The papers of William Smith Culbertson (1884-1966) span the years 1897-1965 and consist mainly of diplomatic and other public documents, diaries, lecture notes, correspondence, memoranda, and manuscripts of his speeches, articles, and books, including a copy of his unpublished memoir "Ventures in Time and Space." The collection is organized into seven series: Diaries; Correspondence; Book, Article, and Speech File; Subject File; Miscellany; Addition; and Classified.

Included in the collection are papers relating to Culbertson's work as a member and vice chairman of the United States Tariff Commission, 1917-1925. He formulated the statute on the flexible tariff and wrote Section 317 of the same act, which gave legislative sanction to the principle of equality of treatment in commercial policy.

Bound volumes contain Culbertson's correspondence, personal memoranda, and official dispatches for the years when he was minister to Romania, 1925-1928, and ambassador to Chile, 1928-1933. While serving in the latter country, he was active in the settlement of the long-standing controversy between Chile and Peru over the province of Tacna and Arica.

Other papers relate to Culbertson's services in World War II as chief of the military intelligence service in the War Department, as a member of the Planning Group of the Office of Strategic Services, as chairman, with the rank of ambassador, of the Special Mission to the Middle East, and as a member of the technological mission to Germany in 1945.

There are lecture notes prepared during the years 1919-1956 when Culbertson was a professor at Georgetown University and from 1922 to 1924 when he was leader of the round-table conferences at the Institute of Politics at Williamstown, Massachusetts.

The papers include records of his early career as a lawyer, 1913-1915, and his later practice in administrative and international law. There are also manuscripts relating to his church activities, including his teaching of Bible classes and his extensive work in helping to establish a national Presbyterian church and center in Washington, D.C.

Prominent correspondents represented in the papers are Calvin Coolidge, Henry Crosby Emery, John H. Finley, Theodore Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, Cordell Hull, Charles Evans Hughes, Edward N. Hurley, Charles Foster Kent, Robert M. La Follette, H. G. Wells, and William Allen White. There are also numerous family letters and scrapbooks covering all phases of his career.

The Addition to the collection spans the years 1900-1965 and focuses on Culbertson's activities during World War II. Other files relate to his career before and after the war. The correspondence in the Addition consists primarily of letters between Culbertson and various international acquaintances in South America and Asia. Writings include speeches and articles as well as a typescript of "Ventures in Time and Space." The subject file in the Addition dates principally from World War II and contains reports and correspondence relating to the Analysis Section, previously known as the Geopolitical Section, of the War Department. Also highlighted is the Special Economic Mission to the Middle East in 1944 that Culbertson headed. Of particular interest is a journal he kept while on the mission. Miscellany in the Addition includes biographical data, genealogical material, printed matter, and appointment books for the years 1959-1964.