Toward the end of the Clinton Administration, the Executive Office of the President initiated an Administrative History Project to ensure that future scholars would have a record of the major events and initiatives of each U.S. Government department and agency during the Clinton Administration. The histories, which were to be prepared by the end of the administration, were to be made available to scholars and other interested individuals who visited the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, to conduct research on the Clinton presidency.
As noted in the accompanying Preface, many hands in the Department of State contributed to this unclassified history. Researched and written within a period of only a few months, it does not profess to be a polished or interpretive product or an official history of Clinton Administration foreign policy. It is instead a working document designed as a reference guide to assist researchers and other interested persons at the Clinton Library with relevant information on the organizational changes, major policy initiatives, and diplomatic events involving the Department of State during the Clinton years. It does not constitute an official expression of U.S. foreign policy. Every effort has been made in the short time frame of its preparation to provide accurate coverage, and we regret any factual and interpretative errors it may still contain.
This electronic edition contains the full narrative text and several appendices, none of which has been edited further since they were submitted to the White House in the last days of the Clinton Administration. Many chapters in this history also contain citations to specific documents in documentary annexes to the study. We have not reproduced the annexes here, but all the documents listed under the "documentary annexes" section of the Table of Contents, along with the narrative text and appendices, will be available at the Clinton Library. Many of the documents are also available under the relevant bureau or office in the "Archive" section of the Department of State's web site.
Marc J. Susser
The Historian
Office of the Historian
Bureau of Public Affairs
June 21, 2001
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