The papers are a mix of business and personal items. The papers inform the ways in which Rochford's early contacts impacted his subsequent career as a publicist. Individual letters from the likes of pollster Elmo Roper (1900-1971), scientist Edwin Land (1909-1991), magazine magnate Henry Luce (1898-1967), publisher Robert McCormick (1880-1955), boxer Gene Tunney (1897-1978), politician Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), writer Lowell Thomas (1892-1981), and ace pilot Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), show the range of Rochford's connections. The letters from Yale classmate William Benton (1900-1973) of the advertising agency Benton & Bowles, who aided Rochford in his switch to publicity, are of particular note.

There are a number of pieces on early aviation and Rochford's contacts with aviators who later became airline executives, as well as brochures for Northwest Airlines, Pan American, and Pan American-Grace Airways. There is also material on the America First movement and Frank Gannett's (1876-1957) presidential bid, a speech by Abe Fortas (1910-1982) on the Public Utilities Act, a proposal for publicizing the centennial of the Cunard Line (1939), tourist brochures produced for the New England Council and for southwestern dude ranches, notes from a 1938 ad campaign by Fred Hamlin (1905-1959) to increase the consumption of bread, preliminary ideas for the "Four Freedoms" concept from H. D. Lasswell (1902-1978), and publicity for a 1943 tour of the Sperry Gyroscope factory by Soong Mei-ling, or Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1898-2003).

Among the materials from Rochford's time with Standard Oil years are samples of newspapers and newsletters published for the employees of the Abadan, Iran, refinery, including one in Persian, which depict expatriate life under the Shah. There are also samples of union newspapers and George Seldes' (1890-1995) IN FACT. Also of note is a file on Will Anthony Madden (1883–1973), an African-American monologist and former ESSO employee who operated a small theater in Greenwich Village and whom Rochford aided. The file contains a modernist ode to Standard Oil that Madden apparently wrote and recited. Items on Russia from the 1950s include an Intourist brochure, a copy of the Declaration of Independence in Russian, and a fact book on American life and government in English and Russian.