Part 1 of the Richard Critchfield Papers contains general biographical information; correspondence; scrapbooks and diaries from his Nagpur and Nepal experiences; newspaper clippings and drafts of his articles; drafts, final copies, and resource and other materials from his published books; other fiction and non-fiction writings; and a large number of notebooks kept while covering the war in Vietnam. These records document both his personal life and professional career, particularly his preparations for writing The Long Charade and The Golden Bowl Be Broken.

One of the most informative parts of the collection is the correspondence series. It consists mainly of incoming letters but also contains carbons of Critchfield's letters to his newspaper and book editors and many manuscript letters he wrote his mother, giving information of a more personal nature. Included here are about fifty long memos written to Washington Star editors Burt Hoffman and Crosby Noyes about Critchfield's unfolding suspicions in Vietnam; for instance, a particularly interesting December 9, 1966 letter to Noyes reviews Critchfield's Dai Viet suspicions and comments on the role of the U.S. press in influencing events in Vietnam. Notes and letters from many well-known members of the U.S. government are filed in this series as are a June 26, 1969 letter from Tran Van Huong, prime minister of South Vietnam, and interview notes in letter form dated March 16, 1969, bearing pencilled corrections by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Several of Critchfield's letters to his mother refer to the “pariah” effect inflicted on his career by publication of The Long Charade.

Some of the most significant items in the collection are found in various “miscellaneous” folders. For instance, the miscellaneous materials from The Long Charade (Box 8) include exchanges between the State Department and Senators Bourke B. Hickenlooper and George S. McGovern, with information supplied by Critchfield, concerning U.S. knowledge of the Dai Viet influence in Vietnam. The miscellany from The Golden Bowl Be Broken (Box 12) includes notes from interviews with Robert S. McNamara, then of the World Bank, and the governor of Djakarta, Indonesia. And in the “Notes” series, the miscellaneous materials (Box 13) include interviews with U.S. Ambassadors to India John Kenneth Galbraith and Chester Bowles; Indira Gandhi, October 1962; South Vietnamese Brigadier General Nguyen-duc-Thang; and Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, 1972. The Vietnam notebooks contain a wealth of similar information; though the notes were hurriedly handwritten and are often somewhat cryptic, Critchfield's list of the contents (Box 13) helps guide the researcher in their use.

One other portion of the collection which merits comment is the resource material from The Long Charade. Filed by Critchfield under subject headings, this material now comprises mainly undated dispatches plus occasional other items. Dated dispatches and clipped articles by Critchfield originally found in these files were interfiled in the Articles series; clipped articles by other reporters were discarded with Critchfield's permission. The “Miscellaneous Resource Materials” include what Critchfield referred to as “100 major documents of the Vietnam War.” The pages from the Saigon Post, a Ky-controlled newspaper, were preserved by Critchfield as evidence of how the Dai Viets attempted to control and shape press coverage in South Vietnam.

The major value to researchers of this part of the collection lies probably in two areas: in the information on Vietnam from a well-informed person on the scene who came to adopt opinions not widely held or publicized in the United States; and in the perspectives provided on various aspects of journalism, particularly its own politics.