The head of the State Department's Office of the Historian has been reassigned after an inspector general's investigation found "serious mismanagement for which the director must be held accountable."

The office has been the subject of several years of internal and external conflict. A report by Harold W. Geisel, acting State Department inspector general, said the turmoil could be resolved only with the transfer of the historian, Marc J. Susser.

Although it has not been publicly announced, John Campbell, a former ambassador to Nigeria, has been designated acting director of the office, according to an internal State Department memorandum.

A management crisis in the State Department Office of the Historian threatens the future of the official “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS) series that documents the history of U.S. foreign policy, according to a newly disclosed report on the situation.

But on closer inspection, the report makes at least two crucial points. First, it confirms that the crisis is real. Out of several dozen people who were interviewed and consulted, “only a single person suggested that there was no crisis, no problem beyond what is normal in an office.”

Second, regardless of who may be to blame, “we believe that effective management is the responsibility of the managers, not the managed….” In other words, the Office leadership, including the Historian himself, has failed to manage the Office in an appropriate manner.