Scope and Content Note
The papers of Owen Lattimore (1900-1989) span the years 1907-1997, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period from 1950 to 1989. The collection relates to both private and professional matters and is arranged in seven series, the largest of which--constituting one-third of the collection--is General Correspondence . The Wartime Activities series includes records documenting Lattimore's service as a political advisor to Chiang Kai-shek, director of the Pacific Operations of the United States War Information Office, and a member of the United States Reparations Mission to Japan. Another large series, Senate Hearings , contains correspondence and records documenting Lattimore's defense against Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges that he participated in communist espionage during the 1940s. Also in the collection is a Speeches and Writings series that includes articles, book reviews, and texts of Lattimore's speeches and lectures. Notable in the Miscellany series are Lattimore's handwritten journals on his pioneer trips to the inner-Asian borderlands during the 1920s and 1930s. The remaining series are titled: Subject File , Eleanor Holgate Lattimore File , Addition , and Oversize .
Records in the collection chronicling Lattimore's field research and travels in Peiping (China), Mongolia, and Manchuria during the 1920s and 1930s are particularly comprehensive. In addition to the aforementioned journals, the Subject File contains transcribed notes of Lattimore's ethnographic, historical, and cultural observations made during his travels, including information on the languages and dialects of the region. Lattimore's extensive travels in Asia provided the basis for many of his writings, which together with the related correspondence with publishers, form another strong element of the collection. Among these writings is an unpublished and incomplete autobiographical sketch, "Happiness Is Among Strangers."
Another integral component of the collection is Owen and Eleanor Lattimore's expansive correspondence , both incoming and outgoing, with colleagues, family, and friends. Many Oriental and Asian scholars, publishers, and professional colleagues are represented, including Isabel Casseres, Lauchlin Bernard Currie, Diluv Khutagt, Ildikó Ecsedy, Else Glahn, Elvebeuck Grebenik, Walther Heissig, Caroline Humphrey, Fujiko Isono, John Ulric Nef, Robert P. Newman, Urgunge Onon, Edgar B. Snow, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and Arnold Joseph Toynbee. There is also considerable correspondence of many of Lattimore's personal friends and advisors, including Joseph Barnes, Robert LeMoyne Barrett, Arnold Bernhard, Stanley H. Burton, Rosemary Carruthers, G. Herbert Childs, John King Fairbank, Joseph Needham, Gerard Piel, and Margaret L. Richards. There is lengthy correspondence with his son David and his brother Richmond, as well as letters of his lawyers and accountants, especially William Dill Rogers and Nancy K. Mintz, which document his investments, estate settlements, establishment of the Lattimore Institute for Mongolian Studies, and litigious fallout from his Senate investigations.
Material documenting Lattimore's appointment by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as an advisor to the Chinese Nationalist government in Chungking during World War II is scant. Although there are summaries of conversations, biographical assessments, and advisory reports prepared for Chiang Kai-shek, these files are incomplete. Of particular importance, however, is the considerable correspondence between Lattimore and Lauchlin Bernard Currie of the State Department concerning the war against Japan and the problems of American assistance to the Chinese war effort. There is evidence that late in his life Lattimore, with the assistance of his lawyers and Robert P. Newman, sought to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act copies of government records documenting his tenure in Chungking, to supplement and complete his personal papers.
Files documenting the Senate's investigation of espionage and conspiracy charges against Lattimore are extensive. In 1950 Joseph R. McCarthy described Lattimore as the "chief architect" of a United States foreign policy that resulted in the Communist party's conquest of mainland China. McCarthy accused Lattimore of being the "top Soviet agent in the United States." Lattimore denied the charges, and a Senate committee initially vindicated him. Additional accusations were made a year later, however, and the Justice Department twice brought indictments against Lattimore on perjury charges stemming from his earlier testimony. The indictments were later dismissed in federal court. Preserved in the Senate Hearings series is correspondence with Lattimore's legal advisors, academic colleagues, and the public concerning the testimony. Also available are an extensive file of newspaper clippings and magazine articles, reports, hearing transcripts, motions, memoranda, opinions, and other documents relating to the perjury charges and Congressional investigation.