See also Frederick Osborn oral history interview.

Size: Less than one linear foot (about 1200 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor gave to the United States of America all of his literary property rights to his writings in this collection, or in any other collection of papers at the Harry S. Truman Library. Documents created by U.S. government employees in the course of their official duties are also in the public domain. Copyright interest in any other documents in this collection presumably belongs to the creators of the documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Erwin J. Mueller (1974), Thad Newman (2004).
Updated by: Thad Newman, 2004 as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.

The papers of Frederick Osborn concern various aspects of his life and career, particularly his work on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission from 1947 to 1950, and his briefer association with the United Nations Commission for Conventional Armaments. The collection includes correspondence with friends and government officials, speeches, diary entries, certificates, charts and printed materials.

The papers are arranged in a single series, the Subject File. A significant part of the collection consists of Osborn’s speeches, both drafts and reading copies, and related matter on atomic energy and how it should be handled. These speeches and the related matter offer a very interesting view of how concerned the U.S.S.R and the United States were with each other’s knowledge and use of atomic energy for any purpose. Also included are files in which Osborn corresponds with other Government officials over appointments to office, printed material in which Osborn was writing or quoted, and diary entries.

The collection also contains Osborn’s correspondence files, both professional and personal, with letters from such prominent persons as Dean Acheson, Warren R. Austin, Dean Rusk, David Lilienthal, and Gordon Dean.

The rest of the collection is made up of briefs to the United States Atomic Energy Commission on behalf of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a rather large (spanning two years) professional diary kept by Osborn on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, and a collection of speeches by Osborn concerning foreign policy (mainly Soviet secrecy on atomic energy and the perceived unwillingness of the Soviets to cooperate in a world forum).

Further information about Frederick Osborn and the international aspects of atomic energy during the 1940’s can be found at the Truman Library in the Student Research File – “The Quest for the Peaceful Atom: The Baruch Plan and the Atomic Energy Act of 1946,” the President’s Secretary’s Files (PSF), the Psychological Strategy Board Files (PSBF), and the R. Gordon Arneson Papers.

SUBJECT FILE, 1943-1969

Box 1

• Atomic Energy and Related Foreign Affairs
• Atomic Energy Speeches-1947
• Atomic Energy Speeches-1948
• Atomic Energy Speeches-1949
• Atomic Energy Speeches-1950-1951
• Correspondence
• Foreign Policy – Speeches Concerning

Box2

• Telephone Listings(Dept. of State & Permanent United Nations Staff)
• United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (diary)-1947-1948
• United States Atomic Energy Commission-Brief on Behalf of J. Robt. Oppenheimer. 5-17-54
• United States Atomic Energy Commission-Brief on Behalf of J. Robt. Oppenheimer. 6-7-54

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