National Council of American-Soviet Friendship (U.S.). Records, 1919-1990.
Title:
Records, 1919-1990.
The collection contains materials generated by the organization's activities, including invitations, flyers, transcripts from speeches, records of planning meetings, and conference reports; correspondence; minutes; scrapbooks, materials pertaining to the Council's travel programs to the Soviet Union; administrative materials from the Campaign for a People's Peace Treaty, and materials from the Council's legal defense against the activities of of the Subversive Activities Control Board. The Administration series is divided into nine subseries. Subseries 1 documents the Council's formation and antecedents while subseries 2 documents the personal achievements of the Council's most eminent leaders, officers and supporters. Subseries 3 contains fairly complete minutes of the Executive Council and Board of Directors, while the minutes for the National Executive Board are incomplete. Subseries 4 contains reports, position papers, and statements for press release as well as documents meant for internal circulation. These materials reflect the Council's position on current events, including several unpopular Soviet actions and policies, and some organizational self-criticism. Subseries 5, Correspondence, is principally among Council members and with leaders of other progressive organization, as well as with celebrities who sponsored the work of the NCASF. About half of the correspondence is that of Richard Morford. Some prominent individuals with whom Morford corresponded were: Elmer Benson, Jerome Davis, Howard Fast, Shirley Graham DuBois, Alphaeus Hunton, A.J. Muste, Otto Nathan, Scott Nearing, Paul Robeson, Jessica Smith, Anna Louise Strong, Alexander Trachtenberg, Mary Van Kleeck and Harry Ward. Thc Council's general correspondence contains letters from Claude Pepper, Edward Stettinius, Henry Stimson and Willard Uphaus. Subseries 6, Legal, contains several charters and contracts, as well as all correspondence and documents such as motions, court transcripts, etc. pertaining to the Council's legal defense. It also contains documents pertainent to individual indictments of Council officers Morford, Corliss Lamont, John Kingsbury, and Alan Thomson. Subseries 7 contains records of early members and sponsors, and the subsequent withdrawal of many of them. Subseries 8, Committees and Local Councils contains materials generated by the NCASF's various committees (several of which represented progressives in the professions), and by the local branches in 25 cities and regions. Subseries 9 documents the Council's creation and distribution of educational materials, its Russian language classes, and circulation of Soviet films in the U.S. Series II is divided into four subseries. The first, Activities, is the largest in the collection. The bulk of this series documents events from the 1940's and 1950's, such as rallies, concerts, art exhibits, conference and receptions. Also included are files on recurring NCASF events, such as the annual Red Army Dinners. Beginning in the late 1940's the scale and kind of activities gradually changed, from mass political rallies to smaller, cultural events, reflecting the changes in the national political climate and the onset of the Cold War. Subseries 2, contains material from travel programs and tours, chiefly applications and lists of delegations to the Council's Camp Artek program. Subseries 3, Campaign for a People's Peace Treaty/People's Appeal fof Peace (1982-89), documents the administration and activities of this Council-sponsored organization which circulated a peace petition to Mikhail Gorbachev, and to Ronald Reagan, who refused to accept the petition. Subseries 4 contains publications and newsletters of, and some correspondence with, other organizations concerned with American-Soviet relations. Series IX. Scrapbooks, consists of nine scrapbooks containing clippings documenting aspects of the NCASF's activities from 1942-1950, including the Denver chapter, and the 1945 visit of the Dean of Canterbury.
ArchivalResource:
15.0 linear ft.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/477247407 View
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