#5 - JRL 7209
From: "John M. Evans" <EvansJM2@state.gov>
Subject: FW: Links on Wrangel Island
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003

David, for many years, an organization calling itself State Department Watch has been claiming that some treacherous villains in the State Department were giving away American territory to the Russians. This has generated reams of paper as successive generations of foreign and civil service officers have duly answered inquiries from the Congress and the general public. We decided to pull together a short directory of the most useful websites on the subject and let your readers draw their own conclusions, without wasting more paper:

> http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/20922.htm Link to the State Department
> fact sheet on the Arctic/Bering islands in question including a map
> showing their position relative to the U.S.-Russia Maritime Boundary.
>
> http://www.bartleby.com/43/43.html Text of the 1867 Treaty with Russia on
> the purchase of Alaska.
>
> http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/gp/17662.htm A nutshell history of the
> Alaska purchase from the State Department Historian's Office.
>
> http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/TREATIES/USA-R
> US1990MB.PDF Text of the 1990 U.S.-USSR Maritime Boundary Agreement.
>
> http://thomas.loc.gov/home/treaties/treaties.htm The Maritime Boundary
> Agreement is treaty number 101-22. By searching for that number on this
> page, you will find the Senate's advise and consent to the ratification of
> the Agreement.
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/02/rubin.htm A somewhat amusing
> story about this whole flap in the February 2001 issue of the Atlantic
> Monthly.
>
> http://www.library.state.ak.us/hist/cent/020-0216.jpg For the true history
> fans: a link from the state of Alaska to an 1867 map from the U.S. Coastal
> Survey map showing the territory ceded to us by Russia. Even in 1867, the
> United States didn't claim any of these islands.
>
John M. Evans
Director, Office of Russian Affairs
U.S. Department of State