Correspondence,1964-1965

Letters chiefly pertaining to Reston's articles about poverty in Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia.

In a letter typed on United States Senate letterhead and dated 13 February 1964, Roger [?] discusses conditions he had witnessed in Appalachia and the state of higher education. He writes, "student life is somewhat 'rich in meaninglessness.' The only students here who aren't afraid of their own shadow are the ones who join SNCC & the beatnicks who take a position of rebelling to the other extreme. The rest are polite conformists who accept the fact that petty administrative problems are the only true field of real intellectual challenge."

Correspondence,1969

Letters chiefly pertaining to the Cincinnati, Ohio public schools and Reston's manuscript To Defend, To Destroy.

Included are several letters from southern novelist Elizabeth Boatwright Coker. In a letter dated 19 July 1969, she urges Reston, "Don't, whatever, give up faith in yourself or in that fine manuscript of yours. Keep WRITING above all. Begin another book. Eschew all the hypocrits [sic]...Concentrate on the city within that intrigues you now and pull a story out of your summer."

Drafts, To Defend, To Destroy, 1969-1970

Three handwritten pages.

Editor's notes, To Defend, To Destroy, 1969-1970

Contracts,1969

With W. W. Norton & Company for To Defend, To Destroy.

Clippings,1960-1969

Printed materials, Issues of Your Thing, 1969

Your Thing is a publication (newspaper/"zine") of the Neighborhood Youth Corps in New York, N.Y.

Printed materials, "Books That Live,"1969-1970

W. W. Norton & Company catalog.

Correspondence, 1970

Letters are chiefly about the publication of and reactions To Defend, To Destroy.

Correspondents include Norton editor Evan Thomas, Reston's agent Carol Brandt, University of North Carolina System President William (Bill) Friday, Elizabeth Boatwright Coker, and author and newspaper editor Jonathan Daniels.

Of interest is a 15 May 1970 letter from a New York law firm about the laws governing publication of classified and restricted information and the character based on Reston's commanding officer during his Army service.

Also of interest is a 23 September 1970 letter from Jonathan Daniels, who writes, "James Reston Jr. has brought a skilled hand and a splendid narrative style to the dilemma of young Americans caught between new activist idealism and the old conventionalities of patriotism and power."

Correspondence, 1971

Letters are chiefly about reprinting and "remaindering" To Defend, To Destroy, Reston's new marriage, lecturing and speaking engagements, teaching positions in creative writing programs, and amnesty for Vietnam War draft resisters and deserters.

Correspondents include Norton editor Evan Thomas, Reston's agent Carol Brandt, author and UNC Creative Writing Program faculty member Max Steele, University of North Carolina System President William (Bill) Friday, Sally Reston (Reston's mother), author Henry Mayer, and Mike Uhl with the Citizens Commission of Inquiry.

Of interest is a 14 December 1971 letter from Uhl outlining John David Herndon's desertion story. "X is a white worker of Appalachian background. He served in Vietnam for 18 months with an elite Airborne unit and was heavily involved in the unit's war-crime policies...He can no longer tolerate the alienation of refugee life and wants to return to his home--whatever the risks. He hopes, by his action, to put the deserter question on the political agenda of the American people."

Correspondence, 1972

Letters are chiefly about Vietnam War deserter John David Herndon's amnesty case and a book proposal for a nonfiction work titled "The Rebels."

Correspondents include Norton editor Evan Thomas, Reston's agent Carol Brandt, McGraw Hill editor Joyce Johnson, members of Safe Return Committee in Support of Self-Retired Veterans (Deserters), John David Herndon, Herndon's ex-wife Jeannette Goulounes, anti-war activists Maria Jolas and Max Watts (Tomi Schwaetzer), James "Scotty" Reston (Reston's father), and Henry Schwarzschild with the American Civil Liberties Union's Project on Amnesty.

Of interest is a letter dated 6 April 1972 from Schwarzschild about Herndon's case and Safe Return. "It seems to me that Safe Return is playing rather recklessly with somebody else's life. The likelihood of successfully raising Nuremberg doctrines in defense of a desertion charge in the military courts, and even on ultimate appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court, is nil." In a 30 July 1972 letter Mike Uhl with Safe Return responds after reading a manuscript of The Amnesty of John David Herndon. "His apparent sympathy with 'fascists' could be very damaging both to the credibility of the book and to the growth of the amnesty movement...I don't think these references to fascism are necessary to underscore John's lack of formal political training or their purpose."

Also of interest is a letter (copy) dated 3 August 1972 from Reston's father James "Scotty" Reston with the New York Times about the press's handling of United States Senator Thomas Eagleton, the running mate of presidential candidate George McGovern. Reston Sr. writes, "your blanket indictment of the press for playing up a medical record which, to begin with, was first withheld and then announced by Eagleton himself on national television seems to me a little stiff."

Correspondence, 1973

Letters are chiefly about amnesty for Vietnam War draft resisters and deserters, especially John David Herndon, Reston's book The Amnesty of John David Herndon, Reston's articles, television appearances, and speaking engagements made in support of amnesty, and requests for Reston's participation in panels and symposia.

Correspondents include McGraw Hill editors Joyce Johnson and Beverly Jane Loo, University of North Carolina Professor Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., Reston's agent Carol Brandt, members of Amex-Canada (American exiled in Canada), members of Safe Return Committee in Support of Self-Retired Veterans (Deserters), Henry Schwarzschild with the American Civil Liberties Union's Project on Amnesty, anti-war activists Maria Jolas and Max Watts (Tomi Schwaetzer), members of the American Bar Association, members of the American Friends Service Committee, Inc., and attorney Michael J. Malley, who defended U.S. Army officer Jeffrey MacDonald accused (and later convicted) of murdering his wife and two daughters. Malley writes in a March 1973 letter, "I think it is easier for me, and probably for a lot of people, to accept Herndon as an individual, 'forgive' him...than it is to accept the 'principle' that we are all morally guilty of sending Herndon to his dilemma."

Also of interest is a letter (carbon copy) dated 25 January 1973 from Reston to New York attorney Robert C. Rhodes. He writes, "I totally oppose amnesty boards of any kind as a matter of principle. I do not think there is anyone in this country, and least of all any official governmental body, who is in a position to judge the sincerity or moral motivation of any young American who has gone into exile during the Vietnam era. The only amnesty that is just and at the same time practical is a universal, unconditional amnesty."

Correspondence, 1974

Letters are chiefly about The Amnesty of John David Herndon, The Knock at Midnight, royalties for book sales, teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the lecture circuit, editorial advice aimed at avoiding libel suits, and the North Carolina Bicentennial project.

Correspondents include Norton editor Evan Thomas, Reston's agent Carol Brandt, Henry Schwarzschild with the American Civil Liberties Union's Project on Amnesty, staff at the Bantam Lecture Bureau, members of Safe Return Committee in Support of Self-Retired Veterans (Deserters), John "Scotty" Reston (Reston's father), Sally Reston (Reston's mother), Tom Reston (Reston's brother), historian Larry Tise with the North Carolina Bicentennial project, and author Henry Mayer.

Of interest is a copy of a 2 September 1974 letter about conditional amnesty for deserters and draft resisters that Reston sent to President Gerald Ford's assistant Philip Buchen. "It would appear that Mr. Saxbe [William B. Saxbe, Attorney General of the United States] is intent on proposing a plan that the exiles can't accept. Very little attention seems to be paid to the delicate matter of pride that exists with the resisters, and if President Ford truly wants the exiles to return he will have to be sensitive to the emotional commitment that they have in their course of action."

Correspondence, 1975

Letters are chiefly about The Knock at Midnight, and Reston's writing on the Joan Little trial for Times Magazine, and the magazine's interest in a piece by Reston on southern justice. Other topics include teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, amnesty for war resisters and deserters, and Reston's interest in writing a column on "serious fiction."

Correspondents include Norton editor Evan Thomas, Reston's agent Carol Brandt, Sally Reston (Reston's mother), author Henry Mayer, Howard Muson with Times Magazine, psychiatrist and writer Robert Coles, writer William Meis, staff at the Bantam Lecture Bureau, and Ted Weidlein with the The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Of interest is a 7 March 1975 letter from Muson in response to Reston's proposal to write an article about the Joan Little trial. "We want to avoid as much as possible trying the case in the press. Instead, we'd like you to concentrate on the milieu. Tell us who the characters are, what they represent to the people in the community, how the residents react to the coalition of Joanne [sic] Little Defense Fund groups who have come to town (a little detail on what contacts between the outsiders and locals would be colorful.)"

Of note is a 23 October 1975 letter from Ted Weidlein about starting a column on fiction for The Chronicle of Higher Education "that does have the feel of continuing commentary, rather than discrete reviews of individual books."

Also included is a 31 August 1975 letter from an inmate at Marion Federal Penitentiary on behalf of the Black Culture Society requesting donations of The Knock at Midnight for the prison library.

Correspondence, 1976

Letters are chiefly about Reston's work on The Innocence of Joan Little: A Southern Mystery, and magazine articles and feature stories written or proposed by Reston. Other topics are the death of John David Herndon found dead on an Arizona highway and Reston's interest in finishing Herndon's story, and preparation for President Richard Nixon's televised interviews with British journalist David Frost.

Correspondents include attorney Junius D. Grimes, Ted Weidlein with the The Chronicle of Higher Education, author Henry Mayer, Christopher G. Caslet, Bantam Books editor Toni Burbank, and Reston's agent Carol Brandt.

Of interest is a 4 May 1976 from Mayer discussing point of view in Reston's manuscript for The Innocence of Joan Little. "I think I know what you are saying about a lack of ideological point of view, but I respectfully suggest that you are deluding yourself. Everything, Everyone has a point of view. Your argument that a state and town are also on trial represents a point of view as does your cynicism and despair about extravaganza trials, and as does your abhorrence of capital punishment."

Of note is a copy of 2 July 1976 letter Reston wrote to the research team assembled for the Nixon interviews. "I do not think that Frost should set a vicious, Nixon-goring tone in these programs, rather the spirit should be: here are the questions that must be asked and must be answered."

Correspondence, 1977

Letters pertain to British journalist David Frost's televised interviews with President Richard Nixon, interest in writing a book or article about the interviews, a documentary about capital punishment, Reston's research on William Tecumseh Sherman, a screenplay titled "Sherman's Laurels," and publication of The Innocence of Joan Little. Other topics include teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the possibility of a film about Joan Little's trial and her new legal troubles.

Correspondents include Sally Reston (Reston's mother), librarians and archivists, George Bair, director of Educational TV at UNC TV, southern novelist Elizabeth Boatwright Coker, Reston's agent Carol Brandt, Norton editor Evan Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, historian Fawn Brodie, editor Marion Clark with Potomac Magazine, and Ted Weidlein with the The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Of interest is a copy of a 21 July 1977 letter Reston wrote to David Frost about the possibility of writing a memoir of the Nixon interviews. Reston writes, " I could be interested, but of course, you would have to approve. But for me in turn to be enthusiastic, I would have to know that I had the latitude to tell the story the best way I know how."

Correspondence, 1978

Letters pertain to Reston's play about William Tecumseh Sherman titled "Sherman's Laurels" or "Cump," the possibility of Reston's writing a book about British journalist David Frost's televised interviews with President Richard Nixon, an article in Playboy about the Nixon interviews, and The Innocence of Joan Little. Other topics include the birth of Denise and James Reston's daughter, his seminar on Richard Nixon, Joan Little's legal troubles in New York and her extradition to North Carolina, and a proposed story about villains of the 1960s civil rights movement.

In November and December 1978, Reston's letters (copies of outgoing correspondence) pertain to his interest in writing about the Jonestown tragedy, his trip to Guyana to tour the site, and his wish to obtain the recordings of Jim Jones and his followers.

Correspondents include Reston's agent Carol Brandt, historian Fawn Brodie, writer and editor Penelope Coker Hall, former special counsel to President Nixon and founder of Prison Ministry Charles W. Colson, James "Scotty" Reston (Reston's father), journalist and foreign correspondent Timothy Nater, and Guyana's Minister of Information Shirley Field Ridley

Of interest is a 17 April 1978 letter from Colson about Reston's Playboy article. "Watergate is now history. The passions of the era are mercifully subsiding. I am certainly not an objective observer, since I was a participant; but I would hope that those writing now would do so with an honest and objective eye for history."

Also of interest is a 14 June 1978 letter from an African American female inmate in an Atlanta, Ga., federal prison. After reading The Innocence of Joan Little, she wrote to Reston for help finding a lawyer who would submit her lawsuit.

Of note is a copy of a 24 August 1978 letter Reston wrote to Joan Little asking for an interview.

Also of note is a copy of Reston's 27 November 1978 letter to the government of Guyana requesting access to the Jonestown site and asking for permission to listen to the recordings made at the camp before the mass suicide and murders.

Correspondence, 1979

Letters chiefly pertain to Reston's research for a book on the People's Temple, Jim Jones, and the Jonestown tragedy in Guyana, Reston's attempts to gain access to the Jonestown documents in possession of the FBI, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the FBI, Department of Justice, State Department, and FCC.

Other major topics include Reston's play about William Tecumseh Sherman titled "Sherman's Laurels" or "Cump" and eventually Sherman, the Peacemaker, a documentary film on the end of the American Panama Canal Zone, and The Innocence of Joan Little.

Correspondents include government officials in Guyana, staff in the Embassy of Guyana, Barbara Schultz with Visions (PBS), Reston's former agent Carol Brandt, editors with Times Books, Reston's agent Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., historian Fawn Brodie, Frankie Hewitt with Ford's Theater, David G. Flanders with the FBI, United States Representatives Richardson Preyer and L.H. Fountain, and Ricardo Joaquin Alfaro II, an amateur radio operator who lived near the People's Temple in San Francisco, Calif.

Of interest is a copy of a 19 April 1979 letter Reston wrote to President Jimmy Carter about access to documents. "The Jonestown affair is unprecedented in human history, and has been deeply disturbing to the American people. It cries out for serious study and explanation. In order that this may be accomplished, an official at the highest level of government, with the vision to see that no previously existing bureaucratic regulations can be relevant to such a cataclysm, will need to free up this material for scholarly access."

Also of interest is a copy of a 23 April 1979 letter Reston wrote to the executive editor at Times Books about the direction of his book on Jim Jones. "I see the story thrusting forward to the climactic moment when Jones announces the deaths at the airstrip and offers his prodigious proposal. That is a moment worthy of Sartre, an existential decision of whether to resist or to acquiesce, and in acquiescing, whether the decision is made with a Jonesian belief in the heroism of a revolutionary act, or in bad faith, a supreme act of giving up."

Of note are December 1979 letters from Alfaro. In his first letter dated 4 December 1979, he writes "I worked closely with Marshall Kilduff in '77...he used my station as a clandestine listening post to attempt to divine what was happening inside the group." In his 28 December letter, Alfaro provides context for the recordings he made of radio transmissions from the People's Temple in San Francisco and Jonestown in Guyana.

Correspondence, undated 1970s

Correspondence, undated 1970s

Correspondence, undated 1970s

Correspondence, undated 1970s

Correspondence, undated 1970s

Correspondence, undated 1970s

Drafts, The Amnesty of John David Herndon, circa 1972

Two typescript pages with handwritten emendations.

Drafts, "Return of a Refugee" (The Amnesty of John David Herndon), 1972

Contains a letter to McGraw Hill editor, Joyce Johnson, with a list of persons who might contribute comments for the book jacket, including Senator Edward Kennedy.

Drafts, "The American Refugee Comes Home," circa1972

Drafts, The Amnesty of John David Herndon revisions, 1973

Drafts, The Knock at Midnight, circa1975

Drafts, Book review of Gore Vidal's 1876, circa1976

Drafts, Sherman, the Peacemaker, circa1979

Editor's notes, The Amnesty of John David Herndon, circa1972

Editor's notes, untitled novel,1973

Editor's notes, The Knock at Midnight,1974

Editor's notes, The Innocence of Joan Little, circa1977

Contracts, 1971

With W. W. Norton & Company for "An Untitled Novel."

Contracts, 1973

With Safe Return Committee; Frank Makiewicz; Thomas Ensign and Michael Uhl (jointly); Bantam Lecture Bureau; Bantam Books, Inc.; and Quadrangle The New York Times Book Co.

Contracts, 1976

With David Paradine Productions, Inc., for the esearch and preparation work for four part series of televised interviews of Richard Nixon by David Frost.

Contracts, 1977-1978

With the College Association for Public Events and Services for a lecture and Bantam Books, Inc. for a paperback edition of The Innocence of Joan Little, with a fifteenth chapter added.

Contracts, 1979

With Times Books or a "literary work by Author now untitled on Jonestown and the People's Temple."

Book proposals,1970

Sent to Evan Thomas at W.W. Norton & Company. "I mentioned the notion of a trilogy--a 1967 trilogy--of which To Defend, To Destroy would be the first book…1967 was a year for me, and I believe for many, of near total despair about the direction in which America was headed...The second book would therefore have an urban setting, would have a racial caste, and might have a character like Bartlett--white, well-brought up, concerned about social problems, who is thrown into a tough urban situation of violence, drugs, hate, and forced to confront his value system."

Book proposals, The Knock at Midnight,1971

Sent to Evan Thomas at W.W. Norton & Company. "My interest in Cincinnati as the setting for a novel about urban violence dates back to my days on the Chicago Daily News. I was doing a month's series on Appalachia. And my travels took me to Cincinnati...intrigued to discover that in the 'bottoms' of Cincinnati a white Appalachian ghetto stands side by side with a black ghetto. Hostilities between poor white and poor black had at times reached the proportions of open warfare."

Book proposals, The Amnesty of John David Herndon, circa1972

Sent to Joyce Johnson at McGraw Hill. "It would be based on long talks that I would have with him in Paris over three or four days before reentry. What kind of person is he. What has been his emotional intellectual and individual development since the time he entered the military. What has been the attitude of his family throughout his service and exile. What is the experience of exile? Was it worth it?"

Book proposals, "The Rebels,"1972

"I propose a book on 'the rebels' of the Sixties…interested in where they are now, what they are doing, what their view of their past rebellion is, and whether they remain committed to a new, radically different society." Suggested subjects include Bob Moses, John Lewis, Stokeley Carmichael, Muhammed Ali, Jesse Jackson, Tom Hayden, John Dunne, Abbie Hoffman, Nyle Frank, and John Kerry.

Book proposals, 1974-1975

In his proposal for "Vinnie," Reston writes "It will be an historical novel based on seven years in the life of Vinnie Ream, the sculptress of Lincoln and the woman often given credit for Senator Edmund Ross's vote against the conviction of Andrew Johnson."

In his 1975 book proposal for The Innocence of Joan Little," Reston writes "I'm sure I could put together a modest book on this case [Joan Little] in a reasonable short time, possibly with a delivery date of September 1. I know the principals of the case extremely well, not to mention the area itself. I think it could be a good book, which would have a tailor-made audience among women readers. It is a book I would like to do."

Proposals, 1976-1979

In his 1976 proposal to Esquire for an article about the "making of villains," Reston writes "It was an idea that came in part from my interest in the villainizing of the sheriff of Beaufort County in the Joan Little case, and in part from the frequent appearance of the Southern sheriff as bigot or buffoon in ads and movies."

In his 1977 proposal to Norton for a book about the Frost interviews with President Richard Nixon, Reston writes "In planning that Watergate interrogation, I had a lot of help from ex-members of the Special Prosecutors staff who had hope to have Nixon on the stand for the same purpose, and with the pardon, were living vicariously through me."

In his 1979 proposal for the documentary "Fear and Hope in the Canal Zone" Reston writes "It is the eleventh hour for the Canal Zone. Some have left for the States. The Zonians who remain live in an atmosphere charged with anticipation and uncertainty. By filming during August, we can produce a provocative documentary to convey the drama of real emotion tensions leading up to America's lowering the flag on October one."

Clippings, 1970-1971

Clippings, Bragg Briefs,1972

Clippings, American Exile Rock Bottom Newsletter,1972

Clippings, 1972-1973

Clippings, 1974-1975

Clippings, Reviews of The Knock at Midnight,1975

Clippings,1976-1977

Clippings,1978-1979

Clippings, undated, circa 1970s

Amnesty materials, "Benefits-Discharges,"1969

Poster (GTA: graphic training aid) printed by the U.S. Army with a chart showing the benefits received by discharged army personnel based on their discharge type--"Honorable, General, Undesirable, Bad Conduct, Dishonorable (General Court-Martial)"--and organized by benefits administration (U.S. Army, Veterans Administration, and other federal agencies).

Amnesty materials, Cimade pamphlet (Paris, France), 1970

"We place priority on those who were forced to flee their countries for their opinions or actions and who count on returning once the political situation has changed."

Amnesty materials, Citizens Commission of Inquiry,1971

Draft proposal titled "Ad Hoc Congressional Hearings on Racism, Repression, and Militarism within the U.S. Armed Forces" and prepared by the Citizens Commission of Inquiry.

Amnesty materials,1971-1973, and undated

Contains an open letter to the "Second in Command of the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Viet Nam," a poem titled "Napalm Sticks to Kids," materials concerning Reston's testimony before the Long Island Amnesty Review Board, program for symposium, military service statistics, materials for a televised program exploring the question, "Should we grant amnesty to those who have evaded military service?," Amnesty in 1973 Resolution by Reston, and a copy of essay titled "We Shall Never Vindicate Those who Have Deserted Their Country," by Charles W. Colson.

Amnesty materials, Safe Return Committee in Support of Self Retired Veterans (Deserters),1972-1973

Chiefly press releases and open letters in support of amnesty for draft resisters and deserters, especially John David Herndon.

Amnesty materials, John David Herndon,1972

John David Herndon, petitioner v. Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense and Robert Froelke, Secretary of the Army.

Amnesty materials, H.R. 14175 A Bill for Amnesty,1972

United States House of Representatives bill "to exonerate and to provide for a general and unconditional amnesty."

Amnesty materials, Amex-Canada,1973

"Published by Americans Exiled in Canada."

Amnesty materials, Families of Resisters for Amnesty,1973

Brochure and other informational materials for the organization.

Amnesty materials, Radio broadcast,1973

Audiocassette

"WOR-Amnesty 2/73-Barry Farber Show Koch-Tod-Reston-WFW."

Amnesty materials, Radio broadcast, circa 1973

Audiocassette

Mike Wallace and James Reston, "Amnesty Boston-Toronto."

Amnesty materials, Tomi Schwaetzer (Max Watts), undated

Typescript document and handwritten notes, both in French. "Une Histoire d'Expulsion."

Nixon materials, People's Lawsuit,1972

Brochure, "The People of the United States of America, Plaintiffs vs. Richard M. Nixon, individually and in his capacity as President of the United States…Action to set aside the 1972 Presidential election…Leaks. Plumbers. Dirty Tricks. Sabotage. Burglary. Watergate."

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 20 June1972

Nixon materials, Transcript of conversation between Howard Hunt and Charles Colson, November1972

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 5 January1973

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 8 January1973

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 13 January1973

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 13 February1973

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 14 February1973

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 21 March1973

Nixon materials, Transcript of meeting between the President and Charles Colson, 12 April1973

Nixon materials, 1973, 1977

Partial transcript of Walter Cronkite interview of Charles Rebozo and a contact list for David Paradine Television, Inc., producer of David Frost's 1977 televised interviews with Richard Nixon.

Printed materials, "Books That Live," 1970-1971

W. W. Norton & Company catalog and Publishers Hall Syndicate list.

Script, Sherman, the Peacemaker, a play in two acts, 1979

Playbill, Sherman, the Peacemaker, a play in two acts, 1979

Printing and publishing materials, To Defend, To Destroy, 1970-1971

Contains book jacket and mock-up, manufacturing schedule, W. W. Norton & Company questionnaire, and typescript of book review by Blake Green.

Printing and publishing materials, The Amnesty of John David Herndon,1972

Typescript of introduction to the book written by Robert Coles.

Printing and publishing materials, The Knock at Midnight,1975

Catalog copy, copy of front jacket flap, and book jacket.

Printing and publishing materials, The Innocence of Joan Little: A Southern Mystery,1978

Book cover copy.

Speaking engagements,1971-1974, 1979

Chiefly printed materials advertising lectures, speaking engagements, and Reston's availability to speak on topics. "He will be available during February and March only, to talk on 'The Question of Responsibility in Vietnam,' 'My Lai and Nuremberg,' or 'The Dangers of Militarism after Vietnam.'"

Also includes a lecture on civil disobedience given at Delaware State College, 13 March 1973. "In short, the Johnson and Nixon governments were not only in a state of war with the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese during the war years, but in a Lockean sense, with their own younger generation as well."

Fellowships,1971-1978

Letters, printed items, and application materials for fellowships with foundations and centers for advanced study.

Notes,1978-1979

Typescript notes about playwriting and a lunch meeting with Jack Nelson.

Teaching, 1970-1981

Includes course descriptions and instructor evaluations for Reston.

Correspondence,1980

Letters chiefly pertain to research for a book Our Father Who Art in Hell on the People's Temple, Jim Jones, and the Jonestown tragedy in Guyana and to Reston's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents and tape recordings related to the People's Temple and Jonestown.

Other major topics include the birth of Denise and James Reston's son, Reston's play Sherman, the Peacemaker and a possible film adaptation of the play, the treason trial of Robert Garwood accused of collaborating with the North Vietnamese, a radio program with NPR about Jonestown, and teaching.

Correspondents include Herbert Mitang with the New York Times, former member of the People's Temple Laurie Efrein, editors with Times Books, historian Fawn Brodie, David G. Flanders with the FBI, Reston's agent Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., Deborah Amos and Sam Holt with NPR, author Henry Mayer, and James "Scotty" Reston (Reston's father).

Of interest is a copy of a 23 September 1980 letter from Reston to Louis Gurvich of New Orleans, La., whose family member Jann Gurvich died in Jonestown. "I wanted to profile a victim who was attractive and intelligent because only when the reader accepted that such people were involved could the story get below the surface news reporting. Jann Gurvich was, and remains to me the most sympathetic and poignant loss of the tragedy." Also of interest is the attached 8 July 1978 letter Louis sent to Jann in Guyana. "I have never felt so futile in trying to communicate with you as I do now. I confess, I still feel your trip to Guyana to be a cop-out."

Of note is a 15 October 1980 letter from actor and social activist Jane Fonda to Reston about her contact with the congregation of the People's Temple and the letter she wrote to Jim Jones.

Correspondence,1981

Letters chiefly pertain to publication of and reactions to Reston's book Our Father Who Art in Hell, a radio adaptation Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown with NPR, the possibility of a stage production about Jonestown, and excerpts of the book in journals and magazines.

Other major topics include publication of Reston's play Sherman, the Peacemaker, the Greensboro Massacre on 3 November 1979, the trial of People's Temple member Larry Layton in San Francisco, Calif., lecturing on Jonestown, and teaching.

Correspondents include Reston's agent Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., staff at NPR, editors with Times Books, author Henry Mayer, former member of the People's Temple Laurie Efrein, police informant Edward W. (Eddie) Dawson of Greensboro, N.C., Norton editor Evan Thomas, editors with Omni Magazine, and writer and editor Penelope Coker Hall.

Of interest are a 4 June 1981 memorandum from Reston regarding "Informants or Provacateurs? A New Look at the Greensboro Shootout" and the accompanying materials related to the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party, and the Greensboro Massacre. Includes chronologies of activities for police informant Eddie Dawson, ATF agent Bernard Butkovitch, and District Attorney Michael Schlosser.

Also of interest is a 19 September 1981 letter about the book from Susan Ashby of San Jose, Calif., whose two cousins died at Jonestown.

Of note is a lengthy and emotional letter dated 17 April 1981 from Laurie Efrein to Reston about Our Father Who Art in Hell. In it, Efrein accuses Reston of maligning and dehumanizing the members of the People's Temple.

Correspondence,1982

Topics addressed in the letters include the dupont-Columbia University award to NPR for Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown, Reston's interest in writing about Admiral Hyman Richover, basketball players Al Wood and Ralph Sampson, and the lack of a "Reconstruction after Vietnam."

Other topics include the licensing excerpts of Our Father Who Art in Hell, Reston's play Sherman, the Peacemaker, teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, book sales, and the Greensboro Massacre.

Correspondents include Reston's agent Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., staff at NPR, author William Styron, William Shaw with The New Yorker, faculty and administrators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author Henry Mayer, James "Scotty" Reston (Reston's father), and editors and administrators at Times Books.

Of interest are letters from readers of Our Father Who Art in Hell including a 10 August 1982 letter from a member of the People's Temple attempting to correspond with persons identified in the book and a 19 May 1982 letter from a minister who compares Scientology to the People's Temple.

Of note is a 25 March 1982 letter from Gayle Korotkin with the Greensboro Justice Fund. "We have been asking for federal prosecution of the Klan, Nazis, and government agents involved...We feel it is definitely a victory to force the Justice Dept. even to go through the motions of calling the grand jury, because it is a real exception to the Reagan civil rights policy."

Correspondence,1983

Topics addressed in the letters include the Frontline documentary 88 Seconds in Greensboro, the Greensboro Massacre, Reston's expertise on the People's Temple and Jonestown, reprinting Our Father Who Art in Hell, Reston's play titled "Kaituma Sunset."

Other topics include book sales, teaching, and Reston's interest in writing radio programs about the Greensboro, N.C., civil rights trial, "pessimism in schools," "post-Vietnam reconciliation," and the anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy.

Correspondents include Wake Forest University Professor G. McLeod Bryan, Anne Queen with the Campus Y at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, editors at Times Books, journalist Charles Trueheart, author Henry Mayer, publishing houses, radio stations, and repertory theaters.

Of interest is a 25 January 1983 letter from G. McLeod Bryan about the Frontline documentary. "Do you think it accurate to portray the CWP with the same 'extreme, violent, and anti-democratic' characteristics as the KKK and the Nazis?"

Correspondence,1984

Topics addressed in the letters include "Citizen Observers/Participants to the manned space flight program," Reston's article about Sherman's March titled "A Reporter at Large" in The New Yorker , the possibilities of moving to North Carolina and teaching at Duke University, Reston's interest in writing for television "on cultural subjects," Reston's play Jonestown Express, and his book Sherman's March and Vietnam.

Correspondents include author Reynolds Price, NASA, NBC News, Macmillan Publishing, the Theatre Communications Group, Inc., and repertory theaters.

Correspondence,1985

Letters chiefly pertain to Reston's article about Sherman's March titled "A Reporter at Large" in The New Yorker, Reston's play Sherman, the Peacemaker, and his book Sherman's March and Vietnam.

Other major topics include Reston's article about capital punishment in North Carolina titled "Invitation to a Poisoning " in Vanity Fair, Reston's play Jonestown Express, Reston's lectures, the possibility of a television miniseries about NASA's space shuttle program, and Reston's interest in writing about Thaddeus Stevens and American theater.

Correspondents include historians and other academics and individuals responding to the The New Yorker article about Sherman's March, repertory theaters, publishing houses, editors with The New Yorker, Keedick Lecture Bureau, Inc., and PBS.

Of interest is a 10 November 1985 letter from inmate and author of In the Belly of the Beast Jack Henry Abbot responding to Reston's request for an interview to be published in Rolling Stone. Abbot discusses stage director Adrian Hall's adaptation of his book.

Correspondence,1986

Topics addressed in the letters include Bennett Place historical site, Journalist-in-Space program, the Challenger Space Shuttle tragedy, Reston's article about the United States Commission on Civil Rights "We Shall Undermine" in Rolling Stone, and Reston's interest in writing about Galileo.

Correspondents include the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Macmillan Publishing, Rolling Stone readers, PBS, National Geographic, and Newsweek.

Of interest are letters in response to Reston's article "We Shall Undermine " including a 1 March 1986 letter from an Oregon man who writes, "you obviously are not gay, nor a champion of gay rights. What else could explain omitting gay civil rights from your list of issues that still need to be addressed by the commission....Have you ever talked to a homosexual who has been kicked out of his apartment, or fired from his job, or been beaten up in the streets simply for being homosexual?"

Correspondence,1987

Topics addressed in the letters include an opera about Jonestown, paperback publication of Sherman's March and Vietnam, and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for audio tapes from Jonestown, and Reston's writing about Texas politician John Connally.

Correspondents include composer John Eaton, Reston's agent Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., and Macmillan Publishing.

Of interest is an 8 January 1987 letter from Eaton. He writes, "Thank you! First, for inspiring me to do an opera on Jim Jones with your book."

Correspondence,1988

Topics addressed in the few scattered 1988 letters include Reston's work on his book about Texas politician John Connally, lectures, and a PBS special about the space shuttle mission.

Correspondents include Harper & Row and Time Magazine.

Correspondence,1989

Topics addressed in letters include publication of The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the State Department, Reston's interest in writing about Galileo and John F. Kennedy assassination, the Mission of Discovery television program, Reston's lectures, and Reston's research on Major League Baseball player Pete Rose's gambling case.

Correspondents include Edward L. Burlingame with Harper & Row, Robert Gottlieb with The New Yorker, United States Department of State, Reston's agent Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., Program Corporation of America, and the Office of the Commissioner for Major League Baseball.

Of interest is a copy of 12 July 1989 letter Reston wrote to Soviet Union ambassador, Yuri Dubinin, requesting the U.S.S.R. to open its archives and share files on Lee Harvey Oswald, who lived in Minsk from 1959 to 1962. "I write you now, in the spirit of Perestreika, in the hope that in this new and exciting age of political dialogue and cultural exchange the Soviet Union might be willing to clear up a nagging historical mystery in America."

Also of interest are a 3 October 1989 letter from the FBI denying Reston's request for an "FBI briefing on Federal law enforcement efforts regarding gambling in professional sports" and a follow-up, 13 November 1989 letter explaining that the FBI "becomes involved in sports-gambling investigations only when that violation is being committed by an organized crime group."

Correspondence, undated 1980s

Correspondence, undated 1980s

Correspondence, undated 1980s

Drafts, 1981

Article titled "The Jonestown Scapegoat" and a book review of Fawn Brodie's Nixon biography Richard Nixon, the Shaping of His Character.

Draft with editor's notes, Article in Rolling Stone,1985

In "Whatever Happened to the Southern Villains?" Reston writes, "With all the sentimentality over Jimmy Carter, the endless words about the brassy New South and the end of the Civil War, what had happened to the Southern villains of the Sixties? Had Jim Clark of Selma, L.A. Rainey and Cecil Price of Neshoba County, Laurie Pritchett of Albany, Ga. and Bull Connor of Birmingham become outcasts in this New South? Were they still in law enforcement? How did they see their place in history, and did they realize in retrospect how much the Civil Rights Movement needed them?"

Galleys, "A Reporter at Large,"1985

For The New Yorker magazine.

Contracts,1980

With National Public Radio (NPR) for Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown.

Contracts,1981-1982

With Edward W. (Eddie) Dawson for work on 88 Seconds in Greensboro documentary; Trinity Square Repertory Company for a stage adaptation of Our Father Who Art in Hell titled Jonestown Express; University of Colorado for a speaking engagement; and Omni Publications for various works.

Contracts,1983

With MacMillan Publishing Company for "The Sherman Parable" ( Sherman's March and Vietnam).

Contracts,1984-1986

With Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair for articles.

Proposals, 88 Seconds in Greensboro, 1981

Sent to WGBH-TV to produce a documentary, "The Informer." Reston writes, "On November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, N.C., five members of the Communist Workers Party were gunned down by a cadre of Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan partisans, as the protesters staged a 'Death to the Klan' march through the city streets....In the course of the trial, a mystery figure named Ed Dawson was exposed in the press as a police informer (and former FBI informer), who was present at the planning sessions of the Klan in Western North Carolina before the Nov. 3 confrontation, who advocated for an armed Klan presence in Greensboro...who cased the march route...and then guided the Klan caravan to the point of confrontation...Ed Dawson was never called as a witness at the Klan trial."

Proposals, James Worthy,1982

To NBC News for a one-hour documentary "about the transition of a North Carolina basketball All-American named James Worthy from amateur ranks to the National Basketball Association (NBA)."

Proposals, Sherman's March and Vietnam,1982

"I can see a book which combines history and travel and political argument, using the tracing of Sherman's route as a kind of loose metaphorical frame, for considering the Contemporary South and post-Vietnam America."

Proposals, undated, circa1983

Incomplete proposals for documentary films about Vietnam veterans and "Theater as a social force" and for a book, "The Sherman Parable" (Sherman's March and Vietnam.)

Proposals, "Thaddeus Stevens and Civil Rights,"1986

Proposal for a companion book to Sherman's March and Vietnam, which was the first in what Reston envisioned as a "Reconstruction Trilogy."

Proposals, "The Mission of Discovery,"1987

WETA-TV's prospectus for a television show about NASA's space shuttle program in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger disaster.

Clippings,1980-1981

Clippings,1982-1983

Clippings,1984-1985

Clippings, Magazine articles by Reston,1985

Clippings,1986-1987

Clippings, Frontline documentary "The Real Stuff,"1987

Clippings,1988-1989

Clippings, undated, circa 1980s

Printed materials, Project Galileo, A Return to Jupiter1980

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Printed materials, "Jann" by James Reston Jr.,1981

Excerpt from Our Father Who Art in Hell printed in the Carolina Quarterly.

Printed materials, "Times Books" and "Books for Asian Studies,"1981, 1987

Catalogs featuring Our Father Who Art in Hell and Sherman's March and Vietnam.

Publicity and marketing, Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown, 1981

Press releases: "Exclusive Jonestown Tapes Form Basis for NPR Documentary on Jonestown Tragedy....Reston says he listened to the tapes almost non-stop for two months. 'They were beyond description --authentic evil, quintessential evil...What Joseph Conrad had begun in his novel Heart of Darkness, Jones ended. "

"Excerpts from National Public Radio's 90-minute documentary, Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown reveal the strength of the bond between Jim Jones and his followers who repeatedly proclaim their willingness to die for him."

"Author James Reston Jr. based his work in part on more than 900 hours of tape recordings made by Jones to ensure his place in history. Wrestling the tapes, never before heard by the public, from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act was a 14-month struggle for the author who is a novelist and creative writing instructor at UNC-CH."

"Reston says that by listening to the tapes an audience can actually 'feel the slavery of the followers and the power and sacrilege of Jim Jones.'"

Publicity and marketing, 88 Seconds in Greensboro,1983

List of newspapers and a press release, "But it's Reston's interview with Dawson, a former Klansman turned police informer, that allows the film's most important questions. In his first in-depth, on-camera interview, Dawson reveals his role as a police infiltrator who went too far: an agent provocateur without whom the fatal confrontation may never have occurred."

Publicity and marketing, NASA1986-1987

Press releases for "Journalist-in-Space" project and Mission of Discovery television program.

Playbill, Jonestown Express,1984

Printing and publishing materials, Our Father Who Art in Hell,1981

Includes a typescript book review by Townsend Ludington.

Printing and publishing materials, The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally, 1989

Copy for the book jacket.

Speaking engagements,1981-1989

Printed materials, chiefly programs, for Reston's lectures and book events.

Awards and nominations, Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown,1982

Program for the Headliner Awards for outstanding documentary by a network (NPR).

Awards and nominations, Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown,1982

Programs and press releases about the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, the Prix Italia, Clarion Winners, and Armstrong Awards.

Fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts, 1981

Application for a theater fellowship for playwrights.

Journalist-in-Space Project (NASA),1985

Application information and draft of Reston's responses.

Radio broadcast, Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown, 1981

Audiocassette

National Public Radio.

Radio broadcast, "All Things Considered,"1985

Audiocassette

"Sherman's March and Vietnam." National Public Radio.

Correspondence,1990

Topics addressed in letters include reactions to The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally, Reston's research on Major League Baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti and player Pete Rose, United States copyright law, Reston's lectures, Sherman's March and Vietnam, and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the U.S. Customs Service for information on Pete Rose's smuggling charges.

Correspondents include Edward L. Burlingame with Harper & Row, NPR, Reston's agent Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., librarians and archivists at various institutions including Yale University, U.S. Customs Service, U.S. District Court Judge S. Arthur Spiegelin in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Major League Baseball Commissioner Francis T. Vincent, Jr.

Of interest is a 5 March 1990 letter from Sargent Shriver reacting to Reston's Connally biography and seeking to correct a historical point.

Of note are letters concerning Giamatti and the banning of Rose including a 29 August 1990 letter from Commissioner Vincent explaining why he did not agree to an interview with Reston. Also included is copy of a 10 December 1990 letter Reston sent to baseball player Tom Gioiosa who was serving a sentence in federal prison. Reston was seeking information about Rose. His specific questions include "In the period when you first came to live with Rose, in the late 1970s, what were his gambling habits, and did he bet on baseball then?"

Correspondence,1991

Topics addressed in letters include reactions to Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti, Reston's lectures and book events, research and funding for a Galileo biography and television project, John F. Kennedy's assassination, and reactions to The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally.

Correspondents include Timothy Seldes with Russell & Volkening, Inc., Easton Press, PBS, Discovery Channel, Sports Illustrated, Edward L. Burlingame with Harper & Row, Louis P. Kartsonis, and James "Scotty" Reston (Reston's father).

Of interest are lengthy letters from baseball fans offering corrections to some of Reston's assertions in Collision at Home Plate.

Correspondence,1992

Topics addressed in letters include reactions to Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti, work on Galileo, a Life, a Galileo television project with the Discovery Channel, and The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally.

Of interest is a copy of a 27 January 1992 letter Reston wrote to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger asking for an appointment to discuss the Galileo television project.

Correspondence,1993

Topics addressed in the two letters for this year are the Galileo television project and a paperback edition of The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally.

Correspondence,1994

Topics addressed in letters include an Esquire magazine assignment to cover the World Cup (soccer), reactions to Galileo, a Life, funding for the Galileo television special, Reston's lectures and book events, Reston's Time magazine article "Collision Course" about Jupiter, Protect Historic America, a citizen's committee, and John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Correspondents include HarperCollins and other publishing houses, National Geographic, Russell & Volkening, Inc., The John Motley Morehead Foundation, and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.

Correspondence,1995

Topics addressed in letters include a summer job in editing for Reston's daughter Maeve, Galileo, a Life translations and editions, the idea of writing a book about the millennium, and the death of his father James "Scotty" Reston.

Correspondents include HarperCollins, Russell & Volkening, Inc., and Edward L. Burlingame.

Correspondence,1996

Topics addressed in letters include the death of Reston's father James "Scotty" Reston, Reston's National Geographic magazine article "Orion: Where Stars Are Born," reactions to Galileo, a Life, and work on millennium book titled "999."

Correspondence,1997

Topics addressed in letters include The Last Apocalypse: Europe in the Year 1000 A.D., a proposal for a television production on John F. Kennedy's assassination focusing on John Connally, reactions to Galileo, a Life, ideas for magazine articles on subjects related to the millennium, funding for a television project on Galileo, and research Reston conducted for The Knock at Midnight.

Correspondence,1998

Topics addressed in letters include reactions to The Last Apocalypse: Europe in the Year 1000 A.D., the inability to gain funding for a television project on Galileo, the use of Frederick Hart's sacred art in the Hollywood movie The Devil's Advocate, interest in a film production of Collision at Home Plate, the twentieth anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy, World Cup soccer match between Iran and the United States, idea for a book of essays on the millennium, and republishing both Galileo, a Life and Our Father Who Art in Hell.

Correspondents include Edward L. Burlingame, Doubleday, HarperCollins, Anchor Books, and the American Academy in Rome.

Correspondence,1999

Topics addressed in letters include republishing Galileo, a Life, reactions to The Last Apocalypse, Reston's article about the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, Reston's lectures and book events, interest in a film production of Collision at Home Plate, and reactions to a Reston article about marking the millennium “The Moment? We’ve Already Missed it” in the Washington Post Outlook.

Correspondents include Yale University Press, Christian History magazine, Doubleday, the ambassador of Iceland, Russell & Volkening, Inc., and The John Motley Morehead Foundation.

Correspondence, undated 1990s

Correspondence, undated 1990s

Correspondence, undated 1990s

Correspondence, undated 1990s

Drafts, Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti, circa 1990-1992

Files retrieved from a floppy disk. Files are chiefly drafts of chapters. Also included are drafts of letters pertaining to the book and to movie options.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Drafts, Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti, circa 1990-1992

Files retrieved from a floppy disk. Files are chiefly drafts of chapters.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Drafts, Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti, circa 1990-1992

Files retrieved from a floppy disk. Files are chiefly drafts of chapters. Also included are drafts of letters pertaining to the book.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Drafts, "Of Fame and Honor," circa1991

Typescript for a newspaper opinion piece about Pete Rose, A. Bartlett Giamatti, and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Drafts, "From Sacred to Demonic" and Book review, circa1997

Typescripts for a newspaper opinion piece about the use of artist Frederick Hart's religious frieze in the Hollywood movie The Devil's Advocate.

Typescript review of Damian Thompson's The End of Time and Stephen Jay Gould's Questioning the Millennium.

Drafts, "How America Lost Out on the Millennium," circa 1999

Typescript for article. "To view our history and world history through a thousand year lens forces the mind into new and original pathways...In the absence of a visionary political leader in America, where are the historians or the philosophers or the poet who might guide and inspire us?"

Editor's notes, 1989-1990 and 1993

Commenting on a memoir manuscript by James "Scotty" Reston Sr., the book critic Jonathan Yardley with The Washington Post writes "For the reader, who picks up the book eager to learn more about you and the various things you have done throughout your long and singularly interesting life, to get so much of the presidents and so little of you is, to put it as mildly as I can, frustrating in the extreme." Also included is a 28 May 1989 letter received by Yardley from another author

On a draft for "The Unauthorized Biography of Galileo," the editor writes "No one will accuse you of frigid objectivity. But you risk losing the confidence of your reader if you take every opportunity to make your villains, the Jesuits and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, as villainous as possible."

Contracts,1997-1999

With Russell & Volkening, Inc., for motion picture and allied rights to Collision at Home Plate; American Program Bureau for a speaking engagement on "The Last Millennium;" and A.M. Heath & Co., for the publishing of Galileo, a Life in the Italian language.

Book proposals, The Last Apocalypse, circa1997

Made to The Adventure Library. "I'm well aware of the fascination and the danger of apocalyptic thinking. Undoubtedly, evangelical preachers and messianic leaders will string together the various catastrophes of the past few decades like AIDs and Rwanda, The Gulf War and Oklahoma City, the Shoemaker-Levy comet and the Kobe earthquake, and argue that these are signs that the end time is near. These arguments will find resonance in the Dark Ages." Also includes a response from the publisher.

Book proposals, "The Cup," circa1998

"The Iran-United States match is the most exotic game of the entire World Cup. This clash of virtual enemies is fraught with religious, diplomatic, and political significance far beyond soccer."

Proposals,1998

A proposal for a book of collected essays titled "The Man of the Millennium and Other Mere Mortals" and a request for funding of a television documentary about Galileo.

Clippings,1990-1991

Clippings,1992-1993

Clippings,1994-1995

Clippings, National Geographic, 1995

Clippings,1996-1997

Clippings,1998-1999

Clippings, Newspaper articles about the millennium,1999

Clippings, undated, circa 1990s

Rose materials, circa 1990-1992

Files retrieved from a floppy disk pertaining to Major League Baseball (MLB) player Pete Rose. Files are notes about Rose. Topics addessed in the notes include his playing career, accomplishments and statistics including hitting streaks, game suspensions, his character and view of the world, gambling, violence, relationships with women, interactions with Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, his admissions to using "greenies" while playing the game, tax evasion and other legal troubles, the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the city's MLB team the Reds.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Giamatti materials,1983, 1991, and undated

Copies of three letters written and received by Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti and a booklet In Remembrance of our friend and colleague Bart Giamatti published by Yale University.

Galileo materials, 1993 and undated

Files retrieved from a floppy disk. Includes drafts of chapters in Galileo, a Life, notes, and letters that pertain to Reston's projects on Galileo. Also included is a draft of a letter pertaining to The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Galileo materials, 1992-1993 and undated

Files retrieved from a floppy disk. Includes drafts of chapters in Galileo, a Life, notes, and letters that pertain to Reston's projects on Galileo.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Galileo materials, circa 1993

Files retrieved from a floppy disk. Includes drafts of chapters in Galileo, a Life, notes, and letters that pertain to Reston's projects on Galileo.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Galileo materials, 1993 and undated

Files retrieved from a floppy disk. Includes drafts of chapters in Galileo, a Life, notes, and letters that pertain to Reston's projects on Galileo. Also included are a few items pertaining to The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally.

Reston's electronic file names were retained.

Printed materials, "Anchor Books" and "Book of the Month Club,"1999

Catalogs featuring The Last Apocalypse: Europe in the Year 1000 A.D.

Publicity and marketing, Frontline and Capital Style magazine,1990 and 1998

Press releases for Frontline's "Betting on the Lottery" about "the states that run lotteries, promoters who design and sell them, and the people who buy tickets" and for the June 1998 issue of Capital Style, which includes Reston's article "Iran vs. The Great Satan: Soccer Imams."

Publicity and marketing, Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti,1991

Travel itineraries for Reston's appearances on radio and television in support of his book.

Publicity and marketing, Galileo, a Life,1995-1996

Printed advertisements for a new edition to the Galileo biography and a PBS television documentary.

Printing and publishing materials, Collision at Home Plate, 1991

Copy for the book jacket, the book jacket, and a typescript book review by Robert H. Walker.

Printing and publishing materials, Galileo, a Life, 1994

Mock-up for book cover and the book jacket.

Printing and publishing materials, The Last Apocalypse, 1998

Bindery information, copy for book jacket, and the book jacket.

Speaking engagements,1990-1991

Booklet for the Program Corporation of America and a program for the Buckeye Book Fair.

Speaking engagements,1994-1995

Invitations and announcements for Reston's lectures on Galileo.

Speaking engagements,1998-1999

Invitations, announcements, and programs for Reston's lectures on the millennium.

Speaking engagements,1999

Posters for Reston's lectures on the millennium.

Speaking engagements,1999

Printed materials for Reston's lectures at Berea College's convocation and for the Morehead Scholars at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fellowships, circa1990 and 1996

Recommendation by Frederick Hauck for a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation award and the review panel's comments about Reston's Galileo proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Fellowships, 1994-1997

Includes an annual report, press release, and guest-scholar appointment letter for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Booklet, James "Scotty" Reston of The New York Times,1999

"A Beacon of Moderation and Good Sense by John F. Stacks Executive Editor Time In conjunction with symposium and exhibit on the opening of the James B. Reston Papers in the University Archives, November 3, 1999 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign."

Radio broadcast, "Larry King Show,"1991

Audiocassette

Radio broadcast, "Jim Bohannon Show,"1994

Audiocassette

Radio broadcast, WAMU,1994

Audiocassette

Radio broadcast, "Diane Rehm Show,"1996

Audiocassette

National Public Radio.

Recording, "Apocalypse,"1998

Audiocassette

"Reston, Jr Boyer."

Correspondence,2000

Topics addressed in letters include Galileo, a Life, Reston's lectures and book events, The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally, Reston's completed work on Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade, book reviews, and Collision at Home Plate.

Correspondence,2001

Topics addressed in letters include publication of and reactions to Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade, an unflattering book review of Warriors of God with which Reston took issue, Reston's lectures and book events, Reston's daughter Hillary, Reston's interest in writing about the World Cup (soccer), Reston's Dialogue program with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001.

Of note is a copy of a 11 September 2001 letter by L. Jackson Newell to his children that he shared with Reston. "The suffering, fear, and senseless death on a huge scale that has been so common in so much of the world for many decades has seemed unreal to Americans in our splendid isolation. Now perhaps we can better empathize with those who suffer grief and pain around the world."

Correspondence,2002

Topics addressed in letters include Reston's daughter Hillary, her disability, and the book he wants to write about her, Warriors of God, Reston's travel to the Middle East, Reston's lectures and book events, The Last Apocalypse, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Jonestown Express, and a 7 August 2002 article about organ transplants that Reston wrote for the New York Times titled "When Generosity Is Medically Necessary."

Correspondence,2003

Topics addressed in the few scattered letters for this year include Warriors of God, Reston's work on a book about his daughter Hillary titled "Prodigious Love," and Reston's lectures and book events.

Correspondence,2004

Topics addressed in the few scattered letters for this year include Warriors of God, Reston's lectures, book events, and televised appearances, forthcoming publication of Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors, publishing a book about his daughter Hillary titled "The Bat Jumped Over the Moon," and Hillary's kidney transplant.

Correspondence,2005

Topics addressed in the few scattered letters for this year include a copyright infringement claim against film director Ridley Scott, the American Academy in Rome, Reston's lectures, Sherman, the Peacemaker, a play in two acts, book reviews, living with disabilities, reactions to and marketing for Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors, the forthcoming launch of Fragile Innocence: A Father's Memoir of His Daughter's Courageous Journey, and author Jeanne K. Pettenati's children's book based on Galileo, a Life.

Correspondence,2006

Topics addressed in the few scattered letters for this year include book reviews, reactions to Fragile Innocence: A Father's Memoir of His Daughter's Courageous Journey, Reston's lectures and book events, Galileo, a Life, the Books for a Better Life Awards program, and Warriors of God.

Of interest are letters about Fragile Innocence written to Reston by parents with disabled children.

Correspondence, Printouts of email messages,2007-2012

Email messages exchanged between Reston and Peter Morgan, playwright and screenwriter for the Frost/Nixon stage and film productions.

Correspondence,2007

Topics addressed in the very few scattered letters for this year include Warriors of God, Fragile Innocence, the Iraq War, and The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews.

Correspondence,2008

Topics addressed in the very few scattered letters for this year include Fragile Innocence, reactions to Reston's article in Smithsonian Magazine titled "Frost, Nixon, and Me" about David Frost's 1977 televised interviews with President Richard Nixon, and the movie Frost/Nixon.

Correspondence,2009-2010

Correspondence, undated 2000s

Drafts, circa2001

Partial draft of article [?] about writing Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade and writing "popular history."

"The question arises, is the writing of history creative? Or is its exercise of imagination of some sort of lower order than the writing of novels...writing visual, vibrant history is an art form."

Drafts, circa2003

Typescript for article "The Fatal Corset," about President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Typescript for a newspaper opinion piece about President George W. Bush and the American invasion of Iraq.

Drafts, "The Legacy of the Frost/Nixon Interviews," circa2007

Typescript for article. "The Frost/Nixon interview of 1977 would be the only trial for Watergate that Nixon would ever have."

Editor's notes, Warriors of God, circa2000

Editor's notes, Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors, circa 2004

Editor's notes, "The Bat Jumped Over the Moon" (Fragile Innocence), circa 2005

Kennedy assassination materials,1964 and 1988

Research materials for The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally and "That Damned Girdle: The Hidden Factor That Might Have Killed Kennedy" in the Los Angeles Times, 22 November 2004. Includes a copy of the testimony given to the Warren Commission by a physician at Dallas's Parkland Hospital.

Clippings,2000-2001

Clippings, Warriors of God,2001

Clippings,2002-2003

Clippings,2004-2005

Clippings, Fragile Innocence: A Father's Memoir of His Daughter's Courageous Journey,2006

Clippings,2006-2007

Clippings, "When David Faced a Wounded Goliath,"2007

New York Times article about the play Frost/Nixon.

Clippings,2008-2009

Clippings, undated, circa 2000s

Clippings, undated, circa 2000s

Printed materials, Doubleday catalog2001

Featuring Warriors of God.

Printed materials, "Books for a Better Life" and Crown,2007

Catalogs featuring Fragile Innocence and The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews.

Printed materials, Scribe and Three Rivers Press,2008

Catalogs featuring The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews.

Publicity and marketing,2001-2005

Includes printouts of advertisements for Reston's books on an online bookstore.

Playbills, Galileo Galilei, 2002

Playbills, The Reverend Jim Jones (opera) 2004

Reston wrote the libretto for this opera, and John Eaton composed the music.

Script, Frost/Nixon (play), 2006

By Peter Morgan.

Playbills, Frost/Nixon, 2007-2009

"Study Guide" for Frost/Nixon (play),2008

The Canadian Stage Company.

Movie, Frost/Nixon, 2007-2008

Includes a list of locations for filming and a booklet about the making of the movie.

Movie, Frost/Nixon, circa2007

Poster for the film directed by Ron Howard.

Speaking engagements, 2001-2003

Invitations and announcements for Reston's lectures and book events for Warriors of God.

Speaking engagements, "Doha Talk," 23 March2005

Typescript pages with talking points about Reston and his work.

Speaking engagements, Doha (Qatar) Cultural Festival,2005

Printed and ephemeral items about events for the Doha Cultural Festival. Most items are in Arabic.

Speaking engagements, National Book Festival,2006

Printed items for the Library of Congress hosted book festival.

Speaking engagements, Medical conferences,2006

Programs.

Speaking engagements,2006

Invitations, programs, and announcements for Reston's lectures and book events for Fragile Innocence.

Speaking engagements,2006

Poster for a book event for Fragile Innocence.

Speaking engagements,2007-2009

Invitations, programs, and announcements for Reston's lectures and book events.

Fellowships, American Academy of Rome,2006

Information about the academy including a list of visiting artists and scholars.

Funeral program, Sarah Jane Fulton Reston, 2001

Correspondence, undated

Drafts, circa 1960s

Includes typescript with "Chapter" and "A Glimpse of Camelot" indicated at the top of the first page. Typescript pages are difficult to read because of fading.

Also includes two title pages, "The Story of the Decade, a novel."

Drafts, "The Fighters," circa 1960s

"The War in Viet Nam can become a very personal thing on the docks in San Diego… They call themselves animals or grunts or round pounders, and undoubtedly their training has suppressed their more delicate sensitivities. But they are still soldiers going to war."

Drafts, "The Young Appalachian Migrants," circa 1960s

"There are many young Kentuckians…who flee the mountains with no more than a whisper of work to the north, and with no more than a few dollars in their pockets. And if they come to Cincinnati, they risk being caught in a vicious trap which is the ghetto of the East Basin."

Drafts, "Reverberations of Berkeley," circa 1960s

"Did the debate on the quality of higher education at elite Berkeley [University of California, Berkeley] spread to the 'mill' of the state college system?"

Drafts, "The Legacy of FSM," circa 1960s

"history was made, and made by students in the first mass protest against the depersonalization of IBM mass education. The success of this protest called the Free Speech Movement (FSM) already is having a profound impact on the structure of the University of California, and on the minds of university administrators elsewhere, and the controversy is not over."

Drafts, "The Modest Homebuilder," circa 1970s

Typescript draft of essay about obtaining a mortgage and building a house in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Notes, undated

Topics include medieval English monarchy, Roman Catholic Church, nuclear armament, drug smuggling, My Lai massacre (Vietnam), writing about living persons, David Frost and Richard Nixon, and travel plans.

Notes, small notebook, undated

Short, handwritten entries, some of which may be pieces of dialogue and narrative for one of Reston's novels.

Niccolo Tucci and Richard Barnet materials, circa 1970s

Typescripts pertaining to the writers Tucci and Barnet (author of Roots of War, 1972)

Fairfield materials, circa 1970s

Typescripts about an antebellum home and its owners in Fauquier County, Va. Includes what appears to be a transcription of an antebellum diary.

Individual Rights and Responsibilities,1972

Printed items pertaining to the American Bar Association's Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities.

Writings by others,1997-2006 and undated

Includes a chapbook with short fiction by Laurel Speer, an essay about The Last Apocalypse, and short responses to quiz questions about Fragile Innocence.

Miscellaneous, undated

Business cards and press list for print media.

Recording, "Jim on Connally," circa 1980s

Audiocassette

Recording, "Jim Reston Interview," undated

Audiocassette

Recording, "Dodd Jim Reston Interview, undated"

Audiocassette

Radio broadcast, "Morning Edition," undated

Audiocassette

Website, The Thirteen Obsessions of James Reston Jr., 1971-2015

Website (http://www.jrobsessions.com/) harvested by Archive-It beginning in 2016.

Website, James Reston Jr.

Website (http://www.restonbooks.com/) harvested by Archive-It beginning in 2016.

Biographical information, circa1981 and circa 1997

Bibliography, Third Crusade, 1998

Iceland materials,1999

Historical information. "With Compliments Embassy of Iceland Washington, D.C."

Photo id's and U.S. Army honorable discharge,1969-2006

This folder is closed until 1 January 2040. The repository closed these materials because they may contain sensitive information and personal identification numbers.

Financial materials and medical information, 1970s through 2000s

These folders are closed until 1 January 2040. The repository closed these materials because they may contain sensitive information and personal identification numbers.

Undated

Black and White Negatives

Undated

Color Negatives

Undated, circa1977

Black and White Negatives

Undated

Color Slides

1977

Black and White Negatives

1977

Black and White Negatives

1978

Black and White Negatives

1978

Black and White Negatives

1977

Black and White Negatives

James Reston and Hillary Reston, circa2006

Color Prints

Cover for Fragile Innocence.

James Reston and Hillary Reston, circa2006

Color Prints

James Reston and Hillary Reston, circa2006

Color Prints

James Reston and Hillary Reston, circa2006

Color Prints

James Reston and Hillary Reston, circa2006

Color Prints

Photographic images of courtroom sketches from the Joan Little trial,1975

Black and White Prints

Pete Rose with the Cincinnati Reds, undated

Black and White Prints

Likely that this image is a publicity photograph taken for Major League Baseball.

James Reston,1974

Black and White Prints

Undated

Contact Sheet

Undated

Black and White Prints

Jann Elizabeth Gurvich, undated

Contact Sheet

A victim of the Jonestown tragedy and subject of a chapter in Our Father Who Art in Hell.

1981

Color Prints

1981

Color Prints

"Ernie Mynatt at the Identity Center," Kentucky, 1972

Color Prints

Appalachian Identity Center.

James Reston, circa 1970s

Color Prints

James Reston with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cartagena, Columbia,1994

Color Prints

Rome and Pisa, Italy, 1992

Color Prints

Scouting locations for the Galileo Galilei film.

Rome and Pisa, Italy, 1992

Color Prints

Scouting locations for the Galileo Galilei film.

Undated, circa 1960s

Halftone Print

Cairo, Egypt, 2001

Color Prints

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 2002

Color Prints

Speech given upon the publication of Warriors of God.

John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Forum in Lubbock, Tex., circa early 2000s

Color Prints

Pictured with David Halberstam.

René Higuita, soccer player, 1994

Color Prints

James Reston, 2003

Color Prints

"James Reston Jr. author of Collision at Home Plate,"1991

Black and White Prints

James Reston, 1979 and 1984

Black and White Prints

On the set of Sherman The Peacemaker in 1979.

As candidate to be the first writer in space in 1984.

James Reston 1975 and circa 1984

Black and White Prints

Pictured with John Kuester.

Undated

Color Prints

Pictured with Henry Mayer, author of All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery.

Undated, circa early 2000s

Color Prints

Gavin Donnelly

Letters, 2010-2013

Publications, ephemera

Weekend Addition, Scotty Resten tribute, 9 December 1995

Audiocassette

Lecture at John W. Kluge Center, “History and the Movies: A Historian Writes a Screenplay,” 2011

WAMC's Alan Chartock "In Conversation" with James Reston, Jr., 2013

The Accidental Victim

Sherman, The Peacemaker

Luther's Fortress

Frost/Nixon

Galileo's Torch

"The Reverend Jim Jones"

Other papers

"Through the Decades: Frost/Nixon," Weigel Broadcasting & CBS Television, 2016

Performance of "Galileo's Torch" at Stone Hill, Flint Hill, Va., 2014

Performance of "Sherman the Peacemaker" at Stone Hill, Flint Hill, Va., 2015

"How It Felt: The Impeachment Diary of James Reston, Jr., 27 June-13 August 1974"

Letters

Publications and ephemera

Publications, ephemera, and photographs