Scope and Content Note
The papers of Wallace Rankin Deuel (1905-1974) span the years 1905-1971, with the bulk of the material dating from 1939 to 1954. The collection is strongest for Deuel's career in journalism. The papers are organized into the following series: Correspondence , Writings File , Scrapbooks , Miscellany , Addition , and Classified .
The Correspondence pertains to Deuel's personal and professional life. The general correspondence is largely comprised of personal letters with friends and family, with a few letters related to Deuel's work for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The correspondence for the Chicago Daily News and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, mostly with editors and colleagues, reflects Deuel's work as a diplomatic correspondent including his tenure in Berlin, Germany, in the years leading up to World War II. Related correspondence is located in the Addition . Correspondents include Dean Acheson, William J. Donovan, Allen Dulles, George Kennan, Frank Knox, Joseph Pulitizer (1913-1993), and Adlai E. Stevenson (1900-1965).
The Writings File includes detailed journals and newspaper stories written by Deuel during his last ten years as a journalist and a typescript of his book People under Hitler. In addition to performing his duties at the Chicago Daily News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Deuel was a regular contributor to Newsweek, appeared frequently as a panelist on radio and television programs, and had a weekly radio news program of his own. Transcripts of his radio broadcasts and lectures appear in this series and are also located in the Addition along with clippings from "The Periscope" section of Newsweek.
The Scrapbooks contain clippings of Deuel's articles written for the Chicago Daily News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, magazine articles, and reviews of People Under Hitler. Of interest are the three volumes of reader correspondence written to Deuel in response to the publication of his series of articles on Germany and the Nazis after his return from Berlin in 1941.
Miscellany contains biographical sketches of contemporaries, a file on Dean Acheson, and financial records. Included also are memorabilia, photographs, and clippings relating to Deuel's son, Michael McPherson Deuel, who was killed in an airplane crash over Laos in 1965 while ostensibly working for the United States Agency for International Development, but serving as a covert operative for the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Addition contains family papers, writings, and a subject file. The family papers relate to Deuel's wife, Mary Virginia Deuel, and his two sons, Michael McPherson Deuel and Peter MacArthur Deuel, and contain correspondence, clippings, and memorabilia. A collection of material apparently gathered for the writing of a history of the Office of Strategic Services includes correspondence and notes from Deuel's service for that office. The subject file contains material from Deuel's service at the Department of State and the Allied Forces Supreme Headquarters during World War II, and later at the Central Intelligence Agency.