Series I: Pre-Ambassadorial Years, 1944-1960

The Armin Meyer Papers are divided into six series. The first contains materials from Meyer’s pre-Ambassadorial career. The second, third, and fourth series are devoted to Meyer’s service as Ambassador in Lebanon, Iran, and Japan, respectively. The fifth series pertains to Meyer’s post-Ambassadorial career. The final series contains all photographic materials from the collection.

The first series includes monthly summary reports from Meyer’s OWI offices in Cairo and Baghdad, as well as his personal diaries and correspondence from the period. The series contains little from Meyer’s years in Washington, DC, though there are some dispatches from his overseas postings in 1952-1957.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of embassy documents from each of Meyer’s ambassadorial postings. After retirement, Meyer requested copies of his communications under the Freedom of Information Act. Some of the documents are redacted heavily, some documents were not released, and some were released only years Meyer’s initial request. These documents are primarily telegrams, airmail, briefing papers, dispatches to Washington, daily schedules, press clippings, entertainment records, speeches, and correspondence. Correspondence files are broken into personal and general categories.

The fifth series is an eclectic collection of the various projects Meyer took part in after his retirement from the Foreign Service. Included are numerous student papers on various aspects of mid-east diplomacy from an editorial book project with John Kincannon, a collection of the many oral history projects Meyer was interviewed for, papers for an academic conference on the “Nixon Shocks,” some reports on various countries written by Meyer in his capacity as a consultant, and records from the Ferdowski Project between Georgetown University and Ferdowski University.

The photographic series is comprised of photographs from Meyer’s time as an Ambassador. As Ambassador, Meyer came into contact with many world leaders at diplomatic functions, all of which are well documented in the series. Large format pictures that are captioned are individually sleeved and placed in albums (boxes 34-39), while smaller pictures are arranged in rough chronological order in boxes (boxes 40-47). The series also includes a number of presentation albums from Meyer’s various ambassadorial postings, especially his years in Japan (boxes 48-54).