Advisory Committee on Historial Diplomatic Documentation

Overview
The U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation oversees the preparation of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, the official historical record of U.S. foreign policy, which dates back to the Abraham Lincoln Administration. In particular, the Committee is obliged by statute to ensure that the FRUS series constitutes a "thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of major United States foreign policy decisions." Inevitably, this statutory obligation brings the Committee into regular conflict with the tendency of certain agencies to resist declassification of their records.