There was a lot of buzz at AHA about Roger Louis’s resignation from the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee. His action apparently got the attention of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
There was ... a good deal of buzz [at the AHA] about the controversy generated by the resignation of the AHA delegate, Roger Louis (the former president of the AHA and a distinguished historian of the British empire), as chairman of the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee, whose main function is to offer advice to the Secretary of State and the Historian’s Office concerning the ongoing publication of the Department’s formal historical record, Foreign Relations of the United States. Congress has long required the department to provide a reliable documentary account of U.S. foreign policy, and FRUS (as the series is known) has been what historians and the general public (as well as the Congress) have used to understand the recent history of our foreign policy. The Historian’s Office is mandated to produce the volumes within 30 years of the events described. This has always been a difficult task for a number of reasons, not the least of them the need to declassify the documents to be printed.
Prof. Louis resigned on December 10 to draw attention to the fragile state of the Historian’s Office in recent years, and to request that the Secretary of State review its leadership and management. Louis and his colleagues on the advisory committee have noted publicly that under the current historian, Marc Susser, 15 historians or compilers (in a staff of 35 or so) have left over the past three years. Given that it takes years to train a member of the staff, this level of attrition is clearly inconsistent with both the timely publication and the maintenance of editorial quality of the series. Professor Louis felt strongly that the Historian’s Office was being poorly managed, and feared that without changes in management FRUS would not get back on track.
Resignation seems old-fashioned in Washington these days. It is certainly out of style. But in this case it appears to have worked, since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice summoned Louis and his colleagues to a meeting on the issue. She has now appointed a strong committee to review the matter and to report to her before the end of her term. For all historians (and others) who care about the timeliness and integrity of FRUS, this is an occasion for dancing in the streets. It’s good to know that the secretary cares about the history record. Bravo for her!
And that was the week in history.
Read entire article at Stan Katz in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (blog)
Prof. Louis resigned on December 10 to draw attention to the fragile state of the Historian’s Office in recent years, and to request that the Secretary of State review its leadership and management. Louis and his colleagues on the advisory committee have noted publicly that under the current historian, Marc Susser, 15 historians or compilers (in a staff of 35 or so) have left over the past three years. Given that it takes years to train a member of the staff, this level of attrition is clearly inconsistent with both the timely publication and the maintenance of editorial quality of the series. Professor Louis felt strongly that the Historian’s Office was being poorly managed, and feared that without changes in management FRUS would not get back on track.
Resignation seems old-fashioned in Washington these days. It is certainly out of style. But in this case it appears to have worked, since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice summoned Louis and his colleagues to a meeting on the issue. She has now appointed a strong committee to review the matter and to report to her before the end of her term. For all historians (and others) who care about the timeliness and integrity of FRUS, this is an occasion for dancing in the streets. It’s good to know that the secretary cares about the history record. Bravo for her!
And that was the week in history.