In 2011, the American equivalent to the DDS, the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions, called «Foreign Relations of the United States» (FRUS), celebrates its 150th anniversary. The series of the FRUS is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian and is thus a governmental research institute. The project is based on a law that calls for a «thorough, accurate, and reliable» documentary record of United States foreign policy.
From Lincoln to Nixon
The project was initiated in 1861 under the Abraham Lincoln administration, at the beginning of the Civil War. Currently, the FRUS are working on the research and publication of the volumes related to the administration of Richard Nixon (1969-1974). In June 2011, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SARF) organized a panel on comparative research in international relations in Washington. On this occasion, Sacha Zala, director of the DDS, presented a paper on «The War of Documents and the Professionalization of the Editor’s Work: A Comparative View».