Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 300-5-90

Title

Records of Kevin Devlin and the Communist Area Analysis Department on Non-Ruling Communist Parties

Date(s)

1950 - 1990

Description Level

Series

Extent and medium (processed)

141 Archival boxes, 17.62 linear meters

Context

Name of creator(s)

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc - Research Institute

Administrative / Biographical history

Name of the creator(s)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. -Research Institute
Communist Area Analysis Department
Devlin, Kevin
Rauch, R.S.
McLaughlin, William
Kun, Joseph C.


Kevin Devlin was born in Ireland and moved to the United States, where he pursued a career in political sciences. In the 1960s, he became a political analyst for Radio Free Europe in Munich. He published on Europe’s Communist parties and was involved in various collective research projects in the Communist Area Analysis Department framework.
Within this collection, he wrote about 200 reports, mainly on the activities of the Italian Communist Party, French Communist Party, Euro-Communism, and the impact of the Prague Spring in Western Europe.


William McLaughlin (1937-2014) was a diplomatic and foreign correspondent that worked for the RFE between 1963 and 1966. He was born on April 21, 1937, in New York City, where he graduated from Fordham University with a bachelor of science degree in 1961. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris.
In his role as consultant in the office, between 1963 and 1966, he covered the topics related to Communist activities in South-East Asia. From 1966, he left Radio Free Europe for CBS in Paris . His reporting from Europe, the Middle East, Cyprus and Athens earned him a promotion to correspondent and the title of bureau chief in Bonn, Germany, in 1968.
After his career at Radio Free Europe, he was sent to cover the Vietnam War in 1969. He left the Saigon Bureau in June 1970, and he returned to cover the offensives in 1972 and 1975. In 1971, he was named bureau chief in Beirut, from which he covered conflicts in the Middle East, including the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. He also reported on the Six-Day War in 1967, the conflict between India and Pakistan in 1971 and the aftermath of the attack by the Black September Group, the Palestinian terrorists who killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The Olympic terror coverage won an Overseas Press Club award. In the 1980s, he worked for the State Department as a general assignment reporter.
Within this collection, he wrote about 30 reports, mostly on the Spanish Communist Party, the activity of Communist Parties in the South America and the Comintern.

Joseph Cornelius Kun (1931-2018) worked for the Radio Free Europe in Munich as an expert on Chinese and Far Eastern political and military problems. Within this collection, his reports focused extensively on the Sino-Soviet Split. Joseph Cornelius Kun was born in Budapest in 1931. He graduated from the University of Budapest. In 1956, he escaped from the Communist Hungary. After his move in the US, he continued his studies on Chinese affairs at the Harvard University. After receiving his MA in 1958, his work focused on the problems of Communist China and the Soviet Union and became a research fellow at MIT. After his experience at the Radio Free Europe, Joseph Cornelius Kun joined the CIA as an intelligence officer until his retirement in 1991.
Within this collection, he wrote about 30 reports, mostly on the Sino-Soviet split.

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Abstract)

The series contains materials collected and produced by the Communist Area Analysis Department (CAA), the non-ruling Communist Parties office. The materials cover the period from 1950 to 1990.
The series contains press clippings, biographies, RFE/RL reports, abstracts of media reports, congress materials, diplomatic reports and office documents. The documents cover virtually all the Communist Parties from nonsocialist countries. The materials are organized according to the country of origin.

Scope and Content (Narrative)

The materials in this series focus on the activities of the Communist Parties from the non-ruling countries, and the archives focus both on the local particularities and the transnational issues.

The issues covered are:

1) The impact of the Sino-Soviet split. The office followed the ideological shifts in the national parties. A particular focus is on the International Communist Movement, an institution parallel to Comintern, having as its principal ideology Maoism. As Maoism became an alternative ideological option for Communist Parties from non-ruling countries, the RFE/RL Communist Area Analysis Department closely followed it.

2) The impact of the War in Vietnam. The non-ruling Communist Party office followed the reactions of the national Communist Parties on the conflict.

3) Prague Spring and Invasion in Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring and its aftermath were turning events in the ideological evolution of many Communist Parties in Western Europe. The office closely followed the impact of the Prague Spring and Invasion in Czechoslovakia in August 1968 for a more extended period (until the 1980s).

4) Common Market. The department followed how Western Europe countries reacted to construction the Common Market, the forefather of the European Union.

5) Congresses. The office closely followed the impact of each of the congresses. The focus both on the congresses organized by the socialist countries, as well as those organized by the national Communist.

6) Reforms in the socialist bloc. The impact of the reforms in the socialist bloc was closely scrutinized.

The fonds is divided in two main parts, according to the context of production. The first sub-fonds of the collection (boxes 1-122) contains on the activities of the Communist Parties from the nonsocialist countries. The second sub-fonds (123-141) contains the activities of the International Communist Movement. The sub-fonds International Communist Movement focuses on the impact of Maoism in Africa, South America, South-East Asia. The context of production is slightly different, even though it was produced in the same office.

Accruals

Not Expected

System of arrangement

The collection is arranged according to the English alphabet firstly, by the country name, followed by topic.

Conditions of Access and Use

Conditions governing access

Not Restricted

Languages

Dutch; Flemish, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish; Castilian

Notes

Note

Processed by Adrian Matus (October 2020-May 2022) and Mariia Zimina (October 2020-June 2021) under the supervision of Tari Örs.