Series V. WILBUR COHEN, 1924-2005, n.d. (#59.1-70.7)

Series V, WILBUR COHEN, 1924-2005, n.d. (#59.1-70.7), includes correspondence, desk calendars, diaries, articles, scrapbooks, reports, drawings, autobiographies and other personal writings, curricula vitae, and financial records of Wilbur Cohen. Cohen was very fond of improving himself, his family members, and the world around him. His correspondence with his family (especially with his brother Darwin Huxley,) friends, and colleagues reflects this. During the 1930s Wilbur Cohen would return Darwin's letters to him with corrections on grammar and spelling. This series includes a long document written by Wilbur, in which he attempts to understand how his childhood and his parent's relationship played a part in the tumult of his own marriage to Eloise Bittel Cohen during her single affair in the early 1950s (#64.14). He writes about his feelings on their relationship, Eloise Bittel Cohen's personality, and how after 15 years of marriage he still doesn’t understand her. Also found here is Wilbur Cohen's reaction to President Kennedy's assassination, as well as to the transition to the Johnson Administration in the aftermath. This material also contains a memorandum regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation of Wilbur Cohen's connection to the Wagner Murray Dingell Bill, which dealt with health insurance, and socialized medicine in Japan after World War II (#63.2). Also included in this series are several sketches and water colors by Wilbur Cohen (#70.1-70.2). Several oral histories and interviews of Wilbur Cohen, including one conducted a couple of weeks before his death (#67.9), as well as an interview between Cohen and his cousin Carl Lifson (#67.13) are included. Posthumous tributes to Wilbur Cohen include letters of condolence from John Kenneth Galbraith and Lady Bird Johnson. This series also includes material from the dedication of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in 1988. Correspondence between Eloise and Wilbur Cohen can be found below filed chronologically, and be found filed separately within Eloise's alphabetical and chronological correspondence. Wilbur Cohen's correspondence with other family members can be found filed separately in Series VI with some overlap. This series is arranged alphabetically.