The papers of Bernard Lige Austin (1902-1979), a naval officer who achieved distinction as a commander of submarines and destroyers and as an administrator, educator, military diplomat, and press officer, span the years 1916-1979, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1937-1968. The collection is organized into series of Correspondence, Speeches and Writings, Subject File, Classified, Top Secret, and North American Treaty Organization. Austin attended The Citadel at Charleston in his native South Carolina before matriculating at the United States Naval Academy, from which he was graduated in 1924. His first independent command was as captain of the submarine R-11 during 1934-1937. In the late 1930s, while serving as a press officer for the Navy Department, Austin wrote articles on submarine warfare for the and the . His submarine expertise was again called on late in his career when he presided over courts of inquiry investigating the loss of the nuclear powered submarines Thresher (1963) and Scorpion (1968).

Despite his many years in submarines, Austin's principal achievements came during his command of destroyers. His submarine experience proved useful in his first destroyer command, the Woolsey, in 1942 when he participated in the sinking of a German U-boat off Casablanca during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. In 1943, Austin commissioned the destroyer Foote and sailed it to the South Pacific, where he assumed the command of Destroyer Division Forty-Six, which with Destroyer Division Forty-Five comprised Destroyer Squadron Twenty-Three, Arleigh Burke's famed "Little Beavers", the only World War II destroyer squadron to be awarded a presidential citation.

In November 1943, Austin participated in two battles off the coast of Bougainville, British Solomon Islands, which resulted in the sinking of at least nine Japanese warships. He was awarded the Navy Cross and promoted to commodore, making him the youngest flag officer in the Navy at that time. His postwar commands included the supply ships of Service Squadron Three in Korean waters during 1950 and Cruiser Division Two (1954-1955) and the Second Fleet (1958-1959) in the Atlantic. Most of Austin's sea duty is well documented in the correspondence series. Included in the Subject File is a substantial amount of material on his World War II destroyer commands, "R" class submarines, submarine warfare in the early part of World War II, and the Thresher and Scorpion inquiries.

During 1944-1945, Austin served as assistant chief of staff for administration to Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of Allied naval forces in the Pacific (CINCPAC). Other administrative postings included stints on the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (1945-1946) and the staff of the National Security Council (1947-1948). During 1956-1958 he was director of the joint staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and during 1959-1960 he served as deputy chief of naval operations for plans and policy. All of these administrative and policy billets are well represented in the correspondence, and there are subject files on the National Security Council, State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, and the reorganization of the armed services after World War II.

From 1960 to his retirement as vice admiral in 1964, Austin served as president of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., where he emphasized the coordination of curricula among armed forces graduate institutions. Approximately one-fourth of the correspondence results from Austin's years as president of the Naval War College, and several folders on the college, such as minutes of the academic board, are included in the Subject File.

Austin's first foray into military diplomacy was as a member of the Ghormley mission to Great Britain 1940-1941. The task of Admiral Robert Lee Ghormley, "special naval observer," was to negotiate the policy and technical details of naval cooperation between the United States and Great Britain in the event of United States entry into World War II. Austin, as Ghormley's deputy, was the only mission member other than the admiral to participate in all of the meetings with the British political and naval leadership, which included Winston Churchill and Admiral Sidney Bailey. Other postings involving foreign relations were as assistant director and eventually director of the Navy's International Affairs Division (1951-1954) and as chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board (1964-1967). Correspondence from the 1940-1941 period includes letters from Robert Ghormley. Austin corresponded with many South American naval officers during his service on the Inter-American Defense Board and maintained substantial contact through the 1970s with the Brazilian admiral Levy A. Reis. Subject files also includes material on the Ghormley mission and United States-British naval relations during the World War II period.

Austin felt that his role as Navy Department press relations officer during the period 1937-1940 was a major factor in his achieving flag rank. As a press officer, he developed his interest in oral communication into a professional skill. Some of the speeches in the Speeches and Writings File were ghostwritten by him for key naval civilian officials and admirals, such as secretary of the navy Charles Edison and chief of naval operations Harold R. Stark. Austin's correspondents during the period 1937-1940 included Hanson Baldwin, military correspondent of the .

The Subject File contains detailed material on Austin, including biographical sketches, orders, and personnel records.

Prominent correspondents not previously cited include George Whelan Anderson, Richard W. Bates, Wallace M. Beakley, Arleigh A. Burke, Richard G. Colbert, Richard L. Conolly, Robert L. Dennison, Neil K. Dietrich, Henry Effingham Eccles, Ernest McNeill Eller, Philip D. Gallery, Anthony Harrigan, John Tucker Hayward, Edwin Palmer Hoyt, Dennys W. Knoll, Leland Pearson Lovette, K. M. McManes, Charles L. Melson, Thomas H. Moorer, Chester W. Nimitz, Howard E. Orem, Robert C. Peniston, Paul H. Ramsey, W. R. Smedburg III, A. B. Vosseller, and Frank T. Watson.