Scope and Content Note
The records of the Atlantic Union Committee span the years 1940-1968, with the bulk of the material from 1949 to 1952. The Atlantic Union Committee was organized in 1949 by Justice Owen J. Roberts as an independent committee of Federal Union, Inc., formed in 1939 by Clarence K. Streit, author of Union Now, published in the same year. The goal of the committee was to persuade the United States Congress to pass a resolution calling for a federal convention, like the one in Philadelphia in 1787, to explore the possibility of union among the Atlantic democracies of North America and Europe. The Atlantic Union Committee was dissolved in 1961 without having achieved its goal. The collection is arranged in four parts as described below.
Part I
Part I of the Atlantic Union Committee Records spans the years 1940-1968, with the bulk of the material concentrated from 1949 to 1952. Files in Part I include correspondence, reports, memoranda, financial records, general office administrative files, and miscellany. The material relates primarily to the organization, structure, and general activities of the Atlantic Union Committee, its chapter activities, and the resolutions it submitted to Congress between 1949 and 1952. The principal correspondents include Herbert Agar, Robert J. Bishop, Justin Blackwelder, Will Clayton, Donald P. Dennis, C. A. Edson, Henry C. Flower, Ellen Garwood (Mrs. St. John Garwood), Guy M. Gillette, Livingston Hartley, Gerald B. Henry, Estes Kefauver, Edward J. Meeman, Hugh Moore, Walden Moore, Edmund Orgill, Stellanova Brunt Osborn (Mrs. Chase S. Osborn), Lithgow Osborne, Robert Porter Patterson, Owen J. Roberts, Elmo Roper, and Clarence K. Streit. Within the correspondence related to the congressional comment on the Atlantic Union resolution are letters to and from Senators Hubert H. Humphrey, Irving McNeil Ives, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Part II
Part II of the records spans the years 1940-1955, with the bulk from 1950 to 1953, consisting of the personal papers of Henry William Nugent Head (1898-1964), British subject and friend of the Atlantic Union Committee. It reflects Head's role as secretary of the Atlantic Affiliates and the Atlantic Union Committee's desire to build an overseas base. Subject files in this portion include correspondence with Atlantic affiliates and committee agents in European countries and Canada such as Lionel Curtis. Head's papers also contain personal correspondence, minutes of meetings, articles and reprints, and books and clippings.
Part III
Part III of the collection consists chiefly of correspondence and transcripts, but also includes reports, memoranda, minutes, financial records, printed matter, newspaper clippings, and related items. This material deals primarily with the efficacy of convincing Congress to pass a resolution inviting representatives from Western democracies to meet and explore the possibilities of forming a free federal union that would strive to prevent the spread of communism without resorting to war. Dating from 1946 to 1968, the bulk of the addition covers the years 1950-1958. Most of the correspondence is with members of the committee and from members of Congress, some of whom were cited previously.
Part IV
The records of Part IV span the years 1946-1960, with the bulk from 1949 to 1956. The majority of this part consists of committee correspondence and memoranda pertaining chiefly to the organization's efforts to get an Atlantic union resolution passed in Congress. Also included is information about the establishment of the Atlantic Union Committee and minutes of its annual congresses and work conferences.