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

Part 1: The John F Kennedy Years, 1960-1963

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

It is probably fair to say that no President since Lincoln has had such an enduring fascination as John F Kennedy; the combination of youth, charm, optimism, crisis and tragedy that characterised his term of office has assured his place in history. Throughout the world he has become in many ways, the very embodiment of 1960's America, his name forever linked with the turbulent events and changing aspirations that marked the opening years of the decade. However, despite the popular image, there is much debate surrounding the study of the man and his administration. This collection of documents from the British Public Record Office allows scholars to study in depth the administration from a British view point, offering a unique perspective on its achievements and failures. The material collected here by the Foreign Office covers the whole range of issues facing Kennedy, and is largely free of the partisan political analysis of many domestic American sources. Instead it offers interpretations and reports on American issues from a British point of view that provides an excellent complement to the US State Department files.

Elected in November 1960, Kennedy's term in office covered some of the most dangerous and challenging events to face the world since the Second World War. From the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis, to the escalating hostilities in South East Asia and the building of the Berlin Wall, the threat of conflict and even nuclear war was always a tangible possibility that shaped public opinion and governmental action. It was also a period of great domestic upheaval and technological advances, with the emergence of the civil rights movement and the first manned space flights having a lasting effect on both American and world culture. This project not only gives a British view on these major events, but also looks at the wider implications of the domestic, cultural, economic and military issues, on America and beyond.

Beginning in the last days of the Eisenhower administration, Part 1 of this series starts with a retrospective summary of the events of 1959, before looking in detail at the presidential election of November 1960. There are a number of files on the campaign, the personalities and the result, as well as the implications for America and Britain of Kennedy's narrow victory. 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 Fullbright, 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 (AUTEC) 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, Khrushchev and Castro'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. There are key files on such subjects as:

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

Starting in 1960, Foreign Office Files: United States of America Series One provides comprehensive coverage of all FO 371 files for each US administration from Kennedy onwards and includes such material as:

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 United States 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 2 of the series will provide the FO 371 files for the Lyndon B Johnson Administration; whilst Part 3 will cover the Nixon years.

"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

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..."

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