Series I. Vice President Donald Wilson Files, 1960-1994, inclusive; 1968-1989, bulk

Vice President Donald Wilson Files contain Wilson's correspondence and other office files and work product. Records include updates on the activities and accomplishments of offices within Corporation Public Affairs such as Corporate Community Relations (Director Toni Fay), Corporate Contributions (Director and later Vice President Jeanne Kerr), Corporate Creative Services (Director Enfield "Flicky" Ford), Corporate Cultural Affairs (Director Zachary Morfogen), Radio/TV Publicity (Director Marilyn Sahner), and Government Relations (Vice Presidents Barry Zorthian, John Steele, Brian Conboy).

Records also include correspondence and memoranda, press releases and internal discussion and revisions by executives or other Corporate Public Affairs staff; Time Inc. official statements; annual shareholder meeting official questions and answers for events such as annual shareholder meetings or subsidiary acquisitions and mergers; speeches from various Time Inc. executives; departmental newsletters; subsidiary press kits and newsletters; art exhibit plans and brochures; and new clippings.

The general Miscellaneous Memoranda files contain outside requests for participation in events, programs and associations; offers of consulting services; surveys from outside researchers; correspondence and other materials from associations of which Time Inc. was a member or of which a Time Inc. officer was a board member; invitations from universities to interview graduates; fundraising requests; a few reader complaints regarding non-editorial issues; and vendor introductions. Wilson advises Time Inc. executives on these matters in the specific Miscellaneous Memoranda files. Miscellaneous Requests contain similar materials, but with more corporate sponsorship requests.

Major events covered by his files include reconfiguring the corporate identity including creating a definite Time Inc. logo; environmental complaints against Eastex Inc. during the proposed creation of Big Thicket National Park; the Howard Hughes hoax autobiography manuscript; review of South African employment practices after development of the Sullivan principles; subsidiary sales, acquisitions, and mergers; court proceedings including Ariel Sharon's libel suit against Time Inc.; reports that Nikita Khrushchev disavowed his recollections published in Life ahead of the publication of his memoirs; and planning materials for an unrealized exhibit in the new EPCOT Center; and Time Inc.'s participation in political action committees.

Items of interest include a 1986 memo from Director of Corporate Public Affairs Louis Slovinsky regarding a search for a Time Inc. promotional tag line; praise from New York City Commissioner for the United Nations and Consular Corps Gillian Sorensen on a presentation by Time Inc. and related discussion session between ambassadors and Time Inc. executives; a 1979 memo from Time Inc. Archivist Lillian Owens summarizing her review of the archives related to claims that Henry Luce received money from the Iranian Shah; and an illustrated flyer advocating for a better contract for Newspaper Guild members.