As originally received from the donor between 1981 and 2000, the Robert Shaplen papers consisted of over 100 cubic feet of correspondence, writings, and research material, with the research material comprising the majority of the collection. When received in 1981 the initial installment (approximately 60 cubic feet) was partially processed, but little weeding was done. In 2011 the entire collection was prepared for research. With the benefit of online access to world-wide catalogs, many of the printed materials in the Shaplen collection were found to be more readily accessible than previously thought. Many of the book and serial titles were already available at the University of Wisconsin's Memorial Library, the Wisconsin Historical Society Library, or they were appropriately housed at other research institutions. These publications were weeded and unique publications found during processing were transferred to the proper campus library for author/title cataloging. At the same time, deteriorating clippings from the New York Times, other nationally circulated newspapers, and foreign English-language papers that Shaplen regularly consulted were discarded because they were also readily available.
The remaining research material consists of papers created by Shaplen himself, such as draft articles and typed reporter's notes; unpublished or near print items; and publications that were too ephemeral for item cataloging in a library. Because of their limited circulation, the near print English language press releases issued by foreign governments are an important part of the Shaplen collection, although except for the bulletins issued by Indonesia's Antara agency in Jakarta and the Vietnam Press (VP), the coverage is spotty. The Vietnam Press covers the period from 1962 to 1969, with the holdings corresponding to the periods when Shaplen was in Saigon, and even within that period some issues are incomplete. The longest run of the releases, Saigon Press Analysis of Vietnamese and Chinese Dailies, which was issued by the U.S. Information Service, was separated to the University Library.
Taken together, Shaplen's research files are a diverse resource. Because of this diversity and the limited context provided for some items, the contents list is a necessary guide for finding useful material.
The Shaplen papers are arranged as CORRESPONDENCE, THE NEW YORKER WRITING AND RESEARCH FILES, FREELANCE WRITINGS, SUBJECT FILES, and VISUAL MATERIALS.
The CORRESPONDENCE, approximately 0.8 cubic feet, consists of family letters and general correspondence. The Shaplen family correspondence is arranged by the name of the writer: primarily Joseph (Robert's father), Peter (Robert's son), and Shaplen himself. Other members of the family are grouped together. Shaplen's letters to his mother and son Peter, also a journalist of note, are particularly useful for the 1970s. Although the overall tone of the correspondence is personal and many letters are undated, Shaplen often discussed his assignments and reporting experiences.
The general correspondence is divided into chronological and alphabetical sections. The material received by the Archives suggests that Shaplen did not handle his correspondence in a systematic manner, although it is also possible the correspondence was lost during Shaplen's travel or he chose not to donate it to the Archives. There are few copies of Shaplen's outgoing letters here, and the incoming files contain many gaps.
The general correspondence includes contacts with literary agents and publishers; reader responses to his writings (often from people of prominence); and letters from friends and professional associates. Correspondents of note include: Burton Benjamin (1975), Avery Brundage (August 10, 1960), John Kenneth Galbraith (1979), John Gaus (August 13, 1960), Matthew Josephson (December 1, 1959), James Michener (February 25, 1978), and Howard Teichman (October 13, 1959).
Correspondence with The New Yorker, which is part of the alphabetical general correspondence, is also sparse, consisting primarily of contracts, salary information, and a few items about specific stories. It should not be surprising that exchanges with William Shawn, the notoriously uncommunicative editor of The New Yorker, are limited, but there are several interesting letters from Shaplen to Shawn about particular assignments. Contacts with The New Yorker can also be found in a folder about the allegations of Frank Snepp, a former CIA agent, concerning the agency's alleged influence on Shaplen's reporting on Vietnam.
Of special interest in the general correspondence are several memoranda about Vietnam policy that Shaplen prepared for Henry Kissinger. Although undated, these memos were probably written in 1969. There is also a 1968 memoranda about Indonesia prepared for Hubert Humphrey. Some additional correspondence, primarily concerning arrangements and research details for individual assignments, is included in the New Yorker Writing and Research series.
THE NEW YORKER WRITING AND RESEARCH FILES is the largest series in the collection. Shaplen wrote two types of stories for The New Yorker: 1) reporter-at-large coverage of foreign affairs, and 2) profiles of individuals and special topics. The papers are similarly arranged. The geographical, reporter-at-large files are arranged alphabetically by place, and the profiles are arranged alphabetically by name or subject. The geographical files primarily document specific nations, with a few folders representing Southeastern Asia and Indochina. Vietnam is the most extensively and most comprehensively covered nation, but there are also strong files about Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Despite the strong coverage of Vietnam, there are no typed notes, reference materials, or drafts for his 1984 trip which became the basis for Bitter Victory. For mainland China, the best documentation covers the immediate post-World War II years and the fall of the nationalist forces. The documentation about Japan focuses on the Lockheed bribery scandal of the 1970s and the nation's economic development during that period. Both sections of The New Yorker writings are arranged similarly, although the quantity varies for individual topics. Files that reflect Shaplen's personal journalism such as his manuscript drafts, edited galleys, handwritten and typed notes, and correspondence begin each nation's files, followed by the weeded research material he collected. The latter is arranged alphabetically by subject. The reporter-at-large manuscripts appeared in The New Yorker with titles such as “Letter from Saigon” and “Letter from Hong Kong,” and they are consequently identified as letters in the contents list, although they are, in fact, articles. Most articles are represented by the author's final draft. For some, there are also handwritten and typed revisions and occasional edited galley pages. There are no preliminary drafts. Some articles are represented only by printed pages from the magazine. In general, the author's final drafts contain little factual information that did not also appear in print. The chief exception is the unpublished articles such as profiles of Martin Iger and Ignatius Trebisch-Lincoln.
Shaplen's typed notes, which are found in both the reporter-at-large and the profile sections of the series, are the documentation with the greatest research potential. Unlike the correspondence the typed notes consist of systematically typed information gleaned from interviews, reading, and other sources. It is thought this attention to documenting sources was the result of Shaplen's early journalistic training at the New York Herald Tribune. It may also have been prompted by his nearly illegible handwriting. In the course of his writing Shaplen often tore apart the original order of his notes, but because he carefully numbered the pages, the original order was restored in the Archives.
There are, however, some problems with using the typed notes because they are not written in complete sentences. Also, Shaplen's long blocks of single-spaced type do not readily distinguish between readings and interviews, where a particular topic begins and ends, or where one day begins and ends. Generally, the notes are long documents covering an entire assignment, although the Vietnam notes are shorter, each covering an individual trip. It is likely some of the problems with the typed notes can be overcome by using them in conjunction with the published articles although that was not tested in the Archives.
Taken together with the information from the typed notes, Shaplen's collected research materials reveal his high level of political access. Not only is there correspondence about his role as a go-between for Averell Harriman with Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a long letter from Benigno Aquino, and photographs of his travels with Ramon Magsaysay during the campaign against the Huks, but there are also interviews and copies of speeches with leaders such as Bao Dai of Vietnam; Kim Dae Jung of Korea; Mao Tse-Tung; President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines; Prime Minister Abdul Razak of Malaysia; Soedjatmoka, an Indonesian intellectual and diplomat; President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam; and Lee Kuan Yew, prime minister of Singapore. Prominent Americans include Edward Lansdale and journalists Bernard Krisher, Douglas Pike, and William Shawn.
In addition to the documentary types listed above, Shaplen acquired some original documentation. The Kreuger research materials, for example, contain original court records for the bankruptcy litigation of the International Match Company, Shaplen's study of Philip Musica of McKesson & Robbins is documented by original reports from FBI and Treasury Department, and the Lockheed files contain an aviation executive's 1976 account of his sales mission to Japan. There are also internal memoranda issued by early Peace Corps staff in the Philippines and original telex messages circulated to David Newsom, assistant secretary of state for political affairs, during the Iran crisis.
The FREELANCE WRITINGS document Shaplen's career in addition to his work for The New Yorker. The series includes published and unpublished drafts for his short fiction and non-fiction works, a television script for The Twentieth Century (CBS) about World War II, and book reviews. There are only limited draft materials for his nonfiction books here, but printed copies are available in the University and Historical Society libraries. Among the diverse subjects represented in Shaplen's shorter nonfiction are African American businessmen in New Orleans, western businessmen in post-World War II Shanghai, the Huk uprising in the Philippines, Ho Chi Minh, and Shaplen's congressional testimony during the Vietnam War. Shaplen is reputed to have written 50 articles about sports personalities for Sports Illustrated, but only a few are in the collection, and of these, only those about Avery Brundage and George Weiss are represented by more than the printed pages from the magazine. Also included are clippings of early news stories published in the New York Herald Tribune and Newsweek magazine. Most of Shaplen's work in both Newsweek and the Herald-Tribune appeared without a byline, so the fact that he clipped these stories serves as proof of his authorship.
Copies of Shaplen's two fiction books are part of the archival collection, as they are not owned by any campus library. Experiences during World War II and the Far East during the post-war era served as inspiration for much of the fiction. In addition to several published short stories there are drafts and planning materials of several manuscripts with World War II subjects.
The small SUBJECT FILES series contains information on Shaplen's contributions to the policy of the American Friends of Vietnam, on whose board he served, and his leadership of a program for Asian writers sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Other material is filed in this series because it was not appropriate elsewhere in the collection. This includes writings by Everett D. Hawkins and H.R. Isaacs, press reviews issued by the U.S. Embassy Translation Unit covering a wide geographic area, and the letters of Mrs. Hugo Dannehl, a German woman in Japan in 1945, about her missing relatives.
The VISUAL MATERIALS consist of informal portraits of Shaplen and black & white and color photographs of Southeast Asia. Not all of the photographs are clearly related to Shaplen's journalistic career. Of the photographs with a clear connection are snapshots of the imperial city of Hue taken after just after the Tet Offensive. From his remarks in Time Out of Hand, Shaplen is known to have visited Hue at this time, however, the purpose of these photographs, which were probably not taken by him, is unknown. These photographs graphically document the destruction in the imperial city and some unidentified Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) operations elsewhere in Vietnam probably dating from the same period. More closely connected with Shaplen's journalism are photographs taken by V.G. Miller to illustrate the article Shaplen wrote for Collier's about the Huk uprising in the Philippines. These photographs, together with Shaplen's suggested captions for the article, document military operations led by Ramon Magsaysay against the Communist insurgents. Similar images by Miller, but in color, appeared in the magazine. From Shaplen's coverage of President Gerald Ford's trip to Peking (Beijing) in 1975 the collection includes several official photographs of the President. Some of Shaplen's photographs are available online in the Wisconsin Historical Images database.
