Dr. Richard E. Thomas Collection

The Dr. Richard E. Thomas Collection contains reports on a number of issues concerning the Soviet military during the Cold War. Also included in the collection are microfiche of translated materials relevant to the Cold War and microfilm of a Soviet military journal. This material is useful for a researcher interested in the scope of U.S. intelligence on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, as well as specific scientific, technical and policy issues.

Series I: Reports Series I spans 1969 to 2006 and is divided into two subseries. Subseries A contains reports produced by the Center for Strategic Technology at Texas A&M University. The reports are arranged by author in alphabetical order. When the author has more than one report, they are further arranged in chronological order. These reports cover a range of topics pertaining to the Soviet military, including organization, command structure, doctrine, strategy and technology, among others. The published reports with red and blue covers were peer reviewed; the reports with grey covers were not. A large number of the reports were written by Richard Woff and contain information on Soviet command changes and their policy implications. Reports by Richard E. Thomas are located between Box 9 File 6 and Box 11 File 5. Reports for which he was a secondary author are also found throughout the subseries. The date span for the reports in this subseries is 1981 to 2006, with the bulk from the 1980s. One report written by Dr. Thomas, dated 2006, was produced by StraTech, Inc., but was included in this subseries to keep Thomas' work together.

Subseries B contains reports, magazines, a Soviet military dictionary, and a book acquired from other publishing sources. Most of the reports deal with the Soviet military structure, but also included are early Communist writings by V.I. Lenin and information on the People's Republic of China, and the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. In addition to the reprinted writings of Lenin, Boxes 17 A&B contain numerous translated volumes of the Soviet Military Encyclopedic Dictionary by Ogarkov. Located in Box 17C through 17E are several translated reports by other Soviet writers. The date span for this material is 1969 to 1988. Several reports are undated and some list no author.

Series II: Microfiche The microfiche in this series are mainly of reports produced by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) and the United States Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), which monitor and translate foreign language materials such as books, news, journals and research reports. This material covers geographic regions throughout the world, not just the Soviet Union. In the microfiche series there are also documents produced by U.S. military organizations, such as the Foreign Technology Division at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, NASA, and the Soviet Army Studies Office. The material covers a broad range of subjects, including science and technology, military, policy, arms issues, and economics, among others. Also included are translations of the Soviet military journal, Voyennaya Msl ("Military Thought"). The series is arranged in alphabetical order. The date span for this series is 1925-1993. In the container list the date generally refers to the creation or publication of the report, but when this was not supplied, it refers to the date the microfilm was created.

Series III: Microfilm The six rolls of microfilm in this series contain multiple volumes of the Soviet journal Voennaia Mysl'l Revoiiotsia. They are in Russian and date between 1921 and 1966.