Truman Presidential Documents Series

Location: 1) Map Room Messages of President Truman, 1945-46 are located in Cabinet 26-F (5 reels). 2) Potsdam Conference Documents 1945. are located in Cabinet 26-F. (2 reels). 3) Official Conversations and Meetings of Dean Acheson 1949-1953 are located in Cabinet 26-H (5 reels).

Scope: The Map Room Messages of President Truman, 1945-1946 contain top secret messages between President Truman and Clement R. Attlee, Prime Minister of Great Britain; Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek; Winston S. Churchill; W. Averell Harriman; Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley; and Joseph Stalin.

The Potsdam Conference Documents, 1945 include all the documents from a meeting between President Truman, Soviet Premier Stalin and British Prime Ministers Churchill and Atlee held from July 16, 1945-August 2,1945 . They discussed post-war arrangements in Europe, frequently without agreement. Future moves in the war against Japan were also covered.

The Official Conversations and Meetings of Dean Acheson, 1949-1953. Dean Acheson was President Truman’s  Under Secretary of State. Over the next two years Acheson played an important role in devising both the Truman Doctrine and the European Recovery Program (ERP). This is a collection of communications between Dean Acheson and President Truman, other heads of state, ambassadors and Congressmen.

How to search the collection: There are no subject indexes to these collections.  Each collection has a reel guide which lists communications by month, day, and year. These two cream colored paper reel guides can be found on the Multimedia Index Table: Guide to Map Room Messages of President Truman, 1945-1946 and Potsdam Conference Documents, 1945; Guide to Official Conversations and Meetings of Dean Acheson, 1949-1953.

NOTE: For Truman scholars, there are also 4 reels of his press conferences in a collection of Presidential Press Conferences in Cabinet 26-F.