Scope and Content Note
The papers of Daniel F. Margolies (1910-1999) span the years 1935-1999, with the bulk of material between 1942 and 1995. The papers contain primarily reports, printed matter, memoranda, press releases, correspondence, clippings, photographs, and other material related to Margolies's career as a Foreign Service Officer and policy advisor for the U.S. Department of State and later as a consultant. The papers are organized into three series: Federal Employment, Consultancy and Retirement, and Miscellany.
The Federal Employment series contains material related to Margolies’s career with the U.S. Army and as an employee of the U.S. Department of State. The early material is primarily records pertaining to Margolies’s military service. The records dating from 1965 to1969 focus on Margolies’s role as advisor for the President’s Science Advisory Committee, serving Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon under the direction of Donald F. Hornig and Lee A. Dubridge. This material contains primarily reports, press releases, memoranda, and printed matter associated with the committee’s goals in promoting foreign policy through science and technology. As an advisor, Margolies curated and researched reports and advised on the technological capacities of foreign countries. Margolies’s premier achievement was assisting in procuring funds for the Korea Institute for Science and Technology.
The Consultancy and Retirement series contains the majority of the material in the Daniel F. Margolies papers and is primarily related to Margolies’s work as a consultant with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other clients. As a consultant, his duties included preparing reports, analyzing organizational systems of U.S. and foreign government agencies, and serving as an expert in foreign policy related to science and technology. Other major clients include the Battelle Memorial Institute, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Cornell University, the Denver Research Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the National Science Foundation. The papers documenting Margolies's consulting include reports, memoranda, and other printed material concerning foreign development of science and technology. Margolies retired in 1977, and the papers from this time document his membership with the Section for Science and Technology in Government for the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and his education of others about the Nuremberg trials.
The Miscellany series contains an analysis of science policy issues conducted by ASPA, an autobiographical speech regarding Margolies’s Nuremberg experiences, material related to French science policies, obituaries, Margolies’s law degree from Harvard, and various photographs. Many of these photographs are from the President’s Council on Science and Technology’s trip to Taiwan in 1967.