查找美国外交档案的三种思路：以冷战史研究为例

Three Ways to Find U.S. Diplomatic Archives:Taking Cold War History for Example

对于冷战时期的美国外交史某一专题研究而言,在掌握基本史料的基础上,可以从时间、机构和主题三个维度入手进一步查找档案。时间维度是依据档案的生成时间,来排检同时段的文献,主要可查阅总统档案。外交政策总是一定的政府机构制定和执行的,机构维度则要查找涉及该专题的政府机构,尤其是国务院和国家安全委员会的档案。主题维度是设法利用已出版的、与所研究相关的专门档案集。

For one monographic study of U.S. diplomatic history during the Cold War, if we have known well basic documents, we can find more archives from three ways: time, organization, and subject. Time way is to search archives during the same period when archives were created,whose main function is to find U.S. President documents. Foreign policies were formulated and carried out by some government organizations, so organization way is to find archives of the organizations related the monographic study, esp. the archives of U.S. Department of State and National Security Council. Subject way is trying to make use of special compilations of archives that have been published and are closely related to the monographic study.