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 2: The Lyndon B Johnson Years, 1964-1968
(PRO Class FO 371/174260-174346, 179557-179622
& 184995-185056 and PRO Class FCO 7/738-884)

Lyndon B Johnson’s term of office witnessed one of the most fruitful periods of legislation in American history, with 226 of his 252 requests successfully passed by Congress. He came into office determined to address the domestic problems of poverty and race relations which were threatening to overwhelm American society. But his despite his ambitions and domestic achievements, his term of office is always inevitably overshadowed by his foreign policy decisions. Whatever his radical intentions to remodel American society, he will always be remembered as the President who got the American combat troops embroiled in the conflict in Vietnam. The documents included in this microfilm collection, however, reflect the wide range of events and developments that characterised the mid to late 1960’s and allow scholars a more balanced view of Johnson’s achievements and failures. The files created by the British Foreign Office provide an overview of America during this crucial stage of world history, and provide much information and interpretation of how the US and its government reacted to such events as:

- The escalation of the Vietnam War and the involvement of American combat troops
- The emergence of hippies and the ‘Counter Culture’
- The arrival of China as a nuclear power
- The high tide of the American civil rights movement and federal attempts to end segregation
- The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy
- The Space Race
- The founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966
- LBJ’s attempts to create the 'Great Society' through social legislation
- England’s victory at the World Cup finals of 1966
- The Arab-Israeli War of 1967
- The Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966
- The fall from power of Khrushchev in the USSR in 1964
- The release of the Sergeant Pepper album by the Beatles
- The ‘Prague Spring’ and subsequent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968

Of course, the purpose of these documents was not simply to accrue data for its own sake. The Labour government in Britain had returned to power in 1964 and its leader Harold Wilson was keen to continue the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US which had been developed by the previous Conservative administrations. Defence matters and co-operation between Britain, the Commonwealth and the USA make up a significant proportion of the collection. Other areas of especial emphasis include Britain’s trade and political relations with the USA and other countries, particularly Cuba.

The files included here also reveal how important it was to the British to comprehend American society and politics in order to maintain good relations with the US. Accordingly there are numerous documents detailing and analysing the goings-on in Washington and the personalities involved, as well as more general reports on opinion and events across America:

- Annual reviews for 1964-1967
- Internal political situation
- US presidential elections
- US attitudes to Europe
- Files on Robert Kennedy, Senator Fulbright, Senator Goldwater, Vice-President Humprey, - Robert NcNamarra and others
- Racialism, Civil Rights, race riots, the Black Power Movement and Malcolm X
- Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations

Please note that the merger of the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office during 1967 brought to an end to Class FO 371 - USA which was replaced by FCO 7. This merger between the two departments led to a temporary two-year rather than annual file cycle, whereby January 1967 to October 1968 papers ran on one cycle, and October 1968 to December 1969 papers on another. As a result, a few files relating to the last months of the Johnson administration (October-December 1968) will appear on the next instalment of this Series (Part 3: The Nixon Years) being caught up in the October 1968 to December 1969 cycle. After 1968, the cycle returned to an annual one running January to December.