Moullette, John B. Papers

Enlisted man, United States Marine Corps, 1943-1946, 1950-1952

On January 16, 1951, Marine Corporal John B. Moullette, while stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, wrote a letter to his father, Clarence W. Moullette, questioning the involvement of the United States in the Korean War. Clarence Moullette, who was Assistant to the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, forwarded the letter to United States Secretary of State, Dean Acheson. Acheson responded to Clarence Moullette in a letter dated February 23, 1951. The Acheson-Moullette correspondence was subsequently published in many newspapers. The papers of John B. Moullette include the original correspondence, as well as public opinion letters and published materials sent to the Moullettes in response to this correspondence.

Size: 1 linear foot, 4 linear inches (about 2,400 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: John B. Moullette donated to the people of the United States his copyright interest in any unpublished materials in this collection, as well as those in any other collections in the custody of the Government of the United States. In addition, documents prepared by United States government employees in their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in documents which do not fall into these two categories is presumed to remain with the creators of the documents.
Processed by: Dennis E. Bilger and Niel M. Johnson (l990); Rebecca J. Phipps (2000); Randy Sowell (2022).

On January 16, 1951, Marine Corporal John B. Moullette, while stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, wrote a letter to his father, Clarence, in which he questioned the involvement of the United States in the Korean War. His father, Assistant to the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, forwarded the letter to United States Secretary of State, Dean Acheson. On February 23, l95l, Acheson responded with a long and thoughtful letter about the ideals and aspirations that were guiding the Truman administration’s decisions regarding the Korean War. The State Department released the correspondence on March 3, 1951; the letters were published in the New York Times and were serialized in newspapers throughout the country.

The papers of John B. Moullette include the original Moullette-Acheson correspondence. Additionally, the publication of this correspondence inspired many Americans to write to the Moullettes voicing their opinions; the collection contains about 150 of these public opinion letters.

This material has been arranged in a Correspondence File. The original Acheson-Moullette correspondence is in the first folder in this series. Subsequent correspondence between the Moullettes and Acheson is in the second folder, which includes a 1969 letter from Acheson to Clarence Moullette, acknowledging his letter regarding John Moullette’s successful career. The public opinion letters follow in subsequent folders, filed alphabetically.

The collection also includes a Subject File containing a wide range of printed material dealing directly or indirectly with the Korean War and various aspects of United States policy in Korea. This material includes religious and astrological tracts expressing various ideologies from the extreme left to extreme right, directed at Catholics, Jews, Communists, and anti-Communists. The Subject File also contains Moullette’s doctoral dissertation, autobiographical writings, and other publications.