Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm81058248
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of Richard Dudman, editor, executive, and journalist, were deposited in the Library of Congress by Dudman, 1978-1983. Additional material was given from 1987 to 2014, and the papers were converted to a gift in 2002.
The papers of Richard Dudman were processed in 1979 and expanded in 1985 by David Mathisen. The finding aid was revised in 2013 and expanded in 2016 by Pang H. Xiong. The finding aid was updated in 2023 by Maria Farmer as part of a division-wide remediation project by the Inclusive Description Working Group.
Posters have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library, where they are identified as part of these papers.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Richard Dudman is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Richard Dudman are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Richard Dudman Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Richard Dudman (1918- ) span the years 1911-2014 and consist of correspondence, notebooks, writings, and background material relating mainly to his career as a journalist with the
In the spring of 1965, the studied calm that generally characterizes meetings of the Massachusetts Historical society was disturbed when a troubled federal judge, Charles Wyzanski, posed several questions about the course of current events.[1] Judge Wyzanski was bothered by the little-debated but widening war in Vietnam, and he asked Walter Lippman, a guest of the society, if all the facts were accessible to the “informed public,” which he defined as “the type that reads the New York papers and the Washington papers.” Lippmann replied that the most relevant facts were available, but not in the New York or Washington papers, and he praised a recent series by “a correspondent of the
Richard Dudman had been a reporter for the
The collection consists of approximately sixty-three hundred items, and it has an organic character that gives it special value for researchers. There are clear relationships between the notebooks, the columns, and the correspondence that permit one to follow the story as it emerged, as it appeared, and as it provided the basis for Dudman's further reflections. On a number of matters, such as the Dixon-Yates plan, Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, and negotiations leading to American withdrawal in Vietnam, there are memoranda from Dudman to his editors that show how his articles took shape. More frequently, fragments appear in his notebooks that help one understand events as they unfolded for him. Correspondence with readers and fellow newsmen gives other insights into Dudman's efforts to reconstruct and interpret the events of the day.
Wide-ranging personal interests and the multiple demands made on reporters in a Washington bureau have led Dudman to explore an incredible range of problems, but he is perhaps most frequently associated with his coverage of the war in Vietnam. Dudman first went to South Vietnam in 1962, and his many subsequent visits to the field combined with his assessment of his decisions in Washington to make him and the
Perhaps the most unusual documents in the Dudman Papers are the notes he took during May and June 1970, when he and two other reporters covering the Cambodian incursion were captured by forces of the National Liberation Front. Dudman and his colleagues were held for forty days, and following his release he transformed these jottings, many of them on student's lined copybook paper, into one of the most dramatic series of the war. Other materials relating to the series and to the book that followed,
It is appropriate that a collection which documents the full range of public issues also runs the gamut of private emotions, for there are lighter moments in the Dudman Papers that give some balance to the more somber situations he encountered. Among the most delightful notes in the collection are letters from his daughters in 1966, when he was midway through his third trip to Vietnam. Janet, a high school student, sought his advice about which modern language she should study. “I am seriously considering Russian but I don't know. Please answer because we have to answer soon.” His daughter Martha asked him “to write me about the situation there, and explain it so I can tell those guys I argue with. OK?” Such family letters appear throughout the collection, and they will provide students of modern journalism with a valuable angle of vision on the life of a reporter on assignment.
Following a tour of the Middle East in 1956, Dudman wrote Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., his publisher, that he “found government leaders impressed that a Middle Western American newspaper would send its own reporter there, and they were correspondingly helpful.” Dudman's career and the traditions of the
Material from Addition I are mostly topical files and supplement the Subject File and Writings series. Also included are drafts and supporting material for Dudman's
1. The following description is taken from
2.
This collection is arranged in six series:
Letters sent and received.
Arranged chronologically by folder.
Reporter's notebooks.
No arrangement.
Correspondence, notes, reports, clippings, printed matter, and miscellaneous material compiled for background reference.
Arranged alphabetically by topic.
Mostly clippings and printed copies of news articles but including typewritten copies and dispatches.
Arranged by topic or type of material. Includes a scrapbook of articles.
Correspondence, writings, subject files, notebooks, photographs, and miscellaneous material described by topic or type of material.
No arrangement.
Writings, correspondence, photographs, printed matter, subject files, and other papers.
Arranged alphabetically by topic or type of material.