IG: State Dept Should Produce 12 FRUS Volumes Per Year

The Department of State must begin producing new volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series at a rate of a dozen volumes per year if it is going to fulfill its statutory mandate to document the history of U.S. foreign policy not later than 30 years after the fact, the State Department Inspector General said in a new report (pdf).

“The [State Department Historian’s Office] is behind schedule in meeting the statutory FRUS deadline: HO historians only now are compiling the contents of the volumes covering the foreign policy of the Carter administration (1977-1981),” the Inspector General report said.  “To achieve compliance with the 30-year deadline, HO will need to accelerate the rate of publication to approximately 12 volumes per year.”

The IG audit found that after a controversial period of management turmoil in 2007 and 2008 culminating in a 2009 IG inspection report (pdf), conditions in the Historian’s Office had stabilized, with “improved morale, reduced factionalism, and [a] strengthened spirit of civility” as well as “greater openness and a more participatory style of management.”  But more recently, as the pace of internal reform has slowed, “morale has begun to decline.”

See “Report of Inspection: The Bureau of Public Affairs,” U.S. Department of State Office of Inspector General, February 2010, at pp. 34-38.