This series contains material created and collected by Drew Pearson during his career as a newspaper columnist, television and radio broadcaster, and lecturer. The materials concern political, economic and social topics in both U.S. domestic affairs and foreign affairs. Subjects concerning domestic affairs pertain to actions of the U.S. Federal and state governments, including those of former U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon; and activities of cabinet members, executive departments, executive department officers and staff, state governors, the U.S. Congress and its members, and the U.S. Supreme Court and Supreme Court justices. Domestic policy subjects also include the New Deal, education, housing, immigration, religion, communism and McCarthyism, the Ku Klux Klan, discrimination, civil rights, atomic energy, U.S. armed forces and veterans, civil aviation, juvenile delinquency, crime, wiretapping, agriculture, corporations, labor unions, antitrust issues, trade, professional organizations, lobbies and lobbyists, political conventions, presidential campaigns from 1948 to 1968, presidential elections, and political scandals.
Topics concerning foreign affairs include World War II, the Korean War, and the war in Vietnam. The files also relate to Africa, China, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and the United Nations. Some of these files include notes taken during interviews with foreign heads of state and government officials. The series also contains material concerning several multilateral economic and peace conferences. The conferences represented are the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace (the Buenos Aires Conference), 1936; the conference at Yalta, 1945; and the Geneva Conference (the Big Four Conference), 1955.
This series also contains material related to Pearson's charitable activities, including service in the American Friends Service Committee in Serbia after World War I; the shipment of supplies to Europe after World War II known as the Friendship Train; the shipment of gifts from France to the United States known as the Merci, or Gratitude, Train; involvement in the Tide of Toys; and involvement in Big Brothers of America.
The files contain materials pertaining to Pearson's publication ventures including his syndicated column "The Washington Merry-Go-Round"; the comic strip "Hap Hopper"; the newsletter "Personal from Pearson"; and the preparation and publication of five books: "American Diplomatic Game" (1935), "The Nine Old Men" (1936), "USA - A Second Class Power?" (1958), "The Case Against Congress" (1968), and "The Senator" (1968). Additional materials relate to Pearson's radio and television programs and scripts; his lecture tours; his work with other journalists and newspaper editors; and his involvement in various court cases and investigations of libel.
This series consists of fan mail; business and personal correspondence; staff memorandums; reports; handwritten notes; column copy; diaries; telegrams; clippings; legal documents; financial documents; photographs; slides; plaques; scrapbooks; cartoons and various other materials.
Some of members of Congress who are represented in the series include: Walter R. Brooks; Prescott Sheldon Bush; Robert C. Byrd; Martin Dies; Everett Dirksen; Thomas Dodd; John Nance Garner; Barry Goldwater; Ernest Gruening; Mark Hatfield; Hubert Humphrey; Estes Kefauver; Frank Lausche; Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.; Clare Boothe Luce; Eugene McCarthy; Joseph McCarthy; John McCormack; Wayne Morse; Claude Pepper; Adam Clayton Powell; George Smathers; Stuart Symington; Herman Eugene Talmadge; and Millard Tydings.
Supreme Court justices represented in this series are: Warren Burger; Tom Clark; William O. Douglas; Felix Frankfurter; and Earl Warren.
Some cabinet officers found in the series are: Dean Acheson (Department of State); Herbert Brownell (Attorney General); James Byrnes (Department of State); Ramsey Clark (Attorney General); Clark Clifford (Department of Defense); John Foster Dulles (Department of State); James Forrestal (Department of Defense); Averell Harriman (Department of Commerce); Cordell Hull (Department of State); Harold Ickes (Department of the Interior); Nicholas deB. Katzenbach (Attorney General); Robert F. Kennedy (Attorney General); and Elliott Richardson (Department of Health, Education and Welfare); William P. Rogers (Attorney General); Lewis Strauss (Department of Commerce); and Arthur Summerfield (Postmaster General).
Other government officers and employees found in the series include: Sherman Adams; Thurman Arnold; George Ball; Adolf Berle; Chester Bowles; Theron Lamar Caudle; Murray Chotiner; Thomas Corcoran; Leo T. Crowley; J. Edgar Hoover; Joseph P. Kennedy; Robert Kintner; Edwin Pauley; James Rowe; Maurice Stans; Sumner Welles; and Aubrey Williams.
Heads of state and foreign dignitaries represented in the series include: Winston Churchill; Francisco Franco; Nikita Khrushchev; Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina; and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (Edward and Wallis Warfield).
State governors represented in the series include: Thomas Dewey; Ronald Reagan; Nelson Rockefeller; George W. Romney; and Adlai Stevenson.
United States military figures represented in the series include: Richard Byrd; Julius Klein; Douglas MacArthur; George C. Marshall; George Patton; and Harry Vaughan.
Materials concerning people affiliated with journalism and publishing include: Robert S. Allen; Jack Anderson; Morris Bealle; Agnes Ernst Meyer; Westbrook Pegler; Herbert Bayard Swope; and Walter Winchell.
People represented in this series who were the subjects of investigations include: Andrija Artukovic; Alger Hiss; Owen Lattimore; and Nicolae Malaxa (industrialist and Nazi collaborator).
Materials in this series concerning political figures other than those mentioned above include: Father Charles E. Coughlin; Creekmore Fath; Robert Hannegan; Henry Wallace; and Wendell Willkie.
Notable people represented in the series include: Bernard Baruch (presidential adviser); Dave Beck (labor leader); Meyer ("Mickey") Cohen (mobster); Marcus Cohn (lawyer); Edward Condon (scientist); Cyrus Eaton (industrialist and philanthropist); Morris Ernst (author); James Hoffa (labor leader); Stephanie von Hohenlohe Waldenburg (alleged spy); J.B. Matthews (chief investigator, House Un-American Activities Committee); Ralph Nader (consumer advocate); Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (First Lady); Walter Reuther (labor leader); and George Skouras (film industrialist).
United States executive departments and agencies represented in the series include: the U.S. Air Force; the U.S. Army; the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB); the U.S. Coast Guard; the Department of Defense; the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); the Federal Housing Administration (FHA); the Federal Power Commission (FPC); the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC); the Department of Justice (DOJ); the Department of Labor; the U.S. Navy; the Post Office Department; the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); Food and Drug Administration (FDA); the Department of State; the Subversive Activities Control Board; the Veterans Administration; the War Department; and the Warren Commission.
Materials in the series concerning companies include: Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA); American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T); Dillon, Read & Company; Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO); Brown & Root Company; Chrysler Corporation; Coca-Cola Company; Douglas Aircraft Company; Ford Motor Company; General Aniline and Film Corporation; Higgins Industries; I.G. Farben; the National Broadcasting Company; Pan American Airways; Remington Rand; Standard Oil Company; Vanadium Corporation of America; and Western Union.
Other notable organizations represented in the series include: the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); the American Legion; the Communist Party of America; the U.S. Democratic Party; the Harlem Globetrotters; the John Birch Society; the Ku Klux Klan (KKK); the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Liberty Lobby; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Radio Free Europe; and the U.S. Republican Party.
Company executives represented in the series include: Pierre S. Du Pont; and Henry J. Kaiser.
This series also includes Pearson's research materials concerning alien property; the Berlin crisis; censorship and freedom of the press; the defense industry; disarmament; foreign aid; Medicare; Negroes (African Americans); the Pueblo incident (1968); and the U-2 incident (1960).
Materials reflecting Pearson's extensive travels and reporting on various countries include: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Formosa (Taiwan), France, Germany, Ghana, Great Britain (the United Kingdom), Greece, Greenland, Guam, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indochina, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Okinawa, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, the Panama Canal, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Siberia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, the Vatican (the Holy See), Venezuela, the Virgin Islands, Yemen, and Yugoslavia.
