The Senate’s 1959 closed sessions, made public in 1982
The eleventh volume of the Historical Series records the executive sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from the first session of the Eighty-Sixth Congress.
The story
When a Senate committee meets in executive session, it meets behind closed doors. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s closed sessions of 1959, in the first session of the Eighty-Sixth Congress, stayed private for more than twenty years, until they were made public in March 1982 as part of a government programme for releasing historical documents.
What they offer is the committee’s own record of its deliberations on foreign policy in the Eisenhower years, rather than an account written afterwards. For anyone studying the Cold War, or how the Senate kept watch over American policy abroad, this is a primary source. Its value lies in what was said in the room, not in pictures or prose.
This is Volume XI of the Historical Series, printed by the Government Printing Office in plain green wrappers, lightly rubbed, with the edges curling. The inside has not been photographed, and how many pages it holds, and whether any supplements belong with it, has not been checked.
Details
- Date
- 1982
- Publisher
- U.S. G.P.O., Washington, D.C.
- Binding
- wrappers
- Condition
- Green plain printed publisher's wrappers with minor rubbing and edges curling; interior not photographed. Pages and possible supplements not collated.
