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Title: Herbert Hoover papers
Date (inclusive): 1918-1978
Collection Number: 62016
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
169 manuscript boxes, 4 card file boxes, 2 oversize boxes
(72.5 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Writings, notes, typed copies of documents, printed matter, and financial records relating to American foreign policy and
domestic policies during the presidential administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II, and the early postwar years.
Consists mainly of drafts of and supporting materials for the posthumous book by Herbert Hoover,
Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath (Stanford, 2011).
Creator:
Hoover, Herbert, 1874-1964
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 1962.
[Identification of item], Herbert Hoover papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
| 1874 | Born, West Branch, Iowa |
| 1895 | A.B., Stanford University |
| 1914-1920 | Chairman, Commission for Relief in Belgium |
| 1917-1920 | Administrator, United States Food Administration |
| 1919-1923 | Director, American Relief Administration |
| 1921-1928 | United States Secretary of Commerce |
| 1929-1933 | President of the United States |
| 1939-1940 | Founder, Finnish Relief Fund |
| 1940-1942 | Chairman, Committee on Food for the Small Democracies |
| 1946 | Chairman, President's Famine Emergency Committee |
| 1947-1949 | Chairman, Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government |
| 1953-1955 | Chairman, Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government |
| 1964 | Died, New York City |
Scope and Content of Collection
The main body of Herbert Hoover papers is in the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. The Herbert Hoover
Papers in the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace consist primarily of drafts of, and supporting research materials
for, what Hoover referred to as his Magnum Opus, which was left unpublished at his death. Centrally this was to be a critique
of American foreign policy during the presidential administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. However Hoover
also intended to provide a critique of New Deal domestic policies, to write about Communist infiltration into the Roosevelt
and Truman administrations, and to describe World War II relief efforts with which he was involved. His planned approach was
in part objectively analytical and in part autobiographical. How to organize these varied themes, how to integrate the analytical
and autobiographical approaches, and whether to attempt to fit everything into one work or into several, proved to be thorny
problems with which Hoover grappled uncertainly over a lengthy period.
The successive drafts for the Magnum Opus make up the
Unpublished Writings series, which is the heart of the collection. Hoover began writing while World War II was still in progress. The focus with
which he began and to which he ultimately returned was on the diplomatic history of the war. Early drafts were referred to
by his staff simply as the War Book. When tentative titles began to be assigned, each proved to be darker than the one before.
"Lost Statesmanship" gave way to "The Ordeal of the American People" and it in turn to "Freedom Betrayed." Hoover's thesis
was that Roosevelt had deliberately, deceptively and needlessly maneuvered the United States into the war, and that American
participation and the war's outcome alike had been disastrous. This constituted a sharp dissent from the postwar triumphalist
consensus in which Americans congratulated themselves on the victorious conclusion of a good fight in a righteous cause. For
Hoover, on the contrary, the results of World War II were to be seen in its human and economic costs, in the extension of
Communist rule over much of Europe and Asia, in the diminishment of America's moral stature with its complicity in this and
with its use of atom bombs against civilians, and in the weakening of American democracy at home with the growth of war-swollen
governmental bureaucracy and executive usurpation of legislative powers.
Perhaps because of the disparity between popular perceptions and Hoover's own judgments, editing of the Magnum Opus proved
to be unusually extensive and protracted and publication long postponed. The July 1961 version of what was then titled "The
Ordeal of the American People" was designated by Hoover as the fourth edition but there had in fact been more than three earlier
versions. Successive versions were dubbed the fifth through the tenth. Then came what was called the Z edition because it
was hoped that it would be the last. It was not. Subsequent versions, of which four can be identified, were designated Z+H
(the Z edition with further editing by Hoover). The last version is dated December 1964, two months after Hoover's death.
It was evidently arranged by surviving associates and reverted to superseded texts in some places.
The War Book saw published form only in 2011 as
Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, edited and with an introduction by George H. Nash (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press). Volume I of the published work conforms
to the September 1963 Z+H edition. As Nash explains in his introduction, for Volume II he adopted subsequent changes that
appeared to have been finalized by Hoover. Volume III, which Hoover left in the least finished form, draws on sections of
earlier versions not included in the September 1963 or subsequent editing processes.
The
Unpublished Writings series includes other writings not represented in
Freedom Betrayed, which Hoover had ultimately come to limit to wartime foreign policy. Foremost among these are his critiques of the domestic
policies of Roosevelt's New Deal. Hoover characterized these as collectivist and as foreign to the American tradition. He
found them to have affinities not only with socialism and communism but also with fascism. Publication of these writings is
planned. Other writings dealing with Hoover's World War II relief efforts were published in somewhat different form in the
fourth volume of his An American Epic (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1964). There are also miscellaneous autobiographical writings.
Changing notions of how the Magnum Opus was to be organized made for problems in arrangement of the
Unpublished Writings series. The approach adopted has been to treat each version as a discrete bibliographic item, even though each version typically
includes material re-used from previous versions and may in itself constitute only a portion of an intended greater whole.
These items are arranged chronologically, highlighting the temporal progress of the composition process. At some point Hoover's
staff arranged a large portion of the various drafts in files numbered Magnum Opus 1, Magnum Opus 2, etc. These followed approximate,
but not exact, chronological order, and did not include all drafts. The reader who wishes to reconstruct this filing sequence
may do so by following the notations in square brackets at the ends of relevant entries. These take the form of [MO1], [MO2],
etc.
The research materials upon which the Magnum Opus was based are to be found in four supporting series. The
New Deal Subject File consists of material relating specifically to New Deal domestic policies. The
Communist Subversion Subject File consists of material relating specifically to issues of Communist infiltration of the United States government. The
World War II Subject File consists of material relating specifically to wartime diplomacy. The
General Subject File is a catch-all for material not falling neatly into any of the three categories above. It deals primarily with postwar international
relations and postwar American domestic policies, but includes some earlier material. In addition to printed and near-print
source material, these series include typed copies made from such sources, notes and memoranda made by Hoover and his staff,
a few letters, and some miscellaneous Magnum Opus draft passages categorized by subject and not readily assignable to larger
Magnum Opus versions.
A small
Correspondence series consists of letters to and from Hoover relating specifically to the composition and prospects for publication of the
Magnum Opus.
The
Published Writings series consists of printed copies of writings by Hoover available elsewhere and present here because Hoover referred to them
in the course of composition of the Magnum Opus. Notable in this series are the page proofs of
The Problems of Lasting Peace, which Hoover co-authored with Hugh Gibson in 1942.
There are also a small
Oversize File of collected printed matter, a small
Audiovisual File, and a series of Hoover's personal
Financial Records.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
World War, 1939-1945 -- Diplomatic history
United States -- Politics and government -- 1933-1945
United States -- Foreign relations -- 1933-1945
United States -- Foreign relations -- 1945-1953