Samuel P. Huntington personal archive, 1905-2008

The Samuel P. Huntington personal archive documents Huntington’s academic and professional career, with the heaviest concentration of material dating from 1950 to 2008. The collection is a valuable resource for research in American politics, comparative politics, civil-military relations, national security policy and transnational relations. The collection documents Huntington’s involvement as a teacher, writer, advisor, and consultant and illuminates his role as an intellectual force in matters related to global politics and international relations. Huntington was a prolific researcher, correspondent and author, and thus much of the collection consists of correspondence, published and unpublished articles, and lectures and course materials produced during his career. Researchers should note that there is some overlap of subject matter among the accessions and groups of material in the collection.

The largest component of this collection is the Reference and resource files comprised of printed materials from 1905 to 2006 on a wide variety of subjects related to foreign policy, military policy and strategy, American politics, civil-military relations, international relations, political development, and comparative politics. Generally used by Huntington to support his teaching, speaking, and writing activities; these files document Huntington’s evolving study of various subjects related to global politics and international affairs. Included among these files are Huntington’s lecture notes from his political science and government courses at Harvard, speeches given at various academic conferences, discussion papers presented at seminars and meetings of professional and learned societies, and fragments of manuscript drafts and other publications written by Huntington. Derived from a broad range of sources, the reference and resource files provide a wealth of information about the institutions, individuals and groups that influenced world politics and governance in the twentieth century. Additionally, the reference and resource files reveal important patterns and insights into Huntington’s thinking process, illustrate his data collection methods and highlight the source materials used by Huntington to develop his theories and ideas.

The writings in this collection reflect Huntington’s research interests and echo the concepts that informed and shaped American national security from the 1950s to 2000s. Focusing chiefly on American foreign policy, civil-military relations, American political development and change, American national identity, and post-Cold War civilizational clashes, Huntington’s writings illuminate his analytical skills, reveal his ability to clarify major issues and policy implications, and demonstrate his ability to acquire evidence from a broad knowledge of theories and data. Huntington’s writings also illustrate his ability to define and attract attention to important political, social, and cultural questions, challenge prevailing assumptions and arguments, and reveal his responses to the domestic and foreign policy dilemmas of his time.

Huntington’s interaction with notable figures in the fields of international relations and global politics including academics, military personnel, government policy makers, scholars and business people, as well as professional organizations and learned societies can be found in the correspondence in this collection. Huntington’s correspondence illuminates his research interests and his leadership role in the study of the nature of government, politics, and society. The correspondence includes commentary on and analysis of the ideas and theories presented in his many writings from colleagues, as well as more routine correspondence on matters related to Huntington’s travels, conference arrangements and speaking engagements. Researchers should note that although many of the letters in this collection were written from Huntington’s office, they do not consistently address Harvard related issues.

Huntington’s teaching activities in American government, comparative politics and international relations at Harvard from 1945 to 2006 are illustrated in the lecture notes, reading lists, bibliographies, class readings, and examinations found in this collection. These records reveal Huntington as a thinker and scholar, illustrate his classroom teaching methods and instruction, and offer a glimpse into the political science and government instruction that students received at Harvard University. In addition, scattered throughout these records are a small number of reading lists and examinations used by Huntington for his government course at Columbia University in the early 1960s.

Huntington’s efforts as a policy analyst and advocate are documented in the Vietnam War files in this collection. Serving as chairman of the Council of Vietnamese Studies of the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group from 1966 to 1969, an advisory group to the United States Department of State, Agency for International Development, these files illustrate Huntington’s attempts to promote scholarly research on Vietnamese politics and society and provide a forum for the interchange of ideas among Asian specialists. Of particular interest in this group of files is a report written by Huntington for the Department of State entitled, Getting Ready for Political Competition in Vietnam (1969), in which he supports the United States’ basic objective of defeating the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong insurgency but rejects the government’s policy of military pacification, arguing instead for the establishment of a decentralized political system that would encourage political competition among local religious and political organizations, including the Viet Cong. These files also include discussion papers on topics related to the political and administrative development of South Vietnam and Southeast Asia; meeting minutes and conference materials documenting the program activities of the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group; and news clippings, reprints, articles and reports on the political, cultural, religious, economic and military aspects of the Vietnam War.

This collection also contains a limited amount of biographical records pertaining to Huntington including curriculum vitae, biographical sketches, and interviews and articles; news clippings, meeting programs and notes regarding the arrangements for two conferences held by the Harvard Academy on International and Area Studies (Huntington served as chairman of the Academy from 1996 to 2004); event and travel files documenting Huntington’s participation at conferences, roundtable discussions, workshops and seminars on topics primarily related to global politics and international affairs; and subject files that largely document Huntington’s involvement with the American Political Science Association, Brookings Institution, and Council of Foreign Relations.