Stephen R. Weissman: Why is the U.S. Withholding Old Documents on Covert Ops in Congo, Iran?
[Stephen R. Weissman, former staff director of the House of Representatives’ Africa Subcommittee, is the author of “American Foreign Policy in the Congo 1960-1964” and “A Culture of Deference: Congress’s Failure of Leadership in Foreign Policy.”]
The US government has reacted strongly to Pfc. Bradley Manning’s alleged disclosure of recent diplomatic cables via Wikileaks. We have heard State Department officials make their good case that indiscriminate leaks of contemporary communications – however much they contribute to public understanding of foreign policy – can undermine diplomacy and endanger human lives. But what we haven’t heard is that the Department has been withholding from the public historical documents that bear strongly on two ongoing foreign policy crises.
For years the State Department has refused to publish two long-completed books of documents that would throw valuable light on the roots of America’s problems today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iran. Even 50 or more years after the events they depict, these books could have positive effects on US foreign policy.
Under a 1991 law, the State Department is required to continue to publish, within 30 years, “all records needed to provide a comprehensive documentation of...major foreign policy decisions and actions” – including relevant covert operations. A timely process for appropriate declassification is provided. The “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS) series is a primary source for researching and understanding American foreign policy and is widely used by scholars, students, journalists, and diplomats.
But two anticipated products of the 1991 law – “retrospective” volumes on Congo (1960-68) and Iran (1952-54) – have never appeared. The manuscripts were completed many years ago after historians criticized earlier volumes for ignoring reported Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programs that overthrew democratically elected governments and installed dictatorships. Incredibly, the “retrospective” books have been stuck in endless “declassification” reviews for up to a decade!...
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The US government has reacted strongly to Pfc. Bradley Manning’s alleged disclosure of recent diplomatic cables via Wikileaks. We have heard State Department officials make their good case that indiscriminate leaks of contemporary communications – however much they contribute to public understanding of foreign policy – can undermine diplomacy and endanger human lives. But what we haven’t heard is that the Department has been withholding from the public historical documents that bear strongly on two ongoing foreign policy crises.
For years the State Department has refused to publish two long-completed books of documents that would throw valuable light on the roots of America’s problems today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iran. Even 50 or more years after the events they depict, these books could have positive effects on US foreign policy.
Under a 1991 law, the State Department is required to continue to publish, within 30 years, “all records needed to provide a comprehensive documentation of...major foreign policy decisions and actions” – including relevant covert operations. A timely process for appropriate declassification is provided. The “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS) series is a primary source for researching and understanding American foreign policy and is widely used by scholars, students, journalists, and diplomats.
But two anticipated products of the 1991 law – “retrospective” volumes on Congo (1960-68) and Iran (1952-54) – have never appeared. The manuscripts were completed many years ago after historians criticized earlier volumes for ignoring reported Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programs that overthrew democratically elected governments and installed dictatorships. Incredibly, the “retrospective” books have been stuck in endless “declassification” reviews for up to a decade!...