Summary
Overview
Dulles, John Foster, 1888-1959.
John Foster Dulles State Department records
4.8 Linear feet, 192 reels (131,000 frames) and 12 boxes
Abstract
Consists of 192 reels of microfilm, totalling 131,000 frames, of selected U.S. State Department records from the years Dulles served as secretary of state, 1953-1959, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Description
Description
The collection consists of 192 reels of microfilm, totaling about 131,000 individual microfilm frames, as well as 4.2 linear feet of declassified documents. The collection can be characterized in general as the State Papers of Secretary John Foster Dulles, 1953-1959. The originals of all papers, with the exception of Mr. Dulles's personal appointment book, are located in the Department of State. At the time these documents were filmed for this collection (1956-61)they were located in various State Department repositories, including the Central Files, maintained by the Divison of Records Management (RM), the Conference Files, maintained by the Reports and Operations Staff of the Secretariat (S/S-RO), miscellaneous files kept in the S/S/-RO Message Center, and various individual State Department Bureau and Office files. It can be presumed that eventually all of these records will be retired to the Central Files where the master copies will be maintained.
The collection can be broken down into nine general categories as described below:
(1)Conferences held between Secretary Dulles and representatives of foreign nations. This category includes (a) special, high-level international conferences, e.g., the Geneva Summit Meetings, July, 1955; (b) regular international meetings attended by Secretary Dulles, e.g., the annual Spring meetings of the NATO Ministerial Council; and (c) bilateral meetings between Secretary Dulles and representatives of foreign poewrs either in Washington or in other capitals. The documents in this category as well as in categories (2) and (3) below are chiefly telegrams exchanged between the Department of State and various US Missions, memos of conversation, conference minutes, and background and position papers prepared for the Secretary's use prior to meetings which he was to attend.
(2) Negotiations with foreign powers carried out chiefly by representatives of Secretary Dulles. The most important of these are (a) the Korean Truce negotiations; (b) the Trieste Treaty negotiations; (c) the Austrian State Treaty negotiations; (d) the Baghdad Pact (Henderson mission) negotiations; (e) the Formosa-Offshore Island negotiations; and (f) negotiations with Communist CHina for the release of US prisoners.
(3) General foreign relations with individual nations or groups of nations (1953-1956). In this category falls background material not fully covered in conference files (Category 1) or elsewhere. It includes documents dealing with relations in the period 1953-1956 between the United States and (a) Indo China; (b) Pakistan and India; and (c) Israel and the Arab League of Nations.
(4) Secretary Dulles's Memos of Conversation. This is an almost complete file of all official memoranda of conversations in which the Secretary participated from January 1953 through 15 April 1959. The other participants were chiefly representatives of foreign nations. Some of these memos are duplicated in the conference files (Category 1).
(5) Secretary Dulles's Appointment Book. This is a daily record kept in pencil by Mr. Dulles personal secretary of all appointments kept by him either in Washington or abroad. It covers the entire period of Mr. Dulles's term of office as Secretary of State. Because there was no room to do so, the pages of these books were not stamped with frame numbers. These books represent the only part of this collection that cannot technically be labeled official documents; consequently they bear no security classification.
(6) Top Secret Daily Staff Summaries and Top Secret Afternoon Summaries. The Top Secret Staff Summary (including, after 13 September 1956 the Top Secret Afternoon Summary) is edited and produced daily (except Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays) by the Reports and Operations Staff of the Secretariat (S/S-RO). It is the joint work of S/S-RO and the policy information officers in various bureaus of the Department of State including the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. It reports on a daily basis major policy decisions or related developments as contained in Top Secret telegrams, dispatches, etc., exchanged between the Department of State and various US Missions. The master copies of the Summaries, which have been filmed for this collection, identify by number the specific telegrams or dispatches on which the summaries are based. For a time, the Top Secret Staff Summary contained a section on "Congressional Relations" and a daily "Signature Record" of correspondence signed by the Secretary, the Under Secretary, and the Acting Secretary. The Congressional Relations section was dropped after 8 May 1953, and the "Signature Record" was dropped after 19 March 1956. Beginning 4 August 1953, a section was added summarizing "major decisions" made daily by the Secretary, Under Secretary, and Acting Secretary. The title of this section was later changed to "The Staff Record" and (in the Afternoon Summary)"Record of Actions." The Top Secret Staff Summary has a very restricted circulation in the Department of State and is considered an "Eyes Only" document, that is for the "personal information and use of the designated recipient only." It was one of the most important documents regularly studied by Secretary Dulles. For the study of major developments in US foreign policy on a daily basis these documents provide a highly useful starting point.
(7) The Daily Summary. The Daily Summary is edited and produced daily (except Saturday, Sundays, and holidays) in the Reports and Operations Staff of the Secretariat (S/S-RO). It is the joint work of the S/S-RO and the policy information officers in various Bureaus of the Department of State. It reports, on a daily basis, major policy decisions or related development as contained in telegrams, dispatches, etc., classified up through Secret. It is produced primarily for the use of officers at the level of Assistant Secretary, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office Director, and Deputy Office Director.
(8) Secretary's Staff Meetings (Tuesday and Thursday). These are minutes of the semi-weekly large staff meetings held by the Secretary of State and attended chiefly by Assistant Secretaries and staff assistants.
(9) Secretary's Staff Meetings (Mondays, Wednesday and Friday). These are informal and uncleared minutes of the Secretary's small staff meetings attended chiefly by the Under Secretary, the Deputy Under Secretaries, and the Assistant Secretaries or their equivalents. There are some gaps in the record for the years 1953-1955, and for the same period the record consists mostly of pencilled notes. After March 1956 the record is complete and is in typescript.
Collection Creator
Biography
John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), the fifty-third Secretary of State of the United States for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, had a long and distinguished public career with significant impact upon the formulation of United States foreign policies. He was especially involved with efforts to establish world peace after World War I, the role of the United States in world governance, and Cold War relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Collection History
Acquisition
Declassified documents have been periodically sent to the Mudd Manuscript Library for the last several decades. Several caches came in 2011-2013, with acquisiton numbers ML.2011.016, ML.2012.005, ML.2012.043 and ML.2013.005.
Custodial History
The records were selected by Philip A. Crowl, a representative of Princeton and later a U.S. State Department employee. Crowl relied initially on Secretary Dulles's selection of subjects to be filmed, but later he based his choice on his own knowledge of events at State. Filming was conducted between 1956 and 1961.
Processing Information
Box 10, which contains declassified state department material, has been missing since 2012.
Access and Use
Access Restrictions
All microfilm has been downgraded to the "secret level". Persons wishing to use the collection should write to the Library for an SF-86 (Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions) and fingerprint cards in order to obtain a security clearance. Once cleared (approx. 4-6 months), individuals may examine the film and make copies which will be sent to State for declassification decisions (another two to six months). One may also take notes, but these must be classified and sent to State, which cautions that such notes may be difficult to declassify. Once declassified, the records will be sent to the researcher.
Use Restrictions
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Curator of the Public Policy Papers. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright questions.
Preferred Citation
John Foster Dulles State Department records; 1953-1959, Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
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Topics
Subject Terms
Genre Terms
Contents and Arrangement
Arrangement
There are two categories of reels: 148 containing documents other than telegrams, and 44 containing telegrams only, which were filmed separately for reasons of cryptographic security.
1. Microfilms Each reel of microfilms has a number, the numbers running from 1 through 144 and from 201 through 248. For security reasons, the microfilm reels have been separated into two categorise. Those reels numbered from 1 through 100 and from 201 through 248 contain copies of documents other than telegrams, e.g., memos of conversation, conference minutes, etc. Those numbered from 101 through 144 contain copies of telegrams which, for reasons of cryptographic security, have been filmed separately.
Each page of each document has been stamped, before being microfilmed, with a separate number, usually in the lower left-hand corner. This is the 'frame number," i.e., the number assigned to each microfilm frame within each microfilm reel. All documents or individual pages of documents can thus be easily identified by reel number and frame number. At the beginning of each reel is a "target sheet." This sheet in bold type identifies by subject matter the ensuing groop of filmed documents; indicates, where possible, the State Department file number of the original documents and their location, at the time of filming, within the various file systems of the Department of State; and gives the inclusive, frame numbers within that particular reel.
Where the original films were unclear because of faulty photography, retakes have been made in most cases. These retakes are identified as such and have been spliced in at the beginning of the appropriate microfilm reels. In some cases the original documents were so faintly or badly typed that the microfilm copies are scarcely legible, and no amount of rephotographing could improve the situation. In these instances, recourse will have to be made to the original documents in the files of the Department of State.
2. Telegrams The telegrams contained in reels 101 through 144 are mostly those exchanged between the Department of State and the regular US diplomatic posts abroad or the UN mission in New York. Some, however, fall into special categories and are identifiable by the cable addresses used, as listed below:
(a) DULTE-TEDUL DULTE is the cable address used in highly classified telegrams of limited distribution sent to the Department of State by Secretary Dulles when absent from the Deparmtent on a mission. TEDUL is the cable address use on telegrams addressed by the Department of State to Secretary Dulles under like circumstances.
(b) SECTO-TOSEC SECTO is the cable address used in telegrams of less limited distribution sent to the Department of State by the Secretary of State when absent from the Department on a mission. TOSEC is the cable address used on telegrams addressed by the Department of State to the Secretary of State under like circumstances. (Note: the DULTE-TEDUL series and the SECTO-TOSEC series often contain telegrams concerning subjects not pertinent to the specific purposes of the Secretary's trip abroad. Therefore important telegrams concerning many different subjects are to be found in these exchanges of telegrams which are normally located and catalogued in this collection under the general subject describing the occasion of the Secretary's trip abroad. For example the Suez crisis of July 1956 broke when Secretary Dulles was in Panama and South America. Therefore, important telegrams concerning this crisis will be found in the DULTE-TEDUL series grouped under the subject, "Panama Conference."
(c) POLTO-TOPOL POLTO is the cable address used in telegrams sent by the US Mission to NATO and European Regional Organizations in Paris to the Department of State. TOPOL is the cable address used in telegrams sent by the Department of State to the US Mission to NATO and European Regional Organizations in Paris.
3. Log of Documents. The log, copies of which are deposited in both the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton and the Historical Office, Department of State, contains a separate page for each microfilm reel. Each page of the log includes the following information: (a) reel number; (b) inclusive frame numbers; (c) repository of original documents within the Department of State at the time of filming; (d) State Department file numbers of documents (when possible); (e) frame numbers of retakes (when necessary); and (f) subject or subjects of the documents included in the ree, as described on the target sheet for each reel.
4. Card catalogue Copies of the card catalogue are deposited in both the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton and the Historical Office, Department of State. The card catalogue provides a general, but not detailed, index of the collection. Each card contains the following information: (a) single words subject in the upper left-hand corner;* (b) cryptographic classification of document in upper right-hand corner;** (c) general subject of document or group documents as described on target sheets of the microfilm reels; (b) reel number; and (e) frame numbers. The cards are filed alphabetically according to the subject heading in the upper left-hand corner.
Philip A. Crowl, Washington, D.C., 1962
Updated upon declassification: Princeton, New Jersey, 1999
*Any given document or group of documents contained in a single reel is normally listed under several subjects. For example, for the subject, "Second Suez Canal Conference, London, September, 1956," three separate cards are to be found int he catalogue: one bears, in the upper left-hand corner, the title, "Egypt"; another, the title, "Suez Canal"; and the third, the title, "London Conference."
**All telegrams are included in the "encrypted" category; all other documents in the "non-encrypted" category.
Series 1. Microfilm, 1953-1959
Series 2. Declassified Records, 1953-1959
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