§4353 Procedures for identifying records for FRUS series; declassification, revisions, and summaries

Summary

Departments and agencies involved in foreign policy must, within 180 days after October 28, 1991, make rules for their history office (or a named person if there is no history office). Those rules must let the agency work with the State Department’s Office of the Historian to pick records for the FRUS series. They must let people with the right security clearances, chosen by the Historian or who are on the Advisory Committee, see the original records. They must also let those people see other records not picked for FRUS if the Historian asks, so the Historian can check that the selected records show how policy decisions were really made. When the Historian picks records for FRUS, the agency that made the records must review them for declassification and finish that review within 120 days. If parts must be kept secret to protect intelligence sources or other national security needs, the agency must try to cut out only those parts. If those cuts would change the record’s meaning, the Historian and the agency must try to fix it and the agency must reply in writing within 60 days. The Historian must tell the Advisory Committee if reviews are late or if problems arise. If the Advisory Committee thinks deletions or selections would mislead the historical record, it must tell the Secretary of State and suggest fixes. The Advisory Committee must be allowed to see the unedited text of any altered record; if an agency head denies access, they must quickly write why and describe the record. The Historian must give the Committee a list of such records. Any record deleted in whole or in part must be noted in the FRUS volume.