The William Attwood Papers document the long and distinguished career of a most versatile and talented individual. While Attwood worked primarily in magazine and newspaper journalism, he also has served with distinction in the Army, Foreign Service, and other State Department appointments, and has authored several books on diverse topics; furthermore, in addition to maintaining an ongoing interest in international affairs and domestic politics, he has taken an active role in various organizations.
A note on the correspondence: Frequently, in an ongoing correspondence, Attwood will be addressed in his different capacities over a period of time; the same holds true with respect to letters written by Attwood. In terms of arrangement, this means that the correspondence with a given individual or institution may not be restricted to one series. For example, correspondence with William F. Buckley will be found in General Correspondence but also within the Public Service, Professional, and Subject Files. The collection's correspondence is arranged first alphabetically by corporate or personal (last) name and then chronologically when necessary. Among the many correspondents are William F. Buckley, Jimmy Carter, John Kenneth Galbraith, Allen Ginsberg, Averell Harriman, Henry Kissinger, Alfred Knopf Jr., John Lindsay, Groucho Marx, Bill Moyers, General Robert Richardson (appointed Commander of U.S. Army Pacific Operations, 1944), P.J. O'Rourke (editor National Lampoon), Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Adlai Stevenson, and Ahkmed Sedou Toure (President of Guinea). There is also correspondence with many members of Congress, the White House staffs of various administrations, journalists, publishers, and politicians.
The collection is organized into four series: Personal Correspondence, Public Service, Professional, and Subject Files.
PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE is grouped into two sub-categories: Family and General. The Family correspondence is mainly from the war years and the immediate post-war period when Attwood moved to Europe in order to establish himself as a foreign correspondent. The wartime correspondence includes letters to his parents from the Commander of Army Operations in the Pacific, General Robert Richardson, who was a personal friend of the family. Other correspondence describes Attwood's wartime experiences in the Mediterranean and during the late Pacific island campaigns. The General Correspondence holds letters which are “general in nature,” viz., the letters filed here are those which do not dove-tail neatly into a more specific series. As noted above, correspondence with a given individual or institution will frequently be filed in more than one series.
The PUBLIC SERVICE series is grouped into two sub-series: Military; and Diplomatic Service and Special Appointments. In addition to his personnel record, the Military materials include intelligence reports from both the Mediterranean and Pacific Theaters. The Diplomatic Service materials stem from Attwood's tours of duty as ambassador to Guinea (1961-1963) and Kenya (1964-1966). Included are personal and official correspondence, memoirs, personal documents, USIS releases, memorabilia, and 2 films. State Department correspondence (especially that of the Guinea period) includes several interesting and confidential discussions of the policies, goals, and ambitions of the Foreign Service during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.
Attwood's appointments under the auspices of the State Department to activities involving the United Nations include papers relating to his assignment as an advisor to the U.S.'s United Nations delegation (1963-1964), his tenure as a Commissioner on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO (1979-1982), and his appointment as the media representative to the 20th UNESCO General Conference (1978-1979). The last-named is especially well covered. Much of the correspondence is from journalists, publishers, and politicians who were concerned about the notion of the “New World Information Order” which was being disseminated at the time by non-western governments. Attwood had been given the task of negotiating a compromise “Declaration on the Mass Media” which wouldn't be injurious to freedom of the press. Also included are conference documents, a diary, and a comprehensive file of communications between the State Department and the Paris Embassy.
Attwood's careers in authorship and journalism are represented in the PROFESSIONAL series. Attwood's abiding interest in Africa, as well as in the Foreign Service and in East-West relations, came to the fore in his book The Reds and the Blacks (1968). The book created a furor in Kenya and the authorities there banned it. Critics castigated Attwood for betraying diplomatic confidences. However, many readers--African, American, and the international diplomatic community alike--saw the book as timely and signally appropriate in its profiles, humour, and assessments. Extensive correspondence with readers and editor/publisher are included. The collection also holds materials relating to Attwood's other published books with correspondence being the primary form of material. The correspondence generated by his book The Reds and the Blacks (1968) should be read with reference to the material on Africa which is located in the Subject Files discussed below. There is considerable diversity amongst the topics dealt with in his books: humour (The Man Who Could Grow Hair, 1949); social observation and travel (Still the Most Exciting Country, 1955; and The Reds and the Blacks, 1968); a children's story (Fairly Scary Adventure Book, 1969); aging (Making It Through Middle Age, 1982); and a historical assessment of relations between the U.S.S.R. and the United States (The Twilight Struggle: Tales of the Cold War, 1987).
The Journalism files provide documentation of Attwood's career from its beginnings in World War II to his retirement in the late 1970's. The many different levels on which Attwood worked in magazine and newspaper journalism has yielded a record of considerable range and detail: foreign correspondent based in post-war Europe; European/national/foreign editor of Look magazine (1951-1961) and later editor-in-chief/director/vice-president of Cowles/Look Publications (1965-1969); and president and publisher of the newspaper Newsday (1971-1979). Attwood spent much of his time traveling in post-war Europe in order to carry out research and conduct interviews for his articles.
The articles are poignant, well-written accounts of this critical period in European history from the perspective of an American who was himself born in Europe. Anecdotal commentary on Adlai Stevenson will be found in the material which came out of Attwood's accompanying Stevenson on his world tour in 1953 (Look magazine). The files relating to Look are quite comprehensive in their documentation of staff activitiis critical period in European history from the perspective of an American who was himself born in Europe. Anecdotal commentary on Adlai Stevenson will be found in the material which came out of Attwood's accompanying Stevenson on his world tour in 1953 (Look magazine). The files relating to Look are quite comprehensive in their documentation of staff activities, e.g., communications between New York and the Paris office of Look covering both day-to-day affairs and long range planning (arranged chronologically, 1951-1954) and staff correspondence and memoranda during the last years of the magazine's existence (alphabetical and chronological, 1966-1969). Additionally, there is an interview on film done by Attwood of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Staff materials from both Newsday proper and from the parent company, Times-Mirror, Inc., provide a substantive record of a major newspaper's daily operations and long-term goals, most especially in the areas of management and planning (Newsday was undergoing extensive expansion in circulation and the physical plant during Attwood's leadership).
The SUBJECT FILES are arranged into six sub-series: Academe, Country/Region, Organizations, Presidential Campaigns, Speeches, and Miscellanea. The Academe files contain materials generated by Attwood's serving on the Advisory Committee of the Averell Harriman College for Urban Policy Studies; and correspondence, classroom, and administrative materials connected with Attwood's participation in the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow program and as a Visiting Professor/Guest Lecturer at several schools and universities. Papers relating to Attwood's tenure as a Trustee at Princeton are filed separately under “Princeton.”
The Country/Region files include extensive correspondence and other supplemental materials relating to Africa (see also the correspondence filed with The Reds and the Blacks). Other files hold material resulting from Attwood's visit to China in 1971, four visits to Cuba since the Revolution, and his long-term relationship with Prince Sihanouk and other Cambodian officials. Records of the Committee on East-West Accord are the most substantial among the files arranged under the rubric Organizations; included are director correspondence and memoranda, committee minutes, agendas, and memoranda, and position papers and reports. Included with the Committee's files are papers relating to the Union of Concerned Scientists. The Presidential Campaign files (1956-1980) include speeches, correspondence, and general campaign materials. The most thoroughly covered are 1956 and 1960 when Attwood worked in the Stevenson and Kennedy campaigns. The Speech file holds speeches Attwood has given from the 1950s into the 1980s.
