Papers consist of five series: Foreign Service, Academic Career, Writings, Personal, Audiovisual, and Clippings. Foreign service series covers Kattenburg's foreign service work from 1946 to 2004. Twelve subseries distinguish chronologically the significant positions Kattenburg held, from Research Specialist to Consul to United States Embassy Counselor, in posts both in Washington and abroad. The series contains materials about the Vietnam War and United States foreign policy and military intervention in Southeast Asia. These include Kattenburg's own reports and memos on various trips to the region. The academic career series includes materials relating to Kattenburg's career as a university professor of political science, 1947-2000, at seven different institutions of higher learning. Kattenburg kept detailed files on every class he taught, including handwritten lecture notes, assignments, exams, and correspondence with various students, colleagues, and administrators. Writings series includes Kattenburg's published and unpublished political writings. Kattenburg wrote hundreds of articles and chapters for various publications, many of which are found in the collection. Included is his 1980 volume, The Vietnam Trauma in American Foreign Policy, 1945-1975, which he considered his most important work, as well as relevant research and correspondence. Personal series relates to Kattenburg's family, education, and military service. Also present is personal correspondence with numerous American and foreign academicians, diplomats, and politicians, as well as with Philippine president Corazon Aquino and her husband, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, whose friendship with Kattenburg began in the 1950s. The audiovisual series includes the 1999 documentary, The Vietnam War: A Descent into Hell (by The Discovery Channel), for which Kattenburg was a major contributor, as interviewee and donor of visual items.
