Franklin Connection: Elizabeth Charles

Elizabeth C. Charles is a historian in the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State, researching and compiling for the Foreign Relations of the United States series. She completed Reagan administration FRUS volumes on the Soviet Union 1983-85, 1985-86, both recently published and available online at history.state.gov. She also compiled a Reagan volume on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 1984-1988, which is in declassification review. She is now researching in the George H.W. Bush records on the collapse of the Soviet Union for two volumes.

Elizabeth finished her PhD in Modern Russian and Cold War History at the George Washington University in 2010, with her dissertation: “The Game Changer: Reassessing the Impact of SDI on Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy, Arms Control, and US-Soviet Relations.” She has an MA in Russian History from Boston College and a BA in History from the University of Georgia-- Go Dawgs! She was President of the Society for History in the Federal Government from 2020-2021 and is now serving as past president. She is a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and serves on the Curriculum and Training Committee for the National Council on Public History.