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HIST 4224: United States and the World: The Cold War Era: U.S. State Department

This guide is a compilation of library and Internet resources that should be useful for researching the Cold War Era.

State Department Documents

The BGSU Libraries Government Documents Collection includes hundreds of U.S. State Department documents. This list is only a very small sample of the fascinating and useful documents that are available:

Foreign Relations of the United States

The Foreign Relations of the United States series, which began in 1861, is the official documentary historical record of significant U.S. foreign policy activities. These volumes include documents from a variety of U.S. government agencies, including the State Department, the Defense Department, the National Securityi Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other agencies involved in foreign policy and foreign affairs.

The types of documents in these volumes include:

  • Memoranda of conversation
  • Letters
  • Telegrams
  • Reports
  • Memoranda for the record
  • Minutes, transcripts, or notes of meetings
  • Airgrams
  • Intelligence Information Cables
  • Briefing papers
  • National Intelligence Estimates
  • National Security Action Memoranda

There are many volumes in this set. Because the materials in these volumes are considered classified for 30 years, and then must be evaluated for suitability to be published, the most current volumes cover 1989 in January 1919, although most of the available volumes include documents only to 1980.

NOTE: The State Department web site (listed below) has full text of the most recent volumes that have been released.