Foreign Relations Series

The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) is a book series published by the Office of the Historian in the United States Department of State. The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. The series, which is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian, began in 1861 and now comprises more than 450 individual volumes. The volumes published over the last two decades increasingly contain declassified records from all the foreign affairs agencies.

Foreign Relations volumes contain documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies as well as the private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy.

Volumes in the series since 1952 are organized chronologically according to Presidential administrations, and geographically and topically within each subseries: 25 volumes cover the Kennedy administration (1961–63), 34 cover the Johnson administration (1964–68), and about 54 are scheduled for the Nixon and Ford administrations (1969–76). Volumes on the Carter administration are now being published and volumes on the Reagan administration are now being researched and annotated.

Prior to 1970, the series was published under various names. From 1870 to 1947, the uniform title Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States was used. From 1947 to 1969, the name was changed to Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers. After that date, the current name was adopted.

It has had numerous subseries, appendices, microfiche supplements, etc. over the years as warranted. Indexes were issued covering the years 1861–99 and 1900–18.

The Office of the Historian offers ebook editions of a growing number of volumes from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series. Far lighter and more portable than printed editions of FRUS, the ebook edition offers the full content of each volume and makes use of the full-text search and other reading features of most ebook devices and applications, including bookmarking and note-taking. Unlike the web-based edition of FRUS, the ebook edition, once downloaded, can be accessed even without internet connectivity.

The Foreign Relations of the United States is commonly abbreviated as FRUS in citations and the volume number written as a Roman numeral. The series is categorized by year and region, such as 1936, Volume II, Europe.

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