Sources Relating to U.S. Foreign Relations: Europe

This collection of declassified analytic monographs and reference aids, designated within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Intelligence (DI) as the CAESAR, ESAU, and POLO series, highlights the CIA's efforts from the 1950s through the mid-1970s to pursue in-depth research on Soviet and Chinese internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations. The documents reflect the views of seasoned analysts who had followed closely their special areas of research and whose views were shaped in often heated debate.

The documents in this collection introduce readers to high-level officials of the U.S. Department of State during the Kennedy administration, notably Dean Rusk, secretary of state; Foy D. Kohler, assistant secretary of state for European Affairs until August 1962 and thereafter ambassador to the Soviet Union; Martin J. Hillenbrand, director of the Berlin Task Force and Office of German Affairs until July 1963, thereafter assistant secretary of state; Llewellyn E. Thompson, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union until July 1962; and Walter C. Dowling, U.S. ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) until April 1963.

Other individuals who figure prominently in this collection include Konrad Adenauer, FRG chancellor until October 1963; Charles de Gaulle, president of France; Nikita S. Khrushchev, chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union; and Andrei Gromyko, Soviet foreign minister. Additional foreign dignitaries surface often in these documents.

Covers colonial activities of France, Germany, Italy and Portugal. These collections are reproduced from the US National Archives and Records Administration record group 59, General Records of the Department of State, being the decimal (subject) files on internal affairs of the European countries – the African colonies are included as a small portion of these large files.

The State Department Diplomatic Post Records consist of correspondence and reports from American diplomats stationed around the world. Diplomatic post records are those kept at the embassies or legations rather than those kept in Washington. Diplomatic post records contain the incoming messages from Washington, retained copies of outgoing dispatches, locally gathered information, and background material on decision making. This module includes Russia and the Soviet Union.