18 апр 1952 г. - "OFFICIAL HISTORY" The Times Literary Supplement 1952, April 18

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The Times Literary Supplement 1952, April 18 - OFFICIAL HISTORY

The publication of the first volume or an authoritative history of American foreign policy before and during the Second World War, reviewed elsewhere
in this issue, raises once more a familiar and delicate question of principle. The work has been sponsored by the American Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller Foundation; it is published in this country under the auspices of the
Royal Institute of international Affairs; its authors are two distinguished Harvard professors who have had access to the State Department archives and made them the "backbone" of the narrative. The manuscript was scrutinized by the State
Department before publication only "with an eye to safeguarding American relations with other countries and to protecting the national security "; no attempt was made lo influence the views or conclusions of the writers. Nevertheless. the special facilities enjoyed by them make it inevitable that the work should be read and studied as being, in everything but name, official history.
In the nineteenth century governments acquired the habit or publishing
from time to time collections or official documents and correspondence; this was often done in response to parliamentary inquiries or criticisms, and wits generally designed to reveal and vindicate the bona-fides or the government in question in its dealings with other governments. Such publications constituted a discreet-by modern standards, very discreet-form of what has since come to he
known a, propaganda: nobody doubted their ex parte character,
though it was assumed that gross suppressions would not be countenanced - if only for fear of being found out. After the First World War the British Government set a fresh precedent. They invited two outstanding British historians to examine the archives of the Foreign Office for the period before the war and to publish whatever they found there which seemed likely to throw light on its origins. This task was brilliantly carried out by Professors
Gooch and Temperley in their famous volumes which carried general conviction, not only that nothing of importance had been withheld, but that the selection of documents for publication had not been governed or influenced by any desire to blame or exculpate particular individuals or countries.
Unfortunately brilliant achievements do not always make successful precedents. The corresponding volumes or German documents published under the Weimar Republic we re widely criticized for the allegedly tendentious selection and arrangement of material; and with the changes in the international climate and the growing importance of public opinion. it Seemed doubtful whether any government would
again be willing to submit its recent actions to the unreserved public scrutiny which the British Government had invited after the First World War. Confronted by the same situation after the Second World War. the British Government once again
opened the Foreign Office archives to the inspection of two qualified British
historians. But this time, apart from the fact that some important papers
belonging to the archives of the Cabinet or of the Prime Minister did not apparently figure in the Foreign Office files, a veto was laid on the publication of "minutes" both of the Secretary of State and or officials, so that vital evidence of the motives underlying decisions, and of the arguments which secured their adoption. is still withheld from public view. Notwithstanding this handicap, perusal of the volumes hitherto published does not suggest that the selection of documents has been weighted by any conscious or unconscious bias, or dictated by desire to further any political cause. It was far otherwise with the German documents on Nazi-Soviet relations published by the State Department
in 1948 and with the two retaliatory volumes issued in Moscow. The propaganda motive of both selections was undisguised.
The new history of American foreign policy is a further innovation which cannot be regarded wholly without misgivings. Here, again, brilliance of execution and the unchallenged independence of the historians in a particular case provides
no guarantee against the creation of an unfortunate precedent. Once the principle is accepted that governments grant access to their archives to certain chosen historians and refuse it to others, it would be unrealistic to ignore the temptation that may a rise in the future to let the choice fall on historians who are most likely to share the official view of the moment and to yield readily to
discreet official promptings as to what is suitable, and what unsuitable, for publication. When this happens. the last barrier on the road to "official history" will have fallen. It may be said that historians have the remedy in their own hands and should, under their professional code, refuse access to documents which is granted only on conditions, or would not equally be granted lo their colleagues. This is, however, probably a counsel of perfection. The line between what is wholly permissible and laudable and what doubtful and invidious is exceedingly difficult to draw. But an unsatisfactory situation will be least unsatisfactory the more closely two principles are observed: that official archives should be thrown open to historians at the earliest moment compatible with national security and personal decencies, and that, when they are opened. they should be opened not to one or two privileged historians, but impartially to all.

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