CORRESPONDENCE,, 1956-1989

Summary: Letters to and from James west are mostly located in this series. All of the correspondence is related in some way or another with the Communist Party. Of course, the There really are no purely personal documents here. correspondence with party members does mention in passing certain personal information. Most are typed documents and many are photocopies of the original letters. Some letters made reference to enclosures sent with the original mailings. If the enclosures were present, they can still be found with the letter. However, it may be necessary to check the other series for materials that have been referred to in the correspondence, but were separated even before processing. ( In addition, it is likely that further correspondence with some of the individuals represented in this collection did occur and, for one reason or another, was not included among the materials that were sent to the archives.)

Correspondence with individuals was separately foldered if there were at least four or more letters to and/or from that individual. In cases where there were three or fewer letters between West and an individual, these were grouped together with other such letters under "various individual Communist Party members."

Correspondence that dealt chiefly with the Taft-Hartley court case can be found in that series.