Summary
Overview
Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations Digital Sound Recordings
18.95 Gigabytes (415 files)
English, French, Chinese, Korean and German.
Abstract
The Council on Foreign Relations is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and national membership organization dedicated to promoting improved understanding of international affairs and to contributing ideas to United States foreign policy. These digital sound recordings have been transfered from original reel to reel tapes of Council meetings as part of an ongoing project. The meetings feature a range of speakers on topics relating to foreign policy, including mainly government officials and businessmen from the United States and abroad.
Description
Description
The digital sound recordings of the Council on Foreign Relations were transfered from original reel to reel tapes of Council meetings. Transcripts of meetings were created until 1963; from 1964 through 1970, there is no record of what was said at any events mounted by the Meetings Department at the Council unless the event was "on the record" and the speaker issued written text. The Council's records contain a small number of tapes from the early 1970s. The only record of the intellectual content of the Meetings Program after 1964 is these surviving tape recordings of the opening presentations of speakers, and occassionally a question and answer section. In 1978, the Council began to tape selected meetings for use by members who were unable to attend important meetings. At the end of each fiscal year, the Council president, Director of Meetings, and Director of Programs would assist the Director of Special Programs is selecting a portion of the year's taped meetings to be sent to the archives. Usually those selected were heads of state, foreign ministers, United States Cabinet members and other distinguished visitors. No programs held at the Washington, D.C. office of the Council were ever recorded.
Until the transfer was completed in April 2006, the meeting audio was inaccessible to researchers due to preservation concerns about tape handling and playing.
Portions of the recordings may have poor audio quality; the recordings often begin and end abruptly, and rarely feature the question and answer section of the meeting.
Collection Creator
History
The Council on Foreign Relations (the Council) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and national membership organization dedicated to promoting improved understanding of international affairs and to contributing ideas to United States foreign policy. The Council has had a large impact in the development of twentieth century United States foreign policy. Its membership has historically been drawn from those in business, government and academia recognized as the nation’s opinion leaders in international relations; membership is by invitation only. The Council’s basic constituency is its members, but it also reaches out to a wider audience through its publications, Committees on Foreign Relations, Corporate Program, and media efforts, so as to contribute to the national dialogue on foreign policy.
The Meetings of the Council on Foreign Relations have also been a means of furthering its goals to promote understanding of foreign affairs and the United States’ role in the world. At these meetings, government officials, global leaders, and Council members discuss and debate major foreign-policy issues.
For a fuller history on the Council on Foreign Relations, see the finding aid for the Council on Foreign Relations Records, Peter Grose’s Continuing the Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921-1996, located at http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/ and Michael Wala’s The Council on Foreign Relations and American Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1994).
Collection History
Acquisition
The collection was deposited at the Library in 1998. Title and custody of the collection were formally transferred to Princeton in 2002. Small transfers of more recent records occur annually.
Archival Appraisal Information
Since 1921, the Council has archived materials relating to its organization, study groups, meetings, and special events. The Council Library and Archives staff reviews records to discard administrative material not conforming to its general retention policy. Items deemed private or inappropriate for transfer are retained by the Council. Based on a memos dated 10 September 1984, 15 October 1984, and 19 December 1986 from Council records, Council administration routinely "purged" their collection of general meeting tapes, selecting only a few to go to the Council library and archives department.
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Jennifer Cole in June 2006. Finding aid written by Jennifer Cole in September 2006.
Sponsorship
This project was undertaken with the generous support of Ron Brown '72, Margaret Cannella '73, Francis J. Carey, Frank Carlucci, C.W. Carson, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cox, William J. Crowe, Russell DaSilva, Charles Ganoe, R. Scott Greathead, Dr. Roger Kanet, Melanie Kirkpatrick, Linda and Morton Janklow, Michael S. Mathews, Bradford Mills, Edward Morse, Joseph Nye, Dr. Gerald Pollack, Harold Saunders, Anne-Marie Slaughter, John Treat, and Ezra Zilkha, as well as the John Foster and Janet Avery Dulles Fund.
Accruals
The Mudd Manuscript Library does not anticipate receiving any further sound recordings from the Council on Foreign Relations, but will continue to digitize and make available its holdings of Council audio recordings as resources permit.
Bibliography
Information in the Organizational History section was gathered from material within the Council’s records (notably historical information from the Administration Series and Annual Reports from the Publications Series), as well as the Council on Foreign Relations’ website, www.cfr.org. Of special interest are the annual reports, located at http://www.cfr.org/about/annual_report/ and Peter Grouse’s Continuing the Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921-1996, located at http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/.
Access and Use
Access Restrictions
All Council on Foreign Relations records are closed for 25 years after the date of their creation.
Use Restrictions
All users must sign a consent form where they agree to the following: "As a condition of use, the officers of the Council shall require each user of Council records to execute a prior written commitment that he or she will not directly or indirectly attribute to any living person any assertion of fact or opinion based upon any Council record without first obtaining from such person his or her written consent thereto." Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Curator of Public Policy Papers. The Council retains copyright that it possesses in all published and unpublished material, sound recordings, electronic files and any item formatted in any medium; researchers are responsible for determining any question of copyright.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
The Council on Foreign Relations Sound Recordings are available to researchers in mp3 format. Users must have access to some form of mp3 player, such as Quicktime, Windows Media Player, or Winamp. Preservation master copies were made in WAV format, but are not available online.
Preferred Citation
Council on Foreign Relations Digital Sound Recordings; 1953-1989, Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
Find More
Topics
Subject Terms
Genre Terms
Other Finding Aids
The Council on Foreign Relations Digital Sound Recordings form part of the The Council on Foreign Relations Records (collection MC104). A Finding Aid for the entire collection is available online: Council on Foreign Relations Records Finding Aid.
The records of the Council on Foreign Relations Meetings Department are described in a finding aid, which includes a list of speakers at meetings held from 1924-1992: Council on Foreign Relations Meetings Records Finding Aid.
The Studies Department Records of the Council on Foreign Relations are described in a separate finding aid: Council on Foreign Relations Studies Department Finding Aid.
Related Material
The Council on Foreign Relations Records Series 4: Meetings, may hold paper records relating to these recordings. In addition, please see the Council on Foreign Relations's website located at http://www.cfr.org for online audio recordings of more recent on-the-record meetings.
Location of Originals
The original reel-to-reel tapes containing the Council's programs are held at the Mudd Manuscript Library as part of the Council on Foreign Relations Records, Series 13: Sound Recordings, 1953-1989.
Alternative Form Available
The Mudd Manuscript Library also maintains WAV format preservation master copies of each file.
Princeton University Library Finding Aids 
View Entire Finding Aid
Download Finding Aid