Scope and Content Note
The papers of Myron Charles Taylor (1874-1959) span the period 1928-1953, with the bulk concentrated in the years 1940-1950. Most of the collection consists of typed transcripts of letters, memoranda, and reports documenting Taylor’s activities as the president’s representative to Pope Pius XII from 1939 to 1953. These items have been bound in volumes by Taylor. Each volume begins with a chronological list of the items contained in it, a chronology of events pertinent to Taylor’s mission, and an introduction by Taylor giving the status of the mission and the political and diplomatic scene at the time.
Included among the documents are copies of the letters of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman and Pope Pius XII; of State Department correspondence and memoranda; Taylor’s memoranda of his meetings with the Pope, with other Vatican officials, and with diplomats accredited to the Vatican; and copies of his correspondence with Protestant clergymen. Correspondents include the secretary of state of the Vatican, Cardinal Luigi Maglione; the assistant secretaries of state, Monsignors Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI); the apostolic delegate to the United States, Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cigognani; the papal nuncio to France, Monsignor Angelo Giuseppe Roncallo (later Pope John XXIII); the American Methodist bishop, G. Bromley Oxnam; and the Evangelical Bishop of Berlin, Otto Dibelius.
The printed matter includes speeches and remarks made by Taylor at various functions and two publications of the correspondence between Pope Pius XII and Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.