Richard W. Leopold

The Historian and the Federal Government

OR specialists in United States history, nothing has more influence upon research than the policies of the federal government-policies that also affect teaching and employment. The way in which the government documents its operations, maintains records of lasting significance, protects them against destruction, insures equal access to all scholars at the earliest possible date, and provides finding aids is of primary concern to our profession. Appropriations for the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and other facilities can shape the course of writing in many fields. Publication of source materials is a practice as old as the republic. Recently, the allocation of federal funds has supported advanced research, teaching abroad, graduate training, and the preservation of manuscript collections. Although there is no book-length account of the influence of governmental policies on historical writing from the early nineteenth century to the present, several individuals have dealt with parts of the subject. John Higham, Walter Rundell, Lester J. Cappon-among others-have noted the governments contribution to an emergent profession, have described the wide range of federal historical activities, and have stressed the interests shared with archivists and editors.1 The purpose of this essay is neither to retrace the trail blazed by earlier authors nor to break new ground in unexplored areas, but rather to discuss some of todays important questions and to see how the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association have responded to them. It will consider the renewed drive for an independent National Archives, the changing focus of the National Historical Publications Commission, the continuing controversy over presidential libraries, the future course of the

Discussions and Reviews : American policy and China, 1937-1950: a review: Arthur N. Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-1945 Anthony Kubek, How the Far East Was Lost Tang Tsou, America's Failure in China, 1941-50

from the mainland of Asia. During that period American policy toward the People’s Republic has remained hostile and inflexible, more so than with any other ideological foe. The initial reprisals against diplomats, the sudden intervention in Korea, the harsh treatment of prisoners, the continuing threats against Formosa, the bitter recriminations of the McCarthy era, the emotional rhetoric of John Foster Dulles, and the obvious aid to subversive forces in Laos and