Reading the history of U.S. foreign relations just got a lot more convenient. The Office of the Historian has officially released two contributions to the President’s Digital Government Strategy: (1) an expanded selection of ebooks that are tailor-made for reading on mobile devices like smartphones, ereaders, and tablets, and (2) a new online service that software developers can use to embed our full ebook catalog within their sites and apps.

[Update, May 23, 2013: A third party iOS application, ShuBook, released an update that included the full Office of the Historian ebook catalog in the app. ShuBook [iTunes] (also discussed below in the original post), now includes the ebook catalog in its list of built-in catalogs, dramatically simplifying the task of accessing our catalog from the app, and providing a better experience to readers. We welcome third party developers to incorporate our catalog, in keeping with the spirit of the Digital Government Strategy. Resources for developers are at http://history.state.gov/developer.]

Our ebook program, which began as a pilot project last year, graduates today and now has a full-fledged role in the Office’s publishing endeavors. Now over 100 volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series are available for free download from our ebooks page.

But as anyone who has tried loading an ebook from a website onto a device can tell you, those steps can be a little complicated.

Today, we are releasing an online service that allows our ebook catalog to be embedded inside apps. In other words, instead of coming to our website to download ebooks, you can browse our catalog from within your ebook app.

In software developer terminology, this means we have made our catalog into an Application Programming Interface (API). (Are you a developer interested in integrating the catalog into your applications? Visit our new “Developer Resources” page at http://history.state.gov/developer.)

To illustrate how you can use our ebook catalog API—today, and for free—let’s look at how you can add our catalog to a third party application. ShuBook [iTunes] is a free, iOS-based ebook catalog browser and ebook reader application. (This is not an endorsement of ShuBook; we have selected ShuBook merely as an example of functionality that many fine ebook apps offer.) When you download and open ShuBook, you can tap on its Download tab to look at its list of ebook catalogs, which include Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and FeedBooks.

[Update, May 23, 2013: Now the Office of the Historian ebook catalog is built in to ShuBook, and is listed alongside these other fine catalogs.  The original instructions in this post for manually adding our catalog are still preserved below, since they illustrate the process of adding our catalog to a third party application.]

Here, ShuBook’s Download tab is shown selected, which reveals the list of built-in catalogs.

Besides browsing these built-in catalogs, ShuBook also lets you add other catalogs by entering their URLs. This is how you can add the Office of the Historian’s catalog to ShuBook. From the Download tab shown above, select the Custom tab and then tap the + icon in the top menu bar.

Here, we have selected the Custom tab, revealing the + icon in the top menu bar.

Now, tap on Add Catalog:

In the Add Catalog dialog box, enter “Office of the Historian” as the Book Source Name. For the Catalog Address, enter http://history.state.gov/api/v1/catalog. For Icon Address, you can leave this blank or enter http://static.history.state.gov/images/HistoryAtState-avatar.jpg:

Then click Save, and ShuBook will show the catalog in the list of custom book sources:

Now you can tap on the new entry for the Office of the Historian catalog, ShuBook will contact our server and retrieve the top-level categories for our catalog, “All Volumes,” “Recently Published,” and “Browse By Keyword”:

Then, if you select a top-level category like “All Volumes,” ShuBook makes another request to our catalog to retrieve the list of all volumes currently available as ebooks. The “Recently Published” entry shows an always up-to-date list of the most recently published ebooks. The most interesting way to browse is using the third option, “Browse by Keywords.” This lets you browse our volumes by People, Places, or Topics (a hierarchical subject keyword of U.S. foreign relations). You can also search the keywords to find volumes by tapping in the search bar at the top of each page of our catalog. (Until we integrate this subject keyword-based functionality into our website, our ebook catalog API is the only place it exists.)

Follow any of these routes to find a volume, and tap on it to see more information:

That is the full size cover image of the Foreign Relations volume on the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you decide you want to download this book to read it on your device, just click the blue “Download” button in the top-right corner, and ShuBook retrieves the latest version of the ebook from the Office of the Historian’s servers and places it in your library, where you can read and search the entire book, whether you are connected to the Internet or not.

We hope our readers enjoy the ebooks and the new ways of browsing our catalog. Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions to history@state.gov.

We also look forward to working with third party developers who want to integrate our ebooks and catalog API into their applications and find innovative uses of this data. Please visit our Developer Resources page.

For more information on the Department of State’s participation in the Digital Government Strategy, see the reports at http://www.state.gov/digitalstrategy/.

The Office of the Historian released Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Volume XIII, China.

This volume is the first publication in a new subseries of the Foreign Relations series that documents the most important foreign policy issues of the Jimmy Carter presidential administration. The documentation in this volume focuses primarily on the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, as well as the concomitant ending of formal diplomatic relations between the United States and the Republic of China (Taiwan). This shift in formal recognition played out against a background of renewed fighting in Indochina, deterioration in U.S.-Soviet relations, and political and economic changes in China associated with Deng Xiaoping’s consolidation of power.  Over the course of the period documented, the United States and the People’s Republic of China accelerated the development of economic, cultural, technological, and, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, military relations.

This volume was compiled and edited by David Nickles. The volume and this press release are available on the Office of the Historian website at http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v13. Copies of the volume will be available for purchase from the U.S. Government Printing Office online at http://bookstore.gpo.gov (GPO S/N 044-000-02657-1; ISBN 978-0-16-091743-1), or by calling toll-free 1-866-512-1800 (D.C. area 202-512-1800). For further information, contact history@state.gov.

Come join staff members from the Office of the Historian for panels and discussions at the American Historical Society’s 127^th Annual Meeting in New Orleans (January 3–6, 2012). Here is a roundup of our activities at AHA this year:

1. Interested in working for the government? Sit in on the workshop “Finding and Loving a Government Job,” which will focus on various career opportunities for historians within the federal government.
2. Interested in how government historians are grappling with digital history, new historical methods, and technologies? Join us for “Public History in the Federal Government: Continuing Trends and New Innovations,” a roundtable discussion among historians from the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Department of State. We will be discussing the latest developments in our e-book program.

Check out the full AHA meeting program here for the list of panels. Follow us on Twitter at @HistoryAtState for more leading up to and during the conference.

The Department of State released today Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXVII, Iran; Iraq, 1973–1976.

This volume, part of a subseries of the Foreign Relations series that document the most important issues in the foreign policy of the administrations of Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, documents U.S. policy towards Iran and Iraq from 1973 to 1976. The volume’s six chapters are divided into two chronological sections. The first section documents the increasingly close political, economic, and strategic relationship, which developed between the U.S. and Iran during the mid-1970s; the second section covers Washington’s somewhat more distant interactions with Iraq, with whom the United States did not maintain formal diplomatic relations following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

This volume was compiled and edited by Monica Belmonte. The volume and this press release are available on the Office of the Historian website at http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v27. Copies of the volume will be available for purchase from the U.S. Government Printing Office online at http://bookstore.gpo.gov (GPO 044-000-02650-3; ISBN 978-0-16-090256-7), or by calling toll-free 1-866-512-1800 (D.C. area 202-512-1800). For further information, contact history@state.gov.

usnatarchives:

While the Founding Fathers were busy creating the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson was missing the action. Instead, he was in Paris. Congress had sent Jefferson to Paris to serve as a trade commissioner, but he ultimately replaced Benjamin Franklin as minister to France. Despite the distance, he would influence the debate on the Constitution through correspondence with key leaders, including fellow Virginians James Madison and George Washington during the lead up to the Convention and the subsequent ratification debates.

With this country [Great Britain] nothing is done; and that nothing is intended to be done on their part admits not the smallest doubt. The nation is against any change of measures; the ministers are against it, some from principle, others from subserviency; and the king more than all men is against it. If we take a retrospect to the beginning of the present reign we observe that amidst all the changes of ministry no change of measures with respect to America ever took place… . Of the two months which then remained [on Jefferson and Adams commissions to treat], 6 weeks have elapsed without one scrip of a pen, or one word from a minister except a vague proposition at an accidental meeting… . [T]heir silence is invincible. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, April 23, 1786. RED 17478. Original is in the National Archives, RG 360, item 87, volume I, page 247. Text from the Digital Edition of the Thomas Jefferson Papers.

Read the full post on Pieces of History.

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, April 23, 1786. Original is in the National Archives, RG 360, item 87, volume I, page 247.

The Department of State released today Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XLI, WESTERN EUROPE; NATO, 1969–1972.

This volume is part of a subseries of volumes of the Foreign Relations series that documents the most important issues in the foreign policy of the administrations of Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. This specific volume documents U.S. regional and bilateral relations with Western Europe from January 20, 1969 to January 20, 1973. The documentation printed in this volume highlights U.S. policy regarding European economic and political integration, U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as U.S. bilateral relations with Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. The first chapter focuses on U.S. policy toward Western Europe and Canada as a whole, with a focus on two key issues that faced the Nixon administration: 1) how to maintain the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance at a time of reduced tensions with the Soviet Union, and 2) how to respond to the emergence of serious economic tensions among the advanced industrialized nations. The country chapters in this volume emphasize the key issues that affected each bilateral relationship.

This volume was compiled and edited by James E. Miller and Laurie Van Hook. The volume and this press release are available on the Office of the Historian website at http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v41. Copies of the volume will be available for purchase from the U.S. Government Printing Office online at http://bookstore.gpo.gov (GPO S/N 044-000-02632-5; ISBN 978-0-16-082004-5), or by calling toll-free 1-866-512-1800 (D.C. area 202-512-1800). For further information, contact history@state.gov.

Back from the Brink?

Special Assistant to the President Arthur Schlesinger advised Kennedy to take advantage of the apparent resolution of the Cuban missile crisis to educate the American people about the potential and the limits of the use of force in pursuit of national interests in the nuclear era. Kennedy’s famous American University speech, delivered June 10, 1963, incorporated many of Schlesinger’s suggestions.

Memorandum from Schlesinger to the President, October 29. Post mortem on Cuba. Confidential. 3 pp. Kennedy Library, NSF, Countries Series, Cuba, General, vol. IV(B).

What’s Going on in the Kremlin?

Secretary Rusk and French Ambassador to the United States Hervé Alphand speculated upon the evident confusion in the Kremlin that led to the two contradictory messages from Khrushchev to Kennedy. Rusk emphasized that the United States and its allies had to remain vigilant until they could verify that the Soviets were removing their offensive weapons from Cuba. Rusk had a similar meeting with British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby Gore the same evening. For an account of decision-making in the Kremlin throughout the Cuban missile crisis (and its aftermath), see Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), pp. 409-528.

Memorandum of conversation between Rusk and Alphand, October 28. Latest developments in Cuba including Khrushchev’s recent letter. Secret. 2 pp. DOS, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330.

Bait and Switch?

Khrushchev’s private October 26^th letter to Kennedy requested a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba as the price for dismantling the Soviet missile bases. His second message’s public demand for withdrawing American missiles from Turkey was more difficult for the United States to accept without damaging diplomatic fallout in NATO. Kennedy avoided this difficulty by publically accepting Khrushchev’s private offer while privately assuring the Soviet Union that the United States would remove the Jupiters from Turkey in the near future. For discussions in ExComm and at the United Nations the about how to respond to the two messages, see FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, Document 90, Document 92, Document 93, and Document 94; for Khrushchev’s acceptance of Kennedy’s response, see Document 102. Here is Department of State intelligence analysis of Khrushchev’s second message to Kennedy, which “upped the ante” for a deal removing Soviet missiles from Cuba.

Memorandum from Hilsman to Rusk, October 27. Khrushchev’s proposal for trade-off of missiles in Turkey for missiles in Cuba. Top Secret. 1 p. DOS, CF, 737.56361/10–2762.

The Other Missiles of October

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Raymond Hare reported to Washington the difficulties of linking the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba with American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Although Kennedy’s advisors wanted to avoid straining the NATO alliance with a unilateral American decision to withdraw these missiles, Kennedy prioritized removing Soviet missiles from Cuba peacefully over maintaining outmoded and vulnerable nuclear weapons in Turkey. This issue became especially critical on the 27^th, when Khrushchev’s second message to Kennedy demanded the withdrawal of the Jupiters in exchange for the dismantling of the Soviet missile bases in Cuba. For additional reporting and discussion of the potential diplomatic costs within NATO of withdrawing the Jupiters, see FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, Document 75, Document 90, Document 99, and Document 110.

Telegram 587 from Ankara, October 26. Embassy assessment of removal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for Soviet removal of missiles in Cuba. Secret. 6 pp. DOS, CF, 611.3722/10–2662.