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Preferred Citation

Harold Saunders papers, C0259, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Donated by Harold Saunders in 2015.

Processing Information

Collection processed by Amanda Menjivar in 2017. EAD markup completed by Amanda Menjivar in 2017. Finding aid updated by Amanda Menjivar in September 2022.

This collection has additional unprocessed accessions 2019.013, 2019.020, 2019.027, 2019.052, 2021.0176, 2022.042-C, 2023.005-C, 2023.019-C, and therefore this finding aid may not be fully up to date. Please contact SCRC for more information.

Biographical Information

Harold Henry "Hal" Saunders, born in Philadelphia, PA, was founder and Chairman of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue (IISD) and Director of International Affairs at the Kettering Foundation. For twenty years he worked at the National Security Council (NSC) Staff in the White House (1961 - 1974) and the State Department (1974 - 1981), serving as the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (1975 - 1978) and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs (1978 - 1981.) Saunders was at the center of U.S. policy making in the Middle East and South Asia, and played major roles in the Camp David Accords and the Iran Hostage Crisis. After leaving his government career in 1981, he developed and practiced the process of Sustained Dialogue, a "public peace process" to transform racial and ethnic conflicts. Saunders was a graduate of both Princeton and Yale Universities, and was a veteran of the United States Air Force. Saunders passed away in 2016.

Scope and Content

The Harold Saunders papers consists largely of speeches, meeting transcripts, news clippings, photographs, and approximately 150 pocket notebooks that he carried with him that include insights from conversations and other experiences that were important to him. The most unique document is a declassified copy of the key pages of a memo he co-authored with his close colleague Ambassador Alfred LeRoy "Roy" Atherton for Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to send to President Jimmy Carter to begin his preparatory reading for the summit with Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem being held at Camp David in September 1978.

The most revealing sections are those focused on how Carter might have proceeded in bringing Sadat and begin the human dialogue planned for Camp David. There are also professional files including speeches and congressional testimony from 1976 to 1983, materials on the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, chapters for an unpublished book on presidential decision-making toward the Middle East, and speeches from 1974-1983. The collection also includes substantial documentation of international meetings, such as 37 analytical memos written after each meeting of the Inter-Tajik Dialogue (1993-2005) which was conducted by three Russian and three American members of the Dartmouth Conference Task Force on Regional Conflicts. Documentation on other meetings include records of twelve meetings over five years of a sustained dialogue involving participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh. This includes records of what was called the Arab-American-European Dialogue, which included five senior Americans government officials, five senior European government officials, and a dozen political reformers from the Arab Islamic heartland (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, and Egypt). The question of Western democracy and Islam's compatibility was the main focus during this dialogue. Also included are records of a dialogue among Iraqis across the political spectrum on national reconciliation, as well as near verbatim transcripts of meetings of the Dartmouth Conference Regional Conflicts Task Force and - its successor since 2008 - the Task Force on the Russian-U.S. Relationship which began in 1982.

Series 1: Government Career (1930s - 1985) documents Saunders' government career during the 1970s and 1980s, which includes speeches, memoranda, photos, newspaper clippings, and other documents from his tenure on the National Security Council and as a high-ranking official in the White House during multiple presidential administrations. Topics range from the Camp David Accords, the Iran Hostage Crisis, to Saunders thoughts, opinions, experiences, and actions as an American diplomat.

Series 2: Dartmouth Conference, Peace Dialogues, and Post-Government Career (1970s - 2014) documents Saunders involvement in numerous peace dialogues and experiences after his government career, and is divided into four subseries. Subseries 2.1: Dartmouth Conference, which includes multiple documents on the annual peace dialogue conference. Subseries 2.2: Peace Dialogues - Tajikistan, which includes multiple documents on Saunders involvement in the Inter-Tajik Dialogues. Subseries 2.3: Peace Dialogues - Other, which includes documents on Saunders involvement in other peace dialogues, most notably on the Middle East. Subseries 2.4: Post-Government Career Work, includes documents and reflections from Saunders on his work after his career in government.

Series 3: Notebooks, Media, and Miscellaneous (1970s - 2000) includes multiple notebooks and recordings on cassette tape on experiences during and after his career in government. Most notable are his plethora of notebooks created during and after both the Camp David Accords and the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Arrangement

Related Material

The Special Collections Research Center holds several other notable collections on conflict analysis and resolution including the Louise Diamond papers,the James Laue papers, and the John Burton papers. The Kettering Foundation archives also holds Harold Saunders Material.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Camp David (Md.)
• Carter, Jimmy, 1924-
• Conflict management
• Dartmouth Conference task forces
• Foreign policy
• Iran
• Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981
• Iraq
• Islam
• Kissinger, Henry, 1923-2023
• Middle East
• Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan)
• Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994
• Peacemaking
• Tajikistan