The archive includes more than twenty original letters to Smith written and signed by Clay in reference to various episodes in Clay's career, along with numerous letters from Smith to Clay. A small number of original letters sent to Clay by notable individuals, such as Konrad Adenauer, Omar Bradley, James F. Byrnes, Douglas MacArthur, and Sam Rayburn, is also present. Smith's extensive research files contain materials of worth to diplomatic and military historians. Of note is a wealth of duplicated correspondence between Clay and both James F. Byrnes and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Some correspondence refers to Clay's involvement with war production during World War II, his role in the Bay of Pigs prisoners' ransom, and important events in his life.
Some attention is given to the Berlin airlift.
Smith's files also contain genealogical material on Clay, manuscripts of Smith's biography, thirty transcripts of Smith's interviews with Clay, more than twenty transcripts of Smith's interviews with other individuals, programs of special interest relating to Clay's career, newspaper and periodical clippings about Clay, and photographs of Clay. The Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Division holds other collections relating to the diplomatic history of Germany. The James D. Mooney Papers provide documentation of Mooney's informal diplomatic contacts in 1939-40 with Adolph Hitler and the Nazi government. The George C. McGhee Papers chronicle the career of the an American ambassador who served in West Germany from 1963-1968. D.C. Another group of his papers, dating from 1950 to 1978, are deposited at the Marshall Foundation in Lexington, Virginia.