Scholars’ interests in Cold War archives have largely fastened on the opening and use of collections in post-Soviet Russia. With some notable exceptions (e.g. Astrid Eckert’s The Struggle for the Files, Kristen Weld’s Paper Cadavers, and Matthew Connelly’s The Declassification Engine), little attention has been paid to the archives themselves as institutions, to the development of collection policies and practices, or to the professional identity and expertise that archivists shared across national boundaries. This panel does not focus on “the archive” in an abstract way, but rather on the archivists, historians, and officials themselves, approaching them as agents of historical developments. They were managers of information, producers of knowledge, and individuals employed by governments or working in relation to state actors.

These case studies center on three distinct periods of the Cold War. Jennifer Rodgers examines the politics of the International Tracing Service in the early 1950s, particularly the actions of the West German government and international organization overseeing the ITS. An archival agency created during World War II with the humanitarian purpose of finding missing persons and victims of Nazism, the ITS became aligned with Western Cold War aims. Joshua Botts discusses the challenges State Department historians faced producing the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes for the immediate Cold War period; the national security state and postwar foreign policymaking created tensions between professional standards and openness, on the one hand, and government restrictions, on the other. Abigail Vollach explores how American and Soviet archivists developed cooperative initiatives in the late 1980s; while the politics of glasnost and détente set these in motion, a ‘social history of the archives’ shows the importance of personal and professional networks in bringing these plans to fruition.

The scholars presenting these papers are professional historians who also have expertise in archival studies or experience in archives and the creation of documentary editions. This hands-on knowledge gives them insight into archival processes and published official compilations. Commentator David Engerman, an expert on knowledge production during the Cold War, will connect these case studies and reflect upon their larger significance. In addition to the usual attendees, we hope to attract archivists, collection editors, government historians, and library historians, and we will publicize the session on the Society of American Archivists and similar lists.