Cold War study leads to US posting for historian

Cold War study leads to US posting for historian

A PhD study of Cold War events during the Kennedy era has won a 26-year-old University of Queensland student an assistant professorship at a prestigious American university.

David Coleman's thesis -only recently submitted - was compiled using newly declassified tapes and documents about the Berlin and Cuban crises of 1961-62.

"The University of Virginia has recognised the significance of David's study and offered him a research and teaching position," said UQ supervisor Associate Professor Joe Siracusa of the History Department.

Mr Coleman said his work fitted in well with the University of Virginia's Presidential Recordings Project. "Most people know about the Nixon White House tape recordings but don't appreciate that the Oval Office was taped from the time of Roosevelt," he said.

"A large team of scholars is conducting the prodigious task of transcribing and analysing the full White House recordings made during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations."

The Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson tapes together include well over 1000 hours of meetings and phone calls; the Nixon tapes extend to 3800 hours.

Mr Coleman was one of 40 University postgraduates who recently visited libraries and laboratories in countries as far-flung as the United States, China and the United Kingdom after being awarded UQ Graduate School Research Travel Awards.

His travel award allowed him to peruse newly declassified material held at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston and the National Archives II at College Park for his thesis topic Berlin, American National Security, and the Cold War, 1948-1963.

"The documents proved to be even richer than I had anticipated. The material has not been published in any form, either conventional or electronic, and was therefore not accessible without actually reading the originals," he said.

Mr Coleman said material inspected included not only documents emanating from the late American President himself, but also from his national security staff, government departments and agencies, and other advisors.

"It also included many hours of ?the Kennedy tapes' which were finally and surprisingly declassified only a week before my visit. These tapes, secretly made by the President himself, include some of the highest-level discussions and meetings conducted in the White House," he said.

"This was a wonderful opportunity to use the latest declassified materials and to discuss my work with leading scholars in the field. This considerably accelerated the revision process and resulted in what I think is a much stronger dissertation. I also have an article in press based on some of these materials."

Mr Coleman, who completed his Arts honours degree at the University of Queensland in 1995, will take up the research and teaching post at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia on November 25. His said the posting would allow him to continue his studies of United States foreign policy, with access to original material.

Further information: David Coleman, telephone 3365 6326, email: d.coleman@mailbox.uq.edu.au