The papers pertain to Schesch's involvement with a host of antiwar and community organizing groups in Madison and are arranged as an alphabetical subject file. Most of the folder titles pertain to organizations, although a few consist of generically-sorted material that could not be so identified. The bulk of the collection relates to the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam and contains material which supplements documentation in the NCC records also held by the Society. Included are correspondence, October 1965-April 1966, mainly incoming and mainly regarding research conducted by Schesch's committee. There are some letters to other members of the national staff. Prominent correspondents include Donna Allen, Bradford Lyttle, Harrop Freeman, and David McReynolds. There are also reports and miscellaneous papers of the information and research committee, a report of a meeting with SANE in New York City which Schesch attended for the NCC, an agenda for a staff meeting to discuss dissolution of NCC and its future, and materials pertaining to a possible regional structure.
Other groups represented include the Madison Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the Student Peace Center, Students for a Democratic Society, the University of Wisconsin Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the Vietnam Civic Action Research and Education Project, and the Wisconsin Alliance. Of special interest is a notebook kept by Schesch in 1967 as chairman of the Madison CEWVN that includes minutes and notes; two reports by Schesch on the 1969 Chicago convention of SDS; an early version of his Outline History of Vietnam (two later versions are available in the Historical Society Library) and Organizing a Vietnam Protest Committee, both issued by the University CEWVN; and planning documents related to the Vietnam C.A.R.E. project. Also included are drafts of articles published in U.W. CEWVN's newsletter Crisis and some manuscripts which appear to have been intended for publication in Crisis. Filed under the heading “research leaflets” are papers by members of an unidentified Madison research group. Two folders entitled Vietnam papers contain unpublished or near-print articles about Vietnam apparently collected by Schesch during the course of his research.
