The collection is organized into three series: I. Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF); II. Committee for Cultural Freedom; III. American Committee for Cultural Freedom (ACCF). The ACCF series comprises some 90% of the collection, and is organized into ten subseries: A. Correspondence, General; B. Corporate Records; C. Financial Affairs; D. Administrative Structure; E. Relations with Affiliated Organizations; F. Public Activities (Topics, Individuals, Misc.); G. Proposals and Projects that Failed to Materialize; H. Miscellaneous Activities; J. Miscellaneous; K. Clippings.

For the Congress for Cultural Freedom the records consist of a very small sampling of minutes and publications and a substantial array of the proceedings of conferences and congresses held all over the world from 1950 to 1956. Additional material concerning the CCF is located in those ACCF files dealing with its relationships with affiliate organizations. Records for the American Committee for Cultural Freedom include extensive files of minutes, correspondence, corporate and financial records. Documentation of public activities is similarly extensive. These include ACCF generated arts festivals, forums and petition campaigns; advocacy interventions in visa cases, deportations and loyalty-security hearings; the often unsuccessful courting of foundation grants for a wide range of activities; and numerous instances in which the Committee took on the role of warning intellectuals engaged in particular non-ACCF programs in defense of cultural freedom that they were allying themselves with politically tainted persons. Other instances of disparate responses among the intellectual community to Cold War issues are documented in the final subseries of the records in such files as those dealing with the Committee's relationship with Arthur Miller, Bertrand Russell, and Jean Paul Sartre. Note that the same correspondents may appear in both the Administrative Affairs subseries (general correspondence), and in the Public Activities subseries. Other notable correspondents include: Norman Jacobs, David Reisman, Clinton Rossiter, George S. Schuyler, Stephen Spender, Gleb Struve, Harold Urey, Karl Wittfogel.