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107th Congress                                                   Report
                                 SENATE
 1st Session                                                     107-60

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    FOREIGN RELATIONS AUTHORIZATION ACT, FISCAL YEARS 2002 AND 2003

                                _______
                                

               September 4, 2001.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

          Mr. Biden, from the Committee on Foreign Relations,
                        submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                         [To accompany S. 1401]

[...]

Sec. 205. Foreign Relations historical series

    This provision makes two amendments to increase reporting 
to Congress on the implementation of Title IV of the State 
Department Basic Authorities Act, relating to the Foreign 
Relations of the United States Historical Series.
     In 1991, Congress enacted Title IV out of concern for the 
timeliness and historical accuracy of the series, and mandated 
that it be a "thorough, accurate and reliable documentary 
record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant 
U.S. diplomatic activity." Title IV requires, among other 
things, that the Secretary ensure that volumes in the series be 
published not more than 30 years after the events recorded. A 
decade after the law was enacted, the Department remains out of 
compliance with this provision. The Department has yet to 
publish 11 of the 34 volumes from the Johnson Administration, 
which ended in 1969. The main reason for the shortfall, says 
the Department, is the "time-consuming declassification 
process." The Department reports that its historians access to 
the records of intelligence agencies has been "mixed" and 
that the Central Intelligence Agency has "fluctuated between 
allowing our historians fairly wide access to its files and, 
more recently, imposing some restrictions on research and 
copying of documents." The Committee is concerned that the 
Department remains out of compliance with Title IV, and urges 
the Department and other Executive Branch agencies to devote 
high-level and sustained attention to improving the access to 
intelligence materials for the Department's historians.

[...]




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