The collection is divided into two series. The first series concerns the organization and operation of BASCAHCUA in its efforts to abolish HUAC and is composed of correspondence, financial records, public relations materials, legal materials and meeting records. The second series, the organization's reference file, consists of materials on other issues that were of lesser interest to the group.
In the first series the materials have been subdivided into categories relating to the committee's internal and external functions, largely because the committee itself maintained its records in this way. Thus, materials relating specifically to activities in the San Francisco bay area have been classified as Internal Organization, while literature requests from the nation as a whole have been classified at External Organization.
Internal Organization includes minutes and agendas from meetings, local membership records, and internal correspondence. This correspondence, chiefly between Hall and White, reflects the bay area students' growing dissatisfaction with White's irresponsibility to the San Francisco group. The culmination of this internal dispute is documented in the section containing materials on the constitutional revision.
External Organization contains correspondence, public relations materials, legal materials, and financial records. The correspondence chiefly consists of requests for BASCAHCUA reprints from religious, educational, and civic groups, although opinions about HUAC and Operation Abolition are interspersed throughout the section. Letters from Aubrey Williams, head of MCAHUAC, and Representative James Roosevelt (Dem.-Calif.), a Congressional leader in the opposition to HUAC, are similarly scattered throughout the section. The legal material, including a lengthy summation of Robert Meisenbach's trial was probably used by BASCAHCUA to prepare their response to Operation Abolition. Included in the public relations materials are samples of BASCAHCUA publications and proofs, form letters, as well as ads and press releases. Financial records include deposit and check records of BASCAHCUA as well as those of the funds raised to support Meisenbach in the Student Emergency Defense Fund. Also arranged here are telephone bills listing the location of long distance calls.
The second half of the collection, the reference file, consists of two parts, sorted and unsorted materials. The sorted materials, which contain information on such topics as Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, the Cuban Defense Committee, and SLATE, the student political party at the University of California, are contained in folders as kept by BASCAHCUA. Materials which the organization left unsorted have been placed in folders and classified according to organizational title. Included among the unsorted materials are such topics as Helsinki World Youth Festival, Americans for Democratic Action, and Vietnam. The majority of the materials in the reference file consists of newspaper clippings and public relations mailers. Although the materials in both sections of this file are superficial in their coverage of the issues, the reference file is helpful in shedding light on the various aspects of student political activity in the early sixties.
