Henry Shapiro

A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Michael Spangler with the assistance of Donnelly Lancaster, Lisa Madison, and Karen Spicher
Revised and expanded by Michael Spangler

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2000

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress
Manuscript Division, 2003

2004-07-19 converted from EAD 1.0 to EAD 2002

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Occupation:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Organization of the Papers

Description of Series

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Administrative Information

The papers of Henry Shapiro, journalist and Moscow correspondent, were given to the Library of Congress in 1994, 1996, and 1998 by his wife, Ludmilla Shapiro.

The papers of Henry Shapiro were arranged and described in 1995. Additional material received between 1996 and 1998 was incorporated into the collection in 2000. A description of the Shapiro Papers appears in Library of Congress Acquisitions: Manuscript Division, 1994-1995, pp. 38-39.

Sound recordings of interviews and lectures have been transferred to the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division where they are identified as part of this collection.

Copyright in the unpublished writings of Henry Shapiro in these papers is reserved. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division for further information.

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Henry Shapiro Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

The papers of Henry Shapiro (1906-1991) span the years 1920-1992 with most of the material concentrated between 1931 and 1973. The collection focuses principally on Shapiro's long career as United Press International's chief Moscow correspondent and bureau manager. Present during the regimes of Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev, Shapiro reported on a range of issues pertaining to Soviet society as well as many of the major events which shaped East/West relations during this period. The papers include wire service reports, reference files, correspondence, articles, lectures, a memoir, notes, and personal files organized in five series: Personal File, United Press International (UPI) Moscow Bureau, Speeches and Writings File, Addition, and Oversize. The collection includes English and Russian language material.

The Personal File provides a biographical profile of Shapiro based on correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, photographs, and other material. Correspondence in the series is primarily with friends and colleagues concerning visits and travel plans. Other letters pertain to arrangements for lectures and issues related to publishing Shapiro's articles. The scrapbooks include material pertaining to his entire career as well as numerous felicitations on his retirement in 1973.

Shapiro's files from the United Press International Moscow Bureau constitute the heart of the collection. Shortly after arriving in Moscow in 1933 and briefly studying Soviet law, Shapiro became a correspondent for Reuters of London and the New York Herald Tribune. In 1937 he was hired by UPI and was appointed manager of its Moscow bureau in 1939. He retained that position until his retirement in 1973, concluding an unusually long career in a world capital in which foreign correspondents typically had much shorter periods of duty.

The Administrative File of the Moscow Bureau series reflects the organizational and financial aspects of the bureau documented in correspondence and memoranda regarding assignments, arrangements for interviews, and communications with other UPI offices and personnel. The file also includes financial records and contracts with Soviet personnel.

The Reference File includes Russian language newspaper clippings, printed matter, notes, and wire service reports pertaining to virtually every aspect of Soviet life and society. Because contact with many typical news sources was not available to Western reporters, Soviet newspapers and magazines were an important source of supplemental information and background material. Whitman Bassow, a UPI Moscow correspondent in the 1950s, notes in his book The Moscow Correspondents that "the key to comprehensive reporting was always the clipping file from the Soviet press and magazines and notes compiled by reporters."* Notable and extensive material in the Reference File pertains to agriculture, trials during the 1930s, biographies, Jews and Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, elections, espionage, and the regime of Nikita Khrushchev. Foreign relations are documented by considerable material regarding Soviet relations with the United States and China. Files pertaining to China contain many reports on the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations during the early 1960s.

*Bassow, Whitman, The Moscow Correspondents (New York: W. Morrow, c. 1988), 299.

The Wire Service Reports in the UPI series were filed by the Moscow Bureau from 1931 to 1971. Although there are numerous gaps, the reports provide a comprehensive account of the Soviet Union during that time. The reports were often rewritten and shortened by editors in the United States, adding to the historical significance of the copies retained by Shapiro. There are a few incoming cable and telegraph messages from UPI's New York office from 1946 to 1948, but the file is primarily composed of the Moscow bureau's outgoing stories. Eugene Lyons, a predecessor of Shapiro's at UPI and an early Soviet sympathizer who left the Soviet Union in disillusionment in 1934, wrote many of the reports from 1931 to 1933. Reports from the mid-1930s cover social and economic conditions, foreign policy, political struggles, scientific advances, and aeronautical achievements. Events leading up to Germany's invasion of Russia are chronicled from 1939 through the summer of 1941. Reports are absent for 1942-1945, but resume in 1946 with many written by Walter Cronkite, who served as a UPI correspondent from 1946 to 1948. Shapiro was one of the few American reporters who remained in Moscow as the Cold War intensified during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Reports during the 1950s and 1960s are fairly complete and reflect the heightened tensions between the USSR and the United States. Prominent topics during this period include the rise and fall of Nikita Khrushchev, internal Soviet politics, the breakdown of relations with China, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the exploration of outer space, economic and domestic policies, Leonid Brezhnev's ascent to power, and the Viet Nam conflict.

The Speeches and Writings File contains drafts and printed copies of Shapiro's articles and drafts and newspaper serializations of his book, L'U.R.S.S. après Staline. Also included are interviews with Nikita Khrushchev (1957), Hungary's János Kádár (1966), and Nicolae Ceausescu (1972). After retiring from UPI, Shapiro continued to travel and lecture on the Soviet Union, and his files contain lecture notes and other related material. Other files include notes on détente, politics, and ideology, and a transcript of Shapiro's memoir recorded by the American Jewish Committee.

The Addition series supplements the collection with correspondence, reference files, wire service reports, and speeches and writings files. The correspondence is composed chiefly of personal letters from professional colleagues and friends, including journalist Nicholas Daniloff during the early 1980s, and copies of some of Shapiro's letters. Reference files contain background material pertaining to Russian leaders, civil rights, education, and international incidents. The speeches and writings file includes draft articles, book projects, interviews, and material related to Shapiro's lecture schedule. Wire service reports relate primarily to relations between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1960s.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in five series:

• Personal File, 1939-1992, n.d.
• United Press International, Moscow Bureau, 1920-1973, n.d.
• Speeches and Writings File, 1937-1987, n.d.
• Addition, 1931-1990, n.d.
• Oversize, 1954.

Description of Series

Container List