Herman Phleger, San Francisco attorney, began his law practice in the city in 1914, after graduation from the University of California, Berkeley, as a member of the illustrious class of 1912, and studying law at Boalt Hall and at Harvard Law School. As a specialist in international law, he served as counsel to many prominent business concerns in California and the west, and was appointed to several important government posts. In 1945 he served as associate director of the Legal Division of the U.S. Military Government for Germany, and, 1953-1957, as legal adviser, Department of State. He was also the U.S. representative to the 13th General Assembly of the United Nations, 1958; U.S. member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration under the Hague Treaty, 1957-1963, and again, 1969-1975; and chairman of the U.S. delegation to the Antarctica Conference, 1959, that drafted the Antarctic Treaty. In his capacity as legal adviser to the Department of State, he attended many of the important international conferences, including the summit meeting at Geneva in 1955 and the discussions on the Suez Canal crisis in 1956.
Mr. Phleger gave this collection of papers to The Bancroft Library in 1977 during the course of the interviewing sessions. Housed in two boxes and four cartons, they include correspondence highlighting his government service; two diaries, covering his World War I service, 1918, and the period he was in Germany with the U.S. Military Government, 1945; speeches; clippings; a transcript of his interview for the John Foster Dulles Oral History Project; and subject files relating to international conferences (Antarctica, Suez Canal crisis, etc.), military occupation of Germany, the Nuremberg trial, the United Nations, arms control, U.C. Berkeley class of 1912, the San Francisco waterfront strikes, 1934 and 1936, etc.