The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of information released prior to January 20, 2001.  Please see www.state.gov for material released since President George W. Bush took office on that date.  This site is not updated so external links may no longer function.  Contact us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.

U.S. Department of State Bureau of Public Affairs WORKING WITH THE PRESS Press Relations Through an informed media, the State Department helps ensure an informed public at home and abroad. The Office of Press Relations enunciates and explains foreign policy and public diplomacy issues to domestic and foreign journalists. It supports the Secretary of State in events involving media participation (such as press conferences, meetings with foreign dignitaries, travel abroad, and international conferences). Press officers assist reporters who have questions about U.S. foreign policy positions or who wish to apply for a State Department press building pass or who would like to cover the Secretary of State's media events or attend press briefings held in the Press Briefing Room. An audio recording of the Secretary's public schedule is updated at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday to assist media organizations and journalists plan their assignments. The Press Office releases official statements, Notices to the Press, and transcripts of on-the-record briefings or remarks by the Secretary or the Spokesman. Mailing Address: Office of Press Relations Room 2109 U.S. Department of State Washington, D.C. 20520-6180 Telephone:      202-647-2492 (press queries)                        202-647-2497 (recording of Secretary's public schedule) Press briefings on web: http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/index.html Press briefings via fax on demand: 202-736-7720 Foreign Press Center The Bureau of Public Affairs operates Foreign Press Centers in Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles. These centers support U.S. policies and priorities by helping resident and visiting foreign media cover the U.S. They promote the depth, accuracy, and balance of foreign reporting from the U.S. by providing direct access to authoritative U.S. Government information sources. The centers work cooperatively with privately sponsored international press centers in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Cleveland, and Seattle. Office of Regional Media and Press Outreach The Office of Regional Media and Press Outreach goes beyond the "beltway" by reaching out to local, regional, minority, and national media that do not have bureaus in the metro Washington, DC area. The office proactively sends press releases and statements made by the Secretary of State and other Department officials to media by email and fax. In addition, the office is the first contact reporters have when arranging interviews with Department of State officials. Reaching out to broadcast media by offering digital radio actualities is a new function of the Office of Regional Media and Press Outreach. These actualities are sent over the phone or by email to radio stations across the country and allow these local stations immediate access to audio from newsmakers at the Department of State. The Office of Regional Media and Press Outreach also arranges interviews for key Department officials with news radio, talk radio, television, and print both in Washington, D.C. and around the country. Working with reporters and editorial boards, the office helps place op-eds, arranges editorial board visits, and encourages media attention to foreign policy issues. PUBLIC LIAISON Office of Public and Intergovernmental Liaison The Office of Public and Intergovernmental Liaison promotes foreign policy dialogue between Department officials, state and local government representatives, and the American people through a variety of programming and liaison activities. It is the central point of coordination for speaking engagements, briefings, and conference programs in the Department and around the country. If you are interested in any of the following services, contact the telephone numbers listed after the sections below or write to: Office of Public and Intergovernmental Liaison Room 5827 Bureau of Public Affairs U.S. State Department Washington, DC 20520-6810 Washington Programs. The State Department sponsors large foreign policy conferences in the Department and in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for leaders from a wide variety of nongovernmental entities (NGO Liaison), including business, education, ethnic, and environmental. Washington Programs also arranges seminars and special briefings for smaller groups to meet with Department officials for informal discussions on topics of particular interest. In addition, it conducts an active outreach program to secondary schools, colleges and universities and annually brings thousands of students from across the country to the Department. For more information, call 202 647-8411. Regional Programs. The State Department provides speakers to organizations throughout the United States. Regional foreign policy town meetings are cosponsored by the Department and local organizations. Senior officials participate in these meetings, which are designed to encourage the free exchange of information and opinion and to relate foreign policy objectives to community issues. Media interviews, informal discussions with business and community leaders, and visits to academic institutions are among other events, which may be scheduled while a speaker is in the area. For more information, call 202-647-8411. Liaison with State and Local Governments. The Intergovernmental Affairs Office provides key international services to state, county, and city officials. This unit devotes much of its efforts to the "Big Seven" national organizations representing state and locally elected officials which include the National Governors Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. The office reaches out to national organizations representing minority elected officials. It arranges briefings and provides information on foreign policy issues, international markets, exchange programs, and sister city relationships. It also assists governors, mayors and legislators with official trips abroad and with welcoming visiting foreign dignitaries or receiving foreign economic development trade missions to the United States. The office coordinates meetings with Department experts for local elected officials and contacts U.S. embassies to facilitate travel. For further information, call 202-647-5171. Public Communication. The PIL Office also interacts with the public to answer inquiries and help ensure that the public voice is heard by officials within the Department. The Public Communication Unit deals with the public via phone, email, and hard copy mail and regularly reports on the public opinions received to the Secretary of State. Its officers are very familiar with the Department's policies and have at their fingertips current information about every part of the Department. The unit also manages the PA Bureau's fax-on-demand system, which provides hard copy access to documents such as the press briefing. Mailing Address: Office of Public and Intergovernmental Liaison Room 5827 Bureau of Public Affairs U.S. Department of State Washington, DC 20520-6810 Public Affairs Email: AskPublicAffairs@state.gov Secretary of State Email: secretary.state.gov Public Information Tel: 202-647-6575 (9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Eastern Time) Fax-on-Demand Tel: 202-736-7720 STRATEGIC PLANNING Office of Strategic Communication and Planning Effective public outreach requires effective planning. PA's Office of Strategic Communication and Planning provides short- and long-range strategic planning to support the Secretary's effort to bring foreign policy issues to the American people. The office develops strategies to advance the Administration's priority policy issues, shape effective messages explaining U.S. policies in new and ongoing issues and enhance communication with the American people. It coordinates with bureaus throughout the Department, the White House, and other agencies dealing with foreign affairs. PUBLIC INFORMATION Office of Broadcast Services The Office of Broadcast Services produces and coordinates audio-visual products and services in the U.S. and abroad through three units: Productions. Focuses on audio-visual products and services intended for the American public, including development and production of video or audio programs as well as satellite programs with embassies overseas or domestic audiences and video conferencing within the United States. It also produces internal educational, informational, and training tapes. Broadcast Support. Provides audio-visual products and services for the press by facilitating foreign press activity, television co-ops, satellite links to regional media (domestic and foreign), and producing radio actualities. The unit works with offices within the State Department and the White House to provide logistical support for media at events held by the Department of State. Operations. Provides technical support for the Bureau and the rest of the Department. It coordinates with Worldnet, Voice of America (VOA), VOA-TV, the internal State Department television network (B-NET), and other media to provide regular audio and video feeds of briefings and other events at the State Department, the Foreign Press Centers, and other sites in the United States and abroad. Office of Electronic Information The web has greatly expanded the Department's outreach to the public. The Office of Electronic Information focuses on managing, designing, developing, and preparing information content for the State Department's main web site at www.state.gov. The web site is managed in an innovative arrangement with the federal depository library at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which hosts the Department's main site on the Internet and provides technical and general reference support. The Electronic Information Office approves content for public dissemination via the web in close coordination with other bureaus and also is one of the two Department offices that approve hard copy publications for public distribution. It also develops special hard copy publications to support key foreign policy initiatives. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY Office of the Historian The Office of the Historian is responsible, under law, for the preparation and publication of the official historical documentary record of U.S. foreign policy in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. The Office researches and writes historical studies on aspects of U.S. diplomacy for use by policymakers in the Department and in other agencies as well for public information. It also makes recommendations to other bureaus regarding the identification, maintenance, and long-term preservation of important historical diplomatic records. The outreach activities of the Office include participating in the planning and installation of the historical components of the planned United States Center for Diplomacy in the Department, counseling private scholars and journalists on historical research issues, and responding to government and public inquiries on diplomatic history questions. INFORMATION PRODUCTS FROM THE BUREAU OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS State Department Homepage. The Department of State's main web page at http://www.state.gov guides you to information on foreign policy, Department contacts and organization, travel and consular information, support for U.S. businesses, procurement, careers, links to available web sites of our embassies overseas, and much more. You can automatically receive via email full texts of speeches, press briefings, Background Notes, per diem rates, and more by subscribing to DOSFAN LISTSERV(R)s For information on the LISTSERV(R)s and how to subscribe, see: http://www.state.gov/www/listservs.html. Secretary of State Homepage. You can directly access all the speeches, testimonies, and other remarks by Secretary Albright and everything released during the Secretary's foreign trips at http://secretary.state.gov. From the web site, you also can click on the Secretary's email address (secretary.state.gov) and send her your opinion on foreign policy. (The Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, reviews all emails sent to this address and responds on behalf of the Secretary.) Press Briefings. Listen to the live press briefing on the web at http://www.broadcast.com/events/usstate/. Text of the press briefing is available on the web at http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/index.html and on the fax-on-demand service at 202-736-7720. For information on how to subscribe to the press briefing LISTSERV(R) to receive all texts of the briefing, see: http://www.state.gov/www/listservs.html. Journalists requiring more information should call the Press Office at 202-647-2492; fax 202-647-0244. Digital Diplomacy for Students. This is a special page for students in elementary, middle, and high school which features the Department's Geographic Learning Site (see: http://www.state.gov/www/regions_digital.html). Publications and CD-ROM. The following electronic and hard-copy format publications on foreign policy are available. With the exception of the CD-ROM, the bureau releases these and other Department publications and directories on the Department's web site; for a quick-reference listing of key publications, see http://www.state.gov/www/outreach_publications.html. The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) offers some of these items for sale in hard copy; contact: Superintendent of Documents U.S. Government Printing Office P.O. Box 371954 Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954 Tel: 202-512-1800 Fax: 202-512-2250 Background Notes. These handy guides provide information on a country's leaders, politics, economy, and relations with the U.S. They are written by the Department's regional bureaus and released on the web by the Office of Electronic Information at http://www.state.gov/www/background_notes/. The U.S. Government Printing Office prepares and prints the hard copy subscription (see purchasing information above). Dispatch. The United States Department of State Dispatch provided key speeches and testimony by senior State Department officials as well as current U.S. treaty actions. Since all speeches, briefings, and testimony from State Department officials and the current U.S. treaty actions are available on the web at www.state.gov upon release, hard copy distribution of this publication will end with the December 1999 issue. Back issues of Dispatch from its creation in September 1990 through December 1996 are available on the Department's archive through the federal depository library of the University of Illinois at Chicago at http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/. For issues from January 1997 to December 1999, Dispatch continues to be available on the Department's main web site at http://www.state.gov/www/publications/dispatch/index.html. Foreign Relations Series. The Foreign Relations of the United States documentary series presents the official documentary historical record of major foreign policy decisions and diplomatic activity of the United States Government. The Historian of the Department is charged by law with the responsibility for the preparation of the series in accordance with statutory standards for the selection, editing, declassification, and publication. The series presents Presidential and National Security Council documents, those of the Department of State, as well as those from other departments and agencies concerned with the preparation and execution of foreign policy. The Foreign Relations series was begun by President Lincoln in 1861, and currently the Historian's Office is preparing for publication the record of the foreign policies of Presidents Nixon and Ford. Many of the Foreign Relations volumes documenting the foreign policies of the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies are online on the web page of the Office of the Historian (http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/index.html) as are other historical publications, a timeline, and frequently asked questions about the history of the State Department and U.S. diplomatic history. For more information, contact the Historian's Office at 202-663-1123 or send e-mail to pahistoff@panet.us-state.gov. U.S. Foreign Affairs on CD-ROM. Released by the Office of Electronic Information and sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office, this CD-ROM includes Dispatch magazine, transcripts of State Department press briefings, Background Notes, key statements and foreign policy testimony, and more. Need More State Department Information? For more about Department information and other services from other Department bureaus and offices, see our Guide to U.S. Department of State Information and Services. Public Affairs Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Department of State