American Foreign Policy (SAIS)
U.S. Government Documents Sources
- GovInfo.govA website providing access to official publications of all three branches of the United States government.
- ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new windowFull-text Congressional hearings, CRS reports, Congressional Record and other congressional documents, back to 1789.
- Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS)Comprehensive analysis of policy issues. Produced by CRS, a federal legislative branch located within the Library of Congress. Includes reports published since 2018. Older reports will be retrospectively added.
- Congress.govPending US legislation and US law enacted in recent sessions of Congress.
- CQ Congress Collection This link opens in a new windowHistorical analysis of members of Congress, their legislative voting behavior, and interest groups.
- U.S. Presidential LibraryIncludes Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Public Papers of the Presidents, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, and more.
- DTIC (Defense Technical Information Center) This link opens in a new windowA resource for Department of Defense and other government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business research.
- NTIS (National Technical Information Service) This link opens in a new windowUnclassified reports from US (and some int'l) government agencies. If full-text is not available, try Google or contact a librarian.
- USAID Development Experience ClearinghouseConsultant and subcontractor reports from USAID projects
- Hein Online This link opens in a new windowMultiple collections of U.S. government, foreign relations and international law sources.
- National Security ArchiveLocated at George Washington University' Gelman Library, this archive provides access to an important collection of declassified material.
For more collections of U.S. documents, see the US Government in Databases @ JHU by subject.
The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity (volumes are accessible by year, or by presidential administration). The series includes more than 350 volumes, beginning in 1861. Due to declassification and editing, there is an approximate 40-year time lag in publication. The Frary Library, at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., maintains a print set of FRUS (call number JX 233. A3) from 1861 – 1980.
FRUS was preceded by:
- Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States 1783-1789
- American state papers (1789-1838, all published). Select the volume covering Foreign Relations.
- Index to United States documents relating to foreign affairs, 1828-1861 (3 vol.)
- Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs - Covers 1861-1867. Online and in print.
- The revolutionary diplomatic correspondence of the United States - Correspondence from the records of the Department of state, 1775-1783. Also available in print
The U.S. Department of State website includes major speeches, policy statements, fact sheets, and a wealth of other foreign policy information. Archived material from the State Department website (back to 1990) is available via the State Department Archived Websites page.
Other earlier sources from the State Department (in descending chronological order) include:
- Digest of United States Practice in International Law - Annual publication reviews treaty actions and international law cases.
- U.S. Department of State Dispatch - The successor to the Dept. of State Bulletin, covering 1990-1999. Online and in the Periodicals Room.
- Department of State Bulletin - The official monthly record of United States foreign policy, published 1939-1989. Online only.
- American Foreign Policy: Current Documents (1956-1967 and 1981-1991)
- American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents 1977-1980 - Online and in print
- American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1950-1955 - Online and in print
- Decade of American foreign policy : basic documents 1941-1949.
- Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new windowVia ProQuest, collections of declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events from 1945 to present.
- U.S. Declassified Documents Online This link opens in a new windowOnline access to previously classified government documents, covering major international events from the Cold War to the Vietnam War and beyond.
- National Security Archive (GW site) This link opens in a new windowLink to the digitized collections of the National Security Archive, based at George Washington University's Gelman Library. Note you can also use the ProQuest version, called the Digital National Security Archive.
- Documents and Minutes of the National Security CouncilTo search both the "Documents of the National Security Council" and "Minutes of Meetings of the National Security Council" sets, select the "International Relations and Military Conflicts" collection, then select to search the "Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy" collection.
- Presidential Directives SourcesLibrary of Congress page listing resources that reproduce presidential directives
- Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading RoomView documents released through the FOIA and other CIA release programs.
- FBI Records: the VaultDeclassified digitized FBI records.
- Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)From the Nat'l Archives, a guide to the process of requesting (through FOIA) a document that hasn't already been declassified.
- U.S. Department of State Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)Each federal agency is responsible for meeting its FOIA responsibilities for its own records. This site offers guidance for requesting State Dept. documents.
- ForeignAssistance.govData from USAID
- ProQuest statistical abstract of the United States2013- in print
- Statistical Abstract of the United StatesA good starting point for US data; and as a guide to other statistical sources. 1878-2012 available.
- Historical Statistics of the United States (Millennial Online Edition) This link opens in a new windowData from Colonial times through the 20th century.
- Data.govUS government demographic and economic data available using an open source platform
- U.S. Economic IndicatorsAvailable from the U.S. Census Bureau.
- International Historical StatisticsOnline version of 3 vol. set. Titled: Africa, Asia and Oceania; Americas; and, Europe. Updated to 2010.
For a comprehensive guide to data sources, please see the Library's Data Sources for International Relations.