Alexander V. Chukayeff Papers

Consists of correspondence, internal memoranda, newspaper clippings, reports from various government agencies, handwritten and typed notes and drafts, scripts of radio broadcasts, airgrams, telegrams, leaflets, and photographs. Most of the papers document Chukayeff’s work at the USIA as an analyst and writer on Soviet affairs in the 1950s and 1960s, and consist largely of research material generated while creating background reports on various aspects of Communism, Soviet policies, current developments, and related areas. These subject files cover a wide array of topics, with a particular on: literature under Communism (especially Solzhenitsyn, Yevtushenko, and the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial of 1965-1966); international Communism; dissidents (in particular the defection of Svetlana Alliluyeva in 1966); living conditions in the Soviet Union; Soviet media coverage of events in the USSR and abroad; and Soviet methods of domestic propaganda. The files contain many newspaper clippings, in both English and Russian, that Chukayeff drew from for his analyses, as well as telegrams and airgrams with news from overseas. There is a large collection of the background reports he produced, mostly in later photocopies. Also included are administrative documents relating to the State Department and the USIA’s Research and Reference Service, notably interoffice communication and requests for reports. There is a collection of Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese newspaper clippings of translations of articles by Chukayeff. There is also a small amount of biographical material and photographs.