Contents and Arrangement Collection View
Description:

The correspondence is arranged alphabetically by correspondent and chronologically within each file. It consists primarily of material relating to Hamilton Fish Armstrong's work as editor of Foreign Affairs and is extremely comprehensive. The nature of the correspondence varies widely, and includes editorial correspondence, letters debating current political issues, business letters relating to the Century Club and Armstrong's other personal interests, and personal correspondence. There is also some correspondence relating to several of Armstrong's books. As editor of Foreign Affairs, Armstrong was responsible for recruiting prominent political figures to write articles for the publication; this frequently involved domestic and foreign travel. The correspondence is comprised of 66 boxes of material.

(arranged alphabetically)

Iraq, 1954

1 folder

U Nu, 1956

1 folder
Description:

This series documents many of the organizations, committees, and conferences that Armstrong was actively involved with over the course of his lifetime. It documents much of Armstrong's philanthropic work for Yugoslavia and the many activities of the Council of Foreign Relations, especially the War and Peace Studies organized during World War II. The materials in the Foreign Affairs sub-series documents the creation of Foreign Affairs and the early work of the Council. Other committees documented in this series include the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees and the State Department's Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policies.

(arranged alphabetically)

T, 1927

1 folder
Description:

Armstrong served as one of the principal delegates of the United States to the United Nations Conference on International Organization [UNCIO] in San Francisco in 1945 which drafted the United Nations charter. Armstrong's official title was Special Adviser to the Secretary of State, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. During the Conference he maintained a full set of records of his activities, which provide a highly detailed account of the meetings he attended. In addition, Armstrong retained a nearly complete set of documents for both the United States delegation and the UNCIO.

No arrangement action taken or arrangement information not recorded at the time of processing.

Description:

The Notebooks and Memoranda series is arranged chronologically dating from 1928 to 1972. Armstrong's notebooks are essentially a journal or diary of typed observations on politics, world events and economics, as well as his notes from dinners, meetings and interviews, including his candid impressions of people. The series contains memoranda of conversations Armstrong had with Hitler, Mussolini, Tito, the Dalai Lama, John Foster Dulles, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, among others. Journal entries will also be found in the State Department subseries of the Organizations and Committee series, in the United Nations Conference on International Organization series, and in the Subject Files series.

(arranged chronologically)

Description:

The Writings series is comprised of both published and unpublished writings, including books. The series is broken down into seven subseries by type of material, each arranged chronologically. The Articles subseries includes items from such publications as The Blue and the Gray, New York Evening Post, New York Times, and Scribner's. Armstrong's Foreign Affairs articles are not included since they are separately indexed in the journal which is available in the Reference Room. Copies from Armstrong's scrapbooks flesh out this series for the 1920s; see the Scrapbooks for a more complete record of the period since 1930.

(arranged by type, then chronologically)

Description:

The travel series is arranged alphabetically by country (according to the name currently in use at the time of Armstrong's travels) and chronologically within each file. Although it consists primarily of business-related correspondence, there are some personal letters between Armstrong and his wife and daughter. Armstrong spent a great deal of time abroad collecting information on the current political situation for Foreign Affairs, seeking articles from local intelligentsia, and meeting with key political figures. Some of the correspondence is in a foreign language, often French, most of which is not translated. The series is divided into three categories: correspondence pertaining to specific countries (1925-1972); trip itineraries (1947, 1954-1957, 1959-1968); and general travel correspondence (1935-1972, undated).

(arranged alphabetically by country)

Fiji, 1965

1 folder

Kenya, 1960

1 folder

Macao, 1959

1 folder

Mali, 1961

1 folder

Samoa, 1965

1 folder

Sudan, 1960

1 folder

Togo, 1961

1 folder
Description:

The address books series contains Armstrong's personal address books for most of the years between 1934 and 1966, including two folders of undated material. The series is comprised of eight folders, arranged chronologically with the books ordered alphabetically within each folder. The books were revised and updated regularly by his secretary, and reflect an accumulation of addresses over the years; this may explain why there are some years missing. They consist primarily of the addresses of Armstrong's international associates, and occasionally biographical information. Their names are also listed by their respective cities of residence at the end of each book. Also included are lists of international restaurants and hotels and other pertinent travel information and his dinner guest lists from 1938 to 1945.

(arranged chronologically)

Description:

The subject files are arranged alphabetically and then chronologically within each folder. The material in this series was pulled together by Armstrong in anticipation of writing a follow up volume to Peace and Counterpeace. Consequently, a wide range of topics are covered including individuals, printed matter, countries, organizations and events. The majority of this material is in the form of notes. For example, Dwight D. Eisenhower's folder contains seven pages of handwritten notes reflecting Armstrong's thoughts on a 1955 press conference. The Paris and Yugoslavia folders have the greatest quantity of material. However, a large portion of this material overlaps sections of the Travel series and the Notebooks and Memoranda series.

(arranged alphabetically)

Fiume, 1924

1 folder
Description:

The memorabilia is arranged alphabetically by subject. It contains Armstrong's autograph book (1919-1946), Princeton memorabilia, passports, and military records, as well as files on real estate, birth certificates, and Princeton classmates. The series also contains juvenalia (mostly drawings and letters) and school reports from Armstrong's childhood, an article recommending him for the position as Secretary of State, and booklets from two events he attended: a dinner for Winston Churchill in 1949 and the Harvard Honorary Degree Awards ceremony in 1963. There is also material in oversize and the hood and diploma from Armstrong's honorary Princeton degree (1961) were transferred to the University Archives.

(arranged alphabetically)

Description:

These scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings mainly concerning Hamilton Fish Armstrong (1911-1972). One volume contains records on Foreign Affairs for 1926-1927. The later volumes consist almost entirely of clippings; earlier volumes contain a variety of materials including correspondence, photographs and memorabilia.

(arranged chronologically)

Description:

This series includes photographs taken and collected by Hamilton Fish Armstrong throughout his lifetime. The photographs have been arranged into two groupings according to size and then arranged alphabetically by subject. There are photographs of a personal nature in addition to photographs related to Armstrong's professional career with the Council on Foreign Relations, and his numerous travels dealing with matters of international relations. In many cases photographs were pulled from correspondence and other series, and thus relate very closely to the content of the Armstrong papers.

(arranged alphabetically by subject)

Description:

No arrangement action taken or arrangement information not recorded at the time of processing.

Scope and Contents

Consists of both personal and public papers of Armstrong (Princeton Class of 1916), including correspondence, notebooks, memoranda, writings, memorabilia, photographs, and clippings. The correspondence series is a major resource for the shaping of 20th-century American foreign policy. It documents the history of the Council, the expanding role of FOREIGN AFFAIRS magazine, the interactions of Armstrong and Archibald Cary Coolidge in shaping the journal, and Armstrong's extended discussions with public servants, academics, and journalists regarding leading issues between 1920 and 1972. Correspondents include Dean Acheson, Jay Allen, Frank Altschul, Newton D. Baker, Hanson Weightman Baldwin, Sir Isaiah Berlin, Edvard Benes, Tasker H. Bliss, Chester Bowles, Isaiah Bowman, Karl Brandt, McGeorge Bundy, William P. Bundy, Cass Canfield, Archibald Cary Coolidge, Vladimir Dedijer, Byron Dexter, Allen and John Foster Dulles, Anthony Eden, Herbert Feis, Konstantin Fotitch, Felix Frankfurter, Mabel S. Grouitch, John Gunther, Bruce C. Hopper, Edward Madell House, Joachim Joesten, George F. Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Wolf Ladejinsky, William L. Lander, R. C. Leffingwell, Walter Lippman, Archibald MacLeish, Walter Hampton Mallory, Thomas Mann, John Jay McCloy, George S. Messersmith, Francis Pickens Miller, Jay Pierrepont Moffat, Philip E. Moseley, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Petar II Karadordevic, Philip W. Quigg, James Reston, Gaetano Salvemini, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Bernadotte E. Schmitt, Charles Seymour, Carlo Sforza, Vincent Sheean, Edward Stassen, Mary H. Stevens, Henry L. Stimson, Dorothy Thompson, Josip Broz Tito, Jacob Viner, and Wendell L. Willkie.

Other series document Armstrong's principal interests: philanthropic work for Yugoslavia; the War and Peace Studies of the Council on Foreign Relations during World War II; the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees; the State Department's Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policies; and the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) in San Francisco, where Armstrong served as special adviser to Secretary of State Stettinius. Armstrong's journals in the Notebooks and Memoranda and in the UNCIO series provide detailed observations on politics, world events, meetings, and interviews. In addition, there are a large number of photographs of significant public figures, Council events, the American Home for Jugoslav Children, and the UNCIO.

Collection Creator Biography:

Armstrong, Hamilton Fish, 1893-1973

Hamilton Fish Armstrong was born, the youngest of seven children, April 7, 1893, in a house on West 10th Street. His parents, D. Maitland Armstrong (1836-1918) and Helen Neilson (1845-1927) named him for his great uncle, who was Grant's Secretary of State. His father was an artist, working especially with stained glass, and a one-time Consul General to Italy. Armstrong grew up in New York City and received his education at Gilman Country School in Baltimore, Maryland, and at Princeton University from which he received the A.B. in 1916.

Following his graduation Armstrong worked in the business department at The New Republic before entering the army in 1917. Commissioned a second lieutenant in October 1917, Armstrong advanced to first lieutenant and became Military Attache to the Serbian War Mission to the United States in December 1917. In November 1918, he received orders to Belgrade to become Assistant Military Attache to Serbia where in January 1919 he became Acting Military Attache.

Upon his military discharge in June 1919, Armstrong returned to New York to work on the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post, becoming the paper's special correspondent to Eastern Europe in 1921. His time in Serbia kindled in him a lifelong interest in foreign affairs, and in 1921 he became involved with the newly-formed Council on Foreign Relations, created to ensure that the United States' growing role in world affairs be informed and responsible. In 1922 Armstrong accepted a position as managing editor of the Council's magazine, Foreign Affairs, at the request of editor Archibald Cary Coolidge. Upon Coolidge's death in 1928, Armstrong became editor, a position he held until his retirement in 1972. Armstrong also served as the first Executive Director of the Council (1922-1928) and as a Council director from 1928 until 1972.

As editor, Armstrong travelled frequently, visiting with policymakers including King Alexander of Yugoslavia, Raymond Poincaré, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Neville Chamberlain. He was also well acquainted with many prominent Americans, such as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Henry A. Kissinger. He belonged to many important committees and foundations: member of the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees; three times delegate to the International Studies Conference (1929, 1933, 1935); trustee and twice president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation; trustee and once president of the New York Society Library; and trustee of the New York International House.

Armstrong held many prominent positions during the Second World War. From 1942-44, he served on the United States State Department's Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign Policies, which produced the original plans for the United Nations. In 1944, he became the special assistant to the United States ambassador in London with the personal rank of minister, before serving in 1944 and 1945 as special adviser to Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, working on the charter for the United Nations. At the San Francisco Conference in 1945, he was one of three senior advisers to the United States delegation.

Armstrong wrote prolifically, penning numerous magazine articles–forty-nine for Foreign Affairs alone–and thirteen books (he edited five others). His books include The New Balkans (1926), Where the East Begins (1929), Hitler's Reich: The First Phase (1933), Europe Between Wars? (1934), Can We Be Neutral? (1936) with Allen W. Dulles, "We or They:" Two Worlds in Conflict (1937), When There Is No Peace (1939), Can America Stay Neutral? (1939) with Allen W. Dulles, Chronology of Failure (1940), The Calculated Risk (1947), Tito and Goliath (1951), Those Days (1963), and Peace and Counterpeace: From Wilson to Hitler (1971). He edited The Book of New York Verse (1918), Foreign Affairs Bibliography (1933) with William L. Langer, The Foreign Policy of the Powers (1935), The Foreign Affairs Reader (1947), and The Foreign Affairs Fifty-Year Reader (1972).

His activities received much recognition, both at home and abroad. His time in Serbia earned him the Order of the Serbian Red Cross (1918), the Order of St. Sava Fifth Class (1918), and the Chevalier of Order of the White Eagle with Swords (1919). He was awarded the Order of the Crown (Rumania) in 1924 and the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia in 1937. In that year he was made an officer of the Legion of Honor of France and became a commander in 1947. He was appointed a Commander of the British Empire in 1972. He received honorary degrees from Brown (1942), Yale (1957), the University of Basel (1960), Princeton (1961), Columbia (1963), and Harvard (1963).

Armstrong married three times. Helen MacGregor Byrne became his wife in 1918, and they had one daughter, Helen MacGregor (later Mrs. Edwin Gamble) on September 3, 1923. Armstrong and Byrne divorced in 1938. Armstrong married Carman Barnes in 1945, a marriage which ended in a 1951 divorce. In that same year Armstrong married Christa von Tippelskirch. Armstrong retired from Foreign Affairs in 1972, the fiftieth year of its publication, and died after a long illness on April 24, 1973, at the age of 80.

Acquisition:

The Hamilton Fish Armstrong Papers were given to the Princeton University Libraries by Christa Armstrong, Hamilton Fish Armstrong's widow, in 1980 . Some papers were deposited at the Library in 1974 and the Library also received additional accessions in 1985 and 1992-1993 .

Appraisal

No appraisal information is available.

Sponsorship:

These papers were processed with the generous support of Christa (Mrs. Hamilton Fish) Armstrong.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Laurie Alexander, Paula Jabloner, Melissa A. Johnson, Olivia Kew, Alison McCuaig, Ben Primer, Gene Pope, Monica Ruscil, Morgan Russo, and Nanci Young in 1992 and 1993. Finding aid written by Laurie Alexander, Paula Jabloner, Melissa A. Johnson, Olivia Kew, Alison McCuaig, Ben Primer, Gene Pope, Monica Ruscil, Morgan Russo, and Nanci Young in 1992 and 1993.

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research use.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

Credit this material:

Hamilton Fish Armstrong Papers; Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Permanent URL:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/4b29b5977
Location:
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
65 Olden Street
Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
(609) 258-6345
Storage Note:
  • Mudd Manuscript Library (scamudd): Box 1-146
Subject Terms:
Editors - New York (N.Y.) -- 20th century.
International relations -- 20th century.
Journalists - New York (N.Y.) -- 20th century.
Genre Terms:
Correspondence
Drafts (documents)
Photographs, Original.
Scrapbooks -- United States -- 20th century
Names:
Century Club (New York, N.Y.)
Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Nations (1st: 1961: Belgrade, Serbia).
Council on foreign relations
American Home for Jugoslav Children (Selce, Croatia)
Woodrow Wilson Foundation
United Nations Conference on International Organization 1945 San Francisco, Calif.
United States. Department of State. Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policies
United States. President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees
Serbian Aid Fund
Serbian War Mission to the United States
International House (New York, N.Y.)
New York society library
Acheson, Dean, 1893-1971.
Allen, Jay, 1900-1972
Altschul, Frank, 1887-1981
Baker, Newton Diehl, 1871-1937
Baldwin, Hanson Weightman, 1903-1991
Beneš, Edvard, 1884-1948
Berlin, Isaiah, 1909-1997.
Bliss, Tasker Howard, 1853-1930
Bowles, Chester, 1901-1986.
Bowman, Isaiah, 1878-1950
Brandt, Karl, 1923-
Bundy, McGeorge
Bundy, William P. (1917-2000)
Canfield, Cass, 1897-1986
Coolidge, Archibald Cary, 1866-1928
Dedijer, Vladimir
Dexter, Byron, 1900-1973
Dulles, Allen, 1893-1969
Dulles, John Foster (1888-1959)
Eden, Anthony, Earl of Avon, 1897-1977
Feis, Herbert
Fotitch, Constantin
Frankfurter, Felix, 1882-1965
Gay, Edwin F. (Edwin Francis), 1867-1946
Grouitch, Mabel S., d. 1956
Gunther, John, 1901-1970.
Hopper, Bruce C. (Bruce Campbell), 1892-1973
House, Edward Mandell, 1858-1938
Joesten, Joachim, 1907-1975
Kennan, George F. (George Frost) (1904-2005)
Kissinger, Henry, 1923-
Ladejinsky, Wolf Isaac
Langer, William L. (William Leonard), 1896-1977
Leffingwell, R. C. (Russell Cornell), 1883-1960
Lippmann, Walter, 1889-1974
MacLeish, Archibald, 1892-1982
Mallory, Walter H. (Walter Hampton), 1892-1980
Mann, Thomas, 1875-1955.
McCloy, John J. (John Jay), 1895-1989
Messersmith, George S.
Miller, Francis Pickens, 1895-1978
Moffat, Jay Pierrepont, 1896-1943
Mosely, Philip E. (Philip Edward), 1905-1972
Nasser, Gamal Abdel,‏ 1918-1970
Petar II Karađorđević, King of Yugoslavia, 1923-1970
Quigg, Philip W.
Reston, James, 1909-1995
Salvemini, Gaetano
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. (Arthur Meier), 1917-2010
Schmitt, Bernadotte E. (Bernadotte Everly), 1886-1969
Seymour, Charles, 1885-1963
Sforza, Carlo, conte, 1872-1952
Sheean, Vincent, 1899-1975
Stassen, Harold Edward, 1907 -
Stevens, Mary H.
Stimson, Henry L.
Tito, Josip Broz, 1892-1980
Viner, Jacob, 1892-1970
Wilkie, Wendell L. (Wendell Lewis), 1892-1944
Places:
United States -- Foreign relations -- 1945-1989.
Yugoslavia -- Description and travel -- 20th century.
Yugoslavia -- History -- 20th century.