The papers of Richard Cull, Jr. include newspaper clippings, other printed material, correspondence, typed comments and reminiscences by Cull, and other items relating to his work as a Washington reporter and government official. The collection contains information on President Truman's relations with the press, and how the press covered the major events of his administration.

See also Richard Cull, Jr. oral history interview

Size: Less than one half of one linear foot (about 600 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The Truman Library has received no donation of copyright interest in this collection. Documents created by U.S. Government officials in the course of their duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents is presumed to belong to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Niel M. Johnson
Updated by: Timothy Leach as part of the Truman Library Internship Program
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and Amy Williams

The papers of Richard Cull, Jr. contain information relating to Cull's career as a Washington newspaper correspondent during the Truman administration and his subsequent career as a government press officer. The collection includes newspaper clippings, other printed material, and correspondence, along with typed comments and reminiscences by Cull, which he apparently prepared while organizing his papers. The material is arranged in a single Subject File.

Cull was a reporter in Washington for the Dayton Daily News and the Cox Newspapers syndicate from 1947 to 1962. He then served as a press information officer for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1962 to 1975. His papers primarily document President Truman's relations with the press and press coverage of some of the major events of the Truman administration, such as the elections of 1946, 1948, and 1952, and the attempted assassination of the President in 1950. Also included is information concerning Truman's relations with James M. Cox (Cull's employer), Ohio politics during the Truman years, presidential transportation, social events in Washington, and the issue of presidential privacy. The collection also contains some information about other aspects of Cull's career, including his work at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which began during the Kennedy administration. When the survivors of the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion were released from Cuban custody in 1962, Cull was the government official who handled the press coverage of their return to the United States.

In almost every folder in the collection, Cull has included a typewritten statement, usually a page or two in length, in which he offers his comments and recollections on the subject at hand. The statements are accompanied by related newspaper clippings (many of them featuring articles written by Cull), as well as excerpts from books and other printed material. The papers also include a small amount of correspondence, some from prominent figures such as James Farley, James M. Cox, and Robert F. Kennedy.

Cull's papers serve as a supplement to his oral history interview at the Truman Library (Oral History Interview No. 428). Other materials at the Library relating to press coverage of the Truman administration include the papers of Charles G. Ross and Eben A. Ayers, and oral history interviews with Ayers, Roger Tubby, Irving Perlmeter, and Robert G. Nixon.

SUBJECT FILE, 1941-1988

• Arthur Krock's Appraisal of President Truman
• A Sensational Postwar Hearing by Harry Truman's Old Senate Committee
• Bay of Pigs-Release of Prisoners in Cuba
• Correspondents Doris Fleeson, May Craig, and Bess Furman, and President Truman
• Dayton Daily News-Washington Bureau
• Era of Parties (Social not Political) in Harry Truman's Washington
• Inauguration, 1949
• Jim Farley and James Cox-Relationships with Roosevelt and Truman
• Miscellaneous Clippings
• Newsmen at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in 1948
• Newspaper Publishers, Imperious Demands of
• President Truman and Appointees from Ohio
• President Truman and Columnist Drew Pearson
• President Truman and Press Coverage of Special Sessions of Congress
• President Truman and Press Secretaries Charles Ross and Joseph Short
• President Truman and the "Loneliness" of the White House
• President Truman and the National Press Club
• President Truman and the 1946 Election
• Presidential Airplane-Independence
• Presidential Campaign-1952
• Presidential Elections in Ohio, 1948 and 1952 [and the presidential railroad car, the Ferdinand Magellan]
• Presidents and the Privacy Issue
• Press Policies in the Truman Period
• Reconversion of the Economy
• Reporters and Government Press Officers-Two Vantage Points
• Senatorial Press Conferences
• The Press and the Assassination Attempt on President Truman
• Truman Committee
• Washington Bureaus of the Nation's Newspapers
• White House Correspondents' Association's 25th Annual Dinner-March 6, 1948
• White House Press Receptions
• Writing of a Sunday Newspaper Column-the Truman Years

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