Sweeney, Joseph D. Papers

Chief, British Commonwealth Bureau, Office of Research and Intelligence, U.S. Department of State, 1945-1950; Political Officer, U.S. Embassy, Pretoria, South Africa, 1950-1952

The papers of Joseph Sweeney relate to his career as a State Department official during the Truman administration and his particular interest in the affairs of Great Britain, Ireland, Western Europe, and South Africa, an interest which continued through the 1970s. The collection includes a large number of newspaper clippings and other printed materials, as well as typewritten manuscripts, handwritten notes, reports, speeches and speech drafts, press summaries, and correspondence.

[Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List]

---

ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Size: 1.6 linear feet (approximately 3200 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor gave to the U.S. government the copyrights in this material and in any other material received by the U.S. government and maintained in a depository administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. Documents created by U.S. government officials in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Erwin J. Mueller (1980).
Updated by: Aubrey L. Smith (2006) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]

---

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

1912 (September 11)	Born, Salem, Massachusetts
1933	A.B., Whittier College
1939	M.S. in Social Work, University of Southern California
1940	M.A. in International Relations, University of Southern California
1943	Ph.D., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts-Harvard
1943-1945	Served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
1945-1950	Chief, British Commonwealth Bureau, Office of Research and Intelligence , U.S. Department of State
1950-1952	Political Officer, U.S. Embassy, Pretoria, South Africa
1953-1955	U.S. Liaison Officer, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
1955-1957	First Secretary, U.S. Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden
1957-1959	Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Jidda, Saudi Arabia
1960-1962	Officer-in-Charge, U.N. General Assembly Affairs, State Department
1962-1963	Officer-in-Charge, U.K and Ireland Affairs, State Department
1963-1964	Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Dublin, Ireland
1968	Retired from the State Department
1979 (April 4)	Died, McLean, Virginia

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]

---

COLLECTION DESCRIPTION

The papers of Joseph Sweeney relate for the most part to his career as an official in the U.S. State Department during the Truman administration. As Chief of the British Commonwealth Bureau from 1945 to 1950, Sweeney was especially interested in British relations with Ireland and with the rest of Western Europe. As Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa from 1950 to 1952, Sweeney monitored South Africa’s internal problems as well as its foreign policy. Sweeney continued to collect newspaper clippings and other printed materials pertaining to these subjects up to the time of his death in 1979. His papers also include typewritten manuscripts, handwritten notes, reports, speeches and speech drafts, and correspondence.

The collection is comprised of two series, the Great Britain and Western Europe File and the Union of South Africa File. The Great Britain and Western Europe File contains newspaper clippings, other printed materials, handwritten notes, correspondence, speeches and speech drafts, reports, typewritten manuscripts, and press summaries mostly concerning British foreign policy, Britain’s involvement in Western European integration after World War II, and the status of the Irish Free State in the British Commonwealth. Included in this series are published articles, typed manuscripts, and lectures by Sweeney himself, as well as articles from such publications as NATO Review.

The Union of South Africa File contains newspaper clippings, other printed materials, press summaries, reports, speeches and speech drafts, typewritten manuscripts, handwritten notes, legal documents, and correspondence relating to racial conflict in South Africa, the Nationalist Party and its policy of apartheid, tribal protectorates, the trusteeship of Southwest Africa, Afrikaner hostility toward Great Britain, and support for the creation of a Republic of South Africa. The series includes an extensive collection of articles from the South African press, in addition to English-language summaries of reports and editorials in the Afrikaans press. Also in this series are various writings by Sweeney, including his typewritten observations on conditions in South Africa and the Sudan during the 1950s.

The papers of Harry S. Truman contain information relating to Great Britain, Ireland, and South Africa in Official Files 48 (Great Britain), 218 (Ireland), and 451 (South Africa), and in the President’s Secretary’s Files. Other relevant collections at the Truman Library include the papers of James S. Earley (Adviser on British Commonwealth Affairs, Department of State, 1945) and Francis P. Matthews (U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, 1951-1952).

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]

---