The Avedis Derounian Archive at NAASR: A Vital Resource on US-Based Extremism

The Avedis Derounian Archive at NAASR:  A Vital Resource on US-Based Extremism

This program is made possible by a grant from Mass Humanities, which provided funding through the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC). Mass Humanities is a state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.”

In the late 30s and 1940s Armenian-American author and journalist Avedis Derounian (1909-91) went underground and infiltrated and collected materials on the full spectrum of U.S.-based extremist groups, particular those sympathetic to or in league with the political aims of the Nazis. He wrote about his experiences under the pen name John Roy Carlson. His book Under Cover became a New York Times best seller with at least 20 reprintings. He also wrote The Plotters (1946) and Cairo to Damascus (1951).

Donated to NAASR after his death in 1991, the collection is one of NAASR’s most significant personal archives, comprising more than 75 boxes of unpublished writings, notes, photographs, and other materials. His fascinating life experiences and dogged research, contained in his archive, reveal striking details about domestic fascist, pro-Nazi and other extreme right-wing groups of that time, and how Derounian and other writers and activists worked to expose these forces.

John Roy CarlsonFather CoughlinAmerica First

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