The papers are composed primarily of Shinkman's reports as head of the German section of the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, 1943-1944, and typescripts for the 15-minute news commentaries he broadcast for most of the later part of his life, ca. 1938-1968. His diaries are an important part of this collection, and have been divided into sections on Europe and Washington, D.C. Also included in this collection are typescripts of his most popular lectures, interviews, writings as a journalist, and an outline and one chapter for a book which he intended to publish on his experiences in Czechoslovakia.
The DIARIES, 1938-1965, are separated into “European” and “Washington” headings. They illustrate his constant fascination with both national and international politics, and contain his reflections on matters such as growing world tensions before World War II, Adolf Hitler, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Italian fascism, White House conferences, Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and weekly events of importance.
Shinkman's LECTURES span a time period of over 25 years, and include such topics as “People and Places in the News” (1938), “In Europe They Told Me” (1940), “Behind the Iron Curtain” (1948), “The Washington News Hill” (1956), and “The Crack in the Iron Curtain” (1964).
His INTERVIEWS consist of typescripts and articles concerning exclusive interviews with such people as Lady Astor, 1946; Henri Bonnet, first post-war French Ambassador to the United States; United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, 1945-1947; General Charles DeGaulle, 1946; Dingle Foot, Parliamentary Secretary of the British Ministry of Economic Warfare, 1944; and Premier Jose Giral of the Spanish Republican Government in exile. Also filed here is Shinkman's 1938 profile of a commander of a French Line passenger ship, Commandant Pierre (?) Blanquie. Correspondence concerning these interviews is included in this section.
The WRITINGS span Shinkman's working life, beginning in 1924 with his journalism in Paris. These works have been divided according to country. Many of these articles have been published, although this is not noted on the typed articles themselves. Included in this section are Shinkman's impressions of different countries and cultural phenomena, such as Josephine Baker and the Folies Bergeres.
MISCELLANEOUS BROADCASTS are those which fall before ca. 1950. They are somewhat apart from his later regularly contracted work.
The FOREIGN BROADCAST INTELLIGENCE SERVICE OF THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION papers span 1943 and 1944. They consist of Special Reports, of events such as important speeches of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini; Southern European Analysis, documenting important broadcasting messages and themes in Italy, Spain and Portugal; Eastern European Analysis and Radio Report on the Far East, deciphering broadcasts from the U.S.S.R. and Nazi-occupied territory in Eastern Europe and the Far East; Western European Analysisand Central European Analysis, serving the respective interests of
such countries as France, Spain, and the Netherlands; Morning Preview of Foreign Broadcasts, summarizing the daily broadcasts specifically covered in the Daily Report of Foreign Broadcasts, a publication dealing with propaganda themes and news information gleaned from foreign radio broadcasts and newspapers; supplemented by Special Releases, and again summarized in the Weekly Review of Foreign Broadcasts. The great bulk of these publications has been transferred to the Government Documents Section of the Society Library. Several duplicate copies remain with the Shinkman papers. Included with these copies is a detailed list of publication dates for titles transferred to the Library.
The RADIO BROADCAST TYPESCRIPTS document important issues in American and international politics, internal dissension in American politics, and the McCarthy hearings. These were part of a long series of radio shows, 15 minutes each in duration, given weekly by Paul Shinkman. They are interesting as an indicator of events happening in the United States, and speak of and analyze such people as Charles DeGaulle, Andre Gromyko, King Hussein, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and John F. Kennedy. Events such as the Vietnam War, the signing of North Atlantic Treaty Organization treaties, and incidents in the Arab-Israeli War are also discussed.
