General Records of the Department of State. 1763 - 2002. Prints of Diplomatic Personalities and Other U.S. and Foreign Dignitaries.

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General Records of the Department of State. 1763 - 2002. Prints of Diplomatic Personalities and Other U.S. and Foreign Dignitaries.

1950-1964

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/518074

From the inception of the Department of State central photographic files in the early 1950's until the mid-1960's, the Visual Services Division's Photographic Branch took a comprehensive approach to print creation, classification, maintenance, and filing. A print was generated for nearly every arriving negative, then mounted -- along with the prints that sometimes arrived from outside sources without negatives -- and systematically classified by subject or personality. The mounted prints were filed accordingly in the general subjects file (Record Group 59, Series G, "Prints of Diplomatic Events and Facilities, and U.S. and Foreign Political, Economic, and Cultural Life") or in the general personalities file. The latter, encompassing a mixture of head-and-shoulders portraits, desk portraits, and views from swearing-in ceremonies, speeches, press conferences, meetings, and other activity contexts, constitutes Series O. Images by Department of State staff photographers and other U.S. government agency camerapeople predominate (roughly 80%) in Series O; remaining items were acquired -- directly, or indirectly through copies from the U.S. Information Agency "Master File" -- from foreign government sources, such international government organizations as the United Nations and NATO, such private portrait studios as Chase, Karsh, Halsman, Bachrach, and Scurlock, as well as The New York Times,Wide World, and other commercial news operations. A similar majority of the Series O prints have corresponding negatives included in the State central negative sequence, Record Group 59, Series N, "Negatives and Proof Sheets Relating to Diplomatic Officials, Events, and Facilities." (See the Series N description for a fuller account of State photo file administration, including the dramatic changes in the handling of biographical images and all other photographs after 1964.) Represented in Series O are the U.S. Secretaries of State from the height of the Cold War -- Dean G. Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Christian A. Herter, and Dean Rusk -- as well as 1930's-1040's predecessors Cordell Hull, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., James F. Byrnes, and George C. Marshall. Rusk, most of whose administration's activity coverages were never shifted -- for unknown reasons -- to the special-focus Secretaries series (Record Group 59, Series SE, "Photographic Portraits and Events Coverages Relating to Secretaries of State"), gains particularly heavy attention in Series O. Among the Rusk highlights are the Secretary meeting with West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt on the developing Berlin Crisis in 1961; Rusk announcing, at a 1961 press conference, the U.S. response to a United Nations move to oust Nationalist China; Rusk briefing U.S. Congressmen on his plans to promote a coordinated hemispheric policy on Cuba, at the historic 1962 Inter-American Foreign Ministers Conference in Punta del Este, Uruguay; Rusk discussing the future of U.S. support for South Vietnam at a 1964 press conference; and Rusk conferring with the other key players in the formulation of 1964 Vietnam policy (President Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and General Maxwell Taylor). Presidents Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson are also well-represented in Series O, with Kennedy's career (Presidential and pre-Presidential) given especially heavy coverage. Included, for example, are views of Kennedy discussing the Laos issue during one of his first press conferences, held at State; Kennedy meeting with Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev at the 1961 summit in Vienna, Austria; Kennedy addressing the nation during the 1961 Berlin Crisis; and the President signing the 1963 Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty at the White House. In addition to the "live" photographic coverages of 1950's-1960's Presidents and Secretaries, Series O incorporates photographic reproductions of 18th, 19th, and 20th Century portrait paintings and engravings of U.S. Secretaries of State from John Jay to Dean Acheson, and of U.S. Presidents from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt. Beyond Presidents, Vice-Presidents (Richard M. Nixon, Johnson, and Hubert H. Humphrey), and Secretaries of State, a varied cast of mid-20th Century dignitaries is found in Series O, including Under-Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, Ambassadors, United Nations Representatives, and other high-ranking officials at State; top White House advisors and various U.S. agency heads, Congressional leaders, Supreme Court justices, and military officials; foreign heads of state and diplomats; United Nations and other international agency officials; and assorted U.S. and foreign cultural figures. Among the individuals appearing are such leading State policy-makers as Herbert Hoover, Jr., David K.E. Bruce, C. Douglas Dillon, U. Alexis Johnson, Livingston T. Merchant, and W. Averell Harriman; prominent U.S. diplomats Joseph C. Grew, Llewellyn E. Thompson, George F. Kennan, Henry Cabot Lodge, Adlai E. Stevenson, Douglas MacArthur II, Robert D. Murphy, G. Mennen Williams, Walter P. McConaughy, and Charles W. Yost; such American political luminaries as Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn, Senator J. William Fulbright, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Walter W. Heller; foreign government and international organization leaders ranging from the Dalai Lama of Tibet to British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden to United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold; and celebrities ranging from writer and Nobel Laureate William Faulkner to singer (and U.S. Delegate to the 13th Session of the United Nations General Assembly) Marian Anderson.

23 linear feet

eng, Latn

National Archives at College Park

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6448062

National Archives at College Park

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Wright, James S. (James Stephen), 1914-

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Herter, Christian Archibald, 1895-1966

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McNeill, Robert H., 1917-

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Meyle, Herbert J., 1919-

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Richards, John N.

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Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963

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