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National Security, Espionage, and Intelligence in American History: Archival Collections at Yale

Secretaries of State and State Dept.

For additional information on the personal papers of various Secretaries of State held at Yale University Library see the American Diplomacy subject guide.

Henry A. Kissinger Papers, Part II (MS 1981) and Part III (MS 2004) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Part I of the Kissinger Papers is housed at the Library of Congress. For online access to Parts II and III and information about restrictions on access and seeking permission for materials "open with permission", see the digital collections page for the Kissinger Papers.

Cyrus R. and Grace Sloane Vance Papers (MS 1664) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • The Vance papers primarily document Cyrus R. Vance's professional and personal activities. Of particular significance are background materials, correspondence, position papers, and handwritten meeting notes relating to SALT II negotiation between the United States and the Soviet Union; the Camp David Summit and the signing of the Middle East Peace Treaty; diplomatic relations with the Far East, especially China; and negotiations to release the American hostages in Iran. Proposals, reports, handwritten notes, and correspondence provide insight into the dispute between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus in 1967, federal recovery assistance to Detroit after the riot of 1967, and the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam in 1968. Governmental statements and commentaries, draft bills, and Senate committee background materials from 1958 document Vance's involvement in the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA).

Dean Gooderham Acheson Papers (MS 1087) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Correspondence, writings, speeches, memoranda, and photographs, documenting Dean Acheson's life after leaving the U.S. State Department in 1953. Also documented is his work as a member of the Yale Corporation and his long friendship with Felix Frankfurter, Archibald MacLeish, and others. The correspondence and memoranda contain Acheson's views on many contemporary issues in American foreign policy such as Korea, the Middle East, NATO, Germany, the war in Vietnam, and Rhodesia and South Africa. The papers also include Acheson's later reflections on his years in public life and assessments of the U.S. government under the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. Acheson's numerous correspondents include personal friends, American and foreign government officials, journalists, and a wide range of other persons in public life.

Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (MS 465) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • The papers consist of correspondence, letter books, speeches, articles, letters to the editor, statements prepared for presentation to Congress and substantial subject files with clippings, printed matter, reports, memoranda and photographs related to Henry Stimson's various public offices. While the official records of Stimson's service (as Secretary of War under President Taft, Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover and as Secretary of War in the cabinets of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman) are all in the National Archives, the substantial correspondence, as well as other papers, in this collection provide important records of his activities as a private citizen and in office and on special missions. His service as Secretary of State under Hoover (1929-1933) is particularly well documented with memoranda of conversations with foreign diplomatic representatives, and briefing books presenting background information on foreign affairs for the period. Of major importance are Stimson's diaries which span the years 1904-1945, covering the entire period of his public career and including references to the early stages of the development of the atom bomb.

International Intelligence Services

Ralph Heyward Isham Papers (MS 1455) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Correspondence, topical files, business and financial documents, photographs, and printed material which document Ralph Heyward Isham's British army intelligence service (primarily 1917-1920) and his collecting and publishing of the James Boswell Papers.

Marshall Bond Papers (WA MSS S-2358) [Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

  • The  papers document the life, work, and adventures of Marshall Bond between 1897 and 1935, and also include a few papers of his father, Hiram G. Bond, and his son, Marshall Bond, Jr. Bond's Klondike experience is well documented by his diary from 1897-98, letters to his family, draft chapters of a memoir about his experiences, and photographs. The bulk of the collection is correspondence, which includes Bond's letters to his family from the Klondike, from Goldfield, Nevada in 1904, from Mexican villages under attack by Pancho Villa in 1918, and from hunting trips in Alaska in 1911 and Africa in 1927. It also includes his incoming and outgoing correspondence with business associates and friends, which documents mining ventures and other matters, including a plan to settle Boer refugees in Mexico. Bond's letters to Herbert H. White report intelligence about Germans in the American Southwest during World War I.

Espionage

Donald C. Downes Papers (MS 1453) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Correspondence, topical files, personal papers, and manuscripts which document the life of Donald Chase Downes during the early war years and after World War II. The papers highlight Downes's literary work and his research on the case of German General Anton Dostler. Also included in the papers is a copy of Peter Tompkins's journal of his life as a spy in Rome between 1942 and 1944.

Tyler Gatewood Kent Papers (MS 310) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Tyler Kent, a code clerk at the American embassy in London, was tried in 1940 by the British government for violation of the Official Secrets Act. The papers, assembled by Charles Parsons, include correspondence, a transcript of the British trial, newspaper clippings, photographs, notes, legal papers related to Kent v. United States and printed matter.

FBI Material

Military Intelligence

Office of Strategic Services/Central Intelligence Agency

Sherman Kent Papers (MS 854) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Correspondence, writings, research notes, teaching materials, clippings and other printed material, photographs, and memorabilia which document the personal life and professional career of Sherman Kent. The papers highlight Kent's student years and teaching career at Yale and his lifelong research in French history. In 1941 Kent joined the U.S. Office of Strategic Services as chief of the African section and from 1943-1945 served as chief of the Europe-Africa division. In 1946 Kent was acting director of the Office of Research and Intelligence for the United States Department of State. He joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1950 and served as the director of the Office of National Estimates from 1958 until his retirement in 1967. Kent's career in intelligence is also represented in these papers, though they contain no official records from the O.S.S. or the C.I.A.

Robin William Winks Papers (MS 336) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Correspondence, subject files, writings,and audiotapes documenting the personal life and professional career of Robin William Winks. Much of this collection is unprocessed, so could be challenging to use. The materials of greatest interest on the topic of espionage and intelligence are likely those relating to research for Winks' book Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961 (Morrow, 1987), which are in Accession 2004-M-060, Boxes 15-23.

Walter L. Pforzheimer Papers (GEN MSS 817) [General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

  • Personal correspondence, diaries, writings, notes, and family papers; correspondence, reports, and other documents relating to the United States Army during World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection, and the United States Defense Intelligence College; historical manuscripts and related materials collected by Pforzheimer concerning the history of military intelligence, including autograph documents, signed, by European heads of state and American presidents, seventeenth-twentieth centuries; prints, posters, and newspapers, including rare seventeenth-twentieth century items relating to Molière and other subjects; framed oil paintings and prints; book collecting notes, lists, vendor receipts, and card catalogs; rare postage stamps, including propaganda and forgeries; photographs, glass and film negatives, glass stereographs, and photograph albums; video and audio recordings, including interviews with Pforzheimer and presentations by him; microfilms; computer disks; and objects collected by Pforzheimer,including Molière medals, military decorations, and memorabilia relating to his intelligence career.

H. F. Broch de Rothermann Papers (YCGL MSS 2) [Yale Collection of German Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

  • Correspondence documenting the life and career of the Austrian writer Hermann Broch, the father of Hermann Friedrich Broch de Rothermann.The collection spans the years 1916 to circa 2001, with the bulk of the material falling between 1953 and 1986. Major topics include republication of Hermann Broch's writings, Broch scholarship, and other aspects of the reception history of Broch's works. Also present are materials relating to Broch de Rothermann's work in the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, writings and drawings by Broch deRothermann, and other papers relating to him. Papers relating to the OSS include reports on the development and effectiveness of propaganda, American support for resistance in areas occupied by Germany, American occupation of Italy and Germany, and interrogation of German soldiers and other prisoners by the American army; samples of military and civilian propaganda in German, Italian, French, Russian, and other languages; correspondence and documents about Broch de Rothermann’s service, discharge, and return to the United States after the war; and a photograph of unidentified soldiers, possibly including Broch de Rothermann.Propaganda samples include drawings made by artist Saul Steinberg.

Harvey Seymour Sussman Papers (MS 1457) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Harvey Sussman served with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C., London, Burma, Ceylon, and Southeast Asia from 1944 to 1945. Sussman was a member of the Army Specialized Training Program ASTP at Yale University from 1943 to 1944 and studied the Malayan language. Correspondence, memorabilia, and photographs document his year as a member of the ASTP and his service as a member of the Office of Strategic Services. The papers also include material for the ASTP reunion at Yale in 1990 and a 1995 diary of a return visit to Burma.

Myers Family Papers (YCAL MSS 27) [Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

  • Correspondence with family, friends, and acquaintances, plus a variety of personal papers,including obituaries, letters of sympathy, diaries, and scrapbooks documenting the lives of Richard E. and Alice Lee Myers and their children. Prominent correspondents include Stephen Vincent Benét, Nadia Boulanger, Grace Flandrau, John Gielgud, Charlotte Kett, Archibald MacLeish, and Gerald Murphy. Correspondence from 1941-1945 concerns World War II. Letters from son Dicky while he was in training with the R.A.F. in Bermuda, England, and Canada; letters from Richard while he was with the OSS in London; letters from daughter Fanny while she was serving in the Office of War Information in London and Paris; and letters from Alice Lee in the States give detailed accounts, from a variety of perspectives, of the War and its effects on American and European life.

Raymond Kennedy Papers (MS 1046) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Writings, maps, photographs, field trip notes, and other research materials documenting Kennedy's work in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia. Among the writings, some of which are in Dutch and Indonesian, are articles and speeches by Kennedy, memoranda written for the U.S. State Department, and writings by others about Southeast Asia. The collection also includes notes and drafts for Kennedy's unpublished four-volume work, Peoples and Cultures of Indonesia, and notes, photographs, recordings, and maps from the Indonesian field trip during which he was killed. Finally, teaching materials from Kennedy's work with the Staff Officers School for Strategic Studies during the Second World War and from other schools are included.

Yale in World War II Collection (MS 1212) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Collection assembled from a variety of sources includes printed matter, reports, correspondence, memoranda, radio scripts, memorabilia, scrapbooks and clippings documenting some of the activities at Yale University and of the individual colleges during World War II. Letters from Yale men in the services, both in the United States and abroad, to officials of the university make up a substantial part of the collection. Also included in Series I are correspondence and financial documents of the "Yale Library Project," a military intelligence operation secretly funded by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services which used Joseph T. Curtiss, a professor of English at Yale, as its agent.

Richard Ruggles Papers (MS 1871) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Papers and reports of Richard Ruggles regarding an invention called the Yale Rapid Selector and his work as an economist for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, analyzing serial numbers of Nazi tanks and tires in order to estimate German tank production.

Robert P. Joyce Papers (MS 1901) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Memoirs and related writings documenting Joyce's personal life, as well as his career in the United States Foreign Service and the Office of Strategic Services. There is a minimal amount of correspondence with Max Hayward, authority on Russian literature, and Paul Nitze, expert on United States foreign policy.

David Andrew Hunter Papers (MS 1486) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • Correspondence, topical files and photographs. As an Intelligence Officer in the Office of Strategic Services, Hunter served in Burma, India, China and Thailand. Hunter received an honorable discharge on April 6, 1946, and returned to New Orleans. Thereafter, he became ill with dysentery and malaria. Correspondence and topical files document David Hunter's attempts to prove that his post-war illnesses were service-related and to gain compensation. The photographs are of the Far East during World War II.

Richard W. Cutler Papers (MS 1881) [Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library]

  • The Richard W. Cutler papers, spanning the years 1944-2005, document Cutler's employment with the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency) during the Second World War and the immediate postwar period. They include correspondence, photographs, and other papers related to Cutler's espionage career, as well as his published memoirs, Counterspy: Memoirs of Counterintelligence Officer in World War II and the Cold War (2004).