Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs: January 1933-January 1937, Vol. I: January 1933-February 1934; Vol. II: March 1934-August 1935; Vol. III: September 1935-January 1937, by Edgar B. Nixon

Abstract

The publication of these volumes marks the third effort of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library to make the Roosevelt papers at Hyde Park more widely available to scholars. In 1957, the library published two volumes of documents relating to Roosevelt's interests and activities on conservation, which could be purchased from the Government Printing Office for $9.50. In the early 1g60s, the library shifted to microfilm publication, offering for sale the complete transcripts of the president's press conferences for slightly more than $100. The three volumes on foreign policy appeared as a set in the spring of 1969 with additional volumes to follow at intervals of eighteen months. The decision to permit a private press to publish these public documents created a heated controversy which culminated with the denial of a copyright for either the papers themselves or the editorial annotation, which was done by Edgar B. Nixon while he was a full-time employee of the library. In addition, scholars have charged that these volumes contain a few documents which were not made available to historians doing research there. It is indeed unfortunate that the library did not continue the practice of microfilm publication that it pioneered with the invaluable press conference transcripts. The material in these three volumes is of interest primarily to research scholars, not to the general public, nor even to the great majority of American historians and political scientists. The chronological presentation of documents serves only to bewilder the reader without specialized knowledge of Roosevelt's foreign policy. Even the specialist in diplomatic history must read them with the appropriate volumes of Foreign Relations and F. D. R.: His Personal Letters at hand in order to develop a coherent picture of