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)

Publisher's Note

Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908 - 1973)

The term of office Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the USA, 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 pressing 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. For, whatever his radical intentions to remodel American society, he will always be remembered as the President who committed American combat troops to the conflict in Vietnam. The documents included in this microfilm collection, however, reflect the whole range of events and developments that characterised America and American society during 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 United States and its government reacted to such events and situations 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 and the Cultural Revolution of 1966
• 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
• Race relations and the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966
• LBJ’s attempts to create the “Great Society” through social legislation
• Events in western Europe and the development of the ‘Common Market’
• The Middle East and the Arab Israeli War
• Relations with the Soviet Union and Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964
• 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 but to provide interpretations and explanations of American motives and policies. 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 American trade and political relations with the Britain, and other countries, particularly Cuba.

The files included here also reveal the importance that the British placed on attempting to comprehend American society, politics and public opinion 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 opinions and events across America. Such files include:

• Annual reviews covering the years from 1964-1967
• Internal political situation
• US presidential elections
• UK/US political relations
• Economy
• US attitudes to Europe
• US government appointments
• Files on Robert Kennedy, Senator Fulbright, Senator Goldwater, Congressman Powell, Vice-President Humphrey, Robert NcNamara and others
• Civil rights, racism, race riots, the black power movement and Malcolm X
• Visits by officials to and from the USA

Please Note:
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 class 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 very 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.

Following on from Part 1 of the Series, which covered the John F Kennedy years, Part 2 provides the chronological continuation for President Johnson’s term of office, 1964-1968. Part 3 of the series will provide the FCO 7 (USA) files for the Richard M Nixon years.

Thomas Gray
May 1999

“Publication of these documents promises to facilitate research in records crucial to understanding British foreign policy, US diplomacy, and international relations in the Cold War era.”

Peter Hahn
Associate Professor of History
Ohio State University

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