The Diaries of Dwight D Eisenhower, 1953-1961, consists of a varied body of microfilmed manuscripts that contain several categories of material, arranged chronologically by month and year. Diary entries and dictated correspondence are filed in folders entitled 'DDE Diary'; 'DDE Personal Diary'; or 'DDE Dictation'. The bulk of actual diary entries falls into the years 1953-1956. Another prominent category is memoranda of telephone conversations with the more detailed conversations dating prior to 1959. The largest body of material is the official White House staff memoranda, reports, correspondence, and summaries of congressional correspondence. These types of documents are found in folders labelled 'Miscellaneous', 'Goodpaster', 'Staff Memos', and after 1957, 'Staff Notes'. Herein are the memoranda of conversations, or 'memcons', prepared by Gen Andrew Jackson Goodpaster, Defense Liaison Officer and Staff Secretary to the President of the United States. From 1956 to the end of the administration, 'Toner Notes' were produced, so named for White House staff member Albert Toner, who with fellow White House Research Group member Christopher Russell, prepared daily intelligence briefings for the President. Material in the collection includes entries relating to Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy and the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg; correspondence with Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon; Prisoners of War exchanges in Korea; rapprochement between Argentina and the US; military aid to Yugoslavia; Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' speech 1953; the situation in Indochina, 1954; the use of psychological warfare in the Third World; relations between the US and the People's Republic of China; France and the European Defence Community; waning British and French colonial ties; the Baghdad Pact, 1955; the Suez Crisis, 1956; US Joint Chiefs of Staff strategic planning in Europe; the Soviet invasion of Hungary, 1956; plans for mutual security arrangements with favoured nations; the Military Assistance Program; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; the African- American civil rights movement; military officer exchanges between Israel and the US; the American, British and Canadian Army Standardization Program; US Department of Defense budgetary matters; the 'Vanguard' satellite program, 1957; nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy and the US-Soviet 'missile gap'. Correspondents include HM King George V; Gen Juan Domingo Peron, president of Argentina; Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy; Rt Hon Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill; Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India; Dr Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany; Gen Douglas MacArthur; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr; Special Assistant to the President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller; Gen Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle, President of France; Rt Hon (Maurice) Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of Great Britain; Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers; (David) Dean Rusk, President of the Rockefeller Foundation; John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, 1953-1959; Herbert Hoover, Jr, Under Secretary of State, 1954-1957; Christian Archibald Herter, Under Secretary of State, 1957-1959.

The Papers of John Foster Dulles and of Christian A Herter, 1953-1961 are microfilmed copies of minutes of telephone conversations, memoranda, reports, and correspondence between Dulles and Herter as US Secretary of State and Under Secretary of State respectively (1953-1959), and Herter as US Secretary of State (1959-1961), and White House staff members, Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon, Central Intelligence Agency Director Allen Welsh Dulles, members of the US Senate and House of Representatives, US armed forces personnel and US political lobbyists. Material included in the collection relates to the International Information Agency re-organisation, 1953; the Panama Canal Treaty, 1953; the Republic of China Mutual Defense Treaty, 1953; Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy and his quest for communist infiltrators in the US, 1953; the cease-fire in Korea and Prisoner of War exchanges, 1953; the coronation of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, 1953; Far Eastern and Asian policy; the treason trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, 1953; the Federal Bureau of Investigation clearance of African-Americans for government posts; the depreciating civil situation on Indochina; atomic agreements with Great Britain; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); the India/Kashmir Crisis, 1954; deteriorating Arab-Israeli relations, 1954-56; the US intervention into Guatemala, 1954; the French defeat in Indochina, 1954; the European Common Market; visit of Rt Hon Sir Anthony Eden to the US; the Suez Crisis, 1956; the Soviet invasion of Hungary, 1956; NATO and nuclear weapons; US stance on French and British colonialism; the testing of US satellite 'Vanguard' and the subsequent space race with the Soviet Union, 1957; the Mutual Security Program; American troops in Lebanon as part of a UN force, 1958; Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon and the political defence of US foreign policy. Correspondents include President Dwight David Eisenhower; Gen Juan Domingo Peron, president of Argentina; Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy; Rt Hon Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill; Marshal Josip Broz (Tito), Prime Minister of Yugoslavia; Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India; Dr Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany; Gen Douglas MacArthur; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr; Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of the Republic of Egypt; Special Assistant to the President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller; Gen Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle, President of France; Rt Hon (Maurice) Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of Great Britain; Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, President of the Republic of China; Hussein ibn Talal, King of Jordan; Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson; Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers; David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel; Fidel Castro, Prime Minister of Cuba.

Papers relating to his military career, 1937-1972, principally comprising recruitment poster for North Staffordshire Regt, 1937; unsigned account of operations of 2 Bn North Staffs Regt, France, 12 May-1 Jun 1940, written in [1940]; unsigned account of operations of 6 Bn North Staffordshire Regt, France, 1 Jul-31 Aug 1944, written in [1944]; The Battle of Flanders by Kenneth Adam (Hutchinson and Co, London, 1940); papers relating to his service with North Staffordshire Regt in Trieste, 1951-1953, principally comprising press cuttings concerning protests against the Allied Military Government in Trieste, 1953, and official photographs of visit by Adm Louis (Francis Albert Victor Nicholas) Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, [1952-1953]; copies of letters written to his family during his service in Korea, 1953-1954; press cuttings relating to evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, 1940. Papers relating to Bird's grandfather Gen James Lewis Bird, 1857- 1938, notably including copy of a letter from Gen James Lewis Bird to his sister Pamela, 2 Jun 1857, describing the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny at Meerut, India, May-Jun 1857.

Official Conversations and Meetings of Dean Acheson, 1949-1953 are microfilmed copies of the minutes of conversations and meetings of Dean Acheson during his tenure as Secretary of State during the Truman administration, 1949-1953. Material includes minutes for meetings and conversations with Senator Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg concerning the Rhodes negotiations on the future of Palestine, 1949; Foreign Service employee George Frost Kennan relating to US-Soviet relations, 1949-1950; Rt Hon Sir Oliver Franks, British Ambassador to the US, concerning the former Italian colonies, the western mark for Berlin and the North Atlantic Pact, 1949; the US National Security Council relating to the re-training of the Austrian Army, Palestine, and the appointment of a military commander in Germany, 1949; President Harry S Truman concerning the Military Assistance Program, atomic energy, Palestine, British finances and the revolutionary situation in the Caribbean, 1949; Muhammad Riza Pahlevi, Shah-an-Shah of Iran, relating to financial assistance to Iran, 1949; Professor Hans Joachim Morgenthau concerning Cold War international relations; President Truman concerning the Korean crisis, 1950; US Department of Defense representatives concerning the Treaty of Peace with Japan, 1950, and the war in Korea, 1951-1953; US Gen George Catlett Marshall relating to the Economic Recovery Program (Marshall Plan).