Preface

The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity of the United States Government. The Historian of the Department of State is charged with the responsibility for the preparation of the Foreign Relations series. The staff of the Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, under the direction of the General Editor of the Foreign Relations series, plans, researches, compiles, and edits the volumes in the series. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg first promulgated official regulations codifying specific standards for the selection and editing of documents for the series on March 26, 1925. These regulations, with minor modifications, guided the series through 1991.

Public Law 102–138, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which was signed by President George H.W. Bush on October 28, 1991, established a new statutory charter for the preparation of the series. Section 198 of P.L. 102–138 added a new Title IV to the Department of State’s Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 4351, et seq.).

This statute requires that the Foreign Relations series be a thorough, accurate, and reliable record of major United States foreign policy decisions and significant United States diplomatic activity. The volumes of the series should include all records needed to provide comprehensive documentation of major foreign policy decisions and actions of the United States Government. The statute also confirms the editing principles established by Secretary Kellogg: the Foreign Relations series is guided by the principles of historical objectivity and accuracy; records should not be altered or deletions made without indicating in the published text that a deletion has been made; the published record should omit no facts that were of major importance in reaching a decision; and nothing should be omitted for the purposes of concealing a defect in policy. The statute also requires that the Foreign Relations series be published not more than 30 years after the events recorded. The editors are convinced that this volume meets all regulatory, statutory, and scholarly standards of selection and editing.

Structure and Scope of the Foreign Relations Series

This volume is part of a subseries of volumes of the Foreign Relations series that documents the most important issues in the foreign policy of Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. The subseries presents in multiple volumes a comprehensive documentary rec [Page IV] ord of major foreign policy decisions and actions of both administrations. Volume XXXVIII has been divided into two parts: Part One, published in 2012, documents the intellectual foundations of the foreign policy of the second Nixon and Ford administrations; Part Two, this specific volume, covers the organization and management of the foreign policy process as well as the development of U.S. information policy, public diplomacy, and cultural affairs during the 1973–1976 period. Readers should note that while the two parts have individualized prefaces and notes on sources, reflecting their respective contents, the two sections share common abbreviation and name lists.

Focus of Research and Principles of Selection for Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XXXVIII, Part 2

This volume documents the adjustments in the national security decision making structure in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, drawing predominantly on material from the Nixon Presidential Materials, the Ford Library, and records of the United States Information Agency (USIA) and the Department of State. While an important, defining feature of the 1973–1976 period was the August 1974 resignation of President Nixon, the abrupt transition to the Ford administration brought relatively few changes to the architecture of the foreign policymaking apparatus where the National Security Council (NSC) system and the Department of State were concerned. Ford largely maintained the institutional frameworks of the NSC and the Department of State as set up under his predecessor. Change, where it occurred, occurred primarily as a result of other external factors. This volume documents the ways in which broader changes within U.S. society, most notably the changing roles of women and minorities, as well as the proliferation of transnational, global issues prompted organizational changes to U.S. foreign policymaking. The Stanton Panel Report of 1975 figures prominently in the documentation on public diplomacy, as it examined the range of activity in this function—including Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, USIA, and the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs—and the issues of governance in such a complex multi-agency endeavor.

The structure and activity of the Intelligence Community formed another major organizational focus for policymakers in this period. As the Nixon administration began its second term, its leaders maintained an emphasis on reorganizing the Intelligence Community to ensure that it was more efficient and responsive to larger policy objectives. Additionally, to meet the growing importance of international economic matters in foreign policymaking perceived by both the Nixon and Ford administrations, greater priority was given to economic intelligence.

These efforts were overshadowed, however, by the December 1974 leak of a catalog of illegal domestic operations conducted against U.S. [Page V] citizens by the Intelligence Community under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, known colloquially as the “Family Jewels,” and the series of Congressional investigations that followed. While the Ford administration attempted to pre-empt Congressional involvement by appointing its own blue-ribbon investigatory panel under the chairmanship of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, both the Senate and the House created their own special committees to investigate the Intelligence Community in early 1975. The volume documents the administration’s often difficult interactions with these committees, reflecting the White House’s and the intelligence agencies’ resentment of what they regarded as Congressional interference in intelligence matters they considered their exclusive preserve. Nevertheless, the investigations pushed the administration to institute significant reforms of the intelligence apparatus.

Editorial Methodology

The documents are presented chronologically according to Washington time. Memoranda of conversations are placed according to the date and time of the conversation, rather than the date a memorandum was drafted. Documents chosen for printing are authoritative or signed copies, unless otherwise noted.

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 of the Declassification and Publishing Division. The documents are 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 within 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 original text, except that obvious typographical errors are silently corrected. Other mistakes and omissions in the documents are corrected by bracketed insertions: a correction is set in italic type; an addition in roman type. Words or phrases underlined in the original are printed in italics. Abbreviations and contractions are preserved and a list of abbreviations is included in the front matter of each volume. All brackets that appear in the original text are so identified in footnotes. All ellipses are in the original documents.

Bracketed insertions have been added 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 and, where possible, the nature of the material not declassified has been noted by indicating the number of lines or pages of text that were omitted. Entire documents that were withheld from release have been ac [Page VI] counted for and are listed with headings, source notes, and number of pages not declassified in their chronological place.

The first footnote to each document includes the document’s source, original classification, distribution, and drafting information. This note may also provide the background of important documents and policies and indicates whether the President or his major policy advisers read the document.

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 has been used where appropriate to supplement or explicate the official record.

The numbers in the index refer to document numbers rather than to page numbers.

Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation

The Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, established under the Foreign Relations statute, reviews records, advises, and makes recommendations concerning the Foreign Relations series. The Advisory Committee monitors the overall compilation and editorial process of the series and advises on all aspects of the preparation and declassification of the series. The Advisory Committee does not necessarily review the contents of individual volumes in the series, but it makes recommendations on issues that come to its attention and reviews volumes, as it deems necessary to fulfill its advisory and statutory obligations.

Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act Review

Under the terms of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA) of 1974 (44 USC 2111 note), the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has custody of the Nixon Presidential historical materials. The requirements of the PRMPA and implementing regulations govern access to the Nixon Presidential historical materials. The PRMPA and implementing public access regulations require NARA to review for additional restrictions in order to ensure the protection of the privacy rights of former Nixon White House officials, since these officials were not given the opportunity to separate their personal materials from public papers. Thus, the PRMPA and implementing public access regulations require NARA formally to notify the Nixon Estate and former Nixon White House staff members that the agency is scheduling for public release Nixon White House historical materials. The Nixon Estate and former White House staff [Page VII] members have 30 days to contest the release of Nixon historical materials in which they were a participant or are mentioned. Further, the PRMPA and implementing regulations require NARA to segregate and return to the creator of files private and personal materials. All Foreign Relations volumes that include materials from NARA’s Nixon Presidential Materials Project are processed and released in accordance with the PRMPA.

Declassification Review

The Office of Information Programs and Services, Bureau of Administration, conducted the declassification review for the Department of State of the documents published in this volume. The review was conducted in accordance with the standards set forth in Executive Order 13526 on Classified National Security Information and other applicable laws.

The principle guiding declassification review is to release all information, subject only to the current requirements of national security, as embodied in law and regulation. Declassification decisions entailed concurrence of the appropriate geographic and functional bureaus in the Department of State, other concerned agencies of the U.S. Government, and the appropriate foreign governments regarding specific documents of those governments. The declassification review of this volume, which began in 2009 and was completed in 2012, resulted in the decision to deny 4 documents in full, excise a paragraph or more in 6 documents, and make excisions of less than a paragraph in 21 documents.

The Office of the Historian is confident, on the basis of the research conducted in preparing this volume and as a result of the declassification review process described above, that the record presented here provides an accurate and comprehensive account of the organization and management of U.S foreign policy.

Acknowledgements

The editors wish to acknowledge the assistance of officials and staff at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in particular Donna Lehman, Helmi Raaska, and Geir Gundersen, and the Nixon Presidential Materials Project of the National Archives and Records Administration (Archives II) at College Park, Maryland. The editors also wish to acknowledge the Richard Nixon Estate for allowing access to the Nixon Presidential recordings and the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace for facilitating that access. John Haynes of the Library of Congress was responsible for expediting access to the Kissinger papers, including the transcripts of Henry Kissinger’s telephone conversations. The editors were able to use the Kissinger Papers with the permission of Henry Kissinger. Special thanks are due to the His [Page VIII] torical Staff of the Central Intelligence Agency, who were helpful in arranging full access to CIA files.

M. Todd Bennett and Alexander R. Wieland collected the documentation for this volume and selected and edited it under the supervision of Edward C. Keefer, former General Editor of the Foreign Relations series. M. Todd Bennett, then Chief of the Europe and Global Issues Division, compiled the chapter on cultural and public diplomacy. Renée A. Goings, Carl Ashley, Keri Lewis, Aaron W. Marrs, and Mandy A. Chalou performed the copy and technical editing, and Dean Weatherhead and Chris Tudda coordinated the declassification review under the direction of Carl Ashley. Do Mi Stauber and Associates prepared the index.