The oral history collection includes interviews done under the auspices of the Foreign Service History Center of George Washington University, which was amalgamated into the Foreign Service History Program, the Foreign Service Family Project, the Women Ambassadors' Project, the United States Information Agency Alumni Association Project, the Senior Officers' Project and others. The majority of these interviews were conducted by retired Foreign Service personnel on a volunteer basis, directed by the Oral History Program. The interviews are unclassified, and unless so marked are open for use by researchers. Most interviews have been transcribed and then returned to the person interviewed for editing. The transcript deposited in the Lauinger Library's Special Collections Division is the edited version, and is not a word for word rendition of the cassette tape.
Tapes are available for auditing, if desired.
As a practical matter, the editing generally represents little substantive change, with those interviewed usually correcting dates, names and other information that may have been missed during an interview. The final transcripts were not professionally edited and any spelling or other mistakes can be blamed on the Oral History Program, not on the person interviewed. Jones, John X. Oral history interiew, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection. The Foreign Affairs Oral History Program Researcher Database lists the information contained in the collection's interviews. The Special Collections Division continues to update the database as more interviews are deposited.