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 (Archives II) in College Park, Maryland.

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 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 as well as other White House foreign policy records. Presidential papers maintained and preserved at the Presidential libraries 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 a key source for the Nixon-Ford subseries of the Foreign Relations series.

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Sources for Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume XLII

In preparing this volume, the editor used almost exclusively the National Security Council (NSC) Files and the Henry A. Kissinger Office Files in Richard M. Nixon’s Presidential papers as sources for the memoranda of conversation. Each collection can be found in Richard M. Nixon’s Presidential papers. When the editor conducted the bulk of his research, Nixon’s Presidential papers were housed at the Nixon Presidential Materials Project in the National Archives at College Park, Maryland; they have since moved to the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

Material in these two collections extensively documents the Nixon administration’s management of its search for a negotiated peace in Southeast Asia. In the NSC Files, two files provided rich sources of documentation: 1) For the President’s Files (Winston Lord)—China Trips/Vietnam and 2) For the President’s Files—China/Vietnam Negotiations. In the Kissinger Office Files, the HAK Trip Files and the Country Files—Far East—Vietnam Negotiations provided similar valuable material. The Department of State’s Central Files, 1970-1973, POL 27-14 VIET, in Record Group 59 of the National Archives, provided the transcript of the last Kissinger-Le Duc Tho meeting.

A variety of sources provided material for the substantive part of the source notes/annotations. These include documents printed in other Foreign Relations volumes, messages to and from Le Duc Tho and the Politburo in Hanoi, official histories from Communist Vietnam, memoir literature of major U.S. participants, and secondary accounts by historians.

The following list identifies the particular files and collections used in the preparation of this volume. In addition to the paper files cited below, a growing number of documents are available on the Internet. The Office of the Historian maintains a list of these Internet resources on its website and encourages readers to consult that site on a regular basis.

Unpublished Sources

• Department of State
• Central Files. See National Archives and Records Administration below.
• National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland
• Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State
  • Central Files
    • POL 27-14 VIET: ceasefire in Vietnam
• Nixon Presidential Materials Project
  • National Security Council Files
    • Alexander M. Haig Special File
    • For the President’s Files (Winston Lord)—China Trip/Vietnam
    • For The President’s Files—China/Vietnam Negotiations
    • Kissinger Office Files
• Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • National Security Adviser Files
    • Memoranda of Conversations

Published Sources

• Doan Duc, Ninh Van Hop, Tran Quoc Buu, Ho Thi Phuong Thao, compilers. Major Events: The Diplomatic Struggle and International Activities During the Resistance War Against the Americans to Save the Nation, 1954-1975. Volume 4. Hanoi: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1987. Quoted material translated by Merle Pribbenow.
• Haig, Alexander M. Inner Circles: How America Changed the World: A Memoir. New York: Warner, 1992.
• Haldeman, H.R. The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House. Santa Monica, CA: Sony Imagesoft, 1994. Multimedia Edition (CD–ROM).
• ______. The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994. Print Edition.
• Kissinger, Henry A. Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
• ______. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979.
• ______. Years of Upheaval, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982.
• Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu. Le Duc Tho-Kissinger Negotiations in Paris. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 1996.
• ______. The Le Duc Tho-Kissinger Negotiations in Paris [Cac Cuoc Thuong Luong Le Duc Tho-Kissinger Tai Paris]. Vietnamese language edition. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 1996. Quoted material translated by Merle Pribbenow.
• Nguyen, Lien-Hang T. Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
• U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume VI, Vietnam, January 1969–July 1970. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006.
• ______. Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970-January 1972. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2010.
• ______. Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume VIII, Vietnam, January-October 1972. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2010.
• ______. Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972-January 1973. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2010.
• ______. Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume X, Vietnam, January 1973-July 1975. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2010.
• Walters, Vernon A. Silent Missions. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1978.