Primary sources from the diplomatic history of the Kennedy administration reveal the prominence of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the minds of policymakers at the time, and especially Cold War-era concerns with restricting Soviet influence in the Middle East. Contemporary readers of these documents, available in this official archive of the U.S. State Department, will recognize the intractability of some of these issues.

In addition to Kennedy-era sources, this archive includes formal and informal diplomacy (official reports, correspondence, and transcriptions of Presidential tape recordings), charting major U.S. foreign policy decisions from the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon-Ford administrations. The bulk of the material covers the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, with special emphasis on Israel, Egypt, and Iran. Other prominent topics include the Vietnam War, Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Foreign Economic Policy, China, and the Soviet Union. Pairing these documents with media reports would allow for an interesting examination of the parallels and disparities between public awareness and government considerations in the construction of foreign policy.

Read a more in-depth review of Foreign Relations of the United States written by Nancy Stockdale of the University of North Texas.

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