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FOREIGN OFFICE FILES: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Series One: USA - Politics & Diplomacy, 1960-1974
(Public Record Office Classes FO 371 and FCO 7:
American Department - United States)

Part 1: The John F Kennedy Years, 1960-1963
(PRO Class FO 371/148576-148649, 156435-156516,
162578-162648 & 168405-168491)

FO 371 is known to scholars of modern history as the 'backbone' class of the Foreign Office files in the British Public Record Office. In it are found the great mass of key documents produced by the Foreign Office. These are an excellent complement to the US State Department files.

This series provides comprehensive coverage of all FO 371 files for each US administration from 1960 onwards.

Material includes:

- Annual review files describing, in a single document, the overall trends and activities in a given country in a particular year.
- Reports on the internal political situation of a country.
- Reports on the political relations of the United States with other nations around the world including Britain and the Commonwealth, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Brazil, Pakistan, Latin America and the Soviet Union.
- Reports on American commercial relations with other nations around the world.
- Reports on visits by UK politicians and diplomats to the country and of representatives of that nation to the UK.
- Special subject files on topics of the day (everything from Agriculture to Broadcasting, and from Race-Riots to US Aid and the Mutual Security Programme, Cuba, Panama and Puerto Rico).

Part 1 of the series starts with complete coverage of FO 371/ USA for the Kennedy years, 1960-1963. President Kennedy's visits to the UK and Europe are fully documented including his 1963 visit to Berlin, as well as visits by Johnson, Nixon, and Senators Fulbright, Anderson and Irwin, and George Ball of the US State Department.

There is much material on US Aid and the Mutual Security Programme including reports on the US military presence in Europe and around the world, nuclear tests, weather stations and the Atlantic Under-water test and Evaluation Centre in the Bahamas.

The relations of America with British Commonwealth nations is also well documented, especially regarding the West Indies, Rhodesia, British Guiana, Nigeria, the Pacific Islands and Australia. There are special files on racial discrimination, civil rights, aid to Latin America (the ‘Alliance for Peace’ programme), the space race, Khruschev’s visit to the United Nations, and the assassination of President Kennedy and international reaction to his death.

This project provides an ideal basis for the study of the United States during the Kennedy years, Anglo-American relations, international diplomacy, the impending crisis in Vietnam, Cuba, economics, trade and the continuing growth of a super-power.

Part 1 contains key files on:

- The Far East
- The US political situation
- The US economy
- The Media and Government relations with the press
- Trade Unions and Industrial Relations
- American Bases in the UK and Europe
- Bases in the West Indies
- Cuba and Central America
- Foreign Policy towards Latin America
- The Soviet Union
- Defence Policy
- Civil Rights and Race discrimination
- US Policy in Africa and the Middle East

The following extract from FO 371/168405, the Annual Review for 1962, gives a taste of he material. It starts:

"The year 1962 has been fully satisfying neither to the Kennedy Administration nor to the United States people as a whole. The year started with the President firmly in the saddle with widespread popular support and assisted by a team of undoubted competence. The apprenticeship was over, the economic soothsayers confirmed the omens were good, surely the persistent problems of domestic and foreign affairs would yield before this determined and gifted Administration? In the event, it was twelve months of considerable frustration and disappointment, and by the year end most of the spectres that haunt the average thinking American had still to be banished. But this is not to imply that the year was without special significance. The steady recovery of the stock market after its steep decline in May, the sharpest since the war; the passage of the Trade Expansion Bill with bipartisan support; the Cuban success and a new relationship with India resulting from China’s attack on her, were four major developments which will have a lasting influence on the Administration’s thought and policies..."

"All three series of Foreign Office Files: United States of America should be warmly welcomed for making easily accessible, materials indispensable to a fuller, international history of the Cold War."
Michael H Hunt
Emerson Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 



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