CONFERENCE MATERIALS, 1949-1961

Primarily documentation of the first Inter-American Conference for Democracy and Freedom (1950) in Havana, Cuba, at which the IADF was founded, and of the second Inter-American Conference (1960) in Maracay, Venezuela. Document types include correspondence, minutes, agenda, resolutions, proceedings, telegrams, newspaper clippings, press releases, reports, speeches, and lists of attendees.

Subjects documented include conference planning, discussion of sponsorship, finances, attendance, drafting of resolutions, and reactions to the conferences. Important correspondents include Rómulo Betancourt, Raúl Leoni, Luis Muñoz Marín, Jesús de Galíndez, and Serafino Romualdi.

Of particular importance are minutes and resolutions documenting the founding of the IADF at the Havana conference. Also of interest is correspondence about the difficulty of finding a place to hold the second conference because of the tensions in various Latin American countries; and a letter from Frances Grant objecting to an article critical of the Maracay conference by U.S. Delegate Paul Hays.

Also includes an item-level card index to documents and correspondence (1951-1960), which is stored separately. Letters have been indexed by name of correspondent and recipient, while documents have been indexed by title. Cards include summary descriptions of the contents of each item. Letters and documents have been given numbers which refer to their position in the original order of the material, which, unfortunately, were not written on the actual items.