Cold War Research Guide

The Tamiment Library’s Alger Hiss (1904-1996) collections include Hiss family papers, his legal defense files, as well as collections from long-time Hiss associates. The Debevoise & Plimpton Records on Alger Hiss (dated 1938-1980) contain files from the legal firm's representation of Alger Hiss in his 1949 perjury trials and his 1979 coram nobis petition to overturn his conviction. A select group of materials from the Debevoise & Plimpton Records are being digitized and will be available online in 2018. In addition to the original archival materials that are housed at NYU, both the Alger Hiss Defense Collection for the Harvard Law School Library and the Hiss Papers are available through Microfilm. Future projects will microfilm the Alger Hiss correspondence in the records of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Alger Hiss files in the United Nations Archives.

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (1935–2008) joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador, Uruguay, and Mexico. After resigning from the Agency in 1968, he became a leading opponent of CIA practices. He was best known as the author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary (1975), which identified about 250 CIA officers, front companies and foreign agents then or previously working for the United States.

Jay Leyda (1910-1988) studied directing with Sergei Eisenstein at the Moscow State Film School, became a correspondent for Theatre Arts Monthly and New Theatre, and was an art critic for the Moscow News. In 1936, Leyda was the assistant to Iris Barry, curator of the Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art, but resigned amidst allegations that he was a subversive agent. Leyda went to Hollywood in 1942 where he was a technical advisor on films on Russian subjects. His wife, Si Lan Chen Leyda (b. 1909), was a modern dancer who attended the Bolshoi Ballet School and Vera Maya's school in Moscow where she met and married Leyda.

The Church League of America (1937-1984), a right wing anti-communist research and advocacy group, collected these research files from other creators with a similar political outlook and professional activities: American Business Consultants Inc., the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag. All of these creators had connections to the intelligence agencies of the United States government, kept detailed research files on individuals and organizations, and were part of a right-wing research and information network that monitored Communists.

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is a Marxist-Leninist political organization that was founded in Chicago in 1919 and played a pivotal role in many political and social movements of the 20th century. The Party’s work left an indelible mark in the arena of progressive politics, particularly from the 1920s to the 1940s. Though the CPUSA’s strength and size declined sharply following the advent of the Cold War and McCarthyism, it remained committed to economic and social justice. Though materials from as early as 1892 can be found in the collection, the bulk of the records were created between 1950 and 1990. A more comprehensive record of the CPUSA’s early 20th century activity can be found in the Files of the Communist Party of the USA in the Comintern Archives, 1919-1943 (Microfilm R-7548).

The official organ of the Communist Party, USA, the Daily Worker's attempted to speak to the broad left-wing community in the United States, covering a wide range of events in the United States and around the world. Images of many important people, groups and events associated with the CPUSA and the American Left are present in the collection, as well as images of a wide variety of people, subjects and events not explicitly linked with the CPUSA or Left politics.

The National Council of American-Soviet Friendship succeeded the National Council on Soviet Relations, founded in 1941. The NCSR grew out of the more overtly radical American-Soviet friendship movement of the 1930's, whose organizational center was the Friends of the Soviet Union founded in 1929. The Council, composed largely of professionals who were sympathetic to Socialism, believed that the USSR and the United States should join together in their common fight against fascism. In 1946, the House Un-American Activities Committee began a formal investigation of NCASF, and in 1947, it was indicted for failure to register with the Subversive Activities Control Board.

The National Guardian (later known as The Guardian) was a radical leftist weekly newspaper published in New York City between 1948 and 1992. The National Guardian reported on labor, activism, reform, and social movements without particular party affiliations, advocating for a unified leftist party in the United States. Known for its independent and investigative journalism, the paper produced significant pieces on civil rights and the Cold War, and was one of the few publications to print news sympathetic to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg during their trial and execution.

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) was founded in 1937 as an association of progressive lawyers and jurists who believed that lawyers had a major role to play in reconstructing legal values by emphasizing human rights over property rights. This collection includes early administrative records of the Guild, primarily those of its National Office and New York City Chapter, as well as materials describing legal and political activities of many of the Guild's chapters and committees. The bulk of the collection, however, is focused on the court case which revealed that the Guild had been the target of a forty-year covert Federal Bureau of Investigation campaign of surveillance, infiltration and intimidation (National Lawyers Guild v. Attorney General, 1977-1989).

Victor Navasky (b. 1932) was editor of The Nation from 1978-1995, publisher and editorial director from 1995-2005, and later publisher emeritus. The collection provides a broad view of Victor Navasky’s life, his interests, and his work. His books, articles, essays, plays, and speeches are represented, particularly his extensive research on the Hollywood Blacklist and the early Cold War. There is a small audio-visual series containing, for example, audio recordings of a number of interviews Navasky conducted for his book, Naming Names.

Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was a historian, activist, playwright, teacher, public speaker and author of articles, essays, and books including his best-selling A People’s History of the United States. Reaching the wider public through his work, Zinn celebrated the lives of ordinary individuals engaged in the struggle for peace and justice, highlighting their often overlooked victories, and encouraging his audiences to engage as well. This collection provides a broad view of Howard Zinn’s many activities and interests, including his articles, interviews, and lectures on US foreign policy during the Cold War.

Uncataloged Tamiment serials were archivally processed and opened for research by February 2019, with all finding aids and catalog records published and discoverable as collections were completed. In addition, 253 publications, measuring over 250 linear feet, were identified as matches for bibliographically cataloged titles throughout NYU’s sub-libraries, and moved to these sub-libraries to fill gaps in existing holdings. The project resulted in 9,397 previously uncataloged and under-described unique serial titles being arranged into 24 assembled subject-based collections.