Breaking law, Bush Administration fails to declassify 30-year-old files Nick Juliano

Published: Tuesday July 15, 2008





Print This Email This Failure continues pattern of Bush secrecy Thirty years. That's how long it's taken the State Department to publish an accounting of US foreign relations. And they're not even done -- the Department is again going to miss a mandatory three-decade legal deadline to publish an accounting of its foreign relations activities. "The 'Foreign Relations of the United States' (FRUS) series, which is the official documentary history of U.S. foreign policy, remains unlikely to meet the legal requirement that it be published no later than 30 years after the events that it describes, an official advisory committee has told the Secretary of State," The Federation of American Scientists' Steven Aftergood reported Tuesday. Despite many and repeated assurances that this problem would be addressed by 2010, the committee is now very skeptical that the Office of the Historian will succeed in meeting the 30-year requirement for the Foreign Relations series at any time within the next decade, the State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation writes in its latest report. "Compliance with the 30 year deadline is not optional; it is a binding legal requirement," Aftergood notes. He cites a 1991 statute: The Secretary of State shall ensure that the FRUS series shall be published not more than 30 years after the events recorded." Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was admonished for the department's failure to keep up with declassification rules by the advisory committee created in concert with that 1991 law. "The committee, however, is disappointed to have to report on the continuing failure to meet the 30-year requirement for the Foreign Relations series. Although there are many factors that may have contributed to this failure  the always present concern with balancing secrecy and the publics right-to-know, possible shortages of personnel and/or resources, and recent presidential directives  they don't even think they'll be able to meet their deadline by 2010. Foot dragging the department apparently has affected morale and may lead to retirement of some career employees, Aftergood wrote. "The committee must really be concerned for the report to be so explicit and emphatic, one former State Department official told Secrecy News. Adds Aftergood: "In a delicate allusion to reports of morale problems in the Office of the Historian and the ensuing resignations of professional staff, the Advisory Committee strongly recommended that State Department Human Resources personnel "conduct mandatory exit interviews to determine the principal reasons behind the departure of skilled researchers.'" Of note: the State Department also plans to offer reduced coverage of US policy during the Reagan Administration -- if and when they eventually complete the report. The committee is concerned that despite a collection of 8.5 million classified pages in the Reagan Library, compared with the Nixon years 2.5 million pages, the Office plans substantially fewer volumes of the FRUS series, they wrote.