The Robert S. Allen Papers at the Wisconsin Historical Society document the professional career of one of the nation's best known and most highly regarded journalists of the mid-twentieth century. It was Allen's intention to donate papers concerning his military career, as well as the records he collected as Patton's intelligence operations officer to the Patton Museum at Fort Knox; while his journalism papers were willed to the Wisconsin Historical Society. However, the division was not precise. The Patton Archives collection includes all of the existing Allen correspondence with government officials, politicians, news agencies, and other journalists during the 1930s and early 1940, while the Wisconsin collection contains some material about his research and writing on Patton. Carbon copies of some material appear in both collections. Ruth Finney's professional papers are housed at the University of California-Davis and she is seldom mentioned in the collection. Adeline Sunday Allen is represented by a lengthy memoir, “Come Live With Me and the Colonel.”
Robert Allen's papers consist of WRITINGS, CORRESPONDENCE, JOURNALS, SUBJECT FILES, and VISUAL MATERIALS.
Allen's WRITINGS are arranged alphabetically by genre and by subject, with the majority of the series consisting of mimeographed column releases distributed to the syndicated papers. This section documents the “Washington Merry-Go-Round” for the years that Allen and Pearson were associated (1932-1942), and “Inside Washington,” for the years 1949 to 1977. Although there is no index in the collection for the “Merry-Go-Round” period, those releases may be searched online through the finding aid to the Drew Pearson Papers prepared by American University. The “Inside Washington” releases are not available online, but they are accompanied by name and subject indexes prepared by Allen's secretary for each alphabetically coded binder of releases. Pertaining to Allen's early career are scrapbooks of stories written by him and other members of the Washington bureau of the Philadelphia Record, 1936-1938 and 1940-1942. These articles are available only on microfilm. There are no drafts for any of his books in the collection, but there is correspondence pertaining to Lucky Forward, Our Fair City, and Truman Merry-Go-Round. The printed copies of all of the books presented by Allen are available in the Historical Society Library. Other writings in the collection consist of freelance articles and radio scripts.
A significant part of the WRITINGS series concerns General George S. Patton. After completing his history of the Third Army in 1947, Allen was hired by the Twentieth Century Fox studio hired to write a treatment for a motion picture biography of Patton. The projected biography was not made at this time, apparently due to opposition from the Patton family and internal issues at the studio. Several drafts of Allen's 42,000-word biographical treatment, “Bright Flash of War,” are included in the collection. More than “fair use” quotation of this manuscript requires permission from the copyright holder. The Patton file also includes Allen's correspondence with General Frank McCarthy at the Twentieth Century Fox studio concerning the film that was eventually released in 1970. Also included are several articles about Patton written by Allen, as well as his reviews of several Patton books, research material, and notes.
The general CORRESPONDENCE series is chronologically arranged. Researchers should note that some additional correspondence is included in the JOURNALS and SUBJECT FILES series.
Allen did not save correspondence systematically until late 1949, and even until the mid 1950s the correspondence in the collection is almost entirely incoming. The content for these years consists of letters from government officials; active and retired military personnel, some of whom were personal friends; newspaper editors who published his column; booking agents for his lectures; and editors of magazines that published his freelance work. Occasional letters from readers and newspaper publishers comment on specific columns. Some letters such as those from journalist T.M. Storke of the Santa Barbara News-Press in California were intended to keep Allen informed about local issues. After the mid-1950s the files include more frequent outgoing letters, with some of sufficient importance that Allen typed a rough draft.
The alphabetically-arranged SUBJECT FILES consist of correspondence of special interest or extent, together with other types of documentation. Only two of these files relate to Allen's early career. One contains a souvenir log and correspondence about Herbert Hoover's trip to Central and South America in 1928; the second consists of typescript copies of letters from General Douglas MacArthur to Isabel Rosario Cooper (1930-1932) thought to have figured in a libel suit brought by MacArthur against Pearson. Several folders concern the general topic of presidential politics. Letters to Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, Pierre Salinger, and Theodore Sorenson dating from the 1960 Presidential campaign and shortly thereafter suggest that Allen may have sometimes crossed the line of journalistic objectivity. Among the documented veterans are Generals Hobart “Hap” Guy, Hugh Hester, and Oscar Koch. In addition to the previously mentioned individuals, other prominent correspondents include James T. Farrell, James Henle of Vanguard Press, Estes Kefauver, Alf Landon, and William Loeb.
Allen's exchanges with the Field Newspapers Syndicate and its predecessors concern both column content and administrative matters, and they provide interesting insight into newspaper syndication. Robert G. Cowles, Robert M. Hall, Richard Sherry, and W. Robert Walton are among Allen's most frequent correspondents in this regard. There are also many detailed exchanges between Allen and his attorney concerning the plagiarism suit brought against Ladislas Farago for use of materials from Allen's Lucky Forward. The suit was eventually settled out of court with a small payment to Allen. This case is of special interest because Farago's book was used as the basis for the screenplay for the 1970 Academy Award-winning film about General Patton.
Some subject files concern Allen's financial affairs. Files in this category document legal problems with property investments in Key West; a debt owed to him by Leon Henderson, a former official of the Roosevelt Administration; and an unsuccessful challenge to the WBAL broadcast license, a Hearst-owned station, by Allen's Public Service Radio Corporation. Numerous folders concern Allen's support of the handicapped. As a member of the War Department's Prosthesis Advisory Committee he collected minutes, correspondence, and material about this subject and the Army Medical Laboratory. (Allen's prosthesis is in the Historical Society Museum.)
Allen's JOURNALS, which total about three cubic feet, comprise the most important, although underutilized part of the collection. They consist of daily typed narratives about reporting and interviews, together with personal comments and reflection. The diaries began in 1941 when Allen was still associated with Pearson. It is possible that Allen's journals represented a reaction to the charge often made about Pearson, that his columns were unsubstantiated by fact. Some of the journal information ultimately appeared in Allen's columns, but much of it remained unpublished because Allen was aware of its hear-say nature. The journals should not be discounted as mere gossip, however, for his informants were all highly-placed individuals, a virtual who's who of Washington, D.C. leaders. The individuals mentioned are too numerous to be included in this narrative, but Tom Corcoran and William O. Douglass are among the individuals with whom he had frequent contract. Although Ruth Finney seldom appears in the collection as a whole, some stories are here attributed to her reporting.
The first section of the journals ends in 1942 when Allen joined the Army. There is a brief index for the 1941-1942 period. For Allen's overseas wartime service, February 1944-March 1945, the collection includes ten small handwritten diaries comprised of brief entries, together with a typed transcript. In March 1946 Allen resumed his reporter's journal format. Over time, the journal became increasingly voluminous, frequently including original letters and newspaper clippings on which he commented.
The VISUAL MATERIALS series includes portraits, career-oriented images, and snapshots of the Allen's house and garden, and a filmed interview. This interview of Allen by Ray Moore, dating from sometime during the Eisenhower Administration, documents Allen's forceful personality and some of his journalistic philosophy. In it, Allen bemoans the rise of press officers in Washington, D.C., who, he believed, limited press access to real information about government.
