The archive consists of papers, photographs, cassette tapes, books, video recordings and CDs generated and accumulated by Anthony Goodman throughout his life, although the main bulk of the collection relates to his career reporting from the UN for Reuters. The earliest items in the collection are a series of photographs of Goodman taken during his brief career as a child actor in the 1930s. His time at Lincoln College is represented in the archive by lecture notes and essays.
The archive contains a small amount of material from the early years of Goodman’s career during the late 1950s to early 1970s. This material includes papers related to President John F. Kennedy’s funeral, press releases from the Glassboro summit, along with Reuters ‘situationers’ and other articles written by Goodman when in the Middle East and New York.
The largest section of the archive is material related to the period Goodman spent reporting from the UN. It includes files of papers concerning his trips to the Far East, Tehran, Croatia and Bosnia, disinformation campaigns conducted against the US government and general files of papers related to the UN. These files contain draft and final versions of articles written by Goodman, telexes and messages sent to Goodman and other Reuters journalists, newspaper cuttings, reports, articles and academic papers, press releases, documents and publications issued by the United Nations, governments and non-governmental organisations. Important topics covered by these papers include Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim’s trip to China, Vietnam and North Korea, events in Tehran during 1980, conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, relations between Israel, the Middle East and the UN, events in the Middle East, the suspected poisoning of Palestinian schoolgirls on the West Bank, UN General Assembly sessions, the Oil-for-Food programme, the alleged misuse of a UNRWA training centre in Lebanon, the death of Yitzhak Rabin, Soviet treatment of Jewish people, remembrance of the Holocaust, the Second World War and the fiftieth anniversary of the UN, anti-Semitism, Zionism, errors in reports published by The Heritage Foundation and the relationship between Billy Carter and Libya. These files also contain papers detailing disinformation campaigns against America concerning AIDS, the sale of babies and the actions of US General Norman Schwarzkopf and US Ambassador to the UN, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick. Another file labelled ‘Funnies’ contains comic documents and jokes related to the UN and international politics and documents in which amusing or interesting sections have been marked. The file includes numerous press releases issued by the Chinese and North Korean permanent missions to the UN. Further important elements of the collection are Goodman’s notebooks and cassette recordings of interviews. There is also a quantity of press passes and identity cards from throughout Goodman’s career, invitations to UN events and other material.
As well as papers and recordings, the archive also includes electronic documents from Goodman’s computer and from Reuters, which have been saved onto a series of compact disks. These electronic document include articles by Goodman and others, reports, websites, blogs and text copied from the Internet, e-mails, electronic books and a small number of music files. Most of the documents relate to the UN, Cyprus, conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, anti-Semitism and the Middle East, in particular Iraq, the oil-for food scheme, Israel and the Palestinians.
The collection also contains a series of photographs of Goodman that range from his school and university days to his time with Reuters and the UN, including photographs of Goodman with prominent figures, such as President John F. Kennedy, UN Secretary-Generals Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Kurt Waldheim and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, President Gerald H. Ford, Golda Meir and Senator Henry M. Jackson, and photographs taken during trips to China, Bosnia and Croatia.
Also present in the collection is an envelope of photographs and correspondence concerning the Lowell Thomas Collection of The Darke County Historical Society, a collection of signed books and a file of Goodman’s obituaries and letters of condolence sent to Zmira Goodman after her husband’s death.