The Harry S. Truman Oral Histories Collection
The collection, which contains 389 interviews from the holdings of the Harry S. Truman Library, emphasizes the promulgators of U.S. foreign policy and aid programs during the Truman years. Issues such as the Berlin airlift, the United Nations, Communist containment, and the Nationalist-Red China conflict are remembered and examined by those who held crucial diplomatic and military positions during the Truman administration. Many of Truman’s key domestic advisers are also interviewed, recalling the “Fair Deal” economic program, labor unrest, the roots of the modern-day civil rights movement, and many other issues of the Truman years. In addition, interviews with a wide range of political and personal associates provide researchers with a diversity of observations on Truman as a politician, friend, and family man.
FINDING AID: The Harry S. Truman Oral Histories Collection
Map Room Messages of President Truman, 1945-1946
The Map Room was established in the White House in 1942 at the direction of President Roosevelt to serve as a wartime communications center. Messages between the president and Allied leaders and American a ambassadors, as well as routine communications concerning the war, passed through the Map Room. This collection consists of messages between Truman and Clement Atlee, Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek, Stain, and various U.S. ambassadors. The various subjects include the Stalin-Hopkins Conference; the surrender of Germany and the Armistice; zones of occupation in Germany and Austria; the surrender of Japan; and Soviet-Chinese relations (5 reels).
FINDING AID: Map Room Messages of President Truman, 1945-1946
President Harry S. Truman Office Files, 1945-1953
Published from the holdings of the Truman Library, these confidential files shed light on the internal workings of the Truman presidency. The collection is divided into five categories:
– Political File contains political intelligence reports from each state, Democratic National Committee analyses of political conditions, and folders on such politically important individuals as Henry Wallace, Robert Taft, Adlai Stevenson, and Estes Kefauver ( 7 reels).
FINDING AID: Political File
– Correspondence File contains memoranda and letters from nearly all of the major figures of the period. Subjects include the Cold War and containment policy, McCarthyism, and Fair Deal Programs (26 reels).
FINDING AID: Correspondence File
– Subject File provides access to papers relating to the major issues and programs of the Truman presidency, including the cabinet, the China Lobby, international conferences, foreign affairs, atomic energy, the Supreme Court, and the FBI (42 reels).
FINDING AID: Subject File
– Korean War Files contains the key Korean War records, including material on the famous Wake Island Conference between Truman and MacArthur. These records also contain reactions to the war, the debate within the administration over strategy for armistice negotiations, and the daily army intelligence reports that Truman received (7 reels).
– Truman Diaries and Handwritten Notes Files contains (longhand) notes reflecting and commenting on his life (2 reels).
FINDING AID: Korean War Files AND Truman Diairies and Handwritten Notes Files
President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights
This microfilm collection brings together the various manuscript materials in the Harry S. Truman Library relative to the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, 1946-1948. There are some documents illuminating the origins of the PCCR and the promotion of its report. The bulk of the material however, is on the operation and organization of the Committee itself. A good portion of the material (about 2,000 pages) is correspondence, including some private letters, but mostly official correspondence with private groups government agencies, and civil rights specialists (NAACP, National Urban League, Southern Regional Council). The richest and most extensive documents (over 2,500 pages) are the transcripts of the Committee meetings and the testimony of groups and individuals before the Committee. Another significant portion of the collection (over 2,500 pages) consists of materials on the report itself: various drafts, working papers, suggested revisions, galley proofs, documentation, and the final report. In addition the collection contains staff background studies, digests of information, agenda, minutes, news clippings, interim reports, discussion and decision papers, drafts of speeches, and assorted working papers of the Committee and staff (10 reels).
FINDING AID: Korean War Files AND Truman Diairies and Handwritten Notes Files
Documentary History of the Truman Presidency, 1945-1953
Selected from the Harry S. Truman Library, this printed collection provides scholars with an unprecedented look at President Truman’s policies and programs. It consists primarily of documents from the Presidents Secretary’s Files, the White House Central Files, and numerous manuscript collections for officials in the Truman administration and individuals who were associates of Truman during his career. Arranged thematically in 30 volumes.
Official Conversations and Meetings of Dean Acheson, 1949–1953
Secretary of state from 1949 to 1953, Dean Acheson exerted an enormous influence on the direction of American foreign policy. This collection makes available the transcripts and/or minutes of Acheson’s top-secret conversations and meetings from 1949 to 1953 with notable individuals such as President Truman and General George C. Marshall. The range of issues reflects the major preoccupations of the postwar era: NATO, the Korean crisis, foreign aid, the China question, and the status of Israel, to name just a few.(5 reels)
FINDING AID: Official Conversations and Meetings of Dean Acheson, 1949-1953