Correspondence, memoranda, speeches, writings, notes, orders to duty, printed matter, photographs, and other papers relating primarily to King's activities as commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of naval operations during World War II. Documents his participation in Allied conferences including the Argentina Conference (August 1941), Quebec Conference (1943), Cairo Conference (1943), Teheran Conference (1943), Yalta Conference (1945), and Potsdam Conference (July 1945). Also documents his service as commander of the Submarine Base in New London, Conn.; chief of the U.S. Navy Dept. Bureau of Aeronautics; commander of the Aircraft Base and Aircraft Scouting Force in San Diego, Calif.; and commander of all aircraft carriers of the fleet. Subjects include salvaging of the S-51 sunk off Block Island in 1925; growth and development of military aviation; the Atlantic Charter; World War II naval strategy in the Pacific including the Battle of Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, (1942-1943), and General James Harold Doolittle's 1942 air raid on Tokyo; international control of atomic weapons; U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; national security; and world politics. Includes drafts of Fleet Admiral King; A Naval Record (1952) coauthored by King and Walter Muir Whitehill.

Correspondents include Henry Harley Arnold; C.R. Attlee; Bernard M. Baruch; Omar Nelson Bradley; Oliver Lyttelton, Viscount Chandos; Mark W. Clark; Ferdinand Eberstadt; Charles A. Edison; Merritt Austin Edson; Richard S. Edwards; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Douglas Southall Freeman; William Frederick Halsey; Cordell Hull; Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, Viscount Portal of Hungerford; Frank Knox; P.W. Litchfield; George C. Marshall; Louis Mountbatten, Earl Mountbatten of Burma; Chester W. Nimitz; Quentin James Reynolds; Franklin D. Roosevelt; Robert E. Sherwood; Dorothy Thompson; Harry S. Truman; Walter Muir Whitehill; and Orville Wright.