Ted Berkman papers

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 2897

Scope and content

Correspondence, notes, drafts, galleys, newspaper and magazine clippings, scripts, shooting schedules, photographs, various publications, and research and promotional material relating to Ted Berkman's work for magazines and the television and motion picture industries; correspondence, raw notes, taped interviews, research material, drafts and promotional material concerning his books: CAST A GIANT SHADOW, a biography of Mickey Marcus; SABRA, biographies of participants in the 1967 Six Day War; MY PRISONER, concerning Patty Hearst; THE LADY AND THE LAW, a biography of international attorney Fanny Holtzmann; and TO SEIZE THE PASSING DREAM, a biographical novel of James McNeill Whistler. Also, a Jordanian soldier's notebook, left behind when the Israelis captured Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem; correspondence with Edward R. Murrow, 1949-1964; correspondence with Chester Bowles; syllabus and other material on courses given at the University of California and Antioch West. Materials relating to an interview with Artie Shaw. Also videotape of talk at L.A. Jewish Book Festival and film "Cast a Giant Shadow," and a video interview by Alexa Foreman of the Turner Classic Movies Archival Project conducted October 12, 2001.

Scope and content

Unpublished memoir by T. H. Bell, socialist biographer of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw and secretary to Frank Harris, titled "Oscar Wilde, Frank Harris, Alfred Douglas and Myself" (331 typed carbon pages); sections of an unpublished memoir of Joe Laitin, journalist and public affairs officer under five presidencies: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter.

Dates

1942-2001.

Creator

Berkman, Ted. (Person)
Foreman, Alexa L. (Interviewer, Person)

Biographical / Historical

Newspaperman, screenwriter, composer, and United Nations official. Edward Oscar Berkman was born on January 9, 1914 and graduated from Cornell University Class of 1933. From 1943-1946 he served as an American Intelligence executive in the Middle East. He later became foreign correspondent for ABC and the Overseas News Agency. He was a screenwriter for several feature films, and won a Christopher Award for Paramount's "Fear Strikes Out." During World War II he was Balkan-Middle East Chief of the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, and afterward served as worldwide Director of Information for the U.N. Appeal for Children. He died May 12, 2006.