Charilaos Lagoudakis was born March 30th, 1900 in Chania, Crete. At age 12, he attended the Anatolia College Preparatory School in Thessaloniki, where he met longtime friend and artist George A. Yphantis. In 1922, Lagoudakis moved to the United States, where he graduated Springfield College with a BA in Political Science in 1925 and then from Clark University with an MA in International Relations. At age 28, Lagoudakis became a naturalized US citizen.

From 1933-1939, Lagoudakis returned to Greece to teach and serve as Chairman of the Athens College History Department. In 1941 he went back to the US and began a 28-year career within the US Department of Foreign Affairs. He provided analysis of the guerrilla warfare in Greece at the time, led the Greek election observation efforts in 1946, and was involved in the UNSC’s first international commission of investigation (regarding alleged border violations around Greece), which took place from 1946-1951. Lagoudakis served the State Department as an intelligence and research specialist for two decades, until his retirement in 1970.

During his career, Lagoudakis was regarded within the intelligence community as one of the few genuine experts in Balkan affairs. He was deeply involved in relations between the US, the UK, Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus, and worked with both the UN and NATO.

Lagoudakis was married to Dr. Rhea Marie Lagoudakis (1903-1974) and died on April 18th, 1978. He was survived by his son Alexander Lagoudakis (1935-2019).

Collection spans from 1923-1980, and includes two books, magazines, comic books, sketchbooks, artworks, newspaper excerpts, passports, academic articles, a daily broadcast report, ration books, ration slips, certificates of vaccination, a certificate of citizenship and administration, a scratch pad, a note with Greek phrases, REX Travel Agency documentation, a memorial record, letters of condolence, a eulogy, biographical material, correspondence, official United States documentation, official United Nations documentation, birthday cards, holiday cards, service awards, and university booklets.

I have arranged the materials into three separate containers: Box 1; Box 2; Oversized Box 1. Each Box had been organized according to a theme in order to best present the materials to the researcher for access and convenience. The theme of Box 1 was based upon organizing materials pertaining to Charilaos life and career. Thus, Folders #1 and #2 had been organized to provide the researcher with materials from Charilaos’ travels during his career alongside newspapers, academic articles and a broadcast content report which pertained to his field. Folder #3 contained the materials from the end of Charilaos life such as his memorial record, eulogy, biographical information and letters of condolences. Folders #4-6 were organized in a manner best providing the researcher a chronological order of Charilaos’ correspondence materials during his career using increments of ten years. The theme of Box 2 had been organized with the basis of storing materials that pertained to Charilaos’ life but not his career. However the first item within Box 2, that being the “Unnamed Black Book”, an item which contained materials pertaining to Charilaos’ work, had been placed within the box due to storage space as Box 1 had been at maximum capacity. Oversized Box 1 was organized based upon a mixture of theme and storage space. At the bottom of the Oversized Box 1’s arrangement is an item, which is a book entitled, The Sacrifices of Greece In The Second World War which had been placed there due to its heavier weight and large size. Atop the book is Folder #1, containing three service award documents earned by Charilaos from the United States of America’s Department of State, as well as a document from the Greek Dental Society, 1929-1967 which accompanied one of three service award documents.

The collection is open to research. Copyright is unknown. Contact Museum staff for permissions.

Greek; English; French; German

The collection was donated to the National Hellenic Museum by Nicki Beatty Lagoudakis in September of 2021. The collection was mailed via USPS to the NHM Collections and Archives Manager’s Apartment during the 2021 COVID-19 Lockdown.

[item], folder, box, NHM54 Charilaos G. Lagoudakis Collection, National Hellenic Museum.