Scope and Content Note
The papers of David Salzer Broder (1929-2011) span the years 1910-2012 with the bulk of the material dating from 1966 to 1983. During a career that spanned more than fifty years, Broder reported on thirteen presidential elections and provided insight and analysis about national politics as a reporter and syndicated newspaper columnist for the Washington Post and as a commentator on the television news programs Meet the Press andWashington Week. The majority of the collection documents Broder's career as a journalist at the Washington Post. Broder worked for the newspaper from 1966 to 2008 and continued as a contractor from 2009 to 2011. The papers contain only a small amount of material from 1984 to 2011 and include little documentation of Broder's appearances on Meet the Press andWashington Week. The collection does include material from his early career, 1953-1966, when he worked for the Pantagraph of Bloomington, Illinois, Congressional Quarterly, the Washington Star, and the New York Times. The papers are in English and are organized into the following series: Correspondence , Subject File , Writings , Notebooks and Notes , Miscellany , and Oversize .
The Correspondence, 1950-1988 , consists mainly of incoming letters to Broder from colleagues, members of Congress, government officials, staff of congressional and government officials, friends, and the public pertaining primarily to Broder's work as a reporter and columnist for the Washington Post. The correspondence is organized into two categories: alphabetical file and chronological file. The letters include compliments or complaints about Broder's column, congratulations on his Pulitzer Prize Award, comments about his books and magazine articles, and invitations for speaking engagements. Topics represented are presidential elections, the Watergate Affair, and the Vietnam War. A Broder column about Richard M. Nixon's trip to China in 1976 generated several impassioned letters from readers chastising Broder for his critical comments about the former president. The chronological file includes a few letters pertaining to Broder's stints at Congressional Quarterly, 1956-1969, and at the New York Times, 1965-1966. In a memoranda of 23 July 1966, Broder wrote the managing editor of the New York Times, submitting his resignation and included a detailed memorandum outlining his thoughts on the problems with the newspaper's political coverage.
The Subject File, 1910-2003, chronicles chiefly Broder's tenure as a reporter and columnist for the Washington Post. This series is the largest of the collection and includes correspondence, interviews, articles and columns (drafts and newsprints) by Broder, notebooks and notes, voter surveys and interviews, speeches and statements, press releases, political memorabilia, newspaper clippings, and printed matter. The Subject File documents Broders's contacts with politicians and their staffs in Washington, D.C., and his interaction with voters and local leaders throughout the United States. It was his contacts with political leaders and voters outside the Washington metropolitan area that many of his colleagues thought provided Broder with a wider view of politics and assisted him in being on the forefront of noticing trends or movements that emerged across the country.
Also included in the Subject File is background material such as magazine articles, reports, newsletters, Congressional Record inserts, and newspapers that Broder consulted to stay abreast of political developments. Worthy of mention are Broder's notes and notebooks filed throughout the Subject File that record interviews and conversations with individuals, including voters, politicians and their staffs, and government officials at federal, state, and local levels. Other notebooks and notes that were filed separately and not by subject are filed in the Notebooks and Notes series.
The largest topic featured in the Subject File is elections. These files are organized chronologically by election year, 1956-1992, and are followed by a state file comprised of the fifty states of the United States. The election files include material pertaining to presidential primaries, presidential general elections, congressional elections, gubernatorial elections, and some local elections, particularly mayoral races of larger cities. This material is filed chiefly as received without distinguishing between type of election. The state files consist primarily of material dating from 1973 to 1977.
Other files in the Subject File that compliment the election files are voter surveys and interviews that were conducted by Broder and otherWashington Post reporters for the years 1970, 1971, 1974, and 1976. These surveys were used for several stories for the Washington Post's election coverage. Both voters and political leaders were interviewed from selected states. Voters were asked a series of uniform questions and those interviewed were urged to talk freely about issues and candidates. Many voters did speak candidly and the interviews provide an interesting assessment of the candidates.
Other topics featured in the Subject File are campaign finance, Congress, the Democratic Party, new federalism, the presidency, the press, the Republican Party, revenue sharing, the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant accident, and the Watergate Affair. There are many files pertaining to politicians and government officials, including Jerry Brown, Jimmy Carter, Michael S. Dukakis, Gerald R. Ford, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.
The Writings, 1950-2012, consist chiefly of files relating to articles, columns, and books written by Broder. The chronological file features Broder's articles for magazines and journals such as The Atlantic and The New Republic. Also included are a few articles and columns, draft and newsprints, that he wrote for the Washington Post. Writings from his early career are represented by files documenting his work for theHyde Park Herald, the Pantagraph, and Congressional Quarterly. The most voluminous files relate to Broder's book Changing of the Guard: Power and Leadership in America. For the book Broder conducted hundreds of interviews with individuals affiliated with government, interest groups, political parties, ethnic groups, and the media. These interviews make up the majority of the files for Changing of the Guard. Also represented are files for his books Behind the Front Page: A Candid Look at How the News is Made and The Party's Over: The Failure of Politics in America.
The Notebooks and Notes, 1969-2003, document mainly Broder's coverage of presidential elections from 1972 to 1992. They record Broder's conversations and interviews with candidates and his impressions of them while they are participating in debates, rallies, town hall meetings, and other campaign activities. Some of the topics featured in the Notebooks and Notes are foreign relations, the economy, social security, energy, and taxes. Also represented is Broder's coverage of vice-presidential, gubernatorial, and mayoral campaigns.
The Miscellany series, 1929-1998, includes family correspondence, a school and childhood file, and military papers relating to Broder's service in the United States Army. Much of the Miscellany series reflects Broder's interest and activities with the publication of newspapers from his days as an elementary school and high school student to his years as a student at the University of Chicago. Most of the family correspondence provides details about Broder's stint in the army when he wrote for the USFA Sentinel while stationed in Salzburg Austria.
Correspondents include Benjamin C. Bradlee, James M. Cain, Molly Ivins, Haynes Johnson, Ruthie Johnson, Anthony Lewis, Tom Wicker, and Thomas Winship.