The State Department Series contains agendas, biographical sketches, book drafts, clippings, correspondence, correspondence indexes, cross-reference sheets, etchings, guidelines, journals, lectures, lists, maps, a medical report, memoranda, notes, photographs, press releases, proposals, reports, a subpoena, speeches, summaries, telegrams, and transcripts.

Materials in this series relate to Byrnes’ tenure as U.S. Secretary of State and date from 1938-1972, with the bulk of the material dating from 1945-1947. He was appointed Secretary of State by President Harry Truman on July 3, 1945 and shortly thereafter accompanied Truman to the Potsdam Conference, where the decision was made to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Byrnes was present at all of the meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers and played a vital role in post-war negotiations and settlements. The difference in opinions he had with Truman regarding American-Soviet policy grew, and Byrnes resigned his position with the State Department on January 21, 1947. Byrnes was named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year for 1946.

The contents of the series are arranged alphabetically by folder title, and correspondence files are arranged alphabetically by surname. Photographs and oversize items have been removed to photograph and oversize storage. See the Photographs Series for photographs removed from this series.

The series includes agendas, proceedings, and minutes of the Council of Foreign Ministers’ (CFM) meetings in London, Moscow, New York, and Paris, as well as the Paris Peace Conference and the Potsdam Conference. The minutes are closer to transcripts and appear to be the drafts for the versions published in Foreign Relations of the United States, although some of the London CFM minutes are slightly different from the published versions. Of particular interest are excerpts from Walter Brown’s diaries relating to the Potsdam Conference; the diaries themselves can be found in Mss 243, the Walter J. Brown Papers.

The bulk of the correspondence consists of congratulations on Byrnes’ appointment as Secretary of State, reactions to his resignation, and items regarding post-war negotiations. There is a copy of Edwin Pauley’s journal of his trip to Korea above the 38th parallel while U.S. Representative to the Allied Reparations Committee; material relating to proposals for the international regulation of nuclear energy and weapons; copies of telegrams between Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and Truman; and material relating to the reconstruction of Germany, including the Morgenthau Plan to “pastoralize” the country and reactions, both in Germany and elsewhere, to Byrnes’ Stuttgart speech which laid out a more liberal policy towards Germany’s reconstruction by the United States. Briefing materials accompanying the correspondence can also be found here.

There is also material relating to U.S. politics, including copies of teletypes documenting a foreign policy dispute with Henry Wallace in which President Truman intervened. Security issues are also addressed; there is Byrnes’ response to a subpoena from Harold Velde, Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, in the matter of Henry Dexter White, a director of the International Monetary Fund who was accused of being a Soviet spy and a folder on another accused spy, former State Department employee Alger Hiss.

Correspondents represented in this series include Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy; Averell Harriman, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union; Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Donald Russell; businessman Bernard Baruch; H. Freeman Matthews, Director of the Office of European Affairs, U.S. State Department; John Carter Vincent, Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, U.S. State Department; Foreign Ministers Ernest Bevin and V. M. Molotov; Premier Joseph Stalin; U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman; Prime Ministers Clement Atlee and Winston Churchill; U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg; Walter Brown, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State; and Will Clayton, Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs. There are also some letters to and from Maude Byrnes and Cassie Connor.

Related materials can be found in Mss 243, the Walter J. Brown Papers.

SEPARATION LIST

In Removed Oversize Box 2:

• Map of Venezia Giulia region of Italy showing territory ceded to Yugoslavia and Trieste International Zone [579(1), 593], 1946
• “Man of the Year,” Time, January 6, 1947

In Map Case:

• “Africa” by Cartographic Section, National Geographic Society (Washington, D.C.), map (Scale 1:11,721,600), 1943