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Daniel C. Kurtzer Papers
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Public Policy Papers [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Public Policy Papers. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Daniel C. Kurtzer (1949-) is a professor and former American diplomat. He served as United States Ambassador to Egypt from 1997-2001, then as United States Ambassador to Israel from 2001-2005, after which time he retired from the U.S. Foreign Service after a 29-year career. Prior to being an ambassador, Kurtzer was a political officer at the U.S. embassies in Cairo and Tel Aviv, Deputy Director of the Office of Egyptian Affairs, speechwriter on the Policy Planning Staff, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. Some of his noteworthy achievements in the Foreign Service include formulating the 1988 peace initiative of Secretary of State George P. Shultz, helping to bring about the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, and serving as coordinator of multilateral peace negotiations and as U.S. representative in the Multilateral Refugee Working Group.
Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle Eastern policy studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He has also been an advisor to the Iraq Study Group, the first Commissioner of the professional Israel Baseball League, and a member of numerous organizations, including the Board of the American University in Cairo, the Advisory Council of the American Bar Association's Middle East Rule of Law Initiative, the Middle East Institute, and the New Jersey-Israel Commission. He is the editor of Pathways to Peace: America and the Arab-Israeli Conflict and co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East and The Peace Puzzle: America's Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011.
The collection mostly pertains to Kurtzer's work for the U.S. Foreign Service. Much of the collection is comprised of memoranda from Kurtzer's daily meetings in his capacity as ambassador to Israel. Additionally, Kurtzer's schedules in the form of daily itineraries, often interfiled with memoranda or background materials pertaining to meetings or other events, provide detailed information about his day-to-day activities in both Egypt and Israel. Materials from conferences on Middle East peace, Kurtzer's speeches and remarks (including drafts), U.S. policy statements, agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and other materials also document Kurtzer's diplomatic service. To a lesser extent, the collection reflects different aspects of Kurtzer's professional and personal life in the form of his student papers and other writings, teaching material, collected news clippings, and biographical material. The collection also includes the daily schedules of his wife, Sheila Kurtzer, dating from 1998-2001, as well as the Kurtzers' contact lists from their time abroad and guest lists for various events.
Materials remain in their original order as received from the donor.
The materials in Boxes 1-5 were donated by Daniel C. Kurtzer in 2014. The accession number associated with this donation is ML.2014.010.
The materials in Boxes 6-11 were donated by Daniel C. Kurtzer in August 2017. The accession number associated with this donation is ML.2017.024.
The materials in Boxes S-000001-S-000009 were donated by Daniel C. Kurtzer in August 2018 and July 2019. The accessions number associated with these donations are ML-2018-013 and ML-2019-017.
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
Materials were placed into archival housing upon acquisition in early 2014 and a preliminary file list was created. Collection-level notes were written by Rachel Van Unen in July 2014. No physical processing or arrangement was done at this time. Materials in the August 2017 donation were added to the collection by Rachel Van Unen.
Materials in the August 2018 and July 2019 donations were added to the collection by Will Clements. Some materials were removed from accordion files and scrapbooks and placed in folders during the processing of these accessions. Additionally, personally identifiable information has been line redacted from some documents.
Approximately 0.25 linear feet of personal materials from the 2014 donation were returned to the donor. No materials were separated from the August 2017 donation.
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Public Policy Papers
- Finding Aid Date
- 2014
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research use except for the folder titled "DK State Dept. Performance Files" which is restricted during Daniel Kurtzer's lifetime due to the presence of personally identifiable information.
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
Collection Inventory
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