mr. Stewart thought it might be worth trying, and Mr. Plischke asked if there were anything the Committee could do to help. Mr. Gleason pointed out that the great stumbling block was that P/HO was not fully informed on current operations and negotiations, as in the recent cases involving Iceland and Portugal. In view of this Mr. Stewart asked if there were anyone except the desks who could handle clearance. Mr. Gleason replied that no one at a higher level could find time to deal with clearance on a regular basis.

In response to a question by Mr. Plischke, Mr. Gleason said that in general only about five per cent of the material had any trouble getting cleared. This five per cent caused much of the delay in the total product. Mr. Plischke then suggested that only this small amount be sent to the bureaus for clearance. Mr. Dillard said that P/HO should have primary responsibility for clearance and simply send to the desks whatever it felt might conceivably impair current negotiations. Mr. Metzger said that P/HO should be given a chance to operate with primary responsibility for clearance.

Mr. Franklin said that this could only be done if the Department were willing to accept the fact that publication of some items would occasionally “rattle the china” for a day or two, and not only with China volumes. Replying to questions by Messrs. Sterling and Plischke, he pointed out that P/HO has the authority to delete passages that might give “needless offense” to individuals or nationalities. He pointed out that we were in good company, since the latest documentary volume published by the Vatican had indicated the omission of some personal references.

Mr. Holt asked if anything could be done to enforce the three-month limit on clearances, and Mr. Gleason said that this would have to be mostly by persuasion. Mr. Stewart said that the Committee would study the note that accompanies galleys sent out for clearance and would offer some suggestions. Mr. Metzger thought the three months could be reduced to six weeks, since in any event the normal human reaction was to wait until two or three days before the deadline. Mr. Plischke asked if formal responsibility for clearance lay with P/HO or with the desks; Mr. Franklin replied that it lay with the desks (which have the formal authority to declassify papers within their purview). The trouble was that the desks did not regard the task as urgent, and unfortunately there had been much blurring in the Department of the distinction (once carefully observed) between the “urgent” and the “important.”

Mr. Stewart summed up this phase of the discussion by saying it would be desirable to get Under Secretary Katzenbach or some other high official to sign a clearance directive calling for prompt action and defining quite strictly what sorts of deletions were permissible. He thought it would be desirable to find ways of mobilizing senior officers to handle clearance, and he asked if there were anything further that the Committee could do to reduce the delays occasioned by the clearance process. Mr. Plischke asked if the Committee should recommend that responsibility for clearance be turned over to the Historical Office, and Mr. Gleason replied that he would be reluctant to accept it unless some way were found to ensure that we did not unwittingly interfere with current negotiations. Mr. Stewart said that the Committee would study the matter further after it received the minutes of the meeting. He felt it was important to emphasize the positive value of publishing these volumes.

b. Editorial Procedures

Mr. Stewart noted the enormous proliferation of papers in the wartime years and after. This made the historian’s task infinitely greater. Mr. Franklin added that the problem was intensified by the Department’s “ox-cart” filing system, and could only be solved by electronic storage and retrieval. Mr. Stewart asked that a survey be made to show how tremendously the documentation had increased since the war. Mr. Franklin agreed that this could be done.

Mr. Sterling raised the question discussed at the morning session of making a special effort to expedite publication of documents on the origins and early years of the Cold War. Mr. Stewart thought that the Committee should do something about this. He felt that the Chairman should draft and circulate among the members a letter to the appropriate officer presenting the strong case for accelerated publication of these important and timely papers.

Mr. Dillard pointed out that when he was a law student in the 1920’s the gap between events and publication was about nine years. Now it had reached twenty-three, and that was too much. He asked if P/HO had received enough support for budget and manpower from the Committee. What practical measures could the Committee take to help speed up this schedule?

Mr. Sterling commented that Foreign Relations had obviously been given a low priority for many years, and the results were not satisfactory. As a university president he knew that all projects had to compete for funds, and clearly you could not do everything at the same time. On the other hand, a careful administrator knew that various activities had to take turns. One year the law school got the money, and maybe next year the library or the physics department. The whole operation had to be kept in balance. It seemed to him that it was the turn of the Historical Office to get the necessary support.

Mr. Holt noted that for years the American Historical Association and other learned societies had been passing resolutions pointing to the real needs of Foreign Relations and calling for additional public support. Had these done any good? Mr. Dougall expressed the view that without these resolutions the situation would have been worse.

Mr. Metzger asked about the possible use of Foundation funds to provide interns, and there was general discussion of the legal and recruiting problems involved. The idea was once more being explored, but it was agreed that an intern was no adequate substitute for a fully-trained permanent member of the staff.

Mr. Sterling expressed a feeling of helplessness that he had felt before as a member of advisory committees. He did not have precise knowledge of the budgetary and appropriations situation. It always came down to the crunch with the dollar sign on it. He felt that the Committee was at a disadvantage because it did not know the exact financial situation.

Mr. Holt then asked if crash programs interfered with the regular output of Foreign Relations. Mr. Franklin explained that most of the work done for the White House, the Secretary, and other high officials (referred to by Mr. Phillips in his opening remarks) was done by the Historical Studies Division, headed by Mr. Costrell. As a rule the Foreign Relations staff was not called on for this work. Mr. Stewart thought that a summary chart of the Historical Office organization and duties might assist the Committee in its attempt to draft recommendations for additional staff.

Mr. Dougall cautioned that the Department did not wish to ask for any more “job slots”. The Department would expect instead that additional jobs for the Historical Office would be found elsewhere in the Bureau of Public Affairs. The Bureau in turn would ask that additional jobs for Foreign Relations be taken out of the Historical Studies Division.

Mr. Dillard cited programs of the Defense Department to allow various specialists to meet their military obligations by working in their particular fields; could we find some historians in this way? Mr. Plischke thought the same thing might apply to young Foreign Service Officers before going overseas.

Mr. Stewart brought up the earlier suggestion by Mr. Phillips that the names of the members of the Committee be listed in the preface of Foreign Relations volumes. Mr. Franklin noted that this practice had been followed in the military-history volumes and in the Documents on German Foreign Policy. After some discussion the Committee agreed that it would be difficult to know which names to print in the front of any given volume, in view of the changing membership. They were willing to consider the matter further, if P/HO felt that it would help the series.

Mr. Stewart expressed the Committee’s appreciation for the lively and interesting session with the members of the Historical Office. It was agreed that the Committee would adjourn to attend a briefing by Secretary Rusk and would then return for a private meeting. The meeting adjourned at 4:10 p.m.