Networks of Empire: The Us State Department's Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France, and Britain 1950-70 9052012563, 9789052012568

Table of contents :
Networks of Empire
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction: Networks of Empire. The Foreign Leader Program in Global Perspective
Defining Public Diplomacy
Informal Empire
The Alms of the Program
The Challenge of Soviet Public Diplomacy
The Foreign Leader Program’s Global Scale
Organisation of the Book
Part I. History and Apparatus
1 The History of US Government Exchanges
Laying the Foundations
Strategy: Psychological Warfare and the Focus on Elites
Smith-Mundt and the Campaign of Truth
64 Ibid., p. 11.
2 Implementing the Leader Program
The Administrative Apparatus
Public-Private Cooperation
Programming the Grantees
Part II. The Netherlands in the 1950s
3 The PvdA and the Transatlantic Anti-Communist Alliance
The Netherlands after WWII
The Partij van de Arbeid and the Atlanticist Turn
Mobilising Domestic Anti-Communism: Evert Vermeer
A Rising Star: J.M. den Uyl
Organising Government Propaganda: Joop Landré
The Threat of Bevanism: Hein Vos
A Dutch Cold Warrior: Frans Goedhart
4 The Trade Unions, Socio-Economic Policy and the American Model
The Trade Unions and the Marshall Plan
The Worldview of the Dutch Trade Unions
Searching for ‘Spiritual Factors9: Frans Fuykschot
Useful Allies: Reint Laan and Pieter Bogaers
Building Transatlantic Linkages with Dutch Technocrats
The Transfer of Industrial Skills and Methods
Engaging the Catholic Minority
The 1960s and the Shift to Managing Elites
5 Spreading the Word: Culture and the Media
Targeting the Dutch Media
The NATO Leader Program: Cheap but Effective
Jointly Sponsored Journalists: Teaching the Method
Journalists as Foreign Leaders
Securing the Realm of High Culture: Hendrik Reinink
Libraries: The Push to Mechanise and Standardise
Literary Transmitters: The FLP and Dutch Writers
Part III. The Netherlands in the 1960s
6 Coping with Irritations: The Early 1960s
Negative Effects: KLM Landing Rights and New Guinea
Pushing Educational Exchange
Swaying the Dutch Media
Going for the Impossible: The Dutch and the MLF
Free Trade: The Netherlands, the EEC, and Rotterdam
7 Steering Bilateral Relations in the Vietnam Era
The US Embassy under Ambassador Tyler 1965-69
Commanding the ‘Listening Post9: William Tyler
A Good Team: The US Embassy in The Hague 1965-69
Connecting the New Generation: The Emphasis on Youth
The Issues: NATO and Vietnam
The Issues: Economics and the EEC
Backing a Political Ally: The WD
The Arts: Putting the Dutch in the Picture
The New Politics: D 66
Part IV. France and Britain
8 The Foreign Leader Program in France 1950-70
Finding an Entrance into French Politics
A Big Impact: Higher Education and American Studies
Seducing the Media
Reaching the Third World through Paris
The 1960s and Gaullism
Conclusion
9 The Foreign Leader Program in Britain 1950-70
The Labour Party and Its Allies in the Early 1950s
Coping with Anti-Americanism
‘Suez Must Not Repeat Itself: Maximising Exchanges
The 1960s: Modernisation, Youth, and Culture
Conclusion
Conclusion: The Problems of Evaluation
The Application of Social Science
Evaluating the Exchange Apparatus
A Question of Quality
The Leader Program in Western Europe
Appendix I. FLP Grantees from Britain 1950-701
1950-51
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
Appendix II. FLP Grantees from France 1950-701
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1968
1969
1970
Appendix III. FLP Grantees from the Netherlands 1950-70'
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
Appendix IV. List of Interviews
Dutch FLP Grantees
US Embassy Personnel
G AI Personnel
Appendix V. Archives
The Netherlands
Belgium
France
Select Bibliography
Books
Articles & Book Chapters
Government Publications
Unpublished Papers
Index

Citation preview

Networks of Empire The US State Department’s Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France, and Britain 1950-70

P.I.E. Peter Lang Bruxelles* Bem*Berlin*Frankfurt am Main*New York «Oxford «Wien

Giles Scott-S mith

Networks of Empire The US State Department’s Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France, and Britain 1950-70

European Policy1 No.33

N o part o f this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photocopy, microfilm or any other means, w ithout prior written perm ission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

© P.I.E. PETER LANG s.a . Éditions scientifiques internationales

Brussels, 2008 1 avenue Maurice, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium [email protected]; www.peterlang.com ISSN 1376-0890 ISBN 978-90-5201-256-8 D/2008/5678/3 Printed in Germany

Bibliographic information published by wDie Deutsche Bibliothek” “Die Deutsche Bibliothek” lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at . CIP available from the British Library, GB and the Library o f Congress, USA.

Contents P reface........................................................................................................11 A bbreviations............................................................................................ 15 I ntroduction . Networks o f Empire. The Foreign Leader Program in Global Perspective....................... 21 Defining Public Diplomacy................................................................... 25 Informal Empire...................................................................................... 28 The Aims o f the Program........................................................................33 The Challenge o f Soviet Public Diplomacy.......................................... 37 The Foreign Leader Program’s Global Scale........................................ 39 Organisation o f the Book........................................................................45 P art L H istory and A pparatus C ha pter 1. The History o f US G overnment E x c h a n g e s.................49 Laying the Foundations...........................................................................49 Strategy: Psychological Warfare and the Focus on Elites.................... 57 Smith-Mundt and the Campaign o f Truth............................................. 65 C hapter 2. Implementing the L eader P ro g ra m ................................75 The Administrative Apparatus............................................................... 75 Public-Private Cooperation.....................................................................88 Programming the G rantees.................................................................... 94 P art H. t h e N etherlands in th e 1950s C hapter 3. The PvdA and the T ransatlantic Anti-Communist A lliance..................................... 103 The Netherlands after W W II................................................................103 The Partij van de Arbeid and the Atlanticist Turn..............................106 Mobilising Domestic Anti-Communism: Evert Vermeer.................. 110

A Rising Star: J.M. den Uyl.................................................................114 Organising Government Propaganda: Joop Landré...........................119 The Threat o f Bevanism: Hein V os.................................................... 129 A Dutch Cold Warrior: Frans Goedhart..............................................133 C ha pter 4. The T rade Unions, Socio-Economic Policy and the American M odel............................145 The Trade Unions and the Marshall Plan............................................145 The Worldview o f the Dutch Trade Unions........................................148 Searching for 'Spiritual Factors’: Frans Fuykschot...........................153 Useful Allies: Reint Laan and Pieter Bogaers.................................... 157 Building Transatlantic Linkages with Dutch Technocrats................ 163 The Transfer o f Industrial Skills and Methods..................................169 Engaging the Catholic Minority............................................................177 The 1960s and the Shift to Managing Elites...................................... 181 C ha pter 5. Spreading the W ord: C ulture and the M edia.......................................................................... 189 Targeting the Dutch Media................................................................... 190 The NATO Leader Program: Cheap but Effective............................193 Jointly Sponsored Journalists: Teaching the Method........................ 199 Journalists as Foreign Leaders............................................................. 200 Securing the Realm o f High Culture: Hendrik Reinink.................... 207 Libraries: The Push to Mechanise and Standardise...........................218 Literary Transmitters: The FLP and Dutch Writers........................... 222 P art 1IL T he N etherlands in th e 1960s C ha pter 6. Coping with Irritations: The E arly 1960s.................. 235 Negative Effects: KLM Landing Rights and New G uinea............... 236 Pushing Educational Exchange............................................................ 241 Swaying the Dutch Media.....................................................................244 Going for the Impossible: The Dutch and the MLF...........................253 Free Trade: The Netherlands, the EEC, and Rotterdam.................... 269

CHAPTER 7. Steering Bilateral Relations in the Vietnam E r a .......279

The US Embassy under Ambassador Tyler 1965-69........................ 279 Commanding the liste n in g Post*: William Tyler.............................280 A Good Team: The US Embassy in The Hague 1965-69.................285 Connecting the New Generation: The Emphasis on Y outh............. 287 The Issues: NATO and Vietnam......................................................... 290 The Issues: Economics and the EEC...................................................299 Backing a Political Ally: The VVD....................................................305 The Arts: Putting the Dutch in the Picture......................................... 308 The New Politics: D 66........................................................................ 314 P art IV. F rance and Britain C hapter 8. The Foreign Leader Program in France 1950-70..... 327 Finding an Entrance into French Politics........................................... 332 A Big Impact: Higher Education and American Studies................... 336 Seducing the M edia.............................................................................. 345 Reaching the Third World through Paris............................................ 349 The 1960s and Gaullism.......................................................................353 Conclusion.............................................................................................361 CHAPTER 9. The Foreign L eader Program in Britain 1950-70..... 365

The Labour Party and Its Allies in the Early 1950s.......................... 367 Coping with Anti-Americanism........................................................... 376 ‘Suez Must Not Repeat Itself: Maximising Exchanges.................... 382 The 1960s: Modernisation, Youth, and Culture..................................393 Conclusion.............................................................................................401 C onclusion . The Problems o f E valuation.......................................403 The Application o f Social Science.......................................................404 Evaluating the Exchange Apparatus....................................................410 A Question o f Quality...........................................................................412 The Leader Program in Western Europe............................................. 414

APPENDIX L FL P Grantees from Britain 1950-70............................ 425 APPENDIX IL FL P G rantees from France 1950-70.......................... 445 APPENDIX I1L FL P G rantees from the N etherlands 1950-70......... 473 A p p e n d ix IV. List of Interviews..........................................................483

A ppendix V. A rchives...........................................................................485 Select Bibliography................................................................................487 In d ex ........................................................................................................ 505

Preface In early 2004 the Dutch television programme KRO Reporter ran a three-part series on the Netherlands, pail two o f which covered contem­ porary relations between the United States and the Netherlands.1 Special reference was made to the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) and its use by the US Embassy in The Hague to gain influence among Dutch politicians by inviting them on trips to the United States. Several interviewees attested to the Program’s success in this regard, some voicing critical remarks concerning the dubious ethics behind public servants travelling abroad at the cost o f another government. Since then others have pointed out the relevance o f these activities, but up until now the Program in the Netherlands has remained predomi­ nantly the terrain o f journalist conjecture.2 Within the broader scholarly literature on the Program there exist a handful of quality monographs and Ph.D. theses, but beyond them the subject has rarely been treated with any more than a passing reference. Traditional diplomatic history, with its focus on policy direction and top-level decision-making, cannot easily absorb the significance of the personal interactions and informal networks which this Program has sought to build worldwide over the previous six decades. For this reason it has remained a topic largely either of disdain, amusement, or conspiracy, judgements which exem­ plify nothing more than a weak understanding o f how power, or for some ‘soft power’, works in the international system. This book looks to fill in that gap by examining in detail the historical and political back­ ground to the IVLP’s original incarnation, the Foreign Leader Program, and its application in three key allies o f the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. In doing so it intends to bring the Program out into the open so that judgements such as those o f KRO Reporter can be made with the benefit o f greater insight. It was not an easy decision to cut off this book at 1970. However, it became clear that to do this subject justice required limiting this study to an in-depth analysis o f the FLP’s impact in its first two decades. It also lays the basis for further research 1

2

‘Het Nederlandgevoel’, Part Two: The 51* State o f America, 24 March 2004, (5 July 2007). An appendix to the online version o f Ko Colijn, ‘De Holland-Amerika Lijn*, Vrij N ederland (13 May 2006), pp. 12-20, makes special reference to the 1VP as a means to ‘cultivate’ Dutch politicians.

Networks o f Empire

into the political significance o f these exchanges in subsequent decades, and in other countries.3 This project originated from one o f those moments o f serendipity which can play such a major role in influencing the direction o f one’s research. During 2001 1 was co-organiser o f the conference 4Boundaries to Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe’, and one day I received an email from someone interested in attending that event. The sender was Dean Mahin, a former director o f the Governmental Affairs Institute in Washington DC, and it was he, through many subsequent emails and personal conversations, who introduced me to the histoiy and practice of the Foreign Leader Program. This book would not have come about if Dean hadn’t sent that email back in 2001, and I am for­ ever grateful for his input and interest in this project since then. Dean opened my eyes not only to the political relevance o f the Pro­ gram, but also to the intricate nature o f how it worked. While the US embassies around the world may be responsible for the selection o f candidates, and the State Department remains responsible for the overall conduct o f the Program, it is the private agencies within the United States itself, responsible for arranging the itineraries and meetings o f all IVP grantees, which effectively lay the ground for the Program’s suc­ cess. Over the past five years I have benefited greatly from the expertise, interest, and generosity of Sherry Mueller, director o f the National Council o f International Visitors, Susan Cabiati, vice-president o f Meridian International, and their many colleagues who maintain the Program as a quality addition to the US public diplomacy arsenal. A big thanks to all those in the private sector who have shared with me their time and thoughts on exchanges over the past six years - 1 have learned a great deal. Back in late 2001 the US Embassy in The Hague provided me with the original list o f Dutch participants on the Leader Program from 195069, and it was this document that set me off on the long trail o f investi­ gation to locate and interview those still alive. 1 would like to thank in particular Ellen Dankelman and Tilly de Groot at the Embassy for their assistance in this research and for offering a current-day perspective on the practice o f exchanges. I have also benefitted greatly from the input o f Mickey Warners, who effectively ran the Visitor Program as a local employee at the US Embassy from the early 1970s to the early 1990s.

3

See for instance Scott-Smith, G. ‘Searching for the Successor Generation: Public Diplomacy, the US Embassy’s International Visitor Program and the Labour Party in the 1980s*, British Journal o f Politics and International Relations, 8 (2006), pp. 214237.

Preface

Finding a path through archives is a vital aspect to any historical re­ search project, and I have been grateful for the assistance o f many archivists who have offered their views and pointed the way. Special mention must go to Wim den Hollander at the Ministry o f Foreign Affairs in The Hague, Mieke Ijzemans at the International Institute for Social Histoiy and Marcel Oomen at the Fulbright Commission in Amsterdam, Paul Marsden at the NATO archive in Brussels, Betty Austin at the Special Collections library o f the University o f Arkansas, and Sally Kuisel at the National Archives in College Parie. Others who provided help along the way were Marian Schilder at the Universiteitsmuseum Amsterdam, Joop van den Brink at the Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht, Gijs Sevenhuijsen at the University o f Amsterdam, Idelle Nissila-Stone at the Ford Foundation archive in New York, Margreet Slinkert at the library o f the Ministry o f Education, Culture, and Re­ search, and Floris de Gou and Caroline Barbe at the West European Union in Paris and Tonny Schiettekatte at Provincie Zeeland for work­ ing on the photos. Thanks to all those in New Orleans who shared their files and their memories o f the Visitors Program in their city, particu­ larly Mary Dennis and Julia Lacey who ran the Visitors Center there. Sometimes public archives are not enough to tell the whole story, and this was especially the case with this project. Once again, I owe Susan Cabiati a lot for making the GA1 archive accessible for me. I am also very grateful to the following for sharing their private archives, personal papers, and photographs with me for this project: Kenneth and Eve Thompson, Gwenyth Todd, Bill Maxwell, Sherry Mueller, Dean Mahin, Juri Slavik, Lou Landré (also to Maijon Landré-Boekschoten for con­ necting me with Lou Landré), Mrs. Italianes-de Josselin de Jong, Jan Vis, Corstiaan Bos, Baroness Scholten-van Asbeck, Ed van Thijn, Willem Dam, Pieter Bogaers, Andries Hoogerwerf, Hans van Mierlo, and Mrs Hendrik Reinink. I am also grateful to all those who granted me an interview either to talk about their Leader trip or, in the case o f former FSOs, to discuss how the Leader Program' was run. Ward Thompson, the former retirees officer with the Association for Diplo­ matic Studies and Training in Washington DC, was a fantastic help for locating retired FSOs. My colleagues at the Roosevelt Study Center have been a major sup­ port throughout this project. Special mention must go to Hans Krabbendam for his insightful criticism and irrepressible optimism, Leontien Joosse for her willing assistance, and my director Kees van Minnen who backed it all from the start and who conjured a permanent position for me to join the Center as a full-time member o f staff. I have also enjoyed and benefited from time spent with the Ph.D. students who have been at the RSC over the past few years. A big thanks also to my editor, Pas-

Networks o f Empire

câline Winand, who commissioned the book and who has remained enthusiastic and supportive throughout the whole process, and everyone at Peter Lang for their patience in bringing this project to completion. In the wider community, both academic and non-academic, many other people have also provided much valuable encouragement, comment, and assistance over the past six years: Valentijn Bijvanck, Jan Rupp, Diederik Oostdijk, Tity de Vries, Bob Reinalda, Cees Wiebes, Annick Cizel, J. L. Heldring, Ine Megens, Marja Roholl, Robert Simon, Rimco van der Maar, Jan Melissen, Peter Kraemer, Marianne Franklin, Scott Lucas, Nick Cull, Indeijeet Parmar, Eytan Gilboa, Kenton Keith, Valerie Aubourg, John Krige, Ali Fisher, David Ellwood, David Snyder, Karen Paget, Ken Osgood, Yale Richmond, Brian Etheridge, Jessica GienowHecht, Stanislav Saling, Paul Koedijk. Last but by no means least, a big thanks, lots o f love (and a huge hug) to my family, Christine, Joanne, and 'Noodle9.

Abbreviations AAUFA ACYPL ADA AAI ACE ACEN ACLS AEU AFCENT AFL AFME APSA ARP AVRO

BVC BVD CAO CAP CCF CFTC CGT CHU CIA CIAA CIO CLS CNRN

Association Amicale Universitaire France-Amérique American Council o f Young Political Leaders Americans for Democratic Action African American Institute American Council on Education Assembly for Captive European Nations American Council o f Learned Societies Amalgamated Engineering Union (UK) Allied Forces Central Command American Federation o f Labor American Friends of the Middle East American Political Science Association Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (Dutch protestant party) Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep (Dutch broadcaster) The Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department o f State Bijzondere Voorlichtings Commissie (Special Information Committee) Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst (Dutch domestic security service) Cultural Affairs Officer Common Agricultural Policy Congress for Cultural Freedom Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens Confédération Générale du Travail Christelijk-Historische Unie (Dutch protestant party) Centra] Intelligence Agency Office o f the Coordinator o f Inter-American Affairs Congress o f Industrial Organizations Council on Leaders and Specialists Committee on Non-Represented Nations (Council o f Europe)

Networks o f Empire

Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond (Dutch protestant trade union) Committee on Occupied Areas COA COSERV National Council for Community Services to International Visitors CPB Centraal Plan Bureau Committee for Public Information CPI CPN Communistische Partij van Nederland (Dutch Communist party) DCM Deputy Chief o f Mission Division of Cultural Relations DCR Directie Integrate Europa, Dutch Ministry o f Foreign Affairs DIE D 66 Democrats 66 (Dutch reformist party) European Association o f American Studies EAAS European Cooperation Administration ECA European Coal and Steel Community ECSC European Economic Community EEC EFTA European Free Trade Association École Nationale d’Administration ENA European Recovery Program ERP English Speaking Union ESU Bureau of European Affairs, Department o f State EUR Eenheids Vak Centrale (Dutch communist trade union) EVC Franco-American Commission for Educational Exchange FACEE Free Europe Committee FEC National Liberation Front (Algeria) FLN Foreign Leader Program FLP Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques FNSP Force Ouvrière FO Foreign Student Leadership Program FSLP Foreign Service Officer FSO Governmental Affairs Institute GAI General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade GATT International Cooperation Administration ICA International Confederation o f Free Trade Unions ICFTU

CNV

Abbreviations

1EP

Division o f International Exchange o f Persons, US Department o f State IES International Educational Exchange Service, US Department o f State IFCTU International Federation o f Christian Trade Unions IFTU International Federation o f Trade Unions IFWEA International Federation o f Workmen’s Evangelical Associations IIA International Information Administration HE Institute o f International Education ILGWU International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union ILO International Labour Organisation IMF International Monetary Fund INRA International Research Associates Inc. ISAC International Security Affairs Commission ITV Independent Television (UK) IVP International Visitor Program KAB Katholieke Arbeiders Beweging (Dutch catholic trade union) KLM Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Dutch National Airline) KNJ Koninklijke Nederlandse Jaarbeurs (Royal Dutch Trade Fair) KVP Katholieke Volkspartij (Dutch catholic party) LIO Labor Information Officer MDAP Mutual Defense Assistance Program MIT Massachusetts Institute o f Technology MLF Multilateral Force MoMA Museum of Modem Art, New York MP Member of Parliament MRP Mouvement Républicain Populaire MSA Mutual Security Agency NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NGIZ Nederlandsch Genootschap voor Internationale Zaken (Netherlands Society for International Affairs) NIICB Netherlands Institute for International Cultural Relations NISWG Nationaal Instituut Steun Wettig Gezag (National Institute for the Support o f Legitimate Order) NRC Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant

Networks o f Empire

NSC NW

National Security Council Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (Dutch social democratic trade union) OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OEEC Organisation for European Economic Cooperation OEX Office o f Educational Exchange, Department o f State OCB Operations Coordinating Board OIC Office o f International Information and Cultural Affairs, Department o f State OII Office o f International Information, Department o f State OMGUS Office o f the Military Government in Germany OPC Office o f Policy Coordination OWI Office o f War Information PAO Public Affairs Officer PPR Partij Politieke Radicalen (Dutch leftist party) PSB Psychological Strategy Board Pacifistische-Socialistische Partij PSP (Dutch pacifist-socialist party) PvdA Partij van de Arbeid (Dutch social democratic party) PWD Psychological Warfare Division RFCP Resident Foreign Correspondents Project RFE Radio Free Europe RPF Rassemblement du Peuple Français RTF Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française RVD Rijks Voorlichtings Dienst (Government Information Service) SACLANT Supreme Allied Command Atlantic (Norfolk, Virginia) SFIO Section Française de T Internationale Ouvrière SDAP Sociaal Democratische Abeiders Partij (forerunner to PvdA) SDP Social Democratic Party (UK) SEC Social Economie Council (Netherlands) TCA Technical Cooperation Administration TGWU Transport and General Workers Union (UK) TUAC Trades Union Advisoiy Committee TUC Trades Union Congress (UK)

Abbreviations

TVA UAW UCLA UN UNESCO UNR USEC USEC/F USEF USIA USIE USIS VARA VOA VPRO WD WBS WCD WEAC WEU WFTU

Tennessee Valley Authority United Auto Workers University o f California at Los Angeles United Nations United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization Union pour la Nouvelle République United States Mission to the European Communities United States Educational Commission (France) United States Educational Foundation (Netherlands) United States Information Agency US International Information and Educational Exchange Program United States Information Service (USLA outposts outside USA) Vereniging Arbeiders Radio Amateurs (Dutch social democratic radio station) Voice of America Vrijzinnig Protestantse Radio Omroep (Dutch broadcaster) Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Démocratie (Dutch Liberal Party) Wiardi Beckman Stichting (PvdA think-tank) War Communication Division West European Advisory Committee West European Union World Federation o f Trade Unions

Introduction

Networks of Empire The Foreign Leader Program in Global Perspective The United States has a unique ability to project and manage empire. Above all other nations it possesses an ‘enormous repertoire o f instru­ ments by which to implement its power* abroad.1 Alongside its unques­ tioned political, military, and economic strength, the cultural capital and ‘drawing power* o f the United States for other nations and individuals as a source o f inspiration, modernisation, hope, fascination, knowledge, and opportunity was immense during the second half o f the twentieth century. This book examines in detail the Foreign Leader Program, one o f the principal means the USA, as a ‘soft power superpower’, has used to project and manage its global ambitions since WWII. The Foreign Leader Program (FLP) occupies a special place within this imperial endeavour. Inaugurated in 1949-50, it continues to operate today (it was renamed the International Visitor Program in 1965, then the International Visitor Leadership Program in 2004) and its operating principles have largely remained the same.2 It has always involved inviting and bringing individuals and groups from abroad to the United States, with a personal tour arranged around particular interests sug­ gested by the participant. Itineraries were flexible and varied, with meetings with professional counterparts interspersed with tourist visits and small-town hospitality. Since the aim was to spread improved knowledge and understanding o f the United States abroad, for most participants this would be their first visit to that country. Since 9/11, public diplomacy - the attempt to influence foreign pub­ lics in order to ensure a favourable audience for one’s own policies, culture, and interests - has taken on a new significance for the United States.3 Exchange programmes have been recognised as a vital element

2

3

Nye, J. ‘Soft Power*, Foreign Policy, 80 (1990), p. 167. For the sake o f consistency, and to fit with the terminology used at the time, ‘Leader Program* and ‘FLP* will be used throughout this book to designate the activities in question. See for instance Appendix A o f Public Diplomacy: A Review o f Past Recommenda­ tions, Congressional Research Service, 2 September 2005, which lists 18 separate

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to achieve these goals, allowing individuals the freedom to see the United States for themselves, ‘up close and personal’.4 The renewed application of tried and tested standards is clear to see. In December 2005 Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced the inauguration o f the Edward R. Murrow Journalist Program, which provides annual fellowships for 100 media professionals from around the world to attend leading US journalism schools.5 The Murrow Program is a continuation o f similar journalist exchange projects that were first run by the Com­ mittee o f Public Information during WWI, and later expanded by the State Department and other government agencies during WWI I and the Cold War. The international context may be different but the principles and the goals that motivate this kind o f public diplomacy are very much the same.6 From early on State Department officials considered the Leader Pro­ gram to be “the most effective cultural and educational activity in support o f American foreign policy objectives”.7 Practitioners-tumedhistorians have pointed it out to be “the most prestigious US1A ex­ change operation” and “a key American weapon in the Cold War with communism”.8 Foreign Service Officers (FSOs), familiar with its uses, have regularly referred to it in their oral histories as one o f the most useful methods an embassy had to establish constructive relations and gain influence in its local environment.9 On a tour o f US embassies in Europe in 1950, the first year of the FLP’s operation, State Department official William Johnstone Jr. found that “every post [...] urged consid-

4

5 6

7

8

9

studies on US public diplomacy by government and private agencies that were re­ leased between January 2002 and September 2005. Available at (8 May 2007). See for instance Hughes, J. ‘Winning the War o f Words in the Campaign against Terrorism: Exchange Programs help us win Hearts and Minds in the War on Terror', C hristian Science M onitor, 17 May 2006. See (19 May 2006). On the applicability o f Cold War models to a post-9/11 context see Kelley, J. ‘US Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Success Story?', The Hague Journal o f Diplomacy, 2 (2007). Ketzel, C. ‘Exchange o f Persons and American Foreign Policy: The Foreign Leader Program o f the Department o f State', Ph.D. dissertation, University o f California, 1955. Dizard, W. Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story o f the US Inform ation Agency, Boulder, Lynne Riener, 2004, p. 189; Mahin, D. History o f the US Department of State's International Visitor Program, draft manuscript for the History Project, Bu­ reau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department o f State, 1973, p. 2. See for instance the oral histories collected by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Washington DC, available online via the Library o f Congress at (8 May 2007).

Introduction

eration o f an expanded leaders and specialists program”.10 US Ambassa­ dors continue to rank this exchange programme as the most useful among the range o f public diplomacy tools available to them.11 By the end o f 1997 it was calculated that 100,000 people had participated in the programme since 1950, 177 o f whom thereafter became head o f state or government.12 Between October 2003 and September 2004 4,500 peo­ ple, either as individuals, members o f groups, or as voluntary visitors, went to the United States on this programme alone.13 All those who participated in or received assistance via this programme were in some way or another sanctioned and selected by US embassies on the basis o f their local influence and leadership qualities. Commenting on the num­ bers o f former grantees who subsequently became heads o f state in their home countries, Secretary o f State Colin Powell stated in November 2004 that “I know tomorrow’s leaders are among the thousands o f men and women who will participate this year in US government and pri­ vately sponsored educational exchange programs”.14 To manage empire, particularly the American version o f informal empire, it is crucial to maintain alliances and nurture friends. The focus o f this book is an examination o f the ways in which the Leader Program, often in combination with other tools o f public diplomacy, was used to cultivate and facilitate relations with three key US allies within the Atlantic alliance: The Netherlands, Britain, and France. Each o f these three nations played a special role in US foreign relations during the 1950s and 1960s. Britain was the closest ally, its global reach making it a vital partner, while France, swaying between ambivalence and hostil­ ity, was a crucial player in US transatlantic strategy. While much has been written on relations between the United States and these two nations, the Netherlands deserves more attention in Cold War historiog­ raphy for its role as a transatlantic bridge-builder and contributor to the

10 ‘Report on European Survey Trip*, William C. Johnstone Jr., 1950, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs Historical Collection, MC 468, Group XVII Box 337 Folder 9, Special Collections, University o f Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville (hereafter ‘CU’). 11 F ield Survey o f Public Diplomacy Programs, Office o f the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, US Department o f State, Washington DC,

2000. 12 See the USIA website from 1999 at (12 March 2007). 13 See the Department o f State information page at ( 12 March 2007). 14 Commenting on International Education Week, 15 October 2004, available at (13 April 2006).

Networks o f Empire

alliance.13After WW1I the Dutch abandoned their long-standing neutral­ ity in foreign affairs to join the Western alliance. Despite some misgiv­ ings among the political elite, there was a broad understanding that the enforced decolonisation o f the East Indies (in which the United States played a crucial role) pointed to a re-anchoring o f Dutch foreign rela­ tions around a transatlantic axis. From the perspective o f the United States, the Netherlands was an ideal ally. The Dutch were close politi­ cally to the UK and were opposed to European affairs being dominated by either a renewed France or a resurgent Germany. Despite a brief wave o f support for the Communist party in the immediate post-war years, the Dutch body politic, dominated as it was by the democratic socialists and Christian parties, was resoundingly anti-communist in outlook. The Netherlands was also positive towards a US-led free trade regime, and was wholly committed to building a managed post-war economic and political order based around international organisations such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the OECD. Used to negotiating among larger powers, the Dutch were skilled arbitrators who were active in smoothing the paths o f diplomacy through both governmental and non-governmental contacts (such as the Bilderberg conferences). The Netherlands’ contribution to regional and global order, underrated in much historiography, was always acknowledged by the US embassy in The Hague, if not always by Washington. As a 1953 embassy report remarked, the Dutch were “perhaps closer ideologically to the United States than any people in Europe”. Psychological warfare operations during WWII and the early Cold War placed great hopes in the ability to change the attitude and political opinion o f individuals, and this way o f thinking inevitably fed into exchange programme operations. However, it became clear that these programmes instead worked best by strengthening and magnifying already-existing favourable opinions.'7 Exchange programmes, in con-*167 Good studies o f the American impact on post-WWII Netherlands are scarce. A fine recent exception is Snyder, D. ‘US Public Diplomacy in the New Netherlands, 194558: Policy, Ideology, and the Instrumentality o f American Power*, Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Illinois University, 2006. 16 Country Plan for US1S The Hague, 30 January 1953, 511.56/1-3053, RG 59, Na­ tional Archives, College Parie (hereafter ‘NA*). 17 The unique case in that period, where the optimum conditions existed for using exchange programmes to facilitate societal change, was in occupied Germany. The scale and the depth o f the German programmes, run first by the military authorities and then from 1950 by the State Department, place them in a special category and several large-scale studies on them already exist. The aim here is instead to track how the lessons learned in Germany were applied elsewhere. See Johnston, H.W. ‘United States Public Affairs Activities in Germany, 1945-1955*, Ph.D. dissertation, Colum­ bia University, 1956; Kellermann, H. C ultural Relations as an Instrum ent o f US For-

Introduction

tributing to the constant transatlantic traffic in people and ideas, were thus a prime tool for facilitating alliance management during the Cold War. During 1950-70 there were 167 grantees from the Netherlands (including one future Minister President), 512 from the UK (including two subsequent Prime Ministers), and 648 from France (including one subsequent President).11 What follows looks at who these participants were and how their invitations to participate interacted with particular US foreign policy interests in these countries over time.

Defining Public Diplomacy Public diplomacy covers many layers o f activity. While cultural rela­ tions refers solely to the unregulated transnational activities o f the private sector and society at large, public diplomacy concerns crossborder govemment-to-people transactions for particular purposes and interests. In short, it is a set o f tools for making ideas travel. Public diplomacy can then be divided up into four main categories o f activity: International advocacy and public affairs; government administered exchanges; cultural diplomacy; and state-sponsored international news.**18920 Within this field a basic differentiation can be made between “political advocacy” programmes directly related to immediate policy interests, and “cultural communication [...] to help foreign citizens gain a better understanding of [...] culture and institutions”. Hence, “if culture is a set o f control mechanisms and instructions governing human behavior,

eign Policy: The Educational Exchange Program between the United States and Germany 1945-1954, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1978; Duggan, S. 'The Politics o f US-German Educational Exchange: Perspectives o f German DecisionMakers', Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1988; Schmidt, O. "Civil Empire by Cooptation: German-American Exchange Programs as Cultural Diplomacy, 194561”, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1999. 18 A Statistical Profile o f the US Exchange Program, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, Annual Report, 1971. These figures compare with for instance Germany (5575), Italy (583), Belgium (197), and Denmark (170) during the same period. 19 See Cull, N. American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy 1945-1989: The United States Inform ation Agency and the C old War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008. In general, 'public diplomacy' will be used henceforth to refer to information/culture programmes in toto, while ‘cultural diplomacy* will be used more to refer to deliberate efforts by governments and private actors to direct cultural rela­ tions along certain paths. For the cultural relations / cultural diplomacy distinction see Mitchell, J. International Cultural Relations, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, PP- 2-6. 20 Malone, G. O rganizing the N ation’s Public Diplomacy, Lanham MD, University Press o f America, 1988, pp. 3-4.

Networks o f Empire

we can argue that cultural diplomacy aims to influence ‘that complex whole' abroad along lines dictated by a nation’s foreign policy”.21 In the American case, the level o f cooperation between state and pri­ vate institutions in this endeavour has always been a unique factor. The government may have retained a leading or guiding role but it was totally reliant on the involvement o f the private sector for its pro­ grammes to succeed, in terms of administration, credibility, and effec­ tiveness.2223Hence the following definition o f public diplomacy comes closest to the outlook used in this book: The ways in which both governments and private individuals and groups influence directly or indirectly those public attitudes and opinions which bear directly on other governments* foreign policy decisions.

Exchange programmes, as mentioned above, are a category apart within public diplomacy activities. Not only are they more focused on the individual in contrast to the mass as practiced by most other public diplomacy activities, but by their very nature o f operation they defy attempts at social scientific analysis. That they have an impact on their participants, be it positive or negative, is unquestionable. However, what the impact is in the longer term remains difficult to pin down, since the exchange experience becomes one o f many variables that need to be taken into account when assessing political trends. As exchanges re­ volve around personal experience and insight, and therefore anecdotal and oral history, they tend to fall outside o f orthodox fact-finding analy­ sis and therefore their contribution to the practice o f international affairs has tended to be overlooked. Although interest in its significance is increasing, public diplomacy is often treated in current historiography as a secondary factor of limited value for explaining the passage o f diplo­ matic activity. Yet this equation can be reversed. Diplomatic activity, after all, functions best within a carefully prepared atmosphere o f cul­ tural affinity.24 By focusing on how such cultural affinity can be nur­ tured and maintained, the study o f public diplomacy (and exchanges in 1 Schmidt, ‘Civil Empire by Cooptation*, p. 25. See also Arndt, R. The First Resort o f Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, Washington DC, Potomac Books, 2005. 22 There is an important (and growing) literature on the role o f ‘state-private networks* within US foreign policy. See Laville, H. & Wilford, H. The US Government, Citizen Groups and the C old War: The State-Private Network, London, Routledge, 2006. 23 Delaney, R.F. ‘Introduction*, in Hoffman, A. International Communication and the New Diplomacy, Bloomington IN, Indiana University Press, 1968, p. 3 (emphasis added). 24 See Frank Ninkovich*s seminal study The Diplomacy o f Ideas: US Foreign Policy and C ultural Relations 1938-1950, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1981, pp. 1-4.

Introduction

particular) can offer insights into the background o f US foreign relations and how this connects to (even, in some ways, provides the basis for) the foreground o f traditional diplomatic activity. In short, it provides an opportunity to read diplomatic history from a fresh perspective. In the last decade or so, a number o f worthy studies have been con­ ducted that have emphasised the importance o f developing cultural affinity in the context of international relations. The operation o f the broad range o f US cultural diplomacy programmes in certain target countries has received increasing attention.29 In terms o f US government exchange programmes, accounts exist o f their historical development and institutional apparatus, most significantly via the State Department’s History Project during the 1970s. The Fulbright Program has itself generated several worthwhile studies.*2627 However, in-depth accounts o f the Foreign Leader / International Visitor Program on a country-bycountry basis are few, with the exception o f Germany.2829Recent scholar­ ship has begun to argue forcefully for the role o f ideas in the fall o f the Soviet empire.29 In contrast, this book contributes to the growing litera-

26

27

28

29

See for instance Wagnleitner, R. Coca-Colonisation and the C old War: The Cultural M ission o f the United States in Austria after the Second World War, Chapel Hill NC, University o f North Carolina Press, 1994; Richmond, Y. Cultural Exchange and the C old War: Raising the Iron Curtain University Parte, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003; McKenzie, B. Remaking France: Americanization, Public Diplomacy, and the M arshall Plan, New York, Berghahn Books, 2005. Elder, R. The Foreign Leader Program: Operations in the United States, Washington DC, Brookings Institution, 1961; Fairbank, W. Am erica's C ultural Experiment in China 1942-1949, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1976; Espinosa, J.M., InterAmerican Beginning? o f US C ultural Diplomacy, 1936-1948, Washington DC, De­ partment o f State, 1976; Mueller Norton, S. The United States Department o f State International Visitor Program: A Conceptual Framework for Evaluation, Ph.D. dis­ sertation, Tufts University, 1977; Bu, L. Making The World Like US: Education, Cul­ tural Expansion, and the American Century, New York, Praeger, 2003. Johnson, W. & Colligan, F. The Fulbright Program: A H istory, Chicago, University o f Chicago Press, 1965; Dudden, A. & Downes, R. (eds.), The Fulbright Experience 1946-1986, New Brunswick, Transaction, 1987; Arndt, R. & Rubin, D. (eds.), The Fulbright D ifference 1948-1992, New Brunswick, Transaction, 1993. See the useful but limited study on South Korea: Kim, Y.H. ‘Public Diplomacy and Cultural Communication: The International Visitor Program1, Ph.D. dissertation, University o f Southern California, 1990. See Mandelbaum, M. ‘Western Influence on the Soviet Union1, in S. Bialer & M. Mandelbaum (eds.), G orbachev’s Russia and American Foreign Policy, Boulder, Westview Press, 1988; Kassof, A. ‘Scholarly Exchanges and the Collapse o f Com­ munism1, Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, 22 (1995); J. Checket, Ideas and Interna­ tional Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behaviour and the End o f the C old War, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997; Evangelista, M. Unarmed Forces: The Transnational M ovement to End the Cold War, New York, Cornell University Press, 2002; Special Issue: ‘Ideas, International Relations, and the End o f the Cold War1, Journal o f C old War Studies, 7/2 (Spring 2005).

Networks o f Empire

ture on the role o f public diplomacy and ideological transmission’ in contributing towards a stable Western identity under the tutelage o f US leadership during the Cold War.30 Two broad streams o f thought filtered directly into the theory and practice o f these programmes. Firstly there was the wish to foster 'mu­ tual understanding’ between different nations and cultures, a benign goal that was based on the Liberal ideal o f achieving a borderless global community and peaceful international relations through increased inter­ personal contacts. However this was not a neutral process, since under this heading the United States, convinced o f its universalism, sought to inculcate its values and techniques around the world for the general good. As a study from 1955 put it: With the exception of many professor and teacher exchanges, the other pro­ grams are predominantly 'one-way streets’, i.e., they primarily encourage the export of American technical knowledge and the development of better understanding and more friendly attitudes toward the United States. Only secondarily, if at all, are they concerned with an understanding of other na­ tions or the import of technical skills and cultural values from which the United States, as a nation, might profit.31

Secondly there were the approaches developed through communica­ tions research and the practice o f psychological warfare before, during, and after WWII. Out o f this research came refined assumptions on the targeting o f information campaigns on specific social groups to ensure strategic impact. The Leader Program, a direct product o f both streams o f thought, had the explicit political intent o f familiarising existing and up-and-coming elites abroad with the United States and its people, landscape, and values. In short, by introducing and familiarising talented individuals with the American scene, it was a potent means for the US to develop 'informal empire’ via an ever-expanding community o f allies, supporters, sympathisers, and admirers around the world.

Informal Empire The United States extended its influence abroad not only by means o f traditional forms o f power but especially via its civil society and its codes o f democracy, efficiency, good governance, and best practice. This was done via the export o f American products, methods, skills, and 30 See for instance Pells, R. N ot Like Us, New York, Basic Books, 1997; Berghahn, V. Am erica and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001; Scott-Smith, G. The Politics o f Apolitical Culture: The Congress fo r C ultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-W ar American Hegemony, London, Routledge,

2002. 31

Ketzel, p. 70.

Introduction

norms, facilitated by the extension o f its commercial, military, and cultural diplomacy activities abroad.32 The concept o f informal empire extends these processes by referring to the engineering o f favourable political communities and decision-making frameworks abroad which allow for the satisfaction o f US interests (political, economic, and military), without the need for direct political control.33 As de Grazia has argued, the outlines o f this phenomenon need to be taken into account when understanding US foreign relations: If we hold to orthodox definitions, we miss the specific powers accumulat­ ing to the leading capitalist state in the twentieth century. These powers de­ rived [...] from recognizing the advantages that derived from that position and developing these into a system of global leadership.3435

De Grazia outlined several factors that characterised US informal empire, three o f which lie at the heart o f this study: It “regarded other nations as having limited sovereignty over their public space”, it in­ volved the export o f US civil society (“meaning its voluntary associa­ tions, social scientific knowledge, and civic spirit”), and it projected “the power o f norms-making”. Within this format, exchange pro­ grammes played a vital role as the channels o f empire. Thousands o f talented and influential individuals went to the United States and experi­ enced at first-hand the dynamism and openness o f its civil society, learned about American world-views, trained in specific skills, and inculcated its attitudes. In the longer term it also laid the ground for further contacts in their respective professional networks. “Empires have justified their supra-ethnic domination”, argues Charles Maier in his recent study o f the subject, “by invoking allegedly universal values or cultural supremacy, and have diffused these public goods by cultural diplomacy and exchanges”.36

33

34 35 36

Rosenberg, E. Spreading the Am erican Dream, New York, Hill f t Wang, 1982; Costigliola, F. Awkward Dominion, Ithaca, Cornell University press, 1984; De Grazia, V. Irresistible Empire: Am erica's Advance through 2Ö* Century Europe, Cambridge MA, Belknap Press, 2005, pp. 6-9. See the seminal article on this concept by Gallagher and Robinson (Gallagher, J. ft Robinson, R. ‘The Imperialism o f Free Trade', Economic H istory Review, 6 (1953), pp. 1-15) where they state that ‘informal empire' represents channels o f influence and power “which the conventional interpretation misses because it takes account only o f formal methods o f control”. De Grazia, Irresistible Empire, p. 6. Ibid., pp. 6-7. Maier, C. Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2006, p. 65.

Networks o f Empire

The Leader Program was very much an active agent in the ideologi­ cal drive of US foreign policy after WWII.37 Domestically, it united the US state with a whole array of independent institutions and voluntary organisations to ensure that each visitor received an up-close-andpersonal view o f the ‘average’ American and the ‘true’ America. Par­ ticipants were asked to choose the main themes they would like to explore on their trip, the destinations they would like to visit, and the people they would like to meet. Internationally, it contributed to project­ ing the United States as the model of freedom, progress, modernisation, and the leader o f the Free World.38 A form o f hegemonic power was in operation, with the FLP as one o f several channels to invigorate it: Elites in secondary nations buy into and internalize norms that are articu­ lated by the hegemon and therefore pursue policies consistent with the he­ gemon’s notion of international order. The exercise of power - and hence the mechanism through which compliance is achieved - involves the projec­ tion by the hegemon of a set of norms and their embrace by leaders in other nations.39

Intrinsic to this projection o f hegemonic power was what Hunt has identified as the “anti-revolutionary impulse” in American ideology.40 ‘Anti-revolutionary’ here needs to be clarified. From a socio-economic perspective, restructuring reforms which the US championed in Western Europe through the European Recovery Program were certainly revolu­ tionary in terms o f the long-term impact they had on local societies. What anti-revolutionary meant in this context was a fervent opposition to counter-strategies that contested or undermined the implantation o f US norms of economic and political behaviour. In Western Europe this 37 On the importance o f ideology for US foreign policy during the Cold War see for instance Stephanson, A. 'Liberty or Death: The Cold War as US Ideology’, in Westad, O. (ed.), Reviewing the C old War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory, London, Frank Cass, 2000, pp. 81-100; Lucas, S. Freedom ’s War, New York, New York University Press, 1999; Osgood, K. Total Cold War: Eisenhow er’s Secret Propaganda Battle a t Home and Abroad, University Press o f Kansas, 2006. 38 See Smith, T. America ’s M ission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle fo r Democracy in the Twentieth Century, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1994; Belmonte, L. 'Defending a Way o f Life: American Propaganda and the Cold War, 1945-1959’, Ph.D. dissertation, University o f Virginia, 19%, pp. 320-349; Appy, C. Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture o f U nited States Im perial­ ism 1945-1966, Amherst, University o f Massachusetts Press, 2000; Engerman, D. & Gilman, N. (eds.), Staging Growth, Amherst, University o f Massachusetts Press, 2003. 39 Ikenberry, G. John & Kupchan, C. 'Socialization and Hegemonic Power’, Interna­ tional O rganization, 44/3 (Summer 1990), p. 283. 40 See Hunt, M. Ideology and US Foreign Policy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987.

Introduction

included large-scale covert and overt operations to combat communist parties, trade unions, front organisations, and anti-Americanism in general. Yet there was an equal determination on the part o f the US to undermine neutralist political trends which searched for Third Way alternatives between the superpowers.41 While tactics utilising economic measures were one way to secure objectives, it was not wise for the US to lean too heavily on its hard power superiority to get its way in West­ ern Europe. The rhetoric after all professed a common, united struggle against Soviet communism. It was therefore far more effective for the US to achieve its aims by attracting, nurturing, and co-opting actual and potential allies abroad who would then act according to the same beliefsystem. The American values o f freedom and progress were after all universal and applicable for all, it was only necessary to find advocates abroad to amplify this message. To avoid the negative overtones o f a dominant national interest, during the 1950s and 1960s US foreign policy goals towards Western Europe were packaged within the rhetori­ cally powerful notion of an Atlantic Community. The Community ideal offered the chance for Europeans to find their own purpose and political identity without feeling overwhelmed by US dominance. The FLP was an important mechanism through which this sense o f an Atlantic Com­ munity could take on a real meaning. In this context it is worth reflecting on the concept o f leadership that the Leader Program was promoting. A 1955 1ES study paper on leader­ ship portrays the purely functional nature o f the Program as a tool o f foreign policy. The report does no more than outline the important groups who, as part of the 'leadership structure’ o f other countries, should be the target groups for exchange invitations. In rather anodyne fashion this referred to "the relatively small group o f key leaders in top positions”, young professionals "who are judged to be upwardly mobile in the social and power structure”, student leaders, and "the formally designed opinion molders” such as those in the media and in educa­ tion.42 Leadership here is seen in a purely strategic way, as a sign of power and influence over others and therefore as a tool that can be used. But there were other more subtle forces at work. The Program provided the opportunity for, firstly, the US to designate particular individuals as 1 See Carew, A. Labour under the M arshall Plan, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1987; Romero, F. The United States and the European Traie Union Movement 1944-1951, Chapel Hill, University o f North Carolina Press, 1992; Stonor Saunders, F. Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the C ultural Cold War, London, Granta, 1999; Wilford, H. The CIA, the British Left and the C old War: C alling the Tune?, London, Frank Cass, 2003. 42 'The IES Approach to Foreign Leadership', January 1955, Bureau o f Public Affairs, Box 2: Evaluation o f Programs, Entry 3029,250/62/35/05, RG 59, NA.

Networks o f Empire

possessing leadership potential within the US-led world order. Leader invitations “in particular were planned primarily as individual experi­ ences and were not meant to be exercises in group dynamics”.43 The whole point was to set the individual apart from others in their local society through their knowledge and prestige, thereby setting them up as ‘mediums’ who could act as legitimate conveyors o f the norms o f the US-led world order to their surroundings. Secondly, it allowed these individuals to choose a closer voluntary association with the United States, its people, its values, and its policies, for both potential individ­ ual gain (career enhancement, skills) and more generally for the good o f their local environment (modernisation, productivity).4445 Thirdly, the denotation o f ‘leader' (above all by a foreign power) was in many cases a major form o f empowerment for the individual involved, with impor­ tant psychological consequences. In 1962 Leader grantees represented only 11 per cent o f all West European exchange visitors participating in State Department-administered programmes, an indication o f its exclu­ sivity.43 As one practitioner has emphasised: Important leaders are brought to the United States upon the invitation o f the United States Government rather than through application for specific pro­ grams; each leader is essentially free to determine what type o f activities he wishes to pursue while he is here.46

The crucial point to emphasise here is the willingness o f participants to enter this transaction because o f the clear benefits for them. The less the presence o f obvious persuasion, the more powerful the impact o f this form o f exchange. How far actual ‘exchange’ took place is o f course a mute point. Visi­ tors were met with openness, curiosity, and genuine interest but their primary function was to learn more about the United States.47 Exchanges 43 Schmidt, p. 19. 44 See Scott-Smith, G. ‘The Export o f an American Concept o f Leadership: The World as seen through the US Department o f State's Foreign Leader Program', in Krabbendam, H. & Verhoeven, W. (eds.), Whose the Boss? Leadership and Democratic Cul­ ture in America, Amsterdam, Free University Press, 2007, pp. 177-186. 45 Educational and Cultural Diplomacy 1962, Washington DC, State Department, 1963. 46 Bodenman, P. ‘Leader and Specialist Programs', Higher Education, 9 (1 March 1953), p. 155. 47 Occasionally the reverse-influence o f exchanges would be picked up. In 1953 it was noticed that the large numbers o f German grantees passing through the United States was having an impact on how their American hosts viewed European events. This generated a proposal in the State Department for “an evaluation study on the reverse effects o f the exchange programs". Apart from the practical difficulties o f conducting such an evaluation, it was remarked that “the ‘internationalists' in the State Depart­ ment would really get their heads chopped o ff by groups in this country who

Introduction

like the Leader Program occupied a special place within the propaganda pantheon. Too close a connection between the invitation and the specific goals o f the United States in a particular country, as if a specific pay-off was expected in return, could destroy the Program’s credibility and scar it with the accusation o f political manipulation. However, the issue o f credibility cut two ways. Outside o f the United States it rested on the presentation o f the Leader Program as a form o f politically-neutral cultural exchange designed to allow its participants, once better in­ formed, to make up their own minds. Domestically it was the opposite, as a respectable budgetary allocation required an argument for the political worth o f the Program (and all other forms o f public diplomacy) before the Appropriations Committees in the House and the Senate.4*

The Alms of the Program Concerning the great diversity o f US government exchange pro­ grammes after WWII, Ketzel pointed out that “only two characteristics appear to be common to all programs and categories: the essential element o f people travelling to and from the United States, and the fact that each program in its own way contributes to one or another facet of the national interest - military, economic, or political“.484950How was this contribution supposed to be achieved? Overall it reflected President Truman’s demand that the post-war information service “see to it that other peoples receive a full and fair picture o f American life and o f the aims and policies o f the United States Government“.30 Nevertheless, the relative vagueness o f this goal led to different interpretations within the bureaux o f the State Department, among the private contract agencies, and by the various sections within embassies. Robert Elder, who re­ viewed the Foreign Leader Program for the Brookings Institution in 1960, criticised how the general statements o f the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act had been enacted in various ways within different settings: The fact that leaders were coming to America for 4consultation with col­ leagues* was stressed in the invitations issued overseas by American Em­ bassy representatives. Readers of American periodicals were apprised that the leaders were brought to get 4the full and fair picture o f the contemporary wouldn't approve" o f such a two-way impact James Donovan to Frank Orenstein, 23 November 1953, & Vaughn De Long to Frank Orenstein, n.d., Box 3: 1951 Study, Bureau o f Public Affairs, 250/62/35/04, Entry 3031, RG 59, NA. 48 See Scott, K.M. ‘The Annual Ordeal: The Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs vs. the House Appropriations Subcommittee 1965-1970’, March 1971, General Re­ cords o f USIA, RG 306, Subject FUes 1953-2000, Series 15, Box 48, NA. 49 Ketzel, pp. 113-114. 50 White House Press Release, 31 August 1945, reprinted in Department o f State B ulletin, 2 September 1945, pp. 306-7.

Networks o f Empire

American scene*. Members of the House Appropriations Committee were told that the program would contribute to meeting emergency 'political de­ velopments*. All three of these emphases were to be accomplished while granting 'freedom of action* to the leaders during their visits. Although statements such as the four recounted here are not necessarily in conflict, they have contributed to some confusion among program operators.3132

Elder’s comments were justified, up to a point. The demand that the Leader Program fulfil either - or both - a political role in combatting communism and an educational/cultural role in explaining America remained ever-present. However, its methodology did remain constant. Communism was to be contested not through the conversion o f commu­ nists themselves, but instead through the solidifying and expansion o f US-backed norms. Clifford Ketzel, in one o f the few in-depth studies o f the Leader Program, identified three basic assumptions on which the FLP rested. Firstly, presaging de Grazia, that it was taken for granted that influential individuals from abroad could be invited to gain a better understanding o f the United States, in the expectation that this would lead to some kind o f political benefit for US interests afterwards. Sec­ ondly, that after their trip an individual would return home “with a more tolerant attitude toward the United States, its practices, principles, and policies”. The individual might still be critical o f some aspects o f American life, but they “will place imperfections o f the American system in a perspective that will not weaken our position o f world leadership”. Thirdly, that once home the grantee, either locally, within their profession, or perhaps on a national level, would share their ex­ perience and use their influence to raise awareness on the United States. This was the most important goal. A 1954 report o f the State Depart­ ment’s International Educational Exchange Service (I ES) noted that exchange visitors generally “become highly creditable sources o f infor­ mation about the United States, and disseminate reliable and favorable information to their fellow countrymen”.52 The Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) also stated secretly in 1954: The basic objective of exchange programs is to build a receptive climate of public opinion overseas in which the actions and policies of the US can be correctly interpreted.33

51 Elder, R. The Foreign Leader Program, p. 12. 32 'W hat Evaluation Studies have proved about Educational Exchange*, IES, August 1954, Bureau o f Public Affairs, Box 3: Miscellaeneous Evaluations, Entry 3029, 250/62/35/05, RG 59, ‘N A \ 33 'Expanded Educational Exchange Program in the Far East*, 15 March 1954, IES: Staff Studies and Reports & OCB Working Papers 1951-1955, Box 1,250/62/35/01, Entry 3019, Bureau o f Public Affairs, RG 59, NA.

Introduction

The State Department’s Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs used almost exactly the same language a decade later The Foreign Leader Program is intended to develop in other countries an informed nucleus of influential persons who, as a result of their observations and experiences in the United States, can be expected to present to their own people an accurate and understanding interpretation of the United States and its people.34

Likewise, in 1973 the Bureau issued a policy document that argued for the use o f exchanges to “favorably influence the environment within which US foreign policy is carried out”, in particular “to enlarge the circle o f those able to serve as influential interpreters between this and other nations”.* 55 As Ketzel commented, those who ran the Leader Program only had control over the first assumption. The stage could be set to encourage the second and the third, but, as with much public diplomacy, it still required “a act of faith” to trust that it would turn out as intended.56 Ketzel identified early on how a key distinguishing feature o f the Leader Program was “the extent to which leaders are invited from those areas o f the free world in which the United States is most desirous o f maintain­ ing its leadership or encouraging a maximum degree o f understanding and tolerance o f this leadership”.57 Skill transfer was important for the Program, since grantees often returned to their own countries convinced o f the need to introduce American-style ideas and methods into their respective professions. However, its real power lay in fostering the establishment and expansion o f formal and informal policy, knowledge, or other professional networks that could bridge the transatlantic divide. Transnational and transgovemmental issue networks and epistemic communities have become a topic o f some interest within International Relations during the last decade.58 This refers to regular cross-border contacts between individuals or groups, outside o f diplomatic or inter‘Foreign Leaders and Specialists*, n.d. [early 1960s], Group IV Box 153 Folder 21, CU. 55 ‘The CU Program Concept*, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, 1 October 1973, p. 1, quoted in Mueller, S. ‘US Exchange o f Persons Programs: A Question o f Quality*, paper presented to the ISA, 28 March 1986 (author's copy, with thanks to Sherry Mueller). 56 Ketzel, pp. 135-136; Ninkovich, F. US Inform ation Policy and Cultural Diplomacy, Foreign Policy Association Headline Series, No. 308, Fall 19%, p. 58. 57 Ketzel, p. 121. 58 See Haas, P. ‘Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination*, International O rganization, 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 1-35; Stone, D. ‘Knowledge Net­ works and Global Policy*, paper presented to the ISA conference, Budapest, 22^ June 2003.

Networks o f Empire

governmental relations, which are generally based on common problem­ solving or principal-holding issues and which contribute strongly to the establishment and maintenance o f norms in international behaviour.59 Sometimes these informal networks can affect policy outcomes, espe­ cially in the case o f ‘transgovemmental coalitions* between mid-level, policy-drafting civil servants who adapt their positions according to contacts abroad as well as according to domestic influences.60 However, the deliberate contribution o f exchange programmes to their formation and maintenance remains largely ignored.61 On the whole the Leader Program was used for the ‘diffiision o f cultural values and norms*, in particular to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance, but within this approach specific policy networks would often be particular targets. Outcomes are o f course difficult to verify, but this book supports the view o f one observer who has stated that “in certain conceivable situations the weight o f ‘cultural capital* accruing from such interchanges could tip a doubtful political balance**.62 The use of ‘local opinion leaders* in this way was the most effective means to strengthen sympathetic elites, fortify pro-democratic forces, maintain pro-market norms, and reduce the legitimacy o f communist or neutralist alternatives. A study o f the Leader Program in specific coun­ tries adds an important extra dimension to this field o f research by filling in details on the local opinion leaders themselves. Who did the US embassies identify for this role? An invitation for a Leader grant was one of the most effective calling cards in a Foreign Service Officer’s hand for establishing relations with a selected individual. While several studies have already looked in detail at the apparatus and aims o f the US psychological offensive following WWII, the aim o f this book is to examine instead the intricacies o f US public diplomacy at the front line, “the correlation between policy and action’*.63 After all, it was the em­ bassies that functioned as key actors in ‘managing’ the local environ­ ment and effectively maintaining the threads o f informal empire.

59 See Risse-Kappen, T . 1Introduction', in Risse-Kappen (ed.), Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institu­ tions, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 3-33. 60 Ibid., p. 31. 61 See Scott-Smith, G. 'Mapping the Unde finable: Some Thoughts on the Relevance o f Exchange Programs within International Relations Theory”, Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Science, 616 (March 2008). 62 Huntley, J. ‘A New Look at US Cultural and Educational Policy in Europe*, Interna­ tional Educational and C ultural Exchange (Spring 1967), p. 4. 63

Introduction

The Challenge of Soviet Public Diplomacy In October 1952, moving away from the rigid ‘two-camp’ approach that had signified Soviet foreign policy since 1946, Stalin announced a strategy o f ‘peaceful coexistence* with the West. While fundamental hostility remained undiminished, the aim from then on was to seek an improvement in relations in order to exploit differences o f opinion both between NATO allies and between governments and people. Following Stalin's death this resulted in expanded Soviet information and cultural diplomacy programme that aimed for a de-escalation o f tensions and promoted, among other things, the idea o f Europe as a ‘zone o f peace’ devoid o f superpower conflict. The potential dangers o f opening up to the West via two-way cultural diplomacy were, during the Khrushchev decade of 1954-64, also overcome by “the remarkable upsurge o f revo­ lutionary exuberance” that considered the Soviet Union to be at the forefront of world socio-econiomic and political development.64 There is no doubt that the scale o f Soviet programmes in Western Europe caused concern within the State Department and its embassies abroad. Moscow’s effort to ‘normalise’ relations brought 363 Western European delegations to the USSR in 1955 alone, by far the most from any region.65 US embassies would regularly inform Washington o f the competing Soviet programmes, with a special emphasis on the numbers involved. A report from 1956 illustrates the typical US response. A public official in the Pyrenees area o f southern France had let it be known that in that year in his Départment alone there had been fifteen exchange participants going to Prague, twelve to Moscow, ten to Hun­ gary, and five to Bulgaria. An indignant FSO reported to Washington that this represented “forty-tw o from one tiny Department o f France to iron curtain countries at their invitation and we have 25 leader grants for the whole o f France”.66 Another report from Finland, along with Iceland one o f the prime targets for Soviet efforts, recounted that 780 Finns visited the USSR in 1957-58 alone, not including another 2000 who attended the Moscow Youth Festival.67 Figures such as these were o f 64 Gould-Davis, N. ‘The Logic o f Soviel Cultural Diplomacy', D iplom atic H istory; 27 (April 2003), p. 213. This article provides an excellent insight into the background and contradictions o f the Soviet approach. 65 Barghoom, F. The Soviet C ultural O ffensive: The Role o f C ultural Diplomacy in Soviet Foreign Policy, Westport CT, Greenwood Press, 1960, p. 226. Iceland and Finland were particular Soviet targets. 66 ‘Priority Educational Exchange Projects*, 25 January 1956, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU (emphasis in original). 67 ‘Educational Exchange: F.Y. 1958 Annual Report*, US Embassy Helsinki, 12 August 1958, Group IV Box 317 Folder 11, CU. The total number o f Finns travelling to the United States in 1957-58, in all categories o f exchanges, was 151.

Networks o f Empire

course used to increase appropriations requests in Congress for an adequate US response. During the 1950s exchanges were promoted as an ideal 4antidote* to communist propaganda in order to gain congres­ sional support. IES let it be known to the Office o f Intelligence and Research that its most valuable reports concerned factual details and statistics on the Soviet exchange programmes, which were “especially helpful in preparing reports for Congressional hearings on IES budget appropriations”.6* While the Soviet programmes won in terms o f quantity, they lost in quality. Highly orchestrated group tours, with a fixed itinerary and no free time, were only going to succeed with the already converted. In response IES emphasised the lack o f political control and the vital partnerships with private organisations. Its 1955 annual report smugly pointed out how “the 4guided tour* and political indoctrination tech­ nique, characteristic o f Communist exchange efforts, is o f course alien to an exchange program based on mutual understanding and respect”.6869 Openness was the key to success here. Writing on the Soviet cultural diplomacy drive in 1960, Frederick Barghoom noticed the following: The cultural-exchange program, stepped up almost immediately after Sta­ lin's death, continued in many ways to expand, particularly in terms o f quantity, but there were striking indications, from early 1957 on, of deter­ mination to guard against the dangers inherent in showing too much o f Rus­ sia to the world, and especially in showing very much of the non-Soviet world to Russians.70

During the Krushchev era the Soviet Union portrayed itself relatively successfully as a genuine rival ‘civilisation’ to the United States, a position boosted by technical advances such as the Sputnik rockets.71 However, while its economic prowess, military might, and development aid had a major effect on Third World clients, Soviet cultural diplomacy in Western Europe was always at a disadvantage. Like the US, its exchange programmes could strengthen the belief o f those already convinced. Also like the US, it concentrated attention on trade unionists, youth leaders, and “strategic local people who are shapers o f popular

68 Vaughn R. Delong (IES) to F. Bowen Evans (1EV/01R/CA), 19 May 1954, IES: Staff Studies and Reports & OCB Working Papers 1951-1955, Box 1,250/62/35/01, Entry 3019, Bureau o f Public Affairs, RG 59, NA. 69 'Mutual Understanding in the Nuclear Age: The International Educational Exchange Program’, Annual Report 1956, Department o f Suite, 1957, p. 4. 70 Barghoom, p. 61. 71 See Taubman, W. Khrushchev: The Man and his Era, New York, W.W. Norton, 2004.

Introduction

attitudes and political developments”.72 But doubters were never likely to be swayed by first-hand experience o f Soviet society’s secrecy and surveillance. If the exchange experience offered a unique insight into the hosting society, then the American approach based on openness and freedom would always be the more powerful. The signing o f the first two-year US-USSR cultural agreement in Jan­ uary 1958 opened up the opportunity for a whole series o f similar agree­ ments with other nations across the Soviet bloc. Alongside the many exchanges in the arts, education, science, and sport, the Leader Program was also introduced across the Iron Curtain. The Program was most active in Yugoslavia, Poland, and Rumania, but many Soviet grantees, in professional groups, also visited the US.73 The State Department, although maintaining its general aim to use exchanges to transmit truthful information about the United States to the Soviet people, re­ mained sober about possible long-term results. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that these exchanges represented a serious threat to the Soviet regime’s ability to control information flow within its own society.74

The Foreign Leader Program’s Global Scale In Fiscal Year 1950, the first year o f the Leader Program, the world total for Leader grantees (excluding Germany) was 148. However, the focus on Germany soon declined through the 1950s as the State De­ partment turned its attention to running a worldwide programme. Up to the end o f the 1950s Western European grantees dominated. Between 1950-62 there were 7420 Leaders from that region, out o f a world total o f 11,475.75 Yet global strategy demanded attention for key Third World states early on, so much so that in 1954 IES regarded the “politically important countries” for the Leader Program to be France, Italy, Britain, Egypt, India, and Indonesia.76 By 1970 the programme had been trans­ 72 Coombs, P. The Fourth Dimension o f Foreign Policy: Educational and Cultural Affairs, New York, Harper & Row, 1964, p. 93. 73 The expert on exchanges with the Soviet Union is Yale Richmond. See also his USSoviet C ultural Exchanges 1958-1986: Who Wins?, Boulder, Westview Press, 1987. 74 See ‘Soviet sees Risk in Cultural Pact*, 5 June 1962, New York Times. 75 Educational and Cultural Diplomacy 1962 (Washington DC: State Department, 1963) 78-87. 76 James A. Donovan to Douglas N. Batson, 20 May 1954, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU. For Fiscal Year (FY) 1954 the authorised budget for State Department ex­ change programmes was $19,895,578, o f which Smith-Mundt grants took $7,173,682 and the Fulbright Program $8,961,212. From the Smith-Mundt allocation the Leader Program took $1,789,260. Fiscal Year 1954 refers to the financial year July 1, 1953 to June 30, 1954, and this calendar was used for all further statistics given in this book (it was later changed to 31 August - 1 September).

Networks o f Empire

formed from a predominantly European to a global programme. In 1952, the top ten countries receiving the most grants was as follows: Germany (1058), Japan (200), Italy (66), France (67), Austria (47), UK (46), India (41), Thailand (28), Iran (27), and Indonesia (25). By 1970 the top ten list was Japan (79), Germany (43), Brazil (41), Spain (37), Venezuela (33), Thailand (32), Italy (32), France (26), Nigeria (21), and India (20).7778By 1956 extra funds were being requested for a major expansion o f the Leader Program in Latin America, Asia, and Africa in response to expanding Soviet cultural diplomacy programmes. Special emphasis was placed on parliamentarians, government officials, trade unionists, education administrators, women's affairs, and youth leadership. How­ ever, in place o f a general expansion, the budget for Western Europe was cut to accommodate the rise in grantees from other continents. The following table illustrates the trend.7* Foreign Leader Grantees: Selected Years 1954-70 Fiscal Year Western Europe Eastern Europe Africa 1954 645 93* 1957 431 36 273 40 1958 306*** 115 1961 1962 29 157 210 1964 48 198 108 1967 21 181 138 19 1968 212 123 1970 222 17 206

Asia Latin America Total 82** 35 855 366 262 1,095 774 249 212 141 207 769 278 200 874 187** 197 738 339 344 1,023 292 415 1,061 329 223 997

* Includes Middle East and South Asia / ** Far East only • • • Includes Western and Eastern Europe

77 Ketzel, p. 123; International Exchange 1970: Leaders fo r Tomorrow, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1970, pp. 28-30. 78 Numbers for Leader grantees, as for all US exchanges, are often inaccurate and can differ between various sources. The figures presented here are based on arrivals in the United States. Hence, fewer grantees may be registered in any given year than invitations actually issued simply because their trip actually took place within the following fiscal year. Figures compiled from Partners in International Understand­ ing: The International Educational Exchange Program, Washington DC, Department o f State, 19S5; International Educational Exchange Program 1948-1958, Washing­ ton DC, Department o f State, 19S7; C ultural Diplomacy: 1958, Washington DC, De­ partment o f State, 1958; Educational and C ultural Diplomacy: 1962, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1962; A Beacon o f Hope: The Exchange o f Persons Program, US Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, April 1963; Educational and C ultural Diplomacy: 1964, Washington DC, Depart­ ment o f State, 1964; International Exchange 1967: A Report o f the Bureau o f Educa­ tional and Cultural Affairs, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1967; Interna­ tional Exchange: 1968, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1968; International Exchange 1970: Leaders fo r Tomorrow, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1970.

Introduction

Despite the urge to expand the Leader Program across the Third World, local sensibilities and suspicions often prevented its smooth functioning. A report from 1969 noted that political instability in Paki­ stan and the lack o f diplomatic relations with several Arab states pre­ vented the Program from operating to its potential in the Near East/South Asian region. Finding suitable candidates was also a prob­ lem, since in a few countries, o f which Iran is perhaps the best example, it can be said that we a re ‘scraping the bottom of die barrel’ because most of the meaning­ ful leaders - Iran does not easily develop independently imaginative leaders - have already been given grants under this program.79

Aside from this, the arrival o f more Leaders from the Third World caused strains within an exchange bureaucracy that developed out o f programmes focused on post-WWIl Western Europe, and reassessments were needed. Not surprisingly, the programs operate most easily and with the best results in EUR [Europe], the cultural area for which they were initiated, for which the terminology was selected and for which the categories were devised. Caught between cumbersome administrative techniques and the alien termi­ nology and categories of the program, efforts in A F [Africa] and FE [Far East] hardly approach goals which might be expected. While more success is obtained in ARA [Latin America] and NEA [Near East], the fact that we chose to operate within social categories indigenous to the United States and Europe has distorted our efforts and eliminated important areas o f cultural impact.80

Instead o f promoting US leadership capabilities in the Free World, more attention had to be given to the specific skills these people needed and to answering the question “w h y we want to assist them in their own countries”.81 More interpreters were needed. It was considered that “existing operational precedents, procedures and staff organization are inadequate for achieving a significant impact in culturally disparate areas o f the world”. Even the terminology - "grantee’, for instance caused problems in some cultures, since ""there is an undertone o f un­

79 Sam Yates (CU) to Francis Colligan (CU), 5 August 1969, Group IV Box 151 Folder 34, CU. 80 Ibid. On these problems see also Alrutz, L.The Foreign Leader Exchange Program and Africa South o f the Sahara, Master's thesis, American University, 1968. 81 'Blueprint for Action 1960V, n.d. [1961], Group IV Box 154 Folder 8, CU (empha­ sis in original).

Networks o f Empire

wholesome complicity in ‘awarding’ a ‘grant’ to a minister o f a foreign government and asking him to ‘accept the terms o f grant’”.*2 The shift o f resources from Western Europe to the Third World had a dramatic effect. The table above demonstrates the consequences for the Leader program. By 1961 the overall share o f United States Information Agency (USIA) funds directed towards programmes in Western Europe had fallen from 20 to 13 per cent, and United States Information Service (USIS) posts in the region had lost more than one-third o f their Ameri­ can and local staff.8283 This move was contested by many who felt that one o f the fundamental purposes o f the Leader Program was to contrib­ ute towards maintaining the transatlantic alliance. Ketzel had already argued in 1954 “that the United States maintain an interest in nations already basically friendly” instead o f taking those relations for granted and pursuing other more recalcitrant targets.84 Ten years later similar views were forcefully articulated by the Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs via its in-depth survey A Beacon o f Hope. This argued that a global programme reaching out to the Third World was vital for US interests, but that this must not ob­ scure the fundamental importance o f established relationships. Commis­ sion member Walter Adams, in a separate report on Western Europe, went further by claiming that if cultural diplomacy, in tune with US foreign policy in general, was meant to further the national interest, then o f all the regions in the world it was Western Europe that required a rapid expansion o f such activities. The growing strength o f its econo­ mies, its increasing weight in international organisations, its continuing role in the Third World, and the security cornerstone o f the Atlantic Alliance all pointed towards this logical conclusion. With its modem societies, Western Europe also had more “absorbtive capacity” for an upgraded programme.85 What is more, as the United States looked to strengthen its relations around the world in answer to Soviet strategy, a greater use could be made o f the continuing close cultural ties between European states and the newly-independent nations o f their former colonial empires. In 1967 these views were echoed once again by James Huntley, previously o f the Ford Foundation and the Atlantic Institute, 82 'Recommendations to Improve the Foreign Leader and Foreign Specialist Programs*, 9 June 1961, Group IV Box 153 Folder 20, CU. 83 Lowry, W. & Hooker, G. 'The Role o f the Arts and Humanities’, in Blum, R (ed.), C ultural Affairs and Foreign Relations, Englewood Cliffs NJ, Prentice Hall, 1963, p.72. 84 Ketzel, p. 226. 85 A Beacon o f Hope: The Exchange o f Persons Program, April 1963, pp. 58-59; Adams, W. 'A Report on the Strategic Importance o f Western Europe*, September 1964, p. 5.

Introduction

who argued for the special status o f US-European relations and the need to direct US exchanges towards developing and nurturing cosmopolitan European elites for the sake o f a stable and effective transatlantic inter­ dependence.*6 As economic and political relations between the United States and Western Europe became ever denser and more intricate, so too did the Leader Program follow these trends and take on a new role. By the 1960s the post-war recovery o f Western Europe was complete, the European Economic Community (EEC) was developing its own voice in economic policy, and US leadership in NATO was no longer taken for granted. These changes had to be accommodated in US foreign policy, and cultural diplomacy offered useful ways in which this could be done. Elder had already noticed in 1960 that the original thrust o f the Leader Program, essentially reactionary in “opposing certain regimes and ideologies’9, was gradually giving way to “a more positive response, stressing the need for a freer or more intensive merging o f thought and action”. Although Elder was thinking globally, the main results o f this shift in approach were seen in Western Europe. The sheer scale o f exchanges that had taken place during the 1950s, coupled with the intense transatlantic traffic in intellectual, policy-making, economic, and security fields, were beginning to normalise US-European contacts in significant ways. The Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs’ annual report for 1964 reported that there was “a growing recognition that for a European to be considered fully and properly educated he should have gained substantial knowledge about the United States through either travel or study or both”.** In contrast to the ideologicallydriven programmes o f the 1950s, exemplified by the Campaign o f Truth and the focus on fast media, during the 1960s a shift gradually occurred towards ’alliance management’ and the establishment o f transnational networks o f professionals working around common problems. Dean Mahin, who had been directly involved with the Leader Program almost since its inception, wrote how in the 1950s and early 1960s, while there were many references to the ex­ change programme as a two-way street, the main emphasis was on talking to rather than with international visitors. In that period most Americans were confident that most of our institutions and practices were superior to those

86 Huntley, ‘A New Look*, pp. 1-7. 87 Elder, R. The Foreign Leader Program, p. 11. ** Educational and C ultural Diplomacy: 1964, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1964, pp. 32-33.

Networks o f Empire

abroad [...] Yet in the later 1960s there was increased interest in the aspect of the exchange program involving professional interchange.19 Thus, whereas the US had pushed itself forward as the role model after WWII, by the end o f the 1960s the FLP was being used as a more defensive means to maintain the alignment o f foreign elites within the Western alliance. The arrival o f television and the increasing availability o f information on the United States reduced the effectiveness o f grantees as channels o f general information. As the length o f time for visits was reduced, so the professional value became emphasised at the expense o f more time-consuming touristic impressions. The sharing o f specialised knowledge, and not ideological commitment, became the main currency for building lasting contacts. There was “a 'new breed* o f visitors who are considerably more sophisticated than the average visitors o f the immediate post war period**.8990 The status o f the United States had also changed, and its decline in prestige in both foreign policy (Vietnam war, economic difficulties) and domestic upheavals (urban decay, racial tensions, crime and drugs) led to a shift in how exchanges were put to use. By the end o f the 1960s the US had become "the fallen idol**, as one commentator put it, in that Europeans "no longer see America as the goal for the future, but now they fear that what we have been, they too will become’*.91 Whereas in the post-war decade there was a strong impulse to transmit and export American know-how and technical expertise for the general good o f more efficient socio-economic organi­ sation, from the mid-60s onwards this impulse had died down. Certainly the United States continued to be a principal source of technological innovation and advancement, as the 'Brain Drain* concerns o f the late 1960s confirmed. Nevertheless, the rise o f countervailing forces (in Europe, for instance, the desire for greater 'independence* from the US, and the increasing political influence o f youth) meant that a greater effort needed to be made in socialising new elites within the US-led informal empire. Post-war generations who had no consciousness o f the Marshall Plan were beginning to enter public life, and thus they needed to be incorporated within the norms o f transatlantic relations. Public statements and policy documents on exchanges during the late 1960s and early 1970s are replete with aims such as "a widening web o f professional and other personal associations”, "a new transnational 89 Mahin, History o f the US Department o f State’s International Visitor Program, p. 57 (emphasis in original). 90 Mahin, D. ‘Programming International Visitors in American Communities: Problems o f the 1960s*, May 1967, author’s copy (with thanks to Dean Mahin); Charles Frankel to H. Field Haviland Jr. [Brookings Institution], 11 July 1967, author’s copy (with thanks to Sherry Mueller). 91 Former CAO John Brown, quoted in Mahin, p. 11.

Introduction

fraternity o f men and women in intellectual, public, and cultural life”, “cooperative problem-oriented activities”, “the breaking down o f na­ tional barriers to collaboration”, and “to stimulate institutional develop­ ment in directions which favorably affect mutual comprehension”.92 By 1972 a State Department internal memo on the Visitor Program ac­ knowledged the standard goal as to remove “myth and prejudice” about the United States, but added that “by sharing information and view­ points on key problem areas - such as drug abuse, environmental pro­ tection, and educational development - participants in the program are furthering world progress on these vital matters”.93 However, the same memo also laid bare the strategic value which FSOs had always seen in the Leader Program: US Ambassadors and senior diplomats around the world have repeatedly praised the International Visitor Program as a highly successful tool in changing perspectives of key individuals in their countries and in providing US diplomats with keys to more frequent access to these people, both before their departure and after their return home. For many of these diplomats, the budget allotted for this program could be increased many times over.94

Organisation of the Book The first section looks at where the Foreign Leader Program came from and the impulses that fed into its modus operandi. Chapter 1 covers the history of exchange programmes as political tools o f US foreign policy, from the first schemes in Latin America and China through WWI and the development o f approaches to psychological warfare in WWII. Chapter 2 looks at the administrative apparatus o f the Leader Program, and how it operated as a unique example o f public-private cooperation involving US embassies, the State Department, private programming agencies’, and local visitors’ centres and citizens groups spread across the United States. Having established the framework and outlook o f the FLP, the following section provides an in-depth look at the Netherlands as the principal case study o f the book. Chapters 3 to 7 examine the application o f the Leader Program, investigating and as­ sessing the Program’s impact in the fields o f Dutch politics, socio­ economic management, the media, and the cultural realm through the 1950s and 1960s. Special attention is given to specific cases where the

94

Mahin, History, pp. 57-58; The CU Program Concept’, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, 1 October 1973, p. 1, quoted in Sherry Mueller, ‘US Exchange o f Persons Programs: A Question o f Quality’. 'International Visitor Program: Purposes, Cost and Effectiveness’, July 1972, Group IV Box 152 Folder 4, CU. Ibid.

Networks o f Empire

Program was used to influence a particular field o f activity, such as to encourage the Dutch Labour party's opposition to communism, influ­ encing the Dutch media during awkward US-Dutch relations during the early 1960s, and trying to galvanise pro-(JS elites to overcome the negative impact o f the Vietnam war. Chapters 8 and 9 look at the im­ plementation o f the Leader Program in Britain and France respectively, tracking the functioning o f the Program over the same two decades and following the efforts o f the US embassies in London and Paris to utilise this valuable medium in support o f productive bilateral relations. The conclusion covers the problem o f evaluation, looking at the methodol­ ogy and results of the many surveys that were carried out, and adding to them with observations gained from this research.

Pa r t i H ist o r y

and

A ppa r a t u s

C h a pt e r 1

The History of US Government Exchanges

Laying the Foundations From the late nineteenth century onwards the United States govern­ ment has used exchange programmes to influence and educate others. Although official interest in these activities before the late 1930s was intermittent, several programmes were run that paved the way for the exploitation o f this field during WWII and the Cold War. The first application o f the methods that would later be distilled into the Foreign Leader Program was the visit o f seventeen Latin American delegates to the first Inter-American Conference in Washington DC, which opened on 2 October 1888. As a prelude to the conference, the US State De­ partment arranged for the delegates a 6000-mile, six-week observation tour by rail to enable them “to get a taste o f US hospitality [...] to impress them with the economic resources and commercial advantages o f the United States, and to attract the interest o f the people throughout the country in the proceedings o f the Conference”.1 It was not until 1908 that the US government embarked on a similar venture, and this time the educational function was more explicit. Elihu Root, Theodore Roose­ velt’s Secretary o f State, arranged for money paid by the Chinese as indemnity for damage done during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion to be paid into a fund for Chinese students to study in the United States.2 Similarly, after WW1 Herbert Hoover was able to channel funds not expended by the Commission for Relief in Belgium into the Belgian-American Educational Foundation, which with US government facilitation ensured the exchange o f 700 scholars up to 1940.3 Yet the best example o f US 1 2

3

Manuel Espinosa, J. Inter-Am erican Beginnings o f US C ultural Diplomacy, 19361948, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1976, p. 9. The funding for this programme was considerable. The original indemnity was set at $24,440,779 in 1906, but two years later it was reduced to $13,655,493. The aim was to use the difference between the two figures for financing up to 100 Chinese stu­ dents a year to study in the United States during the period 1909-40. See Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1908, Washington DC, 1912, pp. 64-74. Unlike the programme with China this one was reciprocal, with 477 Belgians visiting the United States and 225 Americans going in the other direction. Hoover, H. An

Networks o f Empire

government involvement in exchanges for explicit political goals was the Committee for Public Information (CPI) under George Creel. After the United States entered WWI in 1917 the CPI initiated a series o f tours through the USA for journalists from Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries. Creel himself reported to Congress on “the signal success of these visits, for the effect o f them was instant and lasting”, but following the Armistice in November 1918 the CPI was disbanded and no further visits were arranged. Nevertheless Creel had provided a model that would be replicated later, particularly in his insistence that “our work was educational and informative only, for we had such confidence in our case as to feel that only fair presentation o f its facts was necessary”.4 These occasional incursions by the government only emphasise how prior to WWII the development of cultural contacts between the United States and the rest o f the world was very much the domain o f the private sector. Beginning with the educational services o f church missionaries and the establishment o f American colleges in places such as Beirut, Istanbul, and Cairo, the benevolent drive to extend American expertise and learning abroad for the benefit o f all was undertaken without gov­ ernment involvement.5 The tradition that education should remain outside the competence o f the Federal government further guaranteed a free space for churches, universities, and philanthropies to establish their own networks and pursue their proselytising abroad. The general con­ sensus within this community was that government should not play any significant role in cultural relations, since only the voluntary organisa­ tion o f social groups could offer a genuine expression o f a nation's vitality and diversity. From this perspective, which remained dominant up to WWII, government involvement could only mean attaching the genuine ideals o f cultural interchange to damaging concerns o f power and influence. By the early twentieth century the success o f the American economy, coupled with the growing reputation of its universities, ensured a steady incoming stream o f foreign students and scholars to benefit from US expertise. This influx was greatly expanded after WWI, such that “dur­ ing the 15-year period from 1919 to 1933, the interchange o f students,

4

5

American Epic: The R elief o f Belgium and Northern France, 1914-1918, Chicago, Henry Regnery, 1959, pp. 429-437. Ketzel, C. ‘Exchange o f Persons and American Foreign Policy: The Foreign Leader Program o f the Department o f State', Ph.D. Thesis, University o f California, 1955, pp. 20-21. Arndt, R. The First Resort o f Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, Dulles VA, Potomac Bodes, 2005, p. 18-19; Curti, M. American Philan­ thropy Abroad, New Brunswick NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1963, pp. 138-174.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

professors, and specialists between the United States and other countries o f the world was on a scale that was unprecedented in history up to that time”.6 The private sector mobilised its resources and joined forces to create specialist agencies to facilitate, coordinate, and organise this movement: The American Council on Education (ACE) in 1918, the Institute for International Education (IIE) and the American Council o f Learned Societies (ACLS) in 1919. Large scale financial support for these institutions was provided by the major private foundations such as the Carnegie Endowment (its first president being Elihu Root), the Guggenheim, and the Rockefeller, and by 1930 more than 10,000 foreign students were studying at American institutions. The worldwide activities o f these institutions and foundations during the 1920s repre­ sented the furthest extent o f “the American vision o f a privately organ­ ized international community”.7 Several impulses lay at the centre o f these efforts. One was a com­ mitment to promoting the modernisation o f 'backward* communities through the application o f scientific and industrial progress. Further to this, the principles o f Liberalism and free trade lay behind the convic­ tion that commercial enterprises should operate unhindered within an increasingly global market. Another, strongly influenced by WWI, was a firm belief in the benefits o f fostering an Open Door approach to the free flow o f trade and information for the purpose o f undermining threatening stereotypes and contributing to peaceful international rela­ tions. This was the fundamental motive for achieving 'mutual under­ standing* between peoples, a phrase that has long been used to describe US exchange programmes. A perfect example o f this was American involvement in the League o f Nations* Committee on Intellectual Coop­ eration despite not being a member o f the League itself. This fed into the third factor, an unabashed elitism epitomised by the early efforts o f the Carnegie Endowment to increase the circulation o f leaders in all professions in order to strengthen cross-border relations. However, fundamental to all o f these factors and a driving element in US interac­ tion with the rest of the world was a strong sense of Mission to promote civilisation and project the nation abroad “as the exemplar o f democracy

6 7

Manuel Espinosa, J. Inter-Am erican Beginnings, p. 49. Ninkovich, F. The Diplomacy o f Ideas: US Foreign Policy and C ultural Relations 1938-1950, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 16. See also Iriye, A. Cultural Internationalism and World Order, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1997; Bu, L. M aking the World Like Us: Education, C ultural Expansion, and the American Century, Westport CT, Praeger, 2003.

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and individual liberty”.8 In her seminal work on US economic and cultural expansion prior to WWII, Emily Rosenberg gathers all these factors under “the ideology o f liberal-developmental ism”. American corporate philanthropy projected the USA around the world as the source o f knowledge and the universal model for Modernity and Pro­ gress.9 The expanding American presence around the globe through the early twentieth century ensured that eventually the cultural and political impulses behind exchanges would meet. The missionary zeal o f the privately-run education and training programmes fitted neatly into increasing national security concerns over strategic influence and vital interests. There was growing understanding, as Frank Costigliola has shown, how “cultural influence and prestige enhanced the ability o f the United States to conduct its political and economic policies in Europe with minimal cost and entanglement”.101The catalyst for bringing the public and private sectors together in a coordinated structural relation­ ship was the increasingly threatening international environment during the 1930s. The rise o f totalitarian nationalist regimes in Europe began to break up the ideal o f a US-led global 4liberal ecumene’ and even chal­ lenged it in its own backyard o f Latin America." Spurred into action, the State Department followed up on President Roosevelt’s ’Good Neighbour’ approach by actively seeking new mechanisms to favoura­ bly influence public opinion south o f the border. In 1938 Assistant Secretary Sumner Welles and the head of the State Department’s American Republics division Laurence Duggan, both convinced o f the value o f cultural internationalism, succeeded in pushing through the creation o f the Division o f Cultural Relations (DCR). The small-scale DCR was meant to operate in a purely supervisory role in collaboration with the private sector, and it was dominated by the liberal belief in facilitating international flows, not controlling them. Ben Cherrington, the first chief, only saw government entering the field as a junior partner in cooperation with the extensive operational networks o f the private 8

May, E. Am erican Im perialism : A Speculative Essay, Chicago, Imprint, 1991, p. 8. See also on this point Ninkovich, F. The United States and Im perialism , Oxford, Blackwell, 2001. 9 Rosenberg, E. Spreading The American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945, New York, Hill & Wang, 1982, p. 7; Ninkovich, Diplomacy o f Ideas, p. 22-23. 10 Costigliola, F. Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic and Cultural Relations with Europe 1919-1933, Ithaca NY, 1984, p. 20. 11 See Malier, J. Nationalsozialism us in Lateinamerika: D ie Auslandorganisation der NSDAP in Argentinien, Brasilien, Chile und Mexiko, 1931-1945, Stuttgart, Heinz, 1997.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

sector. Cultural relations offered a means to secure progressive benefits for all regardless o f the needs o f US foreign policy. The formation o f the DCR was also a defensive move motivated by concerns that US pre­ dominance in the Western hemisphere were being undermined. Never­ theless, it did represent the permanent involvement o f the US govern­ ment in promoting cultural relations as part o f its foreign affairs activities, and the basis to extend its interests worldwide had been laid. It would not take long for this to be taken up.12 The DCR’s aim was to operate in a reciprocal manner, meaning the promotion o f a two-way exchange o f people and ideas that included using visitors to inform the American public as much as the other way around. This further distanced the Division from accusations o f propaganda-mongering and highlighted its belief in a genuine multilateral flow o f ideas. Yet from the beginning the focus was on identifying and establishing contact with “the molders o f thought and opinion among the educated elite in the Latin American countries, the 10 per cent that shaped the destinies o f the other 90 per cent o f the Latin American public”.13 According to Secretary o f State Cordell Hull the new ap­ proach was “designed to control the governments from within by build­ ing public opinion in this hemisphere on the friendship and understand­ ing o f the common people”.14*Between December 1940 and July 1941 the first group o f thirty-five distinguished leaders in the arts, education, and other professions were invited to visit the United States for twomonths. Under the influence o f Vice-President Henry Wallace the programme’s visitor categories were expanded in mid-1941 to include civil servants, leaders o f rural organisations, journalists, and trade union officials.13 The criteria for this programme essentially provided the basis for the functioning o f the Leader Program several years later: The grants for Latin American Leaders were for 2 to 3 months of travel and observation. Preference was given to persons who had never been in the United States or who had visited this country some years previously;[...]and to persons who in all probability would, upon their return to their own coun­ tries, engage in writing and speaking on the basis of their experience in the United States.16

Willing individuals and local educational, business, professional, and community organisations across the United States were accumulated by 12 Manuel Espinosa, J. Inter-Am erican Beginnings, pp. 98-102,113,154. 13 Ibid., p. 167. 14 Arndt, R. First Resort o f Kings, p. 57. Espinosa, J. Manuel, pp. 164-167. In the same period six US leaders and some research scholars were sent south. 16 Ibid., p. 165.

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the Division into a nationwide network able to host visiting leaders as they pursued their trips. A member o f the DCR would oversee the arrangements for each individual or group visit in Washington DC and the State Department remained responsible for the visit as a whole, but once they left the capital the visitors were taken care of by the myriad private organisations that volunteered for this task. In planning ex­ changes in this way the DCR was laying out the apparatus for what would become the worldwide Foreign Leader Program several years later. The demands o f WWI1 dramatically increased the strategic value o f favourably influencing opinion abroad, and while the DCR operated according to worthy motives it was totally inadequate to meet the chal­ lenge in terms of funding and approach. Up to this point exchanges had been seen as ‘slow media1, stimulating the transfer o f knowledge and resulting in outcomes over time that did not necessarily fit within the confines o f immediate foreign policy goals. As a result, new agencies were approved to meet new demands: William Donovan's Office o f Strategic Services (OSS) for covert operations, the Office o f War Infor­ mation (OWI) for US propaganda in support o f the war effort, and Nelson Rockefeller's Office o f the Coordinator o f Inter-American Affairs (CIA A) which focused on Latin America.17 Both the Cl A A and the OWI carried out substantial exchange programmes o f their own, using them within their overall approach to gain support for the US war effort abroad. Rockefeller's “hemispheric economic program" to secure Latin America’s natural resources and political allegiance for the United States was most active in ‘fast media' fields such as radio, the press, and motion pictures. But CIAA also ran exchange programmes focused on offering training in the United States for professionals and apprentices in public administration, public health, medicine, engineering, journal­ ism, and the sciences in general. As with George Creel's CPI, journalists were a group o f special strategic importance and twelve tours involving 140 Latin American writers, editors and publishers took place between 1942-45.18 Apart from the transfer o f skills and information, there was also an awareness that these tours and traineeships had a profound psychological effect on the recipients, resulting in the likelihood that they would become “good-will ambassadors from the United States to their own people".19 The OWI, founded in June 1942, was similar to 17 Winkler, A. The Politics o f Propaganda: The O ffice o f War Inform ation 1942-1945, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1978, pp. 25-33. 18 Ketzel, C. ‘Exchange o f Persons and American Foreign Policy’, p. 29. 19 Maxwell, A. *Evoking Latin American Collaboration in the Second World Wan A Study o f the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (1940-1946)’, Ph.D. Thesis, Fletcher School o f Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 1971, p. 334.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

CIAA in its use o f exchanges to back up its ‘fast media* information campaigns that sought support for the US war effort. Focusing on ‘leaders* who could influence large sections o f the target populations, invited journalists, trade unionists, broadcasters, and civil servants from allied and neutral countries in Europe and Africa. Once again, OWI differed from the DCR in its belief that short-term wartime political interests overshadowed the aim for longer-term educational and cultural benefits. However, once the DCR took over the bulk o f CIAA*s exchange-of-persons projects in July 1943, the demands o f war also led it to search for leader grantees who could bring an immediate effect on public opinion. By this stage the Division was also running exchanges in specific strategic theatres. Following the announcement o f a Lend-Lease agreement with China in May 1941, finance was made available from the President’s Emergency Fund for a cultural exchange programme to allow two-way educational interchange between American and Chinese universities. In 1943 a smaller programme was initiated with the Middle East to strengthen local skills in education, health, agriculture, and engineering.20 War had led the US government into running exchange programmes across the globe. The experience o f WWII therefore placed the general value o f ex­ change programmes in a new light. Separate agencies within the US government were operating programmes with quite different motives. For the DCR exchanges were valuable in their own right, i.e. as a means to pursue the fostering o f a peaceful world through increasing inter­ national and inter-cultural understanding. The dominant ethos was based on reciprocity and a belief, more or less impossible to substantiate, in the positive effects o f these programmes over the longer term. Along­ side this purist view o f cultural relations, the more direct approach o f CLAA and OWI convinced many in US government circles that ex­ changes should be utilised as an explicit tool o f US foreign policy, and should be designed and pursued with the US national interest in mind. Based on these differences o f opinion, already in 1942 discussions had begun within the State Department over possible post-war directions for US cultural relations programmes. In February o f that year a memoran­ dum produced by the DCR and the Division o f Political Studies empha­ sised the role that these activities could fulfil in facilitating the spread of vital knowledge around the world and thereby the fostering o f a peaceful world order, whereby US “leadership in international action in the cultural field will be as decisively necessary as in the political and Between July 1942 and July 1945 320 Latin American leaders came to the United States through the DCR, and 35 Americans were sent abroad. Ketzel, C., pp. 30-34; Espinosa, pp. 214-215; Fairbank, W. Am erica’s Cultural Experiment in China 19421949, Washington DC, Dept, o f State, 1976, pp. 9-12.

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economic fields”.21 Following vigorous debate, the DCR’s General Advisory Committee rejected the subordination o f exchanges to foreign policy directives but could not defend the complete seclusion o f ex­ changes from security concerns. Yet this distinction cannot hide the underlying proselytising nature o f US cultural relations programmes. In trying to offer the Committee guidance for their discussions, Under-Secretary o f State Sumner Welles had posed the following question: Should a true cultural relations program be used to implement the foreign policy of any one country; or should it provide a vehicle for the interchange of ideas and the deepening of understanding in order to aid people in the de­ termination o f their destiny?22

This question perfectly illustrates the gradations o f political intent represented by the programmes o f the C1AA, OWI, and DCR. The implication here is that the United States could “aid people in the deter­ mination o f their destiny” without it being fundamentally an aspect of foreign policy. Welles' comment leaves open the issue o f whether everyone’s destiny would be compatible with the American model, because for him it was taken for granted that the skills, knowledge, economic dynamism, and democratic orientation o f the United States offered the best way forward for all concerned. While the explicit connection between cultural relations and foreign policy (OWI, CIAA) was necessarily rejected as a blueprint for propaganda, the implicit connection between US interests and universal interests remained very much in force. This dichotomy formed the basis for the US approach after WWII. The aim to shape a new world order under US leadership based on democracy, free trade, and military security relied on peoples abroad absorbing these values as being in their own best interests. In this scenario, exchange programmes made a vital contribution by inculcating individuals with first-hand knowledge of the United States, allowing them to adopt the American mentality and methods voluntarily. So long as these programmes offered quality returns for the grantees, the appli­ cation of the skills learned after returning to their home country could be defended on the grounds that they were the best available, not that they were American. Thus these programmes expressed a strong didactic dimension in their wish to make the world over by proxy in the Ameri­ can image, and in the general interest. Increasing contacts between peoples could, if managed successfully, enable the fostering o f a world­ wide network o f elites with a first-hand knowledge o f US affairs, a

21 Espinosa, p. 195. 22 Ibid., p. 199.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

sympathy for US interests, and a commitment to the US model o f modernisation. The end o f the war brought with it major bureaucratic alterations and a period o f uncertainty over the future purpose or even pursuit o f ex­ change programmes. The OWI and CIAA were disbanded and their activities merged with those o f the DCR in the State Department, lead­ ing to the creation o f the Office o f International Information and Cul­ tural Affairs (OIC) in January 1946. Exchanges were at a minimum during 1946-47, and the limited legislation permitted that they only take place with Latin America.23 During these years an intense debate over the actual value of a post-war information and culture programme was held within Congress. Yet the experience o f wartime ensured that there were many advocates for using exchanges as a vital tool to secure US interests. In the post-war years the mingling o f personnel from the various agencies - DCR, OWI, CIAA, OSS - contributed to the merging o f cultural approaches with a harder political intent. Through the 1940s the increasing ideological contest between communist collectivism and capitalist individualism led to demands for a strategically-directed information campaign in support o f US foreign policy. The emphasis was placed more and more on the application o f mass media approaches in order to obtain political advantage abroad in the quickest possible time. Exchanges were seen as just another way to achieve rapid quanti­ fiable improvements in the acquiescence o f foreign publics, and that was increasingly how they came to be judged in government and congres­ sional circles. The lexicon o f Liberalism continued to provide the lan­ guage o f cultural exchange, but the political imperative to contain the Soviet Union caused an infusion o f techniques and tactics developed from communications research and psychological warfare. The result was that “a unilateral approach to exporting American culture and American know-how was increasingly emphasised, although ‘mutual understanding9 remained the watchword*9.24

Strategy: Psychological Warfare and the Focus on Elites At heart modem psychological warfare has been a tool for managing empire, not for settling conflicts in any fundamental sense. It has operated largely as a means to ensure that indigenous democratic initiatives in the

24

Ketzel, p. 35. Bu, L , ‘Foreign Students and the Emergence o f Modem International Education in the United States, 1910-1970*, Ph.D. dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University, 1995, p. 225.

Networks o f Empire

Third World and Europe did not go ‘too far' from the standpoint of US se­ curity agencies.25 Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction.26 While ‘mutual understanding’ provided the foundations for the Leader Program’s general worldview, its actual approach on the ground was influenced more by attitudes stemming from psychological warfare and politically-orientated communications research. Psychological warfare can best be understood as “a group o f strategies and tactics designed to achieve the ideological, political, or military objectives o f the sponsoring organisation (typically a government or political move­ ment) through exploitation o f a target audience’s cultural-psychological attributes and its communication system”.27 As this suggests, the roots o f this concept came from mass communications research and studies o f the impact that communications media could have on mass audiences, particularly in relation to the maintenance o f political power. The use o f propaganda techniques during WW1 and the rise o f mass political movements in its aftermath triggered serious scientific investigation into ‘the manufacture o f consent’.2829Creel’s methods began to receive close attention early on from social scientists eager to analyse the specific forces at work. Walter Lippmann, following on from his work as a wartime propaganda editor with the American Expeditionary Force in France, was one of the first to argue that, in the new era o f mass com­ munications, stable government could only be achieved through the use o f clear stereotypes to direct public opinion along acceptable channels. Lippmann’s ideas were extended by others in various directions. Ed­ ward Bemays, ostensibly motivated by similar concerns over democracy and order, praised the “invisible governors” at work and developed the concept of public relations for successful application by corporate elites. Harold Lasswell instead focused on the issue o f control, and his Propaganda Technique and the World War (1927) was the first o f a host o f publications examining political power and public opinion.30 For Lasswell, communication studies meant analysing the control and distribution o f specific information for political purposes. Democracy 25 Simpson, C. Science o f Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare 1945-1960, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 8. 26 Greene, R. The 48 Laws o f Power, London, Profile, 2002, p. 172. 27 Simpson, p. 11. 28 Lippmann, W. Public Opinion, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1922. 29 Bemays, E. Propaganda, New Yoik, Ig, 2002 ( 1928). 30 Lasswell, H. Propaganda Technique in the World War, New York, Alfred Knopf, 1927.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

was too fragile in an era when political ideology, the mobilisation o f mass movements, and economic uncertainty threatened to undermine the established socio-economic order. Strategic use o f propaganda and communications media, skillfully coordinated with forms o f coercion and violence, could ensure the dominance o f elites who could then rule in the interests o f the general welfare. By formulating this as “who says what to whom with what effect” he provided the emerging science of communications with the fundaments for its research agenda in the coming decades.31 Financial support for communications research initially came from the Rockefeller Foundation, which backed several ventures in this field during the 1930s.32 It funded the newly-created journal Public Opinion Quarterly, one o f the most important publication outlets in this field. It gave a grant to Lasswell to work on content analysis at the Library o f Congress, a project which soon became the War Communication Divi­ sion (WCD). It also financed Princeton’s Office o f Radio Research, where Paul Lazarsfeld, an émigré social psychologist from Vienna, took over as director. In 1940 Lazarsfeld moved to Columbia University to head the Bureau o f Applied Social Research, and it was there that he produced a body o f work with profound implications for the functioning o f exchange programmes. Lazarsfeld led the research that produced The P eople’s Choice in 1944, a survey o f results o f several years empirical analysis o f voting behaviour.33 Lazarsfeld argued that mass media had a more differentiated effect on its audience than had been assumed. Instead o f everyone being reached by the same message, which antici­ pates a relative conformity of response, Lazarsfeld claimed instead that a “two-step flow” o f information occurred via opinion leaders with local influence. Receiving information from a member o f one’s peer group or a respected figure would have a greater impact than simply hearing or reading the same information directly from the media outlet. For com­ munications analysts, the focus needed to be on identifying and reaching the key opinion leaders within each society who could then serve as the principal channels for well-targeted information campaigns.34 As Ron Robin has described, this approach was a radical departure because “it 31 Simpson, pp. 16-19. 32 Tournes, L. ‘Mass Communications and the Foundations: Rockefeller, Ford, and the Role o f Radio, 1935-1964*, in G. Gemelli & R. MacLeod (eds.), Am erican Founda­ tions in Europe: Grant-G iving Policies, Cultural Diplomacy and Trans-Atlantic Re­ lations, 1920-1980, Brussels, PIE Peter Lang, 2003, pp. 129-144. Lazarsfeld, P., Berelson, B. & Gaudet, H., The People ’s Choice, New York, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1944. 34 Holt, R. & van de Velde, R. Strategic Psychological O perations and American Foreign Policy, Chicago, University o f Chicago Press, 1960, p. 58.

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claimed that the diffusion o f ideas via respected members o f an individ­ ual's social network - the opinion leaders - was more effective than the mechanism o f mass media”.33 If these opinion leaders - or ‘multipliers’, as they later became known in exchange-speak - could be identified within specific target groups o f strategic value throughout a society (such as up-and-coming politicians, trade unions, media professionals, academics), they would provide the ideal focus for all information programmes, including exchanges. WWII provided the perfect context for applying these theories in the service o f national security. Foremost amongst the several government agencies involved was the Office o f Strategic Services, where William Donovan sought to utilise psychological warfare techniques within a comprehensive vision for waging a new form o f war. But Donovan was not alone, and ideas on strategic communication were soon circulating around OWI, CIAA, Lasswell’s War Communication Division, and two units o f the US Army, the Division o f Morale and the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD). Several researchers who contributed towards what became the paradigm position on elites, exchanges, and political communication were employed by these agencies: Paul Lazarsfeld, Leonard Doob, and Hans Speier (OWI); Ithiel de Sola Pool (WCD); W. Phillips Davison and Saul Padover (OSS & PWD); and Daniel Lemer (PWD). The cross-fertilisation between civilian and military branches was o f prime importance, and the interchange and exchange o f personnel between these agencies both during and after WWII was a crucial factor in the spread of ideas and their filtering into the policy­ making process.3536 After 1945 many from this large network joined or advised the State Department as it sought to develop a post-war information role. Oliver Caldwell was an OSS officer in China before joining the State Depart­ ment’s Division of Exchange o f Persons, which took over responsibility for the US Army’s German re-orientation programme when it was passed to the State Department in 1949. Kenneth Holland worked with CIAA before becoming the State Department’s Assistant Director for Cultural Affairs in 1947, then moving on to the private sector as head o f HE in 1949. By 1952 he was on the board o f the Fund for Youth and Student Affairs, the CIA front for running international student ex­ changes.37 In late 1945 Lasswell provided newly appointed Assistant 35 Robin, R. The M aking o f the C old War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the M ilitaryIndustrial Complex Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 83. 36 See Simpson, pp. 27-29; Ketzel, p. 36; Paddock, A. US Arm y Special Warfare: Its O rigins, University Press o f Kansas, 2002, p. 18. 37 Paget, K. ‘From Cooperation to Covert Action: The United States Government and Students, 1940-1952*, in H. Laville & H. Wilford (eds.), The US Government, C iti-

The History o f US Government Exchanges

Secretary o f State William Benton with a report on information Poli­ cies Concerning Russia’, a document that analysed carefully the advan­ tages and disadvantages o f the US position and presciently saw “a danger o f a cultural armaments race” between the superpowers. Lasswell went on to join Benton’s Radio Advisory Committee to pro­ vide guidance for OIC.*38 Any scruples that psychological warfare tech­ niques were only appropriate for wartime conditions were disappearing rapidly in the developing atmosphere o f East-West tension. Lasswell marked this transition himself: In considering Psychological Warfare and other instruments of policy con­ nected with it, it should be kept in mind that they can be employed in peace as in war, with the necessary change of emphasis. The difference between war and peace is not always sharply defined, as is seen by the current "cold war’.39

As US policy-makers began to view global politics as a contest be­ tween opposing ideologies, so the attributes o f psychological warfare were seen by some as vital for winning this contest. Once seen as no more than additional support for military campaigns, psy-war was increasingly understood to represent “any action taken to influence public opinion or to advance foreign policy interests by nonmilitary means”. Wanting to avoid direct military conflict, the superpowers gave more attention to “the symbolic dimensions o f national power and progress”. A targeted use o f ideas could be effective in “moving indi­ viduals along ideological - and therefore political - lines”.40 During the immediate post-war years, the main testing ground for the application o f an exchange programme in the service o f immediate strategic requirements was occupied Germany and Austria (and to a lesser extent Japan). By August 1946 the occupation authorities had adopted SWNCC 269/5, a document that authorised the cultural, moral, and political re-education o f the local population as the best means to ensure their long-term rehabilitation within the international community. This approach was further confirmed by JCS 1779 in July 1947, which sought to “lay the economic and educational bases o f a sound German zen Groups and the Cold War: The State-Private Network, London, Routledge, 2006, P* 77. 38 Cull, C. Am erican Propaganda and Public Diplomacy 1945-1989: The United States Inform ation Agency and the C old War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008. 39 Lasswell, H. ‘Political and Psychological Warfare’, in Daniel Lemer (ed.), Propa­ ganda in War and Crisis: M aterials fo r American Policy; New York: George W. Stewart Inc., 1951, p. 265. 40 Osgood, K. Total C old War: Eisenhow er's Secret Propaganda Battle a t Home and Abroad, University Press o f Kansas, Lawrence KA, 2006, pp. 33-34.

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democracy”. The use o f an exchange programme in support o f this objective was first suggested by an educational mission that visited Germany in August 1946 under the leadership o f George Zook, then president o f the American Council on Education.41 By 1948 the US Office o f the Military Government in Germany (OMGUS) was referring to “the moral and spiritual reorientation o f the German people through international exchange o f persons”. While the majority o f German grantees were students, the number of German leaders invited to go to the United States rose from 8 in 1947 to 1288 in 1950. The German reorientation programme was a model o f state-private cooperation, with OMGUS running the selection process in Germany and private institu­ tions such as HE working closely with the Department o f the Army on the organisation o f itineraries within the US itself.42 Lucius Clay, US Military Governor in Germany from 1947-49, later stated that the exchange programme was “the foundation upon which our reorientation program was built”.43 The focus o f the German programme and the growing pressure o f national security concerns raised doubts over the use o f cultural ex­ change as a means solely to obtain long-term peaceful relations. Charles A.H. Thomson, a former PWD officer and a member o f the US mili­ tary’s Information Control Bureau in occupied Germany, contributed an incisive survey o f US information programmes for the Brookings Insti­ tution in mid-1948. With first-hand knowledge o f the effects o f the German programme, Thomson was highly critical o f the aim o f some State Department officials to use exchanges for the promotion o f “the international brotherhood of culture”. Strategy priorities came first, related not only to identifying opinion leaders but also to “who will be influenced by the exchangees [and] in what ways”. Nevertheless, he was aware o f the subtleties involved in using exchanges in this way: Much of the effectiveness of an exchange of persons program from the stra­ tegic point of view depends on the wisdom and tact with which the strategic elements are brought into play. Rigid strategic standards for choice of ex­ changees and control of their activities would strike at the central potential effectiveness of the exchange device as a means of influencing attitudes and beliefs abroad about the United States [...] On the other hand, there is no justification for leaving the exchangee completely without observation and

1 Kelleiman, H. C ultural Relations as an Instrument o f US Foreign Policy: The Educational Exchange Program between the United States and Germany 1945-1954, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1978, pp. 19-24. 42 Ibid., pp.35,261. 43 Clay, L. D ecision in Germany, New York, Doubleday, I9S0, p. 301.

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guidance during his stay here, or for completely ignoring strategic elements in the selection of those who are technically qualified to participate [...J4445 Even if the numbers o f participants were small, this would be offset by the greater impact that their first-hand accounts would have when relayed from “the positions held or attained by exchangees in the social structure (and communications structure) o f their own countries”.43 The careful selection o f grantees was therefore the potential key to success. Modem society, according to these models, was organised primarily according to purposive individual behaviour.46 If you could locate the ‘right* individuals, you could therefore manipulate society. Another key figure working in this field was Hans Speier, who was with the New School for Social Research in the 1930s before switching to OWI during the war. Between 1945-47 he was head o f the State Department’s Occupied Areas Division, where he soon became one o f “the architects o f American postwar policy towards Germany”. Speier was a firm advocate o f a clearly focused information strategy that would lead to fundamental political and economic reforms “grounded in basic changes in values, attitudes, and institutions”.47 The following year Speier left government service, returning briefly to the New School before taking over the newly created social science research division at RAND. Through their work in the 1940s Speier and Lazarsfeld contrib­ uted greatly to the refinement o f communications studies as a more ‘exact* science. In contrast to Lazarsfeld’s precision analysis, Speier drew on his experience with post-war Germany and emphasised a necessarily totalising strategy o f political communication. However, while he recognised the need to address the whole social context within which the political elite acted, he rejected out o f hand information strategies that operated according to an undifferentiated mass audience. In 1951 he wrote that “the population at large is no rewarding target o f conversion propaganda from abroad. Any notion to the contrary may be

Thomson, C.A.H. Overseas Inform ation Service o f the United States Government* Washington DC, Brookings Institution, 1948, pp. 357-8. 45 Ibid.* p. 229. 46 “Most explanatory models produced by social theorists in recent decades take for granted much o f the organizational and ideological individualism o f modem society. Two foundation stones underlie these models: Society consists essentially o f individ­ ual actors, and social activity ordinarily involves the purposive behaviour o f indi­ viduals.” Meyer, J., Boli, J. & Thomas, G. ‘Ontology arid Rationalization in the Western Account*, in Thomas, Meyer, Boli & Ramirez, F. Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society, and the Individual* London, Sage, 1987, p. 14. 47 KeUermann, C ultural Relations as an Instrum ent o f US Foreign Policy*p. 22.

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called the democratic fallacy”.48 By directing the focus o f mass media research onto “opinion leaders” (Lazarsfeld) and “social relay points” (Speier), a capability to apply communication techniques with some precision appeared possible. In 1956 an article in Public Opinion Quar­ terly referred to these two researchers as pivotal in laving the basis for the application o f a successful information strategy.49 These concepts were introduced directly into USIA programmes via the Bureau o f Social Science Research, a body o f researchers based at American University who were contracted to provide the Agency with a compre­ hensive training in communications techniques. It was via this channel that the meaning of 'opinion leaders’ entered US public diplomacy parlance and practice. By the time Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz published the definitive account o f this research in 1955 (Personal Influence), it had already been standard practice for US information strategy abroad for several years.*30 Looking to extend the methods he applied in Ger­ many, while at RAND Speier contributed to Project Troy, the State Department-M IT-Harvard programme that sought to combine multidisciplinary analysis for the development o f an all-encompassing propa­ ganda campaign.3132 Following on from Troy, in the mid-1950s Speier (chair), Lazarsfeld, Lasswell, and Ithiel de Sola Pool all served on the planning committee for MIT's Center for International Studies, an institute that dominated the field in psychological warfare publications during the second half o f the decade.” Yet even the strongest advocates o f psychological warfare tech­ niques doubted the possibility o f achieving specific targets through exchanges. Saul Padover, an OSS intelligence officer in 1944-45 before becoming a professor o f political science at the New School for Social Research, argued in his 1951 pamphlet 'Psychological Warfare' that: Accurate estimates [of success with exchanges] are hard to make. For one thing, educational effects are generally long-range and take time to mature. The State Department itself is not absolutely certain whether a large-scale exchange of persons is a good thing per se; nor does it know how to evalu­ ate it [...] Even in the case of white European students, who usually meet

49 30 31 32

Speier, H. ‘Psychological Warfare Reconsidered*, in D. Lemer & H. Lasswell (eds.), The Policy Sciences: Recent Developments in Scope and M ethod, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1959 [1951], p. 259. Smith, B.L. ‘Trends in Research in International Communication and Opinion, 19451955*, Public Opinion Quarterly, 20 (Spring 1956), pp. 182-1%. Simpson, pp. 72-73; E. Katz & P. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow o f Mass Communications, Glencoe, Free Press, 1955. Robin, p. 45; Needell, A. ‘Truth is our Weapon: Project Troy, Political Warfare, and Government-Academic Relations*, D iplom atic H istory, 17/3 (1993), pp. 399-420. Simpson, pp. 82-83.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

with warm hospitality and courtesy in the United States, one cannot always be sure of the total effect upon them of their stay in this country.3334*

Project Troy’s researchers had concluded that a psychological for­ mula for winning the hearts and minds o f all foreign populations was not possible. Instead it increased interest in the development o f tactical psychological weaponry, tuned and honed to well-defined cultural and political targets”.54 The experience o f WWII had demonstrated that good propaganda tended to solidify existing opinion rather than cause a change o f attitude. The implications were that good local knowledge was required to be able not only to pick out those individuals who would be most open to contact, but also who could be most unfluential in ensuring political and economic stability. Potential grantees had to want to go to the United States, so that the ensuing experience there would reinforce existing sentiments (or, in the case o f those in doubt, tip the balance in favour o f favourable sentiments). This highlighted the neces­ sity o f local knowledge on the part o f US FSOs and, after 1953, USIA personnel in order to identify suitable candidates to obtain maximum impact. A large-scale programme such as that operated in Germany could have a profound impact o f local social development, but this was due to the special circumstances o f the US being able to act as an occu­ pying power in a defeated nation. The close linkage between cultural diplomacy and foreign policy that took place in Germany (which Philip Coombs later referred to as a “saturation effort”) could not be replicated elsewhere.39 However, the techniques for implementing them as an integral part o f a broader strategy had proven their effectiveness, and they were ready to be adopted elsewhere.

Smith-Mundt and the Campaign of Truth By the late 1940s the US government was involved in the running o f exchanges on a broad front in support o f its expanding national security objectives. Every sector of society in other countries was gradually being covered as programmes multiplied and intermeshed, not always in

33 Padover, S. ‘Psychological Warfare*, Foreign Policy Association Headline Series, 86 (March-April 1951), pp. 31-32. 34 Robin, p. 46. 33 Coombs, P. The Fourth Dimension, pp. 99-100. By 1958 132 members o f the Bundestag, around 25 per cent, had visited the USA on one or other exchange pro­ gramme. 56 See ‘The HICOG Exchange o f Persons Program* [1951], reprinted in W. Daugherty & M. Janowitz (eds.), A Psychological Warfare Casebook, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1960, pp. 327-332.

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a coordinated fashion. As that decade came to a close the political motives driving them became ever clearer. In the educational field, the passage o f an amendment to the Surplus Property Act o f 1946 brought the Fulbright Program into existence, with its finding not relying on congressional appropriations greatly easing its acceptance. By 1951 21 countries had signed Fulbright agreements.57 The State Department, alongside its activities under the Smith-Mundt Act, was also responsible for the Iranian Trust Fund (for Iranian stu­ dents to study in the US), the Finnish Exchange Program, the Chinese Emergency Aid Program, and, after 1949-50, the Occupied Areas Programs in Germany, Austria, and Japan. The Department o f Defense continued to administer the Ryukyu Islands Program for leaders and students. In the interests o f ‘hemispheric defense9 and goodwill, military training programmes were also run for Latin American officers at the US Navy and Military Academies. Scientific research exchanges were facilitated via the Department o f Health, Education and Welfare and the National Science Foundation. Other unique administrative units oversaw their own exchange ac­ tivities. In terms o f military security, the Greek-Turkish Aid Program, a direct result o f the Truman Doctrine, sanctioned the training o f military personnel in the United States and the sending o f American experts to those two countries. In 1949 this was absorbed into the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP), a large-scale military aid package that by 1952 had provided for the training o f 13,000 personnel from the NATO countries, Iran, South Korea, and the Philippines in the USA.58 Another major field of activity was related to economic development and assis­ tance. The arrival o f the European Recovery Program (ERP) in mid1948 included a variety o f training programmes designed to introduce West European managers, trade unionists, skilled workers, and agricul­ tural labourers to the techniques o f American industrial productivity. The ERP’s European Cooperation Administration (ECA) used these study trips to the US not only to sustain its productivity drive in Europe but also to encourage a broadly pro-American outlook and bolster anti­ communist sentiment.59 President Truman’s Point Four programme for 57 These were Australia, Austria, Belgium, Burma, China, Egypt, France, Greece, India, Iran, Italy, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealnd, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailans, Turkey, and the UK. The Fulbright Program was also insulated from immediate government interference by the creation o f the Board o f Foreign Scholarships with individuals from the private sector. However, it would be a mistake to assume it was a venture free o f political ambition. 58 Ketzel, p. 61. 59 Mckenzie, B. Remaking France: Am ericanization, Public Diplomacy, and the M arshall Plan, New York, Berghahn Books, 2005, pp. 175-177; Inklaar, F. Van

The History o f US Government Exchanges

development assistance led to further consolidation and clarification o f these various programmes. In 1951 the ECA became the Technical Cooperation Administration (TCA), and the MDAP the Mutual Security Agency (MSA). TCA and MSA themselves were merged in 1953 to form the Foreign Operations Administration, which in turn became the International Cooperation Administration (ICA). Between 1948-52 the combined ECA-MSA programme brought more than 9500 Western European leaders and specialists to the USA on fixed group tours o f five to eight weeks.60 The European Productivity Agency continued to run study trips through the 1950s “to sell the ideas o f scientific manage­ ment, good industrial relations practices and practical business unionism to European management and labor”.61 In 1951 the TCA, with a global mandate, began running programmes for technical trainees and leaders to come to the United States. By 1956 its successor the ICA was bring­ ing around 5000 people to the USA within its Technical Assistance Program.62 The purpose o f all these exchanges was to aid economic development, increase industrial productivity, and raise the standard o f living by transferring technical and administrative skills to other coun­ tries via both training programmes in the US and the sending o f Ameri­ can experts abroad. As an MSA director stated, “we do not bring per­ sons just for good will; we bring them to help further a defined United States objective”.63 By 1961 the principal official bodies involved in exchange and training programmes had been narrowed down the the State Department, the Defense Department, and the newly-created Agency for International Development (which replaced ICA in that year). However, coordination overseas between the various administra­ tions running these exchange programmes remained limited at best. In his 1955 study Ketzel remarked that “every major program except that undertaken under the Fulbright Act was initiated at a time and with a region or countiy in which American political objectives and the

Am erika Geleerd: M arshall-hulp en Kennisim port in Nederland, The Hague, Sdu, 1997. 60 Ketzel, p. 77. This figure includes participants from dependent territories. 61 Carew, A. Labour w ider the M arshall Plan: The Politics o f Productivity and the M arketing o f Management Science, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1987, p. 190. 62 Donovan Jr., J. ‘No Fool’s Errand: The Foreign Leader Program o f the Department o f State*, reprinted by the State Department from Adult Education, Autumn 1956, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs Historical Collection, MC 468, Box 152 Folder 7, Special Collections, University o f Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville (hereaf­ te r ‘CU*). 63 Quoted in Ketzel, p. 64.

Networks o f Empire

national interest made such a program desirable”.64 While it is true that the legislation for Fulbright was initiated separate from any particular regional strategy, it was far from apolitical. It was no coincidence that the first Fulbright agreement was signed in 1947 with China, a country that had been the target o f much missionary, philanthropic, and eco­ nomic attention since the late nineteenth century and with which the Division o f Cultural Relations had already begun to administer ex­ changes in 1942.65 During the 1950s and 1960s the Fulbright Program in Europe would be deliberately used to stimulate research on the United States and promote the building o f American Studies departments, and with some success. In this endeavour it teamed up effectively with other important initiatives in the field such as the Salzburg Seminar.66 In the longer term the Fulbright Program was a key method for legitimising US power abroad; it was, according to US diplomat William Draper, “the thought stream o f the Atlantic Community”.67 The legislative basis for the State Department to operate exchanges worldwide was finally in place by January 1948. After two years o f hearings, the Information and Educational Exchange Act (Smith-Mundt) eventually passed Congress and was approved by President Truman. The Secretary o f State was authorised “to increase mutual understanding between the people o f the United States and the people o f other coun­ tries” via, among other means, an “educational exchange service to cooperate with other nations in the interchange o f persons, knowledge, and skills”.68 Increasing national security concerns and the views o f congressmen who had heard abroad how US interests were being harmed by Soviet-orchestrated propaganda campaigns ultimately smoothed the Act’s passage. In particular it was agreed that an “ex­ panded information and educational program would serve as the neces­ sary corollary to the European recovery plan”.69 The Foreign Leader

64 Ibid., p. 11. 65 Ninkovich, US Inform ation Policy, p. 10; Ninkovich, Diplomacy o f Ideas, pp. 55-60; Fairbank, W. Am erica’s C ultural Experiment in China 1942-1949, Washington DC, Department of State, 1976. 66 Schmidt, O. ‘No Innocents Abroad: The Salzburg Impetus and American Studies in Europe*, in R. Wagenleitner & E.T. May (eds.), Here There and Everywhere: The Foreign Politcs o f American Popular Culture, Hanover NH, University Press o f New England, 2000. 67 Quoted in Johnson & Colligan, p. 121. 68 Public U w 402,80th Congress. 69 Garrett, A. ‘Marketing America: Public Culture and Public Diplomacy in the Marshall Plan Era, 1947-1954*, Ph.D. dissertation, University o f Pennsylvania, 2004, p. 138.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

Program, and its corollary the Specialist Program, grew directly out o f this legislation. The tone o f Smith-Mundt was firmly anchored in the Liberal belief in long-range cultural contacts unhindered by a direct relation with foreign policy objectives. This was due to the impact o f influential figures from the former DCR and associated private institutions who fought to have exchanges and cultural affairs separated from informa­ tion activities, couching the whole approach within the search for ‘mu­ tual understanding'. Framing the Soviet Union and its communist allies as no more than the source o f ideological falsifications, the SmithMundt Act embodied the United States' conviction that its commitment to displaying the truth would win the day with worldwide public opin­ ion. It was assumed that foreign audiences would necessarily make a distinction between the truth o f the US information campaign and the deliberate falsehoods o f the communist propaganda apparatus. Terming exchanges as ‘educational’ was another aspect o f this. Once again, the sense o f mission and leadership was emphasised. The United States would provide the skills, the means, and the purpose for re-casting post­ war international relations in a universally beneficial way. For the practice o f exchanges, there was an immediate tension in this framework. US information policy was based on an open, democratic ‘mirror’ approach, whereby “the basic goals and attitudes" o f the coun­ try would be displayed. However, the fact that such openness would allow negative viewpoints to circulate drew much criticism within Congress, and led to convoluted attempts to determine that the US would be projecting ‘true’ propaganda easily distinguishable from the messages o f its adversary.70 As Edward Bemays stated already in 1923, what was propaganda depended on one's perspective: The only difference between ‘propaganda* and ‘education', really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is called education. The advocacy of what we don’t believe in is propaganda.71

The determination o f the supporters o f mutual understanding to keep exchanges and information separate led to the formation o f two bureaux, the Office o f Educational Exchange (OEX) and the Office o f Interna­ tional Information (Oil), which collectively replaced OIC. Within OEX the Division o f International Exchange o f Persons (IEP), in 1952 re­ named the the International Educational Exchange Service (IES), over­

70 Parry-Giles, S. ‘Exporting America’s Cold War Message: The Debate over Amer­ ica’s First Peacetime Propaganda Program, 1947-1953', Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1992, pp. 52-55. 71 Bemays, E. C rystallizing Public O pinion, New York, Boni & Liveright, 1923, p. 212.

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saw all State Department exchanges including the Leader Program. Each office was to be guided by its own Advisory Committee. The implica­ tion was that this would shield educational exchange from potential contamination by the East-West information war.72 Similar to WWI1, a separate apparatus was assembled to coordinate overt and covert activi­ ties in foreign information campaigns. While Smith-Mundt updated the former role o f the OWI, in late 1947 the National Security Council’s NSC-4 and 4A called for a large-scale expansion o f psychological operations to favourably influence opinion abroad. By mid-1948 NSC 10/2 had authorised everything from propaganda to support for guerilla movements to be implemented by a new body, the Office o f Policy Coordination (OPC), a bureaucratic hybrid that was eventually folded into the CIA in 1952.73 This division between the long-term 'neutral’ benefits o f exchanges and the short-term policy-orientated information programmes has been a bone o f contention within the US body politic ever since.7475Three re­ sponses to this can be given. Firstly, this assumed division fails to recognise the fundamental ideological drive behind 'mutual understand­ ing’ and 'educational exchange’. Secondly, it sidelines how exchanges were created in accordance with US security interests and judged by the same standards as were applied to the information programmes. Thirdly, it ignores the fact that the practice o f exchange programmes, for all their openness, themselves applied the techniques developed by communica­ tions and psychological warfare analysts. Staff from the US Interna­ tional Information and Educational Exchange Program (US1E, which incorporated both Oil and OEX) established close contact with commu­ nications research scholars, leading to the researchers’ concepts having a direct impact in shaping the approach and outlook o f information and exchange policy.73 In this way there was a constant cross-fertilisation o f ideas, techniques, and personnel, as each medium sought to utilise similar methods in different ways. Despite the passage of Smith-Mundt, the failure o f the State Depart­ ment to request an increased appropriation for 1948-49 caused its ex­ change programmes to remain at a moribund level. The legislation 72 Thompson, C & Laves, W. C ultural Relations and US Foreign Policy, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1963, pp. 69-72. 73 See Lucas, S. Freedom 's War: The American Crusade against the Soviet Union, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1999. 74 See Diebel, T. & Roberts, W. Culture and Inform ation: Two Foreign Policy Func­ tions, Beverly Hills, Sage, 1976, pp. 14-15, and the distinction between the “tenderminded” and the ‘tough-minded”. 75 Stephens, O. Facts to a Candid World: America ’s O verseas Inform ation Program, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1955, pp. 143-145.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

permitted a worldwide scope, but the funds allowed only a continuing focus on Latin America.76 It had sanctioned the existence o f a permanent information campaign abroad, but had not provided the means to follow it through. However, this was soon to change. In October 1949, due to the end o f the military occupation, the German reorientation programme was transferred to the State Department, greatly expanding its exchange activities. By early 1950, just when the first Foreign Leader grantees were arriving in the United States, renewed efforts were gathering pace to increase the US government's information programmes abroad. On the propaganda front, a world peace campaign initiated by the Cominform in 1947 was gathering momentum after international congresses in Breslau (1948), Paris, Prague, and New York (1949), and Stockholm (1950). The US response was two-fold. On the covert level there was NSC 68, which depicted the world situation as a titanic contest between freedom and slavery and called for “a rapid and sustained build-up o f the political, economic, and military strength of the free world".7778Then, bringing the campaign into the open, Truman announced in a speech on 20 April 1950 a Campaign o f Truth “to promote the cause o f freedom" and handed responsibility for realising it to his new Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, former OWI man Edward Barrett. When the Korean war broke out two months later, Congress soon granted an extra $79 million on top o f the $32.7 million requested for an upgraded State Department information campaign. Armed with this financial backing, Barrett directed USIE towards the following objectives: To strengthen the unity o f those nations devoted to the cause of freedom and to show that their interests and those of the United States coincide; To spread the conviction that the United States is an enlightened, strong and determined power deserving the full support o f other free nations; To stimulate among free nations the building of the unified strength neces­ sary to deter aggression and secure peace; To develop and maintain psychological resistance to Soviet tyranny and im­ perialism.

As this list makes clear, responding to Soviet propaganda required above all else the maintenance o f Western unity. In the congressional discussions on the Campaign o f Truth, Senator Karl Mundt had called 76 Ketzel, pp. 42-43. 77 NSC 68, in Documentary H istory o f the Truman Presidency, Vol. 7, University Publications o f America, 1996, p. 390. 78 ‘The Campaign o f Truth: The International Information and Educational Exchange Program, 1951’, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs Historical Collection, MC 468, Group XVII Box 340 Folder 14, Special Collections, University o f Arkan­ sas Librairies, Fayetteville (hereafter ‘CU’).

Networks o f Empire

for “a great cooperative contest in which we join like-minded associates around the globe”.79 Exchanges were especially suited to this task. The Campaign, reflecting its ideological and intellectual origins, ex­ hibited perfectly “the language o f psychological warfare, mixed with the jargon o f journalism, public relations and Madison Avenue”. To imple­ ment it, USIE first categorised countries according to their strategic importance for US interests, then set out to identify the specific target groups within each country and the means by which each group would be reached. Despite the strong aversion to mixing information (propa­ ganda) with exchanges (education), in March 1950 the State Department had created a new position o f General Manager to unite OEX with OH. The Advisory Commission on Exchanges had already declared that exchange participants must include those “whose impact upon the attitude o f their respective countries will be immediate as well as long continued”, opening the door to the direct application o f exchanges in the service o f policy demands.80 Exchanges were fast becoming “simply tools for favorably influencing attitudes and opinions within foreign countries”.81 William Johnstone, Director o f OEX from 1948-52, was unequivocal when testifying to Congress: In its simplest form, the job of this program is to implant a set of ideas or facts in the mind of a person. When this is done effectively, it results in ac­ tion favorable to the achievement of American foreign policy. It can help unite the free nations on the road to peace.82

To facilitate the application o f these programmes, lists o f specific Target Groups (a term taken from mass media research) were drawn up for each country. Special emphasis was placed on union leaders, journal­ ists, editors, radio broadcasters, and government officials who could yield an immediate impact on opinion once they returned home. By mid-1951 Barrett could report with satisfaction that the Campaign had “shifted the emphasis o f the exchange-of-persons program to increase by over 30% the proportion o f leadership types” who fit these catego­ ries.83 Even the Fulbright Program was adapted to this task, as the 79 Sorenson, T. The Word War: The Story o f American Propaganda, New York, Harper & Row, 1968, p. 26; Hixson, W. Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the C old War 1945-196/, New York, St Martins Press, 1998, pp. 14-16; Pany-Giles, pp. 80,90; Osgood, p. 43. 80 Coombs, P. The Fourth Dimension o f Foreign Policy: Educational and Cultural Affairs, New York, Harper & Row, 1964, p. 33; Thomson & Laves, p. 81; Ketzel, pp. 44-46. 81 Ninkovich, US Inform ation Policy, p. 18. 82 Thomson & Laves, p. 84. 83 Barrett, E. Truth is our Weapon, New York, Funk & Wagnails, 1953, p. 88.

The History o f US Government Exchanges

selection o f foreign students became geared towards those whose re­ search interests could be most strategically beneficial and whose chances o f rapidly gaining positions o f influence looked the most prom­ ising.84 In 1951 more than 7,500 individuals received grants through the Smith-Mundt legislation for exchanges between the United States and 71 other countries. O f these, 5,822 came to the USA, and 1,741 Ameri­ cans “carried the truth about America to foreign lands’*. The majority were in the educational sector - students, teachers, and researchers with the largest percentage from abroad being German, Austrian, and Chinese. 1,637 o f those visiting the United States came via the Leader Program, and 317 Americans took their skills abroad as Specialists.”

84 SS

Ketzel, p. 53; Thomson & Laves, p. 86. ‘The Campaign o f Truth: The International Information and Educational Exchange Program, 1951'. O f these 1637 Leaders, 987 were from Germany.

C h a pt e r 2

Implementing the Leader Program

The Administrative Apparatus Through 1950-51 the State Department sent out to each US embassy abroad a Country Plan designating the specific aims for information policy in the respective country. For exchanges this involved seeking “the support o f the people of a nation through target groups’9 and their respective opinion leaders. The target groups were adapted according to whether the government o f the country was friendly, “wavering”, or unfriendly towards US foreign policy objectives. Each embassy could suggest revisions, but State Department approval was required. Once accepted, the Country Plan constituted “the basic, official definition o f psychological objectives, tasks and projected activities for all US estab­ lishments and agencies in the country concerned, contributing to the United States foreign information program”.1 In early 1952 this process was changed to allow the embassies to draft their own Country Plan, a more flexible set-up that put more emphasis on the local knowledge o f the embassy sections and FSOs. This coincided with the replacement o f OEX and Oil with a new Inter­ national Information Administration (I1A) that consolidated the initia­ tives o f the Campaign o f Truth to closely coordinate foreign policy and psychological objectives within a single programme. However, many in Congress and throughout the educational sector abhorred the prospect o f exchanges being put permanently at the service o f an overseas informa­ tion campaign driven by propaganda imperatives and dominated by mass media channels. Reacting to this criticism, the Senate’s Hickenlooper Committee o f 1952-53 concluded its review o f information policy by insisting that IES be separated from I1A. At the end o f 1953 Eisenhower completed the process by transforming the semiautonomous I1A into the independent United States Information Agency*10

1

‘Purpose, Transmission, Authority, Utilization, and Revision o f IIA Country Plans*, 10 April 1952, Foreign Service Information and Educational Exchange Circular No. 32; ‘USIS Country Plans*, 12/30/52, Box 10, IES Country Files 1951-56, Bureau o f Public Affairs Lot Files, RG 59, National Archives, College Park (hereafter ‘NA’).

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(USIA). This created a dual apparatus whereby USLA personnel in US embassies (Public Affairs, Cultural Affairs, and Information Officers) would be responsible for implementing exchange programmes accord­ ing to the annual Countiy Plan, whereas in the United States itself these activities continued to fall under the responsibility o f the State Depart­ ment. Due to the increase in the latter's cultural affairs activities through the decade, in 1959 IES was folded into the newly-created Bureau of International Cultural Relations (renamed the Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs in I960).2 By the end o f the 1950s the driving force in terms o f planning the direction o f the Leader Program was the embas­ sies themselves, who, in connection with the State Department's re­ gional offices, drew up proposals that the Bureau (budget permitting) generally deferred to.3 A State Department instruction memo from 1950, outlining the pur­ pose of the Leader Program, illustrates well how it blended the long­ term perspective of 'mutual understanding* with the short-term political objectives o f the Campaign o f Truth: A distinctive feature of this program is the fact that it is primarily concerned with individuals of outstanding influence and prominence in their countries [...] making possible the interchange o f distinguished leaders of thought and opinion in fields of mutual interest and usefulness. The high official position held in their own governments or communities by many foreign leaders and specialists awarded grants under this program makes their visits of special importance not only in furthering cultural and scientific cooperation in long­ term projects of mutual interest, but in implementing the aims and objec­ tives of American foreign policy.4

The Leaders and Specialists Programs were run by the same admin­ istrative units, but they were quite different. The Leader Program only involved others coming to visit the United States, while the Specialist 2

3 4

Espinosa, J.M., Inter-American Beginnings o f US Cultural Diplomacy, 1936-1948, Washington DC, Department o f State, 1976, pp. 339-340; Ketzel, C. 'Exchange o f Persons and American Foreign Policy: The Foreign Leader Program o f the Depart­ ment o f State*, Ph.D. dissertation, University o f California, 1935, pp. 55-59. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Leader Program was ran from the Leaders and Spe­ cialists Division (LSD), firstly under IES and then under OCE (Office o f Cultural Exchange) within the Bureau. Exchange programmes remained under the control of the State Department until the Bureau was folded into the United States International Communication Agency (the temporarily renamed USIA) in 1978. In 1999 USIA itself was disbanded and all o f its activities transferred to the State Department Elder, R. The Foreign Leader Program: Operations in the United States, Washington DC, Brookings Institution, 1961, p. 93. 'Leader and Expert Grants*, n.d. [ 1950], Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs Historical Collection, MC 468, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, Special Collections, University o f Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville (hereafter 'CU*).

Implementing the Leader Program

Program covered both American professionals going abroad at the request o f embassies if there was a clear need for expertise in a particu­ lar field, and those from abroad who received a grant for 90-120 days of intensive study in particular locations in the USA.5 However, to separate the Leader Program’s objectives from the many other exchange pro­ grammes operating between the United States and the rest o f the world, it was insisted early on that it was not for technical assistance or special­ ised training purposes but to allow visitors to form a broad picture o f American life and institutions. The State Department memo from 1950 continued that “in no cases may grants be extended to persons o f cabinet rank”. Foreign Ministry officials were initially also excluded. This was not only to avoid a VIP-type programme, but also to undermine criti­ cism that undue influence was being sought among government policy­ makers abroad. In 1950 the British Foreign Office official Joy Wright, who was responsible for information on the United States, was recom­ mended for a Leader grant by the embassy and approved by the State Department’s Europe Division only to be rejected by IEP because “it has the appearance o f political imperialism”.6 However, this attitude was soon overruled. By the end of the 1950s a special VIP Leader grant had been sanctioned, with an increased per diem, to accommodate respected personages from the Third World who were accustomed to a higher level o f service. But adapting the Leader apparatus to these clients proved difficult and results were mixed, often due to “poor communica­ tions, the urgencies o f timing, and the exotic, insular, sensitive charac­ teristics o f the leaders themselves”.78 It was the responsibility o f each embassy to submit each individual to a full security check. Since the vast majority o f the candidates were men, wives were allowed to accompany them so long as the grantee paid the extra costs. Since the per diem for each grantee was not expected to cover all expenses, it was intended that only those with sufficient per­ sonal financial means should be invited.1 During the late 1950s the

5 6 7

8

In 1965 the Leader and Specialist Programs were merged to form the International Visitor Program. ‘Grants to Officials o f Ministries o f Foreign Affairs*, 11 April 1950, Group IV Box 153 Folder 18, CU. The first VIP Leader grantee was the Foreign Minister o f Pakistan, Mansur Qadir, in September 1959. ‘Leader Program Operations in FY-1960’, 2 September 1960, Group IV Box 153 Folder 19, CU. The per diem, meant to cover food and accommodation, increased gradually due to inflation from $10 a day in 1950 to $17 a day in 1959 and $25 a day by 1967. This was supplemented by a grant for travel within the USA, which increased from $400 in 1953 to $600 by 1959, and by the late 1960s $50 for “books and educational mate­ rials“.

Networks o f Empire

Bureau of the Budget questioned this policy. The concern arose that the economically disadvantaged were being passed over, and the chance to find new role models and influence sections o f society more prone to discontent was being missed. But the belief in the pivotal role that elites played in managing societies was not dislodged. IES responded by insisting that “the visits of these leaders and specialists from the higher economic levels can, and do, have a very widespread effect on persons in the middle class and lower economic levels”. If the Leader Program no longer focused on recognised leaders it would require “changing the whole basis on which we have been operating for the past 10 years”.9 In the early 1950s Leader grants were issued for a trip o f threemonths (or more in some cases) around the United States, where the aim was to include destinations chosen by the grantee within a tour which would ensure a multi-varied experience across the country, mixing professional interests with environmental and social diversity.10 The whole ethos was centred around Truman’s call for “a full and fair pic­ ture” o f the United States to be given to the rest o f the world. Advice would be given on the itinerary, but every effort was made to accommo­ date requests. The Leader Program exuded confidence - a belief that anyone undertaking such a facilitated journey across the country, in constant contact with the American people, could only come away favourably influenced. Even if negative sides to American life were encountered and the grantee came away relatively critical, the overall openness o f the Program and the broader perspective on the USA that it provided would ultimately ensure a positive result. Criticism would be tolerated as long as it was well-informed, based on personal experience, and not ideologically-driven. Studies in post-war Germany confirmed that, to achieve the desired results, it was far more effective to bring people to the USA than to send experts abroad. Hence the State Depart­ ment committed more funds to the Leader Program than to all its other Smith-Mundt exchanges put together.11

9 Sam Linch to Earl Dennis, 25 June 1958, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU. 10 As with the per diem, this was gradually reduced, declining initially to 60 days in 1957, 45 days in the 1960s, 30 days in the 1970s, down to the current two to three weeks. Reasons for this were cost-cutting and the increasing inability o f potential candidates to justify leaving their positions for such long periods o f time. 11 Donovan Jr., J. ‘The Foreign Leader Program o f the Department o f State: One View*, The Educational Record, 34 (October 1953), p. 327. The cost o f a single grantee from Western Europe in 1954 (including per diem and travel costs both to and within the United States) was about $2,230 in 1954. By 1972 the cost, including the con­ tracts paid to assisting agencies, was around $4,400 per grantee. See Ketzel p. 124; ‘International Visitor Program’, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, 1972, Group IV Box 152 Folder 4, CU.

Implementing the Leader Program

Contrary to other US government exchanges, the selection o f indi­ viduals for the Leader Program rested entirely with each US embassy. In an IES discussion document comparing the Fulbright and Smith-Mundt Programs, Fulbright was praised for its reciprocity and continuity, while Smith-Mundt, although dependent on annual budgetaiy decisions and the Country Plan, was considered highly valuable for several reasons: “Selection entirely by Americans“; “Has flexibility to meet emergency needs“; “Particularly applicable to foreign leaders and specialists“/ 2 Each country differed according to those social groups that played a prominent role in influencing public opinion, and the general goal was to bring a broad cross-section o f professions to the United States, but the Leader Program ultimately focused predominantly on individuals from politics, government administration, mass media, and the trade unions. In fiscal year 1957, for instance, “parliamentarians and top government officials“ topped the list o f Smith-Mundt grants provided by the State Department with 335, followed by “labor relations“ (270) and “youth leadership“ (260).1213 These professions were overwhelmingly dominated by men, but special attention was given to ways to reach female audi­ ences abroad not as a separate target group but as a section o f the popu­ lation increasingly active in all areas o f public life.14 Age was also a factor. The demands o f the Campaign o f Truth for achieving rapid results in improving public opinion abroad had placed an emphasis on potential participants already in positions o f power and influence. The average age o f participants during the 1950s was therefore high, with outstanding younger candidates being the exception. By the mid-50s the State Department, wanting to reach a younger post-war generation, was requesting candidates “who now exercise, or may be expected to exer­ cise in the relatively near future, unquestionable influence over a sub­ stantial segment o f public opinion in their own countries“.15 This shift allowed a longer-term approach more suited to the way exchanges function, as opposed to the incessant demand for identifiable short-term 12 4Basic Considerations for Optimum Use o f Exchange o f Persons Legislation*, 17 March 1954, Group IV Box 153 Folder 18, CU. 13 ‘List o f Priority Projects*, 27 January 1956, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU. 14 “Their widespread entry into industry and commerce is itself a phenomenon which engages the attention o f women in other countries.** ‘Information Policy for Women as a Target Group*, I1A Special Instruction, 15 January 1953, Box 11, IES: Country Files 1951-56, Bureau o f Public Affairs Lot File, RG 59, NA. USIA consistently sought to utilise the role o f women in US society as a way to build favourable con­ tacts abroad. See L. Belmonte, ‘Defending a Way o f Life: American Propaganda and the Cold War, 1945-1959*, Ph.D. Dissertation, University o f Virginia, 1996, pp. 239267. 15 ‘Foreign Leader Program*, Foreign Service Educational Exchange Circular No. 26, 22 October 1956, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU.

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results. In the Kennedy period this focus was made explicit. In 1960 US Ambassadors were encouraged by the State Department to give more consideration to younger “potential leaders” in their grant selection, and in mid-1961 a plan was floated for a less prestigious Young Leader category to make this easier.16 The following year the Emphasis on Youth programme was announced, which required embassies to identify and invite up-and-coming figures in the political world in particular.17 By 1969 around 38 per cent o f Leader grantees in politics, government, and the media were in their thirties, and another 12 per cent in their twenties, so half of all grantees in these fields were below forty.18 The Leader Program was therefore gradually directed to track emerging talent, and a trip to the United States was presented as an ideal addition to the skills and experience of these selected young professionals. In this way it complemented the various student exchange programmes that were designed to achieve similar long-term results. US public diplo­ macy therefore not only influenced opinion leaders, but could also nurture the prospect of the younger generation actually becoming a recognised opinion leader within the US world-view. During the 1950s and 1960s the State Department’s exchanges divi­ sion preferred bringing individuals to the United States, although a variety o f successful projects used other approaches developed out o f the German re-orientation programmes. Journalists were a special target. There was the Jointly Sponsored Journalist project, which from 1952 onwards brought foreign journalists to work (for a salary) on an Ameri­ can newspaper for between three to six months. Closely related was the Multinational Group Journalist Project run by professor Floyd Arpan, firstly at the Medill School o f Journalism at Northwestern University (1950-59) and then at Indiana University. Arpan constructed a threemonth training programme in media techniques, the 4free press’, and the relation of the media to government, to prepare the participants before they joined their assigned newspapers around the country. Originally designed for Germans, by the mid-1950s it was dominated by Third World media personnel 44to give them the opportunity to observe the philosophy and workings o f the American democratic society”.19 Then

16 Peter F. Frost to H. Reid Bird, 7 June 1961, Group IV Box 153 Folder 20, CU. 17 Details on the Emphasis on Youth are to be found in Chapter 7. 18 ‘Characteristics o f Leaders and Specialists Programmed by GAI, January 1November 1,1969*, author’s copy (with thanks to Dean Mahin). 19 ’Foreign Specialists Projects*, 1960, Group IV Box 155 Folder 15, CU. Between 1950-73 273 foreign journalists attended these courses, the most participants coming from (in declining order) Korea, Nigeria, Germany, India, Kenya, Indonesia, and Tanzania. Other European participants came from Finland, Norway, and Spain. ’Ad­

Implementing the Leader Program

there was the NATO Journalist project, begun in 1951 and involving twenty-day fixed-itinerary tours for Western European journalists designed to emphasise US military preparedness and leadership o f the Atlantic Alliance. After 1956 other participants were included, such as cultural experts and parliamentarians, and the project was upgraded as the NATO Leader Program. This project continued into the 1960s but became less important as European media outlets became able to sup­ port their own correspondents in the United States.20 Other group projects were attempted. During the late 1950s, again based on methods applied in Germany and designed for maximum impact with reduced funding, group tours were organised for British, French, Italian, and Finnish parliamentarians. The State Department also supported independent group-project initiatives such as the Cleveland International Program for Youth Leaders and Social Workers (still in existence as the Council for International Fellowship). Overall, how­ ever, apart from occasional projects designed for specific professions (radio and television, public administration), the organisational difficul­ ties in running group tours made them the exception rather than the rule during the 1950s and 1960s. Cultural Affairs Officers (CAOs) were first posted to US embassies in 1941, and it was the CAO who had the responsibility for running all State Department educational and cultural exchanges. With the creation o f USIA in 1953, in the larger embassies the CAO became part o f the USIA section headed by a Public Affairs Officer (PAO) and including Information Officers (IOs) who dealt with the local media. The CAO thus worked for USIA but was responsible to the State Department for running the exchange programmes, a combination that some disliked due to the USIA’s closer association with information/ propaganda activities in support o f US foreign policy.21 In the early years there was dress List: Multi-National Foreign Journalists Project, 1950-1972*, Group IV Box 158 Folder 4, CU. 20 In 1962 the NATO tours were combined with similar operations for journalists from Latin America and the SEATO region into ‘Joint State-Defense-USIA* regional jour­ nalist projects run through inter-agency meetings. However, the dominance o f the Pentagon corrupted the balance between military and non-military purposes, and in 1965 the State Department passed operating responsibility over to Defense. Budget pressures forced the Pentagon to withdraw in 1969 and responsibility returned to CU to develop its own regional projects. See Mahin, D., ‘History o f the U.S. Department o f State's International Visitor Program*, draft manuscript for the History Project, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Department o f State, 1973, pp. 16-17. 21 Surveys o f US embassies across Europe in the 1950s and 1960s found that CAOs were able to shield their cultural work from any undue insistence that it serve the in­ formational demands o f USIA. Different working arrangements between PAOs and CAOs operated in each embassy, depending on personality, skills, and workload.

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no set pattem for how embassies selected Leader grantees. By the end o f the 1950s most embassies were working with a selection committee, sometimes headed by the Deputy Chief o f Mission. All embassy sec­ tions could contribute names to the Leader Program candidate list, but the FSOs in the Political section generally had a great deal o f influence in the final selection. Nevertheless, a fine line needed to be followed to avoid obvious political interference, and a conscious effort was usually made to spread grants around between political parties, professions, and regions within a nation.22 After all, as IES knew, “much o f the effective­ ness o f the exchange o f persons program depends on its prestige. It must be recognized as a high-level program and be entirely free from suspi­ cion”.23 Nevertheless, different views on the political role o f ‘educational ex­ change’ persisted within the bureaucracy. Officials in the State Depart­ ment’s European Bureau looked at the Leader Program as “primarily intended to be a ‘political instrument’” since “leaders in the cultural field [...] cannot be considered as influencing a substantial segment o f the populace”.24 Similar views were held within IES itself. Douglas Batson, the head o f the Leaders Division, stated in 1954: The leader program, in my opinion, approaches more closely a propaganda program than it does a cultural program. It is 'educational* only in the broadest sense of the word. It is unilateral; we do the selecting ourselves and the program is tailored as closely as practicable to the more or less specific objectives of the United States government.25

Yet the dangers o f pursuing this without care were clear. By the end o f the decade it was noted that “political leaders and government offi­ cials throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East were becoming more and more reluctant to accept Department grants because of the ‘kiss o f death’ effect which such grants might have upon their political

22

23 24 25

Wisely, the conclusion was uit seems best to allow the relationship to vary in this way rather than trying to impose a standard pattem”. See ‘Report on Western Europe Trip, 22 January-8 March 1963’, Group XVII Box 337 Folder 19, CU. On the ambiguities o f the CAO-USIA relationship see Frankel, C. The Neglected Aspect o f Foreign Affairs: American Educational and Cultural Policy A b ro a d Wash­ ington DC, The Brookings Institution, 1966, pp. 30-34, where he states that “such grants for tactical political purposes do not become educational or cultural grants simply because they come from the budget o f the Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs”. *Basic Considerations for Optimum Use of Exchange o f Persons Programs*. T.A. Healy to S.A. Lewis, n.d. [1960], Group IV Box 153 Folder 19, CU. Batson to Francis Colligan (IES), 4 January 1954, Group IV Box 153 Folder 18, CU.

Implementing the Leader Program

and career objectives”.26 A survey revealed that these sensitivities varied greatly from country to country, although grants for union officials caused the most consistent concern abroad. Syrians regarded exchanges as “Western propaganda”, the prime minister o f India thought o f them as a “subtle form o f bribery”, and there were reports o f a blacklist in Port Said containing the names o f those Egyptians who accepted US grants. Within Western Europe the only country where remotely similar concerns were expressed was Greece. However, during the 1960s a greater awareness o f the application o f US power abroad did change attitudes everywhere. By the late 1960s even pro-American Dutch parliamentarians were referring tongue-in-cheek to their ‘CIA trips’. The political orientation o f Leader candidates played an important role in the selection process. Most FSOs and State Department officials would have agreed that nominees “should be persons who are actually or are believed to be potentially friendly, but whose knowledge o f the United States and their ability to expand this actual or potential friend­ ship has been limited largely by ignorance”.27 The whole point, after all, was to use the Program to bolster those already possessing a favourable attitude, not to try and overcome the criticisms o f committed opponents. However, the issue o f candidates with a left-wing background did cause problems. After several good nominees were refused a visa on these grounds, in January 1952 the State Department arranged for embassies who felt they had a good case to request special dispensation from the Attorney General. However, the point was made that candidates should be chosen for their overall suitability as Leader grantees and not just because they were useful as ex-communists in the ideological contest with the Soviet Union.2* The fear that the Department could be held accountable for using taxpayers money to fund trips by leftists around the USA caused an understandable degree o f caution, but embassy staff, increasingly convinced of the effectiveness o f the exchange experience, demanded more flexibility. IES’s James Donovan returned from a tour of US missions in 1957 to report that FSOs everywhere felt a more liberal selection procedure for known leftists and ‘neutrals’ was needed.29 During the Kennedy administration a more flexible approach was introduced, in line with its overhaul o f US information pro26 ‘Acceptability o f Foreign Leader Grants', 8 May 1957, Group IV Box 152 Folder 28, CU .

27 Walter S. Anderson, American Council on Education, 18 November 1958, Group IV Box 153 Folder 9, CU. 28 'Foreign Leader Program*, Foreign Service Educational Exchange Circular No. 26, 22 October 1956, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU. 29 'Selection o f Leader Grantees’, 16 September 1957, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU.

Networks o f Empire

grammes. An interesting early example o f this was the use o f the Leader Program as part o f the (opening to die Left* in Italy at the beginning o f the 1960s, when several members o f the Socialist party were offered Leader trips to the US to enable a continuation o f the dialogue.30 With post-war Germany as a prime example, the potential for using exchanges as part o f an ideological ‘grand strategy* was soon on the agenda. President Eisenhower was supportive o f this and the Hickenlooper Report o f 1953, one o f the few congressional investigations to recognise the special value o f exchanges, emphasised the need to both expand these activities and coordinate them better with other activities in information and cultural relations.31 IES worked closely through the 1950s with the bodies created to coordinate psychological operations, the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) and its successor, the Opera­ tions Coordinating Board (OCB), in order to refine the scope and direc­ tion o f exchanges in line with US objectives around the world. Looking at Western Europe, the PSB sought to undermine not only support for communism abroad but also “other forces tending to disrupt free world solidarity, and other forms o f anti-Americanism, such as ‘neutralism*”. Its Doctrinal Program from June 1953, which targeted intellectuals and elites abroad as the best channels for opposing communist ideology, stated that “in selecting individuals in the Exchange o f Persons Program, special attention should be given to those who could be expected to have influence in the doctrinal field (writers, teachers, labor leaders, etc.)**.32 Likewise the OCB sought “to build a receptive climate o f public opinion overseas in which the actions and policies o f the United States can be correctly interpreted*’.33 In this strategy the main target was the “mental processes o f the influential few** who, if they could be induced to adopt certain standpoints as their own, would lead the way for the rest o f 30 These trips took place during 1962 and were made by Paolo Vittorelli, a member o f the Central Committee (13 March to 27 April) and the parliamentary deputies Cesare Bensi (May), Giovanni Pieraccini (26 June to 4 August), and Aldo Venturini (9 Au­ gust to 8 September). In the early 1980s some members o f the Italian Communist party also traveled to the USA via the Voluntary Visitor programme. 31 The Report o f the Special Subcommittee on Overseas Information Programs o f the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, named after its chairman Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper, was established by President Eisenhower to review US overseas in­ formation programmes. Influenced by Senator Fulbright, the Hickenlooper Report maintained that exchange programmes should remain with the State Department while information activities were to be separated with US1A. 32 ‘Status Report on the National Psychological Effort’, 5 January 1953, f t ‘US Doc­ trinal Program’, 29 June 1953, Psychological Strategy Board Working Files 19511953, Lot File 62D333, Box 5, RG 59, NA. 33 15 March 1954, OCB Working Papers 1951-1955: Staff Studies and Reports, Box 1, 250/62/35/01, Entry 3019, Bureau o f Public Affairs: IES, RG 59, NA.

Implementing the Leader Program

society. Exchange programmes were a vital component o f this strategy, it being “a massive, concentrated and highly expensive method o f modifying the competence and/or general attitude o f an individual foreigner. Experience has proven that, when properly handled, it can have powerful psychological effects”.34 In 1954 the OCB had proposed a plan for “providing covert fiscal support to the Philippine Government for an intra-Asian program o f educational exchange which would estab­ lish the Philippines as the sponsor and prime mover in presenting the advantages inherent in Democracy to its neighbouring countries”. The programme, which aimed “to assist in creating a reservoir o f young Asian leaders favourably oriented towards the United States”, was in line with the CIA’s aim to develop the Philippines as a regional centre for other so-called “workshops o f democracy” such as Taiwan and South Korea.35 At the end o f die 1950s the Sprague Committee Report also emphasised how the exchange experience “builds a new identifica­ tion on the part o f the traveller based on first-hand knowledge”. As a result the report once again recommended expanding exchange pro­ grammes “because o f the importance o f such travel in supporting the psychological as well as other aspects o f foreign policy”.36 Particularly interesting about these reports is their appreciation for the long-term nature o f this approach. In contrast to die 'fast media’ focus o f the Campaign o f Truth, exchanges were now recognised as 'slow media’ par exe Hence. Following the enactment o f NSC 4 and NSC 4A in 1948 it became essential to oversee the overt and covert dimensions o f information policy against the Soviet Union in order to prevent crossed lines and maintain coherence.37 For instance, the CLA supported the National Student Association’s international activities and exchange programs 34 Osgood, Total C old War, pp. 291,304. 35 4A Request for Approval o f a Proposed Program o f Educational Exchange Designed to Seize the Initiative in Orienting Nations o f the Far East toward the United States*, 19 January 1954, IES: Staff Studies and Reports & OCB Working Papers 1951-1955, Box 1, 250/62/35/01, Entiy 3019, Bureau o f Public Affairs, RG 59, NA. See also Simpson, pp. 74-75. The plan was never implemented. 36 The President's Committee on Information Activities Abroad, under the chairman­ ship o f Mansfield Sprague, was established by President Eisenhower in 1960. It sub­ mitted its report just prior to the arrival o f John F. Kennedy in office and its recom­ mendations were never followed through. 37 For an excellent overview o f the coordination issue see Lilly, E. ‘The Psychological Strategy Board and its Predecessors: Foreign Policy Coordination 1938-1953*, in G. Vincitorio, Studies in M odem History, New Yoiic, St. John's University Press, 1968, pp. 337-382; S. Lucas, ‘Campaigns o f Truth: The Psychological Strategy Board and American Ideology, 1951-1953*, International H istory Review, 18 (May 1996), pp. 279-302.

Networks o f Empire

through the Fund for Youth and Student Affairs, created in 1952. With this back-up in 1956 the Association developed the Foreign Student Leadership Program (FSLP) to identify promising individuals abroad and offer them educational scholarships in the USA, with the intention o f nurturing their leadership potential for the future. The similar FSLP and State Department programmes therefore operated side by side, but whether that meant in parallel or intertwined often depended on the personalities and purposes involved.38 Yet this did not help in matters o f coordination and responsibility. Francis J. Colligan wrote to an 1ES colleague at this time that there was a need for a more intensive exploration of the resources available in this field o f activity, the maximum utilization of these resources and their effective integration into the strategic plans and purposes which form the basis of our foreign policy [...] What type of exchange activities are best conducted on an overt, cooperative basis? What type, on a covert basis?39

It was essential that some kind o f administrative ‘firewall’ existed between the covert and overt operations to prevent the overt pro­ grammes from suffering reduced credibility should the truth emerge. At the administrative level the firewall did hold, as demonstrated by an exchange between the American Friends o f the Middle East (AFME) and the Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs in 1963. AFME submitted a contract proposal to select and organize the trips o f twentyfive Leader grantees from the Middle East and North Africa, and to run a series o f projects to train university officials and student counselors from that region. Although the proposal was initially well received in the Bureau, the request that AFME control the selection procedure and the organisation of the itineraries in the USA caused some concern. The message then came through from Lucius Battle, the Bureau’s Assistant Secretaiy o f State, that a contractual relation was impossible for “policy

38 Stem, S. 'A Short Account o f International Student Politics and the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc.’, Ramparts, 5 (March 1967), p. 33; Paget, K. ‘From Cooperation to Covert Action: The United States Government and Stu­ dents, 1940-52’, in H. Laville & H. Wilford (eds.), The US Government, Citizens Groups and the C old War: The State Private Network, London, Routledge, 2006, p. 78. 39 Colligan to Backus, 20 May 1954, IES: Staff Studies and Reports & OCB Working Papers 1951-1955, Box 1, 250/62/35/01, Entry 3019, Bureau o f Public Affairs, RG 59, NA.

Implementing the Leader Program

reasons”.40 A few years later it was revealed that AFME had worked closely with the CIA.41 The Kennedy years brought an upgrade o f US information policy. The Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act o f 1961 (FulbrightHays Act) called for the US government to “increase mutual understand­ ing between the people o f the United States and the people o f other countries by means o f educational and cultural exchange”.42 The Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs came under the leadership o f an Assistant Secretary o f State and was granted the same status as other specialised bureaux in the State Department. The Bureau’s budget under the Democratic administrations o f Kennedy and Johnson duly increased from $27 million in 1960 to $53 million in 1966. Kennedy also ap­ pointed Edward R. Murrow to lead a rejuvenated USIA. A new, pro­ active Statement o f Mission, issued in January 1963, called for USIA to “influence public attitudes in other nations” and “encourage constructive support abroad for the goal o f a peaceful world community”, contrasting with the original Statement from 1953 that aimed only for explaining and interpreting US policies to others.43 This represented not so much a politicisation o f cultural diplomacy but a renewal o f confidence in its effectiveness. The 1963 report A Beacon o f Hope from the US Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs cautioned against associating exchanges with “narrow political ends” as this would lead to “the effectiveness o f the program being seriously undermined”.44 But the distinction was largely one o f principal rather than practice, since exchanges always had “pragmatic”, if not immediate, foreign policy objectives.45 However, by the end o f the 1960s there was a serious reversal o f for­ tune for the Bureau. In late 1968, with the US economy facing a major 40 David G. Wilson to Henry Smith, 14 February 1963, & Henry Smith to David G. Wilson, 19 February 1963, ‘American Friends o f the Middle East', Group IV Box 215 Folder 21, CU. 41 Eveland, W. Ropes o f Sand: America 's Failure in the M iddle East, New York, W.W. Norton, 1980, pp. 125, 291. After CIA funding was cut off, AFME applied once again to the Bureau and did receive funds under contract for special programmes from 1971 onwards. 42 PL 87-256,87* Congress. 43 See Roth, L. ‘Public Diplomacy and the Past: The Search for an American Style o f Propaganda (1952-1977)’, The Fletcher Forum (Summer 1984), pp. 370-371, 383, 385. 44 A Beacon o f Hope, Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 1963, pp. 1314. 45 Mulcahy, K. ‘Cultural Diplomacy: Foreign Policy and the Exchange Programs*, in K. Mulcahy & C.R. Swaim (eds.), Public Policy and the Arts, Boulder, Westview press, 1982, pp. 286-287,291-292.

Networks o f Empire

trade deficit and spiralling costs due to the Vietnam war and social welfare programmes, Congress pushed through a 31 per cent cut in the Bureau’s budget, reducing it to $31.5 million for Fiscal Year 1969. Faced with this drastic reduction, priorities had to be set. Significantly, a Bureau survey o f the situation proposed to raise the proportion o f fonds going to the Leader Program to enable “our posts abroad to keep in closer touch with present or potential leaders in all fields, at a time o f extensive social, political and economic change abroad”. With funds being scarce, short-term policy objectives had to be emphasised. Special attention was given to combining the FLP with grants for senior aca­ demics in order to establish “a community o f interest” with “European intellectual elites”. The growth o f the European Economic Community (EEC), combined with the radicalisation o f West European students, made it essential to utilise exchanges to bypass any rupture in transatlan­ tic relations. The survey makes it very clear that o f all the available programmes at the Bureau’s disposal, the Leader Program was regarded as the most valuable and the one programme that had to be maintained at an optimum operational level.46

Public-Private Cooperation During the 1950s the US government sought to develop and project a positive ideological message o f freedom to oppose communist doctrine around the globe. In this context, exchange programmes were a vital element not only because o f the message they tried to give (participants were after all meant to make up their own minds) but because o f their actual working apparatus. The involvement o f private institutions and foundations running these programmes unhampered by government interference provided both proof o f democracy in action and a sense o f the vitality o f the free-market system. It also offered greater flexibility in bureaucracy and management. This public-private cooperation was a unique feature of US public diplomacy activities. It corresponded, in the words o f a Bureau report from 1971, “to a normal inclination in Amer­ ica”. The lack o f any obvious government manipulation or control o f the exchange experience in the United States effectively de-pol iticised it, increased the sense o f freedom o f choice and movement for each grantee, and raised its credibility.47 This was often one o f the most 46 ‘Review o f International Educational and Cultural Exchange Programs and their Relevance to US Foreign Policy Objectives: FY 1970 Budget*, 19 September 1968, Box 368, EDX (UK) 1967-1969, RG 59, NA. 47 This continues to be o f vital importance for the credibility o f current programmes. See Mueller, S. ‘Professional Exchanges, Citizen Diplomacy, and Credibility*, in W. Kiehl (ed.), America ’s Dialogue w ith the World, Washington DC, Public Diplo­ macy Council, 2006, pp. 59-70.

Implementing the Leader Program

unexpected, surprising, and psychologically powerful discoveries for grantees. It lessened “the possibility o f the grantee’s suspecting that somehow he is being used or manipulated by the Government for some dark reason”.4* Although after 1938 the US Federal government began to take a closer interest in exchanges for strategic reasons, the state apparatus always looked to work hand in hand with the private sector. While wartime exigencies forgave a state-run American propaganda machine, in the long run there was never any wish, either financially, administra­ tively, or ideologically, to turn exchanges into a wholly government-run operation. The major legislation sanctioning these activities always stressed the inherent state-private cooperation required to run them. The Surplus Property Act that provided the funds for the Fulbright Program demanded the formation o f a Board o f Foreign Scholarships to oversee the Program’s operation, and the Board itself relied on developing a wide network throughout the university community to make the Pro­ gram work.*49*The Smith-Mundt Act directed the Secretary o f State “to utilize, to the maximum extent practicable, the services and facilities o f private agencies”.30 The 1961 Fulbright Hays Act made this connection more explicit: Foreign governments, international organizations and private individuals, firms, associations, agencies, and other groups shall be encouraged to par­ ticipate to the maximum extent feasible in carrying out this Act and to make contributions of funds, property, and services which the President is hereby authorised to accept.31

Private involvement in this field had begun long before the govern­ ment became interested, and it was always numerically the dominant factor. While between 1949 and 1963 81,500 grants were issued under the State Department’s international educational and cultural exchange program, in 1963 it was estimated that the Department’s own pro­ grammes represented only 5 per cent o f all forms o f regulated exchange taking place between the US and the rest o f the world.” The Division o f

49 30 31 32

‘Cultural Relationships with Private Service Agencies*, Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, May 1971, author's copy (with thanks to Sherry Mueller). See also Mahin, History, pp. 118-123. ‘The Fulbright Act*, in Johnson, W. & Colligan, F. The Fulbright Program: A His­ tory, Chicago, University O f Chicago Press, 1965, p. 331. ‘United States Information and Educational Exchange Act*, PL. 402, Series 15: Subject Files 1953-2000, Box 48, US1A General Records, RG 306, NA. ‘The Fulbright-Hays Act, 1961 ', in Johnson & Colligan, p. 336. Sargeant, H. ‘American Information and Cultural Representation Overseas', in V.M. Barnett Jr. (ed.), The Representation o f the U nited States Abroad, New York, Praeger, 1965, pp. 98-99.

Networks o f Empire

Cultural Relations had been restricted to a supervisory role with the private sector, and the Smith-Mundt Act backed this up by preventing the Secretary o f State from assuming a controlling position over private sector activities.53 Many Congressmen would not support giving the state any ‘undemocratic* centralising powers at the expense o f a vibrant private sector.54 Instead Smith-Mundt projected a sense o f American exceptionalism and a belief in the US mission in the world to bind the state and the private agencies together in a common endeavour. The government may have been restricted by legislation to a coordi­ nating and facilitating role, but through the 1940s and 1950s it devel­ oped strategies to direct the private sector according to the demands o f national security. This ‘politicisation* did o f course carry risks for the private sector, since its independent identity was a crucial factor for gaining the goodwill o f others abroad. It was obviously advantageous for the government to make full use o f this, as this OCB memo makes clear: Many US private organizations established for philanthropic research, trade promotion, missionary or other purposes have resources such as specialized information, personnel, contacts, facilities, equipment and local organization that could be of great assistance to the US government in the implementa­ tion of national security policies, if properly utilized.55

This represented a step further than the partnership envisaged in Smith-Mundt, and in this situation the boundary between ‘state’ and ‘private’ could blur. One observer has argued that “what had been the sine qua non of private-sector overseas activities, namely organizational independence from government objectives, slowly mutated into a strat­ egy for preserving the appearance o f independence”.56 Yet the private sector did act as a channel to societies where direct participation with a US government programme would cause problems, and it was logical to try and make use o f this access. US embassies in Burma, Equador, and India wanted to issue Leader grants by subterfuge because “it would be politically embarrassing, if not impossible, for these nominees (usually left-wing socialists) to accept US Government grants unless it appeared in their own countries that their invitations originated from a non­ 53 ‘United States Information and Educational Exchange Act*, PL. 402, Series 15: Subject Files 1953-2000, Box 48, USIA General Records, RG 306, NA. 54 Sargeant, ‘American Information*, p. 107. 55 ‘Use o f Resources o f Private Organizations*, OCB Memo for Board Assistants, 5 May 1954, IES: Staff Studies and Reports & OCB Working Papers 1951-1955, Box 1,250/62/35/01, Entry 3019, Bureau o f Public AfTairs, RG 59, NA. 56 Paget, K. ‘From Cooperation to Covert Action*, in H. Laville & H. Wilford (eds.), p. 67.

Implementing the Leader Program

governmental source”. IES officials agreed to support this approach as long as they could verify the source o f the private invitation and estab­ lish a satisfactory division o f tasks. Above all they wanted to ensure that such invitations were not “a fro n t [...] placing IES in the position o f a 'cloak and dagger’ agency conducting a questionable educational ex­ change program”.57 The dissolving o f the distinction between state and private was also felt by the large foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie, which cooperated closely with government programmes but were also wary to maintain their independence. Coordination was helped by the interchange o f personnel between the state and private sectors, exempli­ fied by the careers o f major figures such as Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, and Shepard Stone. The foundations, benefitting from their more neutral identity, could sometimes operate as “an opening wedge” in certain more sensitive societies, allowing for US government agencies to follow in their wake.58 In various ways “philanthropic agencies served as instruments, catalysts and critics o f government programs”,59 but the point would always be made that they had their own agenda. A good example o f this was the refusal o f the Ford Foundation in 1956 to fund the People to People programme. A favourite scheme o f Eisenhower, People to People was designed to bring foreign citizens in contact with ordinary Americans, thereby both developing friendly contacts abroad and engaging the domestic population more directly in foreign affairs. Despite supporting the goals, Ford’s rejection was based on the level o f government control over the 'private’ People to People operation.60 The major foundations had been sponsoring and running their own educational exchanges since the early twentieth century, and from 1950 onwards the Ford Foundation orchestrated its own programme in sup­ port of “the strengthening o f the free world”. This meant predominantly an engagement with countries across Asia and Africa to encourage their “democratic evolution”, using leader-type grants to manage social change via influential elites in business, media, government administra­ tion, and research. Ford contracted 1IE to facilitate these exchanges in 57 James A. Donovan Jr. To Russell Riley, Howard Russell & John Hayes, 14 May 1956, Group IV Box 153 Folder 17, CU (emphasis in original). 58 Bell, P. ‘The Ford Foundation as a Transnational Actor*, International Organization, 25 (1971), p. 116. See also Berman, E. The Influence o f the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology o f Philanthropy, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1983. 59 Schmidt, O. ‘Civil Empire by Cooptation: German-American Exchange Programs as Cultural Diplomacy, 1945-61’, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1999, p. 15. 60 Osgood, pp. 233, 236. The organisation People to People international is still operating, see (24 August 2006).

Networks o f Empire

the USA, and during the 1950s a close working relationship was estab­ lished between these two organisations and the State Department, although their continuing desire to maintain independence did not always make it a smooth one.61 But the Ford Foundation always sought to coordinate its Travel and Study programmes and similar exchanges with the State Department and US foreign policy objectives in general. In 1964 this coordination went a step further, when the Ford provided $50,000 for the Governmental Affairs Institute (GA1) to initiate “a United States study tour o f selected young political leaders from NATO countries”.62 Under the auspices o f the American Council o f the Atlantic Association o f Young Political Leaders, twenty-four candidates from fourteen countries were subsequently chosen for a month-long tour in April-May 1964. Plans were afoot to continue this scheme when James Huntley, a former FSO and director o f the Atlantic Institute in Washing­ ton DC, joined the Ford Foundation's International Affairs department under Shepard Stone in 1965. Huntley was an avid Atlanticist and set about developing plans to nurture a “successor generation” o f young political leaders who would soon take over the reins o f power from the WWII generation. In late 1965 Huntley drafted ‘A Program for Devel­ opment o f Rising Young Leaders', which foresaw an initial $2 million, three-year effort channelled through the Atlantic Institute and “specifi­ cally designed to equip the leaders o f tomorrow to deal with the broad public policy issues o f the Atlantic area”. The allocation o f State De­ partment Leader grants for Western Europe had fallen from 317 in 1965 to only 110 in 1966 due to resources being shifted to Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the phasing out o f the Specialist Program.63 Huntley felt the foundation could partly fill this shortfall by arranging a focused programme that would act as a fast-track to integrate upcoming “prime movers”: It is possible to engender consciously the desirable attitudes and educational programs which bring rising young leaders into direct and repeated contact with their peers, with older leaders in other countries, and with the institu-

61 Bu, Foreign Students, pp. 244-252; Karl, B. ‘Philanthropy and the Maintenance o f Democratic Elites*, Minerva 35 (1997), pp. 207-220. 62 Philip Mettger to Matthew Cullen, 22 January 1964, File: Governmental Affairs Institute, Grant 06400173, Reel 0693, archive o f the Ford Foundation, New York (hereafter ‘Ford*). 63 In 1965 the Foreign Leader Program and the Specialist Program were merged into a single grant and renamed the International Visitor Program. The increasing speciali­ sation o f Leader grantees, and the increasing unwieldiness o f the 120-day Specialist grant, made it impractical to continue maintaining a difference between the two.

Implementing the Leader Program

tions and problems of the European-Atlantic area, and to involve them meaningfully in the on-going ‘business’ o f this area.64

Huntley's ambitious plan envisaged around 225 Leader-type ‘Study and Observation Visits' annually, mainly for American, British, French, German, and Italian participants. The Ford’s Young Leader Program was welcomed by the Bureau, which saw it as an ideal private-sector complement to its own activities.65 However, already in late 1964 the Ford had expressed doubts in the Program’s longevity, and the arrival o f McGeorge Bundy as Ford President in 1966 brought large-scale cuts in expenditure and a shift in priorities away from the transatlantic area. Huntley, who soon left the foundation as a result, did not see his plans reach finition.66 While the foundations could operate as separate entities and choose when to engage and when to take a distance, other organisations relied on official contracts, and it was not always a simple matter for the private sector to adapt to a more activist and interventionist government. In 1946 a report by government consultant Howland Sargeant identified IIE as the “central private agency” for expanding state-private coopera­ tion in post-war exchanges. In Sargeant’s view, the advantages o f IIE were its experience in running exchanges, its existing widespread con­ tacts across American higher education, and its proven ability to attract private financial sponsorship. While the principle o f state-private coop­ eration was supported by IIE, there was also serious concern over Sargeant’s proposal for connecting educational exchange more closely with US foreign policy objectives. The Institute received a major con­ tract from the War Department to place German students in American universities as part o f the OMGUS re-orientation programme. However, resistance within the Institute to becoming another arm o f the US state prevented close coordination until after the untimely death o f IIE presi­ dent Laurence Duggan in 1948, and his replacement by State Depart-

64 James Huntley, *A Program for Development o f Rising Young Leaders’, Discussion Paper, Office o f International Relations, 1965, Report No. 2712, Log File 66-39, Ford. Huntley clearly envisaged a programme that would literally monitor (if not, via foundation patronage and the network o f associated institutes, actually seek to man­ age) the career o f promising individuals over several years, guiding them in specific directions at key moments o f their career. This was therefore a far more political ex­ ercise than the actual Leader Program ever attempted to be. 65 ‘Ford Foundation Interest in Exchanges with Western Europe’, December 1965, Group IV Box 238 Folder 31, CU. 66 See Huntley, J. An Architect o f Democracy: Building a M osaic o f Peace, Washington DC, New Academia, 2006, pp. 248,257-258.

Networks o f Empire

ment official Kenneth Holland.67 Under Holland’s stewardship, by the mid-1950s ‘‘although the HE still remained a non-profit private institu­ tion, its responsibility for a wide range o f government-sponsored pro­ grams suggested that [it] was becoming primarily an instrument for government programs”.68 During the 1950s the decentralisation among the many private groups involved in the exchange apparatus sometimes caused a sense o f helplessness at IES. So many programmes were in operation with government departments, universities, and private agencies that there existed no statistical information as to exactly how many exchange grantees were coming in or going out o f the United States, or whether specific objectives o f Smith-Mundt were actually being met.69 A 1960 report commented that while the State Department, US1A, and the International Cooperation Administration were the main government units responsible for exchanges, a total o f seventeen separate govern­ ment agencies were still involved in their implementation.70 The attempt to align all private groups around the essential objectives o f US foreign policy was hindered by the fact that the lack o f a single state-controlled apparatus was the best defence against accusations o f political manipu­ lation. Nevertheless, this set-up did possess problematic loopholes, because programming agencies responsible for a grantee's itinerary in the United States needed to receive sufficient information from the respective US embassy that submitted the nomination.71

Programming the Grantees In 1948 OMGUS had asked the American Council on Education to organise a private-sector apparatus in the United States to deal with the rapidly expanding numbers o f German exchange grantees. After 1949,

68 69

70

71

“The German student program was by far the largest single program HE had ever handled.” Kellermann, p. 142. See Halpem, S. ‘The Institute o f International Educa­ tion: A History', Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1969. Bu, L. Foreign Students, p. 240 (emphasis added). ‘Potentialities o f the Exchange Program’, J.N. Hayes to F J. Colligan, 28 May 1954, OCB Working Papers 1951-1955: Staff Studies and Reports, Bureau o f Public Af­ fairs: IES, Entry 3019,250/62/35/01, Box 2, RG 59, ‘N A \ Warren M. Robbins, ‘Toward an American Global Cultural-EducationalInformational Program in the Framework o f the Present World Scene', Subject Files 1953-2000, Series 15, Box 48, General Records o f USIA, RG 306, NA. Due to this confusion, in one case a Turkish Leader grantee obtained an unclassified US embassy airgram that discussed the grantee and that had evidently been distrib­ uted to other government agencies including the CIA, “with subsequent unfortunate political repercussions”. John Forbes (CU) to Dr. Jacob Canter (CU), 17 July 1968, Group IV Box 151 Folder 33, CU.

Implementing the Leader Program

when responsibility for the German re-orientation programme passed to the State Department, the latter had been unable to cope with organising the itineraries o f the several thousand grantees arriving in the US. At the same time, the goals o f the Leader Program required a broader experi­ ence in the United States in place o f the specialised observation and training that had been the hallmark o f the German programme. As a result, special agencies were assigned to arrange the itineries for each individual Leader grantee (known as programming'). After a period o f rationalisation, by 1954 IES was no longer involved in programming and only three (from an original twenty) cooperating agencies were being used by the State Department for 90 per cent o f all Leader grant­ ees: The Governmental Affairs Institute for visitors in the fields of politics, information media, and economics, the Committee on Leaders and Specialists o f the American Council on Education for those in educational and cultural affairs, social welfare, and youth activities, and the Department o f Labor's Office o f International Labor Affairs for trade unionists.72 ACE also ran a further outgrowth o f the German programme, the orientation centre in Washington DC that provided arriving grantees with an introduction to American society, culture, democracy and citizenship.73 State Department officials would always welcome each grantee on arrival in the name o f the US government, but the principal workload in the Leader Program fell on the private sector agencies. GA1 had been created in 1950 from the Panel on Governmental Af­ fairs o f the Commission on Occupied Areas (COA) that had assisted in the operation o f the OMGUS exchange programme. Its creators were H. Philip Mettger, a former OMGUS official who had led the COA’s Panel on Governmental Affairs; James Pollock, a political science professor at the University o f Michigan who had participated in occupied Germany under the OMGUS American Specialist Program; and Edward Litch­ field, the former head o f OMGUS's Civil Administration Division and director o f the American Political Science Association (APSA). Under Mettger's leadership GAI transformed itself from one o f many contract agencies connected to the German re-orientation programme to being an independent corporation and a vital element within the Leader Program apparatus. Alongside the major State Deparment Leader Program con­ 72 Ketzel,pp. 163-171. 73 Donovan, ‘No Fool's Errand', p. 3; Kellerman, pp. 139-140. The orientation centre in Washington DC is now the location o f the Meridian International Center, which re­ placed GAI as the contract agency for political grantees in 1974. By 1961 CU was also running six other Reception Centers for visitors to New York, Miami, New Or­ leans, San Francisco, Seattle, and Honolulu. As o f 2007 only New York, the busiest o f all the Centers, remains a State Department-run office.

Networks o f Empire

tract, which represented around half its business, the Institute undertook many other tasks such as dealing with British visitors on the Ford Foun­ dation / English Speaking Union exchange programme during the late 1950s, and the ICA*s Management Improvement Project for Iran. When Mettger retired in 1965 his place was taken by Dean Mahin, who had also begun working on exchanges in Germany for the State Department and USIA before joining GA1 in 1958. GA1 remained the principal oper­ ator for political Leader grantees until 1974, when it was disbanded and its task taken over by the current contractor, Meridian International.74 The use o f private agencies had several advantages. Firstly, as Elder pointed out, it was advantageous “both psychologically and practically” to make use o f private agencies at a distance from government, since this ensured a more “objective look at reality” for each visitor. Philip Mettger himself stressed the “important psychological advantage” o f private agencies as it reduced associations o f propaganda and empha­ sised “freedom o f choice and freedom o f movement”.75 Secondly, it reduced the workload for the State Department and allowed a more flexible operation away from the demands o f governmental bureaucracy. In 1973 GAI was described by the Bureau as “the most competent unit” within the private-sector exchange apparatus. By 1971 GAI was receiv­ ing $1.9 million in contracts from the State Department (second only to llE ’s $3.1 million among the programming agencies), and it was the Institute, not the State Department, that had established links with other contract agencies in order to share and coordinate visitor program­ ming.76 Thirdly, agencies such as GAI were able to build on their pro­ 74 Kellerman, p. 138; Jim Hancock (Visitor Program Officer, ACE 1959-64, GAI 196574), interview, 26 September 2003; 'Survey o f the International Educational Ex­ change Service: Governmental Affairs Institute*, December 1958, Group IV Box 217 Folder 13, CU. 75 Elder, The Foreign Leader Program, pp. 34-35; Mettger, 1964, quoted in Mahin, History, p. 119. This was confirmed in the writings and statements o f returned grant­ ees. For instance the French journalist R. Berger Perrin wrote in his article 'W ith Complete Freedom o f Choice* that "no-one connected with the invitation imposes an itinerary to follow or contacts that one must make** (L 'Inform ateur, 1 November 1967). 76 The State Department / GAI relation was not always so smooth. Variable workloads, understaffing, lack o f information, and difficulties in staying within budgets did cause problems in the GAI-Bureau relationship. In 1963 a GAI request to contact Leader grantees before they arrived in the USA in order to ensure sufficient informa­ tion about their trip was met with the reminder that the Institute should not interfere with responsibilities o f the US government. Yet there was respect in the Bureau for GAI*s "lively, aggressive interest in the program and in their own performance” and their "vital interest in each grantee**. See Henry T. Smith to John N. Hayes, 18 Feb­ ruary 1963, 'Report o f Audit', 24 January 1967, & Philip Mettger to Luther Hix, 12 February 1965, Group IV Box 217 Folder 12, CU; ‘CU/GAI Review’, n.d. [1973],

Implementing the Leader Program

fessional contacts around the country for local support. Whereas in the 1940s and 1950s the government departments would contact local repre­ sentatives directly (trade unionists, newspaper editors, or whoever was required for a particular visitor), GAI built on its existing APSA net­ work and stimulated the creation o f a private network that by the 1960s had developed into a widespread organisation o f voluntary groups. Most major cities had a reception centre with regular staff that could organise the local itinerary of incoming visitors. In 1961, with support from GAI and the State Department, the National Council for Community Services to International Visitors (COSERV) was created to coordinate these many groups across the country.77789The formation o f COSERV not only professionalised the Leader Program at the local level in the United States, it also incorporated the Progam and its themes into the daily life o f many rural and urban communities. GAI also made full use o f the World Affairs Councils to be found in most major cities. Through the local press, who were generally keen to interview foreign visitors, the issues affecting those from other countries were introduced into Ameri­ can communities. By sending visitors along this ‘citizen diplomacy' network through the American hinterland, often involving ‘home hospi­ tality' with American families, a two-way social and cultural exchange occured that would certainly not happen within a more formal, govern­ ment-run programme. These meetings with ‘ordinary’ Americans were a highlight o f many a Leader grantee's tour.7* Fourthly, since it was created for the sole purpose o f programming Leader grantees, GAI professionalised itself by gradually hiring area specialists who knew the regions that the visitors were coming from, thereby improving communication, appreciation, and understanding. The programming officers were the key links in the chain, since it was they, in consultation with each grantee, who arranged the main appointments and schedule for the trip. Most o f them were graduates with extensive Group IV Box 217 Folder 16, CU; 4Relationships with Private Service Agencies', Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, May 1971, author's copy. 77 Mahin, History, pp. 140-141. COSERV is now the National Council fa* International Visitors (NCIV) based in Washington D.C. 78 Elder, The Foreign Leader Program, pp. 29-46. However, during the 1960s some voluntary visitors' centres were unable to bear the costs o f regular hospitality and entertainment for visitors passing through their communities. In response the State Department took on running several visitors' centres itself in the major cities. 'De­ partmental Assistance to Community Groups serving Foreign Visitors', Sam Linch [OCE/LS] to R. Gordon Amason [OCE], 30 March 1961, author's copy (with thanks to Sherry Mueller). 79 T h e time spent in meetings with the program officer serves to prepare the grantee for stepping into the stream o f American life. The success o f the grantee's tour may well depend on the kind o f rapport the GA program officer establishes with the

Networks o f Empire

experience abroad as FSOs or with USIA.80 One who stands out from this group was A1 Keogh, who joined G AI in 1963 and two years later replaced Dean Mahin as the Institute's European affairs specialist. Keogh graduated in psychology from Pomona college in California before joining the US Army in 1951. Following combat in the Korean war, Keogh served for the Joint Chiefs o f Staff and the General Staff College before being posted as an army intelligence officer to Berlin in the late 1950s. Leaving the army in 1960, Keogh undertook a two-year MA in European affairs at the Johns Hopkins School o f Advanced International Studies in Bologna and Washington DC. During his time at G AI Keogh, something o f a legend within the exchanges community, pursued close links with the up-and-coming Leaders from Western Europe and the EEC and succeeded in developing top-level contacts in Washington for when these grantees came over.81 In programming the wishes o f each Grantee, the most important fac­ tor was the emphasis on freedom o f travel. Dean Mahin, GAI’s Director o f Exchange Programs, stated in 1967: We were convinced that the visitor should be free to draw his own conclu­ sions about the nature of our society, and we felt that maintaining the prin­ ciple of the visitor's freedom of choice and freedom of movement was vi­ tally important since demonstrating the concept of a free and open society was one of our paramount objectives.82

However, over time this admirable approach generated several struc­ tural problems. As the length o f visits declined from 1950 onwards, grantees encountered more crowded itineraries and less opportunities for traveling outside o f the big cities to smaller communities. As a result the local visitor services in the most popular cities became overloaded, unable to provide tailor-made schedules for each grantee and instead having to fall back on routine tours.83 From the 1950s onwards the ex­

80 81

82

83

grantee during this initial period.” ‘CU/GAI Review*, n.d. [1973], Group IV Box 217 Folder 16, CU. Elder emphasised the ‘bookish’ nature o f programming officers as “persons who might otherwise be members o f college and university faculties**, p. 38. Keogh was highly committed - in 1967 and 1971 he made trips to Europe to regain contact with former grantees - and was always prepared to “do something that was not strictly official** to ensure a successful grantee visit. Dean Mahin to Yale Rich­ mond, 16 July 1973, & GAI Staff Biographies, 1 August 1973, Group IV Box 217 Folder 14, CU; Jack Keogh, telephone interview, 4 June 2004; Kathleen Lynch, tele­ phone interview, 13 March 2004. Mahin, D. ‘Programming International Visitors in American Communities: Problems o f the 1960*s*, May 1967, author's copy (with thanks to Dean Mahin). See also Elder, p. 6. Mahin, ‘Programming International Visitors’, pp. 10-21. During 1960 New York received the most Leader grantees with 1054, followed by San Francisco (847), Chi-

Implementing the Leader Program

change programme apparatus was under some strain to cope with the workload of incoming grantees. Bureaucratic instability sometimes con­ tributed to the overwork and low morale.**4 The introduction o f Voluntary Visitors, referring to those individuals or groups who travelled to the United States on their own funds but, due to their value as professionals, received facilitative assistance with professional contacts and itineraries, brought upwards o f 1000 extra visitors into the network each year. The increasing need for busy Leader candidates to postpone their trips could also cause congestion during the following year, again triggering distress within the Bureau-agency network.*3 Despite these difficulties, major ef­ forts were always made to maintain quality programmes for all visitors.*6 By the 1960s other programming agencies had been contracted. ACE withdrew from visitor programming and passed its Council on Leaders and Specialists (CLS) to the Experiment in International Living (to avoid monopoly, the State Department refused to give the contract to GAI).*7 The National Social Welfare Assembly, originally involved in the German programme, returned with an International Exchange Program based in New York, but in 1969 it passed its tasks to GAL The most important addition was the African-American Institute (AAI). While only 132 African Leader grantees had come to the US before 1958, in 1961 alone 115 such invitations were extended.** As a result the AAI was brought in to support GAI as a visitor programming agency in 1961. Based in Washington D.C., the Institute had been established in 1953 by leading educators at Howard and Lincoln universities, and it contributed towards presenting a favourable image o f progressive change in Ameri­ can society, thereby backing up the line promoted by USIA abroad.*9 Nevertheless, during the 1950s and 1960s race relations were a diffi­ culty that could not be avoided, and risks had to be taken in the name o f

84 *s

86

17 ** 99

cago (631), Los Angeles (602), and, reflecting the pulling power o f Harvard, Cam­ bridge Massachusetts (412). Sam Linch (OCE) to Ralph Talcott (OCE), 19 October 1960, Group IV Box 153 Folder 18; H. Reid Bird (OCE) to C.S. Dann (CU), Group IV Box 153 Folder 20, CU. Uneven arrival patterns often caused congestion. 1968 was such a year. 207 Leaders from FY 1967 delayed their trips, causing 896 grantees to arrive between JanuaryJune 1968. Due to interest in the Presidential election campaign, a further 687 Lead­ ers were projected to arrive during July-September. ‘Controlling Workloads o f IVP Programming Agencies', 23 February 1968, Group IV Box 151 Folder 34, CU. In the late 1950s 1ES reckoned on each programming officer at GAI handling around fifty grantees a year. By the early 1970s, with the reduction in time o f each grant, both GAI and CLS calculated that three ‘average' visitors per two weeks was the maximum for quality programming. Mahin, History, p. 127. Mahin, History, p. 124. In 1972 CLS was taken over by IIE. Mahin, History, p. 31. Belmonte, pp. 294-319.

Networks o f Empire

a free, open programme. As an IES advisory directive on non-white grantees stated, It is expected that they will witness, or perhaps experience, situations arising from this problem during their travels about the country. The Department and its contract agencies will not try to cover up the fact that racial discrimi­ nation exists, but will attempt to see that each grantee is made aware of the progress of minority groups in this country and will make every effort to prevent grantees from experiencing personal embarrassment.90

Program Officers were nonetheless on the front line when it came to interpreting the civil liberties o f curious grantees and the openness o f the exchange experience, as former GAI staffer Louis Alrutz made clear: If an African visitor wants to go to a segregated restaurant so that he will ‘know’ what it means to be discriminated against, should he be allowed to go?... Is it better to deny the visitor his ‘experience* with the race problem and risk his reporting at home that freedom of choice in America is an illu­ sion? Or is it better to allow the experience and risk having the visitor report at home that there is discrimination in America, a fact that his countrymen already know?91

On the whole GAI was very frank with its grantees, and while there were Leader grantees who went looking for confrontation, they were fortunately few in number. Careful persuasion, the steering o f tours through major Southern cities such as Atlanta and New Orleans, and the use o f the Tennessee Valley Authority as a shining example o f US socio-economic modernisation usually minimalised problems. By the early 1970s civil rights legislation had finally had a positive effect and these concerns had declined.92 The following chapters will cover the Program’s operation in the Netherlands, Britain, and France, tracking the ways in which the Pro­ gram was used in support o f US foreign policy, how it was adapted over time, the target groups that it was directed towards, and the visits and reactions o f selected grantees themselves.

90 ‘Problems o f Race Relations’, Foreign Leader Program o f IES, 22 October 1956, Group IV Box 153 Folder 19, CU. 91 Alrutz, L J. The Foreign Leader Exchange Program and Africa South o f the Sahara, M.A. thesis, American University, 1967, pp. 40-41. 92 Mahin, History, pp. 39-40; Rook, R. ‘Race, Water, and Foreign Policy: The Tennes­ see Valley Authority’s Global Agenda meets “Jim Crow*” . Diplomatic History, 28 (January 2004), pp. 55-81.

Part II T h e N et h er l a n d s

in t h e

1950s

Chapter 3

The PvdA and the Transatlantic Anti-Communist Alliance During the 1950s all the Dutch politicians who participated in the Foreign Leader Program were members o f the Labour party. This reflected the party’s time in power as part of the governing coalition from 1945 until 1958, including the fact that Willem Drees, one o f the most respected of the party’s leaders, was himself Minister President from 1948-58. However, the dominance o f the Labour politicians on the Leader Program list also reflects how the social democrats (and their allies in the unions) were seen by the Americans as playing an essential role within the reconstruction and modernisation o f the Netherlands after the war. The Labour party (Partij van de Arbeid or PvdA) also consciously presented itself to the Americans as the most reliable force for the modernisation o f the Dutch economy and society, thereby align­ ing itself with US aims to out-flank support for communism by promot­ ing a progressive social democratic alternative. US embassy officials in The Hague openly supported this non-communist left strategy and sought to influence the direction of the party through the judicious use of Leader grants. The chance to see America was willingly accepted. US political attaché William Nunley reported in 1950 that “while Socialist leaders have often said maliciously: ‘We don’t need to visit America; why don’t you arrange to ship over the entire Catholic leadership for three months and broaden their views?’, it is clear that individual Social­ ists consider such a trip a great personal opportunity”.1

The Netherlands after WWII The 1953 Country Plan for the Netherlands offers a perceptive over­ view of the Netherlands at that time: The Dutch, equipped with a strong democratic tradition at least as strong as our own, [...] plus a native conservatism, binds them firmly to the West in 1

Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 28 July 1950, 511.563/7-2850, State Depart­ ment Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives, College Park (hereafter ‘NA’). On the NCL see Hugh Wilford, The CIA. the British L eft and the Cold War: Calling the Tune?, London, Frank Cass, 2003, pp. 82-121.

Networks o f Empire all aspects o f the so-called ‘cold w ar’, although there is less excitem ent over the Soviet threat than is evident in the United States. H aving won national independence tw o centuries earlier than the United States, and against far greater odds, the Dutch feel inferior to no people in the m atter o f preserving dem ocratic values. Their firm ly-based national pride creates resistance to anything resem bling outside pressure on any aspect o f Dutch foreign o r do­ m estic policy, and it leads also to insistence upon treatm ent as equals rather than as ju n io r partners in international councils.2

Along with its West European neighbours, the Netherlands was pre­ occupied with reconstruction in the second half o f the 1940s. Material damage from the war was estimated at 26 billion guilders.3 Alongside restoration at home, resources were required for restoring order in the important Dutch colonies in the East Indies. The legacy o f being a colonial power for more than two centuries had understandably had an effect on Dutch self-perception. There was a belief that the Netherlands could keep its possessions in the Far East and in doing so, despite the havoc caused by the war, remain a ‘middle-level’ power able to main­ tain economic independence and its own foreign policy agenda. How­ ever, it did not take long for this impression to dissipate. An inability to regain dominance against the Indonesian independence movement and the heightening tensions between East and West in 1947-48 caused a major reassessment of post-war goals. Drawing a line under a long-held tradition of neutrality in international affairs, the Netherlands signed the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 and so became a founder member o f NATO. The Dutch, pursuing plans for economic integration with Bel­ gium and Luxembourg (Benelux), were also closely involved in the beginnings of European integration. Via NATO, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and eventually the European Economic Community (EEC), the Dutch saw a chance to integrate West Germany within a system of multilateral alliances that would both ensure West European security and reinvigorate the European economies. Neither NATO nor Europe were easy choices for the Dutch, since both forced compromises on planning national economic reconstruction according to national priorities. But, along with the eventual abandon­ ment of attempts to hold on to its far eastern colony with the transfer of sovereignty to an independent Indonesia on 27 December 1949, these moves marked out 1949-50 as a key period in the reorientation o f Dutch foreign policy after WWI1. It is true that American support for decoloni­ 2 3

Country Plan for US1S The Hague, 30 January 1953,511.56/1-3053, RG 59, NA. Klein, P. *Wegen naar Economisch Herstel 1945-1950’, in P.W. Klein & G.N. van der Plaat (eds.), H errijzend Nederland: Opstellen over Nederland in de Periode 1945-1950, The Hague, 1982, p. 95.

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

sation, which the State Department identified as its goal during the second half on 1948, caused much resentment among the Dutch. The political and economic elites felt that Dutch colonial rule had been badly misinterpreted by the Americans, as if they had no sense o f the centu­ ries-long link between the Netherlands and the Indies. The loss o f this major colony also disrupted the Dutch economy and raised questions as to how the country could successfully absorb those who returned after Indonesian independence. Anticipating the transformation o f the Nether­ lands into an over-populated and under-resourced land, many chose to emigrate, especially to the United States.45 There is no doubt that Dutch-American relations were strained by the Indonesian issue. American Ambassador Herman Baruch wrote to Secretary o f State Dean Acheson in March 1949 the widespread opinion that the “Netherlands government, through its Foreign Minister has on several occasions been strongly pressured by US during Indonesian crisis. This feeling... will die hard despite traditionally and fundamen­ tally friendly feelings between two nations and their people*'. Baruch’s successor, Seiden Chapin, also reported to Acheson at the end o f 1949 that most Dutchmen “feel that whether we like it or not, we have as­ sumed some obligation [towards] assisting the Netherlands to overcome some o f the economic difficulties arising from that settlement”.6 Rela­ tions would be further hurt during this episode's coda, the transfer o f sovereignty over New Guinea to the Indonesians, again under American pressure, in 1963. Nevertheless, the Netherlands valued the transatlantic relationship too highly, and a mixture o f practicality and ideology ensured that 'Atlanticism' was firmly placed as the cornerstone of its foreign policy during the 1950s and 1960s. Resentment remained, but it 4

5

6

Having allowed the Dutch to make use o f large scale dollar credits and surplus American war material for their military campaigns in the archipelago, by mid-1948 the State Department began to shift its support away from its close ally. In particular the US wanted to back the Indonesian moderates Sukarno and Hatta in their bid for leadership o f the independent republic against the increasing agitations o f the com­ munists. The Dutch 1police action' against the republic in December 1948 was seen by the Americans as the last straw. See Gouda F. & Brocades Zaalberg, T. American Visions o f the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920-1949, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2002, pp. 25-42. Between 1947 and 1965 over 500,000 people emigrated, with 77,639 going to the United States. Roholl, M. 'Uncle Sam: An Example for All? The Dutch Orientation towards America in the Social and Cultural Field, 1945-1965', in H. Loeber (ed.), Dutch-American Relations 1945-1969, Assen, van Gorcum, 1992, p. 114. Baruch to Acheson, 31 March 1949, 711.56/3-3149, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel I: 1945-49, microfilm collection, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg - hereafter ‘RSC’); Chapin to Acheson, 17 November 1949, Per­ sonal Files o f American Diplomats in the Netherlands 1910-1959, Dept o f State, Decimal File 123, Reel 1:1945-1959, NA.

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stayed predominantly under the surface. It was also balanced by respect for the role the United States had played in the liberation o f the country, the contribution to post-war reconstruction provided by the Marshall Plan, and a general appreciation o f the can-do mentality o f American society. Between 1948 and 1954 the Netherlands received more than $1.1 bil­ lion in grants and loans within the European Recovery Program, repre­ senting a per capita amount of $109 that was significantly more than that for Belgium ($11), Italy ($31), Britain ($62), and France ($79).7 This sizeable input o f dollars enabled the necessary raw materials to be purchased for manufacturing and food processing, and prevented severe cut-backs in government spending in 1948. Alongside the financial input was the positive psychological impact that the ERP had on the Dutch. This had as much to do with the commitment the Americans showed for West European affairs as it related to the potential the ERP offered for organising the national economy on the basis o f long-term stability. Prosperity could be achieved if the main economic partners the government, the employers, and the trade unions - reached a con­ sensus to manage the economy by concentrating on increasing produc­ tivity and growth. By sharing the benefits o f this extra productivity throughout society in the form o f higher levels o f employment and wage increases, it was intended to rejuvenate belief in the capitalist system after the still-fresh experiences o f the 1930s and thereby reduce the appeal o f radical political alternatives. The ERP represented an exten­ sion o f the technocratic American belief in solving fundamental ques­ tions o f socio-economic management to Western European conditions. In this respect knowledge-transfer in specific industries was increased through the Technical Assistance Program, which oversaw national productivity councils to introduce improvements and which up to 1956 saw 1300 Dutch workers and employers travel to the United States on study tours.8

The Partij van de Arbeid and the Atlanticist Turn Among the most enthusiastic responses to the ERP from the main Dutch political parties came from the Partij van der Arbeid (PvdA), which saw it as an opportunity to pursue a broader restructuring o f the 7 8

van der Eng, P. De M arshall-Hulp: Een P erspectief voor Nederland, 1947-1953, Houten, De Haan, 1987, p. 80. Ellwood, D. Rebuilding Europe: Western Europe, America and Post-war Recon­ struction, London, Longman, 1992; de Haan, H. ‘The Impact o f the United States on the Dutch Economy’, in H. Loeber (ed.), pp. 68-73; Inklaar, F. Van Amerika Geleerd: M arshall-hulp en Kermisimport in Nederland, The Hague, Sdu, 1997.

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

Dutch economy to ensure full employment and a decent standard of living after the disasters o f the 1930s and the war. In this sense it con­ trasted strongly with the main religious parties, the protestant AntiRevolutionary Party (ARP) and Christian Historical Union (CHU) and the Catholic People’s Party (KVP). Despite their appreciation o f Ameri­ can support for the Western European economies, these three parties generally expressed more concerns over the rise o f secular materialism and the impact that an increasing American influence would have on Dutch society.9 The PvdA, similar to the British Labour party, profiled itself as the party o f modernisation and in this way openly aligned itself with US interests in the Netherlands. The PvdA had been formed in 1946 from the left-wing Sociaal Democratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP) and several smaller liberal and Christian groups in order to seek a broad political ‘breakthrough’ (doorbraak) by undermining support for the religious parties. For many years the SDAP had been moving towards a pragmatic left-wing reformist position that aimed to pursue the practical management o f welfare-state capitalism. During the war this significant move towards the political centre was accompanied by larger concerns to do with the apparent breakdown o f European civilisation itself, and many felt that a revital­ ised political vision was necessary to lead a moral renewal in the post­ war years. Integral to this ethical dimension was the concept o f ‘per­ sonal socialism’, a vision o f the citizen having rights and taking respon­ sibilities within a harmoniously ordered society. On this basis the foun­ ders of the PvdA intended to break free o f Marxist orthodoxies and expand their electoral appeal with a progressive programme designed to combine ethical values with a managed economy providing benefits for all.10 PvdA reactions to the Marshall Plan expressed the belief that there was significant common ground between Dutch social democracy and American-style managed capitalism. Roosevelt’s New Deal had given the United States a positive image among European socialists as a place where progressive political and social developments were possible within the bounds of a capitalist economy. This opinion was strength­ ened by the surprise victory of Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s ‘heir’, in the 1948 Presidential election. For instance, at the 1951 PvdA congress the speakers were flanked by a large ERP ‘Ship o f Europe* map and a 1936 campaign motto from Franklin Roosevelt. Further to this, the negative 9 Van der Eng, pp. 102,104-5. 10 Woltjer, J. Recent Verleden: Nederland in de Twintigste Eeuw, Amsterdam: Balans, 1992, pp. 191-4; Rovers, F. Voor Recht en Vrijheid: De Partij van der Arbeid en de Koude Oorlog 1946-1958, Amsteidam, 1ISG, 1994, pp. 19-20.

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stance taken by the Americans against Dutch rule in Indonesia had somewhat less o f an effect on the traditionally anti-colonial left than on the other main parties. The anti-militarist internationalism o f the preWWI1 SDAP was transformed into an anti-communist internationalism that was prepared to accept American leadership o f the West against the Soviet Union. While there had been support for a European ‘Third Way’ between the superpowers in the immediate years after the war, the arrival o f the Marshall Plan, the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, and the Berlin blockade collectively had a major impact on the direction the party took in 1947-48. Thus by 1955 the American embassy could report with satisfaction after the party congress that on foreign policy the P vdA ,4*allowing for minor variations in emphasis, goes all the way down the line with the United States’." Personal contacts were also good. Koos Vorrink, described by charge d’affaires J. Webb Benton as 44one of the most important and influential figures in present-day Dutch political life” because o f his wish to avoid government office in favour o f 44pulling the strings behind the scenes”, visited the American embassy on many occasions during the late 1940s and early 1950s to discuss political developments. Likewise it was considered de rigueur to invite the newly arrived American Labor attaché, John W. Piercey, to the PvdA congress in 1953.12 An insight into the relationship between the social democrats and the American embassy during the 1950s has also been provided by William Sullivan, Second Secretary at the embassy from 1955 to 1958, whose brief was to monitor the PvdA. They always welcomed me to their headquarters in Amsterdam and even let me sit in on their internal meetings, partly to show the depth of their com­ mitment to our alliance and partly to demonstrate that they had nothing to hide. When I would go to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of parlia­ ment, to improve my Dutch by listening to the debate, Labor members

Rovers, pp. 23-4, 39-41, 45; Krop, M. Aon Vrijheid Gebonden: Sociaal-democratie, M ensenrechten en Buiteniands Beieid, Deventer, 1987, p. 106; Zuijdam, F. Tussen Wens en W erkelijkheid: Het Debat over Vrede en Vrijheid binnen de PvdA in de Pe­ riode 1958-1977, Amsterdam, Aksant, 2002, p. 9; Embassy The Hague to D ept o f State, 15 March 1955,756.00/3-1555, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, Natio­ nal Archives (Reel 5: 1950-55 RSC); Embassy The Hague to Dept o f Suite, 21 Ja­ nuary 1952,756.00/1-452, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC). 12 Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 11 April 1947, 856.00/4-1147, State Depart­ ment Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC); John W. Pier­ cey to Alfred Mozer (International Secretary o f the PvdA), 11 February 1953, Buitenlandse Contacten: File 1198, PvdA archive, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam (hereafter ‘IISH’).

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

would leave the floor and visit me in the gallery to provide an insight into the politics of the debate.13 The turn towards Atlanticism by the PvdA was led by several key figures within the party who combined this shift with increasingly fierce attacks against the Communist party (CPN). The Czech coup raised serious doubts over where the loyalty o f the communists in the Nether­ lands actually lay. There was also concern that the PvdA would lose out electorally to the CPN as they had in 1946 when the communists gained an impressive 10 per cent o f the votes. For PvdA figures such as chair­ man of the parliamentary party Marinus van der Goes van Naters, overall party chairman Koos Vorrink, and Frans Goedhart it was not just a question o f protecting the PvdA’s left flank but o f presenting to the countiy a progressive political programme based on economic justice and social welfare. More than anything, the Marshall Plan offered this opportunity. By late 1947, with the CPN following the Cominform line opposing the ERP and again referring to the social democrats as the ’class enemy’ as it had done before WW1I, a definitive split between the main parties on the left became more and more evident. In early 1949 Vorrink and van der Goes van Naters were at the forefront o f a cam­ paign inside the party to sway its followers towards acceptance o f the North Atlantic treaty, which they succeeded in when the party congress voted in favour in April 1949. Much use was made of the need to pre­ vent a second ’Munich' and the mistakes o f the 1930s that allowed Nazism to rise unopposed, coupled with the evident failure o f the UN (thanks largely to Soviet intransigence) to act as the hoped-for construc­ tive forum for post-war cooperation. Despite widespread disquiet and occasional open discontent from some o f its members over the polaris­ ing effects that the ERP and NATO were having, by 1950 the PvdA appeared to be something of a model o f social democratic sobriety. In the hands o f leaders who were Atlanticist internationally and anti­ communist domestically, in alliance with its trade union allies it was committed to increased productivity and economic revival on the back o f the reforms put in motion by the ERP. It is understandable, therefore, that the party was considered an important ally by the American em­ bassy in The Hague, especially when compared to its long-running governing partner the KVP. A focus on domestic affairs and a suspicion o f outside influences were both long-term results o f the discriminated position experienced by Dutch catholics after the independence of the Netherlands from Spain in the seventeenth century. The consequent lack o f an international outlook to the party, aside from an instinctive anti­ 13 Sullivan, W. Obbligato, 1939-1979: Notes on a Foreign Service Career, New York, W.W. Norton, 1984, p. 148.

Networks o f Empire

communism, led one American Foreign Service Officer (FSO) to com­ ment in 1947 how the party was ‘totally lacking in any real statesman­ ship’.14

Mobilising Domestic Anti-Communism: Evert Vermeer In 1950 there was every reason to expect that Evert Vermeer would continue to rise within the PvdA hierarchy. An assistant member of the SDAP executive committee by 1934, he ran the illegal newspaper Vrije Gedachten (Freedom of Thought) during the war before being elected to parliament in 1946. A protégée of party chairman Vorrink, Vermeer soon made his mark as a spokesperson on military affairs in the chamber and a strong supporter of the anti-communist turn taken by his party. During the summer of 1950 Vermeer, by then party secretary, spoke at several meetings against the Soviet Union’s policies and the CPN as its loyal follower. Declaring that “it was much better to fight for freedom than to die in captivity’’, he also used these opportunities to criticise the communist-sponsored peace movement that had been started in Stock­ holm earlier in the year. An American embassy report on these meetings noted that “Vermeer also warned that [...] a close watch should be kept on the domestic situation, and in this connection he asked whether the nation was still justified in granting the Communists the means to continue their subversive activities’’. The report, by embassy second secretaiy Philip Clock, concluded by emphasising that Vermeer, re­ cently selected for the Leader Program, “is strongly pro-American” and that “obviously the active support of such Socialists is vital to the de­ mocratic cause o f the Western democracies”.15 Vermeer, belonging to the right-wing of the PvdA, was certainly veiy active in the cause of anti-communism. Before the war he had already made his name with the SDAP’s Bureau voor Actie en Propa­ ganda, coordinating the party’s political campaign against communism and fascism. After 1945 he directed his attention solely towards com­ munism. A regular commentator for the VARA radio network, he gathered together impressive dossiers not only on the CPN but also on the communist parties o f Austria, Bulgaria, China, France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, and Yugoslavia, as well as material concerning the Ukrain­ Rovers, pp. 73-83; Bosscher, D. ‘De Partij van der Arbeid en het Buitenlands Beleid (1945-1974)*, in H.W. von der Dunk et a i, Wederopbouw, W ehaart en Onrust: Ne­ derland in de Jaren Vijftig en Zestig, Houten, De Haan, 1986, pp. 64-70; Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 11 April 1947, 856.00/4-1147, State Department Deci­ mal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC). 15 Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 6 September 1950, RG 59, 756.00/9-650, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC).

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

ian opposition movements to Russian control. By 1950 he was deeply involved in actions against the CPN, as a letter concerning the activities and membership o f the communist peace movement sent to him by Ad de Jonge in July showed. W.A.H. (Ad) de Jonge, the PvdA's ‘CPNwatcher’ and an expert in communist politics, tactics, and ideology, was also a member of section B of the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD - the domestic secret service). Even though the peace movement had not achieved any real success in the Netherlands and no PvdA members had joined, de Jonge suggested a campaign in the PvdA newspaper Het Vrije Volk and the social democratic Het Parool to highlight the contradic­ tions between the communists’ declarations o f peace and the recent invasion o f South Korea by the communist North. Vermeer’s contact with de Jonge is in line with how the PvdA, along with their allies in the unions and the press, were the most determined in their efforts to defeat communism in the Netherlands, for which they were quite prepared to work together with intelligence services in the common cause.16 Nevertheless, Vermeer’s candidacy for the FLP did not go unchal­ lenged. In an explanatory report, William Nunley noted that within the PvdA there were indeed “a number o f leaders who were anxious to receive an invitation” as a sign o f prestige and recognition o f their status. The selection of Vermeer, who was generally slighted as young, inexperienced, and “Vorrink’s pet canary”, ahead o f other obvious heavyweights amongst the anti-communists such as Jacques de Kadt and Goedhart was indefensibly ignoring obvious hierarchies within the party. However, it was not so much Vorrink’s advocacy o f Vermeer that had an effect, as the fact that the Americans were looking to identify the party’s up and coming talent: The post-war period has developed increasing pragmatism within the party as a whole, and that the new spirit is especially evident among the younger members of the party. This younger group, of which Evert Vermeer is a 16 Mulder and Koedijk explain that de Jonge was working for die PvdA think-tank the Wiardi Beckmanstichting, and it was arranged by director Joop den Uyl and union official J. Suurhoff for him to join the BVD. The reason was to improve the accessi­ bility of the secret service for the social democrats. De Jonge had such a reputation that in later years the CIA also sent officers to consult with him. van Veen, Th. ‘Evert Vermeer, Levensschets’, in Evert Aart Vermeer: Een Levensschets, Amsterdam, De Arbeiderspers, 1961, pp. 11-12; de Jonge to Vermeer, 29 July 1950, File 120, Evert Vermeer papers, PvdA archive, I1SH; Rovers p. 68; Engelen, D. G eschiedenis van de Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, The Hague, Sdu, 1995, p. 218; de Graaff, B. A Wiebes, C. (eds.), Hun Crisis was de Onze Niet: Internationale Crises en Binnenlandse Veiligheid 1945-1960, The Hague, Sdu, 1994, pp. 9 & fT; Mulder, G. A Koedijk, P. Lees die Krant: Geschiedenis van het Naooriogse Parool, Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 1996, p. 578, No. 44; de Graaflf, B. A Wiebes, C. Villa Maarheeze: De Geschiedenis van de Inligjhtingendienst Buitenland, The Hague, Sdu, 1998, pp. 330-1.

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good representative, is not so much concerned with political philosophy as with the problems of practical politics and immediate social reform [...] [T]he younger, pragmatic groups may be most important in building the party’s strength for the future and especially in extending its influence among the middle classes [...]17

While Nunley recognised the equal value o f the “left-wing, intellec­ tual, old-style groups“ and the younger pragmatists in the general anti­ communist line taken by the PvdA, Vermeer’s participation in the FLP displayed the programme's eye for future leadership potential. Nunley emphasised that “his trip will be useful in bringing a better understand­ ing of the United States to an important segment o f the Dutch popula­ tion“ and that “his future seems exceptionally bright“. Nevertheless, he did recommend that a further invitation be given to someone like de Kadt or Goedhart in the near future which “would have the positive advantage of opening to American influence important elements o f the Socialist party who cannot be expected to respond with enthusiasm to a person such as Vermeer“.18 Vorrink did his best to secure an upward path for his right-hand man. During the summer o f 1950 Vermeer was placed in charge o f an 'anti­ communist offensive’ in Amsterdam. Nationally there were 33,000 members of the CPN by 1950, down from 53,000 in 1947. The circula­ tion of the party newspaper, De Waarheid (The Truth), collapsed from 400,000 at the end of the war to 115,000 by the end o f 1949. Yet in Amsterdam a quarter still voted for the CPN and the PvdA saw this “not only as a serious political weakness but also as a definite security threat in the event of war”. The communist party, along with its comrades in France and Italy, had after all declared its support in April 1949 for the Soviet Red Army in the event o f war and were thus considered to repre­ sent a treacherous 'fifth column’.19 Alongside a major press and pam­ phlet campaign, the main tactic used to weaken the CPN hold on Am­ sterdam was for “well-briefed” socialists to arrange small meetings with communist friends and acquaintances for political discussion in order to change their allegiance.20 Vermeer spent almost three months in the 17 Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 28 July 1950, RG 59,511.563/7-2850, NA. 18 Ibid. 19 Bogaarts, M. ‘De Nederlandse Readies op Praag 1948’, in de Graaff & Wiebes (eds.), Hun Crisis was de Onze Niet, p. 79. 20 Alongside these ‘family meetings’ a training school for PvdA members was to be created so they “may be grounded in Socialist principles and tactics”. Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 12 June 1950, 756.00/6-1250, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3 1950-54 RSC); Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 21 July 1950, 756.003/7-2150, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, Na­ tional Archives (Reel 5: 1950-55 RSC).

The Labour Parly and Anti-Communism

United States from September to November 1950, during which time he established contacts with American trade unions and followed the congressional elections. Above all he was impressed by how important the tactic o f house-to-house visits were for the campaigns. On his return he recommended using this more personal approach, not just nationally, but especially “in the effort to strengthen the party in Amsterdam”.21 Vermeer's activities certainly justified the US embassy’s judgement on his value. His role in Amsterdam fitted with his involvement as a board member o f the Nationaal Instituut Steun Wenig Gezag (NISWG National Institute for the Support o f Legitimate Order), created in May 1948 to coordinate the activities o f voluntary groups supporting the army and the police against possible communist agitation after the Czech coup.22 Yet inter- and intra-party rivalries, plus resentment of Vorrink's favouritism, would continually dog Vermeer’s career path. In December 1950 Vermeer, although the prime candidate, failed to secure a new government post, state secretary for the Interior, with responsibil­ ity directly under the minister for controlling all civil defence activities. When Vorrink retired as party chairman in 1955, Vermeer was chosen by the party congress in February to succeed him despite being “too moderate for some and deemed too much of a publicist-propagandist and too little of the intellectual or politician for others”. As a conse­ quence he only gained a two-year term as chairman in place o f the usual indefinite appointment. US embassy officials continued to follow his progress. In February 1956 Second Secretary William Sullivan noted at the 10* anniversary celebrations o f the PvdA that Vermeer “has as­ sumed new stature during his tenure” as chairman, and his post was duly extended beyond the two-year trial period.23 In the late 1950s he took on several high-profile functions outside o f the PvdA: Board member o f the European Movement in the Netherlands, on the executive o f the Dutch Atlantic Commission, a member o f the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and a participant in the meetings o f both the Socialist International and Bilderberg. By this time Vermeer, who as chairman successfully carried

21 **[...] de actie om de Paitij in Amsterdam te versterken.” Vermeer, E., ‘Een Oud Middel in een Nieuw Land', 15 November 1950, File 1251, Evert Vermeer papers, PvdA archive, 11SH. 22 Rovers, pp. 58-63. Rovers emphasises that many in the PvdA, including Drees, opposed groups like the NISWG because o f their right-wing tendencies and the pos­ sibility that they would act as much against socialists as communists. 23 US military attache to Dept, o f the Army, 8 December 1950, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 4: 1950-54 RSC); Embassy The Hague to D ept o f State, 17 February 1955, RG 59, 756.00/2-1755, and 15 February 1956, 756.00/2-1556, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 5:1950-55 RSC).

Networks o f Empire

out his intention to act as a binding force within the party, was clearly becoming a more important international figure, particularly in the context o f forging a common social democratic platform within the emerging structures o f an integrated Europe.24 Whatever doubts remain as to Vermeer’s intellectual capacities, there is no doubt that he contrib­ uted to keeping the PvdA on its rightist, pro-NATO course through the 1950s. During the parliamentary debate in 1957 on the placing o f American nuclear weapons on Dutch soil, Vermeer observed trium­ phantly that the lack o f opposition to this proposal from all parties demonstrated how the contribution o f the Netherlands to NATO was “above party politics”.25 It is highly likely that Vermeer would not have dealt with the changing pressures o f Dutch politics, particularly within his own party, during the 1960s. However, he never had to face those problems because his role was cut short when he died, age 49, in 1960.

A Rising Star: J.M. den Uyl While Vermeer was on the right o f the PvdA, den Uyl represented more the party’s left-wing, openly critical o f both the government’s attempts to hold on to Indonesia and the compromises accepted by the party in order to save its ruling partnership with the more conservative Catholic party. In contrast to Vermeer’s image as an intellectual light­ weight, den Uyl was a rising influence in attempting to map out the future path that the PvdA should take and the post-war goals it should remain steadfastly attached to. A major survey in the Dutch press in 1999 revealed that den Uyl was considered the second most influential and notorious Dutch politician in the twentieth century after Willem Drees. Den Uyl’s political stand­ point, along with many Dutch politicians up until the 1970s, was formed by the desperation of the Great Depression and the evils o f Nazi occupa­ tion during WWII. Joining the PvdA in 1946, he sought a role in the social democratic renewal of Dutch politics and society to ensure that the future would be “better than the past, with no more crises, no ine­ quality, no fascism, no war”. After working as deputy editor with the left newspaper Vrij Nederland, in 1949 aged 29 den Uyl became direc­

24 den Uyl, J. ‘Evert Vermeer, voorzitter’, in Evert Aart Vermeer: Een Levensschets, pp. 20-34. 25 Bloem, D. et at., Nederland en de Kemwapens: Een Studie over het Nederlands N ucleair Beieid 1972-1985, Alphen aan de Rijn, Samsom, 1987, p. 54. Vermeer’s refusal to allow a dissident group o f leftists to express a minority opinion within the party caused the formation o f the Pacifist Socialist Party in January 1957. Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 20 June 1958, 756.00/6-2058, State Department Deci­ mal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 6:1955-59 RSC).

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

tor o f the influential PvdA think-tank, the Wiardi Beckman Stichting (WBS), and soon joined the editorial board o f the WBS’s intellectual journal Socialisme en Démocratie By this stage den Uyl had already made his name as a vocal critic o f the governing coalition, which since 1946 had included the PvdA, and he also had a much more nuanced view o f Marshall aid than some o f his party colleagues. He remarked in April 1948 on the “imperialist tenden­ cies of American ideology” and made it clear that it was up to Europe to reconstruct and reorganise itself to avoid becoming a mere offshoot o f the American economy. Nevertheless, he was a convinced anti­ communist who through the late 1940s and early 1950s wasted no opportunity to criticise Soviet policy, the Third Way’ers, and Bevanite tendencies on the Left.262728Den Uyl ran the WBS as an intensive research bureau for developing the practical means to deliver social democratic ideals, a cause that deliberately opposed the more moderate compromise politics that the PvdA followed in the coalition governments o f the 1950s. From the very beginning he had an opportunity to influence the direction the party should take. In April 1949 the PvdA’s second party conference had requested a broad study by the WBS to clarify the social and economic goals and values that the new party should stand for, the result being the substantial De Weg naar Vrijheid (The Road to Free­ dom), completed in November 1951. Den Uyl served as secretary o f the drafting committee and acted as the report’s chief editor.2* The report laid out a total plan for a justly ordered society, covering not just man­ agement o f the economy but the necessary organisation and approach that should be adopted by business, the unions, and the state, and the accompanying roles to be taken by the health service, the education system, the media, and supporting cultural organisations. In place of old-style statist dirigisme, the Plan combined the value o f equality with the ‘personal socialism’ ideas developed during the war, whereby the state would aim to regulate the socio-economic landscape within which the people, their basic needs secure, could still define their own liveli­ hoods. Significantly the report’s conclusion stated that progressive movements in American trade unions, in academia, and amongst the intelligentsia, coupled with enlightened policies such as the New Deal, the Marshall Plan and President Truman’s ‘Point Four* speech o f 1949,

26 van den Broek, I. Heimwee naar de Politiek: De Herinnering aan het Kabinet-Den UyU Amsterdam, Wereldbibliotheek, 2002, pp. 31-2. 27 de Vries, T. Complexe Consensus: Amerikaanse en Nederlandse Inteilectuelen in Debate over Politiek en Cultuur 1945-1960, Hilversum, Verloren, 19%, pp. 239-241. 28 Van den Broek, pp. 35-6; Van der Eng, p. 92; De Weg naar Vrijheid: Een Socialistisch Perspectief Amsterdam, De Aibeiderspers, 1951.

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contributed to making the United States an influential nation which the socialist movement should look to for inspiration.29 The American embassy reported that the Plan was “too long, vague, and tedious to read”. Nevertheless special note was made both o f its status as the party’s platform for the 1952 general elections and o f “Mr H. Vos, member o f the Party Executive, and Dr. J.M. den Uyl, both o f whom were largely responsible for the thick document describing the plan”.30 It is therefore logical that, on the recommendation of Labor attaché John Piercey, den Uyl was offered a Leader grant in 1953 and travelled around the United States from 2 October to mid-December that year. Den Uyl went about his first trip to the USA in a highly profes­ sional manner. His preliminary notes for the US embassy outlining his objectives made clear that, as director o f the PvdA’s main think-tank and one o f the party’s advisors, “I want to visit the trade unions and smaller political groupings in order to see how they advance their progressive programs into legislative realities”. I am most interested in obtaining a general picture of the organization of American society as a whole. In preparing the book the uRoad to Freedom** I and my colleagues made many references to situations in the United States and I would like to verify and enlarge my understanding of these phenom­ ena. In particular, I want to investigate the role of trade unions in American life, high productivity and the high standard of living, the cultural and edu­ cational possibilities for the people. Therefore, I want to talk to business­ men, community leaders, educational leaders, to get the broadest under­ standing of American democracy.31

Den Uyl also wanted to discuss “electoral sociology”, a subject he had studied in some depth in previous years, with experts in political science. Finally, he stated his intention to write about his trip “so that I may share my impressions with as many people as possible”. With these aims he would undoubtedly have appeared to the embassy as a model Leader grantee in terms of the characteristics o f the Program in the early 1950s. Thanks to Piercey and colleagues within the PvdA, den Uyl assem­ bled a long list of potential contacts in the USA. As to be expected this focused on officials within the American Federation o f Labor (AFL) and the Congress o f Industrial Organisations (CIO), but also the strongly anti-communist and internationally-orientated International Ladies 29 De W egnaar Vrijheid, p. 409. 30 Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 31 December 1951, 756.00/1-452, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC). 31 ‘Statement of Dr den Uyl on the Purpose o f his Trip to the United States*, n.d., File 188, Archive of J.M. den Uyl, 11SH.

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the social dem ocratic, New Dealer Americans for Democratic Action (ADA).32 Den Uyl organised his trip in consultation with the Department o f Labor’s Office o f Inter­ national Labor Affairs and visited various AFL, CIO, ILGWU, ADA, and United Auto Workers officials across the country. Before he left the Netherlands he had been provided with introductions by Piercey and PvdA colleagues to well-connected figures such as journalist and Inter­ national Confederation o f Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) official Arnold Beichman, and David C. Williams, the director o f the ADA’s Research and Education department. Other significant contacts included the notorious international secretary o f the ILGWU Jay Lovestone, James T. Farrell (den Uyl intended to translate one o f his stories into Dutch), and Daniel Bell, whom he met at an American Committee for Cultural Freedom meeting in New York on 26 October. Other engagements included the CIO National Convention in Cleveland, an ICFTU testimo­ nial dinner in New York, and a tour o f the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a more or less obligatory destination for all visiting social democrats. While contacts with major figures in the academic world such as Seymour Lipset, C. Wright Mills, and Paul Lazarsfeld did not come off, den Uyl nevertheless had meetings at Harvard (Clinton Golden), Wayne State, University o f Minnesota, University of Wiscon­ sin, University o f Denver, Berkeley (Thomas Blaisdell), and UCLA. The financial arrangements for Foreign Leader visitors in the early 1950s were not always adequate. The US embassy informed den Uyl that the financial support o f $12 a day provided for each grantee would be enough on its own only with “careful budgeting” for food and lodg­ ing. Therefore it is strongly recommended that per diem payments be supplemented by per­ sonal funds, if possible. However, grantees should not expect to supplement per diem payments by accepting fees for lectures or from the sale of articles or photographs.33

Due to either a lack o f personal funds or an inability to exchange lo­ cal currencies into US dollars, it is fair to say that many grantees disre­ garded this regulation and made use o f whatever contacts they had to earn something extra. Den Uyl was no exception, and Meijer Sluyser, in charge of campaigns and publicity in the PvdA secretariat, wrote several letters to acquaintances in America to generate speaking appointments On the formation and goals o f the ADA see McAuliffe, M. Crisis on the Left: Cold War Politics and American Libérais, 1947-1954, Amherst, University o f Massachu­ setts Press, 1978. 33 ‘Basic Information Concerning United States Government Grants under the Foreign Leader Program (Public Law 402)*, n.d., File 188, Archive o f J.M. den Uyl, USH.

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for him at universities and on the radio. Efforts were also made for him by officials within the Office o f International Labor Affairs and the ILGWU. However, few engagements were forthcoming.34 Neither did he maintain many of the contacts he had established during his visit. Al­ ready in 1950 den Uyl had written to Vermeer stating how impressed he was with the ADA and its membership o f “New and Fair Dealers”, so much so that he felt the PvdA should seek more contact Nevertheless, correspondence with David Williams was halting after den Uyl returned to the Netherlands and no long-term relationship seems to have been established between the two organisations. It is true, as union leader Heinz Umrath commented in 1953, that den Uyl “always showed a more than normal interest for life and events in the US”, but as with many European social democrats this was strongly related to the psychological impact of the New Deal and a deep curiosity over how the American economy operated.35 The motivating element in den Uyl’s politics was a striving for substantial political and economic reform in order to create a just society in the Netherlands. The contacts he made in the United States may have been valuable but they were never going to distract him from this goal, and he followed his own distinct political path.36 By the mid-1950s den Uyl was well on the rise in the PvdA. Elected to parlia­ ment in 1956, he resigned both his seat and his directorship o f the WBS to run the urban development portfolio for Amsterdam city council before being appointed Minister for Economics in 1965. The fall o f this government in October 1966, which effectively signalled the end o f cooperation between the Catholic party and the PvdA, led to the social democrats pursuing a political strategy that would unite the left and directly challenge the conservatism o f the religious parties. Den Uyl, who became the PvdA leader in the parliament in 1967, oversaw the

M. Sluyser to S. Gaster, 28 September 1953, Sluyser to A.M. Meerlo, 29 September 1953, Oien M. Wamock (Technical Cooperation Division, International Labor Af­ fairs) to Earl Quinn (Labor League o f Political Education, Chicago), 3 November 1953, & Arthur A. Elder (Director, Training Institute, ILGWU) to den Uyl, 14 De­ cember 1953, Ibid. 35 Williams also tried to connect den Uyl with the British centre-left journalists T.R. Fyvel and G.L. Arnold, both o f whom had been London correspondents for the New Leader and moved in the intellectual circles o f the Congress for Cultural Free­ dom. Williams to den Uyl, 18 October 1953, 6 March 1954, and n.d. [1954], and Umrath to Max Kampelman, 29 September 1953, Ibid. 36 While den Uyl, along with the rest o f the PvdA in the 1950s, maintained friendly relations with the US embassy, the Americans clearly respected den Uyl’s talents. In October 1961 Ambassador John Rice described him as “generally considered among the best ‘backroom’ thinkers and planners in his party”. Rice to State Department, 1 October 1961, The Netherlands, Box 27, RG 84, NA.

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success o f this strategy when he led a PvdA-dominated government as Prime Minister from 1973 to 1977.”

Organising Government Propaganda: Joop Landré In 1950 the NATO countries possessed 14 divisions in Europe com­ pared to an estimated 125 of the Soviet Union. Although it was evident that a massive rearmament programme was necessary to make NATO a credible defensive force, this was regarded as a serious threat to post­ war recovery so recently set in motion by the ERP. FSOs at the US embassy in the Netherlands were very aware that any increases in defence expenditure would adversely affect the Socialist party more than any other because o f how it could damage their goal o f developing the Dutch welfare state. During the first few months o f 1951 the em­ bassy political staff watched developments closely. The Korean war had led to an increase in raw material prices which had a negative impact on the import-dependent Netherlands, and with a decline in exports also occurring a major balance o f payments deficit was looming. Neverthe­ less by March a programme involving fiscal cut-backs, rationing, in­ creased taxes, and a request for further American aid was finalised, which allowed for an increase in the defence budget by 50 per cent each year for the next four years. To achieve this the PvdA was prepared to accept introducing longer working hours and increased efficiency, policies which fitted neatly with the goals o f the Technical Assistance Program.3738 The general opinion within the PvdA was that this was more than they should attempt economically, but that the international circum­ stances demanded the extra effort. Prime Minister Drees himself strug­ gled with accepting the increases, which he saw as an unpalatable yet unavoidable consequence o f the Atlantic alliance.39 Despite this situa­ tion, the Truman administration did not relent, with negative results. US Ambassador Seldon Chapin telegraphed to Washington in February 1951 that “increasing indications US now being accused o f exercising ‘power politics’ through bringing unusually heavy pressure Netherlands Government order to achieve its support our policies”. Drees, in a comment that aptly sums up Dutch views o f the US at that time, had 37 In 1978, still party leader but no longer Minister President, the US embassy arranged a second trip to the USA for den Uyl via the International Visitor Program. See File 429, archive of J.M. den Uyl, I1SH. 38 15 January 1951, 756.00/1-1551; 26 January 1951, 756.00/1-2651; 6 February 1951, 756.00/2-651; 18 March 1951, 756.00/3-1851, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC). 39 Rovers, p. 122.

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said “a big brother should deal more understandingly [sic] with a little brother”. For Chapin the Netherlands represented a “convenient testtube” case for the rest of Western Europe. The following month the Ambassador reported a thinly disguised threat from leading Dutch politicians that any further pressure at that time would result in a gov­ ernment crisis and a worse result overall.40 Around this time a govern­ ment report entitled ‘The Netherlands Defence Effort’, clearly meant for American consumption, explained the amount of sacrifices the Dutch were already making. A 70 per cent increase in the defence budget from 1948 to 1951 was threatening the remarkable post-war economic recov­ ery. With average per capita income at $500 (compared to the USA’s $1,453), the margins for further austerity measures were small. There was a general acquiescence that it was necessary - the unions had even agreed to wage rises below the rate of inflation - but no further burdens would be accepted.41 In August 1951 a revealing meeting took place between Koos Vorrink and Philip Clock. Vorrink was irritable about the American pres­ sure and clearly concerned about a consequent split between the leader­ ship of the PvdA and the rank and file on the rearmament issue. But his most interesting statements related to Willem Drees: Vorrink said that within the last day or two, he had had a two-hour talk with Prime Minister Drees and was disturbed to find he had so little knowledge of the American mentality [...] Vorrink had suggested that Drees visit the United States and talk over Dutch problems with American officials and President Truman, but Drees said he was too busy [...] This Vorrink found very unfortunate, for he feels that Drees needs more contact with the United States and things American [...] [Vorrink] concluded by saying that he per­ sonally would welcome any opportunity to go to the United States.42

How much o f an impact Vorrink’s comments alone had is impossible to judge, but Drees was duly invited to visit the USA as a special ar­ rangement outside of the Leader Program, travelling there in January 1952. Drees was able to briefly discuss matters with President Truman Despite remarking that the Dutch spent a higher percentage o f their national income on defence than any other West European nation except France, Chapin recom­ mended renewing pressure for yet higher expenditures in a few months. Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 11 February 1951, 756.00/2-1151 & 18 March 1951, 756.00/3-1851, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3: 1950-54 RSC). 41 ‘The Netherlands Defence Effort’, 1951, File 11748, BVC archive, Ministeries AOK en AZ, (Cabinet van de Minister-President (1944) 1945-1979, National Archives, The Hague (hereafter referred to as ‘BVC'). 42 Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 29 August 1951, 756.00/8-2951, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC).

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

and then gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Dutch foreign policy, where he used the opportunity to exclaim that the Netherlands took the Atlantic alliance very seriously and would therefore appreciate it if the United States refrained from applying policies (such as import restrictions) which damaged the economies of its allies.43 Later the same year the embassy did put Vorrink forward as a candidate for the Leader Program, the idea being that he travel with the PvdA’s campaigns and publicity chief, the viscerally anti-communist Meijer Sluyser. But the State Department rejected this, questioning both its specific value and Vorrink’s lack of English.44 Sluyser, however, was an interesting prospect due to his responsibility for the party’s election campaigns, and he received an invitation to join a NATO Information Tour with other West European newsmen in October-November 1954. The focus o f the tour was the congressional elections, and the itinerary included several campaigns across the country as well as a Presidential press conference and the usual briefings at the State Department and the Pentagon. There is no doubt that Sluyser, strongly pro-American in his politics, absorbed the creativity and dynamism o f the US approach to elections, applying the same principals after he returned home. It was under his direction, for instance, that for the 1956 elections in the Neth­ erlands Drees undertook a unique tour o f the country by helicopter.45 In relation to information strategy, one o f the most significant Leader grants in this period was that given to J.L. (Joop) Landré, at the time director o f the Rijks Voorlichtingsdienst (RVD, the Government Infor­ mation Service). Landré, who worked as an editor for the newspaper De Telegraafin the 1930s before joining Philips in 1941, achieved notoriety as ‘the Fox’, the head o f the news service for the radio station Herrijzend Nederland (Netherlands is Rising) in 1944-45. This brought him As well as the high-level contacts, Drees was meant to gain a better impression o f the everyday life o f the American worker to stimulate his belief in a common defense effort. See also Willem Drees, ‘The Netherlands’ Foreign Policy*, 16 January 1952, M-540, Records o f the Council on Foreign Relations 1921-1951, microfiche collec­ tion, RSC. 44 Embassy The Hague to D ept o f State, 16 December 1952, 511.563/12-1652 & ‘Semi-annual Report on the International Educational Exchange Program’, 24 Janu­ ary 1955,511.563/1-2455, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, NA. 45 The American leader o f the tour, Charles Sedgwick, found Sluyser the most astute member o f the group. Sluyser was able to sell several articles to US newspapers, in­ cluding one to the Louisville Courier-Journal that “in which he developed the thesis that the Western propaganda effort should stress our moral, as well as material, supe­ riority to Communism”. ‘Nato Information Program (1954) Project VI, October 25 November 13 1954’, Box 4, NATO 1952-55, 250/62/35/06-07, Entiy 3036, RG 59, NA; van Praag, P. ‘Sluijser, Meijer*, Biografische Woordenboek van het Socialism e en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, 5 (1992), pp. 260-263.

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to the attention of the Dutch govemment-in-exile in London, and in 1945 he became the personal secretary to Prime Minister Schemerhom, followed in 1946 by his appointment as director o f the recently-formed RVD.46 In that year he made his first trip to the United States, aboard the first KLM flight across the Atlantic after the war, which he used to inspect the workings of the Netherlands Information Bureau in New York and to examine the American government’s own information services. Landré’s goal was to transform the RVD into the central apparatus responsible for all government information services, but bureaucratic resistance from the ministries prevented it. In 1949, how­ ever, he achieved this when he was appointed both personal secretary to Prime Minister Drees and chairman of the inter-ministry Information Council, positions which he combined with his role as RVD director.47 When the Leader Program began he was therefore a prime candidate, and a US embassy memo in early 1951 exclaimed how advantageous it would be if a figure in Landré’s position would “become better ac­ quainted with American methods of Public Relations”. Landré’s fields of interest for his visit focused almost completely on the procedures and techniques of the American information media - film, radio, television, the press, publishing, and advertising - alongside “American attitudes towards Western Europe, with specific reference to the Netherlands, in the political, economic, and defence fields”.48 An official invitation was issued in April 1951, but Drees himself replied that Landré “cannot be spared from domestic NATO responsibilities this year” and refused to let his information expert depart for up to four months to the USA.49 The reason given indicates how Landré was heavily involved in discussions within NATO on how best to organise that organisation’s information service, and what role it should play in countering Soviet propaganda and the communist threat in the West. The importance of this task was “Het spreekt vanzelf immers, dat een psychologisch adviseurschap bij de Regering een zeer subtiele zaak is Captain Henri Brugmans (Ministry for the Coordina­ tion o f Warfare, later rector o f the European University in Bruges) to Landré, 3 Au­ gust 1945, Landré family archive; J.M. Landré, Joop Landré Vertelt: Een Anekdoti­ sche Autobiografie, Cadier en Keer, 1994, pp. 15-33. 47 Drees to Landré, 6 April 1949, Landré family archive; Wagenaar, M. De Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst: Geheimhouden, Toedekken, en Openbaren, Den Haag: Sdu, 1997, pp. 71-2,91-2,121-2. 48 This is in contrast to his autobiography, where he states that his interests were American family life, classical music, jazz, and meeting Doris Day. Landré, pp. 50-2; Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 25 January 1951,511.563/1-2551 & 16 March 1951,511.563/3-1651, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, NA. 49 Eleanor W. Allen (Cultural attaché) to Landré, 16 April 1951, & Drees to Landré, 26 April 1951, Landré family archive; Embassy The Hague to Dept o f State, 2 May 1951,511.563/5-251, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, NA.

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spelled out by Charles Spofford, the American chairman o f the NATO Council Deputies, in February 1951: The United States Government felt that the NAT [North Atlantic treaty] in­ formation effort was a matter of miyor importance comparable to the raising of forces and increased production for defence [...] [T]his burden was not a temporary phenomenon which would pass after a few months. He felt that the developments in the defence field should be matched by a proportionate effort in the information field [...] to rally public opinion.90

Landré participated in an important meeting o f NATO information experts held in London on 12-14 April, where those present agreed “on the desirability of adopting effective measures designed to turn the present defensive position o f NAT countries in the counter-propaganda field into active initiatives likely to make a strong impression on public opinion”.91 Drees’ comment on domestic NATO duties referred specifi­ cally to developments within the Netherlands and how this resolution might be applied. Already on 27 March 1951 an inter-ministry Bijzondere Voorlichtings Commissie (BVC - Special Information Committee) had been set up, with Landré as chairman, to plan an information cam­ paign and overcome the potential negative reactions o f the populace to a rising defense budget being paid for out o f higher taxes and assorted fiscal cut-backs. Above that was the general goal to strengthen belief in democratic principles and resistance to the appeal o f communism. In particular this would involve undermining the CPN and attacking the Soviet-sponsored Peace Movement, which was started in 1948 and began to attract wider appeal with the Stockholm Peace Petition of March 1950, a propaganda stunt to gather signatures worldwide in favour o f disarmament. Drees himself did not want his government directly involved in an anti-communist campaign, but instead decided it “can and must work as a stimulating force by making available factual material and by providing information to the press, radio, public repre­ sentatives, trade unions, church groups, and any other institutions and societies which are appropriate with regard to their character and pur­ pose”.92 90 Summary Record o f the Council Deputies Meeting, 27 February 1951, D-R(51)13, NATO archive, Brussels (hereafter ‘NATO’). 91 ‘Resolution on Initiatives in the Counter-Propaganda Field*, 16 April 1951, AC/1D/6(Final), NATO. The Americans sent a strong delegation to the conference under the leadership o f Assistant Secretary o f State for Public Affairs Edward W. Barrett Landré renewed contact with some members o f the delegation, such as State Depart­ ment official Joseph Charles and Defense Department security expert Luther Reid, when he went to Washington in 1952. 92 28 March 1951, File 11750, & 31 March 1951, File 11740, BVC; Wagenaar, pp. 1345; Koedijk, P. ‘Van ‘Vrede en Vrijheid* tot ‘Volk en Verdediging*: Veranderingen in

Networks o f Empire

While the BVC did work together with the B VD the relationship was not an easy one because both wanted to maintain control over their own methods. The main form o f cooperation involved the secret service providing material on communist groups and the Soviet bloc for the BVC to process into a bi-weekly Digest, since the BVD was only meant to act as supplier of raw information.*33 The Digest, which first appeared on 2 January 1952, was sent out to selected individuals from the churches, the secretaries of the main political parties (Vermeer being one) and other important political figures, youth organisations, the leadership of the employers organisations and trade unions, and mem­ bers of the press and radio.34*It is not surprising that in April 1951 the BVC fought off a proposal from the Foreign Minister, Dirk Stikker, to create a separate committee for psychological warfare, successfully arguing it could fulfil that role alone.33 The most intriguing development in this respect was the founding o f the independent committee Vrede en Vrijheid (Peace and Freedom) fronted by civil servant E.W.P. van Dam van Isselt. Vrede en Vrijheid was the Dutch wing o f Paix et Liberté, the France-based international anti-communist propaganda organisation of parliamentary deputy Jean-Paul David which had announced its exis­ tence in September 1950.36 In a series of discussions through the autumn of 1951 a cooperation agreement were settled between the BVC and Vrede en Vrijheid for the provision and distribution of anti-communist propaganda via pamphlets, posters, and the press, albeit with a get-out

33

34

33

36

Anti-communistische Psychologische Oorlogvoering in Nederland 1950-1965’, in B. Schoenmaker & J.A.M.M. Janssen (eds.), In de Schaduw van de Muur: Maatschappij en Krijgsmacht rond I960, The Hague, Sdu, 1997, p. 61; Claudin, F. The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform, Vol. 2, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1975, pp. 576-9. Problems arose when the BVC discovered the secret service was continuing to use its own contacts with the press, particularly chief editor o f the Haagse Post W.C. Bur­ ger, for the distribution o f selected information. HWS to Landré, 16 April 1952, File 11763, & Landré to Minister without Portfolio Teulings, 27 August 1952, File 11808, BVC. File 11772, BVC. The 1953 mailing list includes only two non-Dutch recipients: Marshall Swan, cultural attache at the US embassy, and Comte A. Murrari Dalla Corte Bra of the Italian Legation. Landré to Minister without Portfolio Teulings, 27 August 1952, File 11808, Chief Directie Voorlichting Buitenland (H.F. Eschauzier) to S[tikker], 21 April 1951, File 11778, BVC. The leadership o f Vrede en Vrijheid behind van Dam van Isselt, which included politicians and trade union leaders, remained anonymous. See Koedijk, P. ‘De Koude Burgeroorlog in Nederland', Vrij Nederland, 18 July 1992, pp. 24-32; Koedijk, pp. 65-6; On Paix et Liberté, which was created with die support o f Prime Minister René Pleven, see Regnier, P. ‘La Propagande Anticommuniste de Paix et Liberté, France, 1950-1956', Ph.D. dissertation, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1987.

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

clause for the government if the committee went off in an “undesired direction”.57 In 1952 Vrede en Vrijheid issued its own separate pam­ phlet, De Echte Waarheid (The Real Truth), employing journalists to write anonymous reports in a direct attack on the CPN’s De Waarheid (The Truth). What effect its activities had overall is questionable, but the relationship between the BVC, BVD and Vrede en Vrijheid indicates the determination within the government to prevent the communist party from benefiting in any way from the socio-economic difficulties o f the early 1950s. That the Americans were interested in Vrede en Vrijheid goes with­ out saying. An embassy report from March 1953 on its activities, a summary of information provided by Vrede director Ruud van der Beek, noted the committee’s concerted attempts to dissuade companies from advertising in De Waarheid to reduce its income. Circulation was reported to have dropped from 115,000 to 60,000. Alongside this, the tactics o f the CPN to declare that the February flooding disaster in the south-west o f the Netherlands the previous month was due to the gov­ ernment spending too much money on weapons and too little on protec­ tion against the sea had to be confronted. Vrede en Vrijheid was losing out financially as donations were redirected to flood relief. These factors in combination point up more than ever the need for making possible a strong blow against communism as presently organized in the Netherlands [...] Ridding the Netherlands, admittedly a key country of Europe in its political thinking despite its relatively small size, of organized commie activity might well begin a crumbling in other areas [.. .]M

Van Dam van Isselt recalled in an interview that it was probably also in 1953 when Averell Harriman, the former head o f the European Cooperation Administration (ECA) in Paris and previously one of President Truman’s top security advisers, visited him with the offer of financial support. This offer was refused, and all direct funding from American sources was thereafter denied (also by David). It was stated in an earlier meeting in November 1951 between vrede en Vrijheid leader­ ship and Landré that “if the ECA shall provide financial support, such support will not be provided directly”. One week later it was decided not*6

“Ongewenste richting”. BVC meeting, 26 November 1951, File 11719, C.L.W. Fock (Secretary General, Ministry van Algemene Zaken) to Drees, Landré, & Eschauzier, 6 November 1951, & Landré to Drees, 20 November 1951, File 11759, BVC. Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 23 March 1953, 756.001/3-2353, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, NA.

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to approach the ECA, but certainly to leave the door open for any funds coming from abroad.59 In early 1952 Drees finally allowed Landré to accept his Leader grant, who duly spent from 2 February to 12 April in the United States. Over the previous year he had overseen a consolidation and expansion of the B VC’s responsibilities, in doing so achieving a degree of centrali­ sation for both overt and covert government information activities. An intensive programme was prepared for him. During the first few days in Washington Landré held long discussions with the likes o f Helen Kirkpatrick, former head of the ECA’s Information division and public affairs advisor to the State Department, Luther Reid of the Defense Department’s International Security Agency, and Howland Sargeant, then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. The subject matter of these talks centred on the apparatus of the Voice of America, the operation of the Public Affairs division and its comparison with the RVD, the activities o f the BVC and circumstances in the Netherlands, and the role of the NATO Information Service (particularly for bringing the USA and Europe closer together). Psychological warfare and the use of information to combat communism was also an important topic. Landré had several meetings with Coulter Huyler, the Public Affairs Officer who had originally invited him and who was now stationed back in Washington. Huyler introduced Landré to General Robert McClure at the Pentagon for a talk on the US military’s psychological operations.*60 During WWII McClure had been Eisenhower’s chief of intelligence in Europe, and he was a major force in post-war efforts to consolidate psywar operations within the army. At the time Landré met him McClure was the highly influential head of the Office of the Chief o f Psychologi­ cal Warfare, which had been created in January 1951.61 From this con­ tact it was arranged for some o f the army’s psychological warfare Most of its funding came from private Dutch sources, but never the government Koedijk, ‘Koude Burgerooriog’, p. 28; Indien ook de ECA financiele steun zal geven zal zulks niet rechtstreeks gebeuren’, Landré to Drees, 20 November 1951, File 11759, & ‘Wei zal men zieh op weg laten helpen door geld van buiten Nederland', File 11719, BVC. 60 J.M. Landré's notes on his USA trip, Landré family archives. Huyler had been in military intelligence during WWII, which could explain his access to McClure. Julius Mader’s semi-trustworthy W ho’s Who in CIA (Berlin, 1968) does list Huyler as a member o f the Agency, p. 253. In 1954-56 Huyler worked in the NATO Information Service before becoming part o f the US Mission to the UN and then, in 1965, to UNESCO. 61 Paddock Jr., A. US Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, Lawrence KA, University Press o f Kansas, 2002, pp. 11,94, 139. As chief o f OCPW McClure was responsible for the opening of a Psychological Warfare Center and Special Forces training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in May 1952.

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material from the Korean war to be sent to him.6263On 8 February Landré also had a meeting with “Dr Allen and others (Gordon) from the Psy­ chological Board”. This refers to George V. Allen, former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and later USIA Director 1957-60, and Gordon Gray, then director o f the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB). The PSB had been created in April 1951 to coordinate psycho­ logical operations with the director o f the CIA, the deputy Secretary o f Defense, and the Under Secretary o f State in order to implement Na­ tional Security Council decisions. Landré also spent about two weeks in New York, from where he gave several broadcasts for the Dutch radio and held discussions on the organisation of the Netherlands Information Bureau with its chief, J.L. Heldring. These and other meetings at the Dutch embassy were meant to resolve how to operate the information services in the United States in coordination with the RVD and the BVC. He then flew to Los Angeles, where he succeeded in one o f his other goals for the trip - to meet Doris Day. For two weeks he toured the film studios and spoke to company executives, apparently part o f a 'charm offensive* because since the war several hundred American films had been shown in Dutch cinemas without any rights being paid.64 His tour continued to Denver, which included appointments at the university and with John Carroll, a prominent lawyer who was close to both Truman and Democratic presidential candidate Estes Kefauver. Landré also gave an interview for the Denver Post. Interviews o f grantees by regional papers were often used to discuss some relevant aspect o f international affairs. Landré explained that while the Dutch realised the necessity o f NATO and 62 ‘Spoed!’ (Urgent!), J.M. Landré’s notes, Landré family archive. Eighteen leaflets from the Psychological Warfare Section o f the US army in Korea were sent to Landré ‘in response to his recent enquiry to Colonel James O. Boswell, Office o f the Chief o f Psychological Warfare*. He used them after he returned to the Netherlands as ex­ amples for a speech on Information Policy to the Defense Study Center. Parts o f this speech demonstrate a careful awareness o f the limits to using psychological warfare tactics in a democracy during peacetime, even if it appeared to be a transition period from peace to war, as it did to many in 1951. For Landré American psychological warfare strategy had sometimes presented the communist danger as being more threatening than it actually was, with damaging consequences for the Atlantic alli­ ance. Merle R. Preble to Grace Belt, 24 March 1952, archive o f the Ministerie van Algemene Zaken; Defensie Studie Centrum speech, n.d., Landré family archive. 63 The PSB was never able to fulfill its role due to internecine struggles between the various government departments. See Trissler, B. ‘The Psychological Strategy Board: Psychological Operations and Policy Coordination, 1951-1953’, MA thesis, Univer­ sity of Missouri Columbia, 1995; Lucas, S. ‘Campaigns o f Truth: The Psychological Strategy Board and American Ideology, 1951-1953’, International H istory Review 18/2 (May 1996), pp. 279-302. 64 Landré, p. 51.

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German rearmament they were not oveijoyed by either. He went on, reflecting his professional concerns, to explain tactfully “that Holland has paid as much as possible for its participation in the NATO. If we gave more we would drop the level of our social structure, and at this time the Dutch Communists are waiting to capitalize on such a situa­ tion”.65 After Denver he returned to Washington DC, where further meetings with several State Department officials, Huyler, and Sargeant took place. Landre then included a short trip to Miami before returning to New York and from there back to the Netherlands. There is no doubt, considering who he met and the subject-matter of the discussions, that Landré’s visit was treated as o f great importance by his hosts. After his return he wrote to US embassy Cultural Attaché Marshall Swan: “Especially the many talks I had with the information people of the State Department in Washington have been of great value to me and 1 am convinced that the results o f these talks will be clear in the near future. About these results I hope to talk with you as soon as possible”.66 What precisely he was referring to here is difficult to ascer­ tain, but it cannot be coincidence that he did not remain much longer in his government position. At the end o f September he left the RVD to become president of the Dutch news documentary film-makers, Polygoon-Profilti. Polygoon-Profilti produced the influential bulletins on international news that were shown in all Dutch cinemas during the 1950s, and Landré had plenty of contact with the company while direc­ tor of the RVD.67 That he had considerable interest in the film business is demonstrated by his multiple meetings with film producers such as CBS, NBC, RKO, and Hollywood studio executives while in the USA. Landré himself claims to have been offered the post during a meeting with the owner o f Polygoon-Profilti in New York, the draw of a higher salary being the deciding factor. But there must have been more in­ volved, since the position at Polygon gave Landré a central role in the distribution of Cold War information and propaganda, a highly signifi­ cant development considering his activities during the previous few years. How far his Leader trip facilitated his switch into the medium of motion pictures, and whether he accepted this position mainly for 65 ‘Dutch Held Afraid o f Reich Army*, 13 March 1952, Denver Post, quoted in Ibid., p. 89. 66 Landré to Swan, 1 May 1952, Landré family archive. 67 In 1951 Polygoon-Profilti had made Wij Leven Vrij (We are Living in Freedom) for the RVD, a 12-minute film in support of the Atlantic alliance. Concerns over its overt propaganda-style approach meant it was hardly shown in Dutch cinemas. Wagenaar, pp. 136-7; File 11720, BVC. Landré also brought to the BVC*s attention the success of Soviet ‘cultural films* in the Netherlands such as ‘Circus* and ‘The Great Con­ cert*, File 11746, BVC.

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financial gain, remains to be seen. However, within a few years Landré moved on from government-sponsored propaganda to popular enter­ tainment. In 1959 he formed the Nederlandse Filmproductie Maatschappij (Dutch Film Production Society) and became one o f the pioneers of the break-up o f ‘pillarisation’ in the media when he co-founded TROS (Television and Radio Broadcasting Society) in 1965.6*

The Threat of Bevanism: Hein Vos The chairman of the committee that drew up the PvdA report The Road to Freedom was Hendrik (Hein) Vos, one of the most respected of the party’s intellectuals in the post-war period and like den Uyl a mem­ ber of the party’s left wing. Originally an electrical engineer, Vos was a self-trained economist who during the 1930s seized on the ideas o f Keynes as offering the best way forward for organising the state’s role in the economy. In 1935 his Plan van de Arbeid (Plan for Work) for the SDAP represented a milestone in the party’s ideological development, since it argued for a planned economy where the state would take a leading role, coordinating the interests of employers and employees and thus ensuring full employment and sufficient social provisions for all. Vos applied his belief in the possibilities for socio-economic planning during his time as Minister for Industry (1945-46) and for Transport (1946-48), creating a Central Plan Bureau (CPB) to operate as the coordinating body for the national economy under the leadership of his friend, the renowned economist Jan Tinbergen. He also paved the way for the Industrial Organisation Act of 1950, which created the Sociaal Economisch Raad or Social Economic Council (SEC), a vital organ where representatives o f the unions, the employers, and the state meet to discuss and advise on socio-economic policy. Yet Vos’s wish to recreate the Dutch economic landscape by removing decision-making powers from private hands, thereby giving the state the responsibility to manage the workings o f the market, inevitably met opposition from the business world and the religious right who opposed a socialist remaking o f the Netherlands. After 1948 Vos, too much an idealist and uninterested in the minutae of industrial policy, was unable to regain a ministerial position. Yet he remained a highly influential figure within the party, and with The Road to Freedom Vos, den Uyl and their colleagues provided the comprehensive vision for the ‘good society’ that the PvdA should aim for.6869 68 J.M. Landré’s notes, Landré family archive; Wagenaar, p. 122; Landré, pp. 54-5, 578,81. 69 van den Brink, J. Zoeken naar een ‘H eilstaat Opbouw, Neergang en P erspectief van de Nederlandse W elvaartstaat, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 1984, pp. 437-9; Bosnians, J.

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In the early 1950s Vos became more openly critical o f the party leadership, believing that Vorrink and Drees were abandoning their principles in order not to compromise the PvdA-KVP coalition. He resigned from the party executive in early 1951 only to be persuaded to return within a month, but it was a potent sign o f discontent. Vos then became the focus of attention due to his opinions on the American rearmament drive, when President Truman responded to the Korean war by demanding an increase in military expenditures from his West Euro­ pean allies. In Britain the founder o f the National Health Service, Aneurin Bevan, had resigned from the Labour government on 21 April 1951 to express his opposition to the introduction o f prescription charges in order to cover the costs of increased military spending.70 From the point o f view of the United States there were fears that this might have repercussions within other social democratic parties across Western Europe. Philip Clock, Secretary at the US embassy in The Hague, commented that “it has been natural to anticipate Socialist opposition to increased armament expenditures” and singled out Vos as a potential voice for this discontent.71 An embassy report from May 1951 stated the following: There is a small minority within the Dutch Labor Party composed of those who are far from convinced that the danger of Soviet invasion is real. The leader of this small group is Mr. Vos, member of the Labor Party Executive and former Minister... Mr. Vorrink says that Vos’ views are the same as Bevan’s [...] Vorrink and others in the Party are very much aware of its ex­ istence and are fearful that as the pinch of the Government’s ‘austerity’ pro­ gram becomes felt, Vos' earlier views may not only be revived but gain wider acceptance.72

On the whole the report dismissed Vos as a potential problem. It is true that the PvdA man was most concerned about the consequences for Dutch society, and the best way out was therefore to raise production in order to accommodate the enlarged defence budget. As a member of the party's Military Committee to discuss rearmament Vos used this argu­ ment and did not attempt to directly combat the 'militarists' in this ‘Vos, Hendrik (1903-1972)’, in Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, online, available (23 December 2003); Nekkers, J. ‘Vos, Hendrik’, in Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, Vol. 3 (1988), pp. 227-33. 70 Williams, P. Hugh G aitskell, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 179. 71 ‘The Netherlands Socialist Party and its Attitude in Regard to Defense against Soviet Aggression’, 29 March 1951,756.00/3-2951, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3: 1950-54 RSC). 72 Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 10 May 1951, 756.00/5-1051, State Depart­ ment Decimal File, RG 59, National Archives (Reel 3:1950-54 RSC).

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group: Vorrink, Vermeer, Goedhart, and de K adt73 Neither did he ally himself with the minority in the party who felt acceptance o f NATO and militarisation were undermining its socialist principles. He publicly rejected the Third Way group that at this time was calling for a rejection of both Eastern and Western camps and their Cold War conflict.74 Nevertheless, when Vos temporarily assumed the chairmanship of the party following Vorrink’s stroke in 1953, it is understandable that he received a Leader grant invitation via John Piercey to keep him ‘onside9. For his trip to the United States from 22 August to 30 October 1954, Vos chose as his guiding theme the unemployment situation in the United States and how far the social security system provided for those without work. For this quest the Department of Labor organised atten­ dance at the AFL annual convention in Los Angeles and discussions with AFL, CIO, UAW, ILGWU, and ADA officials across the industrial Mid-West - Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland - and in the East - Philadel­ phia, Boston and New York. A speaking opportunity was also arranged for him at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia. However, his trip began with his participation at the Bryn Mawr Residential Seminar in World Politics, which was holding a one-week international conference on ‘The Impact o f New Germany9. Considering Vos9s stated focus on unemployment and the relative concern over his position on rearma­ ment, it is clear that those responsible for his trip in the Departments of State and Labor saw this as an ideal opportunity to broaden his views in international affairs. Under the leadership of Henry Kellermann, Hans Kohn, and James K. Pollock, the conference took place exactly during the week that the French parliament rejected the European Defence Community, causing John Foster Dulles9 ‘agonizing reappraisal9 threat to be hotly discussed. For his part, Vos argued strongly in favour of rearming Germany and reinstituting its full sovereignty only in the context of a united Europe with sovereign powers at the supranational level. Vos was expressing the position o f many Europeans at the time that the way to overcome fears o f a remilitarised and independent Germany was to integrate it as quickly as possible within European institutions. For him, the military aspect was worthless without consid­ ering the socio-economic dimension. Yet he came away from Biyn Mawr quite inspired. The conference and his discussions elsewhere brought him to understand how isolationism was no longer a real threat in American politics and that the United States was prepared to act

73 Rovers, pp. 123-5. de Vries, Complexe Consensus, p. 261.

74

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internationally if its allies were likewise committed to providing their share, economically and militarily. To sum this up, so far as Europe is concerned: American support is only forthcoming if European cooperation is present [...] Bryn Mawr was of great significance for me - 1 have realized this more afterwards - as ‘an in­ troduction to American thinking* .7S

Vos was astonished to witness the American standard o f living, as when confronted by the amount of cars “no longer as statistical units on a piece o f paper but as real objects**.76 From this position o f prosperity vis-à-vis Western Europe it was no less than an obvious responsibility for the United States to have offered Marshall aid. But he also remarked that there were areas within the United States itself which deserved similar attention. Duly impressed by the scale o f the TVA, Vos particu­ larly drew attention to the poverty o f the non-white population. Al­ though he had not stated it in the goals for his trip, exploring the race issue was very much a second priority. He declared himself to be “mod­ erately optimistic’*concerning race relations, in view o f the changes that were occurring such as the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board o f Educa­ tion decision and the full integration in the army. But continuing segre­ gation in transport, discrimination at work, and the division o f cities along lines o f colour left a long way to go. Overall Vos, the technocrat and planner par excellence, was impressed exactly by the lack o f direct government involvement within many areas of social life, and the general acceptance by the people that this was the best state o f affairs (even if basic support, such as unemployment benefits, were lacking). Neither did this individualism and reliance on one’s own resources leave him cold. I have learnt a lot. And perhaps the best and most grateful way to express this is that, despite the many problems that I saw and which I have covered here, I returned with belief in this country. I have caught myself thinking on numerous occasions: I could imagine myself living and working here. Liv­ ing, certainly, because in the United States one feels a freedom, a largeness, and a space which together offer a challenge for those who want to take it on. And working as well, because many areas remain to be developed. New breakthroughs in technology and knowledge are constantly creating new paths.77

Vos was clearly thankful for his experience and somewhat surprised by his own favourable reaction. Although he thought he would naturally 75 76 77

Vos, H. ‘Reis Verenigde Staten*, n.d. [October 1954], author’s copy. ibid. Ibid, (emphasis in original).

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be involved in “the political and social struggle*’ were he to stay in America, this was more for the opportunities for success in the struggle than outright opposition to the society he had witnessed. Vos continued to fulfil many important positions in the PvdA, on the party executive, as temporary party chairman after the death of Vermeer in 1960, and as leader of the party in the upper chamber o f parliament during the 1960s. “A brilliant but doctrinaire socialist” as William Sullivan called him, he always maintained more interest in the technical possibilities for organising society along rational lines than applying himself to the power struggles of party politics. In doing so he contrib­ uted a great deal to the post-war outlook o f the PvdA, but aside from that he remained something o f a loner who did not make a great impact in the national political scene.7*

A Dutch Cold Warrior: Frans Goedhart In contrast to most o f his party colleagues, Frans Goedhart was more familiar with the USA and far more opinionated about its policies. An independent Cold Warrior whose fierce beliefs did not always sit well with his post-war membership of the PvdA, through the 1950s Goedhart became increasingly active within international anti-communist organi­ sations and their related networks. It is therefore worth looking at his case in some detail. Goedhart is probably best known as a journalist, having been one of the founders of the important Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool. Radi­ calised by the Depression, he joined the CPN only to be expelled in 1934 due to his rejection o f Moscow’s dictatorial control of the party line. Increasingly concerned about the power o f Nazism, Goedhart despaired over the neutralism prevalent in the Netherlands. After the German attack o f May 1940 he produced the illegal pamphlet N ieuw sbrief van P ieter’t Hoen, his pseudonym, and this was trans­ formed into H et Parool in early 1941.7879 The editorial group, which included Vorrink early on, was dedicated to pursuing a radical political renewal for the post-war Netherlands and replacing the established parties with progressive political movements. After the war the desire for order and stability prevented such a dramatic change, and Goedhart 78 Bosmans; Nekkers; Nekkers, J. ‘Hein Vos en het Plan van de Arbeid’, Socialisme en Démocratie, 85/2 (February 1985), pp. 50-57; Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 26 March 1957,756.00/3.2659, State Department Decimal File, RG 59, National Ar­ chives (Reel 6:1955-59 RSC). 79 Goedhart was arrested in January 1942 attempting to cross the Channel to England. Sentenced to death, he eventually escaped in August 1943 and remained a fugitive, still working for Het Parool, for the rest of the war.

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joined the PvdA, the party which most suited his support for a managed economy and welfare state, an end to Dutch neutrality, and anti­ colonialism. However, already in 1946 he was a member o f the socalled Nova Zembla group, a collection o f radicals within the PvdA that included den Uyl and Vos who were determined to keep the party on a leftist course. He also continued to express his anti-Soviet opinions in his column on foreign affairs for Het Parool, under his pseudonym Pieter’t Hoen.80 Alongside his fellow communist turned fierce anti-communist Jacques de Kadt, Goedhart saw the world in black-and-white, East v. West terms, and became one of the foremost spokesmen in Dutch politics for developing the economic and military powers o f the West to confront the Soviet Union. Above all, he was one of those in the PvdA who felt there was no space for neutralism and that the communists should not just be defeated but “obliterated”. Goedhart’s actions against the CPN, such as his promotion in 1952 o f alleged former communist Klaus Guile (Plantinga) and his stories of East German repression, naturally brought him to the attention o f the Americans.81 From the late 1940s onwards he conducted in-depth political discussions with FSOs at the US embassy such as William Nunley, who left The Hague to be­ come a Foreign Affairs Specialist with the State Department’s European Bureau in 1951. With the outbreak of the Korean War his attentions became more and more directed to the international situation, and he regularly requested information via US1S to use in his commentaries on foreign affairs. Yet Goedhart was far from an uncritical observer of United States policies. Mistrusting any move by the Soviet bloc under Krushchev to thaw East-West relations, he was equally scathing o f the character of American leadership within NATO. The way in which the United States provided support and applied pressure on its European allies did not allow the organisation to develop beyond “an ordinary oldfashioned coalition”. Lamenting how the Americans, particularly the Republicans, regarded NATO as purely a military treaty, by the mid1950s he was calling for NATO to be transformed into an apparatus for

80 de Keizer, M. ‘Goedhart, Frans Johannes’, Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, Vol. 8 (2001), pp. 50-7; Comelissen, I. ‘Uit het Leven van Frans Goedhart’, Pts. I, 11, III, IV, V, Vrij Nederland 25 April & 2, 16,23,30 May 1970; Mulder & Koedijk, Lees die Krant/, p. 147. 81 Goedhart sent his papers on Plantinga to the embassy in the hope that Voice of America would use them. Goedhart to Philip Clock, 24 May 1952, File 51, archive o f Frans Goedhart, National Archives, The Hague (hereafter ‘Goedhart’). On Goedhart and Plantinga see File 68, Goedhart

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coordinated political, economic, and psychological warfare, thereby by­ passing the atomic stalemate and opening up a more offensive strategy.*2 In 1954 Goedhart became a member of the Council of Europe and joined its Committee on Non-Represented Nations (CNRN), a forum for discussing the situation within the Soviet bloc. Throughout the follow­ ing years he increasingly spoke out for the oppressed peoples in the Eastern bloc, and became attached to various refugee and dissident organisations such as the Assembly for Captive European Nations (ACEN), which was founded in September 1954. From 13 September to 8 October 1957 Goedhart made his first trip to the United States, to­ gether with CNRN chairman Karl Wistrand, to deliver a speech at the ACEN conference in New York. In doing so he had the full assistance o f William Sullivan, Political Officer in the US embassy, who wrote to Bruce Lancaster, William Tyler (later Ambassador in the Netherlands), and Horace Torbert of the State Department’s Western European Affairs Office requesting that Goedhart be put in touch with appropriate offi­ cials and congressmen to discuss NATO, the Eastern bloc, and EastWest relations after the Hungarian revolution. “He has extremely broad fields o f political activity and is a vigorous exponent o f enlightened European opinion”, wrote Sullivan. “I can assure you that both the Department and members of Congress will find it well worth their while”.*3 Goedhart returned thankful: When in America a rather full American programme was made for me so that during the three days I passed at [s/c] Washington, I was occupied from early morning till late at night [...] I had the opportunity to [exchange views with Mr [Under Secretary of State Christian] Heiter and Mr [Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Robert J.] Murphy and also to talk with high functionaries who regularly occupy themselves with the East/West problems.*4

For his maiden speech in the Council o f Europe Goedhart had spo­ ken o f the need to support the oppressed peoples in the East, and this concern brought him into contact with Radio Free Europe (RFE), the transmitter based in Munich that employed Eastern bloc intellectuals and refugees to broadcast to their home countries in their own languages.85 RFE (and its Russia-focused cousin Radio Liberty) was osten-8234 82 Goedhart to Nunley, 7 February 1951, File 51, & Goedhart to Sal Tas (H et Parool Paris correspondent), File 11, Goedhart; ‘De Crisis in de N AVO\ Het Parool, 19 November 1957. 83 Sullivan to Lancaster, 16 August 1957, Sullivan to Tyler, 19 August 1957, File 51, & Goedhart to Brugmans, 3 June 1957, File 75, Goedhart 84 Goedhart to Sullivan, 22 November 1957, File 51 Goedhart 83 Mulder & Koedijk, p. 341.

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sibly the creation o f the Free Europe Committee (FEC), a group o f American elites from the worlds o f business, law, and politics who began to organise in support o f the Eastern bloc refugee movements in 1949. However, FEC was effectively a front to manage RFE, generating public support for its cause by means o f its fund-raising ‘Crusade for Freedom’ in the United States and running propaganda stunts such as the donation o f a Freedom Bell to West Berlin and the distribution o f propaganda leaflets by balloon over Eastern Europe. FEC also main­ tained contacts with numerous exile groups, ACEN being one. The real force and supply o f funding behind RFE was the Office o f Policy Coor­ dination, the covert operations wing o f the CLA which had been formed in June 1948.“ There is no doubt that Goedhart knew o f this covert dimension. He was already a source, or “tip-giver”, on communist activities for certain officials o f the BVD such as Ad de Jonge. Goedhart clearly saw himself and the secret services fighting the same battle for the greater good.87 In July 1956 he spoke at an international meeting on East-West relations that was organised by RFE in Amsterdam.“ Following the Hungarian revolution o f October 1956 Goedhart was given the task o f preparing a report on RFE for the Non-Represented Nations Committee, in order to look into accusations that the radio station had inflamed the situation by making false promises of Western material support. While defending the station’s conduct, Goedhart took the opportunity to outline his own grievance: Radio Free Europe is entirely the result of American initiative, it is financed by American funds, it is built up and managed by Americans and in Amer­ ica it has become quite an important organization [...] One is thus con­ fronted with the fact that due to a lack of interest and funds from the Euro­ “

Originally founded as the Committee for a Free Europe, Inc. on 11 May 1949, it became the National Committee for a Free Europe on 2 June, later again changed to FEC. Its roots can be traced back to the beginnings o f a psychological and political warfare capability within the US government, something that George Kennan and others were formulating through 1948. The result was NSC 10/2 and the formation o f the Office o f Special Projects, soon renamed the Office o f Policy Coordination, in June 1948 under Frank Wisner. Wisner immediately sought approval for radio opera­ tions to the Eastern bloc. See Mickelson, S. America ’s Other Voice: The Story o f Ra­ dio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, New York, Praeger, 1983, pp. 11-34 and ff; Collins, L. ‘The Free Europe Committee: An American Weapon o f the Cold W ar', Ph.D. dissertation, Carleton University, 1973; Warner, M. (ed.), The CIA under Harry Truman, Washington DC, Center for the Study o f Intelligence, 1994, pp. 2137; ‘Psychological and Political Warfare’, Emergence o f the Intelligence Establish­ ment, 1945-50, Foreign Relations o f the United States, Washington DC, Department o f State, 19%, pp. 615-745. 87 Comelissen, Pt. VI, Vrij Nederland, 6 June 1970; Mulder & Koedijk, p. 389. “ File 75, Goedhart.

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pean side such an extremely important institution as Radio Free Europe, which mainly deals with European questions, is not under European con­ trol.19

Declaring that a common European-American approach to the East­ ern bloc was more than ever necessary, Goedhart proposed that this set­ up should be changed. Perhaps for the sake o f protocol, he left the initiative for change with the Americans since Nobody else is in a position to make suggestions to this effect”. Yet that is exactly what he set out to do. During the summer of 1957 he responded to a request from Bernard Yarrow, the FEC’s vice-president, to send some suggestions in for adapting the Committee’s operations.8990 Around this time he began to develop other plans for a West European Advisory Committee (WEAC) to operate as the European wing to the FEC-RFE apparatus. Just prior to his trip to the USA in September 1957 Goedhart sent RFE’s European Director, Eric Hazelhoff Roelfsma, a long list of potential candidates for the WEAC and other prominent figures from the worlds o f politics, academia, and journalism who would be connected to a new Western Desk for RFE. The reason was that “RFE must in my opinion be freed from its political isolation in Europe, where it has up to now ended up by mistake”.91 During his September 1957 trip to the United States Goedhart had opportunities to discuss these ideas with FEC officials, but returned disillusioned about the response to his proposals: I understand at [sic] New York that the State Department and Mr Allan [sic] Dulles are not very keen on a third party getting any real influence on the course of affairs of Radio Free Europe. I regret this extremely. The battle against Moscow must be waged jointly by America and Europe. I can easily imagine you hold the view that collaboration with European neutralists is not much use to you. At the same time 1 fail to understand, however, that

89 ‘Radio Free Europe1, Committee on Non-Represented Nations o f the Council o f Europe, 27 April 1957, File 73, Goedhart. 90 Goedhart’s first proposal was for the formation o f Free Europe Committees across Western Europe “to create an international network o f junctions to carry on concen­ trated anti-communist campaigns [...] [AJttempts must be made to get die enemies of communism to coordinate their actions*1. Goedhart to Yarrow, 19 June 1957, File 75, Goedhart. 91 “RFE moet in Europa naar mijn inzien uit het politieke isolement bevrijd worden, waarin het in feite tot nog toe verkeerd heeft.” For the WEAC Goedhart proposed a Frenchman (Ernest Pezet, MRP MP), a German (Dr Schwarz von Liebermann, Chris­ tian Socialist Union MP), an Austrian (Peter Stresser, Socialist MP), a Brit, (Sir James Hutchison, Conservative MP), and himself. Names mentioned for the Western Desk network included Raymond Aron, Henri Brugmans, Willy Brandt, Jacques de Kadt, Suzanne Labin, G. Matteotti, Ernst Tillich, and Friedrich Torberg. Goedhart to Hazelhoff Roelfsma, 10 September 1957, Ibid.

Networks o f Empire

you neither wish to collaborate on the highest level with European cold war­ riors.92

The idea for the WEAC did not die there. Both Yarrow and FEC president Willis D. Crittenberger wrote encouragingly to Goedhart that his proposal “could serve to strengthen the efforts o f this American enterprise”.93 The discussions dragged on through 1958, with both Goedhart and Hazelhoff Roelfsma complaining of the lack o f movement in New York and the inability o f the Americans to appreciate the posi­ tion of their allies in Europe. There is no doubt that Goedhart’s bold vision for RFE - that it could have a double role, influencing public opinion in the East and the West - presented many dangers for such a covertly managed operation. Goedhart also speculated that the Ameri­ cans did not want to allow any aspect of this enterprise to leave their hands. However, at the end of the year the FEC announced that, follow­ ing consultations with European colleagues, a positive decision had been taken on creating an advisory board. After a visit to Europe in November by Crittenberger and FEC Executive Committee chairman Arthur Page to discuss developments, Crittenberger wrote to Goedhart that they “were happy to report to our colleagues o f the Free Europe Committee, that you are interested in our project to enlist a small group o f distinguished Europeans in support o f our objectives”.9495An FEC report from February 1959, which outlined the need for a West Euro­ pean Advisory Committee, stated that the WEAC’s origins were the CNRN report of September 1957 but presented the whole development as an American initiative from which “Western Europe [...] would profit f r o m participation at the advisoiy level in our activities”. The role o f Goedhart in internationalising’ the FEC and RFE despite initial resistance, or even the fact that it was a European initiative in the first place, was not mentioned.93 Whether Goedhart himself was bothered by this hubris is hard to tell.96 His original plan to unite the talents o f dedi­ 92 Goedhart to Yarrow, 29 October 1957, Ibid. 93 Crittenberger to Goedhart, 7 November 1957, & Yarrow to Goedhart, 13 November 1957, Ibid. 94 Hazelhoff Roelfsma to Goedhart, 31 January 1958, Goedhart to Hazelhoff Roelfsma, 3 February & 20 August 1958, John C. Hughes to Goedhart, 7 November 1958, & Crittenberger to Goedhart, 6 January 1959, Ibid.; Goedhart to Wistrand, 31 October 1958, File 69, Goedhart 95 4Proposed West European Advisoiy Committee*, 1 February 1959, Ibid. Sig Mickelson also falsely states that “as early as 1959, Free Europe executives had in­ stigated the formation o f the West European Advisory Committee (WEAC)”, Mickelson, p. 140. 96 “I advocated already a long time ago that such a committee should be created*', Goedhart to Alexander, 24 April 1959, File 75, Goedhart

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

cated anti-communists across Europe in order to develop a more offen­ sive strategy had become, in the FEC’s own proposal, a “consultative group o f some fifteen or twenty distinguished leaders o f Western Euro­ pean opinion, rich in experience of the political and cultural life o f the entire European area”. The first meeting o f the WEAC was held at the Hotel Royal Morceau in Paris on 20-21 May 1959 and included the likes o f Paul Zeeland, Robert Schuman, ISS director Alastair Buchan, and Labour party official Samuel Watson.97 It was an impressive line-up, and Goedhart was named WEAC secretary general. However, this honour was awarded in absentia. On 24 April he wrote to new FEC president Archibald Alexander stating that the 20-21 May dates were impossible for him because “I have prepared a long trip through the United States o f America and I am leaving Amsterdam on April 26. 1 will return in Holland in the first half o f July”.98 Goedhart was on his way to the United States with the Foreign Leader Program. He had first come into contact with the operation o f the FLP back in 1950, and it was not a favourable experience. One o f the original candi­ dates for the Program in that year, Goedhart had been forced to back out because he could not comply with the rule that the participant needed to depart from the Netherlands before 1 July. His close friend, Jacques de Kadt, had been interviewed and was number one on the embassy’s list of candidates, but he and several others had been passed over when the State Department selected number eight, Evert Vermeer. Goedhart had reacted strongly to William Nunley: I find it unheard-of that one could dare to use such a tactless selection method... You are a rich and powerful country and we are poor and mean­ ingless. But you must not think that you are permitted to use a handful of dollars to treat our people like brats.99

‘Proposed West European Advisory Committee’, Ibid.; Records o f WEAC’s first session, Paris, 20-21 May 1959, File 75, Goedhart. The other WEAC members were Joao Pinto-Lumbrales da Costa Leite (president o f upper chamber o f Portugeuse par­ liament), Randolfo Pacciardi (former Italian Defence Minister), Paolo Cunha (former Portuguese Foreign Minister), Andre Francois-Poncet (former French ambassador to West Germany), Henrik Kauffman (former Rector o f Bonn University), Karl Wistrend (former Swedish MP), Birger Kildal (chief editor M orgenbladet, Oslo), Franz Joseph Schoeningh (editor/publisher, Die Sud-Deutsche Zeitung). Pacciardi was con­ nected to a 1964 right-wing coup attempt in Italy and later led the fascistic movement Nuova Republics. 98 Goedhart to Alexander, 24 April 1959, Ibid. 99 “Vind ik het ongehoord, dat men deze tactloze selectiemethode heeft durven volgen. Ge zijt een rijk en mächtig land en wij zijn arm en onbetekenend. Ge moet echter niet menen, dat Ge U veroorloven kunt met een handvol dollars onze mensen als kwajongens te behandelen.” Goedhart to de Kadt, 26 July 1950, File 6, Goedhart

Networks o f Empire

Nunley knew o f one major reason for the rejection o f de Kadt - his former membership of the communist party.100 The Internal Security (McCarran) Act o f 1950, which had effectively outlawed the Commu­ nist party, prevented Subversives’ like communists and ex-communists from entering the United States without the specific agreement o f the Attorney General.101 Goedhart was therefore in the same position, even though Nunley had assured him that the right arguments could achieve a favourable response. In early 1952 he was again approached for a Leader grant, but despite the fact that he considered it “a great distinc­ tion” he once again reacted negatively to the way in which candidates were interviewed in a kind of “comparative examination”, with no guarantee of who would receive the grant.102 But Goedhart’s rising status in international anti-communist circles caused the embassy to keep trying, and introduction of a new selection method which allowed diplomatic missions to select their own candidates helped matters further. In January 1956 the US Ambassador, H. Freeman Matthews, asked for clarification on whether Goedhart’s communist party member­ ship would prevent his participation on either the NATO or Foreign Leader programmes. The response was favourable, and he was duly placed on the embassy’s FLP list for 1957 described as “an outspoken and clear-headed enemy of communism and sometimes a cogent critic of the United States. He wields great influence in the Netherlands”. Goedhart was therefore an ideal participant to meet the 1957 Countiy Plan demand that “it is essential that [the Dutch] be reassured concem-

Jacques de Kadt had been a member o f the CPN from 1919-24, followed by the League for Communist Struggle and Propaganda, the SDAP, and the Trotskyist In­ dependent Socialist Party, before joining the PvdA in 1946. De Kadt’s virulent anti­ communism, as expressed in the seminal Rusland en Wij: Hoe redden w ij de vrede? (Russia and Us: How do we Save Freedom?, Amsterdam, van Oorschot, 1947) and many other publications, had a major influence on post-war thinking in the party. But he always remained on the edge o f the party hierarchy, and his star, as with Goedhart’s, declined in the late 1950s with the introduction o f a more moderate ap­ proach to East-West relations. See Havenaar, R. ‘Jacques de Kadt’, Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, Vol. 5 (1992), pp. 141-5; Havenaar, R. De Tocht naar het Onbekende: Het Politieke Denken van Jacques de Kadt, Amsterdam, van Oorschot, 1990. 101 Nevertheless, de Kadt got round this by going to the United States for three months as a member o f the Dutch delegation to the UN in 1952. The Act was later under­ mined when in 1957 the Supreme Court declared that several convictions based on its provisions were unconstitutional. 102 In a letter to Philip Clock, Goedhart was equally unapologetic about his former CPN membership: “So what?“. Marshall Swan (PAO) to Goedhart, 2 January 1952, Goedhart to Swan & Goedhart to Clock, 8 January 1952, File 51, Goedhart.

The Labour Party and Anti-Communism

ing the wide leadership of the United States”.103 However, an invitation was not actually sent to him until September 1958. Keen to go, his departure was delayed by the sudden fall o f the government and new elections in March 1959. Having agreed to leave before the end o f June, at which point his invitation would expire, Goedhart set a departure date for the end o f April. In doing so he missed the first WEAC meeting.104 Goedhart’s main interests for his trip were foreign affairs and indus­ trial developments such as the effects o f automation on the workforce. To ensure his reputation preceded him, the embassy had also sent his recent Council of Europe report, ‘Some Aspects of the Present Situation in the Soviet Union’, to the State Department, who promptly passed it on to his programmers at GAI.105 From what little information is avail­ able, it is clear that his two-month journey included visits to major military installations such as the SACLANT naval base at Norfolk, Virginia and the Strategic Air Command headquarters in Omaha, Ne­ braska. Opportunities were once again offered for him to voice his opinions in the local press. Opposed to how Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit diplomacy could provide concessions to the Soviet Union, he declared in Buffalo that “the firm policy practiced by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles is the only answer to communism”.106 Likewise, when he visited the small town of Neosho, Missouri, his message to the local Rotaiy club was the same: “[The Soviet Union] is attempting to bury our freedom and our own way o f life and to make us a satellite, and therefore the conference in Geneva must end in failure”.107

104

105

106 107

Matthews to Secretary o f State, 5 January 1956, 511.563/1-556, & Embassy The Hague to Dept o f State, 6 February 1957, 511.563/2-657, RG 59, NA; ‘Appraisal of Country Plan for the Netherlands, FY 1957’, 27 June 1956, RG 59, Bureau of Public Affairs: Country Files 1951-56, Box 6, NA. Dept, o f State to Embassy The Hague, 19 February 1959, 511.563/2-1959, Embassy The Hague to Dept, o f State, 2 March 1959, 511.563/3-259, RG 59, NA; Herbert Fates (charge d'affaires) to Goedhart, 11 September 1958, File 51, Goedhart. Goedhart presented the report to the Council on 13 April 1959, with die byline that “there is an inclination in the Free World to pay more attention to the spectacular successes o f the Soviet Union than to the innumerable weak spots". On this topic he received help from William Sullivan at the US embassy: “There is enclosed with this letter a summary o f notes prepared in our Department o f State concerning discontent in the Soviet Union [...] it may be o f some interest to you in your continued pursuit o f this subject". Sullivan to Goedhart, 11 February 1958, File 51, & File 73, Goedhart; Grantee File: Frans Goedhart, archive o f the Governmental Affairs Insti­ tute, Washington DC. 25 May 1959, Buffalo Courier-Express, File 51, Goedhart 'Communism is Big Threat to Western Europe', Neosho Daily, n.d., File 51, Goedhart

Networks o f Empire

Perhaps the most important aspect o f Goedhart's trip was that he managed to couple it with a visit to Taiwan on his return journey to the Netherlands. On June 26 he flew from San Francisco to Taipei, where he enjoyed a top-level reception and was able to hold several meetings with Chiang Kai-Shek. For the Taiwanese, struggling to assert their identity in international affairs against the communist regime in Peking, such a visit from a well-known European politician with widespread international contacts was of great significance. This part o f his trip fell completely outside his Foreign Leader itinerary, and the money for it perhaps came from Time-Life publisher Henry Luce, but it was certainly sanctioned and organised via the US embassy and the State Department. Having become involved in the Taiwanese cause during the communist bombardments o f Quemoy and Matsu in 1958, Goedhart followed his visit with sustained efforts in various fora to secure the diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and increase awareness o f Chiang’s role as a progressive, modernising leader. Goedhart's swing to the right during the 1950s can exactly be charted by this support for Chiang, whom he had dubbed a corrupt tyrant in his Parool columns at the beginning o f the decade.108 On his return to the Netherlands Goedhart had some catching up to do on the WEAC. It had been agreed in Paris that ‘the FEC devise a method o f supplying East European radio monitoring and press material to West European communications media in cooperation with WEAC members’ and via the “already existing network o f FEC-RFE field bureaux in Western Europe”. On 21 August 1959 the first teletyped press wire went out from RFE, which, despite some qualms over its status as propaganda, had been favourably received by the mainstream press. Goedhart enthusiastically sought the support o f Dutch politicians and others in the media world for this initiative. He also initiated the Free Europe Prize to select the best journalism covering Eastern Euro­ pean affairs.109 Yet it is evident that the committee did not match up to what he had hoped: The WEAC should not become exclusively a consultative organ for the Free Europe Committee, but also an American-European center for the develop­ ment of political and propaganda initiatives through which interest in the 108 Mulder ft Koedijk, pp. 391-4. Luee was a member o f the China Lobby, a group o f predominantly Republican politicians and businessmen who were determined to sup­ port Chiang and ‘regain’ China from the communists. Goedhart had met Luce previ­ ously, and in 1957 FEC vice president Bernard Yarrow was already trying to set up contacts for Goedhart at Time-Life for future publications. James McCargar to Goedhart, 9 June 1957, File 75, Goedhart. 109 Records of WEAC’s second session, Munich, 30-31 October 1959, f t Goedhart to Hazelhoff Roelfsma, 27 July 1959, File 75; Free Europe Prize, File 80, Goedhart.

The Labour Party and Ami-Communism

late of the European peoples behind the Iron Curtain can be activated and stimulated.110

Extra members, particularly figures such as Willy Brandt, Guy Mollet, Antoine Pinay, and Suzanne Labin were needed, as well as “a French politician who belongs to the Gaullist group and who has the ear o f the General”. Goedhart remained an active force within the WEAC until he left his secretary general post in 1963. Although he lost faith in the Council o f Europe as an effective fo­ rum, Goedhart maintained a high profile in other international organisa­ tions and 'state-private networks’ during the 1960s. Within the West European Union (WEU), as rapporteur o f the Committee for Defence Questions and Armaments, he became closely involved with the Multi­ lateral Force proposals and the whole debate concerning an increased European capability and responsibility within NATO.111 He also investi­ gated further another of his pet themes, the possibilities for a coordi­ nated anti-communist propaganda capability within the Western security apparatus. However, by the mid-1960s Goedhart was more than ever disillusioned with the lack of progress in transatlantic cooperation in general. Commissioned to offer a report on psychological warfare for the WEU assembly, he eventually abandoned it in 1965 with the gloomy prognosis that "the divisions [...] have assumed such proportions in NATO that concrete proposals on joint psychological action could be only theoretical, academic and abstract”.112 Part o f his negative appraisal came from the fact that much information was excluded from the WEU Assembly’s scrutiny for security reasons, raising the question of what value such a gathering actually had.113 110 “In deze conceptie zou het WEAC niet uitsluitend a consultative organ for het Free Europe Committee worden, maar tevens een Amerikaans-Europees centrum voor het ontwikkelen van politieke en propagandistische initiatieven, waarmede de belangstelling voor het lot van de Europese Volkeren behind the Iron Curtain geactiveerd en gestimuleerd zouden kunnen worden.” Goedhart to Alexander, n. Teaching a n d S tu d yin g U S H isto ry in E urope: P ast, P resen t a n d F uture, Amsterdam, Free University Press, 2007 Riegel, O., ‘Residual Effects of Exchange of Persons*, P ublic O pinion Q uar­ te rly, 17 (Fall 1953) Roemers, D., ‘Het Verdrag voor de Europese Gemeenschapelijke Markt’, in E urom arkt en E uratom , Amsterdam, NVV, 1957 Roholl, M .,4Uncle Sam: An Example for All? The Dutch Orientation towards America in the Social and Cultural Field, 1945-1965*, in H. Loeber (ed.), D utch-A m erican R ela tio n s 1945-1969, Assen, van Gorcum, 1992 Rook, R .,4Race, Water, and Foreign Policy: The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Global Agenda meets “Jim Crow***, D ip lo m a tic H isto ry, 28 (January 2004) Van Rossum, M., ‘Le Défi Européen*, in R. Kroes (ed.), Im age a n d Im pact: A m erica n In flu en ces in th e N eth erla n d s sin ce 1945, Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, 1981 Roth, L., ‘Public Diplomacy and the Past: The Search for an American Style of Propaganda (1952-1977)*, The F letch er F orum (Summer 1984) Rupp, J., ‘American Studies and the Fulbright Program: A Plea for Repoliticiz­ ing*, in H. Krabbendam & J. Verbeul (eds.), T hrough th e C u ltu ra l L ooking G lass: A m erica n S tu d ies in T ra n scu ltu ra l P ersp ective, Amsterdam, VU Press, 1999 Russell, R., ‘The Atlantic Alliance in Dutch Foreign Policy*, In tern a tio n a le S p ecta to r (8 July 1969) Samkalden, L, ‘A Dutch Retrospective View on European and Atlantic Co­ operation*, In tern a tio n a le S p ecta to r, 19 (8 April 1965) Sargeant, H., ‘American Information and Cultural Representation Overseas*, in V.M. Barnett Jr. (ed.), The R ep resen ta tio n o f th e U n ited S ta tes A b road, New York, Praeger, 1965 Schmelzer, N., ‘De Mogelijke Invloed van de Kleinere Staten in het Huidige Wereldbestel’, In tern a tio n a le S p ecta to r, 26 (1972) Schmidt, O., ‘No Innocents Abroad: The Salzburg Impetus and American Studies in Europe*, in R. Wagenleitner & E.T. May (eds.), H ere There a n d E veryw here: The F oreig n P o litcs o f A m erican P o p u la r C u ltu re, Hanover NH, University Press of New England, 2000 Schwartz, T., ‘Victories and Defeats in the Long Twilight Struggle: The United States and Western Europe in the 1960s*, in D. Kunz (ed.), The D iplom acy o f th e C ru cia l D ecade: A m erican F oreig n R ela tio n s d u rin g th e 1960s, New York, Columbia University Press, 1994

Networks o f Empire

Scott-Smith, G., ‘The “Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century** Festival and the Congress for Cultural Freedom: Origins and Consolidation 1947-52*, In te lli­ g en ce a n d N a tio n a l S ecu rity 15 (2000) Scott-Smith, G., ‘Her Rather Ambitious Washington Program: Margaret Thatcher's International Visitor Program visit to the United States in 1967*, C ontem porary B ritish H isto ry , 17 (Winter 2003) Scott-Smith, G., ‘A Serious Business: The Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands under Ambassador William R. Tyler, 1965-69*, D utch C rossing, 28 (Summer/Winter 2004) Scott-Smith, G., ‘Mending the “Unhinged Alliance** in the 1970s: Transatlantic Relations, Public Diplomacy, and the Origins of the European Union Visitors Program*, D iplom acy a n d S ta tecra ft, 16(2005) Scott-Smith, G., ‘Searching for the Successor Generation: Public Diplomacy, the US Embassy's International Visitor Program and the Labour Party in the 1980s*, B ritish Jo u rn a l o f P o litics a n d In tern a tio n a l R ela tio n s , 8 (2006) Scott-Smith, G., ‘The US State Department's Foreign Leader program in France during the Early Cold War*, R evue F rançaise d 'È tu d es A m érica in es , 107 (March 2006) Scott-Smith, G., ‘The Ties That Bind: Dutch-American Relations, US Public Diplomacy, and the Promotion of American Studies since WWU*, The H ague Jo u rn a l o f D iplom acy , 2 (2007) Scott-Smith, G., ‘Attempting to Secure an “Orderly Evolution**: American Foundations, The Hague Academy of International Law, and the Third World’, J o u rn a l o f A m erican S tu d ies , 41 (2007) Scott-Smith, G., ‘The Export of an American Concept of Leadership: The World as seen through the US Department of State's Foreign Leader Pro­ gram*, in Krabbendam, H. & Verhoeven, W. (eds.), W hose th e B oss? Lead­ ersh ip a n d D em ocratic C ulture in A m erica , Amsterdam, Free University Press, 2007 Scott-Smith, G., ‘Mapping the Undefinable: Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Exchange Programs within International Relations Theory*, A n n a ls o f the A m erican A cadem y o f P o litic a l a n d S o cia l S cien ce , 616 (March 2008). Smith, B.L., ‘Trends in Research in International Communication and Opinion, 1945-1955*, P ublic O pinion Q uarterly , 20 (Spring 1956) Special Issue: ‘Ideas, International Relations, and the End of the Cold War*, Jo u rn a l o f C o ld W ar S tu d ies , 7/2 (Spring 2005) Speier, H., ‘Psychological Warfare Reconsidered*, in D. Lemer & H. Lasswell (eds.), The P o licy Sciences: R ecent D evelopm ents in Scope a n d M ethod, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1959 (1951) Stephanson, A., ‘Liberty or Death: The Cold War as US Ideology*, in Westad, O. (ed.), R eview in g th e C o ld W ar: A pproaches, In terp reta tio n s, Theory, London, Frank Cass, 2000 Stem, S., ‘A Short Account of International Student Politics and the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc.*, R am parts , 5 (March 1967)

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Networks o f Empire

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Index

A A Beacon o f Hope, 4 2 ,8 7 ,4 0 9 ,4 1 0 , 413,419 Aantjes, Willem, 324,420 Abrams, Manuel, 270,304 Acda, J.W., 252 Acheson, Dean, 105,320,420 Action Committee for a United Europe, 258 Adams, Walter, 42 Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 42, 87,287 African-American Institute, 99 Agency for International Development, 67 Aggrey, Rudolph, 350 Albeda, Willem, 316 Algemeen Handelsblad, 195,199, 229,246, 248,318 Algeria, 352 Allen, George V., 127 Allied Forces Central Command, 291 Alrutz, Louis, 100 Amalgamated Engineering Union, 385 American Committee for Cultural Freedom, 117 American Council o f Learned Societies, 5 1 ,2 4 8 ,3 4 4 ,3 9 2 American Council o f Young Political Leaders, 360,398 American Council on Education, 51, 62,94, 95,99, 231 American Federation o f Labor, 116, 117, 131, 146,149, 155, 156, 157, 183 American Friends o f the Middle East, 86, 87,262

American Political Science Association, 95 American Studies, 6 8 ,1 8 9 ,2 2 5 ,2 4 2 , 2 4 3 ,255,336, 337,342, 343, 344, 356, 3 6 0 ,3 6 3 ,3 9 0 ,3 9 1 ,3 9 2 ,4 1 9 , 422 Americans for Democratic Action, 117, 118,131,373 Amerika, Pioniers en hun Kleinzoons, 229 Andriessen, Frans, 264 Aron, Raymond, 357 Arpan, Floyd, 80 Asselineau, Roger, 345 Assembly for Captive European Nations, 135,136 Association Amicale Universitaire France-Amérique, 341,345 Atlantic Association o f Young Political Leaders, 9 2,398 Atlantic Community, 3 1 ,6 8 ,2 1 4 , 245, 255, 346 Atlantic Institute, 4 2 ,9 2

B Batch, Earl, 230,231,421 Ball, George, 254,280,281 Barghoom, Frederick, 38 Barnett, Robert W., 166,184,197 Barrett, Edward, 71, 72 Baruch, Herman, 105 Batson, Douglas, 82 Battle, Lucius, 86 Belgian-American Educational Foundation, 49 Bell, Daniel, 117 Benton, William, 61 ,3 0 9 Berger, Gaston, 341 Bemays, Edward, 5 8 ,6 9 Beuve-Mery, Hubert, 347

Networks o f Empire Bevan, Aneurin, 1 3 0 ,3 6 8,371,385, 387 Bijzondere Voorlichtings Commissie, 123, 124,126, 127 Bilderberg, 24, 113 ,1 5 0 ,2 1 7 ,2 7 2 , 275, 293, 322 Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, 111, 124, 125, 136, 2 % Blaisdell, Thomas, 117 Blaisse, Peter, 293,294 Bodenman, Paul, 34 Bogaers, Pieter, 159,1 6 0 ,1 6 1 ,1 6 2 Bommer, Jan, 173,174,175 Borgensius, Hendrik, 252 Bos, Corstiaan, 2 9 4 ,2 9 5 ,3 2 4 Bosch, K.D., 204 Boston Symphony Orchestra, 209,

210,211 Bowie, Robert, 259 Boy mans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 310,311 Brady, Mary, 416 Brain Drain, 44,3 9 9 Braks, Gerard, 272 Brandt, C.D., 189 Breisky, Arthur, 290,321 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 3 7 9 ,3 8 0 ,3 8 1 ,3 8 9 British Council, 389 Brookings Institution, 33 ,6 2 Browne, Mallory, 366 Brummei, Leendert, 219 ,2 2 0 ,2 2 1 , 376 Bundy, McGeorge, 9 1 ,9 3 ,2 8 1 Bureau o f Applied Social Research, 59 Bureau o f Educational and Cultural Affairs, 35,43 , 7 6 ,8 6 ,8 7 ,8 8 ,9 3 , 9 6 ,9 9 ,2 8 8 ,3 6 0 ,3 9 2 ,3 9 7 ,4 1 0 , 411 Bureau o f Social Science Research, 64,405

c Caffrey, Jefferson, 330 Campaign o f Truth, 4 3 ,7 1 ,7 5 , 76, 79,85, 329, 369,3 8 2 ,4 1 3 ,4 2 1

Carnegie Foundation, 5 1 ,9 1 ,2 9 8 Centraal Museum, Utrecht, 212 Central Intelligence Agency, 60 ,7 0 , 8 3,85, 8 7 ,1 2 7 ,1 3 6 ,2 6 2 ,2 6 3 , 2 7 4 ,2 8 6 ,2 % , 321,324, 327,330, 366, 370,399 Central Plan Bureau, 129,168 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 339 Chaban-Delmas, Jacques, 358 Chapin, Seldon, 105, 119,120,161 Cherrington, Ben, 52 Chinese Emergency Aid Program, 66 Christelijke Nationaal Vakbond, 148, 150, 152, 154, 155,156, 159, 178, 179, 182,186 Clark, William, 385 Clarke, Kenneth, 399 Clay, Lucius, 62 Cleaver, Eldridge, 320 Cleveland International Program for Youth Leaders and Social Workers, 8 1 ,3 5 0 ,4 1 9 Clock, Philip, 110,120,130 Cody, Morrill, 331,349 Cohen, Robert, 272 Colligan, Francis J., 86 Commission on Occupied Areas, 95 Committee for Public Information, 50 ,5 4 Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, 51 Committee on Non-Represented Nations (Council o f Europe), 135, 138 Common Agricultural Policy, 167, 271, 301 Confédération Française de Travailleurs Chrétiens, 335,336 Congress o f Industrial Organisations, 116, 117, 131, 146,149, 155,156, 159, 183, 371 Connors, Bradley, 380 Coombs, Philip, 65 Copans, Simon, 344 Comelis, Evert, 212 Council o f Europe, 135,141, 143, 2 1 5 ,2 1 7 ,2 6 0 ,2 9 4

Council on Foreign Relations, 121, 256 Council on Leaders and Specialists, 99 Country Plan, 7 5 ,7 6 ,7 9 ,1 0 3 , 140, 153, 163, 180,251,255, 301,329, 343, 3 4 5 ,3 5 5 ,3 5 6 ,3 7 6 ,3 8 3 ,3 8 5 , 401 Couzy, Lieutenant General J.H., 259, 260,265 Creel, George, 5 0,54, 58 Crosland, Anthony, 372 Crump, John, 28 5 ,2 8 9 ,3 0 6 ,3 1 5 , 319 cultural diplomacy, 2 5 ,2 7 ,2 9 ,3 7 , 3 8 ,4 0 ,4 2 ,4 3 ,6 5 ,8 7 ,3 0 9 ,3 2 8 , 35 1 ,3 5 2 ,3 6 1 ,3 6 2

D Dam, Willem, I7S, 176 Dankert, Piet, 420 Davril, Robert, 341 de Block, Leo, 166,167 de Gaulle, Chartes, 254 ,2 5 5 ,2 5 8 , 269, 280, 2 8 1 ,2 9 1 ,3 0 1 ,3 0 2 ,3 2 7 , 330, 333,334 ,3 3 6 , 3 5 2 ,3 53,354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359

De Hobby Club op Avontuur in de USA, 223, 225 de Hoog, Bernard 217,218 de Jong, Petrus, 170,171,172 de Jong, Piet, 279,292 de Jonge, Ad, 111,136 d e Kadt, Jacques, 111, 112,131,134, 139,140 de Palma, Samuel, 240 de Quay, J.E., 184,1 8 6 ,2 4 6 ,2 5 5 de Sola Pool, Ith iel,6 0 ,6 4 De Telegraaf 121,252 de Vries, Leonard, 22 2 ,2 2 3 ,2 2 4 , 225, 230 de Witte, Hans, 3 13,314 de Wolff, Piet, 168,169 Debré, Michel, 333,354 Defence Study Center, 255 Defferre, Gaston, 334

Delta

A Review o f Arts, Life, and Thought in the Netherlands, 216 den Daas, Jacob, 203,314 den Uyl, Joop, 114,1 1 5 ,1 1 6 ,1 1 7 , 118, 1 2 9 ,1 3 4 ,1 8 5 ,3 1 8 ,4 2 0 Dillon, Douglas, 331 Diop, Alioune, 351 Division o f Cultural Relations, 52, 53 ,5 4 , 55, 56, 5 7 ,6 9 ,9 0 Division o f International Exchange o f Persons, 6 9 ,7 7 Doctrinal Program, 84 Donahue, Robert, 215 Donovan, James, 83,413 Donovan, William, 5 4 ,6 0 Donzelot, Pierre, 340 Doob, Leonard, 60 Dragon Center, Paris, 3 5 0 ,3 % Draper, William, 68 Drees, Willem, 103,1 1 4 ,1 1 9 ,1 2 0 , 121,122, 1 2 3 ,1 2 6 ,1 3 0 ,1 8 4 ,1 9 7, 271 Driesprong, Cornelius, 272 Duggan, Laurence, 52 ,9 3 Dunn, James, 329 Dunnigan, Thomas, 297 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, 342 Duynstee, Anthony, 264 ,2 6 5 ,2 6 6 , 2 6 7 ,2 6 8 ,2 6 9 ,4 2 2

E École Nationale d ’Administration, 339 École Normale Supérieure, 338 École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales, 338 Edward R. Murrow Journalist Program, 22 Eenheids Vakcentrale, 151,152 Egan, Con very, 219 Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, 300 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 7 5 ,8 4 ,9 1 , 126, 1 4 1 ,2 2 8 ,2 3 9 ,2 9 0 ,3 3 5 ,3 4 9 , 352, 355, 376,377, 381,382

Networks o f Empire Ekker, Andries, 1%, 197,202,204 Elder, Robert, 3 3 ,3 4 ,4 3 ,9 6 ,4 1 0 Elseviers, 2 0 3,2 9 8 ,2 9 9 Emphasis on Youth, 80 ,2 8 7 ,2 8 8 , 324, 3% , 419 English Speaking Union, 96,377, 378, 379,402 European Association o f American Studies, 343 European Coal and Steel Community, 104,1 5 4 ,1 5 9 ,1 6 4 European Cooperation Administration, 6 6 ,6 7 ,1 2 5 ,1 2 6 , 147, 160,327,369 European Economic Community, 43, 88,9 8 ,1 0 4 , 159, 162, 163,169, 182, 1 8 5 ,245 ,2 4 7 ,2 5 4 ,2 5 6 ,2 5 8 , 2 6 2 ,2 6 9 ,2 7 0 ,2 7 1 ,2 7 4 ,2 7 6 ,2 7 9 , 2 8 0 ,2 8 2 ,2 8 3 ,2 8 5 ,2 9 1 , 299,301, 302, 303,304, 305,333, 336,382, 383,387, 393,399 European Productivity Agency, 67 European Recovery Program, 30,66, 106, 107,109,119,145, 146,147, 148,149, 150, 170, 183, 185 Experiment in International Living, 99

F Fares, Abderrahmane, 352 Farrell, James T., 117 Faure, Edgar, 359 Ferdinandusse, Marinus, 252 Financial Times, 398,401 Finletter, Thomas, 2 5 4 ,2 6 6 ,2 6 7 Finnish Exchange Program, 66 Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 339 Force Ouvrière, 335,357 Ford Foundation, 4 2 ,9 1 ,9 2 ,9 3 ,9 6 , 297,298, 339 ,3 4 1 ,3 4 4 ,3 7 8 ,3 9 1 , 392, 397,420 Foreign Operations Administration, 67, 193 Foreign Student Leadership Program, 86 Foster Dulles, John, 131,141,239

France-United States Friendship Society, 334 Franco-American Commission for Educational Exchange, 337,339, 341 Free Europe Committee, 136, 137, 138,139,142 Freeman Matthews, H., 140,217, 238 Frequin, Louis, 205 Friedan, Betty, 318 Fulbright Program, 2 7 ,6 6 ,6 8 ,7 2 , 89, 1 8 9 ,2 0 7 ,2 4 2 ,3 3 7 ,3 4 1 ,3 4 2 , 3 6 1 ,3 9 0 ,3 9 1 ,4 0 0 ,4 1 9 Fund for Youth and Student Affairs, 6 0 ,8 6 Fuykschot, Frans, 154,155, 156,157 Fyvel, Tosco, 374

G Gaitskell, Hugh, 3 7 2 ,3 8 3 ,3 8 7 Gans, Louis, 312,313 Gilliam, Laurence, 380 Giscard d ’Estaing, Valery, 333,335 Goedhart, Frans, 109, 111, 112,131, 133, 134, 135,136, 137, 138,139, 140, 1 4 2 ,143,144,205 Golden, Clinton, 117,160,161 Goodwin, Michael, 374 Goudsmit, Anneke, 323 Governmental Affairs Institute, 92, 95,96, 9 7 ,9 8 ,9 9 ,1 0 0 ,1 4 1 ,2 6 2 , 2 6 3 ,2 7 5 ,3 2 0 ,3 2 2 , 360,403,411, 412,414 Graswinckel, P.M., 218 Gray, Gordon, 127 Gruijters, Hans, 318 Guardian, 3 4 8 ,3 7 1 ,3 8 4 Guggenheim Foundation, 51 Guggenheim Museum, 312

H Haas, Ernst, 169,305 Hague Academy o f International Law, 289

Index Hammacher van den Brande, Renhilda, 310,311 Hansen, Han J., 252 Haitogh, Karel, 3 0 3 ,3 0 4 ,3 0 5 ,3 2 4 Hazenbosch, Comelis, 179 Heldring, Jerome, 127 H etParool, 111,133, 134,170, 1%, 1 9 7 ,2 0 4 ,2 4 4 ,2 4 5 ,2 5 2 ,3 2 2 Het Voder land, 246, 247,252 Het Vrije Volk, 1 1 1 ,1 7 3 ,1 % , 198, 201, 245 Hickenlooper Report, 75 ,8 4 Hiltermann, G .B J., 2 5 1 ,2 97,298, 299, 324 Hoefnagels, H.A.M., 195 Hoek, Jacques, 201 Hoetink, Hendrik, 310 Hofland, Henk, 199,2 0 0 ,2 4 8 ,3 1 9 Holland Festival, 2 0 3 ,2 0 8 ,2 1 1 ,2 1 2 , 313 Holland, Kenneth, 6 0 ,9 4 Holmes, James S., 216 Hoogendijk, Ferry, 2 9 8 ,2 9 9 ,3 2 4 Hoover, Herbert, 49 Hoover, J. Edgar, 228 Houtzager, Elizabeth, 212,213 Howard, Michael, 399 Howe, Fisher, 240,285 Hull, Cordell, 53 Hulsker, Jan, 313 Huntley, James, 4 2 ,9 2 ,9 3 Huyler, Coulter, 126,128,202

i Idenburg, Peter, 321,323 Idenburg, Rienk, 201 IMF, 24,360 informal empire, 2 9 ,3 6 ,4 4 ,4 2 0 ,4 2 3 Information and Educational Exchange Act (Smith-Mundt), 33, 6 6 ,6 8 ,6 9 , 70, 7 3 ,7 8 ,7 9 ,8 9 ,9 0 , 9 4 ,1 9 2 ,3 3 7 ,3 6 9 ,3 7 8 ,3 9 1 ,4 0 4 Information Control Bureau, 62 Institut d ’Études Politiques, 338,339 Institute for Dutch-American Cooperation, 163

Institute for International Education, 5 1 ,6 0 ,6 2 ,9 1 ,9 3 ,9 4 ,9 6 ,3 4 1 Institute for Public Policy Research, 405 Institute o f American Studies, Paris, 344 Institute o f Social Studies, 289 International Confederation o f Free Trade Unions, 117,147, 150, 151, 155, 183,185 International Cooperation Administration, 6 7 ,9 4 ,9 6 ,3 5 7 International Cultural Exchange and Trade Fair Participation Act, 309 International Educational Exchange Service, 3 1 ,3 4 ,3 8 ,3 9 ,6 9 ,7 5 ,7 6 , 78 ,7 9 , 8 2 ,8 3 ,8 4 ,8 6 ,9 1 ,9 4 ,9 5 , 100, 1 5 3 ,1 9 1 ,2 2 8 ,3 4 1 ,4 0 4 ,4 0 5 , 4 1 0 ,4 1 3 ,4 1 4 International Federation o f Christian Trade Unions, 1 5 4 ,1 5 7,178,183, 335 International Federation o f Trade Unions, 150 International Federation o f Workmen’s Evangelical Associations, 154,155, 156, 157, 178 International Information Administration, 75 International Information and Educational Exchange Program (USIE), 7 0 ,7 1 ,7 2 ,2 0 3 ,2 0 4 ,2 0 6 , 207,346 International Labour Organisation, 150, 178 International Ladies Garment Workers Union, 117,118,131 International Research Associates Inc, 405 Internationale Spectator, 166,258, 301 Iranian Trust Fund, 66 Italianer, Franz, 302,3 0 3 ,3 0 5

j Jackson, C.D., 280

Networks o f Empire Jenkins, Roy, 372 Joekes, Theo, 306,307 Johns Hopkins School o f Advanced International Studies, 98 Johnson, Lyndon B., 2 4 9 ,254,261, 268, 282 Johnstone Jr., William, 22 ,7 2 Jointly Sponsored Journalist project, 80, 199,241 Jonker, Sjouke, 272

K Kamstra, Anna, 206 Katholieke Arbeiders Beweging, 148, 150, 152, 154, 159, 161, 162, 179, 182, 186 Katz, Elihu, 64 Kellermann, Henry, 131 Kennedy Round, 2 7 0 ,2 7 6 ,3 0 1 ,3 0 2 , 304 Kennedy, Edward, 321 Kennedy, John F., 8 0 ,8 3 ,8 7 ,1 9 9 , 2 3 9 ,2 4 0 ,2 4 1 ,2 4 6 ,2 4 9 ,2 5 4 ,2 7 6 , 280,287 ,3 5 5 ,3 7 3 Kennedy, Robert, 2 8 4 ,2 99,318, 320,420 Keogh, AI, 98,412 Ketzel, Clifford, 3 3 ,3 4 ,3 5 ,4 2 ,6 7 , 407,4 0 8 ,4 1 0 ,4 1 5 Khrushchev, Nikita, 3 7 ,1 4 1 ,2 1 5 , 280 Kissinger, Henry, 2 9 5 ,3 06,320, 322, 388 KLM, 122, 167, 1 7 8 ,235,236,237, 264,266, 291 Kloos, Andries, 179,182,316 Koets, Peter J., 204,205 Kok, Wim, 187 Koninklijke Nederlandse Jaarbeurs, 164, 165,166, 178,276 Krolle-Muller Museum, 311,312

L Laan Jr., Reint, 158,159 Lammers, Alfons, 225

Landré, Joop, 121, 123, 126, 127, 128, 194,223 Lang, John, 371 Lasswell, Harold, 5 8 ,5 9 ,6 0 ,6 1 ,6 4 Laurentius, Theo, 284 Lazarsfeld, Paul, 5 9 ,6 0 ,6 3 ,6 4 ,1 1 7 Le Breton, Maurice, 337 Le Figaro, 347,357 Le Monde, 3 4 7 ,3 4 8 ,3 4 9 ,3 8 4 Lcddy, John, 303,305 Lelieveld, W.D., 179,181 Lemer, Daniel, 60 Library o f Congress, 5 9 ,2 1 8 ,2 2 0 Lieftinck, Pieter, 166,168 Lippmann, Walter, 58,348 Lipset, Seymour, 117 Litchfield, Edward, 95 Lovestone, Jay, 117 Lowenthal, Richard, 384 Luns, Joseph, 1 67,236,239,240, 2 4 5 ,2 5 6 ,2 6 3 ,2 6 4 ,2 7 0 ,2 9 2 ,2 9 4 , 315

M Mahin, Dean, 4 3 ,9 6 ,9 8 ,4 0 9 ,4 1 0 Malraux, André, 3 3 0 ,3 5 9 ,3 6 0 Manning, Bayless, 256 Mansholt, Sicco, 186,271 Maxwell, Bill, 320,412 McClure, General Robert, 126 McNamara, Robert, 253 ,2 6 5 ,2 6 7 , 320,420 Meijer, Hendrik, 276,277 Merchant, Livingston, 2 5 4,256,257, 280 Mettger, H. Philip, 95, % M iddendorf II, J. William, 279 Miedema, Sieb, 300,301 Mills, C. Wright, 117 Moen, Harlan, 289,31 5 ,3 2 0 ,3 2 1 Monnet, Jean, 258,272,281 Moorman, H.C.W., 268 Morgenthau, Hans, 321,323 Moses, Robert, 174 Mozer, Alfred, 272 Multilateral Force, 143,253,254, 2 5 5 ,2 5 6 ,2 5 7 ,2 5 8 ,2 5 9 ,2 6 0 ,2 6 3 ,

Index 2 6 4 ,2 6 5 ,2 6 6 ,2 6 7 ,2 6 8 ,2 8 0 ,3 8 3 , 422 Multinational Group Journalist Project, 80 Murrow, Edward R., 8 7,348 Museum o f M odem Art, New York, 210,309 Mutual Defense Assistance Program, 6 6 ,6 7 Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (Fulbright-Hays Act), 87, 8 9 ,3 0 9 ,4 1 6 Mutual Security Agency, 67, 157, 404 Myers, Edward D., 391

N Nationaal Instituut Steun Wettig Gczag, 113, 152 National Council for Community Services to International Visitors (COSERVX 97 National Security Council, 7 0,127 National Student Association, 85 NATO, 8 ,9 ,3 7 ,4 3 ,6 6 ,8 1 ,9 2 ,1 0 4 , 1 0 9 ,1 1 3 ,1 1 4 ,1 1 9 ,1 2 1 ,1 2 2 ,1 2 3 , 126, 127, 128, 131, 134, 135, 140, 143, 144, 145,146, 150, 166, 180, 182, 183, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 202, 214, 215,217, 218 ,2 3 6 ,2 3 7 , 239,241, 245,252, 253, 254, 2 5 5 ,256,257, 258,259, 260, 2 6 1 ,2 6 4 ,2 6 5 ,2 6 6 , 267,268, 269, 279,280, 282,283, 2 8 5 ,2 9 0 ,2 9 1 ,2 9 2 ,2 9 5 , 299,305, 306, 315, 332, 335,337, 346,347, 356,359, 360, 366,370, 374,379, 382, 383, 384, 3 % , 3 9 7 ,4 1 9 ,4 2 0 NATO Fellowship and Visiting Scholar Programs, 214 Nederlandsch Genootschap voor Internationale Zaken, 255,258 Nederlandse Verbond van Vakverenigingen, 148,149,151, 153, 158, 177, 178,180, 182,183, 185, 186, 194, 316,420 Netherlands Information Bureau, 225

Netherlands Institute for International Cultural Relations, 2 1 5 ,2 1 6 ,2 1 7 Netherlands-America Institute, 171, 2 2 0 ,3 1 3 ,3 1 8 New Deal, 1 0 7 ,1 1 5 ,1 1 7 ,1 1 8 ,1 7 4 , 363 New Guinea, 105,1 8 6 ,1 9 7 ,2 0 5 , 235, 2 3 7 ,2 3 8 ,2 3 9 ,2 4 0 ,2 4 1 ,2 4 4 , 2 4 5 ,2 4 6 ,2 4 7 ,2 4 8 ,2 5 0 ,2 5 1 ,2 5 2 , 2 6 0 ,2 8 3 ,2 9 1 ,2 9 2 New School for Social Research, 63, 6 4 ,4 0 5 ,4 0 6 New Statesman, 370,374 New York City Ballet, 211 Newhouse, John, 266 Newton, Edith, 262 Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 200, 2 2 5 ,2 4 6 ,2 4 8 ,2 5 0 ,2 5 7 Nixon, Richard M., 27 9 ,2 8 4 ,2 9 9 , 320 Noel Jr., Cleo, 285 Norland, Donald, 19 7 ,2 8 5 ,2 9 4 ,2 9 6, 307, 319,420 NRC Handelsblad, 200,323 NSC 4, 85 Nunley, William, 103, 111, 112,134, 139,140

o Observer, 384 Occupied Areas Division, 63 Office o f Education, 34 Office o f Educational Exchange, 69, 70,72, 75 Office o f Information and Educational Exchange, 331 Office o f International Information, 69 ,7 0 , 72, 75 Office o f International Information and Cultural Affairs, 5 7 ,6 1 ,6 9 , 309 Office o f International Labor Affairs, 95, 117, 118,160, 1 64,198,410 Office o f Policy Coordination, 70, 136

Networks o f Empire Office o f Strategic Services, 57,60, 64,280 Office o f the Coordinator o f InterAmerican Affairs, 5 4 ,5 5 ,5 6 , 57, 60 Office o f W ar Information, 54,55, 5 6 ,5 7 ,6 0 ,6 3 , 7 0 ,7 1 ,2 8 0 Operations Coordinating Board, 34, 84, 8 5 ,9 0 ,3 7 9 Organisation for European Economic Cooperation, 264 ,3 0 3 ,3 0 4 Overseas Student Leader Grants, 350 Owen, Hemy, 2 5 4 ,2 5 9 ,2 6 7

P Padover, Saul, 6 0 ,6 4 Paix et Liberté, 124 Pels, Paulus, 164 People to People, 91 Personal Influence, 64 Pfimlin, Pierre, 333 Phillips Davison, W., 60 Piercey, John W., 108,116,117, 131, 157,158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 173,177, 179 Poll, K.L., 247,251 Pollock, James, 95 Pos, Mary, 226,227 Powell, Colin, 23 Prince Bernhard, 217,284 Project Troy, 6 4 ,6 5 Psychological Strategy Board, 84, 127, 328 psychological warfare, 2 4 ,2 8 ,4 5 , 5 7 ,5 8 ,6 0 ,6 1 , 6 4 ,7 0 ,7 2 ,1 2 4 , 126, 1 3 5 ,1 4 3 ,2 % Psychological Warfare Division, 60, 62 public diplomacy, 2 5 ,2 6 ,2 8 ,3 3 ,3 5 , 3 6 ,6 4 ,8 0 ,8 8 ,1 6 3 , 168,180,217, 256, 287, 327,353,354, 364,366, 368,3 7 6 ,3 8 2 ,4 0 2 ,4 0 3 , 409,410, 423 Public Opinion Quarterly, 59 ,6 4

Q Quint, Hans, 292

R Radio Free Europe, 135,136, 137, 138, 142 RAND, 63 ,6 4 , 173,295,388 Randwijk, H.M., 192 Reagan, Ronald, 299 Reinhardt, Frederick, 241 Reinink, Hendrik J., 2 0 7 ,208,210, 2 1 1 ,2 1 2 ,2 1 4 ,2 1 5 ,2 1 6 ,2 1 8 ,3 1 4 Renckens, Rene F., 203 Reston, James, 320, 348,420 Rice, Condoleeza, 22 Rice, John, 2 4 0 ,2 4 5 ,2 8 2 ,2 8 5 ,2 8 8 Rijks Voorlichtingsdienst, 121,122, 126, 127, 128 Rockefeller Foundation, 5 1 ,5 9 ,9 1 , 1 6 8 ,2 1 0 ,2 1 9 ,2 9 8 ,3 0 9 , 390 Rockefeller, Nelson, 54,320 Roemers, Dirk, 154, 182,185, 186 Roosevelt, Franklin, 52, 107,224, 227 Roosevelt, Theodore, 49 Root, Elihu, 49, 51 Rostow, Walt, 259 Rotterdam, 2 7 2 ,2 7 3 ,2 7 4 ,2 7 6 Royal Library, The Hague, 219 Ruppert, Marinus, 178, 179,182 Rusk, Dean, 9 1 ,2 3 7 ,2 6 1 ,2 6 7 ,2 8 7 , 393 Rutgers van der Loeffi An, 229,230, 231 Ryukyu Islands Program, 66

s Salinger, Pierre, 2 4 9 ,2 5 3 ,3 2 0 Salomonson-Keezer, Hermina, 212 Salzburg Seminar, 6 8 ,3 0 0 ,3 1 8 Samkalden, Ivo, 186,197,259,301 Saigeant, Howland, 93 Scanlon Plan, 160,161,162 Scanlon, Joseph, 160

Index Schaetzel, Robert, 254 ,2 5 9 ,2 7 2 , 303 Schmelzer, Norbert, 261 ,2 6 2 ,2 6 3 , 2 6 4 ,268,317 ,3 2 1 , 324,420 Schölten, Ynso, 313,324 Schulte Nordholt, J.W., 189 Scott, Nicholas, 397 Servan-Schieiber, Jean-Jacques, 333, 348, 349 Skoufis, Peter, 273 Sluyser, Meijer, 117,121 Smedts, P. Mathiew, 252 Smith, Gerard, 2 5 4 ,2 6 6 ,2 6 7 Snijders, Nicolaas, 276 Social Economic Council, 129,149, 162, 168,179, 184 Social Science Research Council, 405 Sohm, Earl D., 285 Sorensen, Ted, 320,420 Specialists Program, 2 3 ,6 7 ,6 9 ,7 3 , 76,77, 7 8 ,9 2 ,9 5 ,2 4 2 ,2 5 2 ,3 9 1 , 3% , 399,401 Speier, Hans, 6 0 ,6 3 ,6 4 Sprague Committee Report, 85 Sputnik, 38,215 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 310, 311,312 Steketee, Chris, 2 4 8 ,2 4 9 ,2 5 7 Stewart, Michael, 372 Stier, Victor, 286 Stikker, Dirk, 124,291 Stone, Shepard, 9 1 ,9 2 ,3 7 8 Strachey, John, 387 Sullivan, William, 108, 113, 133, 135 Sunday Times, 384,401 Suurhoffi Jacob, 153 ,1 5 4 ,1 7 9 ,1 9 5 Swan, Marshall, 128

T Tans, Jean, 317 Target Groups, 3 1 ,6 0 ,7 2 ,7 5 ,1 0 0 , 189,277, 363,4 0 9 ,4 1 9 ,4 2 1 Tamowski, Tony, 286,318 Technical Assistance Program, 67, 106,119,147

Technical Assistance Programs, 162, 170,415 Technical Cooperation Administration, 6 7 ,4 0 4 Tennessee Valley Authority, 100, 1 1 7 ,1 3 2 ,1 7 6 ,2 2 4 ,3 6 3 ,3 7 2 ter Beek, Relus, 420 ter Heide, Harm, 187,316 Thatcher, Margaret, 398 The People 's Choice, 59 Third Country Program, 350,389, 396 Thistlethwaite, Frank, 391 Thome-Patenotre, Jacqueline, 335 Thomson, Charles A.H., 62 Tinbergen, Jan, 129,168 Toffler, Alvin, 318 Trades Union Congress, 150,377, 378,400 Truman Doctrine, 66 Truman, Harry S., 3 3 ,6 6 ,6 8 ,7 1 ,7 8 , 107,115, 119, 120, 125, 127,130, 246 Twentieth Century Fund, 162 Tyler, William R., 135,258,259, 2 6 7 ,2 7 9 ,2 8 0 ,2 8 1 ,2 8 2 ,2 8 3 ,2 8 4 , 2 8 5 ,2 8 6 ,2 8 7 ,2 9 0 ,2 9 2 ,2 9 5 ,2 % , 2 9 8 ,2 9 9 ,3 0 5 ,3 0 6 , 3 1 7,319,320, 330, 331,347

u Udink, Berend, 274,275 Umrath, Heinz, 185,187 UNESCO, 2 1 5 ,2 1 7 ,2 1 9 ,2 2 0 ,3 7 6 United Nations, 1 9 2 ,237,238,239, 245, 308 US Mission to the European Communities, 272 US Office o f the Military Government in Germany, 6 2 ,93, 9 4 ,9 5

V Vaders, Gerrit, 299,300 van Beers, Ton, 194

Networks o f Empire van Dam van Isselt, E.W.P., 124, 125 van de Bergh, Harry, 420 van Delden, Patricia, 183,236,242, 243,244, 245,246,248, 249,252, 2 7 4 ,2 8 6 ,2 % , 304,306 van den Heuvel, Cees, 296,324 van der Garde, Walraven, 165,166 van der Kwast, Johan, 164,165 van der Leemputte, Father Huub, 181 van der Pluijm, J.M., 297 van der Veen, Adriaan, 225,230 van der Vet, A.C.W., 247 van Dijk, Klaas, 306,307 van Dongen, Frans, 295,324 van Haaften, J. Stoffels (later Corver), 260,268, 306 van Mierlo, Hans, 3 1 8,319,320, 323,420 van Oosten, Willem, 272 van Raalte, Ernst, 246,251 van Riel, Harm, 305 van Roijen, Herman, 283 vanThijn, Ed, 317,323 van Wijk, Wouter, 2 4 6 ,2 5 1 ,2 5 2 van Wijnen, Harry, 322,323 van Wouwe, Jan, 183 Vermeer, Evert, 1 1 0 ,1 1 1,113,114, 118, 124,131,133,139, 152,154 Vis, Jan; 323 Voice o f America, 407 Volksfront, 191,2 0 3 ,2 5 2 ,2 9 7 ,3 1 8 , 321 Voluntary Visitors, 2 3 ,9 9 ,3 1 8 ,3 2 3 von Kielmansegg, General Johan, 292 Vondeling, Anne, 258 Vonhoff, Henk, 306, 307 Vorrink, Koos, 1 0 8 ,1 09,110,111, 112,113, 120, 121, 130,131,133 Vos, Hein, 149

Vos, Hendrik, 1 2 9 ,130,131,132, 133 Voskuil, Klaus, 198 Vrede en Vrijheid, 124, 125,152 Vredeling, Henk, 317 Vrij Nederland, 1 14,192,197,244, 245, 252

w Walker, Peter, 397 Wallace, Henry, 53 War Communication Division, 59, 60 Welles, Sumner, 5 2 ,5 6 West European Advisory Committee, 137,138, 139,141, 142 West European Union, 143,217, 2 6 0 ,2 6 1 ,2 6 4 ,2 6 5 ,2 6 6 , 268,269, 294, 302 Wiardi Beckman Stichting, 115,118 Wiegel, Hans, 3 0 6 ,3 0 8 ,3 2 4 ,4 2 0 Williams, Shirley, 397 Wilson, Percy, 375 Windmuller, John, 160 World Assembly o f Youth, 224 World Bank, 2 4 ,1 6 6 ,1 6 9 ,3 2 0 World Federation o f Trade Unions, 147, 151 Wyatt, Woodrow, 372

Y Young, Philip, 239

z Zook, George, 62 Zorza, Victor, 389

“European Policy” “European Policy” is an interdisciplinary series devoted to the study o f European integration in a broad sense. Although mostly focusing on the European Union, it also encourages the publication of books ad­ dressing the wider, pan-European context, as well as comparative work, including other forms o f regional integration on the world scene. The core disciplines are politics, economics, law, and history. While being committed to high academic standards, “European Pol­ icy” seeks to be accessible to a wide readership, including policymakers and practitioners, and to stimulate a debate on European issues. Submissions will normally undergo a thorough peer-review process. The series publishes both in English and in French. Series Editor: Pascaline W in and , Professor at the European University Institute (Florence)

Recent Titles •N° 37: Centre et centrism e en Europe aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Regards croisés, Sylvie GUILLAUME et Jean GARRIGUES (dir.), 2006, 288 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-317-6 •N ° 36: Vers une Europe fédérale ? Les espoirs et les actions des fédéralis­ tes au sortir de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Bertrand VAYSSŒRE, 2006 (2e tirage 2007), 416 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-353-4 •N °35: Institutionnaliser l ’évaluation des politiques publiques. Étude comparée des dispositifs institutionnels en Belgique, en France, en Suisse et aux Pays-Bas, Steve JACOB, 2005 (2e tirage 2006), 271 p., ISBN 978-

90-5201-078-6 •No.34: Visions, Votes and Vetoes. Reassessing the Luxembourg Crisis 4 0 Years On, Jean-Marie P a l a y r e t , Helen W a l l a c e & Pascaline WINAND, 2006,344 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-031-1 •No.33: Networks o f Empire. The US State D epartm ent’s Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France and Britain 1 9 5 0-70 , Giles SCOTTSMITH, 2008, 516 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-256-3 •N ° 32: Le droit institutionnel de la sécurité intérieure européenne, Pierre B e r t h e l e t , 2003,324 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-193-6 •N ° 31 : La crise autrichienne de la culture politique européenne, Jacques LE R id e r & Nicolas L e v r a t (dir.), 2004,241 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-188-2

• p u b liq u e s fa c e à l'E u r o p e co m m u n a u ta ire. E n tre e t h o rizo n e u ro p éen /P u b lic O p in io n a n d Europe. N a tio n a l Iden tities a n d th e E u ro p e a n In te g ra tio n P ro c ess, Anne DULPHY & Christine M a n ig a n d (eds.), 2004,228 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-186-8 •N° 29: D ro it e t so u vera in etés. A n a lyse critiq u e d u d isco u rs eu ro p é e n s u r la Yougoslavie, Barbara DELCOURT, 2003, 487 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-

179-0 • N° 28: L 'E u ro p e e t se s co llectivités territoriales. R é fle x io n s s u r l'o r g a n i­ s a tio n e t l'e x e r c ic e d u p o u v o ir te rrito ria l d a n s u n m o n d e g lo b a lisé , Nicolas LEVRAT, 2005, 304 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-174-5 •No.27: The E u ro p e a n U nion T ra n sfo rm e d C o m m u n ity M e th o d a n d In sti­ tu tio n a l E v o lu tio n fr o m th e S c h u m a n P la n to th e C o n stitu tio n f o r E u ro p e , Youri D e v u y s t , Revised and updated edition 2006,205 p., ISBN 978-90-

5201-051-9 •No.26: The A tla n tic A llia n ce f o r th e 2 1 st C en tu ry , Alfred C a h e n , Atlantic Treaty Association, 2001, 139 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-946-8 •N °25: L ’A llia n c e A tla n tiq u e p o u r le X X Ie siè c le , Alfred C a h e n , Asso­ ciation du Traité Atlantique, 2001,139 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-945-1 • No.24: E v e r C lo se r P artn ersh ip . P o licy -M a kin g in U S -E U R ela tio n s, Éric P h il ip p a r t & Pascaline W in a n d (eds.), 2001 (3e tirage 2004), 377 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-224-7 • N° 23: L e p o u v o ir ren fo rc é d u P a rle m en t e u ro p é e n a p rès A m ste rd a m , Andreas M a u r e r , Groupe d*Études Politiques Européennes, 2000,126 p., ISBN 978-90-5201-928-4 • N°22: L 'E u ro p e e t ses c ito y en s, Louis le Hardÿ de BEAULIEU (ed.), Groupe d’Études Politiques Européennes, 2000, 238 p., ISBN 978-905201-929-1

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