Guide to the Robert Clark papers 1940s-2005

Robert Clark papers C0292

Biographical Information

Robert (Bob) Clark was born in May 1922 in Omaha, Nebraska. He received a B.S. and M.A. while studying journalism and politics. He went on to become a Washington and White House correspondent for ABC News throughout the 1950s and 1970s, but continued to work for ABC until the 1990s. Most notably, he covered the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. He was a witness to both assassinations. Later in his life, around the 1990s, he was a guest commentator on C-SPAN. Bob Clark passed away in December 2015.

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Scope and Content

Series 1: JFK assassination, 1959-2005 contains articles and on-air drafts regarding the JFK assassination and the 25th anniversary of the event. There are reports of the assassination by the Review Board, autopsy reports, investigative reports, statements, and assassination theories. Included is also a binder filled with articles and reports about Kennedy's campaign and the election coverage for ABC News.

Series 2: Politics, 1950s-2004 contains articles, correspondence and on-air drafts about politicians. These include Kennedy family members, Eisenhower, Reagan, Nixon, George H.W.Bush, Billy Graham, and others.

Series 3: Foreign relations, 1965-1999 has articles and on-air drafts on topics such as Iran-Contra, relations with Cuba, Japan, Israel, Korea, India, Soviet Union, Africa and Pakistan.

Series 4: Domestic issues, 1948-1999 has articles and commentary on domestic issues such as women's rights, Medicare, religion, homosexuality, and social security.

Series 5: Personal files: 1940s-1989 has some papers written by Clark while he was a student in the 1940s as well as other materials from his life, a duplicate manuscript, and his personal correspondence.

Series 6: ABC files, 1957-1993 contains most of the drafts Clark wrote for ABC that cover a variety of topics. This series has press messages and articles, drafts from on-air commentary for ABC from the 1960s to the 1990s, perspectives written for ABC, "Issues and Answers" for ABC, negative images of the White House from 1956, radio scripts, drafts from C-SPAN shows (1990s), and interviews.

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Arrangement

Organized into six series by subject. Doug First arranged the materials before donating them to SCRC.

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Restrictions

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions on personal use. Permission to publish material from the Robert Clark Papers must be obtained from the Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

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Related Material

Special Collections Research Center also holds many other collections on 20th century political history.

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Index Terms

Persons:

Subjects:

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Robert Clark Papers, #C0292, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Donated by Douglas and Sandra First on October 7, 2016.

Processing Information

Processing completed by Brittney Falter in November 2016. EAD markup completed by Brittney Falter in December 2016.

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Contents List