Harold Burson collection

Identifier
irn73102
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2013.531.1
Dates
1 Jan 1945 - 31 Dec 1946
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • English
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

folders

4

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Harold Burson, a native of Memphis, Tennessee (born 1921), graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1940, and worked initially as a report for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and then went to work as director of publicity for the H.K. Ferguson Company in New York. Drafted in 1943, he served in the United States Army as a combat engineer during World War II, seeing service in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Following the war, he was assigned to work as a news correspondent for the American Forces Network, covering the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945-1946. In that capacity, he wrote scripts summarizing daily developments at the trial, which would then be used in the evening broadcast of AFN. After returning from Europe in 1946, he started his own public relations firm in New York, but eventually became best known as the co-founder and CEO of the public relations firm of Burson-Marsteller, which was established in New York in 1953.

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Harold Burson

Harold Burson donated the Harold Burson collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2013.

Scope and Content

Collection consists of 44 typescript and mimeograph texts of the radio scripts authored by Burson, summarizing each day's proceedings of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, which were broadcast each evening over the American Forces Network (AFN). According to Burson, most scripts were written in the evening following the day’s trial proceedings and in preparation for a 9:00 p.m. broadcast over AFN. The scripts cover the period between 19 November 1945 and 29 March 1946, and while typically consisting of brief summaries of the day's events in the courtroom, they sometimes also included interviews with figures ranging from courtroom security officers and a prison psychiatrist, to journalist Howard K. Smith or Justice Robert H. Jackson.

System of Arrangement

Scripts are arranged in chronological order, by date of broadcast.

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.