The Cold War television documentary archive consists of transcripts of 531 interviews concerning events of the Cold War - the political, ideological tension between the United States and the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), 1946-1989, following the end of World War Two, which while falling short of actual war between these two nations, was evident in their foreign and defence policies, and those of their allies.

Interviews were conducted with eyewitnesses from the US, USSR, Germany, Poland, Britain, Czechoslovakia, Italy, France, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Spain, Vietnam, Korea, China, Israel Egypt, South Africa, Angola, Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and including politicians, policy makers and advisors, diplomats, journalists, academics, members of armed forces, dissidents, peasants, factory workers and civilians.

Events described include the Berlin blockade, 1948-1949, the Berlin Crisis, 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Oct 1962, the Vietnam War, 1965-1975, the Korean War, 1950-1953, the Hungarian uprising, 1956, the Prague Spring, 1968, the nuclear arms race, 1945-1991, and Chinese communism, 1949-1972.

The collections also contains transcripts of a series of seminars on the Cold War, Oct 1995, as well as an incomplete series of files relating to individual episodes of the documentary series including annotated extracts of interview transcripts and other production information. (Transcripts in this section of the collection are mainly duplicates, however there are a small number which are not found in the main transcript series).

Papers of Reginald Ruggles Gates, 1896-1969, including diaries and research notebooks, papers relating to Botanical Biology ; Gates' research files; photographs; appointment diaries; correspondence; papers relating to professional memberships and conference material; press cuttings and published articles on his research interests. Including diaries and research notebooks, 1906-1962. Papers relating to Botanical Biology , an unpublished work by Gates, including manuscript notes, statistics, photographs and plant seeds. Research files, including draft papers by Gates such as notes from publications, articles, lecture transcripts, lecture notes, chapters of books, book reviews and others. Also photographs, articles, tables of data on physical characteristics of various peoples, graphs and charts, press cuttings and correspondence, on a variety of subjects including botany, oenothera , ethnic groups, race, genetics, biology, anthropology and Gates' anthropological studies in Australia, Canada, Cuba, India, Japan, Mexico, New Guinea, Okinawa, South Africa and Taiwan. Photographs from Gates' travels to Algeria, the Amazon river, Andamanese Islands, Australia, California, Canada, Canadian Arctic, Cuba, England, Gibraltar, Italy, India, Japan, Kenya, Morocco, New Guinea, Russia, Sicily, South Africa, South Rhodesia, Spain, Swedish Lapland and Tunisia; photographs of plant life, particularly oenothera ; lecture slides; photographs used for publication in various books and articles by Gates; photographs of human and ape skulls and skeletons, photographs of people suffering from genetic diseases and personal photographs. Appointment diaries, 1921-1962. Personal and professional correspondence, including personal financial papers, 1903-1962. Papers relating to professional memberships and conference material, 1922-1962; press cuttings collected by Gates, 1915-1962 and printed material collected by Gates and his widow, 1928-1966, on subjects relating to his research including oenothera , botany, race, blood groups, physical anthropology, human biology, genetics, prehistoric man and population.

Photograph album of Spain and Tangier (Tanger, Morocco), 1901.

Papers of Edgar Prestage, 1881-1949, largely relating to his work on the history of Portugal, 16th-19th centuries. Letters to Prestage from various correspondents, 1886-1948 and undated, relate to a variety of subjects pertaining to his work, publications and translations, sources and interpretation, and also to acquaintances and contemporaries, other publications, and some personal matters such as correspondents' health and families, and include six letters from Fortunato de Almeida, 1917-1933 and undated; 24 letters from Joao Lucio de Azevedo, 1914-1933 and undated; 13 letters from Pedro Augusto de S Bartolomeu de Azevedo, 1910-1927 and undated; six letters from Henrique de Gama Barros, 1908-1925; five letters from Carlos Roma du Bocage, 1915-1918; three letters from Sir Richard Francis Burton, 1888-1889, and 12 letters from Lady Isabel Burton, 1894-1896, relating to Sir Richard's translation of Camoens; 22 letters from Julio de Castilho, 1908-1918; nine letters from Harold Castle, 1903-1906; six letters from Fidelino de Figueiredo, 1911-1918 and undated; eight letters from James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, 1905-1919; five letters from Anselmo Braamcamp Freire, 1905-1919; two letters from Pieter Geyl, 1923, 1926; letter from William Ewart Gladstone, 1893, congratulating Prestage on Letters of a Portuguese nun ; ten letters from Edward Heawood, 1922-1933; letter from Benjamin Jowett, 1887, explaining entrance examinations at Oxford; five letters from Margery Lane, 1927 and undated; six letters from Manuel de Oliveira Lima, 1910-1927; two letters, 1928, 1932, from Manuel II, King of Portugal, concerning the monarch's bibliography of early Portuguese books; eight letters from Jacinto Octavio Picon, 1911-1920; seven letters from Jacinto Inacio de Brito Rebelo, 1895-1908; eight letters from Jaime Batalha Reis, 1894-1896, 1904-1905, 1922; 12 letters from Francisco Rodrigues, 1913-1918, 1930 and undated; two letters from John Ruskin, 1886 and undated, on the study of architecture; seven letters from Antonio Maria Jose de Melo Cesar e Meneses, 5th Conde de Sabugosa, 1905-1913; five letters from Luis Teixeira de Sampayo, 1921-1928; letter from Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, 1905, congratulating Prestage on Eca de Queiroz's The sweet miracle ; five letters from Georg Schurhammer, 1930-1936; five letters from Wilhelm Storck, 1894-1895; five letters from Herbert Thurston, 1905-1913; ten letters from Pedro Tovar de Lemos, 2nd Conde de Tovar, 1916-1927 and undated; 13 letters from Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos, 1895-1896, 1907-1922, and 11 letters from her husband, Joaquim de Vasconcellos, 1897, 1908-1925; six letters from Afonso Lopes Vieira, 1910, 1914, 1927 and undated; five letters from Tomas Maria de Almeida Manuel de Vilhena, 8th Conde de Vila Flor, 1925-1929 and undated; letter from Oscar O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, [1892], regretting he cannot send a copy of his unnamed play (perhaps Lady Windermere's Fan ) as it has not yet been published. There is also a letter of 1881 from Antonio Candido Goncalves Crespo to Maria Amalia Vaz de Carvalho (father and mother of Prestage's wife). Ephemera includes signatures of Gomes Eannes Azurara, William Wordsworth, [? Isaac] Disraeli and Samuel Wilberforce; Christmas cards; the visiting card of S T P Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic, 1903; menus, including the House of Commons Coronation luncheon in Westminster Hall, 1902; a ticket to the coronation of Edward VII, 1902; and an invitation to a party at Windsor Castle, 1912. Otherwise the collection comprises research notes and transcriptions on various subjects and sources, including Restoration period Portugal; Sousa Coutinho; Portuguese in Africa, Brazil and Asia; the War of the Spanish Succession; 17th century Portuguese history, including diplomacy; the sermons of Father Antonio Vieira SJ; Portuguese bibliographies prepared by Prestage; annotated typescripts on the Portuguese in Abyssinia down to 1543, aspects and results of Portuguese colonisation, and Portuguese reminiscences (1948); Prestage's 'The Mode of Government in Portugal during the Restoration Period'; photographs of Portuguese fortresses in Morocco; notebook on 'Analyse das "Cartas Familiares" '; copies of letters of F de Sousa, including his embassies to France and Rome; copies of letters of Sir R Southwell, English ambassador to Lisbon; material relating to relations between Spain and Portugal; pamphlets and articles of Prestage; proofs for a chapter entitled 'L'Intevention Anglaise dans la Peninsule Iberique', in an envelope addressed to Prestage and labelled 'D Fernando & the Holy See by E Perroy'.