The United States and Public Diplomacy (Diplomatic Studies, 5) [Pp. ed.] 9004176918, 9789004176911

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Introduction.The New International History Meets the New Cultural History: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Relations (Kenneth Osgood and Brian C. Etheridge)
part i public diplomacy as international history
Chapter One.The Anomaly of the Cold War: Cultural Diplomacy and Civil Society Since 1850 (Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht)
Chapter Two.The Problem of Power in Modern Public Diplomacy. The Netherlands Information Bureau in World War II and the Early Cold War (David J. Snyder)
Chapter Three. Ethnicity, Security, and Public Diplomacy: Irish-Americans and Ireland's Neutrality in World War II (John Day Tully)
Chapter Four. Hollywood, Tourism, and Dictatorship: Samuel Bronston's Special Relationship with the Franco Regime, 1957–1973 (Neal M. Rosendorf)
Chapter Five. Supranational Public Diplomacy: The Evolution of the UN Department of Public Information and the Rise of Third World Advocacy (Seth Center)
Chapter Six. Transnational Public Diplomacy: Assessing Salvadoran Revolutionary Efforts to Build U.S. Public Opposition to Reagan's Central American Policy (Héctor Perla Jr)
part ii the united states and public diplomacy
Chapter Seven. Foreign Relations as Domestic Affairs: The Role of the "Public" in the Origins of U.S. Public Diplomacy (Justin Hart)
Chapter Eight. Crisis Management and Missed Opportunities: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Creation of the Third World, 1947–1950 (Jason C. Parker)
Chapter Nine. Film as Public Diplomacy: The USIA's Cold War at Twenty-Four Frames per Second (Nicholas J. Cull)
Chapter Ten. Mediating Public Diplomacy: Local Conditions and U.S. Public Diplomacy in Norway in the 1950s (Helge Danielsen)
Chapter Eleven. Domestic Politics and Public Diplomacy: Appalachian Cultural Exhibits and the Changing Nature of U.S. Public Diplomacy, 1964–1972 (Michael L. Krenn)
Chapter Twelve. Networks of Influence: U.S. Exchange Programs and Western Europe in the 1980s (Giles Scott-Smith)
Index

Citation preview

The United States and Public Diplomacy

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

Diplomatic Studies Series Editor

Jan Melissen Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’

VOLUME 5

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

The United States and Public Diplomacy New Directions in Cultural and International History

Edited by

Kenneth A. Osgood and Brian C. Etheridge

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010 Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

Cover illustration: Voice of America microphone Koninklijke Brill NV has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The United States and public diplomacy : new directions in cultural and international history / edited by Kenneth A. Osgood and Brian C. Etheridge. p. cm. – (Diplomatic studies ; v. 5) ISBN 978-90-04-17691-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. United States–Foreign public opinion. 2. United States–Relations–Foreign countries. 3. United States–Foreign relations administration. I. Osgood, Kenneth Alan, 1971II. Etheridge, Brian Craig, 1973JZ1480.U5533 2010 327.73–dc22 2009052562

ISSN 1872-8863 ISBN 978 90 04 17691 1 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Introduction. The New International History Meets the New Cultural History: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Relations . . Kenneth Osgood and Brian C. Etheridge

1

part i

public diplomacy as international history Chapter One. The Anomaly of the Cold War: Cultural Diplomacy and Civil Society Since  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht Chapter Two. The Problem of Power in Modern Public Diplomacy. The Netherlands Information Bureau in World War II and the Early Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 David J. Snyder Chapter Three. Ethnicity, Security, and Public Diplomacy: Irish-Americans and Ireland’s Neutrality in World War II . . . . . . . . 81 John Day Tully Chapter Four. Hollywood, Tourism, and Dictatorship: Samuel Bronston’s Special Relationship with the Franco Regime, –. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Neal M. Rosendorf Chapter Five. Supranational Public Diplomacy: The Evolution of the UN Department of Public Information and the Rise of Third World Advocacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Seth Center Chapter Six. Transnational Public Diplomacy: Assessing Salvadoran Revolutionary Efforts to Build U.S. Public Opposition to Reagan’s Central American Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Héctor Perla Jr.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

vi

contents part ii

the united states and public diplomacy Chapter Seven. Foreign Relations as Domestic Affairs: The Role of the “Public” in the Origins of U.S. Public Diplomacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Justin Hart Chapter Eight. Crisis Management and Missed Opportunities: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Creation of the Third World, –. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Jason C. Parker Chapter Nine. Film as Public Diplomacy: The USIA’s Cold War at Twenty-Four Frames per Second . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Nicholas J. Cull Chapter Ten. Mediating Public Diplomacy: Local Conditions and U.S. Public Diplomacy in Norway in the s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Helge Danielsen Chapter Eleven. Domestic Politics and Public Diplomacy: Appalachian Cultural Exhibits and the Changing Nature of U.S. Public Diplomacy, – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Michael L. Krenn Chapter Twelve. Networks of Influence: U.S. Exchange Programs and Western Europe in the s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Giles Scott-Smith Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The preparation of this volume was facilitated by a conference at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University in . The authors and editors are indebted to OSU’s Mershon Center and to The American Foreign Policy Center at Louisiana Tech University for financial support. Several individuals helped in the preparation for the conference and in the publication of the volume. We are especially grateful for the help and support of Peter Hahn, Richard Herrmann, Robert J. McMahon, Ann Powers, Rachelle Durand, Dan Calderon, Birgitta Poelmans, Ingeborg van der Laan, Irene van Rossum, and Hylke Faber.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Seth Center, works for the Historians Office at the Department of State. Previously he was the American Political Development Fellow at the Miller Center of Political Affairs. Nicholas J. Cull, is Professor of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and the School of International Relations, where he directs the master’s degree in Public Diplomacy. His publications include The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, – () and Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American “Neutrality” in World War II (). He is also the co-editor of Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, -present (). He is the president of the International Association for Media and History, and a member of the Public Diplomacy Council. Helge Danielsen, is a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies. Danielsen formerly held a Postdoctoral fellowship at the Forum for Contemporary History at the University of Oslo (UO), where he did research on American cultural transfer and U.S. public diplomacy towards Norway. He received his Ph.D. in history from the UO in . Danielsen’s previous research includes work on national identities in Scandinavia. Brian C. Etheridge, is Associate Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University, as well as holder of the John D. Winters Endowed Professorship in History. He directs the honors program and the American Foreign Policy Center. His research has been published in Diplomatic History, the Journal of Popular Film and Television, and various anthologies. In , he was the recipient of the Stuart L. Bernath Scholarly Article Prize. Justin Hart, is Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University. His article in the Pacific Historical Review, “Making Democracy Safe for the World: Race, Propaganda, and the Transformation of U.S. Foreign Policy during World War II,” received the James Madison Prize of the

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

x

list of contributors

Society for the History of the Federal Government, as well as the W. Turrentine Jackson Prize of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, is Professor of International History at the University of Cologne. She has previously been a Heisenberg fellow at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. She has also taught at the Universities of Virginia, Bielefeld, Heidelberg, the Universität MartinLuther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Harvard University and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Her study Transmission Impossible: American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, –  () was co-awarded the Stuart Bernath Book Prize as well as the Myrna Bernard Prize, both given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Gienow-Hecht is the editor of the series “Explorations in Culture and International History,” published by Berghahn Books. Michael L. Krenn, is Professor of History at Appalachian State University. His publications include Fall-Out Shelters for the Human Spirit: American Art and Cold War (), The Color of Empire: Race and American Foreign Relations (), Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, – (), U.S. Policy toward Economic Nationalism in Latin America, – (), and The Chains of Interdependence: U.S. Policy toward Central America, – (). He is also the editor of several books on race and U.S. foreign policy. Kenneth Osgood, is Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (), which won the Herbert Hoover Book Award. He is also co-editor of The Cold War after Stalin’s Death: A Missed Opportunity for Peace? () and Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century (). He is editor of the Larkin Series on the American Presidency with the University Press of Florida, and serves on the editorial board of Diplomatic History and Palgrave’s History of the Media series. Jason C. Parker, is Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University, which he joined in  after beginning his career at West Virginia University. His first book, Brother’s Keeper: The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, – (), was awarded the

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

list of contributors

xi

Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He has published articles in Diplomatic History, the Journal of African American History, and the International History Review. Héctor Perla Jr., is an Assistant Professor of Latin American & Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Previously he taught at Ohio University’s Department of Political Science. He also has been a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Irvine and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies. Neal M. Rosendorf, is a Fellow at the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California and a researcher / oral historian with the Columbia Oral History Research Office’s project on the Council on Foreign Relations. He has previously taught at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, SUNY-Plattsburgh College, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Rosendorf is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, which have been published in Diplomatic History, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, the Foreign Service Journal, and elsewhere. Giles Scott-Smith, is the Ernst van der Beugel Chair in the Diplomatic History of Transatlantic Relations since WWII at Leiden University, Associate Professor in International Relations at the Roosevelt Academy, and a senior researcher with the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg, the Netherlands. His publications include Networks of Empire: The U.S. State Department’s Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France, and Britain – (), and The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-war American Hegemony (). David J. Snyder, teaches at the University of South Carolina. He has been a Fulbright Fellow to the Netherlands, and a W. Stull Holt Fellow of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. His publications include “Dutch Cultural Policy in the United States, –,” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations, Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith, eds. (). John Day Tully, is Associate Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. In  he won the Board of Trustees Teaching

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

xii

list of contributors

Award for the four universities in the Connecticut State University System. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College, Dublin, and is currently the Director of Secondary Education for the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. The founding director of the Harvey Goldberg Program for Excellence in Teaching at The Ohio State University, he is also the author of the forthcoming Ireland and Irish Americans, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

introduction THE NEW INTERNATIONAL HISTORY MEETS THE NEW CULTURAL HISTORY: PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS

Kenneth Osgood & Brian C. Etheridge When Osama bin Laden orchestrated the terrorist attacks of September , , he unwittingly sparked a new public diplomacy revolution. A month after the  /  attacks, the veteran U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke penned an editorial in the Washington Post raising questions that were puzzling many observers that fall. “How could a mass murderer who publicly praised the terrorists of Sept.  be winning the hearts and minds of anyone? How can a man in a cave outcommunicate the world’s leading communication society?” Astounded by the appeal of bin Laden’s message in the Muslim world, Holbrooke was but one of many who called for a global public information campaign to combat Muslim extremism and anti-Americanism. “Call it public diplomacy, or public affairs, or psychological warfare, or—if you really want to be blunt—propaganda,” he wrote. “The battle of ideas . . . is as important as any other aspect of the struggle we are now engaged in. It must be won.”1 Ensuing events did not inspire hope for American success in the battle for hearts and minds. In the months and years that followed, as the George W. Bush administration launched the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, foreign perceptions of the United States plummeted to unprecedented lows. An astounding series of public opinion surveys in dozens of countries conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project charted the decline. “Anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history,” the project reported in . In the Muslim world, hostility to the United States reached epic proportions, but suspicion of American intentions permeated public sentiment around the globe,

1 Richard Holbrooke, “Get the Message Out,” Washington Post,  October , page B , http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=&paper= ( October ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

even among traditional U.S. allies. Throughout Europe, people said they viewed the United States as one of the greatest threats to world peace. This was true even in Great Britain, America’s closest ally, where more than half of those surveyed identified the United States as a danger to peace.2 Faced with such stark realities, American observers from across the political spectrum reached the same grim conclusion: The United States, despite being home to a communications industry many billions of dollars strong, had failed to “sell” its purpose and promise to audiences abroad. To some, the solution was better policies. To others, better propaganda. In Washington, foreign policy circles buzzed with conversations about public diplomacy. The Bush administration responded by revamping the global communication apparatus of the U.S. government, which had atrophied following the end of the Cold War. This effort proceeded in fits and starts and was marred by many missteps. When the administration released its National Strategy for Combating Terrorism in , it identified winning hearts and minds as a central goal of U.S. policy. “Our strategy also recognizes that the War on Terror is a different kind of war,” the strategy paper announced. “From the beginning, it has been both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas. . . . In the long run, winning the War on Terror means winning the battle of ideas.”3 As the strategy statement suggested, the Bush administration had come to accept public diplomacy as an integral part of its campaign against terrorism. So much

2

Summarizing nearly five years of research on foreign perceptions of the United States, the Pew Global Attitudes Project painted a sobering picture: “Simply put, the rest of the world both fears and resents the unrivaled power that the United States has amassed since the Cold War ended. . . . [T]he rest of the world has become deeply suspicious of U.S. motives and openly skeptical of its word.” Remarkably, surveys in four European countries—Greece, Spain, Finland, and Sweden—revealed that most people in those countries viewed the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, surpassing North Korea and Iran. See Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Global Opinion: The Spread of Anti-Americanism,”  January  http://pewglobal.org/commentary/display.php? AnalysisID=. In June , the project reported soberly: “The bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world.” See ibid., “Views of a Changing World ,”  June , http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID= ( October ). 3 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, September  http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nsct//nsct.pdf ( October ). For a comprehensive collection of documents relating to public diplomacy and the war on terror (and Iraq), see the web site maintained by propaganda historian Phil Taylor: http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/ papers/index.cfm?outfit=pmt ( October ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



so, in fact, that one State Department official heralded a “new age of public diplomacy,” announcing in  that “there is now a broad consensus in Washington that public diplomacy is essential to defeating the violent extremist threat, to promoting freedom and social justice.”4 These concerns extended into the new administration of Barack Obama. Elected in  on the promise of “change,” Obama’s early foreign policy actions consisted mostly of speeches, media appearances, and symbolic gestures to repair America’s image abroad—efforts supported by a charm offensive led by Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton. The United States was not the only country to fret about its image abroad and reconsider the value of public diplomacy at the dawn of the Twenty-First Century. One Turkish journalist, for example, asked: “Why are we unable to present Turkey in a more favorable light? Why are we unable to communicate Turkey’s beauties to the world? Why are Turks absent from the field of public diplomacy? Why does the world not understand us Turks, and why does it not want to?”5 Around the world foreign policy experts asked similar questions and reassessed the ability of their governments to influence public opinion abroad. Governments of countries big and small increasingly employed public diplomacy to advance their political and economic interests. China, for example, embarked on a global public relations blitz to soften foreign perceptions of its economic power and human rights policies. It dramatically increased its foreign aid budget and sent government officials on speaking tours to drive home the message that China was a benevolent and responsible world power. China also sponsored a crash program to promote Chinese language and culture. Following the model of European cultural institutes—such as the Alliance Française, Goethe Institute, and Instituto Cervantes—the Chinese government established hundreds of Confucius Institutes worldwide. After opening its first institute in , China had established  Confucius Institutes in  countries by . It also announced ambitious plans for one thousand institutes by .6 4

“James K. Glassman: America knows that bullets alone will not win this war,” The Independent,  September , http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/james-k-glassman-america-knows-that-bullets-alone-will-not-win-this-war -.html ( October ). 5 Bülent Kene¸ s, “Transnational Public Diplomacy,” Today’s Zaman,  November , http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/yazarDetay.do?haberno= ( October ). 6 “Confucius Institutes now in over  countries and regions,” People’s Daily Online,  July , http://english.people.com.cn////.html ( October ); Gong Yidong, “Confucius Institute: Promoting Language, Culture and

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

China was hardly alone in such endeavors. The globalization of public diplomacy has become so pronounced, so integral to the conduct of international relations, that one authority on the subject perceived a “public diplomacy frenzy that has now reached all corners of the globe.”7 Examples abound. Indonesia and Turkey each created public diplomacy departments attached to their ministries of foreign affairs. Other countries, like Botswana, Bahrain, Uganda, and India, launched “nationbranding initiatives,” aimed at attracting foreign investment and tourism. Public diplomacy was fast becoming “big business,” as many states outsourced the job of reputation management to private public relations and lobbying firms. In , for example, Saudi Arabia paid an unprecedented  . million to a Washington-based PR firm, Qorvis, for a sixmonth campaign to improve American perceptions of the kingdom.8 While states once bristled at foreign propaganda activities that meddled in their internal affairs, recently public diplomacy has elicited little controversy.9 This is but one indication that public diplomacy has emerged as a routine feature of international relations. Conducted by states and private actors alike, public diplomacy has become a transnational, global phenomenon. In part this public diplomacy revolution has stemmed from a growing appreciation of the importance of “soft power,” a concept popularized by Harvard political scientist Joseph S. Nye. According to Nye, “Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments.” “Hard power, the ability to coerce, grows out of a country’s military and economic might,” he wrote. “Soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies.”10 To Friendliness,”  September , http://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/eng/zt/Features/ t.htm ( October ); Gary D. Rawnsley, “A Survey of China’s Public Diplomacy,” Public Diplomacy Blog,  May , http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/ newsroom/pdblog_detail/_a_survey_of_chinas_public_diplomacy/ ( October ); Javier Noya, “The United States and Europe: Convergence or Divergence in Public Diplomacy?”  November , remarks at the  Madrid Conference on Public Diplomacy, http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/documentos/.asp ( October ). 7 Jan Melissen, “Public Diplomacy Between Theory and Practice,”  November , remarks at the  Madrid Conference on Public Diplomacy, http://www .realinstitutoelcano.org/documentos/.asp ( October ). 8 “Saudi P.R.,” New York Sun,  December , http://www.nysun.com/editorials/ saudi-pr// ( October ). 9 The case of the campaign by Qorvis, Saudi Arabia’s PR firm, was a notable exception—coming as it did after the  /  attacks involving over a dozen Saudi hijackers. 10 The term soft power came into widespread usage following an article Nye wrote in Foreign Policy in the early s; broad interest in the concept has developed more

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



many observers, the Bush administration’s failure to garner broad international support for the invasion of Iraq revealed the importance of soft power. Richer and stronger than any country on Earth, the United States suffered tragically for its inability to attract others to its cause—and along the way dramatized the paramount importance of soft power in an interconnected world. Deeper structural changes in the international system also highlighted the value of public diplomacy and soft power. The globalization of media and communications networks, a competitive global marketplace, and a growing attentiveness to the power of public opinion have all served to accentuate the value of public diplomacy as a tool of foreign policy—a way of harnessing the power of ideas and culture to increase a nation’s soft power. As a public diplomat for the German Ministry of Public Affairs noted: “In a global media and information society, in which billions of people world-wide witness events in real time via the electronic media, states are competing more than ever for markets, investment, tourists, value systems, and political influence.” In this environment, he continued, “Public Diplomacy has become an increasingly important tool in the ‘toolbox’ of foreign policy.”11

Diplomatic History and Public Diplomacy If the current debate about public diplomacy has become something of a “global conversation,” it has been a strangely narrow one that has focused inordinately on the United States. Despite the fact that countries around the world are practicing public diplomacy in one form or another, the

recently. See Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Soft Power,” Foreign Policy  (Fall ): –; “Soft Power and American Foreign Policy,” Political Science Quarterly  (): – ; “The Decline of America’s Soft Power: Why Washington Should Worry,” Foreign Affairs (May / June ): –; Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs Press, ); The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, ); Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, ). 11 Comments of Rainer Schlageter, director of general communication, public diplomacy and the media for the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the  Madrid Conference on Public Diplomacy, http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/documentos/.asp ( October ). For an analysis of recent trends in public diplomacy, see Jan Melissen, ed., The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

American experience has dominated the analytical landscape.12 What’s more, the conversation has been taking place in something of a historical vacuum. In contrast to such subjects as arms control, conflict resolution, and the use of military force—the subjects of countless academic studies—the historical literature on U.S. public diplomacy is remarkably thin. More worrisome is the fact that most existing scholarship is limited in terms of periodization and geography. Despite the growing awareness that public diplomacy is a global phenomenon that has been practiced, to some degree, as long as the modern international system has been around, much of the recent work in the field has focused overwhelmingly on American public diplomacy campaigns in Europe during the Cold War. The result has been a debate about public diplomacy that is truncated, skewed, and ultimately limited by this perspective. To suggest that the thrust of recent scholarship has blinkered our understanding of public diplomacy, however, is not to say that the scholarship has been poor or the scholars themselves myopic. Quite the contrary. Much of the work has been outstanding and the field of public diplomacy history is thriving. Moreover, the focus on American public diplomacy in Europe during the Cold War period has been both understandable and justifiable. Broadly speaking, the writing of public diplomacy history has hewn closely to the general historiography of American foreign relations. Traditionally concerned with issues of policy and power, diplomatic history as a field turned slowly, even painfully, to issues of culture and propaganda. Scholarship seeking to legitimize culture as a category of analysis in foreign relations was freighted with baggage. Pioneers like Frank Ninkovich, Emily Rosenberg, and Michael Hunt were forced to battle what Ninkovich saw as the “traditional” view of public diplomacy and culture “as too narrow to be of much value to students of foreign policy.”13 As foundational texts by these authors were debated in conferences and graduate student seminars over the s and s, 12 Jan Melissen, “Public Diplomacy Between Theory and Practice,”  November , remarks at the  Madrid Conference on Public Diplomacy, http://www .realinstitutoelcano.org/documentos/.asp ( October ). 13 Frank A. Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, – (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), ; Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, – (New York: Hill and Wang, ); Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, ). For an overview of the cultural turn in diplomatic history, see Akira Iriye, “Culture and International History,” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, nd ed., eds. Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



historians interested in public diplomacy and culture found themselves joining these authors in justifying their work in terms of its relevance to traditional American policymaking. This perceived need to frame the research agenda with respect to questions of power and policy encouraged scholars to prioritize actions at the level of the nation-state in general and the United States in particular. That public diplomacy historiography traces its origins to evolving debates about American diplomatic history also helps explain the emphasis on both the Cold War and U.S. policymaking. Following the outbreak of the Cold War, diplomatic historians concentrated their analyses on the goals and strategies of the United States. Indeed, the most important schools of historiography, drilled into generations of graduate students, revolved around the nature of American foreign policy in the Cold War period, and the orthodox, revisionist, and post-revisionist interpretations of the same.14 In an effort to connect with the existing historiography, most public diplomacy historians sought to understand, in effect, the American way of promoting the American way of life. In the s, the end of the Cold War, together with the broader “cultural turn” that swept the historical profession a decade earlier, transformed the field of diplomatic history and gave rise to a burgeoning literature on cultural relations and public diplomacy. Most of this work focused on Europe, and much of it was written by European scholars. The fall of the Soviet Union reinforced and accelerated European fears over the costs of embracing American culture, fears that were often framed in terms of the “Americanization” of Europe. These concerns intersected with a long-standing bias toward Europe in work in American foreign relations history. As a result, the s saw a veritable blizzard of works on U.S. public diplomacy in Europe, much of it concerned with cultural transfer and “cultural imperialism.”15 A related strand of scholarship— written in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union—focused on U.S. psychological warfare behind the Iron Curtain with an eye to 14

Recent debates, especially the push to internationalize diplomatic history and American history more broadly, demonstrate how America-centric the field had become over the last  years. See Thomas Bender, ed. Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, ); Michael J. Hogan, “The ‘Next Big Thing’: The Future of Diplomatic History in a Global Age,” Diplomatic History  (January ): –; Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, ed. Decentering America (Oxford and New York: Berghahn, ). 15 For an overview of this literature, see Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, “Cultural Transfer,” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, eds. Hogan and Paterson, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

explaining the role of culture, ideology, and propaganda in spelling the demise of the Soviet empire.16 Together, these scholars explored and debated the major issues associated with American public diplomacy in Western and Eastern Europe, in the process shaping the overall contours of the field. Although the scholarship has been narrowly focused in terms of region and periodization, there has been a tremendous amount of variety within the field, and sharp disagreements have emerged. One important area of inquiry has concerned the sponsorship of public diplomacy campaigns, exploring such questions as: who are crafting these campaigns, who are carrying them out, and what are their objectives? Works focusing on these questions have explored the distinctions between covert and overt public diplomacy (or, in the vernacular of the profession, the shades of black, white, and gray propaganda). Scholars have been particularly interested in how the American government sought to camouflage its activities through surrogates, such as in the case of the CIA’s involvement in the Congress for Cultural Freedom in the s and s. When Frances Stonor Saunders published her impassioned exposé of CIA involvement in various European cultural enterprises—titled The Cultural Cold War in the United States, but more provocatively Who Paid the Piper? in Europe—she precipitated a rich and lively debate about America’s role in the intellectual Cold Wars in Europe. A key strain of analysis focused on the so-called “state-private” network that linked the U.S. government—either overtly or covertly—with private individuals and organizations in sponsoring various cultural and propaganda programs. Some argued that the American state co-opted these private groups and subverted democratic ideals, while others painted a more benign picture of state-private collaboration.17 16 Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, –  (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, ); Scott Lucas, Freedom’s War: The American Crusade Against the Soviet Union (New York: NYU Press, ); Peter Grose, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War behind the Iron Curtain (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, ); Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America’s Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, – (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ); Arch Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, ). 17 Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: The New Press, ); Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress of Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe (New York and London: The Free Press, ); Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and Post-War U.S.-European Relations (London: Taylor

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



In a related line of inquiry, scholars have wrangled over the reception of public diplomacy. Often seen as the handmaiden of cultural imperialism, U.S. public diplomacy has been characterized as aiding and abetting the intrusion and expansion of American consumerism and popular culture. In that sense, historical research on public diplomacy has been caught up in the very rancorous debate over the impact of American culture in Europe. A  roundtable discussion in the journal Diplomatic History has been the most useful in fleshing out the terms of this debate.18 On one side, scholars have employed terms such as “cultural imperialism,” “Americanization,” and “coca-colonization” to describe, in an often disapproving way, the process through which the United States remade European culture during the postwar period. On the other side, scholars have suggested that this interpretation is too simplistic and deprives the Europeans of any agency. Arguing instead for the value of examining reception, they have contended that Europeans often assimilated or adapted American culture to suit their own ends.19 These conversations and Francis, ); Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam, eds. The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, – (London: Frank Cass, ); Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? (London and New York: Routledge, ), Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ); Helen Laville and Hugh Wilford, eds. The U.S. Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War: The State-Private Network (London and New York: Routledge, ); Volker R. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, ); W. Scott Lucas, “Mobilizing Culture: The State-Private Network and the CIA in the Early Cold War,” in War and Cold War in American Foreign Policy, –, eds. Dale Carter and Robin Clifton (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ), –. 18 Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, “Shame on US?: Academics, Cultural Transfer, and the Cold War—A Critical Review,”; Richard Pells, “Who’s Afraid of Steven Spielberg,”; Bruce Kuklick, “The Future of Cultural Imperialism”; Richard Kusiel, “Americanization for Historians”; and John W. Dower, “ ‘Culture,’ Theory, and Practice in U.S.-Japan Relations,” all in Diplomatic History  (Summer, ): –. 19 Key works in this debate include Reinhold Wagnleitner, Coca-colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria after the Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ); Richard H. Pells, Not Like Us: How Europeans have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American culture since World War II (New York: Basic Books, ); Ralph Willett, The Americanization of Germany, – (London: Taylor and Francis, ); Rob Kroes, If You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen the Mall (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, ); Richard F. Kuisel, Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization (Berkeley: University of California Press, ); Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, Transmission Impossible: American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, – (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, ); Uta G. Poiger, Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, ); Giles Scott-Smith, Networks of Empire: The U.S. State Department’s Foreign Leader Program

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

over the sponsorship and reception of American propaganda and cultural initiatives have been the core issues defining the field of public diplomacy history as a whole. Yet important issues associated with the practice of public diplomacy have been obscured by these debates. In particular, concepts associated with the goals, strategies, and methodologies of public diplomacy have been under-theorized because they have been cast overwhelmingly in American and European contexts. Moreover, with most of the scholarship focusing on Europe, U.S. public diplomacy in the Third World—the priority “target area” of Cold War propaganda from the s through the s—has gone virtually unexamined by scholars. Furthermore, even though mass media has made public diplomacy an important part of the international relations of all states, only a handful of studies have explored the public diplomacy activities of other countries.20 Finally, and perhaps of greatest concern to the debate over public diplomacy today, has been the reluctance of scholars to assess the effectiveness of public diplomacy campaigns, with the result that public diplomacy studies tend to assume or imply that public diplomacy programs have had the impact that practitioners intended.

in the Netherlands, France, and Britain – (Bern: Peter Lang, ); William Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Stability in Europe, – (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ). 20 Britain has been the exception, here, as several studies have explored facets of British propaganda and public diplomacy. For example, see: Nicholas J. Cull, Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign against American “Neutrality” in World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, ); Gary D. Rawnsley, Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda: The BBC and VOA in International Politics, – (London: Macmillan Press, ), Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War – (Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing Limited, ); Tony Shaw, British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda and Consensus (London: I.B. Taurus, ); Andrew Defty, Britain, America and Anti-Communist: The Information Research Department (London: Routledge, ); Philip M. Taylor, British Propaganda in the Twentieth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ). Other exceptions include Gary D. Rawnsley, Taiwan’s Informal Diplomacy and Propaganda (New York: Palgrave, ); Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda, rd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, ); Philip M. Taylor, Global Communications, International Affairs and the Media Since  (London: Taylor and Francis, ); Brian C. Etheridge, “The Desert Fox, Memory Diplomacy, and the German Question in Early Cold War America,” Diplomatic History  (April ): –; Peter L. Hahn, “The United States and Israel in the Eisenhower Era: The ‘Special Relationship’ Revisited,” in The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War, eds. Kathryn C. Statler and Andrew L. Johns (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



Public Diplomacy History as Cultural and International History With these issues in mind, this collection of essays seeks to provoke a reexamination of public diplomacy history. Reflecting the reality that most contemporary scholarship on public diplomacy focuses—in one way or another—on the United States, the essays collected here analyze facets of the American experience. But the book also attempts to shift the conversation to the international arena by highlighting the fact that the United States has not only been an important sponsor of public diplomacy but also a frequent target of public diplomacy initiatives sponsored by others. Many of the essays in this collection look beyond Washington to explore the ways in which foreign states, non-governmental organizations, and private citizens have used public diplomacy to influence the government and people of the United States. While highlighting the importance of internationalizing the story, this collection also accentuates the ways in which public diplomacy history can continue to shape our understanding of the broader history of the United States, its politics and culture. Robert J. McMahon has persuasively defended the importance of continuing to study the foreign relations of the United States for what it tells us about the broader contours of American history as national history. In this endeavor, scholarship on U.S. public diplomacy history has much to add: research that addresses the propaganda, psychological, cultural, and ideological dimensions of U.S. diplomacy does much to enrich our understanding of U.S. foreign relations and of the American historical experience.21 As a work of diplomatic history, the collection brings together two intellectual trends that are expanding the horizons of the field, but which appear to be moving in two different directions: the move to “internationalize” the study of diplomacy to focus more fully on the interaction between states rather than simply the policy-process of a single state; and the move to expand the research agenda to include ideological, cultural, social, and domestic factors as elements of foreign affairs. In other words, the volume integrates the concerns of the “new international history” with the “new cultural history” of foreign relations.

21 Robert J. McMahon, “Toward a Pluralist Vision: The Study of American Foreign Relations as International and National History” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge Defining Public Diplomacy

Readers will likely notice that different authors in this volume conceptualize public diplomacy differently. In part this is because public diplomacy defies easy definition. It has been associated with such nebulous activities as propaganda, psychological warfare, information, communication, cultural diplomacy, and dozens of other related terms with varied meanings. Most authors credit Edmund Gullion, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, with coining the term “public diplomacy” in the mid-s.22 Gullion’s reflections on how he devised the term are instructive. “I would have liked to call it ‘propaganda,’ ” he confessed. “It seemed like the nearest thing in the pure interpretation of the word to what we were doing. But ‘propaganda’ has always had a pejorative connotation in this country. To describe the whole range of communications, information, and propaganda, we hit upon ‘public diplomacy.’ ”23 As Gullion’s remarks suggest, the term “public diplomacy” itself has served as a euphemism for propaganda, as have other common monikers “public affairs,” “communication,” and “information.” Such terms were popularized to make the idea of propaganda more palatable to a public which regarded it as deceitful and undemocratic.24 Generally speaking, public diplomacy involves the cultivation of public opinion to achieve the desired geopolitical aims of the sponsor. In some respects, public diplomacy could be defined as propaganda in the

22 In fact the term has a longer history, as Nick Cull argues in “ ‘Public Diplomacy’ before Gullion: The Evolution of A Phrase,” Public Diplomacy Blog,  April , http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/pdfs/gullion.pdf ( October ). 23 Robert F. Delaney and John S. Gibson, eds., American Public Diplomacy: The Perspective of Fifty Years (Medford Mass: The Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, The Lincoln Filene Center for Citizenship and Public Affairs, ), , cited in John Brown, “Public Diplomacy and Propaganda: Their Differences,”  September , http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item// /comm/brown_pudiplprop.html ( October ). 24 As Christopher Simpson notes in his history of the emergence of the scholarly field of communication studies, such terms as “communication” and “public diplomacy” were self-consciously employed by psychological warfare experts to make their practice acceptable to a public that regarded propaganda as an instrument of totalitarian oppression. See Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare, – (New York: Oxford University Press, ), –. For extended discussion of the definition, conception, and uses of propaganda in U.S. foreign policy, see Kenneth Osgood, “Propaganda,” in Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, nd. ed., eds. Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burns, and Fredrik Logevall (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



service of a nation’s foreign policy.25 After all, most public diplomacy programs share a common fundamental objective: fostering a receptive climate of opinion for the sponsor’s foreign policies. Public diplomacy is thus one component of a nation’s “soft power,” its ability to persuade. But defining it this way can be problematic as well. For one, public diplomacy is not exclusively a state-sponsored activity. Non-governmental organizations and private groups have both contributed to public diplomacy campaigns organized by national governments and sponsored public diplomacy campaigns of their own. Moreover, some activities that could be defined as “cultural relations” or “cultural diplomacy” (equally murky terms) do not always fit easily under the public diplomacy rubric. Are cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy the same thing? Some authors see cultural diplomacy essentially as culture used as propaganda—that is, culture to persuade and influence. Under this usage, cultural diplomacy is merely a component or medium of public diplomacy, a mechanism of international persuasion. Others adopt a more expansive or neutral understanding of cultural diplomacy, embracing a wide range of cultural interactions between nations and peoples.26 25

The public diplomacy specialist and veteran foreign service officer John Brown disagrees. He argues that while the “intent” of public diplomacy and propaganda may be similar, the “essence” of the two activities differs. See “Public Diplomacy and Propaganda: Their Differences,” http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item///comm/brown _pudiplprop.html ( October ). 26 In this volume and in other published work, Jessica Gienow-Hecht employs a more inclusive understanding of cultural diplomacy that embraces informal networks, unconnected to the state, as well as the broader phenomenon of “cultural transfer.” See Gienow-Hecht, Transmission Impossible and “Shame on US?” See also the essays in Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher, eds. Culture and International History (Oxford: Berghahn Books, ). Works that stress the propaganda dimensions of cultural diplomacy include: Walter Hixson, Parting the Curtain; Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, ); Laura Belmonte, Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, ); Etheridge, “The Desert Fox, Memory Diplomacy, and the German Question in Early Cold War America”; Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, – (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, ). See also Nicholas J. Cull, Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past, USC Center on Public Diplomacy/Figueroa Press, Los Angeles,  http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/publications/perspectives/CPDPerspectivesLessons.pdf  (accessed  January ). Manuela Aguilar offered a useful distinction between what she calls public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy. The former attempts to control representations of the people or nation-state in the host country’s media and society—in that sense it could also be called information or discourse management. Although these activities are often guided by an overarching objective or principle, the nature of the work is

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

Military applications of public diplomacy complicate the picture even further. Is public diplomacy distinct from psychological warfare and other militarized uses of propaganda? Today the American military establishment has adopted a dizzying array of definitions for practices like “information warfare,” “psychological operations,” “public affairs,” “information operations,” and “military support to public diplomacy.” The defense establishment defines them differently, as if they were distinct from public diplomacy (or for that matter propaganda), yet they all amount to variations of the same thing: communications in the service of the national interest.27 However one defines it, public diplomacy has long contributed to the intellectual and cultural climate in which foreign policies are made.

Chapter Overview As historians begin to assess the long and complicated history of American public diplomacy, this book takes stock of the current “state of the field.” It showcases new and innovative work that reframes the conversation. Each essay in this collection speaks to broader conceptual issues shaping this thriving new field of study. Each adopts a unique methodological or conceptual approach, and each also moves beyond its particular case study to assess broader issues related to public diplomacy history. The essays in this volume are divided into the two sections. Part I demonstrates the value of an internationalized perspective by examining the public diplomacy campaigns of foreign entities that have targeted the United States. Some of the articles—such as those by David Snyder, Neal M. Rosendorf, John Day Tully, and Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht— analyze the ways in which countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Britain, France, and Germany have used public diplomacy to shape the policies and perceptions of Americans and their government. Other authors in Part I focus on supranational organizations or transnational often ad hoc and focused on a narrow time horizon The latter, by contrast, seeks to affect widespread systemic cultural and social change, often through individual and cultural exchange programs that can take years, even decades, to achieve fruition. See Manuela Aguilar, Cultural Diplomacy and Foreign Policy: German-American Relations, – (New York, ). 27 For an overview of current thinking on military applications of public diplomacy, see Christopher Paul, Information Operations: Doctrine and Practice: A Reference Handbook (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



organizations—as with Seth Center’s essay on the public information campaigns of the United Nations and Hector Perla’s essay on the public diplomacy efforts of revolutionary guerillas in El Salvador. Each of these essays highlights the promise and potential of writing the history of public diplomacy as international history. Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht blends an internationalized approach with a comparative methodology. She contrasts U.S. public diplomacy during and after the Cold War to the cultural diplomacy practiced by European states in the nineteenth century. She concludes that the centrally planned and carefully orchestrated nature of Cold War propaganda represented an aberration in modern international relations. In the nineteenth century, she notes, Germany, Britain, and France competed for cultural influence in the United States as part of their broader contest for empire. But the national governments of these countries played only a minor role in these cultural diplomacy efforts. “The principal agents of cultural transmission and exchange were nongovernmental individuals and organizations,” she writes. By contrast, the mechanics of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War, and to some extent the preceding world wars, stressed the role of national governments. Preoccupied with ideological struggles, the major powers invested unprecedented sums of money and energy to wage the Cold War through the arts, academic exchanges, and cultural presentations. Gienow-Hecht extends her analysis to contemporary cultural diplomacy to assess how it compares to previous eras. She concludes that cultural diplomacy today more closely resembles the loose structures developed in the nineteenth century than it does the massive propaganda machines of the Cold War. Gienow-Hecht also urges historians to employ greater analytical precision when discussing public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy—two concepts that are often used synonymously, but which, she argues, were more distinctive than scholars typically acknowledge. In addition, she challenges her fellow historians “to soft pedal our ongoing fascination with the Cold War” and advocates a long-term examination of the structural and theoretical foundations of public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy. Because so much historical writing has focused on the Cold War and the role of the United States, it has mistakenly implied that cultural diplomacy became a key instrument of foreign policy when the nation sought to contain the Soviet Union. As a result, the study of cultural diplomacy continues to stress state control and political manipulation— an association that obscures other more complicated manifestations of cultural diplomacy in world history.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

David Snyder casts his case study with respect to the relationship between “hard power” and “soft power.” He does so by looking at how a relatively weak country, the Netherlands, attempted to influence a much stronger one, the United States. Focusing on Dutch efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy during World War II and the early Cold War, he analyzes the dilemma of power that confronted the Netherlands Information Bureau (NIB), which directed an expansive information and cultural relations campaign in the United States from its base in New York City. Snyder shows that in attempting to use public diplomacy as “soft power” to advance Dutch national interests, the NIB was constrained by its relative lack of “hard power.” It could call on few economic or military assets to give teeth to Dutch foreign policy ambitions. During the two most pressing policy moments in contemporary Dutch foreign policy—WWII and the postwar decolonization of the East Indies—the Netherlands was forced to pursue its foreign policy aims with little effective hard power leverage. While the Netherlands was occupied by the German army, during the time of official American neutrality, the paramount goal of Dutch foreign policy and public diplomacy was to enlist the United States in the war. Yet the Netherlands lacked the kind of hard power that could draw the Americans into any kind of partnership. Thus Dutch public diplomacy projected an image of a “small Holland,” helpless, victimized, and desperate for aid and sympathy. The dearth of effective hard power also constrained Dutch efforts to reestablish control over the East Indies after the war had ended. The effort to reassert imperial dominion in the East Indies, lacking sufficient power to accomplish the job, required the Netherlands to enlist American aid. Dutch public diplomacy now projected the image of a “large Holland,” a potential strategic partner in the emerging Cold War. In both instances, the absence of Dutch hard power not only compelled the Netherlands to rely on public diplomacy to achieve its objectives, it limited its ability to harness that soft power effectively. In the end, Snyder concludes, “the Dutch case shows that the analytical line drawn by historians between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power is arbitrary and illusory.” John Day Tully examines the role of ethnic groups as both targets and instigators of public diplomacy. In a multifaceted case study of Irish Americans during World War II, Tully investigates how the Irish and British governments targeted Irish Americans with competing public diplomacy campaigns. Both governments hoped to shape U.S. policy toward Ireland by winning support from the Irish American community. Irish public diplomacy sought to mobilize the large Irish American

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



minority in the United States to exert political pressure on the U.S. government to support Ireland’s neutrality. The British, meanwhile, sought to undermine this campaign by appealing to that same audience. But Irish Americans were not mere pawns in this game, Tully emphasizes. Rather, “Irish Americans took up the role of practitioners of public diplomacy within their own country.” They attempted to influence not only how the United States government responded to the war, but also how their fellow Americans interpreted U.S. foreign policy toward Ireland and Great Britain more broadly. Tully’s essay is a multidimensional exploration of how different governments used public diplomacy to woo an ex-patriot population and ethnic minority, and how that population responded to those efforts. It also looks at how public diplomacy intersected with issues of identity for the Irish and for Irish Americans, and explores the broader phenomenon of ethnic minorities as both targets and agents of public diplomacy campaigns. Neal M. Rosendorf presents a similarly complex picture, exploring the commercial and personal ties that shaped Spanish public diplomacy during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. In this case study, we see an American Hollywood producer collaborating with a foreign dictatorship to produce commercial and propaganda films that extolled the virtues of Spain and softened the image of its dictatorship. Rosendorf shows how the Franco regime produced a top-secret international campaign, “Operación Propaganda Exterior,” that positioned Spain as a respected Western anticommunist bastion, as well as the cultural and ideological leader of the Spanish-speaking world. The campaign also sought to humanize the image of the Franco regime in the minds of Americans by nurturing a positive vision of the country as a whole and by promoting Spain as a desirable destination for U.S. tourists. Central to this effort was an unusual partnership with a top American film maker, Samuel Bronston. Bronston worked closely with the Franco regime in developing, producing, and marketing films that presented a heroic and romantic image of Spain. Bronston also made free propaganda films for the Spanish government that were screened both in Spain and abroad, including in the United States. Rosendorf traces the history of the Franco-Bronston partnership from the late s to the early s. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Bronston received all kinds of logistical and financial support from the Franco regime for his productions, while Franco benefited from Bronston’s films, which painted a positive picture of his country, softened the image of his dictatorship, and filled his treasury with dollars from tourists

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

drawn to Spain by Bronston’s epics. Rosendorf probes the intricate web of personal, financial, and cultural links between the two men and the institutions they represented—Hollywood and the Spanish government— while at the same time exploring the role of commercial film production, tourism, and non-state actors in the conduct of international public diplomacy. The essays by Seth A. Center and Héctor Perla Jr. extend the focus on non-state actors as agents of public diplomacy by looking at transnational and supranational organizations. Their essays reveal that weak, non-state actors living in the shadow of American hegemony could nevertheless conduct effective public diplomacy. In so doing, they illustrate the ways weak actors with meager resources for public diplomacy could exert considerable pressure on powerful states possessing far superior public information outlets. Seth A. Center analyzes the public diplomacy of a supranational body: the United Nations. While most of the existing scholarship on public diplomacy history has focused on the United States, and much of the writing about the early years of the UN has stressed superpower manipulation of the organization, Center reorients the discussion to the “Third World.” He explores the ways in which Third World countries maneuvered to control the UN’s own apparatus for public diplomacy— its Department of Public Information—to promote an anti-colonial message. Center thus fuses two seemingly distinct public diplomacy stories that run through the history of the UN: the exploitation of the General Assembly as a propaganda forum by member states and the evolution of the UN’s own public diplomacy institutions. He illuminates the connection between the rise of Third World influence within the General Assembly, and its concomitant efforts to transform the UN’s own public diplomacy institutions to project a Third World ideology across the globe. Organized by the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of , Third World countries co-opted the UN’s information apparatus to promote an effective and widespread condemnation of colonialism, economic and cultural imperialism, apartheid, and racism. Individually these states possessed negligible resources for public diplomacy, but collectively they harnessed the propaganda potential of the UN to further the anticolonial cause. Héctor Perla Jr. echoes this theme of the “leverage of the weak.” He assesses the ways in which Salvadoran revolutionaries mobilized opposition within the United States to the Central American policies of the Ronald Reagan administration. Perla’s study revolves around one of Pres-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



ident Reagan’s most contested foreign policy initiatives: the effort to defeat the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas in El Salvador. Despite his investments in political capital and monetary resources, not to mention his famed communications skills, Reagan never managed to garner deep support for his Central American policies from the Congress or the public. Perla explains Reagan’s failure in this regard by looking at the public diplomacy efforts of the FMLN guerillas, who worked through the U.S.-Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement to mobilize U.S. public opinion against Reagan’s policies in El Salvador. Perla’s chapter makes two especially notable contributions. First it draws attention to the ways in which weak sub-state actors have used public diplomacy to confront more powerful adversaries, often with great success (as also shown, for example, in Matthew Connelly’s excellent study of the Algerian War).28 In this way, Perla calls attention to the literature’s overemphasis on state actors and their strategies. Second, Perla’s essay demonstrates the utility of a specific methodological technique— quantitative content analysis of constituency mail—as a valuable tool for measuring the effectiveness of a public diplomacy campaign. By showcasing a method for evaluating public diplomacy success, Perla makes an especially useful contribution. As Perla points out, much of the existing literature on public diplomacy history can be faulted for not addressing systematically the issue of effectiveness. The result has been a body of literature that often assumes, or argues with little to no historical evidence, that public diplomacy has “worked” as well as its proponents have claimed. The essays in Part II of the book shift the focus to the United States and illustrate the continuing value of research that focuses on the role of public diplomacy in U.S. foreign policy. These essays complicate our understanding of how public diplomacy was conceived and implemented by the U.S. government during the “heyday” of U.S. public diplomacy: the Cold War. Justin Hart examines the intellectual and political origins of American involvement in peacetime public diplomacy in the s. He argues that the U.S. government’s decision to integrate cultural exchanges and propaganda into the foreign policy process reflected changing ideas about the

28 Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

broader nature of foreign relations. Moving beyond dominant notions of “public opinion” as an external influence upon policymakers, the principal architects of U.S. public diplomacy argued instead for a focus upon what Hart calls “public participation” in policy formulation. In their view, the emergence of the United States as a post-colonial hegemon in the age of mass communications required policymakers to accept “peoples”— at home and abroad—as an organic component of U.S. foreign policy. Such ideas were contested, however, and Hart’s essay contains a probing analysis of the seemingly unending domestic controversies that swirled around U.S. propaganda agencies at the time. Indeed, few foreign policy issues provoked more criticism than the government’s propaganda programs. FDR’s Office of War Information and Truman’s successor organizations in the State Department were under constant attack. Opponents of public diplomacy included southerners who resented the liberal message of racial harmony disseminated by U.S. agencies, budget hawks who saw public diplomacy as a wasteful boondoggle, and zealous anticommunists who perceived the pernicious influence of “alien-minded radicals.” But Hart argues that something deeper was going on here. Behind these partisan attacks lay deeply rooted differences over the very nature of U.S. foreign relations. Critics of public diplomacy rejected the very notion that culture and ideology mattered much in international affairs; they did not see how U.S. domestic affairs constituted a tangible component of the nation’s foreign relations; and they disagreed about the nature of “public participation” in foreign policy. These critics possessed “a more conventional view of propaganda as a top-down, unilateral effort to tell people abroad what to think about the United States. . . . Propaganda was to be treated as quite literally a weapon of war—psychological war—and deployed as such.” Hart concludes by situating these debates about postwar public diplomacy in the context of how “realist” policymakers and theorists like George Kennan and Hans Morgenthau conceptualized U.S. foreign policy, and how advocates of what has come to be known as “soft power” conceived of the same. Jason Parker also examines the formative period of postwar U.S. public diplomacy, taking as his focus the Truman administration’s use of public diplomacy toward the “Third World.” He thus addresses a dimension of U.S. public diplomacy history that has been woefully neglected by scholars who have focused disproportionately on U.S. cultural infiltration of Europe—a lopsided emphasis that ignores the fact that by the mid-s, the brunt of American propaganda abroad was not focused on Europe or

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



on the Soviet bloc, but on the developing world.29 Parker shows that Truman administration officials were initially preoccupied with winning the battles for hearts and minds in Europe, but gradually came to appreciate the decisive importance of the Third World—in large part because of the Soviet-American contest for influence that accompanied decolonization. He examines case studies of Truman-era public diplomacy in Latin America, South Asia, and Korea, focusing especially on the reception of the Truman doctrine and the war in Korea in those areas. Parker argues that U.S. public diplomacy efforts in these cases primarily revolved around “crisis management,” an effort to control the fall-out in public perception in those countries stemming from suspicions about American motives. The result was an ad hoc and reactive approach to public diplomacy that claimed few successes. American public diplomacy was stymied by many things—muddled thinking, technical limitations, and contradictory actions by myriad government agencies with overlapping jurisdictions. These weaknesses were accentuated with a significant conceptual shortcoming: “the Truman administration’s fundamental preoccupation with Europe, and its inclination to view events both there and beyond almost exclusively through the prism of the Cold War.” This tendency to privilege the anticommunist struggle caused American leaders to underestimate the importance of anticolonialism and contributed to the “scattershot nature” of the Truman administration’s public diplomacy in the Third World. There was also an unintended consequence on the battle for hearts and minds in the non-European world, Parker argues. American public diplomacy in the diverse regions outside the European continent helped to create the very concept of “the Third World,” an artificial construct that combined whole continents into a single conceptual entity. This fostered a sense of identity among nationalist leaders in the Third World, and it spurred the creation of a non-European geopolitical bloc. Thus, Parker concludes: “U.S. public diplomacy in areas outside Europe was meant to win over peoples there to the western side. Instead, it helped to create, in a sense, the ‘Third World.’ ” Nicholas Cull analyses the wider role of film as a mechanism of public diplomacy. He provides a narrative of the use of film by the United States Information Agency (USIA) during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. Although film has been widely recognized as one of the most

29

Osgood, Total Cold War, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

important propaganda media, it has not been systematically analyzed as an instrument of public diplomacy. Cull’s essay explores the interconnected relationship between high-level policymaking in the USIA, the lower-level exploitation of USIA films, and the contributions of individual filmmakers who were often private citizens and accomplished Hollywood producers. Cull also reveals that the USIA’s use of film evolved over the course of the Cold War. Edward R. Murrow, director of the agency for President Kennedy, played an especially important role in pushing the agency to use film in more dramatic and effective ways. As a result, many USIA films became widely seen and critically acclaimed. These included most notably the agency’s film about JFK’s assassination, John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums, which became the most widely seen of any USIA production, and Nine from Little Rock, which won the Oscar for best documentary short. USIA film declined in the late s and early s. Controversies surrounding the agency’s propaganda in support of the Vietnam War took its toll, especially when reports surfaced of “staged scenes” in the film Night of the Dragon which damaged the agency’s credibility. USIA film was resuscitated by Ronald Reagan’s director for the USIA, Charles Z. Wick, a great enthusiast for visual communication. Cull’s essay is more than just a valuable survey of USIA film propaganda: it also provides a template for scholarly analysis of the role of film in public diplomacy history. Analyses of public diplomacy often focus either on the messages conveyed by a sponsor or on how foreign audiences received and reacted to these messages. This methodology erroneously implies that public diplomacy campaigns are static, and emerge, deus ex machina style, from beyond. To fully understanding the nature of public diplomacy, it is necessary to take a closer look at the process of message formation, and how the themes of propaganda campaigns evolve in practice. The essays by Helge Danielsen and Michael Krenn explore how the process of devising and implementing public diplomacy campaigns could change both the message and the tactics of public diplomacy. Helge Danielsen explores the ways in which local conditions in Norway forced an adaptation of the U.S. public diplomacy strategy devised by the U.S. Information Agency in Washington. Tracing the development of the U.S. public diplomacy in Norway in the s, he shows how a program that was heavily dominated by the central ambitions of USIA headquarters was modified during the course of the decade. Increasingly, it placed more weight on local conditions for carrying out the program in the field. These conditions included Norwegian reactions to develop-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



ments in the Cold War itself, the influence from competing public diplomacy campaigns (particularly those of the USSR), local political developments, and national prejudices and preferences—as understood by the public diplomats working in the field. In the early s, the cultural and informational program was predominantly based on the image of America that politicians and officials in Washington, DC, wanted to convey. Approaching , the program was to a higher degree influenced by the image of Norway held by Foreign Service and other American staff working in that country—and of their images of how Norwegians regarded America. This development affected not only the content of the public diplomacy messages, but the means and strategies for transmitting those messages. The result was a more culturally sophisticated, flexible, and effective form of public diplomacy in Norway. Michael L. Krenn shows how American domestic politics could transform the message of U.S. public diplomacy abroad. He does so by comparing two exhibits of Appalachian culture that were sent overseas first in  and again in . In both cases, the U.S. government organized and financed an elaborate display of artifacts and performers dealing with Appalachian culture. Although both shows featured similar content and were separated by a mere six years, the messages conveyed in each case differed dramatically. In , Appalachian culture served as a shining example of how the American government was alleviating the nation’s pressing economic and social problems through Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” social programs. By , the political landscape had changed and so did the message. With Richard Nixon’s more conservative approach to government and the Great Society a fading memory, Appalachia was now presented to the world differently. Instead of accentuating the role of government in bringing change to Appalachia, the exhibit now stressed self-help and rugged individualism; these qualities would bridge the gap between the backward and the modern, the poor and the prosperous. Appalachia now appeared as a symbol of how the tensions between the modern, industrial world and the underdeveloped world could be ameliorated. Viewed comparatively, the two exhibits highlight how the changing domestic political climate and the dictates of American foreign policy could influence the tone and nature of U.S. public diplomacy. Krenn’s study serves as a reminder that U.S. public diplomacy during the Cold War was far from static and unchanging. It evolved perceptibly over time, and not just in response to changes in the international environment or shifts in American foreign policy. Evolving domestic political conditions

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



kenneth osgood & brian c. etheridge

and shifting political ideologies compelled the practitioners of America’s public diplomacy to change the message and apply very different strategies to achieve their goals. Giles Scott-Smith investigates one of the least understood mechanisms of public diplomacy: exchange programs. He analyzes the most prestigious of the U.S. government’s exchanges, the Department of State’s International Visitor Program (IVP), and makes a persuasive case for its effectiveness. Scott-Smith uses two case studies from the s to demonstrate how the International Visitor Program, in combination with other exchanges such as the Fulbright Program, was successfully employed to establish and build transatlantic channels of informal empire in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives. His first case concerns the effort to cultivate good relations with the British Labour Party. The U.S. Embassy in London hoped to mitigate the anti-nuclear and neutralist strains in British foreign policy by using the IVP program to nurture contacts with young, talented, up-and-coming members of the party such as future leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. His second case covers the expansion of U.S. public diplomacy activities in the Netherlands in response to the political crisis surrounding the placement of Cruise Missiles in the early s. The Netherlands became a crucial ideological battleground as Dutch public and parliamentary resistance to American nuclear policies threatened to force the government of the Netherlands to back out of its NATO commitments. In both the Dutch and British cases, ScottSmith suggests, U.S. exchanges helped develop a body of favorable opinion in policy-making circles and fostered a more positive profile of the United States among the wider public. Ultimately, Scott-Smith makes the broader claim that since WWII exchange programs have made an important contribution toward meeting the objectives of U.S. foreign policy. He notes that, since its inception in , the International Visitor Program has brought over , people to the United States,  of whom thereafter became head of state or government. In addition to Blair and Brown, other famous examples included Margaret Thatcher, Nicolas Sarkozy, Ehud Olmert, and Hamid Karzai. To understand the political significance of such exchanges, ScottSmith argues, one needs to adopt a more subtle understanding of power and influence, one that explores the “sociology of international relations” and the networks linking institutions and individuals across borders. In this respect, the IVP functioned as an ideal tool for managing “informal empire.” It furthered U.S. interests without requiring direct political control.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the new international history



If the past is prologue, the themes explored in the volume will likely comprise the themes that define the future of public diplomacy history: the relationship between cultural relations and propaganda; the impact of domestic politics on public diplomacy programs; the ways in which ethnic-groups have acted as both targets and agents of public diplomacy campaigns; the role of private individuals, non-state actors, transnational groups, and non-governmental organizations in international public diplomacy; the effectiveness of public diplomacy campaigns; the relationship between “hard” and “soft” power; and the function of public diplomacy in maintaining formal or informal empire. In a crucial sense, how we understand and analyze these complex and important issues will go a long way toward determining the proper place of public diplomacy in international relations.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

part i PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AS INTERNATIONAL HISTORY

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter one THE ANOMALY OF THE COLD WAR: CULTURAL DIPLOMACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY SINCE 1850 Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht* Professor Cuno von Uechtritz-Steinkirch was a renowned art expert, a member of the Dresden sculptor school who made himself a name with a memorial on the Berlin Siegesallee (Victory Avenue) and several decorative fountain wells. Appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, he also belonged to a variety of professional associations and committees, such as the Vereinigung Berliner Architekten (Association of Berlin Architects) and the jury of the international art exhibition of the Verein Berliner Künstler (Association of Berlin Artists). Most of all, von Uechtritz was deeply concerned about the export of German art overseas, notably to the United States, a nation which had raised the import tax on art from   in the s to   in . It is thus no surprise that Von Uechtritz became deeply involved in the planning of the German contribution to the World’s Fair in St. Louis in . He worried profoundly about the preponderance of French paintings on the international art market. In , this artist-professor wrote a letter to the German Foreign Office which recommended that German artists should visit U.S. studios in preparation for the fair. Always keeping grand strategy in mind, he propounded that “like Steuben organized the American army, Germans organize American art.”1 German art might inspire a sense of pro-German feelings among foreign observers abroad, and become a more powerful instrument for diplomacy than political treatises could ever be.2

* Vielen Dank an Michael Krenn, Brian Etheridge, Kenneth Osgood and the participants of the Ohio State University conference on public diplomacy for their comments, criticism and suggestions. 1 C. v. Uechtritz, Kgl. Professor, an AA, Berlin,  February , R  / , Bl. –, BA. 2 Ekkehard Mai, “Präsentation und Repräsentativität—interne Probleme deutscher Kunstausstellungen im Ausland (–),” Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch  ():

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

We know today that the St. Louis show was not a success for Germany. The number of visitors remained scant while the sales records indicated depressing profits. Women dominated the art market in America, a secretary of the German embassy in Washington concluded, and American ladies did not like historical paintings portraying little known scenes from the German past, not to mention those depicting the consumption of alcoholic libations.3 We could write off this story as a mere incident in the history of German art. But there are two noteworthy aspects about it: one is that the government left the responsibility for the show to an artist and academic otherwise not connected to the Reich. The other is that this artist, von Uechtritz, put pressure on the government for promoting Germany’s image in the world—not vice versa. Von Uechtritz’s singlehanded claim—that as an artist, he knew what was good for culture and for foreign relations, and he knew it better than government officials— represents a theme running through the entire history of cultural diplomacy prior to World War One. And it is also a topic revisiting us today, in the world post- / , with all the promises and risks included. This essay takes a broad look at the history of cultural diplomacy since the th century to ask a simple question and to conclude with a central thesis. The question: how does contemporary cultural diplomacy, notably after  / , compare to previous cultural strategies run by the state? The answer: complicated as this history may be, cultural diplomacy today resembles increasingly the structures developed in the th century— more so than the far-reaching, cost-intensive propaganda machines we so well remember from the second half of the th century. In historical retrospective, the information and exchange programs developed by both superpowers after  mark an aberration rather than the norm. Never before and never afterwards did governments, hegemonic powers, NGOs and private individuals invest as much money, energy, and thought in the promotion of the arts, academic exchange and cultural self-presentation as they did during the Cold War.4 Never again did peo-

–; Reiner Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika: Die USA in der Politik der Reichsleitung, – (Cologne, Vienna: Böhlau, ), . 3 Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika, –; Mai, “Präsentation und Repräsentativität,” –; Peter Paret, “Art and the National Image: The Conflict over Germany’s Participation in the St. Louis Exposition,” Central European History  (): –. 4 An NGO, in the words of Akira Iriye, is a “voluntary nonstate, nonprofit, nonreligious, and nonmilitary association.” Akira Iriye, Global Community: The Role of Interna-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



ple around the world enjoy so many state-subsidized performances, exhibitions and shows as during these decades. In other words, the mechanics of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War proved the exception rather than the rule regarding the motivations and administrative procedures of cultural diplomacy. In the broader context of “rethinking” public diplomacy, I suggest to dissociate the investigation of this topic from its close analytical connection to the post-World War II era. Cultural diplomacy has emerged as a key topic in U.S. diplomatic history since Frank Ninkovich published the path-breaking Diplomacy of Ideas in . Even though some historians have begun recently to look at other countries,5 much of the research published during the ensuing decades concentrates on the Cold War and the role of the United States.6 The fundamental premise is that cultural diplomacy became a key instrument of international policy when the United States sought to contain the Soviet Union. As a result, the term and the study of “cultural diplomacy”—and public diplomacy at that— continues to be linked to state control, political manipulation, and structural subordination, a side effect of hardcore geopolitical diplomacy, military treaties, and grand strategy. In this essay, I want to challenge historians as well as cultural diplomats to recast their understanding of this topic in a context not defined by the policies of a specific era but by structural commonalities across time. Rather than focusing on the policy—“what was done to what purpose”— we need to further expand our analysis of the “who did it and how.” Specifically, this essay addresses the differences between the cultural diplomacy of the nineteenth and the twentieth century with an eye to the post  /  world. For if we desire to understand what makes cultural diplomacy and its agents tick, what works and what does not work, and tional Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), . 5 Johannes Paulmann, ed. Auswärtige Repräsentationen: Deutsche Kulturpolitik nach  (Cologne: Böhlau, ); Eckard Michels, Von der Deutschen Akademie zum GoetheInstitut: Sprach- und auswärtige Kulturpolitik, – (Munich: Oldenbourg, ); Ulrike Stoll, Kulturpolitik als Beruf: Dieter Sattler (–) in München, Bonn und Rom (Padernborn: Schöningh, ). 6 Volker R. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ); Laura A. Belmonte, Selling America: Propaganda, National Identity, and the Cold War (University of Pennsylvania Press, ); Walter Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War, – (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

how to analyze this topic, we need to make a serious effort to soft pedal our ongoing fascination with the Cold War. Finally, a note on the terminology of this essay: In the Anglo-American political vocabulary, authors make a difference between cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy. Nicholas Cull, for example, ranks cultural diplomacy as a tool or subset of public diplomacy.7 But in the dictionary of other languages and cultures we do not find such a distinction, partly because the structures of this policy or phenomenon vary so tremendously among nations.8 For example, German administrators talk about foreign cultural policy (auswärtige Kulturpolitik) rather than cultural diplomacy, a term that allows for a more fluid interchange between governmental and nongovernmental efforts. It is thus difficult to find a common international denominator for an action used internationally in a highly heterogeneous manner. For the purpose of this essay, I define public diplomacy as a government’s effort to engage formally or informally with the people—or population—of a geographical region living outside the territorial borders administered by this government. Cultural diplomacy, in turn, entails the effort to create a cultural liaison between or among people living in two or more different regions. The purpose and effect of each policy or venture (e.g., defy the enemy, instill ideological values, create a dialogue, listen to other people) does not affect the definition; it is the structural procedure that matters and its only variation— broad as it may seem—remains that it can be performed formally, informally or covertly. Cultural diplomacy thus can be, but is not necessarily part of, public diplomacy.

Cultural Diplomacy in the Nineteenth Century Through much of the twentieth century critics have scolded the United States for aggressively exporting its culture, especially after World War Two, when the government became the key propagandist of American ideas, values, and consumer goods. Today, we benefit from an avalanche of studies investigating the manifold initiatives, programs, and covert activities dedicated to the ideological confrontation with the Soviet 7 Nicholas J. Cull, Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past, USC Center on Public Diplomacy/Figueroa Press, Los Angeles,  http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/publications/perspectives/CPDPerspectivesLess ons.pdf  (accessed  January ) 8 Ernst Kux, “ ‘Public Diplomacy’—eine Erfindung der Schweiz?,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung,  March .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



Union. Many of these programs vanished in the aftermath of the Cold War. True, the s saw a brief reorientation of U.S. cultural diplomacy towards Eastern Europe, notably in the sector of civic education. After the terrorist attacks of  September  the Bush administration invested resources and high-profile personnel into its overseas public diplomacy campaigns. Still, these steps represented a far cry from the structure and programs enacted by the United States Information Agency around the world beginning in . Funds and personnel in the cultural divisions of U.S. embassies and consulates are dwindling, often much to the concern of the local public which well remembers the benefits of these institutions in the past decades. In , the U.S. consulate closed one of the last Amerika Häuser in Frankfurt am Main with a jazz concert as the mood of the visitors came close to that exhibited at a funeral. Curiously, the building is now being used by Spanish cultural diplomats and the Instituto de Cervantes (Cervantes Institute), for their own activities. The heyday of American cultural diplomacy seems to be over. It does not help much that many European administrators are regarding themselves as the United States’ proper inheritors of global cultural diplomacy. Some people say this is an appropriate development. The government should not mess with culture, least of all sponsor its export. Others believe that the benefits of cultural exchange outweigh the risks incurred by political involvement. Both sides agree that the Cold War represented a unique situation which legitimized overt and covert cultural diplomacy to an unprecedented degree. The question they ask is whether this exceptional situation should be extended into the st century. In this debate, we often forget that Cold War cultural diplomacy and propaganda originated in a set of precedents established by other countries during the previous centuries. Since the s, European governments and private associations as well as individuals have undertaken a variety of cultural exchange programs, though they did not always hope to spread their empire by exporting their culture. The Spaniards in Latin America, the French in Indochina, the British in India and the Middle East, and the Germans in Africa all transported their own culture abroad as an influential tool to strengthen trade, commerce, and political influence and to recruit intellectual and economic elites for their own purposes abroad. In the tale of the rise and fall of cultural hegemonies over the past centuries, the United States represents one of many empires and one that, ironically, began as a receiver of other countries’ cultural expansion during the nineteenth century.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

In the decades following the  Congress of Vienna, the major European powers began to compete with one another for all kinds of things, including prestige, economic superiority, industrial output, and colonial possessions. These aspirations were best articulated in the various world expositions, such as the one in London in  and the two in Paris in  and . Until World War Two, world expositions primarily focused on trade but also represented a platform for the state of the art in science and technology from around the world. As Wolfram Kaiser has argued, manufacturers, private individuals, and artists often played the decisive role in the selection of exhibition subjects. The state restricted its function to the organization of the individual contributions.9 Beyond those well-documented aspirations, the major European powers also competed for cultural preponderance in the United States. They exported agents and artifacts perceived to represent their respective national cultural scenes. The principal agents of cultural transmission and exchange were nongovernmental individuals and organizations. Let us travel to France for a moment: in , Americans commonly dismissed France as corrupt, a nation ruled by opportunist republicans. French people seemed unable to create economic and social innovation; France’s population stagnated. To counter this perception, French propagandists based in the United States developed a multitude of programs. Though in line with state policy, their strategies relegated the government to the background. The Alliance Française (French Alliance) posed formally as an independent association founded in  to promote French language and culture abroad. The Alliance targeted the United States as its most fertile ground for civilization. Before , the Alliance established so called “committees” in various U.S. metropolitan areas, inculding San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. It also inspired seminars in smaller cities such as Kansas City and Dallas. On the eve of the St. Louis World Fair, the organization had more than , adherents in the United States.10 The Alliance Française constituted a remarkable

9 Wolfram Kaiser, “Cultural Transfer of Free Trade at the World Exhibitions, – ,” Journal of Modern History  (): –; Wolfram Kaiser, “The Great Derby Race: Strategies of Cultural Representation at Nineteenth-Century World Exhibitions,” in Culture and International History, ed. Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, ), –. 10 Peter Grupp, “Vorraussetzungen und Praxis deutscher amtlicher Kulturpropaganda in den neutralen Staaten während des Ersten Weltkrieges,” in Der Erste Weltkrieg: Wirkung, Wahrnehmung und Analyse, ed. Wolfgang Michalka (Munich: Piper, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



instrument for the export of French culture; it operated like an NGO while supporting state objectives. Next to language, the fine arts constituted another venue for informal French cultural diplomacy. From the mid-nineteenth century on, representatives and salesmen of French impressionism held a prominent influence on American culture, art, and architecture. French efforts to boost impressionism abroad lasted well into the twentieth century and, ironically, much longer than in Europe.11 Officially, the French government played a minor role but it retained a minimum of control through the École des Beaux-Arts, its Academy, and the annual (or biannual) salon. The Ministry of Fine Arts selected the exhibitioners, picked themes, and awarded art works. Those winners of the awards were typically singled out for export.12 Notwithstanding high U.S. tariffs on foreign art, professional French dealers like Cadart or Vibert & Cie. established famous and lucrative galleries in the United States to make French paintings available on the American market.13 Because they registered U.S. reactions firsthand, these art merchants were even more aware of their influence in the United States than the painters whose artwork they sold.14 According to a study produced in  by the German Generalkonsulat (which took a great interest in the matter) in New York, fifty-seven percent of all paintings imported to the United States originated in France.15 Following the appeal of French art, aspiring American painters such as Frank W. Benson and William Glackens turned to France to learn their trade from the world’s great masters.16

11

Marc Fumaroli, L’Etat culturel: une religion moderne (Paris: Editions de Fallois, ); Guy Debord, La société du spectacle (Paris: Gallimard, ). 12 Lois M. Fink, American Art at the th Century Paris Salons (New York: Cambridge University Press, ); Pierre Miquel, Art et argent –: l’ecole de la nature (Maurs-La-Jolie: Martinelle, , ), :–, –. 13 Lois M. Fink, “French Art in the United States, –: Three Dealers and Collectors,” Gazette des Beaux Arts (September ): . 14 Annie Cohen-Solal, Un jour, ils auront des peintres: L’avènement des peintres américains, Paris —New York  (Paris: Editions Gallimard, ). 15 Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika, –; Mai, “Präsentation und Repräsentativität,” –; Fink, American Art at the th Century Paris Salons, –. 16 Barbara H. Weinberg, Doreen Bolger, and David Park Curry, eds, American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, – (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ); Jean-Paul Carlhian, “L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Its Influence on American Architects and American Architecture, –,” Two Hundred Years of Franco-American Relations: Papers of the Bicentennial Colloquium of the Society for French Historical Studies in Newport, Rhode Island, September –, , eds. Nancy L. Roelker and Charles K. Warner, S. (n.p: Heffernan Press, ?), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

On the eve of the twentieth century, these initiatives bore fruit: now France enjoyed the best cultural reputation in the United States. French literature, poetry and art were held in high respect among American artists as well as the public at large,17 while France—and Paris, in particular—advanced to the cultural capital of the world. Until World War Two, French propagandists continued to sell French culture in the United States hoping to improve and foster the Franco-American political liaison.18 On the other side of the channel, British leaders faced tremendous challenges in their rather stormy relationship with the United States. As a result of tense political relations throughout the nineteenth century, many American observers thought of Great Britain as a despotic regime run by the aristocracy. The War of , England’s ambivalent policy during the Civil War, economic competition, conflicts over tariffs and fishery interests in the Bering Sea, the British presence in Canada, and conflicting goals in Asia and the Caribbean strained relations between the two nations to no small extent. Curiously, though, these crises served to foster the underlying readiness for an intensifying cultural rapprochement. Since the early s British culture had enjoyed a special place in the imagination of American elites.19 Anglo-American Victorianism was “middle class,” transatlantic, and English-speaking. It focused on Protestantism, an orientation toward the future, and a strict behavioral code, including self-righteousness and competition. It entailed taste, fashion, and customs. Thus, from a cultural point of view, Americans continuously looked to Great Britain for leadership.20 It was thus not a coincidence that nineteenth century Anglo-American novels abounded with protagonists traveling back and forth between British and American metropolises. Such readings contributed to a growing transatlantic mutual appreciation, as did transatlantic travel, mass printing, and telecommunication. British art17 Frank Trommler, “Inventing the Enemy: German-American Cultural Relations, –,” in Hans-Jürgen Schröder, Confrontation and Cooperation: Germany and the United States in the Era of World War I, –, ; Jacques Portes, “L’européanisation des Etats-Unis vue par les Français (–),” Revue française d’études américaines  (): –. 18 Robert J. Young, Marketing Marianne: French Propaganda in America, – (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, ). 19 Christopher Hitchens, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, ), . 20 Daniel Walker Howe, “Victorian Culture in America,” in Victorian America, ed. Geoffrey Blodgett et al. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



ists, businessmen, academics, and casual observers regularly visited the eastern coast and traveled to the Midwest. Their American counterparts ventured into districts far beyond the precincts of London.21 American elites also developed a hunger for old world knowledge and education and they sent their children to British upper-class schools. Oxford philosopher Cecil Rhodes founded a scholarship allowing growing numbers of U.S. students to spend time at Oxford in order to strengthen the expansion of British customs, views, and rule throughout the world.22 Love, kin, and marital ties likewise strengthened the amity between both nations, often disguised as a casual love match between two economically or socially aspiring families. Many members of the British aristocracy needed cash; many American families were craving for a shot of blue blood in their often obscure family trees. As a result, marriage brokers on both sides of the Atlantic did their best to match up British nobles and American money in matrimony. More than five hundred such weddings were celebrated in the decades before World War One, and each of them produced social, cultural and political ties.23 To German officials and associations monitoring these activities, these developments constituted troublesome news. They worried profoundly. In essence, they feared that they would lose the European competition for U.S. affection. After all, how could Germans compete with French art and British blue blood? The language barrier seemed to block German poetry and literature from the broader American public. The interest of American students in German universities likewise declined toward the end of the nineteenth century. German artists had never made a significant impression in the United States, at least not to the extent that they could compete with the import of French paintings. And in regard to love affairs, U.S. elites did not consider German nobles to be a particularly successful catch, even though there were exceptions.24

21

Hitchens, Blood, Class and Nostalgia, . Thomas J. Schaeper and Kathleen Schaeper, Cowboys into Gentlemen: Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite (New York: Berghahn Books, ); Hitchens, Blood, Class and Nostalgia, –. 23 Dana Cooper, “Informal Ambassadors: American Women, Transatlantic Marriages, and Anglo-Amerian Relations, –,” (Ph.D. diss., Texas Christian University), . 24 “Marriage in Germany,” n.p., n.d., Adelaide Kalkman, musical scrapbooks, VI, Missouri Historical Society. 22

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

Nonetheless, the Germans tried hard. For example, the German Kaiser proposed to donate a number of artifacts to the United States, designed to become the foundation of a large collection in the Germanic Museum at Harvard University; that collection is today the Busch-Reisinger-Museum at Harvard while the original building houses the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. The list of donors for the museum gives us an inkling of who, exactly, was in favor of warm contacts to the United States. Among the sponsors for German donations to the museum were professors, artists, publishers, as well as German royals, a number of German and German-American associations such as the Kaiser-Wilhelm Stiftung (founded in –), entrepreneurs who were interested in a lucrative trade with the United States, such as Ernst Borsig, the Siemens brothers, as well as several bankers from Frankfurt and Hamburg.25 The German cultural initiative also encompassed an art exchange program that not only proved completely futile but also revealed precisely why nineteenth-century governments in Europe remained so reluctant to run cultural exchanges. For one thing, officials were divided in their interpretation of such exchange. Some believed that the function of art was to soothe international frictions, while others, notably the Foreign Office, had hardly any interest at all in art exchange. There was also the question of what, exactly, constituted German art. The Imperial Reich government found contemporary art too radical for an international exhibition while radiating landscapes seemed more appropriate to the Kaiser in Berlin.26 In any case, German artists could simply not compete with the French monopoly. Save for a few nineteenth century painters such as Adolph Menzel, German painters did not make significant inroads in the United States before World War One. But if German poets, painters, and grooms did not appeal to the American public, German musicians certainly did. Before , classical music composed in German-speaking countries, German conductors, musicians, musicology, and music pedagogy virtually monopolized the American music scene. Music was synonymous with German. U.S. cities such as St. Louis and Boston established philharmonics run by men like Leopold Damrosch in New York or Theodore Thomas in Chicago. These

25 Bernard vom Brocke, “Der deutsch-amerikanische Professorenaustausch: Preussische Wissenschaftspolitik, internationale Wissenschaftsbeziehungen und die Anfänge einer deutschen auswärtigen Kulturpolitik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg.” Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch  (): –; Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika, –. 26 Mai, “Präsentation und Repräsentativität,” –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



men had come to the United States from Central Europe and they were often driven by an almost missionary zeal to educate U.S. audiences in classical music, a zeal that echoed the German Reich’s increasing propensity to spread Kultur across the globe. The art of Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach created exactly the kind of respect and emotional penchant for Germany that Reich officials liked to see. In respect, the legacy of Germany’s informal cultural diplomacy lasted much longer than the German Kaiserreich.27 Like the arts in France or the marriage market in Great Britain, German music forms another formidable prism for our understanding of nineteenth-century cultural diplomacy in Europe. For all the musical enthusiasm on the part of the German Kaiser and his subjects, the Reich government remained lukewarm to proposals of musical exports. Private societies, concert agencies, individual sponsors, and artists sought to spread German music in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. They hoped to solicit the moral and administrative support of local embassies, consulates, and foreign offices. But when they appealed to the government to support tours and performances, they were often rejected for no good reason. The number one reason for the failure of most proposals, it seems, was their presumed lack of quality or qualification on the part of the organizers. Officials agonized that state-sponsored performances would distort the government’s credibility as well as the reputation of German music abroad. They preferred to stay altogether out of such missions.28

The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations As we have seen up to this point, prior to World War I, the role of nongovernmental actors and associations was key to the European nations’ cultural liaisons among themselves and with countries outside of Europe. Such national and international nongovernmental organizations were not out of the ordinary. Volker Rittberger has argued that the development of the modern system of independent and sovereign states following the Westphalian Peace of  encouraged a decentered self-help

27 Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, – (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ). 28 Ibid, chapter .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

system for security and communication.29 By the late th century, there were numerous international and national nongovernmental organizations dedicated to issues such as health, peace, ideology, and international communication.30 Monitored but not controlled by state governments, an army of bankers, businessmen, artists, intellectuals, private men and women sought to create relations with people around the world. Even though they were not explicitly in the pay of their respective governments, their actions achieved a desired political effect: international recognition, image creation, and “nation branding,” the mental association and management of a country with specific goods, talents, looks, or achievements. Consider again the case of Wilhelminian Germany. German foreign cultural policy—to use the terminology of the time—embraced active and non-active, conscious and unconscious, endeavors of cultural diplomacy. As the historian Kurt Düwell has persuasively shown, both the activities of policy makers as well as those by private organizations and individuals can be equally titled cultural foreign policy.31 In the Far East, the Middle East, Latin and South America, on the Balkans, and all over West, Central and East Europe, German patriotic associations did their foremost to spread what many called the “German idea in the world.” These so-called associations for foreign affairs (Auslandsvereine) formed the avant-garde of German foreign cultural and economic diplomacy. Their names often denoted their intentions: There was the GermanFrench League (Deutsch-Französische Liga) in Munich, founded in  by Heinrich Molenaar, a modern linguist who tried to foster mutual understanding but also vaccination for the prevention of contagious

29

Volker Rittberger, Internationale Organisationen: Politik und Geschichte: Europäische und weltweite zwischenstaatliche Zusammenschlüsse (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, ), . 30 Notably in the U.S. and Europe, numerous peace associations tried to further mutual international understanding and organized international peace conferences. In his classic review of international nongovernmental organizations in the th century, F.S. Lyons calculates that only four such were created between –. Less than one hundred years later, between  and , there were ,  of which were still active at mid-century. F.S. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, – (Leyden: A.W. Sythoff, ), . See also John Boli and George M. Thomas, eds., Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since (Stanford: Stanford University Press, ). 31 Kurt Düwell and Werner Link, eds., Deutsche auswärtige Kulturpolitik seit  (Cologne, Vienna: Böhlau, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



diseases.32 There were the German-Persian Economic Association, the German-Egyptian Society, the East Asian Association Hamburg, the German-Asian Society in Berlin, the Association for the Export of German Teaching and Learning Material to China, the German Theater in South America Limited, the German-Mexican Society, the Munich Council for Germanness in Ibero-American Countries in Hamburg, the German-American Association for the Maintenance of Friendly Relations between German and America in Berlin, and the Rhein-DonauBund in Kassel.33 There also were many central institutions ready to coordinate these activities, such as the Society for the Promotion of German Foreign Cultural Diplomacy.34 The make-up of these organizations varied but they were typically run by business interests or cultural groups. The German-Turkish Association (DTV) in Berlin, for example, was founded on  February . The original idea for the foundation of the German-Turkish Association was the creation of a German-Turkish University in . As such, the association constituted a central part of Germany’s new cultural diplomacy in Turkey after the end of the first Balkan War. It became one of the most influential German Auslandsvereine, even during the war. The Association counted nearly , members with local and national groups, a yearly income of more than , marks and assets of , marks. Its foremost aim was to establish a school in Adana with qualified teachers and adequate learning materials. In the following years, the Verein also supported and created numerous language courses and propaganda schools (Propaganda-Schulen) with lucrative financial subsidies, loans, grants, and teaching personnel. Flyers published by the DTV and sent to manufacturers across Germany highlighted the economic results of such cultural programs: “We shall begin the export of spiritual goods to tie the hearts and minds of the native population to us. Every Ottoman who speaks our language, who reads German books, 32 Jürgen Kloosterhuis, Friedliche Imperialisten: Deutsche Auslandsvereine und auswärtige Kulturpolitik, – (New York: Peter Lang, ), . 33 Original titles: Deutsch-Persischer Wirtschaftverband, Deutsch-Ägyptische Gesellschaft, Ostasiatischer Verein (Hamburg), Deutsch-Asiatische Gesellschaft, Berlin, Verein zum Export Deutscher Lehr- und Lernmittel nach China, Deutsche Theater in Südamerika GmbH, Hamburg, Deutsch-Mexikanische Gesellschaft, Münchener Ausschuss für das Deutschtum in den Ibero-Amerikanischen Ländern, Deutsch-Amerikanischer Verein zur Pflege freundschaftlicher Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Amerika, Berlin, Rhein-Donau-Bund, Kassel. 34 The Gesellschaft zur Förderung Deutscher Auswärtiger Kulturpolitik was founded in .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

who recovered in a German hospital, will be a friend of our culture, a consumer of German goods.”35 To  the German-Turkish Association’s three chairmen were all members of Deutsche Bank while the first vice chairman, Hjalmar Schacht, was deputy director of Dresdener Bank and a member of the committee of direction of the German National Bank. Other board members were members of the transatlantic shipping company HAPAG, the Anatolian Railroad Association Corporation, and various banks. Governmental politics played a minor role: only Kurt Becker came directly from the Prussian Cultural Ministry, and he joined DTV as late as . The association’s board likewise formed a medley of individual interests in German-Turkish affairs, such as booksellers, publishers, bankers, and manufacturers. Chairman M. Kosegarten was a member of the German Arms and Ammunition Factories (Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken); Chairman Dr. G. Marwitz came from the Curtain and Laces Company in Dresden (Dresdener Gardinen- und Spitzenmanufaktur AG); and Prof. Dr. C. Duisberg from the paint coloring industry in Elberfeld (Elberfelder Farbwerke AG). There were academic interests as well: Assessor Prof. Dr. Ed. Sachau was the Director of the Seminar for Oriental Languages. Dr. Aob. Ahn, member of the board, was a publisher. And board member Dr. O. Soehring was the principal of the German school in Constantinople. Most importantly, the DTV’s ties to the German government remained scant. While some members of the Beirat worked in the Prussian cultural ministry, the organization itself was funded and administered on a completely independent basis. The Foreign Office made it very clear from the beginning that its own funds were limited and not available for the goals of the DTV.36 The DTV did not constitute a singular case. Most German NGOs with foreign interests walked a tightrope between cultural imperialism and what Gerhard Weidenfeller has called the “battle of folklore” (Volkstumkampf). Organizations such as the General German School Association (Allgemeine Deutsche Schulverein, later Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland, VDA) hoped to maintain and promote Germanness abroad. Its members were amateurs and experts in statistics, geography, 35 J.H. Russack, “Türkische Jugend in Deutschland”, in Türkische Jugend in Deutschland, ed. DTV,  f. Cit. in Kloosterhuis, Friedliche Imperialisten, . 36 For a comprehensive review of the DTV, see Kloosterhuis, Friedliche Imperialisten, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



history, but also mountaineers and friends of South Tyrol. They collectively believed that the assimilation of Germans in Italy, the Baltics, or Hungary constituted a grave disservice to German culture and politics, and sought to contain it wherever possible. Without any encouragement from the state but with the help of German schools, libraries, books, exhibitions, teachers and other means, they strove to “maintain the Germans outside of the Reich for Germanness and to support them as much as possible in their efforts to remain or become again Germans.”37 Patriotism and nationalism, that is, had a strong impact on organizations like the VDA. Accordingly, they constituted both an influential force and a recipient of their surrounding climate. From the above, it is clear that nineteenth century NGOs were numerous, prominent, and very active in cultural diplomacy. They commonly believed that governments were not well-suited to solve specific national and international challenges. They derived their legitimacy precisely from the conviction that non-state actors had a better grip on some problems than politically elected or appointed administrators. One such problem was the establishment, maintenance, and improvement of cultural contacts with other countries, especially the United States, where French language teachers and art merchants, British university dons and marriage brokers, and German professors and musicians strove to enhance the image of their respective homelands. Two things matter about all these initiatives in the context of cultural diplomacy: first, in their motivation, content, and strategy the German, French and British strategies of cultural diplomacy did not differ much from each other. As we have seen, both the British and the Germans developed an academic exchange program with minimal governmental influence. Incidentally, the remnants of the British program are still with us today in the form of the highly prestigious Rhodes scholarship program. When exporting their art, the Germans simply followed the French model, albeit with much less success. Second, if anything, the activities of private individuals and NGOs amounted to a political force that both pleased and worried officials everywhere: on the one hand, private individuals and NGOs performed a political act in line with their governments’ interest. On the other,

37 Gerhard Weidenfeller, “Der VDA zwischen ‘Volkstumkampf ’ und Kulturimperialismus,” in Interne Faktoren auswärtiger Kulturpolitik im . und . Jahrhundert, ed. Kurt Düwell (Stuttgart: Eugen Heinz, ), –, quote p. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

administrators feared these organizations might do more harm than good to their nation’s prestige abroad.38

Risks and Promises of Nongovernmental Cultural Diplomacy Such cultural diplomacy efforts differed from what we have come to know and study during the twentieth century. Before World War One, nongovernmental groups and individuals busily traveled on the international culture circuit. Officials and political observers offered diplomatic advice and monitored the arts and academic exchanges, but gladly left the bulk of cultural exchange to non-governmental initiatives. European government administrators gave private individuals primary responsibility for cultural diplomacy.39 Yet putting such power into the hands of the people carried risks, for less governmental involvement also meant less governmental control. Collectively, the activities and enthusiasm of these individuals and NGOs amounted to a political force that often frightened officials who feared they might actually damage their nations’ prestige abroad.40 What worried officials most was the perceived radicalism and independence on the part of many nongovernmental groups. An intense—and often localized—nationalism marked the public discourse over foreign relations in all countries. Secret societies, churches, popular images, architecture, maps, and souvenirs, all revealed a strong belief in the nation as a metaphor that encompassed local, regional, religious, gender, political, and cultural identities. Patriotic associations such as the Action Française in France or the Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (VDA) and private individuals like Ernst Borsig, the director of the Deutsche Bank in Germany, constituted some of the most significant influences in foreign relations. These patriotic associations believed they had a better grasp of their respective national interests than their weak governments, and they often threatened to turn issues of marginal diplomatic interest into disputes over life and death, mortal clashes in which national honor was at stake.41

38 Military attaché, German embassy, Washington, D.C., to Auswärtiges Amt,  November , cit. in Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika, . 39 Gienow-Hecht, Sound Diplomacy, –. 40 Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika, . 41 Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger, and Rolf-Harald Wippich, Vermiedene Kriege: Deeskalation von Konflikten der Grossmächte zwischen Krimkrieg und Erstem Weltkrieg (Munich:

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



Thus governmental officials all across Europe realized early on that civil groups could act in the name of the state. But once they let the demon off the leash it was impossible to restrain him. This, then, was the dilemma of nineteenth-century dilemma cultural diplomacy: governments agreed that the promotion of international cultural ties was not part of their job. French, German and British nongovernmental actors involved in education, music, and the arts pursued specific goals to improve their image in the United States and solicit U.S. political support. Collectively, their efforts amounted to what we define as cultural diplomacy. This pleased their respective governments for their obvious returns: no administrative and financial investment— many international contacts and, hopefully, political gain. But at the same time, governments realized that their lack of involvement meant a lack of control which threatened disaster. Even if cultural diplomacy was not the job of the state, the state had to cope with the immediate consequences, including disharmony, antagonism, animosity, hostility, perhaps even conflict and war.

For Comparison: Cultural Diplomacy during the Short Twentieth Century The cultural wars of the nineteenth century, such as those described above, constituted elements of the competition among the European empires. This competition centered on power, wealth, and influence. In many ways, the Cold War and its propaganda battles represented a continuation of the clashes between empires in the realm of ideas and culture. In the nineteenth century, nations used cultural messages to advance their political and economic interests in a contest with rival empires just like the United States and the Soviet Union manipulated culture and ideology in an effort to win the battle for hearts and minds.

Oldenbourg, ), ; Roger Chickering, “Patriotische Vereine im europäischen Vergleich,” in Europa um , ed. Fritz Klein and Karl-Otmar v. Aretin (Berlin [Ost]: Akademie Verlag, ), –; Eckart Koester, “ ‘Kultur’ versus ‘Zivilisation’: Thomas Manns Kriegspublizistik als weltanschaulich-ästhetische Standortsuche,” in Kultur und Krieg: Die Rolle der Intellektuellen, Künstler und Schriftsteller im Ersten Weltkrieg, ed. Wolfgang Mommsen (Munich: Oldenbourg, ), –; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Bürgerliche Kultur und Künstlerische Avantgarde: Kultur und Politik im deutschen Kaiserreich  bis  (Berlin: Propyläen, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

What was different, though, were the structures, the agents, and, not surprisingly, the outcome. For one thing, no European power “won” the battle for cultural preponderance in Europe or abroad. More importantly, the agents endowed with the mechanics of foreign cultural policy— privateers, bankers, artists, intellectuals—had very little in common with the state-sponsored and state-directed organizations created after . There were no centralized governmental bureaucracies, no organizations such as the U.S. Information Service, the Cervantes Institute, the British Council or the Goethe Institute that offered themselves as tools for cultural diplomacy. Instead, private individuals and organizations acted on their own accord with little guidance and even less money from the government. Whenever national associations for the promotion of culture abroad were formed, governments strove to keep them at arm’s length. The first offices and institutions created for the purpose of exporting culture reflected governments’ unease with any direct and official involvement in cultural affairs. Founded in , the Alliance Française was grounded in the philosophy that the best way to make others like France was to make them love the French language. But the organization itself was formally an independent office.42 Italians created the Dante Alighieri Society, in , with the explicit purpose to promote Italian culture and language around the world, especially among the expatriate Italian community. Among the signers of the original manifesto calling for the Society were laymen and Catholics, monarchists and republicans, conservatives and progressives; their intent was explicitly cultural and apolitical. This situation changed dramatically after World War One. In , Germany created a cultural division in the Foreign Office, thereby coordinating foreign cultural policy with the agenda of German diplomacy. England entered the circle of cultural diplomats, in , with the creation of the British Council funded by a major grant from the Treasury.43 In , the U.S. State Department established the Division for Cultural Relations,44 and from  to , the U.S. Office of Inter-American Affairs sponsored a multitude of policies to promote Latin America’s

42 Maurice Brueziere, L’ alliance française: Histoire d’une institution (Paris: Hachette, ). 43 Frances Donaldson, The British Council: The First Fifty Years (London, ). 44 Frank Ninkovich, “The Currents of Cultural Diplomacy: Art and the State Department, –,” Diplomatic History  (): , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



allegiance and cooperation in the fight against Axis powers. Today, these bureaus are widely seen as forerunners of the United States Information Agency, set up in the aftermath of the Korean War, to present a “full and fair picture” of America to the rest of the world. Canada likewise established an arm of cultural diplomacy in the early years of the Cold War, when the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letter and Sciences published a report, in , which called for “the promotion abroad of a knowledge of Canada” and to build up “cultural defences” against the “vast and disproportionate amount of material coming from a single alien source.”45 The Soviet Union provided the most logical link between the somewhat confusing array of NGO cultural diplomacy and the highly structured, state-organized formulation and output of cultural programs. In the early s, the USSR established the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS), an intricate network of cultural organisations dedicated to attracting western intellectuals and the progressive bourgeoisie. Compared to other nations’ cultural diplomacy during the ensuing decades, Soviet cultural diplomacy differed in that it combined elements of the old and new ways of addressing cultural diplomacy. On the one hand, the many associations that participated in it officially originated in civil society. On the other hand, all of them were completely controlled by the state and Communist Party.46 Two commonly held convictions explained the expansion of governmental control over cultural foreign affairs during the twentieth century. First, many observers assumed that the nation’s image abroad directly bore on the conduct of foreign relations. Second, throughout Europe and North America, state officials, and intellectuals became convinced that governmentally appointed decision makers would do a better and less compromising job selling the nation abroad than private private philanthropists. In the United States in particular, intellectuals and policymakers alike were convinced that the promotion abroad of capitalist culture

45 Quoted in Andrew Fenton Cooper, “Canadian Cultural Diplomacy: An Introduction,” in Canadian Culture: International Dimensions, ed. Andrew Fenton Cooper (Waterloo: Centre of Foreign Policy and Federalism, University of Waterloo / Wilfried Laurier University, ), –; quote p. . 46 Jean-François Fayet, “The VOKS: The Third Dimension of Soviet Foreign Policy,” in Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy, ed. Jessica Gienow-Hecht and Mark Donfried (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, forthcoming).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

would distribute democratic values around the world and contain communism and totalitarianism.47 Not surprisingly, the resulting state programs caused internal controversies over the purpose and legitimacy of their setup and their missions. After World War Two, many Germans (as well as people outside of Germany) worried that Germany’s new cultural diplomacy might echo Goebbels’ propaganda ministry during the Third Reich. American officials, to cite another example, bristled at the notion of government support for any cultural effort. They never fully accepted cultural programs and never presented a united front regarding its activities abroad. The Smith-Mundt Act, for one, required that information work be subcontracted to the private sectors as much as possible.48 Frequently furious over abstract art works exhibited around the world in the name of “explaining” America, they worried about political integrity, unnecessary expenses, and voters’ opinions at home. In comparison to other diplomatic and military expenditures, the United States dedicated few resources to these programs while also fighting the autonomy of artists and NGOs.49 Still, divisive and shaky as they may have been, these programs, agencies and funds existed until the very end of the Cold War. In many countries, these structures remained intact throughout the Cold War but were gradually downscaled in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the United States, the Foreign Affairs and Restructuring Act abolished the U.S. Information Agency in  while its information and exchange functions were incorporated into the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs. While designed to coordinate public diplomacy and state-to-state relations, it turned public diplomacy, in the words of one U.S. official, into “an orphan.”50 But again, the creation of the job of an Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs—held since  by no less than five different appointees—cannot measure up to a replacement of an entire agency. 47 Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht, “Shame on US? Academics, U.S. Cultural Transfer, and the Cold War.” Diplomatic History  (Summer ): –. 48 Nick Cull, “Public Diplomacy and the Private Sector: the United States Information Agency, Its Predecessors and the Private Sector,” in Helen Laville and Hugh Wilford, The U.S. Government, Citizen Groups, and the Cold War: The State-Private Network (London and New York: Routledge, ), –, quote p. . 49 Michael Krenn, Fall-out Shelters for the Human Spirit: American Art and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ). 50 John McCain, “Hone U.S. Message of Freedom,” Orlando Sentinel,  June , http://www.johnmccain.com/informing/news/NewsReleases/dbcd-dfd– -bed-edcdd.htm ( August ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



Cultural Diplomacy Before and After the Twentieth Century This glance at cultural liaisons in the nineteenth and the twentieth century demonstrates that depending on the time frame, there are profound variations in the state’s understanding regarding its role in the context of cultural diplomacy. Before World War One, the government was not supposed to be visibly involved because culture represented the turf of the producers (e.g. artists, authors), transmitters (agents, merchants) and consumers (viewers, audiences and readers). Cultural diplomacy remained an informal effort. As we have seen, nineteenth-century cultural diplomacy in Europe involved, above all, a vast array of private and NGO interest groups. French, British and German officials offered much leeway and sometimes money to non-governmental cultural exports. Most politicians agreed that the presentation of culture abroad should be done by private groups and entrepreneurs. Most administrators in the foreign offices in Paris, London and Berlin were convinced that the active dissemination of culture was none of their business. Their job was merely to observe and occasionally fund whatever production, exhibition, or show they felt might improve the nation’s image in the world. In the interwar period, governments throughout Europe and North American began to take account of the increasing interconnectedness of the world and the power of cultural images in the formation of state policy. As a result, they began to establish divisions and posts dedicated to the conduct of cultural foreign relations. These institutions thrived after WWII thanks to the massive propaganda battle between East and West. But once the Cold War was over, many of these state-run ventures collapsed or experienced dramatic cutbacks. After the terrorist attacks of September , policymakers in Washington sought to revitalize American public diplomacy to meet the challenges of the “War on Terror.” Realizing that the merger of USIA into the State Department deprived the government of valuable personnel, programs, and resources previously dedicated to public diplomacy, the Bush administration responded with a number of measures, among those the appointment of a string of undersecretaries for public diplomacy, including marketing expert Charlotte Beers and Bush confidant Karen Hughes. Furthermore, the White House established standard interagency strategic communications meetings and streamlined the bureaucracy of public diplomacy to tighten control and improve cooperation between various governmental agencies.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

The Bush administration’s foremost stress lay on “unified messaging.” Rapid response teams began following international news programs closely and tried to modify or rebut negative coverage about U.S. policy in the Middle East. A total of fifteen overseas posts received orders to develop specific communications plans for their countries in order to counter terrorism. Since January , the Office of Global Communications (OGC) coordinated the efforts of the White House and individual agencies to talk to audiences abroad. President Bush later charged the Policy Coordination Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication with streamlining the government’s public message and ensuring that all public diplomacy resources are on the same page. The Bush administration also made an effort to increase funds earmarked for public diplomacy, foreign exchange, academic programs, and the training of personnel to be employed in public diplomacy. In , the State Department created a Global Cultural Initiative to streamline all governmental programs in the areas of literature, music, and art, while, at the same time, enabling close to , individuals to participate in educational and cultural programs in . For , the State Department requested massive funds for spending in public diplomacy in South Asia and the Middle East. The department likewise attempted to boost the Fulbright Program which had been seriously downscaled in the s. And in a gesture to the days gone by, both presidential candidates promised a renaissance of U.S. cultural diplomacy should they be elected: Republican Senator John McCain promised Americans that he “would establish a single, independent agency responsible for all of America’s public diplomacy. And that agency would report directly to the president.”51 Meanwhile his Democratic contestant, Barack Obama, announced that he would “improve and expand public-private partnerships to expand cultural and arts exchanges throughout the world” and also welcome “members of the foreign arts community to the United States.”52 Days gone by indeed. The Bush administration’s effort to streamline, tighten, and unify America’s “messaging” paled in comparison to previous structures developed at the height of the Cold War. Most importantly, the administration did not expect to the solve the problem itself but, instead, tried to recruit the private sector for this job. In order to encourage private and corporate interest in public diplomacy, a  report of 51

John McCain, “Hone U.S. Message of Freedom.” “Barack Obama and Joe Biden: Champions for Arts and Culture” (http://www .barackobama.com/pdf/issues/additional/Obama_FactSheet_Arts.pdf) ( April ). 52

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



the Office of the Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics recommended more cooperation between the government and the private sector and the creation of an nongovernmental Center for Strategic Communication. In January of , the State Department invited  individuals (among those many U.S. executives) to discuss how the U.S. corporate world could support a positive image of the United States in the world. The participants developed recommendations ranging from endowing U.S. business with public diplomacy to enlarging the responsibility of NGOs in this field. The department also established an Office of Private Sector Outreach to involve foundations, universities and businesses in public diplomacy and, perhaps, create a liaison between the public and the private sector. It had good reason to hope that U.S. businesses would want to participate in American cultural foreign relations. Many American manufacturers feared that their sales abroad would suffer as foreign consumers increasingly boycotted products made in the U.S.A. Industry groups acknowledged their need for participating actively in public diplomacy. In April , for example, the PR Coalition—a set of organizations involved in public and investor relations—recommended that public diplomacy should become an explicit part of corporate policies and practices.53 In addition, NGO humanitarian assistance is fast becoming a vital part of U.S. public diplomacy. In an effort to create good will, U.S. foundations, corporations, private organizations, and individuals were giving   billion per year for foreign charity. During the deadly earthquake in South Asia in October , which killed more than , people, U.S. corporate businesses like GE, UPS, Pfizer, Xerox, and Citigroup raised over   million for displaced victims. Likewise, opinion polls in Indonesia showed that American aid to victims of the  tsunami proved to be the biggest factor improving the nation’s image.54 As this book goes to the press, the world is still waiting to see whether under the new administration, the United States will move to a new, sustainable and long-term version of cultural diplomacy. Hopes are high, the sheer volume of the emerging literature on “hearts and minds” is 53 Ted McKenna, “Private Sector has Public Role,”  April  http://www.prweek .com/us/news/article// ( August ). 54 “NGO Humanitarian Assistance as Public Diplomacy,” http://www.pacificrim .usfca.edu/events/.html ( August ); Lisa Curtis, “America’s Image Abroad: Room for Improvement,” Heritage Lecture  ,  April , http://www.heritage .org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl.cfm ( August ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

impressive and U.S. president Barack Obama’s interest in international dialogue and the display of “soft power” inspiring. Nonetheless, the developments outlined above including Obama’s vision of cultural exchange suggest that the United States is approaching a model previously embraced by the European powers. The label—PPP (public private partnership)—may be new and trendy but the model is not. Under both Bush and Obama, NGOs, corporations and private individuals play the key role in U.S. planning for future public diplomacy efforts. They are flexible, independent, savvy and—in case of a problem— they do not compromise the state. Their funds are private, their reach international, their profile non-state. It seems we have returned to a state of affairs not unlike the era before WWI. In the future, states may or may not continue to be interested in their images in the world. But in many countries, the government increasingly lacks the financial funds, the political legitimacy, the ideological consensus and, above all, the psychological self-interest necessary to assume this job officially and single-handedly. At the same time, we are witnessing a surge of national nongovernmental groups in all kinds of sectors, notably civil movements, popular entertainment, business, and the sciences, willing and able to take on this challenge. As we have seen, American NGOs such as the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institute along with a multitude of corporations are prepared to jump in to give America’s image in the world a facelift. Many of these originated in the Cold War; some even started with the help of governmental funds. But now they are in place, highly motivated and equipped with ideas and programs relating to international exchange and cultural information. Above all, they are part of precisely that civil society and world community that has emerged since at least the s.55

Conclusion Cuno von Uechtritz-Steinkirch, the artist we encountered at the beginning of this essay, never lived to see the long-term ramifications of his initiative. He continued to lobby for the export of German art works and the improvement of the financial situation of his colleagues. In , he was one of the signers of a letter to Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow,

55

Iriye, Global Community, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



in which the Committee for Matters Relating to the United States (Ausschuss für Amerika-Angelegenheiten) of the Artists’ Association of German Sculptors (Künstler-Verbandes Deutscher Bildhauer) warned of a “threatening overproduction of art” and asked for “mighty support from the Reich government” for “German artists’ life’s mission [Lebensaufgabe] to conquer new markets,” above all the United States. Americans, the letter continued, had not been sufficiently exposed to German art. Therefore, it was critical to “counter Americans’ partial affection for Roman, especially French, art and help German art to achieve the respect and recognition which it correctly desires.” Shortly after he had put his signature under these lines, von Uechtritz died, on  July , in Berlin.56 And yet, the impact of what he, his colleagues and hundreds of men and women all across Europe set in motion before World War I, cannot be overestimated today. Much of the recent literature on the history of cultural diplomacy has over-stressed the Cold War and even more so U.S. cultural imperialism in Europe—to the extent that one can easily forget, first, how other nations have practiced and continue to practice cultural and public diplomacy, and, second, that the United States has often been the recipient of such efforts. It is equally easy to conclude that cultural and public diplomacy constitutes a twentieth century phenomenon. But there were important antecedents in the nineteenth century, most of all in the form of informal art, music, and academic exchange programs. When considering these antecedents, we need to ask what is really “unique” about cultural diplomacy in the twentieth century, notably in the postWorld War Two period: what stands out most of all is that the state became officially and structurally involved in the realm of international cultural relations and “nation branding” to an unprecedented extent. Some might argue that the informal efforts of men like von Uechtritz cannot be labeled cultural diplomacy. As private individuals, they do not seem to meet the definition of what constitutes a diplomat. And it is not clear whether their private actions consider—let alone serve—the interest of the state. Whatever the label, their efforts amounted to cultural diplomacy just the same. The terminology may vary but their actions do not: self-appointed individuals traveled abroad in the pursuit of their own and their nations’ interest; state governments, in turn, monitored these actions with mixed feelings but never dismissed these actions as irrelevant or out of place. Moreover, one of the many things that the 56 Ethos & Pathos—Die Berliner Bildhauerschule –, Exhibition catalogue (Berlin ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

new diplomatic history has done is to reassess the meaning of the term “diplomacy.” Diplomacy entails the effort to conduct a relationship for gain while, at the same time, evading confrontation. Today, scholars realize the vital role of nongovernmental actors including missionaries, teachers, and other cultural delegates in international relations: these actors represent diplomats and ambassadors in their own right.57 Books, paintings, music, and other cultural products promised fame and funds to individual promoters but also constituted purveyors of messages of national greatness and tools of diplomatic exchange. Diplomacy thus not only refers to state-to-state relations conducted by officials on the payroll of their governments but to any form of overt or covert negotiation by individuals acting in the interest of the state. Since the demise of the Cold War, NGOs have received both praise and criticism for their involvement in U.S. cultural diplomacy.58 A number of British historians argue that private and state sectors often departed from a strict interpretation of “freedom” in order to fortify the Atlantic alliance.59 Others have offered a more moderate point of view: internal factionalism and problems marred many of the American campaigns while Europeans frequently exploited this instability for their own ends.60 The bottom line continues to be the image of an NGO manipulated by the state for state interest and national security. As Scott Lucas wrote in , the interdependence between the state-private network and the alignment of public and private interest never ceased, not even after September : “Government officials who drafted plans for the extension of U.S. political, economic, military and cultural influence were able to hold visions of power and profits alongside the belief in an American exemplar of freedom. And private individuals and groups could work with those government officials, not necessarily because they shared that same vision of power and ideology, but because their own complex 57

Richard T. Arndt, The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, ), –; Thomas Zeiler, Ambassadors in Pinstripes: The Spalding World Baseball Tour and the Birth of the American Empire (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, ). 58 Hermann-Josef Rupieper, Die Wurzeln der westdeutschen Nachkriegsdemokratie (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, ). 59 See Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta, ); Scott Lucas’ Freedom’s War: The U.S. Crusade Against the Soviet Union, – (Manchester: Manchester University Press, ). 60 Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA and Postwar American Hegemony (London: Routledge, ); Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War (London: Frank Cass, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the anomaly of the cold war



conceptions and interests were furthered by the relationship.”61 The state, that is, poses as a manipulator of private organizations to its own end. But a comparison with previous time periods reveals that private organizations have and use the capacity to manipulate and patronize the state for whatever ends. Claiming to act in the name of the state and occasionally formulating its interests, associations like the DTV literally took political and diplomatic matters in their own hands. In doing so, they interfered and often contradicted state policy, disarmed and weakened governmental control, changed the course of foreign relations, and effectively formulated a new “national interest” never pursued by their government. This is precisely the dilemma facing governments including the United States government today: endowing NGOs and private individuals with the job of “nation branding” and international dialogue eases the financial, administrative and intellectual burden on the shoulder of the national government. It keeps an ever-controversial topic away from the center of policymaking and, thus, blocks confrontation and conflicts with parties and voters. At the same time, such division of labor between the public and the private sector places the control over who is selling the nation abroad and how to conduct a dialogue with the foreign world squarely in the hands of people otherwise more concerned with their own interests rather than that of the nation. Today, the United States has a choice to make. Like most other nations, U.S. policymakers need to decide whether to abandon formal cultural diplomacy altogether or return to a form of cultural diplomacy carried out by NGOs, private individuals, and civil societies and sponsored or silently supported by the state—very much along the lines of cultural diplomacy before WWI. The United States might return to the form of cultural diplomacy which European nations developed in the nineteenth century. These antecedents triggered a cultural dialogue that survived political tensions and military confrontations. But they also bore their own risks—most of all the risk of spinning out of control and assuming radical dimensions of cultural nationalism without any regard for the diplomatic effects. The challenge continues to be how to monitor and assess the relationship between NGOs and governmental agencies. At the end of his masterful book, Global Community, Akira Iriye ponders the question

61

Scott Lucas, “Introduction: Negotiating Freedom,” State-Private Network, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jessica c.e. gienow-hecht

of accountability in the relationship between international organizations and public agencies. Specifically, he wonders how NGOs could be expected to act in the public interest, and whether they should be permitted to affect the official decisionmaking process. Pointing to Kofi Annan’s hope that all organizations—state, business, international, nongovernmental—might form a “strategic partnership” in the service of all people, Iriye articulates the hope for the emergence of a “human community that would consist of various complementing organizations sharing the same concerns and seeking to solve the through cooperative endeavors.”62 Is that wishful thinking or the solution to the problems marring current public diplomacy? When wondering about the present and future of cultural diplomacy, policymakers like U.S. president Barack Obama but also NGOs like the Meridian International Center and diplomatic historians need to grapple with the historical examples of the past  years, including the mistakes made by civil groups and individuals. They need to understand the governments’ ambivalence regarding state interference with foreign cultural policy and relations. They need to try to understand the promise and the risks of Cuno van Uechtritz’s involvement in Germany’s preparations for the St. Louis World’s Fair in , when governments around the world did not yet sport cultural divisions. And they need to question under what conditions governments could or even should seize control and turn culture and “nation branding” into a state-run commodity.

62

Iriye, Global Community, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter two THE PROBLEM OF POWER IN MODERN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY. THE NETHERLANDS INFORMATION BUREAU IN WORLD WAR II AND THE EARLY COLD WAR David J. Snyder* World War II devastated the political and economic coherence of the Dutch empire. Nazi occupation of the homeland wrecked the Netherlands’ economy and with it the government’s ability to project strategic power in the region. The Japanese occupation of the archipelago undermined the “civilizing” ideology which justified the colonial regime, and helped give rise to a powerful Indonesian nationalist movement. Much of the government’s postwar strategy to regain Dutch authority in the East Indies sought to persuade the U.S. to a deeper role in the region, just as the French were successfully doing for Indochina at the time. Winning the support of the Truman Administration required, in turn, converting the American public from the anti-colonialism that prevailed in the early postwar period. Popular currents of anti-colonialism remained strong, however, and the Truman administration refused to back the restoration of Dutch authority. The failure of the Dutch strategy led to the collapse of colonial authority and the establishment of the independent Indonesian Republic in late .1 * My thanks to former NIB director Mr. Jerome Heldring, who graciously sat for two interviews. Thanks also to the staffs of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation archives, the Netherlands Foreign Ministry archive, and also the staff of the Holland Museum, Holland, MI. Research support for this article was provided by the Student Summer Scholar program at Grand Valley State University. 1 On the successful French effort to enlist U.S. aid in Indochina, see Mark Atwood Lawrence, Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, ). On U.S. policy toward the East Indies see Robert J. McMahon, Colonialism and the Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, – (Ithaca: Cornell University press, ) and also Frances Gouda, with Thijs Broacades Zaalberg, American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies / Indonesia: U.S. Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, – (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

The essential predicament of Dutch public diplomacy was first perceived some years before, in a prescient memo written in  by James Huizinga, son of the great Dutch historian Johan Huizinga. James Huizinga was at the time the Assistant Director of the Netherlands Information Bureau (NIB) located in New York City, and his memo made its way throughout the Dutch policy-making apparatus. Even while the archipelago suffered under Japanese occupation, Huizinga saw clearly that the problem for the Dutch in the East Indies was, given the absence of Dutch power, a public relations problem. Since the Dutch would not be able to re-assert control in the postwar East Indies themselves, “[w]e are now almost entirely dependent on the goodwill of America for the restoration of our authority” in the region, Huizinga wrote. Many Dutch officials had invested their hopes in Huizinga’s Netherlands Information Bureau, established the year previous, to change U.S. policy by galvanizing American public opinion behind Dutch claims. Huizinga went on to explain the dilemma: any demands the Dutch might make with respect to the Netherlands’ rights in the region would be undercut by the inability of the Dutch to enforce those demands. Dutch public diplomacy would in this case become entirely self-referential, literally unfounded on any political reality. Despite a prodigious effort, Dutch public diplomacy would not be able to create the political reality that Dutch policy sought. Thus assertions of authority without the power to enforce such assertions would make the Dutch look foolish. As Huizinga explained, “the absence of any policy but the completely unacceptable one of the restoration of the status-quo ante [i.e., Indonesian independence] vitiates all our propaganda and in itself constitutes counterpropaganda of the most immediate sort.”2 While he concerned himself with the particular case of the Netherlands East Indies, Huizinga identified one of the essential paradoxes in all modern public diplomacy efforts. Existing to alter the political perceptions of its audience, public diplomacy is unable by itself to create the political realities it seeks. Comparative study of U.S. and non-U.S. public diplomacy is revealing in this regard. Whereas the U.S. effort was burdened to carry a globalist vision and to advance American hegemony in

2 James Huizinga, “Memorandum on N.E.I. Propaganda in the USA,” October , Nationaal Archief, The Hague, [hereafter “NA”], Archief van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Londens archief), () – (), collection number .. [hereafter “Londens archief ”], inv. nr. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



a multilateral world, the public diplomacies of other “free world” nations, especially after World War II, generally carried less grandiose tasks, such as the promotion of economic reconstruction or boosting freedom of action in a foreign policy environment dominated by the United States. Still, within these constrained environments, non-American public diplomacies remained crucial to the pursuit of their respective foreign policies and could, at times, come to share significant burdens of their own. Understanding the power realities in which non-American public diplomacies functioned contributes both to understanding the manifold challenges that all modern public diplomacies shared, while at the same time highlighting the complex foreign policy challenges at work among the free world allies during the early Cold War.

Challenges to the “Soft Power” Analysis: the Dutch Case One key insight that emerges from this comparative study of modern public diplomacy focuses on the relationship between the projection of so-called “soft power”—a nation’s cultural attractiveness, i.e., its power to persuade—and the realities of its so-called “hard power”—its economic and military power to coerce. As Huizinga’s quandary illustrates, all western public diplomacies were forced to contend with the problem of power. As authors in this volume and elsewhere have shown, the U.S. version was required not merely to support American power, but in many instances to mitigate it, to demonstrate that the Americans were responsible hegemons, that U.S. power defended rather than threatened western civilization. At the same time, American “soft power” was also projected to reassure, to show that American commitments were credible. These putative relationships have led many historians to catalog “soft” power as a distinct foreign policy asset from “hard” power, and thus to measure public diplomacy, i.e., “soft power,” effectiveness by how well it correlates to real, or “hard power,” which nevertheless remains distinct in its own analytical category.3 “Soft power” in this view becomes the

3 Joseph S. Nye, Jr. has done as much as anybody in recent years to draw attention to the distinction between a nation’s “hard power,” i.e., its military and economic ability to coerce, and its “soft power,” the cultural and social resources that underscore persuasion; see Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, ). It is one of the goals of this essay’s comparative focus to question the rather bright line that Nye and others have drawn between putative “hard power” and “soft power.”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

marketing division of American hard power, intending to show that the latter is omni-competent to its enemies but benign to its allies, terrible to experience but judiciously wielded. The cultural and informational programming of the Netherlands offers an instructive example of the dilemma faced by non-U.S., western public diplomacies, the absence of the “hard power” (when judged relative to American hegemony) by which to give “soft power” claims teeth and bones. The Dutch case shows that the line analysts conventionally draw between “hard” and “soft” power is arbitrary and illusory. During the two most pressing challenges of contemporary Dutch foreign relations, the Netherlands was forced to pursue policy aims with little effective “hard power.” The first challenge occurred in World War II during the occupation of the Netherlands by the German army, when the almost total absence of Dutch “hard power” forced Dutch diplomacy to shift to the putative “soft power” realm of public relations and persuasion.4 Similarly, Dutch aims to retain the East Indies during the challenge of the Indonesian crisis were also conducted with a dearth of effective power. As will be shown, it was that lack of power, rather than any tactical failings of the public relations campaign itself, that account for Dutch policy failure. In short, the case of the Netherlands Information Bureau during World War II and the early Cold War demonstrates the irreducible relationship between policy and propaganda and the analytic mistake of viewing them in isolation. Each of these two episodes established thematic dissonances within Dutch public diplomacy that proved impossible to reconcile. German occupation of the Netherlands made the entry of the United States into the war, during the time of official American neutrality, a paramount goal of Dutch foreign policy. Likewise, the effort to reassert imperial dominion in the East Indies, in the absence of sufficient Dutch power to accomplish the job, required the Netherlands to attempt to marshal American power in support of its foreign policy goals there. Dutch foreign policy was in the first instance bereft of the kind of hard power that could entice the Americans into a military partnership. Here Dutch public diplomacy projected an image of a “small Holland,” helpless and victimized and therefore worthy of some measure of aid and sympathy. In the

4 On the shift in Dutch foreign policy at mid-century, see J.J.C. Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles: A Study of Dutch Foreign Policy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



second instance, Dutch claims relied in large measure on a discursive “large Holland”—an imperial Netherlands of global reach—which invoked the history of imperial Holland to justify current claims to regional hegemony. The irony, as we have seen, is that imperial Holland lacked the effective ability to enforce these claims and sought instead to enlist American power to regain the archipelago, thus both denying and entreating American hegemony as it pertained to Indonesia. The incongruous semiotics of the “small Holland” of World War II soliciting the urgent assistance of the great power across the ocean followed closely by a discursive “large Holland” asserting its traditional imperial prerogatives in Indonesia rendered Dutch public diplomacy at odds with itself. The story of the NIB reveals the irony of modern public diplomacy: the political environments in which the services of information agencies are most relied upon also conspire to make those services most ineffectual. An unbalanced reliance on “soft power” of necessity exposes the brazenness of the policy being pursued. The NIB never harmonized the political and foreign policy contradictions that bedeviled its own information program, even though the larger patterns of cultural relations opened by Dutch public diplomacy would constitute a key American-Dutch tie in the decades between the end of World War II and the Vietnam era.

Dutch Public Diplomacy in World War II: The “Small Holland” Campaign It was in the context of “small Holland” that the NIB was first established. Virtually within hours of the seating of the London government-in-exile, Foreign Minister E.N. van Kleffens established the Regeringsvoorlichtingsdienst (RVD; Government Information Service) as a communications hub between occupied Netherlands and the government-in-exile, and also between the government and the outside world. Van Kleffens recognized information as one of the sole remaining reserves of Dutch influence during the war. Seeking to amplify this capacity through modern communications, the RVD instituted communications links with the occupied Netherlands that included Radio Oranje, as well as contacts with the illegal and underground press, and also press offices in Lisbon, Bern, Pretoria, and Stockholm, with other offices in smaller cities. The RVD also provided the nominally independent magazines Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands) to Dutch agents around the world and the

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

Knickerbocker Weekly in the United States. By , nearly  percent of the London government personnel worked for the RVD.5 The RVD’s most important asset was the NIB, the offices of which were established in March  at Rockefeller Center. The NIB’s field of operations included the entire Western Hemisphere, save Surinam and Curaçao which were connected directly to London.6 The NIB answered to the RVD and to the Press Section of the Foreign Ministry, with half its budget coming from the London government, half from the nominallyindependent Netherlands East Indies, which was at this time unoccupied by the Japanese. Subsidiary NIB branches were located in San Francisco, Holland, Michigan (owing to the large Dutch-American immigrant community there), Washington D.C., and also a small office in Boston; offices in Montreal and in Buenos Aires were added later.7 NIB / New York was headed by N.A.C. Slotemaker de Bruine, a theologian by academic training who started his career in the East Indies in the s as a missionary, becoming in  Managing Director of the Algemeen Nieuws en Telegraaf Agentschap (Aneta), the wire service that operated out of Batavia.8 This expansive network likely made the NIB one of “small Holland’s” most valuable organs. NIB housed originally a Press Section, a Documentation Section (including the Library), a Broadcasting Section, a Film and Picture Library, and a special section broadcasting to sailors and publishing De Varende Hollander [The Flying Dutchman]. Later, an Indonesian Department was added as well as an Exhibitions Department. 5

Bert Van der Zwan, “De Regerings Voorlichtingsdienst (RVD) te London, – ,” in Van der Zwan, et al., Het Londens Archief: Het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Amsterdam: Boom, ), . 6 The NIB had a sister organization in Australia, the Netherlands Indies Government Information Service. Despite its strategic importance for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, NIGIS never attained the importance of the NIB. 7 NIB’s close connection with the East Indies made it a paramount source of information about the Pacific theater for certain news consumers, especially in the early days of the war; the San Francisco bureau played an important role as a cable terminus in this regard; Jan Van de Ven, “De Regeringsvoorlichtingsdienst in London, –” (Ph.D. diss., Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, ), . 8 Memorandum “Organisatie en opzet van het Netherlands Information Bureau,”  July , NA, Londens archief, inv. nr. . NIB officials were not part of the Dutch legation to the U.S., and thus did not have official diplomatic status. As agents of the Dutch government they were required to register under the Alien Registration Act of . Per a decision rendered in August  by the Special War Policies Unit of the War Division of the Department of Justice, the NIB was granted a waiver from the Foreign Agents Registration Act in exchange for quarterly reports on NIB activities delivered to the Director of the Office of War Information (OWI); see Slotemaker de Bruine to Director, OWI,  March , NA, Londens Archief, inv. nr. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



By the autumn of  the NIB employed  personnel in New York, the other U.S. offices, Latin America, and Canada.9 The NIB office in New York received over , visitors per month, and posted nearly  outgoing telegrams and letters and handled over  telephone calls each day. Between  and  the Exhibition Department organized  exhibitions, attracting an estimated ,, visitors.10 In addition to this routine work, officials from each of the departments wrote pamphlets and op-eds, made official appearances, and lectured. Slotemaker, for example, spoke often about Dutch-American relations, the Netherlands under German occupation, and the Dutch East Indies.11 The Press Department maintained wide contacts with thousands of writers and editors at periodicals large and small, as well as with wire service, government, and business organizations. As an information supplier as well as a government mouthpiece, the NIB required a supply of objective news for distribution. Dutch forces, however, were rarely in a position to make headlines in a news universe dominated by British and American operations; crushing defeats in , such as the Battle of Java Sea, were not the kind of stories helpful to the Dutch cause. News that was both objective and favorable was therefore foundational to the NIB’s “soft power” campaign. As the Managing Editor of the Dutch wire services put it, “[objective] news is the most straightforward and, in many 9

“Netherlands Information Bureau Personnel,”  November , NA, Londens archief, inv. nr. . 10 N.A.C. Slotemaker de Bruine, “Kort Verslag der bijeenkomst, Gehouden op  juli  to New York City, ter bespreking van het werk van het ‘Netherlands Information Bureau’,”  July , NA, Londens archief, inv. nr., . 11 Other NIB assets included a collection of some , photos in the Photo and Film Department; some , volumes, growing to over , by , in the Library; and a Radio Department, in cooperation with OWI short-wave facilities, which broadcast to various parts of the Netherlands Kingdom including occupied Holland, the West Indies, agents in Latin America, and to ships at sea. There was also added a second Radio Department in  to prepare broadcasts for the American public. This department prepared, among other broadcasts, a bi-monthly program entitled “You Can’t Beat the Dutch!” featuring interviews from the front, and a weekly Netherlands news program. Other radio broadcasts included the “Netherlands Radio News,” the “Netherlands Women’s Commentary,” “Holland Today and Tomorrow,” “The Political Future of Indonesia,” and “Holland Calling.” Outline of NIB organization provided in a letter from J. Huizinga to Bess Furman, OWI,  December , Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, Amsterdam, [hereafter NIOD], Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . Other overviews include N.A.C. Slotemaker de Bruine, “Kort Verslag,” op. cit., as well as the Van de Ven and Van der Zwan articles previously cited. NIB produced its own one-year anniversary history pamphlet, One Year Old: The Inside Story of an Ugly Duckling (New York: Netherlands Information Bureau, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

cases, the best kind of propaganda imaginable.”12 Here the NIB stood at the heart of one of the key tensions in democratic societies, one felt keenly by the NIB’s American counterparts, between a liberal free press and the need by governments at war to control the press on behalf of liberty. It was a tension that increased in proportion to NIB’s informational reach and one the solution to which required a high degree of legerdemain. Unlike the Americans, the Dutch did not have the resources to make news. Consequently Dutch information programmers were forced to turn to the kind of censorship that the Americans had the luxury of avoiding. The NIB, it turned out, exercised broad control over the Dutch wire services. At the time of NIB’s founding, the major Dutch newswire consortiums consisted of Aneta as well as the Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau, later Algemeen Nederlandsch-Indisch Persbureau (ANP).13 During World War II the agencies were combined, and ANP-Aneta would find itself enlisted in the war effort by the Dutch Foreign Ministry, which financed a new ANP-Aneta branch in New York. Though officially, and even within internal correspondence, the NIB would continue to insist that the combined wire service was “independent” of the government, and that the ANP-Aneta office in New York was the “joint enterprise of the privately owned Aneta Agency in Batavia and the equally privately owned [ANP] Agency,” in point of fact both of these organizations were, for the duration of the war and for all practical purposes, clandestinely operated by the Dutch government.14 12 Vas Dias to Charles O. van der Plas, NEI Commissioner for Australia,  November , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . Vas Dias was extraordinarily sensitive to this issue, remarking to Van der Plas on the failure of NIGIS to distinguish properly between news and propaganda: “it is not only the substance of a news item which may determine its use, but also its presentation and the way it is edited.” 13 Aneta was established in  as a private, commercial wire service established with headquarters in Batavia, serving the needs of major interested shareholders in the East Indies. ANP, on the other hand, was founded in Amsterdam in  to service a consortium of Dutch newspapers. Each of these press services in turn concluded distribution and licensing agreements with AP and Reuters. In , Aneta was brought under the control of ANP, though it retained its nominal independence and Indonesian focus. The Nazi occupation effectively made ANP a mouthpiece for German propaganda, and so the ANP was re-established in London, which move also included a series of complicated agreements with Reuters. For a complete history, in Dutch, of the agreements between ANP-Aneta, Reuters, and the Dutch government, see Van de Ven, “De Regeringsvoorlichtingsdienst in London,” pp. –. 14 Author unknown, “Short Description of the Netherlands Information Organisation in the United States of America,” n.d, NA, Londens archief, inv. nr. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



When the Japanese seized Batavia in , Aneta transferred its main office to Melbourne, at which time part of its budget was also assumed by the Netherlands East Indies Government in exile. Aneta officials insisted that their activities were “exclusively confined to those of a news agency” and in the strictest sense this was true.15 The new Melbourne headquarters, however, never became a significant hub for Aneta activities, for personnel, technical, and organizational reasons. Instead, with the Managing Director of Aneta H.A. Colijn imprisoned by the Japanese, Aneta’s Board of Directors transferred power of attorney over all Aneta affairs to the official in charge of the Aneta New York office— N.A.C. Slotemaker de Bruine. Slotemaker was joined later that year () by E.C. Zimmerman (Director of the Netherlands Purchasing Commission in New York) and in  by Pieter Prins, and the triumvirate comprised Aneta’s Board of Directors for the duration. Though the official seat of the corporation was re-established at Curaçao in , the Aneta office in New York remained Aneta’s main operations center. Slotemaker retained the key authority over Aneta releases. His role, vested by the Ambassador, included “judging the political implications and consequences of certain cables” and embargoing those items deemed too sensitive.16 All of the potentially sensitive wire releases that came out of the New York office of Aneta, in other words, were vetted by Slotemaker himself. Netherlands Ambassador A. Loudon explained the operations in a December  directive. He outlined a number of key points, including that “the special identity of Aneta be guarded not only in appearance but in essence” while insisting that “[n]either the Embassy nor the Netherlands Information Bureau are censors.” The public independence of the wire service was subordinate to the needs of a nation at war, however, in the Ambassador’s formulation: Aneta “has her own responsibilities, not only of a professional and commercial nature, but also a national one ensuing from her character as a Dutch press agency” [emphasis in original]. Thus “[t]here can only one general rule be given: that Aneta must not publish against the general interest of the Kingdom or interfere in unrelated areas. This vague directive cannot

15 “Comprehensive description of Agent’s activities,” n.d., NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 16 N.A.C. Slotemaker de Bruine, “Memorandum on Direction of Aneta,”  November , NIOD, archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

be more concretely expressed.”17 Slotemaker’s authority to censor Aneta’s news releases remained a carefully guarded secret.18 Thus through Slotemaker the NIB controlled what the nominally independent and objective Dutch wire service could syndicate. Slotemaker, emphasizing Aneta’s “voluntary cooperation with the government in matters of policy,” maintained that stories freely reported were in fact free, while evading the question of his own work to censor unfavorable news.19 Since the NIB, like the USIA later, was in a position to make recommendations up the chain of policy-making that could then become news, an appearance by the Queen or a speech by the Ambassador, of time and place and topic of the NIB’s suggestion, would then become the “news” that Aneta reported. Laundered as such, the NIB was then free to place the item in local papers, with attribution to the putatively objective Aneta. Wire-service attribution became a public diplomacy currency that the NIB determined to spend judiciously. NIB officials understood the essential role their propaganda played in helping “small Holland” survive the war and maintained no compunction about shaping news to that end. Slotemaker responded sharply in those few occasions when the wire service failed to secure proper permission prior to release, such as when an Aneta piece was published in the Knickerbocker Weekly revealing the losses of the Royal Netherlands Navy in the summer of .20 As Bert van der Zwan points out, NIB 17

Ambassador A. Loudon,  December , NA, Londens Archief, inv. nr. . The close correlation of Slotemaker’s various functions in each agency show this, as does the early postwar request from Aneta to NIB, in light of putting the Aneta back on a commercial basis, for NIB to pay for Aneta releases. The   per month request was deemed fair by Aneta since it was only a small part of Aneta’s monthly expenses for an organization which, after all, “was built up in order to supply the Netherlands Information Bureau with the necessary volume of news;” Simon Koster, Managing Editor, Aneta, to Slotemaker,  Oct. , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 19 “Draft of Minutes of Directors’ Meeting,”  Dec. , NIOD, Archief Ned. Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 20 Slotemaker to Vas Dias,  November , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. ; See Ambassador A. Loudon to ANPAneta / New York,  August , Slotemaker to Vas Dias,  August , and Vas Dias to Ambassador A. Loudon,  August , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . The Knickerbocker Weekly article “Japanese Communications,” ( July ) revealed potentially sensitive information about Allied capacity to intercept Japanese communications. The Foreign Ministry had intended that the official release of the Dutch losses would not be made known prior to  July ; see J.A. van Houten to Slotemaker,  July , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 18

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



releases consistently over-estimated the number of Rotterdam dead, or downplayed the military importance of the city prior to its destruction, in each case endeavoring to heighten among Americans a sense of Nazi war criminality and thus of Dutch victimhood.21 Indeed, Huizinga was comfortable to note that the NIB’s “function . . . is to make propaganda.”22 On the other hand, the NIB was cautious in the material it produced. It was one thing, for example, if a local newspaper story wished to draw a “laudatory” portrait of a Dutch official on a local speaking tour. NIB should avoid, however, as the Embassy pointed out, biographical sketches dripping with “honey, sweetness, and praise.”23 Slotemaker remained unambivalent and unapologetic even in private. His censorial activities were part of saving the Netherlands. His ability to compartmentalize his work from the more egregious Orwellian version of manufactured propaganda is revealed in an unpublished memoir. There he wrote that while “a piece of writing in a literal sense may not be ‘true,’ [it] can nevertheless have real value.” “The official information policy must be limited to making known the facts about the Netherlands and [we] have not missed this effect,” Slotemaker observed, “but [this effect] is enormously enlarged through the fantasy of a well-meaning writer who was well acquainted with the realities . . . ”24 The chief propaganda intent in this early stage of NIB’s “small Holland” campaign was to battle American isolationism. The Holland, MI, bureau was doubly important in this regard, reaching not only west Michigan’s large and friendly Dutch émigré audience, but into the Midwestern heart of American isolationist attitudes. Foreign Minister Van Kleffens, sensitively attuned to the American scene as always, was particularly concerned to address this audience in the months prior to Pearl Harbor. One point that inflamed American isolationism centered on the Royal House. Queen Wilhelmina’s flight to London just ahead of advancing Nazi armies activated old American stereotypes about effete European monarchs and suggested that the Dutch were not willing to fight on their 21

Bert Van der Zwan makes these points, in “De Regerings Voorlichtingsdienst (RVD) te London,” op. cit., . 22 Huizinga to Vas Dias,  May , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 23 H.R. van Houten, Counselor of Netherlands Embassy, to Mr. Orbaan of the NIB / New York,  March , Holland Museum, Holland MI, [hereafter Holland Museum] Papers of Willard Wichers [hereafter Wichers papers], box , folder “Wichers / – Projects, Ambassador’s Tour, .” 24 “Mijn Zusje en Ik” [My Sister and I], undated memoir, NIOD, Collectie Documentatie I , map A, verslagen van N.A.C. Slotemaker de Bruine.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

own behalf. The swiftness with which the Dutch army was forced to capitulate fed into this general American sentiment, as did the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea, in which the Japanese Navy routed a smaller joint Netherlands-Allied task force. In response the NIB showcased Dutch hardiness and the on-going commitment of Dutch forces and resources to the fight. In this respect, the “small Holland” trope was particularly useful for NIB’s purposes. The plucky little nation bravely soldiering on under the crushing weight of Nazi brutality strummed an effective emotional chord with American audiences. Books in this vein appeared, under NIB auspices or published with NIB assistance, such as Van Kleffens’ own Juggernaut Over Holland which sought to counteract the negative view by noting the insuperability of the Nazi blitzkrieg.25 Other books and articles were suggestive by their titles, such as A Nation at War, “Holland Carries On,” and The Lion Rampant, written by Lou de Jong of Radio Oranje (who would later become the Netherlands’ greatest historian of WWII) and translated into English by J.W.F. Stoppelman of the NIB’s Press Department.26 Along the same lines, the NIB released many of the Queen’s speeches and statements to the American press with such titles as “Save Your Pity for the Weak.” Speaking tours featuring Ambassador Loudon and other visiting Dutch dignitaries, including the royal family, were arranged to tell the story of a victimized but heroically struggling nation; the most celebrated such tour was Wilhelmina’s  visit to the United States during which time she offered a major speech to the U.S. Congress on the future status of the Netherlands East Indies. Slotemaker offered a canned speech, “The Netherlands at War” in which he insisted that “The Netherlands and the East Indies are still at war” and drew parallels between the Netherlands’ early support for American independence and the current struggle. “And now the boot is on the other foot,” Slotemaker told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, “it is the Netherlands which need, and indeed are receiving, the help of the United States in the struggle for freedom.”27 In time, the Royal House would prove one of NIB’s most reliable assets. Especially on the emerging sensitive issue of Indonesia, Queen Wilhelmina’s pronouncements formed the 25 E.N. van Kleffens, Juggernaut Over Holland (New York: Columbia University Press, ). 26 Lou de Jong and J.W.F. Stoppelman, The Lion Rampant: The Story of Holland’s Resistance to the Nazis (Querido: New York, ). 27 Slotemaker, “The Netherlands at War,” speech before the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations,  May , NA, Londens Archief, inv. nr. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



basis for publicity campaigns throughout the United States. But the NIB always guarded against the anti-monarchic sentiments of vast swaths of the American public, and retained constant vigil of unflattering news portraits that suggested that Wilhelmina was something other than a constitutional monarch and “really a very democratic person.”28 Once the United States entered the war, American isolationist and anti-monarchic attitudes gave way to recurrent charges that the Dutch were not shouldering enough of the burden and that Americans were sacrificing too much on behalf of Dutch liberty. In response the NIB had to walk a thin line between a “small Holland” deserving of pity and aid and a militarily capable Holland standing beside its brave ally. Here the training of Netherlands’ flyers in Jackson, Mississippi, offered fertile propaganda opportunities. Arguably the most sensational of all the NIB’s wartime activities, a stunt conjured by NIB / Holland director Willard Wichers, was the June – July  tour of Dutch airmen in B-s that flew over several mid-western cities including Minneapolis / St Paul, Des Moines, Chicago, Omaha, and Grand Rapids, concluding in New York. Local VIP’s enjoyed rides on the bombers and Wichers ensured wide publicity. As the squadron made its way between landing points, it would simulate bombing runs over certain cities in the flight path to allow local air raid systems to practice. The flights illustrated the theme of Dutchmen willing to fight for their freedom, but requiring American training and materiel to succeed. Since the plan required much advance planning, Wichers also thought this an opportune time to highlight NIB’s organization and logistical skills so that other Dutch-oriented groups would come to rely on NIB. Here Wichers was operating in lockstep with his New York superiors, who were determined to make the NIB a hub for all Dutch-related cultural work in the U.S. A key part of this Holland-carries-on theme was to highlight the importance of the Dutch East Indies in the war effort. The NIB sought to draw attention to the economic and strategic importance of the region while countering the allegation that many in the archipelago welcomed the Japanese as liberators. Depictions of Dutch munificence, enlightenment, and expertise were offered. And the NIB frequently defended against the charge that American blood and treasure was being expended for the sake of Dutch colonial interests. Since the NIB at this time was hamstrung by an understaffed Indonesian Department, some of the 28 Slotemaker to Wichers,  March , Holland Museum, Wichers papers, box , folder “Wichers / Centennial Correspondence, New York—Dr. Slotemaker.”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

bureau’s work attracted the condemnation of certain Dutch officials in the Netherlands East Indies government, notwithstanding the constant petitions coming from the NIB that they were under-staffed, underfunded, and caught in competing directives.29 One key point to reiterate here in connection with NIB’s wartime work, and that pertains to public diplomacy generally, was the way in which information programming often drove policy, and not the other way around. In late , summing the previous years work, one of NIB’s key American advisors, Jay Williams, tallied NIB’s propaganda success which included “eras[ing] the enemy slur against the Royal House,” evoking “the sympathy of the American people” especially in regards to the destruction of Rotterdam, conveying the importance of the East Indies for Allied strategy, and emphasizing “the importance of the Dutch merchant marine.”30 It is not clear by what standard Williams based his positive assessment, though he no doubt sensed an altered discursive environment after American entry into the war that appeared more friendly to Dutch propaganda. Nevertheless, building on his perception of success, Williams advocated for the direction of future information policy. The NIB should emphasize certain key themes, such as that in the coming postwar world, with respect to Indonesia, the Dutch “only want what is our own” (a phrase borrowed from a recent speech by the Queen). What is important here is not that William’s model became a blueprint for Dutch wartime and postwar propaganda, though the themes in the later information work are unmistakable. What is important is that in Williams’ advice the propaganda theme was posed as father to the actual policy. He was advising, for example, that Dutch information officials begin to put together an Indonesia-related campaign before the full contours of Dutch Indonesian policy were known or even formulated. Williams urged the Dutch government to pursue heightened military activity, or for the underground to take a more active role, because such reports could then be channelled back to the American public as news. In this scenario, the information needs of Dutch propaganda were driving 29 To cite just one example of the dissatisfaction within the NEI apparatus over the work of the NIB, the Minister for Colonies H.J. van Mook complained to Foreign Minister van Kleffens about the poorly written and error-filled NIB pamphlet, “The Netherlands East Indies: Their Share in World Production;” Van Mook to van Kleffens,  October , NA, Londens archief, inv. nr. . 30 Williams to Loudon,  Nov. , Archief van de Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, The Hague [hereafter MinBuZa], Archive of the Washington Press Section, folder .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



policy formulation and not the other way around. As many of the essays in this volume indicate, such too was the situation with American public diplomacy. Also like U.S. public diplomacy, the NIB ran defensive and negative campaigns in addition to the thematically positive ones. NIB officials both in New York and in the subordinate bureaus kept a close vigil on all news and editorial coverage of the Netherlands and mobilized quickly to counter unflattering portraits. Critical stories would generally receive a reply from the NIB or from bureau directors within their jurisdictions.31 The NIB battled the goliaths of American news distribution, and kept up a protracted struggle against the Chicago Tribune, for example, one of the leading voices of Midwestern isolationism whose editors as well as Col. McCormick himself seemed to have it in for the Dutch. Anti-Dutch editorials frequently appeared in the Tribune’s pages throughout the war, and NIB reporting of them often reached the Foreign Ministry’s Press Office. One April  editorial, “Unseemly Gallivanting,” took Crown Princess Juliana to task for flying from New York to Washington when airplanes had been so much wanted in recent Pacific theater reversals; Juliana would make a Midwestern tour shortly thereafter to counter some of the damage.32 Later the Tribune would demand that Queen Juliana and Foreign Minister Dirk Stikker be charged with war crimes in connection with the  police action in Indonesia. One especially incendiary Tribune editorial appeared in August , “The First Communist Queen.” The editorial charged that calls for the participation of Dutch labor in key policy-making bodies heralded the emergence of Dutch communism. This particular editorial was based on published material from the Dutch underground press, specifically a famous April  joint statement by underground resistance newspapers which called for the democratization of the economy and greater labor participation in policy-making. The NIB had actually released this communiqué to the American press. Based on the Tribune’s highly tendentious interpretation of what Dutch resistance fighters were actually 31 For instance, a March  Chicago Tribune editorial, “The Trusteeship Hoax,” which alleged that a “Dutch communications monopoly” was precluding Indonesian voices from being heard was condemned by Dutch authorities as “a lie from beginning to end.” Slotemaker suggested that Wichers find an American to write a reply to the editor. Slotemaker to Wichers,  May , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . When Minister-President W. Drees visited the United States in , Bridgeport was on his itinerary. 32 Chicago Tribune, “Unseemly Gallivanting,”  April .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

calling for, it was a decision Slotemaker came to regret. He remained generally opposed to publishing such material, since the Americans lacked the requisite political and cultural context in which Dutch resistance leaders formulated such calls.33 The existence of information from the resistance constituted yet another part of the wartime cacophony of information that, though ostensibly allied with the Dutch cause, led to discomfort within the NIB about the proper channeling of information. The NIB’s preference, in other words, and following the lead of the exiled London government, was that the resistance should exist, so as to illustrate Dutch gallantry, but not actually speak. The running battle with the Tribune highlighted one of the NIB’s favored tactics for deploying its message while disguising its own involvement, the use of surrogates. For example, Wichers prepared a set of replies to the Tribune’s July  editorial “Dutch Propaganda” to be signed by an official from the Dutch Consulate in Chicago. The Consul advised Wichers not to reply since “people are very suspicious of foreign propaganda and that is why everything should be avoided which looks like propaganda.”34 The NIB, however, maintained a more vigilant posture, and Huizinga advised Wichers to have the reply “signed by one of your non-Dutch contacts, preferably in the military field.”35 As Slotemaker reported to his superiors, “[w]e have cultivated experts . . . to serve our cause, a method incidentally extremely effective because they were not suspect.”36 Wichers had complained that “the American public definitely discounts what most Dutchmen say [on Indonesia] no matter how accurate and expert their account may be. Americans have a misconception, and it is hard to jar them loose from the suspicion that the Dutch have an axe to grind.”37 “Small Holland” could speak for itself, but by the time the informational needs shifted to defending the Dutch role in Indonesia, the 33 Slotemaker to Wichers,  August , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 34 J.I. Noest, Consul General, Chicago, to Wichers,  July , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 35 Huizinga to Wichers,  August , NIOD, Archief van het Nederlands Informatiebureau, collectie  b, inv. no. . 36 Slotemaker to Loudon,  June , MinBuZa, Papers of the Nederlandse Informatie Bureau, folder . Slotemaker was referring in this instance to Professor FayCooper Cole, but added “I could cite many more instances of this kind, but the point remains we need more Dutch authorities to use for informing the molders of American public opinion.” 37 Wichers to Philip H. Hiss,  Dec. , Holland Museum, Wichers papers, box , folder “Wichers / –, Projects, Hiss, Philip Hanson.”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



voice of “large Holland” was suspect. Thus during the Indonesian crisis, the NIB, borrowing on its wartime experience of disguising its control over Aneta, expanded its reliance on surrogate voices. All in all, the initial challenge to combat American isolationism by posing a vulnerable “small Holland” was a short-lived campaign. It was Pearl Harbor, and not Dutch propaganda, that led Americans to decide for war. Most of the wartime efforts consisted of attempts to battle negative information38 and promote better cultural understanding through art and performance exhibitions, or to answer the thousands of letters from schools, churches, and civic groups requesting information. It was after the war when the more serious challenge to Dutch public diplomacy presented itself, winning the support of anti-colonialist Americans for Dutch claims in the East Indies.

The East Indies Crisis: Dutch Public Diplomacy and the “Large Holland” Campaign Though Huizinga had seen the new context earlier than other Dutch public diplomats, It became clear to all that the end of the war would bring a new informational environment. By mid- officials were beginning to rethink the program. Slotemaker proposed a number of cost-saving measures, including the closing of NIB / NY’s Film Production and Distribution office, folding the Domestic Broadcasting unit into the Press Department, transferring photo distribution to the Department of Exhibitions and Visual Education, relocating the Latin America Department to South America, and replacing Netherlands News with a less frequent “Netherlands News Letter.” De Varende Hollander and ANETA Nieuws were also discontinued. The NIB was to become a passive resource, servicing business inquiries about exporting to Holland or answering queries about current market conditions, as well as newspaper, cultural, and educational inquiries. The Washington office was folded into the Netherlands Embassy, the Boston office was closed, the one Dallas 38 The NIB, for instance, intervened in the sale of the book Queen Wilhelmina, Mother of the Netherlands, by one P. Paneth. The American agent for the Netherlands Publishing Company, G.E. Haagens, received his allotment from the NPC in London. Haagens proved quite tractable to NIB’s request that he cease marketing the book, provided the government reimburse him for unsold copies. Exchange of correspondence between Slotemaker and Haagens,  November and  December , MinBuZa, Papers of the Nederlandse Informatie Bureau, folder .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

representative released, and the two remaining field bureaus would each suffer a   budget decrease. Personnel cuts would be heavy. While the largest monthly budget had occurred in the second half of , at just over  , per month, by the first half of , the budget was pegged at  , per month.39 The relationship with Aneta was also severed, as NIB and Embassy officials began to express misgivings about propaganda activities in peacetime. But before the NIB was permanently reduced, events conspired to provide new functions for the Bureau and to re-invigorate the Bureau’s commitment to active information. No matter more occupied the postwar NIB than the Indonesian crisis. A steady stream of anti-Dutch stories would appear in the American press until the eventual transfer of sovereignty in late . With the liberation of both the Netherlands and the East Indies, the NIB could not as effectively control the information flow as before. More problematic was the essential contradiction within the propaganda campaign that proposed a “large Holland” entitled to reclaim its Indonesian prerogatives and which could stand next to and not beneath the Americans as bastions of the free world, so soon after “small Holland” had entreated American assistance both at home and abroad. In general, the themes the NIB pursued with respect to the Indies included the shared sacrifice of Her Majesty’s Dutch and Indonesian subjects against Japanese aggression; assertions of Dutch expertise and that only the Dutch knew the needs of the area; Dutch beneficence, that Dutch rule brought improvement, i.e., an updated version of the western “civilizing mission;” that the Dutch were already granting more independence than what other dependent peoples received; and the shared benefits to the Netherlands and the East Indies of continued cooperation. Dutch information policy also tried to discredit the Indonesian nationalist movement by first claiming it was a tool of the Japanese, and then later claiming that the nationalists were under the control of communism.40 Usually unstated but often just below the surface of many of these themes was the claim that the Netherlands was entitled to a continued role in the archipelago by virtue of its -plus year legacy there.41 39 Slotemaker to Wichers and G.G. Sanders,  December , memorandum enclosed, dated  December , Holland Museum, Wichers papers, box , folder “Wichers / Centennial Correspondence, New York—Dr. Slotemaker.” 40 One emblematic pamphlet was the RVD’s A Decade of Japanese Underground Activities in the Netherlands East Indies. 41 For a sustained discussion of the NIB’s Indonesian campaign, see David J. Snyder,

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



Huizinga’s tenure in the U.S. allowed him to understand the cultural and political environment in which American involvement in the Pacific theater had been undertaken. Americans were determined that American lives not be sacrificed merely to restore the old colonial empires. U.S. military operations throughout the war and with specific reference to the region were explicitly tied to the Atlantic Charter, which promised selfdetermination for colonial peoples. Both the Atlantic Charter and Dutch policy assumed the liberation of the Indies from the Japanese. But they parted company on the crucial question of restoration of the Indies to Dutch rule. Huizinga well understood the immense challenge to Dutch information programming. Only if restoration of Dutch rule could be linked to the idea of liberation would Americans stand for restoration in light of American sacrifices in the region. Huizinga’s  memo had offered some practical proposals. He observed that broad cultural diplomacy, what he dismissed as “indiscriminate publicity,” was inappropriate. If the policy goal was “the restoration of Dutch authorities [sic] in the Indies,” an exhibition of Balinese art would not do. Indeed, Huizinga mounted an assault on not only cultural diplomacy as conventionally understood, but on the entire “small Holland” informational campaign as then pursued. He wanted to reverse the tulips-and-windmills idea of “pretty little Holland,” the Netherlands as tiny and weak, because this drew attention to the “pygmy” nature of Holland and animated American “anti-pygmy rule” sentiments. Huizinga preferred to highlight the competencies, not the vulnerabilities of Dutch rule. “Just as Mussolini waged a campaign against the idea of picturesque Italy,” Huizinga added, “so we should at every opportunity fight the idea of ‘pretty little Holland’.” Like all the NIB officers, Huizinga also understood that broad propaganda, disconnected from the actual situation, would not do either. Rather, the “soft spots” in American anti-colonialism would have to be found and a negative propaganda campaign, i.e., discrediting America anti-colonialism, mounted. Huizinga listed these soft spots as “envy, great power-superiority complex, anti-colonialism and sincere idealism.” He had already fathomed the complexities of American attitudes to race and colonialism; the American objection was not to white rule per se, but “Representing Indonesian Democracy in the U.S., –: Dutch Public Diplomacy and the Exception to Self-Determination,” in Democracy and Culture in the Transatlantic World, Charlotte Wallin and Daniel Silander, eds. (Växjö, Sweden: Växjö University Press, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

to white rule as an extension of metropolitan authority. The Americans had no objections whatsoever to settler colonies, Huizinga explained. Huizinga’s observation helps to explain why postwar Dutch propaganda was so strongly insistent that the Netherlanders had amalgamated fully with their subject peoples. Though even here Huizinga was cautious, telling his superiors that “[w]here the point of intermarriage is to be made, the most suitable approach would be to present it rather as proof of the social equality of the Dutch and the Indonesian than as an indication of our views about the biological desirability of mixture [sic] of races.” Otherwise, intermarriage causes “revulsion” in the Americans. To combat American anti-colonialism, with its assumption of colonial rule as autocratic, Huizinga counseled, the NIB should highlight the autonomy of the Indies within the framework of the Kingdom by stressing the common desire of Indonesian nationalists and some (unnamed) Dutch settlers for independence from the Hague (“Washing this bit of dirty linen in public will do no harm”).42 He thus sought to associate the nationalist movements “with the Dutch themselves” so that “[t]he distinction between Indonesian and Dutch aspirations would be somewhat blurred.” Here some of the disjunctions among the information programmers themselves are revealed. Huizinga comprehended that Dutch interests stood athwart Indonesian aspirations. Slotemaker, on the other hand, as an old Indies hand, believed that Dutch and Indonesian interests were inseparable. Huizinga understood how to link the information program with the other “soft spots” in American culture. “Stress should be laid on the republican nature of Dutch government and institutions all over the world,” Huizinga advised. He also perceived the role of aspiration in American culture. “By telling the story of Dutch power in the Indies in terms of this American tradition of the self-made man,” Huizinga counseled, “it might be possible to strike a response in the minds of at least one class of Americans, the readers of a magazine like Fortune for instance.” Huizinga even linked Dutch rule to American foreign policy goals. The Dutch should stress that only they could deliver the political and economic stability in the region that the Americans wanted. The two

42 Huizinga added, in this vein “if in this presentation the Netherlands East Indies could be shown to have occasionally and successfully ‘put one over on the Hague’ this would be all to the good.”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



subsequent police actions in  and , seen in this light, appear less as evidence of Dutch brutality than as hard-power theater for the sake of the Americans. In the final analysis, however, Huizinga successfully identified the nub of the problem: American anti-colonialism is partly based on sincere idealism and belief in the universal right to self-government. Here policy is the best method of attack and propaganda can only serve as a supporting weapon. It is clear, however, that the policy which would be the most effective propaganda in the sense of creating the greatest goodwill would be completely selfdefeating since this maximum goodwill could only be created by the abdication of Dutch authority in or claims on the Indies . . .

The lack of power meant that the postwar Netherlands would have little leverage over an American policy that was bound to oppose Dutch interests. There was no “soft power” solution to the problem, for Dutch rule in the Indies, of “the dawn of the American century with all this menacing concept implies for the nations of Europe. This time America is of no mind to restore the balance of the old world only to return to the new world after the work is done. This time it is to be the American century, anywhere and everywhere.” Both American idealists and American realists, Huizinga took care to explain, had their own reasons for opposing the restoration of Dutch rule in the East Indies. The upshot of Huizinga’s memo, therefore, despite the insightful programming advice, was that Dutch policy was swimming upstream and that strategic, rather than merely informational, means would have to be altered to yield the desired ends. Reversing Jay Williams (and indeed countless information programmers on both sides of the Atlantic) but following his logic, Huizinga cautioned against the temptation to believe that public diplomacy could counter foreign policy itself. This would “reverse the proper order of things and . . . make policy the instrument of propaganda,” he warned.

Conclusion As Huizinga perceived, the problem was not whether a “small Holland” or a “large Holland” theme would work, but the actual policies themselves. Only by changing the status quo could informational programming mount a successful propaganda campaign. “[W]e are still officially committed to apply our propaganda-efforts to the promotion of a policy whose advocacy can only create the maximum ill will: the restoration of

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

the status quo ante in the Indies,” Huizinga complained. There was no way around the conundrum, that we have to use every argument we can think of to convince our public that what we want is justifiable and right and when at the last the time comes that we must answer the inevitable question ‘well what do you want?’ we dare neither give the official answer which we know will completely destroy all the effect of our previous arguments nor give the type of answer which will satisfy our audience in inverse proportion to the dissatisfaction it will give to our policy-making authority. Hence we are left without any answer of any kind or have to seek an escape in tergiversations, wooly platitudes and the like.43

If information was going to function, it had to correlate to actual policy. Since there would never be sufficient Dutch hard power to support the reacquisition of the region, the public diplomacy campaign in support of that policy was doomed to failure. Like its American counterparts in the State Department and later the USIA, the NIB faced numerous obstacles to mounting a propaganda campaign within a democratic society, including how to acquire the information it propagated as “news” and how to measure audience effectiveness. The NIB also pursued many of the same strategies as its American cousins, including employing a wide range of activities from press releases to exhibitions to radio programming, cultivating transnational intellectual-cultural networks, and appropriating message surrogates. What made Dutch public diplomacy ultimately different from the American effort was the asymmetries between the Netherlands’ strategic power and its public diplomacy. The conundrum over which of the “small Holland / large Holland” tropes to deploy existed precisely because there was no underlying “hard power” with which to correlate “soft power.” Dutch foreign policy in the period relied, as Huizinga’s plaintive counsel showed, almost entirely on advocacy. It is difficult to imagine a public diplomacy more carefully conceived or more fully supported than the NIB’s East Indies campaign, and yet there is no evidence that it ever came close to achieving its objectives. NIB failure to influence U.S. policy over the two most compelling issues Dutch foreign policy faced in the period, World War II and Indonesia, whatever broader cultural understanding the NIB was able to cultivate, illustrates how politically toothless the Dutch variant of public diplomacy was.

43

Huizinga, “Memorandum on N.E.I. Propaganda in the USA,” op. cit.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

the problem of power



Here is the key difference between American and Dutch public diplomacy. Given the clear American intent to effect cultural, intellectual and ideological change in the target country, “it is difficult to imagine a foreign policy activity that is more serious, even subversive, in intent” as Frank Ninkovich puts it.44 American public diplomacy was wedded to American power, military as well as the vast state-private networks that opened as a result of America economic muscle and the particular structure of American civil society. Since the Dutch had no effective hard power by which to force U.S. policy, their soft power remained unable to transform American attitudes. In a strange irony, then, American and Dutch public diplomacies were each in their own way constrained by the reality (or lack thereof) of power. U.S. public diplomacy sought both to extend and, for friendly nations, also mitigate that power. The Americans were concerned that, even as they built morale-improving strength on the European continent and elsewhere, that very strength could be perceived as imperial and warlike. Hence they strove to show Americans as responsible and American power as the reluctant undertaking of a people concerned with cultural values. The Dutch, on the other hand, lacked the hard power that gave them effective policy choices. During the period of American neutrality in WWII and later during the Indonesian crisis, Dutch public diplomacy sought to solicit American power, and delimit that power at the same time. Where American public diplomacy was the public diplomacy of the hegemon, seeking to reassure about the exercise of hard power, Dutch public diplomacy was the public diplomacy of the petitioning client, entreating Caesar to wield power on its behalf. In no case was Dutch information able to alter U.S. opinion on key matters despite the clear popularity of NIB’s cultural offerings. The NIB, like all public diplomatic agencies, was asked to fill the breach between state policy and the alternate frames of reference held by foreign populations. It tried, as best as it could, to function as a gateway, keeping from public view unflattering information while disseminating flattering information. In the work of selecting, of prioritizing, of shaping a coordinated message, the NIB exercised considerable public diplomatic power as such. The NIB disguised its propaganda function during the war by obscuring its censorial control over Aneta, by the use of surrogates, and by seeking “local attribution” wherever possible. The agency may not 44 Frank Ninkovich, U.S. Information Policy and Cultural Diplomacy, Headline Series no.  (New York: Foreign Policy Association, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



david j. snyder

have brokered all cultural contact between the U.S. and the Netherlands in the postwar era, but it was at least aware of every trip, tour, and performance, and attempted to integrate those contacts into its overall informational goals. The NIB, in that it had a large field of activities, sources, and few scruples about propaganda, constituted an authoritative government mouthpiece that introduced countless Americans to Dutch culture and official Netherlands government policy. It comprised a key link, along with consulates and legations, in a chain of Dutch propaganda and cultural diplomacy that stretched from London through New York, Canada and Latin America, to San Francisco, Australia, and the East Indies. And the NIB’s dissemination of information about Holland and the Dutch East Indies in books, magazines, newspapers, radio broadcasts, films, and lectures helped to bring far-flung corners of the United States closer to the Netherlands. And yet for all that the Netherlands could not cajole the Americans into the war nor seduce American support for its Indonesian regime. The Dutch attempted to accomplish via public diplomacy what they had neither the economic nor military means to make feasible. Dutch public diplomacy’s oscillation between “small” and “large” Holland was not the result of conscious message-shaping but rather the spasmodic response to the hard power vacuum at the center of Dutch foreign policy generally. Hard and soft power, therefore, should be seen as parts of a foreign policy continuum, not as separate policy strategies. American public diplomacy was in fact wholly constituted as part of a broader continuum of foreign policy strategies in pursuit of American hegemony, and only subsequent analysts have treated as distinct entities what high policymakers consciously thought of as a broad spectrum from which to draw. The conclusion to be drawn from the NIB experience is that public diplomacy has no intrinsic power of its own, soft or otherwise. Public diplomacy cannot marshal “soft power” because soft power is a construction that exists in the taxonomy of analysts, not in the actual world of international relations. “Hard” and “soft” power occupy positions along a spectrum of policy choices employed by policymakers, and they do not exist independent of each other. Historians ought to cease considering public diplomacy the marketing division of a foreign policy enterprise, but rather understand that what we call public diplomacy, as James Huizinga realized in , is in fact an intrinsic, unalienable, and central part of the foreign policy apparatus.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter three ETHNICITY, SECURITY, AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: IRISH-AMERICANS AND IRELAND’S NEUTRALITY IN WORLD WAR II

John Day Tully Ireland opted for neutrality at the start of World War II, and Irish leaders, who had been turning to Irish America for support for more than a century, enlisted Irish Americans in a massive public diplomacy effort to defend that neutrality from British and American efforts to end it. The British government, as part of its ongoing public diplomacy offensive toward the United States, wanted to limit the effectiveness of Irish leaders’ attempts to mobilize the Irish American population. American government leaders, especially the American minister in Dublin, watched both of these efforts carefully as they made their own calculations about potential Irish American political action in the postwar world. Finally, Irish Americans themselves, especially in the period before the United States entered the war, mobilized efforts to support Irish neutrality and to influence the American response to the conflict. This chapter argues that to understand the nature and effectiveness of these various developments, as well as other public diplomacy initiatives that involve ethnic communities in the United States, historians must expand the definition of public diplomacy to include a study of how ethnic communities themselves practice a form of public diplomacy. The role of ethnic groups as both the target and instigators of public diplomacy should be an important element in our efforts to rethink the interaction between governments and ethnic groups in other countries. Too often, diplomatic historians have ignored these developments and left this important aspect of public diplomacy to those who examine ethnic history. Typically, public diplomacy is generally defined as some combination of actions by a government or organization to influence another nation’s public understanding of its culture or policies, with the ultimate goal being to manage the international environment. I am proposing that the definition be broadened to include actions that ethnic groups take within their own country in response to public diplomacy efforts

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

from abroad. In effect, efforts at public diplomacy aimed at foreign ethnic groups have as their goal either public or political action by that ethnic group. In this particular case, Irish goals were realized primarily because Irish Americans took up the role of practitioners of public diplomacy within their own country.1 Irish Americans used public diplomacy to influence not only American responses to the war but also their fellow Americans’ understanding about Irish-American and Anglo-American relations. Irish Americans were both the target and the actor when it came to Irish and British public diplomacy efforts during the war, and it is only within this framework that the process and effectiveness of these public diplomacy efforts can be understood. This chapter examines how these public diplomacy efforts developed, for what ends and to what effect, and how public diplomacy intersected with issues of identity for both the Irish and Irish Americans and with issues of security in the Anglo-American alliance. It also uses this Irish American experience as a lens to focus on the broader issues of public diplomacy efforts aimed at ethnic groups and offers a broader definition of public diplomacy as a concept for historical study.

Identity Ireland and Irish America shared a struggle for political identity during the twentieth century that continues in current Irish politics and Irish American culture. After gaining independence from Great Britain in , issues of national identity, especially the importance of disasso1

Hans Tuch defines public diplomacy as “a government’s process of communicating with foreign publics in an attempt to bring about understanding for its nation’s ideas and ideals, its institutions and its culture, as well as its national goals and current policies.” Hans N. Tuch, Communicating with the World: U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ), . Nicholas J. Cull’s definition (“an international actor’s attempt to conduct its foreign policy by engaging with foreign publics”) expands the more traditional sense of the term. See Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, – (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), xv. Paul Sharp defines public diplomacy as “the process by which direct relations are pursued with a country’s people to advance the interests and extend the values of those being represented.” Jan Melissen argues that Sharp’s definition does not treat public diplomacy as a “uniquely stately activity.” See Sharp, “Revolutionary States, Outlaw Regimes and the Techniques of Public Diplomacy,” in The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations, ed. Jan Melissen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ), –; Melissen, “The New Public Diplomacy: Between Theory and Practice,” The New Public Diplomacy, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



ciating Ireland from Britain, formed the core concern of Irish foreign policy in the s. Early Irish foreign policy drew its inspiration from the notion that it would be much more difficult for Britain to interfere in Irish affairs if the international community embraced the Irish Free State as a fully independent nation. Irish leaders tried various strategies to create that independent international identity, with public diplomacy appeals to the Irish diaspora for its support often taking center stage. Appeals to Irish Americans, as the primary component of that diaspora in one of the most powerful countries in the world, became a significant tactic in Irish foreign policy during the nation’s first decades.2 The Irish government throughout the s and into the s turned to Irish America for validation and support in its effort to forge a national identity, even while Irish Americans wrestled with similar concepts of identity and power in their new homeland. True, Irish Americans were making more money, getting better jobs, living in better conditions, and achieving many of the stereotypical trappings of the American Dream, but they still did not feel accepted by the dominant culture. The rise of Catholic institutions—schools, colleges, hospitals, social clubs, and the like—were part of the larger pan-ethnic Catholic leadership role that Irish Americans sought to acquire to compensate for this perceived lack of integration into the mainstream. They are also evidence that even as Irish Americans were climbing the economic ladder on the outside, they continued to feel that no matter how high they reached they would never be able to climb into the “real” American house. The “extensive organizational network” that they built as a counter to the barriers erected by the dominant American culture “functioned to separate their lives, at the primary level, from those of Anglo Protestants.”3 Timothy Meagher has described Irish Americans of this period as holding a unique position in American society: “It was not then, that the Irish American was not an American; it was just that after three generations he or she was still a different kind of American.” It is this very sense of alienation within American society that makes the Irish 2 As an example of the concern over international image, Irish diplomats routinely carried the Irish flag to international sporting events out of fear that organizers would use the Union Jack as the symbol of Irish athletes. Such was the case in Belgium in . See Gerard Keown, “Taking the World Stage: Creating an Irish Foreign Policy in the s,” in Irish Foreign Policy, –: From Independence to Internationalism, eds. Michael Kennedy and Joseph Morrison Skelly (Dublin: Four Courts Press, ), –. 3 Marjorie Fallows, Irish Americans: Identity and Assimilation (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

American political and cultural response to Irish public diplomacy efforts during World War II so interesting. For that public diplomacy forms a window by which we can learn about domestic influences of American policy, the strategies and effectiveness of British efforts to bring the United States and Ireland into the war, and the Irish efforts to use Irish Americans to end the partition of Ireland and to help maintain Ireland’s neutrality in the face of thinly veiled British threats to invade.4

Ireland’s s Public Diplomacy In March , Eamon de Valera took office as President of the Executive Council in Ireland. De Valera’s overriding goal in the s was the creation of a state entirely independent of Great Britain: politically, militarily, culturally, and economically. The importance of a public diplomacy effort aimed at Irish America in order to accomplish that goal became clear when he delivered a major radio broadcast to the United States just weeks after his election. In that speech, de Valera called on Irish America to support his efforts to create a new and united Ireland. This was part of de Valera’s wider effort to end the partition of Ireland that began with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of , even as he struggled both to achieve a greater degree of practical independence for Ireland and to maintain links to the British Commonwealth. This effort created disputes over land annuity payments to Great Britain and led to the “Anglo-Irish Economic War”— a trade war over tariffs. The economic conflict was not settled until , when a new agreement resolved the economic issues and gave Ireland control over the so-called Treaty ports that Great Britain had retained as part of the  treaty.5 When de Valera’s second government took office after the general election of January  he moved quickly to enlist formally the support of Irish Americans in his effort to remake Ireland’s identity. He was already receiving advice to take a hard-line approach in order to isolate Great Britain internationally by using the power of the Irish living abroad. In a subsequent radio address to the United States, he drew references to 4 Timothy Meagher, The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (New York: Columbia University Press, ), . See also Timothy Meagher, ed., From Paddy to Studs: Irish-American Communities in the Turn of the Century Era (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, ). 5 Prospect of Peace and Reconstruction,  March , National Archives of Ireland, Department of the Taoiseach, S (hereafter NAI / DT with file number).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



Lincoln’s saving the Union when he made his case that the partition of the island into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State was “imposed by force” and is “maintained by subsidies” solely to satisfy British imperial policy. He derided as “an invention without any basis in the facts” the notion that partition was necessary to prevent the religious persecution of the Irish Protestant minority. What the British had in fact done, according to de Valera, was create a persecuted religious minority by forcing Northern Catholics to live in an artificial state. He ended by appealing for the help of our “generous and loyal” friends, the Irish living in the United States.6 The  Irish Constitution was De Valera’s crowning achievement in his effort to fashion a new Irish identity. Bunreacht na hÉireann, literally “Ireland’s Basic Law,” fundamentally changed the Irish nation’s selfidentity as an independent state. In a  June speech to the United States, de Valera called the Constitution the “spiritual and cultural embodiment of the Irish people.” He summed up his view of the Constitution on the eve of the referendum on its acceptance: It is a renewed declaration of national independence and its enactment will mark the attainment of one definite objective in the national struggle. It consolidates the ground that has been gained and forms a secure basis from which we can move forward towards the recovery of the national sovereignty over our ports and the reunion of the whole national territory into one State.7

The ports he wanted Irish Americans to help Ireland get back were never part of an independent Ireland. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of  contained an annex that allowed Great Britain to maintain control of the harbor defenses and facilities at three Irish ports: Berehaven, Cobh, and Lough Swilly. During the treaty negotiations, the Irish delegation did not 6

“Ireland Free, Gaelic and United,” radio broadcast,  February  in Speeches and Statements of Eamon de Valera, –, ed. Maurice Moynihan (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, ), –. De Valera had vast experience in trying to mobilize Irish Americans to advance Irish issues. He spent time in the United States during – enlisting their help in the struggle for Irish independence. See The American Mission, P / , Eamon de Valera Papers, Department of Archives, University College, Dublin (hereafter de Valera Papers, UCD, with file number). See also Troy Davis, “Eamon de Valera’s Political Education in America,” New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua  (Spring / Earrach, ): –. MacEntee to De Valera,  March , MacEntee Papers, Department of Archives, University College, Dublin, P /  (hereafter MacEntee Papers, UCD, with file number). 7 The new Constitution passed in a national referendum in July  and took effect that December. De Valera quoted inFrank Pakenham Longford and Thomas P. O’Neill, Eamon De Valera (New York: Arrow Books, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

raise serious objections, assuming that the British would not be willing to move on the ports issue. At the time, De Valera even included the British right to the harbor defenses in “Document No. ,” his proposed alternative to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.8 When de Valera later pressed his points on the ports with the British government, he complicated the issue by pulling in the United States. First, he played the Irish American card by pointing to the benefit of an Anglo-Irish settlement on Anglo-American relations. His argument was that the financial benefits of annuity payments or of occupying the ports against the will of most of the Irish population could not possibly outweigh a “real unqualified friendship” with the United States. Second, he played the Irish Republican Army card by emphasizing that certain “irresponsible” elements of Irish society, aided by Irish Americans, would probably attack the ports during a war if Britain continued to maintain them. Third, he argued that Ireland with the ports would never be used as a base of attack against Britain, a position he had held since . Both sides were eager enough for a settlement that they agreed to enter into formal ministerial negotiations in January . In his conclusion to the debate in the House of Commons, Dominions Secretary Malcolm MacDonald pointed to the positive influence of the agreement on AngloAmerican relations. Discussing the fact that in the United States “Irishmen take a great part in foreign affairs and politics,” MacDonald concluded that the Agreement “has resulted in improving the friendly relations which exist between the United States and this country.” This was exactly the outcome that de Valera had hoped for in the first part of his strategy, and this encouraged him to make further use of public diplomacy by engaging Irish America in the cause to end partition.9 By the fall of , with the ports now under the control of the Irish government, de Valera put partition at the forefront of his public diplomacy efforts on Anglo-Irish and Anglo-American relations. “The present Partition of Ireland is a dangerous anachronism which must be ended,” de Valera noted in October, which kept alive the “ancient antagonisms” between the British and the “overwhelming majority of 8 Final Text of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland as Signed,  December , NAI, Dáil Éireann files,  /  /  (hereafter NAI / DE with file number); Proposed Treaty of Association between Ireland and the British Commonwealth, NAI / DE /  /  / . 9 “Press Statement,” February , Speeches and Statements, ; Commons Sitting of  May , Hansard, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/sittings//may/ (accessed  May ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



the Irish race.” Later that month he announced at a Fianna Fáil Party meeting that he was going to ask two Irish American newspapers, the New York Irish World and the San Francisco Leader to concentrate on “the nature of partition and the wrong done by it to the Irish nation.” Early in , with an invitation in hand from President Roosevelt to attend the New York World’s Fair, de Valera decided to use his visit as a rallying cry to raise the partition issue directly with Irish Americans in an effort to sway American public opinion. De Valera had planned to visit Washington, New York, Boston, and twenty-one other cities, speaking to chambers of commerce, the Council on Foreign Relations, Irish Societies, and at a variety of civic events. Public meetings were planned for Madison Square Garden and Chicago Stadium. The American Minister to Dublin, John Cudahy, however, urged him to avoid raising any anti-British feeling in the United States because it would ultimately only hurt the Irish cause. De Valera ultimately cancelled the trip just a few weeks before departure when a crisis erupted over Britain’s announcement of a plan to introduce conscription in Northern Ireland.10

A Neutral Ireland and a Neutral United States The period between the start of the war and American entry into the war was the most crucial of Ireland’s effort to maintain its independent political identity through its neutrality. Of the twelve “Moments of Special Crisis” for Ireland that Joseph Walshe, the Permanent Secretary of the Irish Department of External Affairs, came up with at the conclusion of the war, ten of them fell between September  and December . The war in the North Atlantic, the collapse of France, and the Battle of Britain all placed heavy pressures on British policymakers and military planners, making them look west toward Ireland. With defeat on the continent, the supply link with the United States became Britain’s lifeline. Many felt that it would be an advantage in the fight against German U-boats if the Treaty ports were available to British warships. The British also worried

10 Taoiseach’s Interview on Partition,  October , NAI / DT / SA; “Press Interview,”  October , Speeches and Statements, –; NAI / DT / S; De Valera, “Interview for the United States,” MS:, Frank Gallagher Papers, National Library of Ireland; John Bowman, De Valera and the Ulster Question, – (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

that a German invasion of lightly defended Ireland would provide Hitler with a base to begin a two-pronged invasion of Britain from Ireland and France.11 It was Robert Brennan’s job, as the Irish minister to the United States, to manage the public diplomacy aspect of Irish policy to the Irish American and American public. Brennan had experience in the United States, having served as Secretary to the Irish Legation in Washington from  until , when he became minister. His primary credential, however, was not his formal diplomatic training, but his ability to use his experience to implement Irish public diplomacy efforts. Before the war he was the General Manager of the Irish Press, and after the war, he became the Director of Radio Éireann. Brennan used his media experience extensively in cultivating a relationship with the Washington press corps and the Irish American press, two networks he argued were much more important than his official contacts with the State Department.12 The American presence in Dublin changed dramatically when the American minister John Cudahy, who was sympathetic to de Valera and the Irish government, left Ireland in January  and Roosevelt replaced him with David Gray. Gray was far from the ideal candidate for the position in Ireland. Dermot Keogh has described him as a “troublemaker of the first order.” He was not Roman Catholic, he was sixty-nine years old at the time of his appointment, and he had no real interest in cultivating an understanding of Irish political culture. He brought with him no experience with Ireland, other than a few hunting trips in the s. Gray’s natural social inclinations and background made him more comfortable with the Anglo-Irish and Protestant ascendancy in Ireland than with de Valera and those in the Fianna Fáil government. De Valera, sensing that his best hopes were with Irish Americans and not with the American minister, intensified his public diplomacy efforts after Gray’s arrival by using his  St. Patrick’s Day Address to the United States to ask Irish Americans to help end the “crime of partition.”13 11

Joseph Walshe,  May , NAI, Department of Foreign Affairs, A (hereafter NAI / DFA with file number). 12 “New Minister to USA: Appointment of Mr. R. Brennan,” Irish Times,  August ; Robert Brennan, Allegiance (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, ). 13 Maude Gray had a very close relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt. See Dwyer, Irish Neutrality, . There is some evidence that Eleanor pushed her husband to appoint Gray. See Raymond James Raymond, “David Gray, the Aiken Mission and Irish Neutrality, –,” Diplomatic History ,  (): ; Dermot Keogh, Twentieth Century Ireland: Nation and State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), ; “Partition Cannot Last: Taoiseach Tells US How It Is Maintained,” Irish Press,  March .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



It was soon after Gray’s arrival in Dublin that events of the war brought on a more urgent pace and a more confrontational tone in AngloIrish relations. Germany’s attacks on the Low Countries in May  prompted Britain to renew its calls for the Treaty ports. The importance of the North Atlantic supply line with the United States increased after it appeared certain that a long fight loomed on the continent. Coupled with the rise of Winston Churchill, who vigorously protested the British handover of the ports in , the stage was set for a much more contentious relationship between the two governments. On  May , the day that Churchill took office, Sir John Maffey called on de Valera and argued that the new aggression by Germany necessitated an Irish reappraisal of its neutrality. De Valera responded that as long as partition remained in effect it would be impossible for Ireland to join the British in the war. He did, however, agree to arrange a series of secret meetings between the British and Irish militaries in order to draw up a coordinated defense policy in the event of a German invasion of Ireland.14 With Churchill now firmly in control of British policy toward Ireland, de Valera expected this tougher line. The first salvo involved denying the backorder of weapons for the Irish government until it signed a formal defense agreement. The second was a series of articles in the British press, coordinated by the British government and aimed at the Irish, decrying Irish neutrality. The final effort was direct talks aimed at bringing Ireland into the war or at least having de Valera surrender the Treaty ports.15 Prompted by inaccurate intelligence reports in May and June  that warned of Germany’s imminent plans for an invasion of Ireland, former prime minister Neville Chamberlain approached the British War Cabinet with a proposal to open talks with de Valera about Irish participation in the war in return for future efforts aimed at ending partition. Chamberlain hoped that if de Valera could be convinced that the Germans would soon overrun the country then he would agree to abandon neutrality and invite in British troops.16 14 Minutes of First Meeting,  May , NAI / DFA / A. See also Joseph T. Carroll, Ireland in the War Years, – (San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, ), –; Paul Canning, British Policy towards Ireland, – (New York: Oxford University Press, ), . 15 Canning, British Policy towards Ireland, . 16 Most of the reports came from Sir Charles Tegart who had been reporting from Ireland. One of his wildly inaccurate reports stated that “up to , [German] leaders have been landed in Eire from German U-Boats and by other methods since the outbreak

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

On  June  de Valera privately rejected the British proposals completely, stressing his ongoing actions in support of Britain and the unacceptable situation of partition. He believed that any British promises to coerce Northern Ireland into ending partition were simply empty words. Churchill, in fact, had already rejected cabinet appeals for that approach, claiming that he “could never be a party to coercion of Ulster to join the Southern counties.” MacDonald reported that de Valera was adamant about maintaining neutrality and was “genuine in his determination” to resist “any attempt on our part to seize the Atlantic ports by force.”17 Faced with a crisis in Anglo-Irish relations, de Valera quickly turned to public diplomacy aimed at Irish Americans in an effort to secure his position. The very day he forwarded a formal rejection of the British proposals he also arranged an interview with the New York Times, during which he made it clear that Ireland was determined to stay neutral and deter any aggressor. While he did not mention either Germany or Britain, he stated again that he did not intend for Ireland to be used as a base for operations against any belligerent. Again, he stressed that Ireland wanted cordial relations with Britain, but that the lone outstanding obstacle to the bilateral relationship, was the “most important” issue of partition.18 In order to reinforce the message and further public diplomacy efforts, Irish Defense Minister Frank Aiken arranged an interview with the National Broadcasting Company on the same day as the New York Times interview. When asked what Ireland’s response would be to a German attack, he responded with the provocative declaration that if Ireland were attacked by “anyone,” (being careful not to specify either Germany or Britain), Ireland would “certainly [be] helped by the other.” The implication that Ireland would call on Germany’s aid if Britain tried to seize the ports drew the attention of Washington. Two days later, Secretary of State Cordell Hull cautioned the British against attacking Ireland. Irish public diplomacy worked.19

of the war.” Quoted in Tim Pat Coogan, Eamon de Valera: The Man Who Was Ireland (New York: HarperCollins, ), . 17 Mark Hull, Irish Secrets: German Espionage in Ireland, – (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, ), –; Canning, British Policy Towards Ireland, ; Carroll, Ireland in the War Years, . 18 “Dublin Arms to Bar an Invasion, Whether from Britain or Reich,” New York Times,  July . 19 Text of Interview,  July , Frank Aiken Papers, UCD, P / ; Dwyer, Irish Neutrality, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



Yet similar public diplomacy efforts were used against Ireland. In July  there were a series of articles and editorials in the American and British press condemning Ireland’s refusal of the British offers to work toward future unification if Ireland joined the war. Realizing that much of his ability to maintain neutrality rested on whatever restraint the American and British public, especially the Irish American community, put on Churchill, de Valera worked hard to counter the attacks. Meeting with the opposition, de Valera expressed his concern about the “vigorous effort . . . to influence public opinion against us in the United States.” De Valera felt that Gray was behind the press barrage, in part because Gray did little to hide his pleasure in reading the tone of the articles. In late July, he wrote to Walshe that Irish American groups in the United States had lost their effectiveness because they were now associated “in the public mind with Nazis and Fascists.”20 Dublin was therefore eager to get its side of the story to the American press. On  July , Joseph Walshe in the Irish Department of External Affairs asked Brennan to publicize this explanation of Irish neutrality in American newspapers: Neutrality is of the very essence of Irish independence. It is based on the fundamental and universal will of our people, so much so that no Government could depart from it without at once being overthrown. It was not adopted as a bargaining factor but as the fullest expression of our independence in time of war. We are determined to defend it against all invaders to the bitter end. The hostile attitude of certain Americans to Ireland is completely opposed to American statements about small nations and self-determination.21

In August , Walshe took his concerns over the press campaign directly to Gray, who sent Walshe a letter on  August expressing his surprise that the Irish government was even worried about Britain seizing the ports and therefore had nothing to fear from a press campaign. Walshe responded by sending Gray a series of clippings from British and American newspapers in an attempt to outline a coordinated anti-Irish campaign. Walshe quoted Churchill’s comments on the ports in the  debate in the British House of Commons: “Now we give up the ports to an Irish Government led by men whose rise to power is proportioned by the animosity with which they have acted against this country.” He 20 Notes on Conference Held in Taoiseach’s Room on Morning of July th, , NAI / DT / S; Gray to Walshe,  July , NAI / DFA / P. 21 Dublin to Washington, Personal and Most Secret,  July , NAI / DFA / .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

also commented on the similarities in the British and American press campaigns, noting, “the mere coincidence gives one furiously to think.”22 In the autumn of , a number of developments made Churchill eager to press Ireland again over joining the war or making the Treaty ports available to the British Navy. After the fall of France in June , the German Navy began to base U-boats on the French coast. Even though only ten U-boats were ever on patrol at a time, their shorter distance to targets in the Atlantic and the British need to keep vessels in the English Channel to guard against an invasion allowed the Germans to sink a significant amount of British shipping. October  was the worst month of the war for the British in the Battle of the Atlantic, and almost all of the losses came within two hundred and fifty miles of the northwest corner of Ireland.23 Without prior consultation with the cabinet, on  November  Churchill made his first public speech about the role of the Treaty ports in Britain’s war effort. It was also election day in the United States, so it is possible that Churchill had been waiting so Roosevelt would not have to worry about an Irish American backlash. After recounting the success of Britain in weathering the German air assaults over the summer, Churchill turned to Ireland: More serious than the air raids has been the recent recrudescence of Uboat sinkings in the Atlantic approaches to our islands. The fact that we cannot use the South and West Coasts of Ireland . . . to protect the trade by which Ireland as well as Great Britain lives, is a most heavy and grievous burden and one which should never have been placed on our shoulders, broad though they be.

Churchill also went on, though, to stress that perhaps the worst part of the naval situation had passed. During question time, one member of Parliament commented on the American role in keeping Ireland neutral: Every month we watch the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of tons being sunk and of hundreds of British sailors being drowned because we cannot get the ports . . . . Ireland pays a good deal of attention to public opinion in the United States, and it is worthwhile calling the attention of the United States, who have influence, to what we are paying for our principles.24 22

Walshe to Gray,  August , NAI / DFA / P. See Williamson Murray and Allan Millett, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, ), –. 24 Parliamentary Debates, th ser., vol.  (), col. , , –, – . 23

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



In his public response to Churchill, de Valera focused on the positive aspects of the Anglo-Irish relationship, and, again indicating the importance of British public diplomacy, insisted that he would not have graced Churchill’s comments with any response if a “Press Campaign” in Britain and the United States had not followed them. De Valera emphasized the importance of friendly relations with Britain, and that save for the issue of partition, since the end of the Economic War the relationship had never been stronger. He also stressed again how he had for more than twenty years given assurances that Ireland would never be a base against Britain. Of course, as part of the larger effort to maintain strict public neutrality, he did not disclose the extensive covert aid that Ireland had been giving the Allies. Still, he concluded with a stern warning that for the first time mentioned Britain specifically as a potential enemy of Ireland: “Any attempt to bring pressure to bear on us by any side—by any of the belligerents—by Britain—could only lead to bloodshed.”25 In Washington, Brennan emphasized Irish displeasure with the official and unofficial British pressure on the ports. He presented a copy of de Valera’s speech to Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles along with an official note stating that Ireland would “resist by force” either Germany or Britain should Ireland’s neutrality be violated. The note also complained that a semi-official press campaign in Britain was being “echoed” in the United States. When Welles pressed Brennan on how Ireland would fare if Germany defeated Britain, Brennan countered that if the Irish surrendered the ports to the British in an effort to prevent a German victory, “it was highly probable that revolution would develop within the Irish Free State.” Concerned about official U.S. reactions to Irish efforts, Brennan saw Irish Americans as “the only weapon” he had “to save Ireland in the course of the administration’s headlong race to save Britain.” He told Welles that there was already a backlash among many Irish Americans and threatened that there might soon appear “Irish American propaganda to the effect that the British were seeking these bases in Eire solely as a means of restoring British domination over Ireland.”26 25 The British Ministry of Information had curtailed much of its activity in Ireland in deference to Irish-American opinion. See Nicholas Cull, Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American “Neutrality” in World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, ), ; Dáil Debates  ( November ), –. 26 Washington to Dublin,  December , NAI / DFA / ; Brennan, Ireland Standing Firm, ; Sumner Welles, “Memorandum of Conversation,”  December , U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States,  (Washington, D.C.: GPO,

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

De Valera felt that the only real obstacle to unilateral British action against Ireland was the cabinet’s concern that ensuing negative American and Irish American public opinion might limit Roosevelt’s ability to assist in the war. Consequently, he initiated a press campaign of his own, having Brennan write to and meet with dozens of newspaper editors across the United States. On  November, de Valera gave a widely published interview to Wallace Carroll of United Press International. De Valera again insisted that maintaining neutrality and not allowing Britain to use or lease the ports was a matter of sovereignty. He also emphasized the familiar assurance that Britain had no need to fear Ireland being a base against it. In a letter to the American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic, a group he founded almost twenty years earlier during a stay in the United States, de Valera asked for a massive campaign “to put the Irish case, including partition, . . . clearly before the American public.” Pointing to the rights of neutrals and drawing parallels between the American and Irish rights to decide for themselves issues of war and peace, de Valera argued that it would be an “inhuman outrage” to pressure a woefully unprepared Ireland into war.27 The Irish American press took up the call, and in doing so became an extension of Irish public diplomacy efforts in the United States. The Irish Echo called for a meeting of “all people interested in assisting Ireland in preserving her neutrality.” Almost , people arrived in a New York hotel on  November for what became the organizational meeting of the American Friends of Irish Neutrality (AFIN). The AFIN hired a small staff whose primary mission was to submit articles and organize letterwriting campaigns across the country. They also published a monthly newsletter, “Neutrality News.”28 The British and American governments took note of de Valera’s and the Irish American press’s public diplomacy campaign. There was some ), vol. :– (hereafter FRUS followed by year and volume number). Again, no quotes needed on document title. 27 Memorandum of Conversation,  November . Welles wrote to Gray about the meeting on  November . See Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Ireland,  November  and Irish Legation to the Department of State,  November , all in NAI / DFA / P; Eamon de Valera, “Interview with U.S. Journalist,”  November , in de Valera, Ireland’s Stand: Being a Selection of Speeches of Eamon de Valera During the War (Dublin: The Stationery Office, ), –; Dublin to Washington,  November , NAI / DFA / . 28 Irish Echo,  November ; Neutrality News,  July , Aiken Papers, UCD, P / .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



discussion in the British cabinet that perhaps the government should ease the pressure on Ireland out of fear of American backlash. Churchill, however, would not be moved. He wrote to Sir John Maffey, who was advocating an ease of tension, that de Valera “should stew in his own juice for a while” and that “certainly nothing must be said to reassure him.” In Washington, Secretary of Navy Frank Knox lobbied FDR to join Britain in putting pressure on de Valera, but Roosevelt still resisted getting actively involved. It is possible that he was quite content with Gray’s efforts in Dublin, where Gray was telling de Valera that American public opinion would soon more clearly see that the Irish were enjoying their continued safety and standard of living only at the expense of British lives.29 The seeds of the fall British propaganda campaign against Irish neutrality bore fruit in the press throughout the winter of –, but it did not change de Valera’s position. Reviewing the nature of the articles about Irish neutrality during the time, historian T. Ryle Dwyer concluded that there were four main areas of “distortions and misrepresentations” about Ireland: that numerous German agents were in Dublin, that the German diplomatic staff in Dublin was excessively large, that U-Boats were refueling in Irish ports, and that the lights of Irish cities aided German pilots.30 In December  de Valera countered with another effort to enlist Irish Americans in a joint public diplomacy campaign. He instructed Brennan that it was “essential to keep our friends in America in touch with the seriousness” of the situation. In his annual Christmas message to the United States, carried by the Columbia Broadcasting System, de Valera complained about the recent British actions and the “false picture” that the press in Britain and the United States were painting about life in Ireland. Citing a long list of privations being endured by the Irish, de Valera claimed that Ireland was blockaded more than any other country in Europe, including by Britain. Again stressing the commitment to neutrality, he said that the Irish people would “defend ourselves to the utmost.” Gray complained to de Valera that the speech was designed to “put the pressure on the Irish-American vote,” and that it 29 Churchill to Cranborne,  November , quoted in Dwyer, Irish Neutrality, ; William Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, – (New York: Harper and Brothers, ), . 30 Clippings sent by Brennan to Dublin are contained in “British and American Press and Radio Campaign Against Irish Neutrality” NAI / DFA / P; Dwyer, Irish Neutrality, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

was not so much the fact of Irish neutrality, but the “attitude of Irish opinion” as it was being reported that caused problems in the United States.31 Roosevelt reacted strongly to de Valera’s plea. FDR was already deeply involved in moving the American public toward a new stage of support for Britain and in laying the groundwork for Lend-Lease and objected to de Valera’s public criticism of British naval and shipping policy. During his radio address of  December in which he called on the United States to be the “great arsenal of democracy,” FDR posited that a defeated Britain would mean ruin for Ireland. Clearly addressing de Valera and the majority of Irish Americans, Roosevelt asked dismissively if “Irish freedom [would] be permitted as an amazing pet exception in an unfree world.”32 Although Roosevelt was unwilling to put any direct personal pressure on de Valera, the British economic pressure and publicity campaign began to have an effect on non-Irish-American public opinion at the start of . The Gallup Poll asked Americans in the first week of January: “Would you like to see the Irish give up their neutrality and let the English use war bases along the Irish coast?” Among all Americans,   said yes,   no, with   undecided. Among those who identified themselves as Irish Americans, the results were   yes,   no, and only   undecided.33 As the war progressed, Gray became even more determined to end Irish neutrality. Gray pointed to Robert Brennan’s April  article in the New York Times as one example in support of his claim that the Irish planned to lobby against partition after the war. In the article, Brennan claimed that all of the attacks on Irish neutrality, including historian Henry Steele Commager’s March article in the New York Times, were based on the “fallacy that the other nations went to war on moral issues.” In supporting the morality of the Irish position, Brennan argued that throughout the s Ireland had advocated a vigorous international system to deter aggression, but that none of the major

31 Walshe to Brennan,  December , NAI / DFA / P; Gray to the Secretary of State,  January , FRUS , :–. 32 “On Security,”  December , Fireside Chats, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Digital Archives, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/.html (accessed  May ). 33 George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, –, vol. , – (New York: Random House, ), . The poll was conduced – January .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



powers helped. He also wondered why the moral outrage of the world had not been directed at Britain for years of implementing partition.34 Brennan’s article and his earlier efforts to rally Irish American public opinion had some results. Irish American organizations around the country held meetings about Irish neutrality on St. Patrick’s Day, . Speaking at the dinner of the Charitable Irish Society in Boston, Fr. Edmund Walsh, the vice president of Georgetown University, defended the right of Ireland to remain neutral. Noting the “severe criticism voiced in certain circles,” Walsh said that the United States could not “deny to Eire the same principle of self-determination of peace or war which the powerful United States maintained for so long.” If there were an invasion of Ireland by Britain, he continued, “By the cold logic of reason . . . [the Allies] would have to ask themselves how such aggression differs from Hitler’s ‘preventative occupation’ of Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Luxembourg.”35 From  until , many Irish Americans responded to de Valera’s public diplomacy calls to defend Irish neutrality. Many Irish American leaders developed their own public diplomacy efforts as an extension of Irish strategies. Their effectiveness can be measured in part by the extent that the British took note of possible Irish American responses to any proposed efforts to either force Ireland to relinquish the ports or enter the war. Just as it seemed that the worst was over de Valera’s government, David Gray, in one of the most calculated public diplomacy moves of the war, maneuvered to condemn Ireland in any postwar court of public opinion in the United States.

The American Note Crisis By late , as events in the war made the British less interested in ending Irish neutrality or obtaining use of the ports, David Gray launched an effort to discredit the nature and effect of the Irish government’s neutrality and to spread disinformation about imagined Axis efforts to use Ireland as an espionage base against the Allies. He proposed a formal note 34 Robert Brennan, “The Case for Irish Neutrality,”  April , New York Times; Henry Steele Commager, “A Challenge to Irish Neutrality,”  March , New York Times. 35 Copy of speech enclosed in Washington to Dublin,  May , NAI / DFA / ; “Eire’s Neutrality Justified Fr. Gannon Tells Feis Throng that Fills Fordham Campus,” Gaelic American,  June .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

that would put de Valera on the diplomatic record as opposing an Allied request to close Axis missions in Dublin. Gray’s real goal, however, was to publicize the entire exchange so that postwar Irish governments would be so discredited in American and Irish American eyes that they would not use public diplomacy to interfere in the postwar Anglo-American alliance by protesting partition. The Irish government called this entire effort the American Note crisis.36 After getting approval from the British, but with the State Department proviso that “no publicity is contemplated at present,” Gray delivered the Note to de Valera on  February . Gray reported to Washington that de Valera’s first words after reading the Note were: “Of course our answer will be no; as long as I am here it will be no.” He asked Gray if it were an ultimatum, to which Gray replied that as the Note contained no “or else,” it was simply a request from a friendly state. Gray and the State Department, however, had no intention of keeping the Note secret because its whole rationale was to put de Valera on record as publicly refusing a request to assist in the war effort. Gray wrote to the State Department that the note was written “primarily for the American public.” This was especially important as the final preparations for a cross-Channel invasion of France were being completed. In the event the invasion failed, both Churchill and Gray would be able to blame Axis spies in Dublin.37 Gray also brought this possible scenario, which could only happen if the Note became public, to de Valera. Gray informed him that he heard that rumors about the Note were floating around Dublin, but that if the story became public it would not come from the Americans, nor he said he believed from the British. Gray went on, “We have no desire to see you crucified by a press campaign . . . but if you give it out and a storm breaks that is your affair. It is a matter of indifference to us.”38 In his formal reply of  March, de Valera confirmed his initial rejection of the Note. In a veiled reference to Gray’s activities, De Valera wrote that 36 For a succinct argument on Gray’s postwar motives, see Troy Davis, Dublin’s American Policy: Irish-American Diplomatic Relations, – (Washington: Catholic University of America, ). 37 Winant to the Secretary of State,  February  and Stettinius to Gray,  February , FRUS , :–; Copies of American Note, British Note and Irish Reply, NAI / DFA / A; Gray to the Secretary of State,  February ; Memorandum of Telephone Conversations, Hickerson,  February ; “Winant to the Secretary of State,”  February , FRUS , :–. 38 Gray to Secretary of State,  March , FRUS , :–.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



Irish officials doubted that the U.S. government had accurate information about the nature of Irish neutrality and the efforts of the Irish government to “safeguard American interests.” He then outlined the series of actions that helped the Allied cause, concluding with the argument that the Irish position on neutrality would not be developed out of fear of others’ reactions.39 It was not long before a firestorm of public debate began about the Note and the Irish response. The State Department began to get inquiries about the Note on  March, the full story broke in the press two days after that, and the State Department published the Note the next day. The response was immediate, receiving banner headlines across the country. “Call for St Patrick! The snakes are back in Ireland,” declared a Dallas Morning News editorial. Repeating the standard inaccurate assessments of Irish counter-espionage, the Atlanta Constitution ran an article stating that Ireland was “notoriously loose” in stopping Axis spying. The New York Times repeated the inaccurate reporting that the Axis missions could send secret reports through their diplomatic pouches, although later editions did include the official Irish statement that neither mission had a diplomatic bag and that all cable traffic had to be routed through London. The front-page article also stated “the personality of David Gray evidently played a considerable part in the exchanges.” In a follow-up article the next week, the New York Times did discuss the “highly efficient secret service” that the Irish military maintained. Perhaps the most understated assessment came from the BBC, which claimed that “Eire as a Dominion of the British Commonwealth has an unquestionable legal right to do what she has done.”40 Churchill took a public position on  March that echoed the State Department’s earlier warnings to Brennan. “If a catastrophe were to occur to the Allied armies which could be traced to the retention of the German and Japanese representatives in Dublin, a gulf would be opened between Great Britain on the one hand and Southern Ireland on the other which even generations would not bridge.” Churchill of course knew about the planning and schedule for what would become Operation Overlord, the

39

Reply to American Note of the st February,  March , NAI / DT / SA. United States Request for the Removal of Axis Diplomatic and Consular Representatives for Ireland, Department of State Bulletin , no. ,  March , ; New York Times,  and  March ; BBC release quoted in Susan A. Brewer, To Win the Peace: British Propaganda in the United States During World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), . 40

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

cross-channel invasion of France. In the event of failure, the Irish refusal could have been used as a convenient scapegoat.41 The overwhelming criticism of the Irish position was not reflected in the American Catholic press. Brennan passed along to Dublin reports from Commonweal and The Pittsburgh Catholic as examples of a more nuanced argument against the Irish position and of support for Irish neutrality. Commonweal’s editorial of  March remarked that “there can be no question . . . as to the sincerity and conscientiousness with which the de Valera government in its neutrality has sought to prevent Axis espionage.” While agreeing that de Valera had a legal right to allow the missions to stay, the editorial also called for Ireland to “sacrifice a certain measure of sovereignty” for the good of the world. In The Pittsburgh Catholic, the editorial tried to counter the “headlines, the editorials, the statements, the slurs and the insinuations that have appeared in the last few days.” It went on to discuss the Irish counter-espionage efforts, the number of Irish volunteers serving in the British armed forces, and how Ireland could not have affected the outcome of the war. Speculating on the real reason for the Note, it concluded, “What part of the Allied military command’s strategy is involved in raising this Irish issue at the present moment, the general public does not know—and neither do the ‘experts’ who are doing the cause of national unity so much harm by their ignorant comments.”42 American public opinion formed quickly once the news broke about the Note. A Gallup Poll conducted from  to  March  found that   of the respondents had heard about the request to force the Axis representatives to leave Ireland and   of those felt the United States should “do something further.” In another poll a few weeks later only   of the respondents had “heard or read about the United States request to Ireland that it expel Axis representatives.” Of those who said yes,   favored stopping all trade with Ireland if it continued to refuse to submit to American demands.43 Gray enjoyed the press attention to the Note. Indeed, it had been the major intent of submitting it. There is some uncertainty about who leaked the news of the Note, but Gray maintained that it must have 41 Sitting of  March , Hansard, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/sittings/ /mar/ ( May ). 42 NAI / DFA / A. 43 Gallup, The Gallup Poll, Survey -K, – March , p. ; Survey -K,  March –  April , p. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

ethnicity, security, and public diplomacy



been someone from Fine Gael, an Irish opposition party, who sat on the Irish Defense Conference. He saw no need to follow up with any official actions, for “the general condemnation of De Valera by our press will have its effect without our taking further official measures.” He argued that the best strategy at that point would be to have the United States government make some token release of extra supplies to Ireland to give “this Legation a popular standing as a friend of the Irish people.” Appearing sorrowful and not angry about de Valera’s decision would take away de Valera’s plans to appeal to the “Irish-American front.” The Note, and the planned public response to its refusal, was a cleverly conceived example of public diplomacy.44

Conclusion The Irish, British, and American governments all used public diplomacy to advance their policies before and during the war. Most often, the targets of those activities were Irish Americans, but sometimes the efforts were aimed at wider American or Irish public opinion. Whether it was to secure Irish territorial sovereignty, end partition, or maintain neutrality, de Valera always included the Irish American dimension among his most potent diplomatic options. British policymakers always took the Irish American reaction to account when developing policy toward Ireland. Finally, the American government conducted public diplomacy in an

44

Dwyer, Irish Neutrality, . It is highly unlikely that an opposition member of the Defense Conference leaked the story because de Valera never brought the Note to them. See “th Meeting of the Defence Conference,  March ,” UCD, Aiken Papers, P / . On  March, De Valera seems to have believed Maffey’s suggestion that the “beans were spilled” in Dublin by a member of Fine Gael. Four days later, however, he was arguing vigorously with Maffey that he was “nearly tired of hearing that argument” and that the British and American governments must have conspired to release it because the “first positive” announcement came from the BBC at : pm on  March. See de Valera, Memorandum of Conversation,  March  and Sir John Maffey-Sanctions,  March , NAI / DFA / A. The New York Times  March edition, however, had a  March byline stating that “reports circulated tonight” about a demand to remove the Axis missions and that Britain had approved the Note. In later years, De Valera tempered his suspicions and his official biographers write that he was “unable to resolve whether the leakage was a deliberate attempt to increase the pressure on him or not.” Longford and O’Neil, De Valera, . It is probable that Gray had been pumping the primer for the story even earlier. In a  March story in the New York Times, “Allies Fear Spies in Neutral States,” James Reston wrote that “Eire is in a particularly embarrassing situation.” Gray to Secretary of State,  March , FRUS , :–.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



john day tully

effort to convince Ireland to hand over the ports, to join the war, or to refrain from using postwar public diplomacy to influence the AngloAmerican security relationship. The entire episode forces us to rethink the importance and definition of a study of the history of public diplomacy. Unique in its combination of national ethnic groups that share an ability to shape foreign policy and the power that the nation has had on the world, the United States has been a target of many nations’ public diplomacy efforts. To the extent that those efforts have been successful, historians must incorporate the activities of the targeted ethnic groups into the study. This broader definition of public diplomacy will allow for a fuller understanding of the many ways that nations try to influence the world.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter four HOLLYWOOD, DICTATORSHIP AND PROPAGANDA: SAMUEL BRONSTON’S SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FRANCO REGIME, 1957–1973*

Neal M. Rosendorf “For us, the most important of all arts is the cinema,” Vladimir Lenin famously declared, recognizing, as did most dictators in the twentieth century, the potential power of cinema to propagandize ideologies and agendas.1 From an early point in the s, dictatorships saw the unique, preeminent qualities of American film production. Hollywood was a huge-scale factory for the manufacture and distribution of motion pictures both within the United States and internationally. Tyrants and their propagandists tended either to look admiringly and enviously upon Hollywood—as did the Soviet premier Josef Stalin, who flatly stated, “If I could control the medium of the American motion picture, I would need nothing else to convert the entire world to communism”2—or they sought to compete with Hollywood and undermine its subversive influence via locally produced products in the manner of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda, who asserted, “We must give [German] film a task and a mission in order that we may use it to conquer the world. Only then will we also overcome American film.”3 Ultimately, however, twentieth century dictatorships could find no effective means of either co-opting or effectively countering Hollywood film production, with one notable exception: Franco Spain. The Franco regime was unique among twentieth century dictatorships in its capacity to square the circle: it attracted a significant number of American producers to make big-budget films in Spain, where the regime could use Hollywood as a propaganda transmitter while *

This chapter is dedicated to the memory of my late mentor Ernest R. May. Quoted in Richard Taylor and Ian Christie, eds., The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents, – (London: Routledge, ), p. . 2 Quoted in Anthony Smith, In the Shadow of the Cave: The Broadcaster, His Audience, and the State (Univ. of Illinois Press, ), . 3 Quoted in Eric Rentschler, The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and its Afterlife (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, ), . 1

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

exercising control over the films’ content via mandatory script approval.4 For a decade from the early s until the early s, “Hollywood in Madrid” became one of the key overseas production venues for American-produced and -distributed motion pictures. Although there were many elements of serendipity in the development of this phenomenon, it did not happen by accident. It required vision and flexibility on both the Iberian and Hollywood sides of the equation. The single most important figure, whether Spanish or American, in the development of “Hollywood in Madrid,” and the political and economic benefits that accrued to the Franco dictatorship, was the film producer Samuel Bronston. A pioneer in large-scale U.S. movie-making in Spain, he established a full-blown American studio with which to compete with U.S.-based production. From the late s through the early s, Bronston forged and maintained a uniquely intimate relationship with the Franco regime. Indeed, the Bronston-Franco partnership marks the closest ongoing political collaboration ever recorded between a Hollywood film production operation and a foreign country. The symbiosis between the Spanish dictatorship and the American producer was the result of need and ambition on both sides. The relentlessly driven Bronston aspired to inherit Cecil B. DeMille’s mantle as King of the Epic Movie, and he needed an inexpensive and congenial venue to film the sort of blockbuster motion pictures that were the rage at the time. Franco and his minions needed economic and international political rehabilitation for a Spain ravaged by civil war and tarred by its close association with the Axis during World War II. Franco’s regime aspired to position Spain as a respected Western anticommunist bastion, a “normal country,” as well as the cultural and ideological leader of the Spanishspeaking world.5 These mutual needs and ambitions would draw Bronston to Spain, where he established his studio in Madrid with the close cooperation of the Franco regime. The Spanish government facilitated the producer’s efforts at every turn with monetary aid, matériel, logistics, and special legal arrangements and concessions. The regime’s estimation of Bronston’s singular value was marked by its presentation to him of the Order 4 The only other dictatorship to attract more than a smattering of Hollywood production was Tito’s Yugoslavia, in the wake and in emulation of Spain’s dramatic success. However, the number of pictures produced there was far smaller than in Franco Spain, and there never developed a “Hollywood in Belgrade” (or Sarajevo, or Zagreb, for that matter) either in substance or international public perception. 5 Don Carlos Robles Piquer, interview by author, Madrid, Spain, July .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



of Isabel la Católica, Spain’s highest civilian honor, for his “work in establishing closer cultural ties between the United States and Spain.”6 Highranking regime figures moonlighted as fixers, consultants and scriptwriters in the Bronston organization. The regime received much in return from the American film mogul. Bronston produced several big blockbusters including the highly successful epic El Cid, King of Kings, The Fall of the Roman Empire, and others. Just as important, Bronston also made, free of charge, a series of propaganda films for the Spanish government that were screened both domestically in Spain and internationally, including in the U.S. His Estudios Samuel Bronston became the cornerstone of “Hollywood in Madrid,” bringing in its wake considerable American and other international film production that made Spain for a time into a leading motion picture center. His films, and the gargantuan sets on which he made them, helped draw large numbers of tourists to Spain from the United States and elsewhere. Both the dictatorship and the producer knew precisely what they were doing. The Franco regime was implementing a sophisticated international tourist program that held both economic and political goals.7 American and other foreign film production in Spain fit into this program of attracting tourists and had their own discrete economic and political propaganda value as well. Foreign film producers brought in hard currency for which Spain was starving and gave work to film technical personnel and many other service providers at a time of painful economic restructuring and concomitant widespread unemployment. Additionally, foreign production gave a major boost to poor areas of Spain with attractive shooting locales, including Almeria and Las Rozas—it was in the latter region that Bronston constructed his stupendous Las Matas 6 “Spain Medals Bronston,” Variety,  October ; “Spain Honors Bronston Work on Cultural Ties,” Film Daily,  /  / , Make all dates consistent and according to style sheet, e.g.  April . both cites in “Samuel Bronston” clipping file, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (hereafter MHL), Beverly Hills, CA. 7 I have set out at length the background of the Spanish dictatorship’s efforts to use American tourism for its own economic and political purposes in “Be El Caudillo’s Guest: The Franco Regime’s Quest for Rehabilitation and Dollars after World War II via the Promotion of U.S. Tourism to Spain,” Diplomatic History,  (): –. This article includes a brief discussion of Hollywood production in Franco Spain as a factor in the regime’s program, a subject I have covered in greater detail in “ ‘Hollywood in Madrid’: American Film Producers and the Franco Regime, –,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television,  (): –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

outdoor studio, where he built full-size recreations of Peking’s Forbidden City and the Roman Forum. At one point the regime produced a top-secret international campaign, “Operación Propaganda Exterior,” aimed largely but not exclusively at the Hispanophone world. The plan at one point declared that “an artistic film, apparently ideologically neutral, has a greater influence on opinion than those which leave it possible to guess a definite and concrete purpose.” “Operación PE” placed special emphasis on co-productions between Spain and other countries. No single figure was more important to the dictatorship in this regard than Samuel Bronston, one of the greatest foreign enablers of the Franco regime, from both a propaganda and economic standpoint. The American producer was keenly aware of the benefits to Franco Spain of basing his film production operations there. His image-enhancing and fiscal value, which he pointed out to an already appreciative regime, allowed him to argue successfully for an unprecedented special status in Spain as the foreign head of a Spanish-registered corporation. And an equally appreciative Bronston was unreservedly willing to pledge in return that concerning both propaganda and economics, “[W]hatever we do will always be to the benefit of the country that has received us so warmly,” a promise that entailed placing Spanish government officials on his business’s board of directors, submitting his film projects for special authorization by the Ministry of Information and Tourism to make sure they were sufficiently valuable to the regime, and regularly producing documentaries and other propaganda films “covering national values.” Samuel Bronston was one of the most significant actors in a process that I call “corporatism with a twist”—American business enterprises working hand in glove not with their own government, but with that of another country, in this case a combined Hispano-U.S. corporatism. He also was an avatar of “soft power,” the now-widespread term devised by the political scientist Joseph S. Nye. According to Nye, soft power describes a co-opting process by which “[a] country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries—admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness—want to follow it . . . . Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others.”8 When one thinks of Hollywood and, more broadly, American popular culture in soft power terms, it is generally 8 Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



assumed that the benefit accrues to the United States. But in fact Bronston placed this soft power at the service of the Spanish dictatorship, a relationship that reveals much about the ways in which states and nonstate actors alike may seek to do the same in other circumstances.

Bronston’s Road to Madrid Solomon Bronstein was born in  in the multi-ethnic Bessarabian town of Ismail and was raised in France. A natural salesman whose best product was always himself, Bronston worked as a French distribution representative for U.S. film companies before coming to the United States in , in the aftermath of a Parisian conviction for check kiting. Surmounting his entanglement with the French authorities, Bronston spent much of the next two decades as a relatively minor producer in Hollywood, better known for his personal elegance and fund-promoting skills than for the movies he made. But Bronston was resilient in the face of repeated setbacks and creative in leveraging his assets. A film property he managed to hold onto through lean times was a biography of the U.S. naval hero John Paul Jones, a film that would eventually lead him to Spain. In  Bronston reached out to recently retired Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, who agreed to serve as the producer’s personal advisor on the project. Nimitz immediately provided Bronston entrée to the highest levels of the U.S. Navy, which pledged its full cooperation with Bronston’s production.9 Bronston also approached other distinguished and well-heeled private citizens of a patriotic bent who might be interested in aiding a film that glorified American maritime history and, in some cases, make some extra money from the effort. These included R. Stuyvesant Pierrepont, Jr., who became the vice-president and treasurer of Admiralty Pictures Corporation (the company created to produce the film) and Nelson and Laurence Rockefeller. Other prominent figures sitting on the company’s

9 Rear Adm. W.F. Boone, Superintendent, U.S. Naval Academy, to Bronston,  February ; letter from Adm. Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, to Bronston,  February ; letter from Rear Adm. E.B. Taylor, Chief of Information, U.S. Navy, to Bronston,  February —all from “John Paul Jones” file (hereafter JPJF), C.D. Jackson Papers (hereafter CDJP), Dwight David Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, KS (hereafter DDEL). My thanks to senior archivist Dwight Strandberg at the Eisenhower Library for his efforts in locating and copying these papers.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

board included Lansdell K. Christie, who had made fortunes first with a New York barge operation company and then with an iron ore mining operation in Liberia, and who had been the Democratic Party’s biggest contributor in the  election; and recently retired career diplomat Ernest A. Gross, who as deputy U.S. delegate to the United Nations had famously marshaled support for the Security Council’s condemnation of North Korea’s invasion of its southern neighbor in June . Ambassador Gross, in turn, helped Bronston beat a path to the door of C.D. Jackson, who had recently served as a special assistant and speech writer to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and whose well-established interest in the use of media propaganda in the service of U.S. foreign policy was accompanied by the desire to make a lucrative investment. Jackson would bring in a cadre of friends as modest-scale backers of the John Paul Jones project.10 Bronston’s efforts to secure adequate funding for the production waxed and waned during  and . During this time the producer made three key contacts with profound ramifications for the rest of his career. First, a member of a second wave of blue-blood investors included Pierre S. du Pont III, a senior vice-president of the du Pont family’s holding company, an outspoken conservative patriot, and a sailing aficionado. Despite the Delaware aristocrat’s unpretentious, low-key demeanor, he was evidently thoroughly beguiled by the ex-Bessarabian’s exuberance, high style, and seemingly boundless self-confidence. The two men would

10 R. Stuyvesant Pierrepont, Jr. deposition,  January , in Pierre du Pont v. Samuel Bronston, U.S. District Court-Northern District Texas-Dallas, case number CA--E, files stored at National Archives Federal Record Center, Fort Worth, TX; log of telephone call by R.S. Pierrepont, Jr. to Nelson Rockefeller, in re arranging Samuel Bronston meeting with Rockefeller,  February , Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY; “Bomi Bonanza,” Time,  March , http: //www.time.com / time / magazine /article/,,,.html?promoid= googlep ( May ); “Stock Selling in Liberia,” Time,  February , http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/,,,.html ( May ); Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz to Amb. Ernest Gross,  February , JPJF, CDJP, DDEL; Amb. Gross to C.D. Jackson,  March , JPJF, CDJP, DDEL; on the highlights of Ernest Gross’s career see for example “Shooting in the Yellow Sea,” Time,  September , http://www.time.com / time / magazine / article / ,,,.html?promoid =googlep ( May ); Trygvie Lie, In the Cause of Peace: Seven Years with the United Nations (New York: Macmillan, ), chapters –; New York Times obituary of Ernest Gross,  May , http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res =DEDACFACAF; ( May ); R.S. Pierrepont, Jr. to C.D. Jackson,  March , with attached letter from Jackson to investor sub-group,  March , JPJF, CDJP, DDEL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



subsequently forge a close business partnership that would underwrite Bronston’s blockbusters and ultimately exact a grievous toll on both of their careers.11 The second crucial contact was with Victor Oswald, a Swiss national resident in Madrid, who was a representative of the Chase Manhattan Bank in Spain (Chase Manhattan was owned by the Rockefeller family, and it is likely that Nelson and Laurence Rockefeller, both investors in the “John Paul Jones” project, put Bronston and Oswald together). Oswald was aware of a number of American-based individuals and concerns that had frozen funds tied up in Spain—investments in Spanish businesses or real estate that could not be repatriated to the United States because of Spanish laws, in the manner of numerous other European states, which sought to head off capital flight and the damage it might cause to a weak economy. Among the concerns seeking to move pesetas into dollars were the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, General Motors, Eastman Kodak, and a Swiss holding company, Societe Privee, that owned industrial property in Spain. Additionally, there was the estate of the late Isadore Stern, who had died leaving “a very valuable investment in Spain,” and whose family had tried for years without success to repatriate his money to the United States, owing to the Franco regime’s currency restrictions. Oswald worked closely with Bronston to nail down funding for a production whose costs had ballooned from two million dollars to twice that amount.12 11

See for example affidavit of Pierre du Pont rd,  June , in Samuel Bronston Productions, Inc. and Samuel Bronston v. Pierre du Pont Pont and Jesse Moss, case number  / , New York State Supreme Court-New York County, on-site archive at  Center St., Foley Square, New York; deposition of Pierre S. du Pont, Wilmington, DE,  January , Richard Fleischer v. Bronston-Bengal Productions [and others], case number  Civ , U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, document from the private papers of the film director Richard Fleischer (with thanks to the late Mr. Fleischer’s son Mark Fleischer, Esq., for providing a copy of the transcript to Paul G. Nagle, with whom I am co-authoring a biography of Samuel Bronston (University of Texas Press, in contract), and thanks to Mr. Nagle for providing it in turn to me); “Pierre S. du Pont Director of DuPont,” Wilmington Evening Journal,  October ; “P.S. du Pont III, Others Oppose Khrushchev Visit,” Wilmington Morning News,  August , in “Pierre du Pont rd” clipping file, Wilmington News-Journal, Newcastle, DE (with thanks to NewsJournal librarian Ann Haslam for her kind assistance with clipping files). 12 The information in this paragraph is drawn in part from the testimony of Rudolph Littauer, Esq.,  December , and Irwin Margulies, Esq.,  December , in John Paul Jones Productions-New Jersey v. Barnett Glassman, U.S. District Court, New York City, files stored at the National Archives Central Plains Region facility, Lee’s Summit, MO [hereafter NARA-LS]. As one participant in setting up the financing structure put it, “The new financing was predicated on the conversion—largely on the conversion of

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

Bronston’s third crucial new relationship was with Jose Maria de Areilza, the Conde de Motrico, Spain’s Ambassador to the United States. A dapper career diplomat, Areilza had in earlier years been an ardent Falangist (Spanish fascist) but had recently started moving toward a more moderate conservatism (he would later become a key figure in Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy after Franco’s death).13 More to the point, he was open to offering his services as a political fixer to Bronston. The Conde strongly encouraged Bronston to use Iberian shooting locales when the two were seated together at a State Department dinner in ; as the producer would later testify in court, “He brought me to Spain originally.” Areilza was placed on the Bronston

pesetas into a motion picture, and then the whole picture changed. It was no longer a question of operating in Hollywood or anywhere else. It had to be done exclusively in Spain.” (Littauer testimony, –). See as well “Contrato de Colaboracion entre John Paul Jones, Prod., Inc. y Suevia Films—Cesario Gonzales,”  February —copy sent to the Chief of the Service of Cinematographic Economic Arrangements, Spanish Government, in “John Paul Jones” file, Ministry of Information and Tourism, -, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archive of the Civil Administration of the State, Alcala de Henares, Spain (hereafter General Archive Alcala). 13 Most precisely, the Conde was a long-time right-wing monarchist who joined the Falange movement in the mid-s and was rewarded by Franco for his strong support during the Spanish Civil War with his appointment as mayor of Bilbao, after that Republican and Basque nationalist stronghold was overrun by the Nationalist army in . Areilza would eventually grow disenchanted with Franco and by the s become a supporter of the pretender to the Spanish throne, Don Juan, and then Prince Juan Carlos, once Franco pronounced Don Juan’s son as his successor. See José Maria de Areilza, Diario vasco,  May , article excerpt in Alun Kenwood, ed., The Spanish Civil War: A Cultural and Historical Reader (Providence and Oxford: Berg Publishers, ), ; Jose Maria de Areilza and Fernando Castiella, Reivindicaciones de España (“Spain’s Claims,” devoted to setting forth Spanish imperial ambitions, especially in the Mediterranean region, a stance that Areilza and the other author later significantly moderated) (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Politicos, ); Emmet John Hughes, Report from Spain (New York: Henry Holt, ), ; Arthur P. Whitaker, Spain and the Defense of the West (New York: Council on Foreign Relations [Harper imprint], ), ; Rafael Gomez Perez, El Franquismo y la Iglesia (Madrid: Ediciones Rialp, ),  n; Stanley G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, – (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press), ; Paul Preston, The Politics of Revenge: Fascism and the Military in Twentieth-Century Spain (London: Routledge, ), xiv, ; Michael Richards, A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco’s Spain, – (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ), ; Paul Preston, Juan Carlos: Steering Spain From Dictatorship to Democracy (New York: Norton, ), –, ; Stanley G. Payne, Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany and World War II (New Haven: Yale University Press, ), . My thanks to Professor José Areilza of EMPRESA in Madrid, a grandson of the Conde de Motrico, for his comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



payroll and would receive at least  , for use of his “influence to help us out” with the Spanish government between  and .14 Thus it came to pass that there was one logical place for Bronston to do the bulk of the filming of John Paul Jones: Spain, which held out the possibility of the least expensive filming to be had in Western Europe—but there were problems both of technical deficiencies and official suspicion toward Hollywood to surmount. Fortunately for both the Spanish film industry and for Samuel Bronston, Spain desperately desired hard currency and international rehabilitation. The regime was in the midst of implementing a program to promote American tourism to Spain, as a central element of the regime’s efforts after World War II to improve Spain’s economic and diplomatic / political circumstances; and following in tourism’s wake was the first large-scale American film production in Spain. Sam Bronston would capitalize mightily on both.

Hollywood and American Tourism in Postwar Franco Spain In the early s, the Franco regime was in the midst of implementing a program to promote American tourism to Spain, as a central element of the regime’s efforts after World War II to improve Spain’s economic and diplomatic / political circumstances. The Spanish government’s overarching goal was to “sell” Franco Spain’s image abroad and particularly to the United States. The policy aimed to portray Spain as a normal Western country and anticommunist ally, and to bring into Spain desperately needed hard currency, especially dollars, and investment. The Franco regime was strongly encouraged in the years following World War II to look to American tourism’s potential economic and propaganda benefits to Spain by prominent players within the U.S. travel and tourism industries, including American Express, Hilton Hotels, Trans-World Airlines, and top American travel writers. As a report by the Spanish Ministry of Information and Tourism (MIT) put it in , “[I]t is essential that the tourist who visits us not only returns here, but that he is converted into 14 Testimony of Samuel Bronston,  June , –, in Bankruptcy of Samuel Bronston,  B , U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, stored at NARA-LS [Bronston Bankruptcy ]; author interview with Paul Lazarus, Jr., former senior vicepresident of Samuel Bronston Productions, Santa Barbara, CA, January ; and Paul Lazarus, Jr., “The Madrid Movie Caper,” Focus (University of California Santa Barbara), v.  (), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

the most active propagandist of our nation, increasing in this manner our prestige in the world.”15 With tourism to Spain steadily increasing, providing the bulk of the country’s hard currency and delivering perceived propaganda benefits, the Franco regime was theoretically open to any means that would increase the number of overseas, and especially American, visitors. Motion pictures made in Spain were a self-evident enhancement medium. Indeed, the Ministry of Information and Tourism, with its oversight of propaganda, film production and tourism, was geared toward harnessing the film-tourism synergy, albeit while also committed to combating “moral pollution.”16 From its earliest days the Franco regime looked to motion pictures as both an economic and propaganda asset. The dictatorship announced in , soon after consolidating its control of Spain, “The cinematograph industry is perhaps one that most needs the guiding hand of the State . . . . The new State cannot overlook activities of this kind, which if on the one hand is of great interest to National economy, on the other hand represents for Spain a great means of material and spiritual propaganda.”17 Francisco Franco himself had written a film script, Raza, in the early s. At the same time, the Ministry of Information and Tourism was congenitally suspicious of Hollywood—as late as , internal MIT documents were warning that the American film producers and distributors amounted to “the sector most easily penetrated by Judaism and communism,” and that the regime had to be very wary in its dealings with them as a result.18 Nonetheless, the inescapable reality was that the United States dominated the international film market, and the

15

“Anteproyecto de Plan Nacional de Turismo,” July , , section ., box , general heading “Cultura,” General Archive Alcala. 16 As one Spanish motion picture director later described filming in Spain during the s, “Our Ministry . . . functioned as two ministries that contradicted each other. One that was vigilant and one that stimulated tourism. The one . . . prohibited bikinis on the screen and the other was encouraging tourism that brought bikinis. Thus one would be asking oneself, ‘Which of the two should I follow?’ ” Carlos F. Heredero, Las Huellas del Tiempo: Cine espanol, – (Valencia: Archivo de la Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana, ), p. . 17 “Cinematograph Regulations: Order dated at Madrid the twentieth of October, , issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce,” in Spain: Black Book Documents –, UA Collection series F—Black Books, box , folder  (Spain), United Artists Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI (hereafter UAC, WHS). 18 “Borrador Previo para un Estudio Sobre Fines y Medios de la Propaganda de España en el Exterior,” dated August , p. , in box , section ., heading “Cultura,” General Archive Alcala.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



Franco regime felt compelled to try to come terms with this dominance and seek a useful accommodation with it. During the early postwar period the Spanish film industry’s infrastructure left much to be desired. But despite formidable disincentives, Hollywood in the s was financially beleaguered as the result of anti-trust court rulings and the challenge posed by television; and thus Spain’s reputation as a poor nation with cheap prices attracted the U.S. film industry’s attention. United Artists (UA) in particular had been assiduously cultivating friendly relations with the Franco regime through its distribution operation in Spain. The “studio without a back lot” became something of a mecca for independent filmmakers, including such luminaries as Robert Rossen, Stanley Kramer, and King Vidor. Their success— especially Kramer’s—helped to nudge the Franco regime toward a generally more receptive attitude to Hollywood production in Spain; and it provided a perfect template for the far more thoroughgoing partnership that Samuel Bronston developed with Franco’s dictatorship.

Bronston’s Blockbusters and the MIT When Samuel Bronston arrived in Madrid in  to shoot John Paul Jones he found not only promises of official support, but a country that was by European standards (which were of course lower at the time than American standards) notably inexpensive to work and live in. Bronston hired as his director John Villiers Farrow, whose two great passions were seamanship and conservative Catholicism. The director had nursed since the late s the obsessive dream to film a life of Christ, to be entitled “The Son of Man.” Once John Paul Jones was completed, Bronston was ready to move on to bringing Farrow’s “The Son of Man” to the screen. In the course of putting this project together Bronston astutely realized he had a golden opportunity to leapfrog past mere independent producer status and become something more: a full-blown movie mogul in charge of his own studio. Franco Spain offered a unique opportunity: it was dirt-cheap, in contrast to Hollywood, Britain, or even Italy. Unlike Italy, there was no competition from wealthy, established local studios and producers who already had their own Hollywood connections (in Italy magnates like Dino di Laurentis, Carlo Ponti, and Bronston’s own sometime business partner Roberto Haggiag dominated the film industry). Finally and most important, Spain had a dictatorship that for both economic and political

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

reasons was very open to collaborating with American producers, provided they toed the line set down by the government. Bronston “saw that that Spain was a peaceful country where strikes were not allowed, where the workforce was basically [well-] qualified, and cheap, and . . . with the necessary land, big land, to produce big films, that was more or less accessible and also cheap. And he was the first intelligent American producer who discovered that.”19 Moreover, Sam Bronston had another significant asset: a multi-millionaire patron willing to underwrite his efforts in an ongoing fashion, Pierre S. du Pont III, one of the twelve backers who put up funds for John Paul Jones. He was a member of the board of directors at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and vice-president of Christiana Securities, the du Pont family holding company. They met in ; by the following year they had developed a special relationship concerning the production of John Paul Jones. Du Pont personally invested nearly  . million, over a quarter of the film’s total cost. The two men would form a series of limited companies that would enable Bronston to produce some of the grandest film spectacles of all time. As the producer’s partner, between  and  Pierre du Pont would sign guarantee notes on Bronston’s behalf totaling approximately   million (around   million in  dollars).20 Bronston’s job of selling his audacious idea of a Hollywood in Madrid to the Franco regime, which did not even allow foreigners to own the majority share of their Spanish-based operations, was made considerably easier by his ability to use the august du Pont name. As Carlos Robles Piquer the one-time Director General for Information at the Ministry of Information and Tourism, recently recounted, “All of us . . . saw in Bronston a very welcome man. Why? Because, first of all he was a movie producer; second, he was a man of extremely high intelligence . . . . For 19

Robles Piquer, interview by author, Madrid, Spain, July . “Bronston Raps His Ex-Accountant; Repeats ‘Harassment’ by Glassman Can’t Halt ‘John Paul Jones’ Dates,” Variety,  December , in “John Paul Jones” film clipping collection, MHL; Affadavit of Pierre S. du Pont,  September , pp. – and passim, in Pierre S. du Pont v. Samuel Bronston, case number  / , New York State Supreme Court, New York County, court archive at Center St., New York City; Rudolph Littauer testimony, p. ; “Total Bronston Operation Liabilities About   Mil, Court Documents Show,” Variety,  /  / , “Samuel Bronston” clipping file, Variety Editorial Offices, Los Angeles, CA (my thanks to Paul G. Nagle for his instrumental aid in obtaining Variety’s “Samuel Bronston” clipping files). Dollar conversion courtesy of Measuring Worth.Com, “Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount,  to Present,” http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ ( May ). 20

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



the first time, we had an American film producer, intelligent, powerful, with money, or backed by money . . . and he could invest in movies in Spain, transforming Spain, or part of Spain, Almeria and Las Rozas in a great and wonderful plateau to produce films, made in Spain for the world. And that was the first time that such a thing happened.”21 Additionally, Bronston had in his employ Areilza, the Conde de Motrico, the extremely influential ambassador to the United States. He acted, as Bronston coyly put it at one point, “as a public relations consultant in certain ways in the company”—although we are left to ponder to what extent Ambassador Areilza’s participation with Bronston was a product of cupidity or an official role to co-opt the American producer for the regime’s purposes. It would have been no matter to the ruthlessly instrumental Bronston one way or the other, of course, as long as he got the access and cutting of bureaucratic red tape that he desired. Beyond the  , in cash that Bronston paid out directly to the Spanish diplomat over the course of –, Areilza received pieces of Bronston’s films as an additional form of payment. With the Conde’s help, Bronston was able to arrange lucrative licenses for the importation of   million worth of diverse goods, including oil and business adding machines into Spain.22 Bronston perpetually operated under Areilza’s aegis throughout the early s via the Conde’s son, who was one of the producer’s key attorneys in Spain and the secretary of Bronston’s Spanish corporation Samuel Bronston Española, S.A.23 Bronston’s effort was further simplified by the preoccupations of Minister of Information and Tourism Gabriel Arias Salgado, a devout 21 “Pierre S. DuPont: High-Flyin’ Angel,” Variety,  January , in “Samuel Bronston” clipping file, Variety Editorial Offices; Robles Piquer, interview by author, Madrid, Spain, July . 22 See memorandum from the Director General of Foreign Commerce, Ministry of Commerce to Samuel Bronston, “Asunto: Pago rodaje peliculas ‘El Hijo del Hombre’ y ‘Nelson,’ ”  /  / , in “El Rey de Reyes” file folder, --, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; also Bronston testimony,  June , in Bronston Bankruptcy , pp. –, and – passim; Bronston testimony  June , same file, –. When asked under oath, “[A]t that time did you have any alleged influence with the Spanish Government,” Bronston simply replied, “Yes.” Areilza was a key, seminal source of this influence. (Bronston testimony  June , same file, pp. –.) 23 Bronston testimony,  /  / , in Bronston Bankruptcy , ; Memorandum from José Mario Armero, Spanish attorney for Samuel Bronston, to Jesse Moss, Samuel Bronston Productions, Inc., “Report on the Present Situation of Samuel Bronston Espanola, S.A.,”  June , in binder of same name (gift to author from Raymond Cheesman, CPA, outside accountant for Samuel Bronston Productions, Inc).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

Catholic who had publicly declared that his job as Minister was “saving souls.” The Franco dictatorship expeditiously approved the producer’s request to begin filming his new Christ story project, and Bronston transferred his family forthwith from New York to Madrid.24 Even as Bronston’s film of Christ’s life, now titled King of Kings, was still in the early stages of production, planning had begun on the film that would be Samuel Bronston Productions’ greatest commercial and critical success, El Cid, a subject tailor-made to endear Bronston utterly to the Franco regime. In the film Charlton Heston portrayed Don Rodrigo de Bivar, Spain’s greatest hero who began the centuries-long process of Christian victory over the Moors in Spain. El Cid functioned as the Iberian legendary equivalent of Roland or King Arthur; and Francisco Franco fancied himself the Cid’s latter-day incarnation, an image the regime’s propaganda drove home incessantly.25 The Franco regime continued to extend privileges to Bronston at every turn. Manuel Fraga Iribarne, the Minister of Information and Tourism from –, stated flatly that Bronston “was totally different” from the other American film makers in his status in Spain: “He was a special relation; he came here,” meaning he was based in Spain, not Hollywood.26 El Cid was able to mount an exceptionally lavish production because Bronston and his company had carte blanche access to Spain’s castles, walled medieval towns, and natural scenery (El Cid’s grand screen appearance was also helped by the film’s then-huge  million dollar budget). Much of El Cid’s shooting was pointedly scheduled to be done outdoors around Spain. The avid cooperation of the Franco regime in arranging for Samuel Bronston Productions to film at many historical sites was indispensable. Bronston’s prestige in Spain reached a new high with the world-wide success of El Cid. The Franco regime, and the Spanish public-at-large, revered the movie as a near-perfect encapsulation of the Spanish heroic sensibility. Unsurprisingly, the Franco regime bolstered Bronston in ways great and small, such as providing thousands 24

See documents contained in “El Rey de Reyes” file folder, --, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; Irene Bronston (Samuel Bronston’s daughter), interview by author, Berkeley, CA, January ; Dr. William Bronston (Samuel Bronston’s son), interview by author, Carmichael, CA, December , January ; Dorothea Bronston (Samuel Bronston’s ex-wife), interview by author, London, July . 25 Paul Preston, Franco: A Biography (New York: Basic Books, ), xvii, , , , , –. 26 Robles Piquer, interview by author, Madrid, Spain, July ; Don Manuel Fraga Iribarne, interview by author, Madrid, July .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



of Spanish Army troops to serve as extras for only two dollars per day, horses included, and holding frequent meetings at the Ministry of Information and Tourism to discuss issues of common interest. The capstone of the Franco regime’s approbation and appreciation was its certification that El Cid was officially a film in the “Spanish National Interest.” Only two films in all of Spanish motion picture history had been awarded this classification. In evaluating El Cid for this honor, which incidentally brought with it a substantial subsidy from the Ministry of Information and Tourism, Government censors uniformly lauded Charlton Heston’s portrayal of El Cid as a paragon of Spanish rectitude.27

Bronston’s Proposal for Propaganda Cooperation El Cid fit perfectly into a top-secret plan the Spanish Ministry of Information and Tourism put together in  for international pro-Franco propaganda. “Operación Propaganda Exterior,” as the plan was called, was initiated in  under the direct orders of Minister of Information and Tourism Gabriel Arias Salgado. The plan had a dual role to propagate Spain’s image broadly overseas and to further the longstanding goals of Hispanidad, the regime’s policy of establishing Franco Spain as the undisputed leader of the Hispanophone world. Indeed, as far back as , the Spanish government’s “Cinematograph Regulations” explicitly stated, “The new State must find in the cinematograph a powerful instrument of diffusion which passing the frontier limits, shall make known, specially [sic] to our brothers in America, the ideals that today animate Spain, by means of a flourishing industry, symbol—towards creating an empire— of the efforts we are disposed to make.”28 The fundamental objectives of the plan were “[t]o impart an understanding of the foundations on which our political system are based,” 27 Antonio Recoder (long-time local affiliate of the Motion Picture Export Association of America), interview by author, Madrid, June ; Leon Patlach and Charlton Heston, interview by author, April ; Proclamation by the Minister of Information and Tourism,  January , box , “El Cid” file, Ministry of Information and TourismCulture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; see censors’ reports, box , “El Cid” file, same location as previous cite. 28 “Cinematograph Regulations: Order dated at Madrid the twentieth of October, , issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce,” Spain: Black Book Documents –, United Artists Collection series F—Black Books, box , folder  (Spain), UAC WHC. See as well for example Sidney Wexler, “Spain Looks Again at Hispanic America,” Hispania, September , –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

and “[t]o demonstrate that our political system is viable in other countries, fundamentally in those in which Spanish is spoken.” Operación PE targeted three elements—the political sector, intellectuals, and “la masa en general.” Concerning the last group, particular areas of propaganda fomentation included festivals, the press, radio, tourism (of course), and films, especially Spanish films. The study noted the value of foreign motion picture production in Spain, of which Samuel Bronston was already the ultimate example, declaring, “Collaboration with foreign countries produces results, in the case of Operación PE, that are extremely valuable. [Films that] a foreigner produces in Spain, about any facet of the national life, present to the foreign public a character of objectivity and dispassion that is not always conceded to nationals . . . Coproduction means . . . for the most part the guarantee of a world-wide distribution of the film, leaving the public unaware of the actual origin, obviating all possible suspicion of propaganda.”29 As it turns out, the Bronston-Franco linkages concerning propaganda design were quite explicit, if initially subtle. Continuing to utilize his standard modus operandi of co-opting influential government figures, Bronston drew into his organization Enrique Llovet, a diplomat and writer just returned from Spain’s embassy in Teheran. Back in Madrid, Llovet held the position of First Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Instituto de Cultura Hispanica, which sought to “increase and stimulate and promote the relations between Spain and the Spanish speaking communities.”30 Llovet would serve as a well-paid script writer and consultant in the Bronston organization between  and , as well as a director for two years of Bronston’s Spanish corporation. When asked how he could both serve as a diplomat and work for Bronston, he explained, “Fortunately, it has always been possible for me to have these two parallel activities. Up to now I have done  films and of course I maintain both occupations without any problem.” However, Llovet’s participation was not necessarily a bifurcation of his political and artistic vocations; his activi29 “Preliminary Study: Operación Politica Exterior: ‘PE,’ ” dated August , in box , section ., heading “Cultura,” General Archives Alcala; “Operación Politica Exterior: ‘PE,’ ” dated August , annex, “Cinematografia.” 30 Deposition of Enrique Llovet,  /  / , p.  and passim, United States v. Bronston,  Cr. , U.S. Federal Court, First District, New York City, files stored at NARALS; Miguel Olid, “El guionista de Samuel Bronston,” El Pais,  /  / , at http://www .elpais.com / articulo / andalucia / LLOVET / _ENRIQUE / guionista / Samuel/Bronston / elpepuespand/elpand_/Tes ( May ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



ties within the Foreign Affairs Ministry had an explicitly propagandistic element. We cannot know at this point whether he had been officially instructed to exploit the Bronston enterprise for the sake of Operación PE. But we must, first, note the circumstantial evidence—Llovet was in charge of a government organ dedicated to extending Hispanidad while he worked for Bronston, including on El Cid. Second, he played a key role in producing two propaganda short subjects, Objetivo  and Sinfonia Española, out of a total of four that Bronston made for the Spanish government.31 By  Samuel Bronston cast subtlety to the winds concerning his service as a propaganda asset. He proposed to the Franco dictatorship a comprehensive program of political collaboration. With the regime’s assent, the already intimate relationship between Bronston and the regime became the closest ongoing public diplomacy relationship ever forged, down to the present day, between a Hollywood filmmaker and a foreign government. Again it must be stressed that Bronston’s motivations for his blueprint for collaboration had nothing to do with ideological sympathy and everything to do with business. He desired a special dispensation that would allow his Spanish corporation, Samuel Bronston Española, S.A., to be majority foreign-owned, in contravention of Spain’s  law requiring that “the capital of companies which possess or exploit studios, laboratories or in general establishments for cinematographic production in Spain . . . .must be wholly Spanish.”32 This statute was getting in the way of Bronston’s efforts to arrange foreign financing to purchase the land and studios he had been using for film production, and in order to circumvent the law he laid out his collaborative offer. After noting at length the manifold economic benefits to Spain of his production operation, he laid out the political windfall: From the point of view of information and propaganda, SAMUEL BRONSTON PRODUCTIONS, INC. are pleased and proud of the success of their film EL CID throughout the world, and of the way that the name of Spain is being linked with the exhibition and publicity of this picture. In the film  DAYS AT PEKING [a depiction of the  Boxer Rebellion] . . . .special 31 Memorandum from José Mario Armero to Jesse Moss, “Report on the Present Situation of Samuel Bronston Espanola, S.A.,”  June , binder of same name, Raymond Cheesman accounting files; Llovet deposition, – and passim. 32 “The Law of -XI- Ruling National Industry as applied to Cinematographic Production,”  January ,  April , binder “Report on the Present Situation of Samuel Bronston Espanola, S.A.,” Raymond Cheesman accounting files.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf interest has been taken to see that Spain’s intervention has been duly considered. Journalists from all parts of the world visit Spain invited by this company and hundreds of articles speak of Spain, where an American producer is making films for the whole world . . . .

Bronston then highlighted the political value of his current project, The Fall of the Roman Empire, and listed the roster of upcoming documentary films he had already agreed to make on the Franco regime’s behalf. He projected that his slated future mega-productions would together “signif[y] approximately an expense of fifty million dollars,” or around   million in  dollars, an especially welcome boon in the midst of Spain’s painful economic stabilization policy at the time—as Bronston pointed out. The production capstone, planned for , was to be a hagiographic portrayal of the Spanish monarch who had sent Columbus to the New World, expelled the Jews and Muslims from Spain, and instituted the Inquisition. Isabel of Spain, Bronston suggested, would “be our biggest production, with a larger budget than any other film yet made”— a particularly grand claim, given Bronston’s well-known penchant for astronomical production costs—“and the greatest worldwide exhibition of characters and deeds from Spanish history.” In exchange for the foreign owner dispensation he sought, the producer promised to codify and deepen his political cooperation with the Franco dictatorship: If their activities can be developed in Spain on the basis of the [requested authorizations], SAMUEL BRONSTON PRODUCTIONS, INC. and particularly their President, Mr. Samuel Bronston and SAMUEL BRONSTON ESPAÑOLA, S.A. would like to repeat their offer to the effect that their work will aim at the widest collaboration in the spreading of Spanish values. We are making, then, a general declaration that whatever we do will always be to the benefit of the country which has receive us so warmly and, more concretely, we are prepared to submit to the following conditions: (A) We declare that the object of SAMUEL BRONSTON ESPAÑOLA, S.A. will be . . ..the production of cinematographic films which exalt the value of Spain . . . . (B) [SBE, S.A. will] submit the realization of each Spanish film, independently of the normal administrative procedure, to the express authorization of the Dirreccion General de Cinematografia y Teatro, so that the film may conform with . . . .the above point. (C) Admit two representatives from the Ministry of Information and Tourism as members of the Board of Directors of SAMUEL BRONSTON ESPAÑOLA, S.A.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



(D) [SBE, S.A. will] produce at least one full length or documentary film per year covering national values in accordance with the suggestions of the Ministry of Information and Tourism, the worldwide distribution of which will be guaranteed by SAMUEL BRONSTON.33

The Franco regime could not have been more delighted with Bronston’s extraordinary proposal and enthusiastically agreed to its terms, stipulating that the two Ministry of Information and Tourism officials to be appointed to SBE, S.A.’s Board of Directors would hold the rank of Director General within the Ministry, an expression of the importance to the regime of the partnership and its activities.34

Bronston’s Propaganda Films for Franco The Franco regime was grateful for Samuel Bronston’s willingness to collaborate explicitly with its propaganda outreach efforts. Bronston was equally appreciative of the regime and the special treatment they had accorded him, as he made clear in his proposal for his Spanish corporation’s special status. Thus it is unsurprising that he repeatedly assented when Spanish officials approached him with requests to produce proFranco films, even before the Spanish government granted him the waiver authorizing foreign ownership of Samuel Bronston Española, S.A. Dr. Carlos Robles Piquer was the Director General for Information at the MIT and one of Fraga’s key lieutenants on propaganda affairs. Robles Piquer was in charge of the information (propaganda), not cinema, section of the MIT (he would in fact later head the latter branch), but “I had to do sometimes with the films that dealt with, let’s say, political problems . . . .” As Robles Piquer later testified under oath, “I, together with my colleagues and staff members of the Ministry told Mr. Bronston that we would like it very much if he produced some films for information and tourism on present day Spain.”35 From this initial approach came four completed propaganda film projects, with more planned but not executed. 33 Proposal concerning the legal status of Samuel Bronston Espanola, S.A.,  March , binder “Report on the Present Situation of Samuel Bronston Espanola, S.A.,” Raymond Cheesman accounting files. 34 Reply from the Spanish Presidencia del Gobierno granting Bronston’s request,  May , in binder “Report on the Present Situation of Samuel Bronston Espanola, S.A.,” Raymond Cheesman accounting files. 35 Robles Piquer deposition, , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

Three of the films—El Camino Real (The Royal Road), Sinfonia Espanola (Spanish Symphony), and El Valle de los Caidos (The Valley of the Fallen)—were geared to the Ministry of Information and Tourism’s grand program to promote the official commemoration of the th anniversary of the Nationalist victory in the Spanish civil war, referred to as “ Years of Peace.” The Franco regime wanted to drive home the point that under El Caudillo’s leadership, Spain had avoided internal chaos and bloodshed (except, of course, in the jails that held thousands of political prisoners, many of whom were tortured or executed) and was achieving social development and prosperity. The regime had multiple target audiences in mind: domestic, Latin American, Western European, and American. As Carlos Robles Piquer put it, the propaganda films, as well as the feature film El Cid in particular, “were, let’s say, weapons, useful weapons to present Spain to the world, not only to Hispaniards [sic]—[but] also to convince the Hispaniards of the benefits of the regime . . . .”36 The first of these propaganda films was the one most especially aimed at the United States. El Camino Real chronicled the exploits of Father Junipero Serra, the th-century Spanish cleric who established a string of missions in California. The idea for the film originated with Manuel Fraga Iribarne, who in  had assumed the position as Minister of Information and Tourism, and who was a singularly shrewd strategist of the uses of media both for direct propaganda purposes and to promote tourism, which held both economic and propaganda value. “We were aware that the public opinion in general [in the U.S.] was not in favor of the Franco regime,” Robles Piquer explained. “One of the reasons why we organized the [project] on Fray Junipero Serra was to [penetrate] some sectors of distinguished and high-level opinion in the United States.” The MIT “was looking for ways to attract distinguished elements in the American society to Spain . . . . We were looking for any door that we could open, for that purpose,” when Fraga became aware of the imminent th anniversary of Fray Junipero Serra’s birth. He quickly realized the opportunity “to organize a special ceremony to link Spain and U.S.” and assigned his deputy Robles Piquer to handle the program.37 When Robles Piquer approached Samuel Bronston to make a documentary film about the cleric, the producer assigned one of his senior functionaries, Jaime Prades, to oversee the project. Prades wrote and directed the film himself. The images throughout the motion picture 36 37

Robles Piquer, interview by author, Madrid, Spain, July . Ibid.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



were explicit in the U.S.-Spanish linkages the MIT sought to establish, including the film’s opening and closing shots of the U.S. Capitol in Washington (which contains a statue of Junipero Serra in the Rotunda), modern-day San Diego, Los Angeles (including a separate view of Hollywood), and San Francisco, and the California missions themselves, such as San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and San Juan de Capistrano. Carlos Robles Piquer followed up the production with a trip to the U.S. to gain the participation of prominent Americans in the film’s premiere on Mallorca, Junipero Serra’s birthplace (the film pointedly displayed the island’s beaches and main hotel being enjoyed by tourists). He persuaded Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty as well as the mayors of San Francisco and Carmel (where Junipero Serra is buried), and his greatest coup, Earl Warren, former California governor and current Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to attend the gala celebrations in Spain. “[W]e had a budget, so we could invite in first class planes, first class hotels— everything was well-organized. And we celebrated two or three days in Mallorca.”38 Sinfonia Español was, on the face of it, a travelogue designed primarily to entice visitors to Spain. The anodyne description of the film project by the Spanish authorities was “Documental sobre España moderna, turística e industriel.” But there was of course far more to the project than met the eye. As Carlos Robles Piquer, who came up with the idea for the project, testified, the goal was for the film to “portray the truth about Spanish present life, and that of course the film be presented not only in Spain but everywhere as much, as broadly, as possible.” Bronston’s response to Robles Piquer’s request was that he “was very eager about this idea of helping to make Spain well known by Spanish and other countries.” At a party at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Bronston approached Angel Sagaz, who was then the Director General of United States Affairs in the Spanish Foreign Ministry (and who, several years later would serve as Spain’s ambassador to the U.S.), “and said that he was ready to get all possible elements, equipment, cameramen, anything 38 El Camino Real (), Filmoteca Espanola, Madrid; film script in “Camino Real” file, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; Robles Piquer, interview by author, Madrid, Spain, July ; Invitation letter from Manuel Fraga Iribarne, Spanish Minister of Information and Tourism, to U.S. Supreme court Chief Justice Earl Warren,  March , box , “Spain—Mallorca—–,” Papers of Earl Warren, Manuscript Division, U.S. Library of Congress, Washington, DC (my thanks to Paul G. Nagle for obtaining and providing to me a copy of this document).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

that could help him to make the best possible film about Spain, its art, its folklore, its possibilities for tourism and offer that film to the Spanish Government for the public relations and propaganda of Spain.”39 While Bronston bore the costs of production himself, the government provided him with unrestricted access to any location in Spain he wished. Still, the film remained technically Bronston’s, on the logic recently set forth in Operación PE: when asked what advantages there were for the Spanish government for the film to be owned in Bronston’s name, Robles Piquer replied, “Well, in my own opinion, as I was in charge of Spanish propaganda, is that we needed that the film remained into the hands—to the ownership of Mr. Bronston—because an officially made film should never be accepted by the public as a film produced by the private enterprise. [It was] much better for us not only that the film be made by a well known producer as Mr. Bronston but also that the film remained forever into his hands from a legal point of view.”40 The Ministry of Information and Tourism was sufficiently anxious to get the project under way and sufficiently trusting of Bronston and his organization that it gave special permission to begin filming a full two months before the script went through the usual formal approval process. The regime’s trust in Bronston was well-placed. He produced the nearly two-hour long film in the expensive widescreen Cinemascope process, lovingly portraying the natural and architectural wonders of Spain, documenting Flamenco dancers, bullfights, local pageants, and the like, while working in humming modern factories, schools, hydroelectric dams, and other evidence of Spain’s great material and cultural progress, including slow camera pans across bookstore shelves laden with contemporary books, magazines and newspapers from across Europe and the U.S. that seemingly (and misleadingly) demonstrated a society devoid of censorship. His cameras lingered as well over the recently completed, gargantuan Catholic cathedral-cum-memorial to the Nationalist Civil War dead, the Valle de los Caidos (more on this below). Bronston also included a sequence showing the grand sets for his latest super-epic in production, The Fall of the Roman Empire, underlining his unique rela39 “Documentary about modern Spain, touristic and industrial.” Samuel Bronston films proposal to the Spanish MIT for the production of Sinfonia Espanola, May , “Sinfonia Espanola file,” Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; Robles Piquer deposition, –; Deposition of Angel Sagaz,  January , , in United States v. Samuel Bronston,  Cr , U.S. District Court, Southern District NY, files stored in NARA-LS. 40 Robles Piquer deposition, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



tionship with the Franco regime and his high economic value to Spain, while providing an advertisement for other international producers to follow in his footsteps.41 Hundreds of prints of the resulting film were supplied gratis to the Franco regime’s official agencies for showing both in Spain and abroad. Domestically, it was screened in no fewer than  cities and towns. Internationally, it was shown in  cities in Europe, North, Central and South America, and the Philippines. Sinfonia Espanola received a highprofile premiere in Madrid “in a very important . . . cinema . . . .where it was officially presented with the attendance of Ministers and many high ranking officials of the Government. It was part of the commemoration of the th Anniversary itself.” Fraga was ecstatic about the resulting film: in a memorandum he waxed on about “the gorgeous cinematography . . . .its positive approach of respect for eternal and contemporary Spain and . . . .intended to be the greatest full-length documentary that has photographed Spain with a serious and transcendent content.” Fraga personally shipped a copy to Francisco Franco for El Candillo’s private viewing. The regime emphasized the domestic propaganda value of the film “to present to the thousands of spectators of the Festivals [of Spain] the extremely beautiful vision of eternal Spain and to commemorate the XXV Years of Peace.”42 Bronston’s documentary was shown around the world by the Spanish government, “for instance, during the celebration of the Spanish exposition called ‘Expo Tour’ in different countries abroad and also during the official visits made by Spanish ministers, or Spanish high ranking officials 41 Samuel Bronston Productions proposal to the Spanish MIT for the production of Sinfonia Espanola, May , “Sinfonia Espanola” file, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; Sinfonia Espanola, , Filmoteca Espanola, Madrid. 42 Sinfonia Espanola lists of domestic and foreign exhibition venues, n.d.; see as well letter from Carlos Robles Piquer to Jaime Prades of Samuel Bronston Productions (and director of the film) concerning international exhibition plans,  February ; letter from Manuel Fraga Iribarne to Fernando Fuertes de Villavicencio,  April : “The documentary . . . is to be presented at the end of the month at a cinema in Madrid, with the maximum solemnity . . . a program that will be widely exhibited in the Festivals of Spain to demonstrate the current panorama of our Country and of the progress reached during the XXV Years of Peace.”; “Note by His Excellency the Minister concerning the film ‘Sinfonia Española,’ ”  April ; Letter from Manuel Fraga Iribarne to Fernando Fuertes de Villavicencio,  April ; memorandum from Carlos Robles Piquer to the Director general of Cinema and Theater,  April —all documents in “Sinfonia Española” file, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; Robles Piquer deposition, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

to foreign countries,” as well as at the Spanish Pavilion at the – New York World’s Fair. Spanish diplomat Enrique Llovet, who worked for months on producing Sinfonia Española, “took the film to Latin America where I showed it with my personal presence . . .. I went personally to seven or eight countries of Latin America just to [speak to the audience and] present the film.” Moreover, Fraga and Robles Piquer followed the progress of the film as it was shown throughout the region. Robles Piquer was especially exercised over the damaging image of the Franco regime and its conduct during the Spanish civil war portrayed in the contemporaneous high-profile documentary, To Die in Madrid (“Mourir a Madrid”), directed by the respected French filmmaker Frédéric Rossif and co-narrated by the noted actor John Gielgud, which was being shown in Latin America. The Spanish propaganda official reported to the Director General of Cinema and Theater that he expected the forthcoming showing of Sinfonia Española in Uruguay “will be resisting the effects that are being produced by the exhibition of ‘To Die in Madrid,’ which will simultaneously be presented in Montevideo.” Unsurprisingly, the Franco regime classified Sinfonia Española, like El Cid before it, as a film in the Spanish National Interest.43 There is little extant documentation on Valley of the Fallen / Valle de los Caidos (), a film aimed primarily at a Spanish domestic audience (although an English-language version was intended for American television). Alone of the four Bronston propaganda films it cannot currently be viewed because of the fragility of the film stock. This is most unfortunate, as the film clearly had a very high priority for both the Ministry of Information and Tourism and Samuel Bronston. Manuel Fraga Iribarne has stated that the film was a “was a very important work” for the “ Years of Peace” program. He stressed in a recent interview that “there are people from both sides buried there,” and this was a central part of the film’s importance to the Spanish government: Fraga and Robles Piquer sought through their propaganda effort to defuse long-simmering resentment by the approximately half the Spanish population who identified with

43 Robles Piquer deposition, ; Llovet deposition, ; see e.g. memorandum from Fraga to Fernando Maria Castiella, Minister of Foreign Affairs,  September , which discusses the “great success” of the presentation of Sinfonia Española in Mexico City; Letter from Robles Piquer to the Director General of Cinema and Theater,  October ; letter from the Director General of Cinema and Theater to Manuel Fraga Iribarne,  April —all documents in “Sinfonia Española” file, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



the defeated Republican cause.44 Samuel Bronston devoted considerable resources to the production of the documentary-drama hybrid, including American director Andrew Marton, who worked on Bronston’s epic  Days at Peking, and the conservative American writer and syndicated columnist Jim Bishop. Bronston exclaimed to his production aide Pancho Kohner at the time, “Valley of the Fallen must be the greatest documentary film ever made or we are just going to trash it [throw it away], because this is my gift to Franco.”45 In any event, both Bronston and the Ministry of Information and Tourism had taken on a devilishly difficult subject, as the massive cathedral, bored into the side of a mountain which is capped by a huge cross and monumental statuary that rivals the scale of Mount Rushmore, was built over  years primarily with slave labor drawn from Republican political prisoners (they were given one day of sentence commutation for each day of grueling effort on the project). Finally, Objetivo  was the most nakedly propagandistic of Bronston’s films on the regime’s behalf. Written by Spanish diplomatic official Enrique Llovet, the script touted the advances in technology, productivity, and worker satisfaction under the Franco regime and laid down a challenge to the public to redouble their efforts in aid of the regime’s official plan for continued economic development (“Plan de Desarrollo Económico y Social de España”). The documentary short subject, while filmed in color and Cinemascope, contains obviously contrived interviews and comments from a cross-section of government officials, business people, and laborers. Government censors who usually avoided criticizing government-sanctioned offerings were sufficiently concerned about the blatant nature of the film to excoriate it in their reports to the MIT: “Naturally, it is partisan and the script constitutes a typical example—a bad example—of the propaganda short subject, with images accompanied by abundant text, adorned [in turn] with a large amount of figures . . . .and the script is a good illustration of the existing procedures by which cinema verité will be a diminished ‘verité’ that agrees with the intentions of the filmmaker.” Nonetheless, the Spanish government was obviously satisfied with the film. The MIT pushed ahead with plans to show Objetivo  at all cinemas throughout Spain; and the Ministry of the Economy screened Bronston’s production for numerous visiting foreign dignitaries, including King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi 44

Fraga and Robles Piquer, interviews by author, Madrid, Spain, July . Samuel Bronston, quoted by his former production aide Pancho Kohner, in an interview with Paul G. Nagle, . My thanks to Mr. Nagle for providing me with a copy of this interview. 45

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

monarch extolled the documentary’s depiction of “the prodigious efforts of the Spaniards on the road to progress and development.”46

Torpedoed by du Pont, Kept Afloat by Franco Bronston’s Byzantine and legally questionable financial practices caught up with him dramatically in early . A demand for payment on a one million dollar loan caused a cascade of similar demands. The unwary Pierre du Pont, who had been blithely signing unconditional promissory notes on Bronston’s behalf for over five years, found himself to his horror holding much of the responsibility for debts originally valued at some   million dollars (around one billion  dollars). Bronston’s debt load was eventually reduced down to the still huge figure of   million, much of which was owed by du Pont. The estranged benefactor immediately ceased backing Bronston’s projects, which caused the two men to barrage each other with a series of lawsuits over the next decade. Du Pont, humiliated before his family, precipitously “retired” from his positions at DuPont and Christiana Securities; he never worked again.47 The various suits paralyzed Bronston financially and ultimately made it impossible for him to resume major film production. Despite his difficulties, between  and  it looked at various points as though Bronston was going to re-emerge in the Phoenix-like fashion that had been his career trademark. He received no small assistance in this regard from the Franco regime. Grateful for the singular contribution that “Don Samuel” had made to the dictatorship’s goals and hoping for more of the same, the Spanish government continued to extend aid to the American producer in meeting his financial obliga46 Objectivo  (), Filmoteca Espanola, Madrid; film script and censor’s report on Objectivo , both in “Objectivo ” file, Ministry of Information and Tourism-Culture Ministry files (alphabetized film title listings), General Archives Alcala; “ ‘Todos Los Pueblos Arabes No Ignoran, ni Olvidaran Jamas, las Gallardas Posturas de Espana al Colocarse a su Lado en los dias Mas Sombrios para Defender Su Causa como Se Hace Entre Hermanos’ ” [“The Arab Peoples do not Ignore, Nor do They Ever Forget, Spain’s Valiant Position Standing at Their Side in the Darkest days in Order to Defend Their Cause as Brothers Would”], La Vanguardia (Barcelona), //, p. , online at the La Vanguardia Hemeroteca, http://www.lavanguardia.es/hemeroteca/. 47 “Memorandum for the Files” by Richard Simmons of the Principal Creditors Group of his conversation with Judge Simon Rifkind, Pierre du Pont III’s attorney, dated  October , in private papers of Philip Yordan (private collection; my deep thanks to Philip’s widow Faith Yordan for giving me full access to these papers).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



tions. The regime’s aid included a moratorium on Bronston’s debts and a series of generous crude oil import licenses. This crude oil scheme generated some  . million in profit to be applied toward Bronston’s debts. At a later juncture, Bronston explained to creditors, with crystal-clear selfawareness, “that he was a pioneer in the motion picture business in Spain which is today a flourishing industry and a tourist attraction and that this was a consideration for oil allocations being made to him.”48 The principal creditors to whom both du Pont and Bronston owed huge sums of money strongly supported Bronston’s returning to active film production as a means of raising revenue. But du Pont, embarking on what can only be described as a vendetta, vehemently opposed such efforts—indeed, du Pont was seeking possession of the Samuel Bronston studios in Spain, which the creditors’ group summarily rejected as “sheer nonsense.” A distinguished group of Spanish lawyers advising the creditors explained, more temperately, that Bronston is the key figure in the resolution of the Spanish situation . . . . [T]he Spanish government has gone out of its way to help Bronston through oil ventures even over the opposition of some government ministers and influential businessmen. The government’s desire to help is based on the fact that Bronston started a new and expanding industry that created substantial employment and liquidated substantial blocked currency by utilizing it within the country. Bronston heretofore produced motion pictures at his expense for the Spanish government that advanced tourism. The cooperation and assistance afforded Bronston would definitely not be available to du Pont or any third party since the government would feel no obligation to foreigners other than Bronston.49

But while the emphasis here was on tourism, the film industry, and Bronston’s purely economic contributions to Spain, the solution proposed in  by the Franco regime to aid Bronston was squarely in the mold of political propaganda straight out of Operación PE and Bronston’s proposal for foreign ownership of Samuel Bronston Española, S.A., right down to the emphasis on Hispanidad, as well as U.S. and European audiences: 48 Memorandum of conference held today at the office of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, attorneys for Pierre S. DuPont,  December , ; Minutes of conference held this day at the offices of Cahill, Gordon, Reindel and Ohl,  /  / , , both documents in papers of Philip Yordan. 49 Minutes of a meeting of Principal Creditors held at the offices of Cahill, Gordon, Reindel and Ohl,  July , –; “Memorandum: Conference held in Madrid, Spain from January ,  through February , ,”  February ,  and passim, both documents in papers of Philip Yordan.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf The companies will concentrate on the production of documentaries for various ministries to promote industry—other ministries to promote tourism. During this period, the company will diversify in an effort to realize . . . .the potential of the Spanish economy. The Spanish economy has grown from a   billion gross national product to a   billion gross national product in the last five years. Documentaries, industrial and educational films will be produced and directed to Latin American governments . . . . In addition, the Bronston enterprises are seeking television contacts with United States and European television chains so that production of films for television can be undertaken. The possibility exists that a television channel may be assigned by the Spanish government to the Bronston enterprises.50

And so it was that Bronston continued to keep in the regime’s good graces, despite the lack of actual film making. He was able to raise a million dollars to put “Isabella of Spain” into an advanced state of preproduction in –, including hiring Glenda Jackson to play the title role and Ronald Neame to direct. The script, according to Jackson, was notable for omitting any mention of Isabella’s expulsion of the Jews from Spain in , even as it emphasized, in the manner of El Cid, Spain’s pivotal role in defeating the Moorish menace to Europe. But the producer, hobbled by the  . million dollar judgment du Pont won against him, could not raise the funds needed to move “Isabella of Spain” into production, despite herculean promotional efforts that included gaining the backing of an associate of the notorious mobster Meyer Lansky.51 Bronston’s reputation and capacity to function in the film industry took a further hit in  when he was convicted in U.S. Federal Court of perjury. Although he successfully appealed the decision before the Supreme Court in , he was financially exhausted and still facing the du Pont judgment. In the meantime the Spanish government had gone through a series of upheavals that denuded him of political support within the Franco regime. In the summer of  the Spanish authorities issued an arrest warrant against Bronston over an unpaid debt to Air Algiers, while the local press began to refer to him derisively as a “Rumanian Jew.”52 In an all-too-familiar replay of his flight from the 50 “Memorandum: Conference held in Madrid, Spain from January ,  through February , ,”  February , , in papers of Philip Yordan. 51 Samuel Bronston deposition,  October , p. , in Pierre du Pont v. Samuel Bronston, U.S. District Court-Northern District Texas-Dallas, CA---E; stored at NARA’s Fort Worth facility; Bronston was evidently oblivious to the organized crime connections of his backer, Edward Jules Markus, which are set out in “Pizza Parlous,” Private Eye (UK),  March , pp. –. 52 “The Reign of Spain,”  February , Time http://www.time.com/time/

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



French authorities a generation earlier, Bronston slipped out of Spain and moved with his family to Dallas, Texas. He paid off the  , debt to Air Algiers that had put him in the Spanish dock, while leaving millions of dollars in other debts unpaid. He declared that he would soon return to Madrid to resume his production of “Isabella of Spain.” But in fact the days of “Don Samuel” and his dreams of leading Hollywood in Madrid were over. Bronston would return to Spain occasionally over the next decade, but he would never again produce a film there, or anywhere else. Pierre du Pont continued his unrelenting efforts to squeeze his erstwhile partner dry throughout the s. The battery of lawsuits ultimately resulted in Bronston’s loss of his few remaining assets through personal bankruptcy in . After enduring a decade of grinding, anonymous poverty in Houston, Bronston died in a Sacramento, California hospital in .53

Conclusion Samuel Bronston met the end of the line in Franco Spain a mere two years before the Franco regime itself. The two players had wrung the maximum value out of each other by the end of their relationship. Some years later, in a last ditch effort to re-enter film production, Bronston traveled to Manila in an attempt to forge with Ferdinand Marcos a relationship similar to the one he had had with El Caudillo. But despite his announced plan to make a biographical movie about the life of Filipino hero Dr. Jose Rizal, Bronston could not get his hands on any of the billions of dollars that the Marcoses had illicitly amassed. Imelda Marcos took a shine to Bronston and gave him a very expensive suit as a present. He left Manila more snappily attired than when he arrived, but no better off.54 magazine/article/,,,.html ( May ); Peter Besas, “Samuel Bronston, Who Pulled Spanish Pic Industry Out of Doldrums, Now Facing Arrest,” Variety,  August , “Samuel Bronston” clipping file, Variety Editorial Offices. 53 “Bronston: Madrid Debt paid, Will Continue There,” Variety,  August , “Samuel Bronston” clipping file, Variety Editorial Offices; see as well files within Pierre du Pont v. Samuel Bronston, U.S. District Court-Northern District Texas-Dallas, case number CA--E; Samuel Bronston, Debtor, case number BK----F, United States District Court—Northern District of Texas-Dallas Division [Bankruptcy]; Dorothea Bronston, interview with author, London, July ; William Bronston, interviews by author, Carmichael, CA, January . 54 “Bronston Plans Jose Rizal Biopic,” Variety,  March , “Samuel Bronston”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



neal m. rosendorf

Still, Bronston demonstrated the possibility of using his own template under roughly analogous circumstances: an independent American film producer identifies and approaches an authoritarian regime, distasteful but not commonly perceived as beyond the pale, with elements of corruption, a self-perceived international image issue and related desire to utilize American soft power for its own purposes, and whose country has a motion picture industry not yet broadly or deeply penetrated by Hollywood production. By this modus operandi Bronston hoped to approximate the collaborative relationship he and the Franco regime had forged, the closest partnership achieved at any time between an American motion picture enterprise and a foreign government. Bronston’s partnership with Franco was unique, but not entirely so. One possible contemporary corollary is the Peoples Republic of China, which has been the beneficiary of a number of U.S.-PRC co-productions like Crouching Tiger / Hidden Dragon and American-distributed films like In the Mood for Love, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers. There have also been U.S.-made productions filmed partly in China like the highly successful action comedy Shanghai Noon and its sequel Shanghai Knights. These films in the aggregate have portrayed for American (and global) audiences an exciting, romantic, attractive, culturally rich and non-threatening China—and in the case of the last two films mentioned, a China with significant historical ties to the United States.55 China is, quite simply, benefiting from an element of American soft power— Hollywood—and seeing this power of persuasion converted into its own, including in relation to the United States.56 The Chinese government has been demanding script review and approval as a condition of U.S. filming there, and Hollywood producers have been sanguine about complying, in the manner of the relationship between the Franco regime and American clipping file, Variety Editorial Offices; William Bronston, interview by author, Carmichael, CA, . 55 Chinese premier Jiang Zemin, urging the PRC Politburo to view Titanic, averred to his party comrades, “You should not imagine that there is no ideological education in capitalist countries. ‘Titanic’ speaks of wealth and love, the relationship between rich and poor, and vividly describes how people react to disaster.” Charles Trueheart, “With Popularity Come Pitfalls,” Washington Post,  October . 56 As the Chinese political analyst Li Yong Yan has put it, [I]t is imperative to understand that to the Chinese government, entertainment is not entertainment alone. It is an education to the people on nationalist patriotism. Moreover, media is not just a vehicle for information, but a battleground that is to be occupied, either by ‘us’, or by ‘them’. See “In Beijing, Porn’s Cool but Hollywood Sucks,”  June , Asia Times Online, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FFAd.html (May , ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

hollywood, dictatorship and propaganda



producers in Spain a half-century ago.57 Moreover, China is making ever increasing efforts to gain international tourists, including Americans, and there is an awareness of the relationship between movies made in China and tourism benefits—for example, the historic town featured in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is now a Mecca for travelers from the U.S. and elsewhere.58 But all of the films that have involved American production have been “one-off ” affairs. China is arguably waiting for another Samuel Bronston: a well-funded producer bold enough, skilled enough, and apolitically instrumental enough, to collaborate with the Communist dictatorship and establish a new American motion picture empire in Hollywood in Beijing.59

57 Vivienne Chow, East Meets West,  December , Film Journal International, http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/esearch/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id = (May , ). 58 “Residents Left out of China’s Tourism Boom,”  December , UPI, http://www .upi.com/Business_News////Residents_left_out_of_Chinas_tourism_boom/ UPI-/ (May , ). 59 For a more detailed comparative discussion of the Franco regime’s and the People’s Republic of China’s Hollywood policies, see Neal M. Rosendorf, “Popaganda: What Hollywood Can Do For (and To) China,” The American Interest, March – April .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter five SUPRANATIONAL PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: THE EVOLUTION OF THE UN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION AND THE RISE OF THIRD WORLD ADVOCACY Seth Center* Public diplomacy is usually conceived of as an instrument of powerful states. Great powers utilize information programs to bolster support for foreign policy objectives, spread ideals and culture, advance imperial ambitions, and wield as a propaganda weapon against adversaries. This essay explores public diplomacy from the opposite vantage point— the perspective of weak states and non-state actors. Specifically, it examines the interconnected histories of the United Nations’ reliance on public diplomacy to promote its mission and activities, and the rise of Third World1 efforts to utilize public diplomacy to advance the cause of decolonization and redress perceived North-South injustices. These histories intersected for a simple reason. The United Nations possessed global public diplomacy capabilities that Third World movements lacked, coveted, and, as we shall see, eventually harnessed. Two seemingly distinct public diplomacy stories run through the United Nations: the exploitation of the General Assembly as a propaganda forum by member states, and the evolution of the organization’s own public diplomacy institutions. The propaganda dimension is so obvious that it is often taken for granted. The United Nations’ direct

*

The views expressed here are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Department of State or the U.S. Government. Information presented here is based on publicly available declassified sources. 1 The “Third World” was an identity embraced by the leadership of developing countries to describe themselves. For example, Mohamed-Saleh Dembri, the Algerian Chairman of the Group of  described the organization as “the principal organ of the Third World for articulating and promoting its collective economic interest.” See Joachim W. Müeller and Karl P. Sauvant, eds., The Third World Without Superpowers: The Collected Documents of the Group of , Volume XX. Second Series (New York: Ocean Publishing, ), iii.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

participation in global public diplomacy is less well-known, although not hidden. Individually, neither story appears very important to international politics. When fused into a single narrative, however, they illuminate the connection between the rise of the Third World’s influence within the General Assembly, and its concomitant efforts to radically transform the UN’s own public diplomacy institutions to project a Third World ideology across the globe. The image of an “irrelevant debating society” plagued the United Nations since its creation. Far from the serious location for the conduct of diplomacy, the organization degenerated into what one scholar called with equal parts awe and concern, “the greatest forum for rival international propaganda the world has ever seen.”2 From the very first General Assembly, Soviet-American polemics threatened to grind UN gears to a halt. But even as Cold War propaganda persisted, another propaganda battle emerged. Beginning in the s, the central axis of UN debate shifted to the North-South conflict between the so-called First and Third World. Energized by the decolonization movement, the developing world began to express its discontent and demand redress for global political, economic, racial, and social inequalities. Anti-colonialism, in all of its forms, was in the words of Ali Mazrui “a persistent theme of protest” that signified the Third World’s determination to restructure the global system.3 Yet more than a protest, the Third World believed it had a compelling vision and a blueprint for a new world. If all of the facts could be submitted to mankind, the Third World could, through persuasion and argument, create sympathy for, and perhaps even convert the world to, the new order. The Third World ambitions were governed by a clear ideology articulated by the Group of 4 and the Non-Aligned Move2 John Whitton and Arthur Larson, Propaganda: Toward Disarmament in the War of Words (New York: Oceana Publishing, ), . 3 Quoted in Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement: The Origins of a Third World Alliance (New York: Nichols Publishing, ), xii, . 4 The Group of  grew out of the  United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and it was dedicated to forging Third World unity to advance the goal of “securing the adoption of new attitudes and new approaches in the international economic field.” See “Joint Declaration of the Seventy-seven Developing Countries Made at the Conclusion of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,” June , , in Müeller and Sauvant, eds., The Collected Documents of the Group of , Volume XX, Second Series, –. While its membership grew from seventy-seven states to one hundred and twenty-two members by , it had no formal institutions or constitution. Foreign ministers of member states met in preparation for UNCTAD meetings

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



ment.5 While the Third World ideological agenda was formulated at the summits and meetings of these entities, the rise of Third World public diplomacy took place at the United Nations. The “one country, one vote principle” in the General Assembly allowed the Third World to utilize its parliamentary power to articulate grievances, espouse alternative visions of world order, and outline programs of action to redefine international relations through a perennial stream of symbolic and unenforceable resolutions denouncing—in various permutations—colonialism, neocolonialism, Western economic and cultural imperialism, apartheid, racism and Zionism.6 The Third World exercise of parliamentary power engendered widespread concern from the UN’s professional staff and Western states. One UN official wondered about the “wisdom of holding any kind of debate in a world forum dominated by scores of unimportant and irresponsible countries,” while U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned that the UN

and UN General Assemblies to formulate a collective vision and issue declarations and programs of actions. See Müeller and Sauvant, eds., The Third World Without Superpowers: The Collected Documents of the Group of , Vol. I–XX; Karl P. Sauvant, The Group of : Evolution, Structure, Organization (New York: Oceana Publishing, ). 5 The Non-Aligned Movement held its first meeting—“The First Conference of Heads of State of Government of Non-Aligned Countries”—in Belgrade in . It was a related, but indirect successor of the more famous  African-Asian Conference of nonaligned countries held in Bandung. Subsequent summits were held in Cairo in , Lusaka in , Algiers in , and Colombo in . Conference participation grew from  states and  observers in  to  states,  observers (including liberation movements), and  “guests” in . For background on how the Non-Aligned Movement perceived itself, see Odette Jankowitsch and Karl P. Sauvant, eds., The Third World without Superpowers: The Collected Documents of the Non-Aligned Countries, Vol. I–XII (New York: Oceana, ) and Leo Mates, Non-Alignment Theory and Current Policy (New York: Oceana Publications, ). Third World allegiances spanned the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of . While they are distinct organizations, their overlapping membership and agenda were significant. Seventy-five percent of the Group of  were also members of the NAM and, if non-state observers were included, that number rose to  . The NAM played a “catalytic force” in the larger organization. Peter Willetts argues that the Non-Aligned Movement “fully integrated” the Third World reactions to the Cold War, anti-colonialism, and economic development into a “coherent ideological framework.” See Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement, –. 6 Karl Sauvant, the editor of both groups’ official papers, argues that this determined effort at the UN was rooted in the fact that “the only higher level of mobilization, politicization, and pressure” that they could reach would be the level of heads of states of governments. See Sauvant, The Group of , . In analyzing UN voting trends Peter Willetts shows that by the UNGA th sess. the anti-colonial bloc was a large minority, by the th sess. it was a simple majority, and by the th sess. it was an “overwhelming majority.” See Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

might need serious reform for it to “remain relevant to the real world.”7 Yet underpinning the criticism was the assumption that the Third World’s power to propagandize within the United Nations was self-contained— it did not really influence the broader international milieu. The General Assembly was the Third World’s “political play pen” or a “Turkish Bath,” a useful place for small and weak nations to let off steam, but little more. As another UN official wryly noted, “the Third World is dominant from nd to th street and from rd Avenue to the East River.”8 In contrast to these familiar critiques of the United Nations as an irrelevant propaganda forum, little attention—public or scholarly—has been paid to the organization’s own information activities. However, UN officials have always attached considerable importance to public diplomacy. As the Under Secretary for Public Information remarked in , the very fact that the United Nations was not a “supranational” organization with its own economic and military power meant that: [The UN] had no authority except the power to convince; to convince the peoples of the world of the value of nourishing a vision of a more harmonious world; to convince through discreet and public diplomacy; and to convince through professional information services and communications campaigns with the goal of reaching out to the peoples of the world.9

Indeed, from its early days the United Nations had a public diplomacy capability with global reach. The Department of Public Information (DPI) was created in  as its main public diplomacy instrument [DPI was later renamed the Office of Public Information (OPI), before returning to its original name. Hereafter, the chronologically appropriate acronym will be used, but the DPI and OPI may be considered the same institution].10 Since , the United Nations has devoted between   7

Hernane Taveres de Sa, The Play with the Play: The Inside Story of the UN (New York: Knopf, ), –; Rusk quoted in Bryton Barron, Dream Becomes a Nightmare: The U.N. Today (Springfield, VA: Crestwood Books, ), –. 8 Roger A. Brooks, “At the UN: The Kirkpatrick Legacy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder  (March , ), ; Kenneth Thompson, “Myths and Realities in the Cold War,” in Beyond the Cold War: Superpowers at the Crossroads, ed. Michael Cox (New York: University Press of America, ), . For the United States view of the emerging power of the Non-Aligned Movement at the United Nations see Richard L. Jackson, The NonAligned, the UN, and the Superpowers (New York: Praeger, ). 9 U.N. General Assembly, rd Session, Report of the Committee on Information, A /  / ,  September , p. . http://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/ GEN/N///img/N.pdf?OpenElement (Accessed April , ). 10 The Department of Public Information (DPI) was renamed the Office of Public Information (OPI) in , renamed again as the DPI in , renamed as the Office

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



and   of its total annual budget to information programs. By the mid s the DPI had  information centers responsible for  countries; radio, television, and film programs disseminated to  states and territories in  languages; print runs of its pamphlets and publications in the tens of thousands; and ties to hundreds of non-governmental organizations.11 Despite the importance of public diplomacy to the UN mission, officials nurtured the impression that the DPI was more government printing office than propagandist. Far from a “propaganda agency,” the first Assistant Secretary for Public Information declared that the DPI’s mission was to “collect, collate, and give out factual information” about the organization. Another UN information officer explained in  that the OPI role was “subsidiary” to states, and its task was to provide “basic reference tools” on UN activities. As Secretary-General U Thant stated, the UN neither could nor would “conduct an intensive information campaign such as sovereign Governments sometimes employ.” Because the United Nations served all nations equally, it had “no ‘face’ to lose and no victory of its own to win.”12 The few scholars who have examined UN public diplomacy substantiate this benign view of the DPI’s self-conscious efforts to remain nonpolitical.13 Early in the life of the organization, scholars noted that the DPI was plagued with a “fundamental contradiction” between its desire to reach the peoples of the world and its ultimate subservience to the member states in the General Assembly. The organization could not be expected to “bring pressure on recalcitrant nations or initiate steps of Communication and Public Information (OCPI) in , before returning to the DPI once again the following year. 11 Marcial Tamayo, “The United Nations: A Rich Source of Information,” in The Diplomatic Persuaders: New Role of the Mass Media in International Relations, ed. John Lee (New York: John Wiley & Sons, ), –. 12 Benjamin Cohen, “The UN’s Department of Public Information,” Public Opinion Quarterly  ():–; Tamayo, The Diplomatic Persuaders, , ; U. Thant, “The United Nations and Some Problems of Public Understanding,”  December . OPI / –, United Nations Office of Public Information (January –M); U. Thant, “UN Day Address,”  October . UN Monthly Chronicle I (November ): . 13 One exception is Jamie Metzl’s study of “information intervention” in the context of post-Cold War UN peacekeeping operations. See Metzl, “Information Intervention: When Switching Channels Isn’t Enough,” Foreign Affairs  (November / December ): –. See also Monroe Price and Mark Thompson, eds., Forging Peace: Intervention, Human Rights and the Management of Media Space (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

which would strengthen the United Nations at the expense of national sovereignty.” The DPI’s editorial independence was “strictly bounded” by its role as an “honest broker” upholding the impartiality of the Secretariat. As the “servant of eighty-two masters,” it could not possibly “indulge in the sensational trappings and stereotypes of the more popular broadcasters and writers.” Throughout its history, the United Nations was too “gun-shy” to implement a “meaningful” public diplomacy program.14 This paper will demonstrate that both the image constructed by critics of a mere propaganda forum and the cautious picture painted by UN officials and scholars of the DPI obscure important realities about the relationship between the United Nations and public diplomacy, especially in the context of an emerging Third World identity. By connecting the “irrelevant debating society” to the United Nations’ own “mouthpiece,” Third World movements were able to advance their own hearts and minds campaign. There is nothing conspiratorial or covert in this story. To the contrary, the developing world expanded the UN public diplomacy mission with transparency and without apology. The Third World ambition for the DPI was not the conservative vision espoused by UN officials. Beginning in the early s, the Third World began a two decade process of leveraging its power at the United Nations to advance the causes and ideology of the developing world through the institution’s existing public diplomacy capabilities to the world. By the late s the DPI’s output was neither cautious nor politically neutral. It had been transformed from a “basic reference tool” for informing the world about the UN into a tool of the Third World for telling its story to the world. The DPI gave voice to liberation movements, pursued a radically different vision of decolonization than outlined in the UN Charter, denounced member states, articulated Third World grievances, and espoused the Non-Aligned Movement’s and the Group of ’s ideological blueprints for a new economic and information world order. Once in control of the DPI, the Third World made the promotion of the UN itself a secondary consideration. Its objective was justice.

14 Leon Gordenker, “Policy-Making and Secretariat Influence in the General Assembly: The Case of Public Information,” The American Political Science Review  (): –; Robert H. Corey, Jr. “Forging a Public Information Policy for the United Nations,” International Organization  (): , ; Richard Swift, “The United Nations and Its Public,” International Organization  (): ; Mark Alleyne, Global Lies?: Propaganda, the UN, and World Order (New York: Palgrave, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



Original Intent: A Cautious and Conservative DPI Prior to the emergence of a Third World majority in the General Assembly in the early s, the DPI’s philosophy and content were as cautious as scholars portrayed and UN officials maintained. The DPI was created for a single purpose: to promote UN programs and dispense basic reference information about the organization’s proceedings. Trygve Lie, the first UN Secretary General, explained that by giving international issues a full-hearing and then disseminating to the world all points of view, the United Nations would “contribute in the long-run to understanding and accommodation among the nations of the world.”15 Lie’s successor, Dag Hammarskjöld, called the “field of enlightenment and information” the second most important UN task to peacemaking. In fact, the two were interrelated. The United Nations’ ability to educate the world public with all of the “facts” would prevent a future Nazi Germany from exploiting fear and ignorance to foment war.16 World public support was also deemed essential to the success of the United Nations as an institution. The League of Nations had failed, many believed, because it “lost touch with the world of publicity.”17 The League had been determined to stay out of the propaganda business, guided by the belief that “to propagate support of particular theories in the League is the work of governments, publicists, and unofficial organizations; it is not of the organized duty of the League as an institution.”18 Its failure belied that philosophy. The new United Nations could not rely solely on the goodwill of others. It had to balance nationalistic “slants” of statecontrolled media with its own “unbiased” accounts of the international organization’s deliberations, actions, and ideals. It needed an information service capable of reaching the “farmer in Nebraska, the shopkeeper in 15 “Final Statement,” April , , Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations, Vol. I. ed. Andrew Cordier (New York, Columbia University Press), . 16 “Press Conference,” April , . Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations, Vol. II, ed. Andrew W. Cordier and Wilder Foote (New York: Columbia University Press, ), ; “Speech to the Foreign Policy Association,” Oct , , Ibid., , . 17 See Pitman B. Potter, “League Publicity: Cause or Effect of League Failure,” Public Opinion Quarterly  (July, ): –. The League had an Information Section within the League Secretariat, and its work was based on the theory that “the progress of the League of Nations depends on public opinion.” See The League of Nations, Ten Years of World Co-operation (London: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, ), chap. XIV for a discussion of early League publicity philosophy and efforts. 18 The League of Nations, Ten Years of Cooperation, –, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

Lyons, the tractor-driver in a Soviet rural community” with “attractive and easily understandable” information programs.19 The  DPI mandate provided no clear answer on how to fulfill that mission. The new department should not engage in “propaganda” but it should “promote to the greatest possible extent an informed understanding of the world and purposes” of the United Nations. The DPI should “primarily rely upon the cooperation” of established governmental and nongovernmental agencies, but it also “should on its own initiative engage in positive informational activities” to supplement these relationships if they proved to be “insufficient to realize the purpose” of the United Nations’ information needs.20 As we shall see, after  these ambiguous instructions created a wedge for the General Assembly to use the DPI as an active agent to promote political change in the world. An early DPI priority was to expand its information programs to the developing world.21 The DPI was potentially the major source of UN information in countries that lacked an established press and could not afford to send correspondents to New York. The expansion of the DPI enjoyed consistent support from the developing world. For example, Bolivia’s delegate said he spoke “on behalf of all Latin America” when he urged the UN mission be “carried to the hearts of the people,” and Cuba’s delegate argued that “well-devised propaganda” on behalf of the UN would be essential to sustaining support for the organization.22 In 19 The International Secretariat of the Future: Lessons from Experience by a Group of Former Officials of the League of Nations, The Royal Institute of International Affairs (London: Oxford University Press, ), –, –, –. 20 U.N. General Assembly, st Session, Resolution (I) and Annex I,  February . http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ). The DPI was initially tasked with an advisory function to keep the “pulse” of the world and advise the organization of international attitudes. DPI Under Secretary General Cohen described his office’s purpose as “informing the public, of feeling its pulse so as to direct the whole organization in a way acceptable to the world.” Benjamin Cohen, “The UN’s Department of Public Information,” Public Opinion Quarterly  (): . That function was quickly abandoned and the DPI’s polling arm was disbanded in  for budgetary reasons. 21 See for example, Trygve Lie, “Supplementary Oral Report,” Oct , . PPPSGUN, Vol. , p. . 22 New York Times, November , , p. ; U.N. General Assembly, nd Session, Report of the Third Committee, Teaching of the Purposes and Principles, the Structure and Activities of the United Nations in the Schools of Member States, A / ,  November , (Readex microfiche); U.N. General Assembly, Official Records of the nd Session, th Plenary Meeting,  October . United Nations, Plenary Meetings of the General Assembly, Verbatim Record, Vol. II,  November –  November  (Lake Success, New York), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



 the General Assembly heeded the call of the developing world and approved recommendations instructing the DPI to “pay particular attention to the special problems and needs of those areas where . . . information media are less fully developed.”23 While most states supported the concept of public diplomacy in the abstract, the DPI faced skepticism. In a milieu still tainted by the memory of the Nazi’s information warfare, some UN members feared the DPI seeping into “propaganda.” Other members abhorred the emphasis on public relations at the perceived expense of substantive policy. Moreover, skepticism crossed geopolitical lines. Suspicious that the DPI was a “vast propaganda program,” the Soviet Union and France supported slashing the DPI budget. Australia’s delegate wondered why more money was spent by the DPI than by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, while Belgium’s representative demanded   reductions in the DPI budget, comparing its work to “the huckster song in ‘soap operas.’ ” The Netherlands complained that the DPI relied on “commercial methods” to “sugar-coat the pill” in its treatment of controversial subjects.24 The DPI was not a “vast propaganda program,” but it did “sugarcoat” real political disagreements and UN failures. Looking at the United Nations, a  photo-essay, exemplified the DPI’s response to public criticism and its treatment of the UN’s own shortcomings. Whereas critics charged that the UN had degenerated into a mere “debating society,” the booklet showed three diplomats congenially conferring with a caption explaining that they were engaged in “productive United Nations talk.” The UN’s mediation role in the Arab-Israeli conflict was idealized in a picture of a young girl carrying a jug of water under the caption: “Now the water girl is no longer afraid of gunfire.” Likewise UN involvement in Korea was highlighted with an allusion to “aggression,” but without singling out any countries or even explaining who was fighting for what. Instead the DPI emphasized the conflict’s “human terms.”25 23 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Report Of Sub-Committee  Of The Fifth Committee On Public Information, Budget Estimates For The Financial Year , A / C. / L.,  January , (Readex microfiche). See also U.N.G.A., th Session, Fifth Committee, Agenda Item , A / C. / L. / Rev. ,  November , (Readex microfiche); Tamayo, The Diplomatic Persuaders, p. . 24 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, th Meeting of the Fifth Committee, A / C. / SR.,  October , (Readex microfiche); New York Times, October , , p. ; th Meeting of the Fifth Committee, A / C. / SR.,  October . 25 Looking at the United Nations (United Nations Publication, Sales No. ..).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

Most of the early DPI output simply reported on meetings and promoted the UN’s activities in social, humanitarian, and economic realms. The What the UN is Doing series included such titles as Protecting the Refugees and features on international health like World War on Tuberculosis. Other publications, such as The Story of the United Nations Postage Stamps, were altogether vapid.26 Seeking to avoid controversy, the DPI sold the UN as a central force moving the world toward a more peaceful, prosperous future while avoiding any broader geopolitical or ideological context or debate. The DPI’s aversion to political activism was most clearly evident in its treatment of colonialism, which would shortly become the most explosive issue at the United Nations. The DPI position reflected the “enlightened” guidelines and philosophies embedded in the UN Charter and that prevailed among the former colonial powers. The transition to independence was envisioned as an evolutionary and cooperative process. As one of the UN Charter’s architects said in , “there must be a duty on colonial powers to train and educate the indigenous peoples to govern themselves.” This was the “sacred trust” inscribed in Chapter XI of the UN Charter. Most significant from the perspective of public diplomacy was Article e that mandated administering powers (colonialists) transmit “statistical and other information of a technical nature” on the economic, social, and educational (but not political) conditions in the territory to the UN in the hopes that it would result, according to the article’s Australian sponsor, in a “healthy competition between the colonial powers for the achievement of better conditions” for dependent peoples. While a Special Committee on Information was established by the General Assembly to submit reports on the basis of this information and make recommendations in the interests of the dependent peoples, the committee relied on information provided by the governing member states. The world would be informed on progress toward realizing the Charter’s aims, but without pressuring members to grant immediate independence to their colonies.27 26 Protecting the Refugees: The Story of the United Nations Effort on their Behalf. (United Nations Publication, Sales No. ..); The World War on Tuberculosis. (United Nations Publication, Sales No. ..); The Story of the United Nations Postage Stamps. (United Nations Publication, , no sales number). 27 A Sacred Trust: The United Nations Work for Non-Self-Governing Lands, Fourth revised edition, December  (United Nations Publication, UN Sales No. .I.), –. United Nations Charter, Chap. XI, http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter .shtml (accessed April , ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



The multi-edition booklet, A Sacred Trust: The United Nations Work for Non-Self-Governing Lands, exemplified the DPI’s output and reflected the United Nations’ founding philosophy about decolonization. Eliding over any conflict within the organization or the territories themselves about the movement toward independence, the publication justified the necessity of benign colonialism, albeit with a long-term goal of ushering in self-determination. A Sacred Trust begins with a fictional petitioner— “Trust Territory Man”—from the “heart of Africa” describing the hopes of his land at the United Nations. He is not a radical or revolutionary, but a “humble and modest man” of “practical mind” interested in the educational, social, and agricultural development of his lands, with a “desire to be taught more about these things.” The photographs in the booklet illustrate the benefits of trusteeship. Pictures from British-administered Cameroon show children receiving medical attention and bulldozers creating a water reservoir; from New Guinea a picture of the local legislature wearing western-style dress shirts and neckties, and a photo of shirtless men studying a diagram of the human skeleton.28 A Sacred Trust explained that because of the complexity and diversity of the situations in these territories, the timing and stages of the process of moving toward self-government were complex. The UN, the world, and dependent peoples needed to be patient because the “bridge to modern civilization” and self government had just begun. Far from excoriating the few states still complicit in colonialism or championing the cause of independence, the booklet cautioned that in non-self governing territories (i.e. colonies), the path to autonomy would be “long and difficult,” and the UN’s “responsibilities” were very “limited.” Nevertheless, A Sacred Trust concluded that the UN work had “inestimable psychological significance” in providing a link between the international community and non-self-governing territories. The dependent peoples knew that they could “look forward to higher standards of living and a better life” as a result of the “assurances of the administering members and the continued concern” of the United Nations. With unintended irony that would quickly become apparent, the DPI booklet concluded that UN responsibility was “no greater and no less than the power of public opinion—the organized opinion of the international community.”29 Just one year after A Sacred Trust was published, the General Assembly would proclaim the ‘sacred trust’ unholy, and in the process usher 28 29

A Sacred Trust, –. Ibid., , –, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

in a dramatically different era in UN public diplomacy. The era of conservative, cautious public diplomacy was about to end. The DPI would no longer mute all signs of interstate conflict within the United Nations, focus on the relatively uncontroversial UN activities in the fields of human welfare, and principally reflect the “enlightened” views of the Western powers.

A Trust Betrayed: Decolonization, the General Assembly, and the OPI In , the General Assembly rejected the Charter philosophy of preparing non-self-governing territories for independence by a vote of  to  with  abstentions. The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples demanded “immediate steps” towards independence, called the process of liberation “irresistible and irreversible,” and proclaimed that a lack of social, economic, and education development should “never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.” Moreover, the Declaration expanded the UN definition of international conflict, labeling the persistence of colonialism a “serious threat to world peace.”30 This stark disavowal of the ‘sacred trust’ ideology enshrined in the UN Charter and espoused in the DPI output signaled a transformation within the United Nations that would in turn transform the content of its public diplomacy over the next two decades. The assertive anti-colonial spirit in the United Nations mirrored the growth of Third World solidarity expressed through the burgeoning Non-Aligned Movement. While the principle of non-alignment began as an alternative to East-West allegiances, it transformed into a “comprehensive political coalition of the Third World” with the “liquidation of colonialism” as its unifying impetus. What had been an informal meeting of like-minded political leaders at the  Bandung Conference was evolving into an organized and mobilized movement with regular meetings of foreign ministers and heads of state, and a unified UN voting pattern more closely identified with the cause of anticolonialism than abstention from East-West alignments.31 30 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  (XV),  December , http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ). 31 Jankowitsch and Sauvant, eds., The Third World Without Superpowers: The Collected Documents of the Non-Aligned Countries, Vol. I (New York: Oceana, ), xxvii; Jankow-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



The Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies strongly supported the anticolonial spirit in the UN and exploited the issue as part of their existing (and substantial) UN propaganda machine.32 However, the Third World insisted that it was not controlled by communist puppet masters. As Guinea’s representative explained in refuting Great Britain’s argument that the anti-colonial debate in the UN was nothing more than Soviet propaganda, the Cold War did not concern the Third World, whereas the granting of independence “is of vital and overriding concern to us.” Colonialism, no less than hot wars or cold wars, was “directly linked” to the question of world peace, and the “the liquidation of the colonial system” was “one of the most urgent and important tasks of the United Nations.”33 The  Declaration was a clear sign that the Non-Aligned Movement had the will and the votes to move decolonization to the forefront of the General Assembly. Supported by the Eastern bloc, the Third World demanded positive UN action to further the Declaration. Throughout the s the General Assembly used a series of resolutions to expand the meaning of the Declaration. The General Assembly recognized the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial rule and “invite[d] all states to provide material and moral assistance to the national liberation movements in colonial Territories.” Moreover the General Assembly instructed all of the UN’s specialized agencies to join in the decolonization struggle by taking “urgent and effective measures to assist the peoples struggling for their liberation,” including directly working with the Organization of African Unity and the national liberation movements themselves.34

itsch and Sauvant, “The Initiating Role of the Non-Aligned Countries,” in Changing Priorities on the International Agenda: The New International Economic Order, ed. Sauvant (New York: Pergamon Press, ), ; For an analysis of Third World voting patterns see Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement, chapter . 32 For Soviet propaganda efforts, including KGB activity, at the United Nations see Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York: Knopf, ), –, – ; Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: the Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, ), –; Idem., The World Was Going Our Way: the KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, ), . 33 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, nd Plenary Meeting (A / PV.),  October . United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, th Session (Part I), Plenary Meetings, Volume I (New York), . 34 U.N. General Assembly, nd Session, Resolution  (XXII).  December , http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

The General Assembly also expanded the definition of Article e of Chapter XI of the UN Charter that instructed administering powers to report on the economic, social, and educational conditions of the nonself governing territories. The Committee on Information from NonSelf Governing Territories was instructed to engage in “intensive” studies of all of the conditions in the territories, including gathering political and constitutional information (as opposed to merely statistical information).35 The General Assembly then shifted the powers of investigation to the newly created Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Committee of ), which was dominated by the Third World and its Eastern Bloc supporters. These bureaucratic transformations expanded the nature and sources of information discussed within the UN, which had important ramifications for the nature of the information the OPI could disseminate within the boundary of its apolitical mandate. Proponents of decolonization saw public diplomacy as a vital tool in their cause. In “no other field” of UN activity, Ecuador’s delegate argued “is the work of publicity as important.”36 Throughout the s, the General Assembly approved a cascade of annual resolutions “requesting” the Secretary-General to engage in ever-more expansive information campaigns to promote the Declaration and on behalf of the broader decolonization agenda. The Secretariat’s task was to disseminate information gathered by the Committee of  to ensure “world opinion may be sufficiently informed of the serious threat to peace posed by colonialism . . . .”37 Even more expansively, the Secretariat was to “take concrete measures utilizing all of the media at his disposal” to provide “the widespread

35

U.N. General Assembly, Resolution  (XVI),  December , http://www .un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ). 36 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Special Committee On The Situation With Regard To The Implementation Of The Declaration On The Granting Of Independence To Colonial Countries And Peoples, Verbatim Record Of The Eight Hundred And Seventy-Seventh Meeting (A / AC. / PV.),  August , (Readex microfiche), p. . [Hereafter “Committee of ” followed by meeting date and U.N. Document number]. 37 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  (XX),  December , http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ). Ironically, in that very same assembly in December , UNGA was reaffirming the principle on noninterference, declaring in Resolution  (XX) that no state should “organize, assist, foment, finance, incite, or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another State, or interfere in civil strife in another State.”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



and continuous publicizing of the work of the United Nations in the field of decolonization of the situation in the colonial Territories and of the continuing struggle for liberation being waged by the colonial peoples.”38 By  the piecemeal expansion of the General Assembly’s activist posture was codified in a “Programme of Action” which made “arousing public opinion and promoting practical action” central UN activities. The programme invited representatives of liberation movements to participate in UN programs, which in turn, permitted their voices to be disseminated via the OPI without violating its cautious information mandate. The programme instructed the UN to intensify its public information campaign, giving “special importance” to outputs that would emphasize the UN’s anti-colonial activities, the situations in colonial territories, and “the struggle being waged by colonial peoples and the national liberation movements.”39 The first target of the assertive Third World’s use of the OPI was the UN’s own trust territories. Suspicious that administering powers such as Australia and Britain were not making information about the UN’s activities available to “trust territory man” and incredulous that the SecretaryGeneral seemed willing to accept the administering powers’ assurances that they were, the General Assembly requested that the OPI establish information centers in the Trust Territories of Tanganyika, RuandaUrundi, and New Guinea under the supervision of indigenous personnel. It also requested the Secretary-General ensure the “immediate and mass publication and widest circulation” of the Declaration in the territories in the local languages, and report back—insuring that oversight would pressure the conservatively disposed Secretariat into action.40 Throughout the s, the OPI came under increasing scrutiny from the Third World and the Eastern Bloc for not aggressively pursuing 38 UN General Assembly, nd Session, Resolution  (XXII),  December , http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ). 39 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  (XXV),  December , http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ). 40 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  (XV),  April ; U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  (XVI),  November , and Resolution  (XVI),  December , http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ). In  the Secretary-General reported that the UN had disseminated leaflets, wall sheets, and radio programs promoting the declaration. See U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  (XVII),  December , http://www.un.org/ documents/resga.htm (accessed April , ); U.N. Secretariat, Report Of The Secretary-General, Dissemination of Information on The United Nations in The Non-SelfGoverning Territories, A / ,  (Readex Microfiche).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

Generally Assembly directives. There was no reason, Bulgaria argued, for the OPI to be “neutral or uncommitted” in the field of decolonization. While the OPI did report from the governing powers on conditions in colonial territories under Article e, the Committee of  wanted the OPI to initiate and publicize independent assessments as well. The Committee also wanted more focus on the art of public relations. The Soviets complained that the OPI could not limit itself to “purely formal data” or merely publish the committee’s decisions. India suggested that the OPI’s output lacked the “dynamism and bite” and the “sell” aspect necessary to gain public attention.41 Style aside, the Committee of  was most troubled by the perceived OPI complicity with the Western powers and their tolerance for the racist colonial regimes in southern Africa. By failing to single out the position taken by UN delegations on specific issues in its publications— literally the “name-calling” debate—the OPI was “whitewashing” the “pro-colonial” stance of the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. The OPI needed to clearly identify “who makes it impossible to fulfill” the Declaration. The OPI’s “obvious pro-Western bias” was further represented in a  OPI map prepared for “United Nations Day” that failed to make clear the colonial status of places like Angola, Rhodesia, and Mozambique, giving the impression that there were no more colonies left in the world. According to Tanzania’s representative this omission was “exceedingly serious” and proved that the OPI “to put it very mildly, opposed” the General Assembly’s decolonization work.42 The real issue for the developing world was not cartography but frustration that the OPI was not adequately publicizing the “crimes being perpetrated by the forces of imperialism and colonialism” as requested by the General Assembly. The Soviet delegate asked “why are those direct and unambiguous instructions of the General Assembly, which reflect— I stress this—the policy of the United Nations on matters of decolonization ignored by the Office of Public Information?” Iraq accused the OPI of being “passive and lacking in initiative” and urged it to play a more prominent role in the “initiation and publicizing of independent assessments” of colonial conditions. Mali’s delegate insisted that he was “enti41 Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., pp. ; Committee of ,  June . A / AC. / PV., pp. –; Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., pp. ; Committee of ,  August . A / AC. / PV., pp. –, –. 42 Committee of ,  March . A / AC. / PV., p. ; Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., pp. –; Committee of ,  March . A / AC. / PV., p. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



tled to expect” from the OPI the “denouncement of colonialism.” The Committee of  pushed the OPI to move beyond the “reportorial” and to analyze the causes of decolonization, to promote liberation movements’ critiques of colonialism, and distribute films showing the brutalities of the colonial system. The logic of majority rule in the General Assembly extending to the organization’s information policy was unassailable from perspective of those in the majority. As a Third World delegate argued in , “The OPI, after all, is nothing less than a projection outward of the United Nations . . . .”43 Under this relentless pressure, the OPI sought to straddle the mandates of the General Assembly and its philosophical opposition to overt political propagandizing. The Secretary-General conceded that the OPI “should adopt a more dynamic and energetic role in promoting the universally recognized causes to which the Organization is committed.” The OPI assured its critics that decolonization was “amongst those calling for the highest priority.” It did, after all, broadcast programs about the Declaration in  languages to  countries. Yet the head of the OPI also reminded critics of the limits of its own mandate: it could neither gather nor disseminate material on its own initiative. He did, however, patiently explain to the Committee of  that if the “materials of the type mentioned” were made available to the OPI by the UN’s other bodies, then the OPI would have no technical difficulty in utilizing this “officially sanctioned raw material” in its media outputs. In other words, the OPI could publish and disseminate anything that appeared in the public record of a UN committee, conference, or investigation, and the OPI stood ready to “make the best possible use of it . . . .”44 The OPI would not make its own arguments, but it could rely on statements of those in opposition to colonialism. This loophole in the original DPI mandate was a massive opening for the exploitation of the OPI for more “active” public diplomacy activities sought by the decolonization movement. 43

Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., p. ; Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., pp. –; Committee of , A / AC. / PV., pp. – ; Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., pp. –, Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., Committee of ,  April . A / AC. / PV., p. . 44 U.N. Secretariat, Report of the Secretary General, Review and Reappraisal of the United Nations Information Policies and Activities, A / C. / ,  January , (Readex microfiche); Committee of ,  April /. A / AC. / PV.; Committee of ,  April . A / AC /  / PV., pp. –; Committee of ,  April . A / AC /  / PV., pp. –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

Consonant with the OPI’s advice, the Committee of  undertook its own investigations of colonial conditions and then provided the OPI with its findings to publish. The  OPI publication Mission to Guinea (Bissau) reported on the committee’s visit to liberated areas as a guest of the national liberation movement, the Partido Africano de Indepencia de Guine e Capo Verde (PAIGC). The booklet celebrated the visit as an “unprecedented event in the annals of the United Nations efforts to eliminate colonialism.” By planting the UN flag in the rebel-controlled area, “the situation can never be the same again.” The committee’s report celebrated PAIGC’s reconstruction efforts and it relayed observations about the “boundless energy and humanism” of the liberated peoples and the “remarkable” musical performance of some children. The rebel controlled area was a “model pilot country” for any groups aspiring to liberation. In contrast, the Portuguese “fascists” did “nothing but spread terror in the liberated areas.” Photos showed PAIGC members in military formation, children reading, the people welcoming the UN visitors with a medal and the group inspecting bomb damage from the Portuguese.45 The OPI’s effort to maintain philosophical consistency had little practical effect on what emerged as a radically different output. The transformation in content from A Sacred Trust was striking. In  the OPI published , copies of The Struggle against Colonialism in Southern Africa. The polemical  page booklet sympathetically laid out the grievances of the liberation movements against their colonial oppressors in the rebels’ own words. The photos in the booklet made clear the benefits brought by the liberation movements to the peoples: a group of boys attending a school run by The Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO); a FRELIMO soldier with his rifle slung over his shoulder providing medical attention to a wounded child; and a “freedom fighter” from the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) standing with a hoe resting on one shoulder and a rifle across the other, with a caption explaining that he split his time between helping with agricultural production and fighting against the Portuguese colonialists.46 “Trust Territory man” now had a voice, a gun, practical skills, and a righteous cause for the world to see. 45 Mission to Guinea (Bissau) (United Nations Publication, Sales No. OPI / –June –M). 46 The Struggle Against Colonialism in Southern Africa (United Nations Publication, Sales No. OPI / –-March –M).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



This support for liberation movements became the norm for OPI’s output. In the early s OPI reported that it had direct contacts with liberation movements “to ascertain their requirements and to open up new areas of cooperation,” and it made them, rather than the colonial member states, its “principal source” of information about colonial conditions.47 The UN published pamphlets, produced radio programs and films, and hosted conferences on the subjects of colonialism, racism, apartheid, and neo-colonialism with titles such as A People in Bondage and A Trust Betrayed. The UN’s flagship journal Objective: Justice, created at the behest of the General Assembly, published the UN’s activities and disseminated the opinions of private organizations as well. The journal’s tone is illuminated by a photo-essay about Rhodesia: a wealthy white couple relaxing on a sofa and drinking tea, a poor black child chopping wood in squalid conditions, and two burly white soldiers pointing heavy machine guns menacingly.48 The conceptual leap was not difficult to make: the white minority lived a life of leisure thanks to the work of oppressed blacks and the repressive use of military force. The OPI’s output was no longer intended to assuage world opinion with depictions of incremental progress and happy natives, but to inflame it. The expression of broader Third World political ideology also began to emerge in OPI material. For Richer for Poorer,  begins by explaining that the division between developed and developing nations is “morally wrong and politically explosive.” While the OPI had already begun to single out colonial regimes, it expanded its “name-calling” criteria by identifying states indirectly responsible for global injustices. For instance, the  Foreign Economic Interests and Decolonization republished in “slightly edited” form the report from a UN committee. It began by describing the “rapacious exploitation” by the “foreign monopolies” and their suppression of national liberation movements. The booklet singled out the United States and United Kingdom for impeding the freedom of black Africans. The OPI’s technical effort at “balance” could be found on the last page of the booklet’s  pages: a half page summary of the Western rebuttal, which was followed by a rebuttal of the rebuttal.49

47 U.N. Secretariat, Report of the Office Of Public Information on the Implementation of General Assembly Resolution  (XXVI), Dissemination Of Information On Decolonization, A / AC. / L.,  May , (Readex microfiche). 48 Objective Justice, Vol.  ( / ): . 49 For Richer For Poorer (United Nations Publication, Sales No. OPI / . E..I.);

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

As the content of UN public diplomacy increasingly reflected Third World perspectives, the target audience for public diplomacy shifted North and West. Representatives of the developing world argued that there was no sense “converting the converted” since they already agreed with the decolonization agenda advanced in the General Assembly. The “correct audience” and the “crucial target” for UN public diplomacy ought to be the public in Western Europe and North America. A “malproportionate” distribution of information had left the developing world with a “heightened sense of grievances of colonial peoples” but the West remained “conveniently oblivious of the seriousness of the crisis.” If Western “ignorance or indifference” about the plight of the Third World could be overcome and “a well informed and mobilized public opinion created,” then the Western governments that both cooperated with and possessed sufficient power to stop the practices of colonialism would have to take notice.50 More than ignorance, the UN had to overcome blatant anti-UN propaganda. Third World nations argued that the organization had been the object of “denigration, deliberately organized” by South Africa and the Western media which were inherently hostile to the non-aligned world and the UN, and the DPI needed to counteract this propaganda by giving the “correct view” of their positions. As Uganda’s representative argued, the UN information program had a “particularly” important responsibility to make the developed world aware of the “real” role the UN played in the world.51 The OPI agreed that its efforts were “most necessary” in the West. That region should be the “major recipient” of material and the OPI promised it was determined to “constantly undertake a wide range of activities in such countries.” However, it also argued that a greater problem existed. No matter how many information centers the UN built, it was an “incontestable fact” that Western media did not publish and disseminate OPI’s material with the same enthusiasm as the Third World. The OPI could do nothing to “persuade a newspaper to print news that it does not want to

Foreign Economic Interests and Decolonization (United Nations Publication, Sales No. OPI / ---,). 50 Committee of ,  June . A / AC. / PV., p. ; Committee of ,  June . A / AC. / PV., pp. –;  August . A / AC. / PV., pp. –. 51 U.N. General Assembly, st Session, Special Political Committee. Summary Record Of The th Meeting, A / SPC /  / SR.,  November , (Readex microfiche) p. . [Hereafter “Special Political Committee,” date, U.N. document number].

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



print.”52 The Third World would have to confront structural inequalities in the international system if it hoped to advance its political causes in the West.

New World Orders By the early s, formal colonialism was coming to an end; however, the Third World continued to see its self-determination undermined by the vestiges of a colonial past and the resiliency of “neo-colonialism and hegemonic relations.” The central threat to Third World sovereignty was the very nature of the existing international economic and information order, which kept the developing world in a state of “semicolonial” dependence. Narrow political and economic objectives gave way to an ambitious goal to “complete the liberation of the Third World countries from external domination.”53 The Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of  embraced two complementary ideological visions to reach full independence: the New International Economic Order (NIEO) and the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). They would become cornerstones of a new UN public diplomacy strategy. The Group of  had been calling for a new international economic structure since its inception in . The Non-Aligned Movement took up the cause in the early s and it officially announced the NIEO at its  Algiers Conference. The following year the United Nations held a special session of the General Assembly at the request of the president of the Non-Aligned Movement to adopt a Declaration and Programme of Action for the establishment of the NIEO. The new order would redress “existing injustices” and eliminate the widening gap between the developed and developing world by creating a pattern of relations

52 Committee of ,  June , A / AC. / PV., pp. –; Committee of , A / AC. / PV.,  August , pp. –; Special Political Committee,  November . A / SPC /  / SR., p. ; Committee of , A / AC. / PV.,  August , pp. –. 53 Fifth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries: Political Declaration, Colombo, – August , in The Collected Documents of the Non-Aligned Countries Vol. II, –; Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, Address to the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Group of , February , quoted in Sauvant, The Group of , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

based on “sovereign equality” and the “removal of the disequilibrium” between the two worlds. The Declaration was based on twenty principles that melded the question of political and economic sovereignty and blurred the issue of political colonization and the politics of international economics.54 The very nature of the NIEO made public diplomacy an essential tool for its realization. The NIEO was not simply a technical economic agenda; fundamentally it required rethinking the nature of international relations and reforming international thought. From the Third World perspective, the NIEO blueprint represented an “important moral and political force” as the only ideological alternative to the existing neocolonial order. Repeatedly, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of  emphasized the importance of swaying world public opinion to support their vision. The Non-Aligned Movement declared in  that “a complete change of political attitude and the demonstration of a new political will” was an “indispensable prerequisite” for realizing the NIEO. The Group of ’s statements on world order were explicitly crafted to “create maximum psychological impact on world public opinion” and the organization sent out “goodwill missions” to the developed world in an effort to build awareness for the NIEO agenda. Because neither the NonAligned Movement nor the Group of  had its own information service, the Third World saw the United Nations as the best venue for advancing this worldview. The Group of  declared the United Nations the “only framework” for realizing its agenda, emphasizing the “politicized” nature of the NIEO, and highlighted the “central role” of the General Assembly as a “representative forum” for debating the program.55 As with the case of political decolonization, the Third World brought its grievances and its vision to the General Assembly not merely for debate but for expression and projection towards the West. Once the NIEO became institutionalized within the UN mission, the Third World moved to ensure that it received the full support of the UN informa54 See U.N. General Assembly, Official Records: Sixth Special Session. Supplement No.  (A / ), Resolution  (S-VI) and Resolution  (S-VI), http://www.un.org/ ga/sessions/special.shtml, (Accessed April , ). The final resolutions follow the draft resolutions of the Group of  almost verbatim. See “Draft Resolution of the Group of ,” in The Collected Documents of the Group of , Volume XX, –. 55 Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement, p. x; Fifth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries: Political Declaration, Colombo, – August , The Collected Documents of the Non-Aligned Countries, Vol. II, ; Sauvant, The Group of : Evolution, Structure, Organization, , , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



tion services. The Non-Aligned Movement’s  Declaration explicitly called upon the OPI to focus its public diplomacy on “all fields of interest to developing countries, in particular in the economic field, in conformity with the objectives of the [NIEO].” Subsequently, the General Assembly passed a series of resolutions calling on the OPI to maximize information programs in support of the new order.56 The Third World feared, however, that the NIEO could never be realized so long as a vast communications gap existed between the developed and developing world. Without a more just communications order, the Third World could never overcome the West’s information dominance, realize its political and economic goals, or advance its own ideological agenda. The “free flow of information” celebrated by the West was a canard, Third World representatives argued. It really meant the “freedom of action for imperialist information monopolies in developing countries” to enslave the Third World in a state of “information colonization” and render it a “passive recipient of biased, inadequate and distorted information.” Under the guise of the principal of freedom of information the developed world was denying the Third World the “right to inform and be informed objectively and accurately.” The existing communications order permitted the West to overtly propagandize the developing world without fear of retaliation. The Third World was held hostage to the Western media, which represented the “mirror” and the “mouthpiece” of the West’s ideological and political stances.57 In order to counter-balance this “information colonization,” the NonAligned Movement declared that the Third World needed to coordinate its efforts within the UN to advance a: “. . . proper declaration of fundamental principles on the role of mass media in strengthening peace, promoting international understanding and cooperation, contributing to the early establishment of an international economic and social order based on equality and justice and in combating

56

Declaration of the Second Annual Meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, New York,  /  / , in The Collected Documents of the Group of , Vol. V, –; U.N. General Assembly, rd Session, Resolution  /  (A / RES /  / ),  December ; U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  /  (A / RES /  / ),  December , http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm, (Accessed April , ). 57 Fifth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries: Political Declaration, Colombo, – August  in The Collected Documents of the Non-Aligned Countries, Vol. II, ; Special Political Committee, A / SPC /  / SR.,  November , p. ; Special Political Committee, A / SPC /  / SR.; Special Political Committee,  November , A / SPC /  / SR., pp. , –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center racism, racial discrimination, apartheid, Zionism, neo-colonialism and all other forms of oppression.”58

Until the developing world achieved the technical capacity for information self-reliance, the Third World demanded that the UN help fill the void. The OPI would act as an antidote to Western media domination by helping the Third World to disseminate “objective” information about developments within developing countries to the world at large in order to promote the Non-Aligned Movement’s “growing role in the international community.” The UN needed to create a new information order which, according to the Mongolian delegate, reiterating the now ubiquitous ideological posture, would be used to “eradicate the remaining vestiges of colonialism, eliminate racial discrimination and apartheid and contribute to the social-economic development” of the developing world. The “decolonization of information” and countering the “tendentious reporting and mass media campaigns” directed against the NonAligned Movement and national liberations movements were two sides of the same coin, and both “intrinsically linked” to the establishment of new world orders of which the UN was now the principal promoter.59 Instead of badgering the OPI as it had done in the s, the Third World sought explicit oversight and control over UN information policy. The General Assembly affirmed by resolution that it would play the primary role in “elaborating, coordinating and harmonizing United Nations policies and activities in the field of information towards the establishment of a new, more just and more effective world information and communication order.” Its efforts culminated in  with the creation of the Committee on Information (COI) to oversee and evaluate UN information programs and to explicitly promote the NWICO. As the Tunisian Chairman of the COI explained, the committee’s purpose was to ensure UN public diplomacy was “genuinely and specifically appropriate to the needs of developing countries.” He also linked the work of his committee with the efforts of the Non-Aligned Movement and Group of . UN public diplomacy needed to serve the “wider undertaking” of the new 58 Specialized Ministerial Conference of Non-Aligned Countries: Ministerial Conference on the Press Agencies Pool: Declaration, New Delhi, July –,  in The Collected Documents of the Non-Aligned Countries, Vol. III, –. 59 Fifth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries: Political Declaration, Colombo, – August  in The Collected Documents of the Non-Aligned Countries, Vol. II, ; Special Political Committee,  November , A / SPC /  / SR., p. ; Special Political Committee,  November, A / SPC /  / SR., pp. –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



world orders. What was being done in those two organizations “necessarily must be reflected in the design” of the United Nations’ own information policy.60 For those coordinating that policy, the interests of the United Nations were now indistinguishable from the interests of the Third World. The COI chairman admitted that the overt politicization put UN public diplomacy in a “new light.” However, given the Western media’s “blackout” of Third World problems, the UN had no choice but to intercede on its behalf to help promote the realization of a new, more just world order. Sadly, the West did not understand that the NIEO was intended as a “venture in international cooperation,” and that the old information order was precluding the free exchange of ideas that could create understanding. The NIEO therefore required the NWICO, and both in turn required the support of the UN to win over the world. Fundamentally, the chairman of the COI pointed out, these ideological visions merited UN support because a “great majority of [UN] members” were in agreement on the need to “build a more open and more fraternal world.” With the Third World in full control of the UN’s public diplomacy oversight apparatus, a politically active DPI was unavoidable, and the emboldened Third World now sought to use the DPI to publicize political causes with temerity. The DPI’s essential task, Cuba’s delegate explained, was to disseminate information on the “most burning issues” of the day.61 From the Western perspective, there was little doubt about how far the DPI had deviated from its original mandate. The United States complained that the DPI’s new mission was a “serious distortion” of its founding principles. As a result of the Third World’s determination to focus information policy on a political agenda, the “efficiency and objectivity” of the DPI had “eroded,” and it was becoming “steadily less credible.” The General Assembly’s assertiveness ensured that “too many” of the 60 U.N. General Assembly, th Session, Resolution  / (A / RES /  / ); U.N. General Assembly, rd Session, Resolution  /  (A / RES /  /  C), http://www.un .org/documents/resga.htm, (Accessed April , ); U.N. General Assembly, Committee on Information, Statement of the Chairman at the Opening of the Meeting of the st Session, A / AC. / ,  May , (Readex microfiche); U.N. General Assembly, Committee to Review United Nations Public Information Policies and Activities, Statement by the Chairman at the Opening Meeting Of The Organizational Session, A / AC. /  / Corr. ,  April , (Readex microfiche). 61 Statement by the Chairman of the Committee on Information,  April . A / AC. / . p. ; Special Political Committee,  November , A / SPC /  / SR., p. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

DPI’s resources were going to the “promotion of special political interests,” some of which, the United States argued, were contrary to the UN Charter.62 Worse, Western states warned that the very UN organ established to help win world public opinion was in fact exacerbating the lack of public support for the organization. The politicization of the information agenda was hurting the United Nations’ image. “The selective treatment of selected topics,” Australia’s delegate said, “could only breed cynicism and indifference and an unhealthy perception” of the UN. Canada’s delegate suggested that the DPI needed to redefine its priorities, move away from “theoretical debates” about international order, and return to its original non-political focus. The solution to the UN’s tarnished reputation was more “balance” in the DPI’s output. Rather than focusing on “publicity” for the General Assembly’s causes, the DPI should it instead prioritize a basic goal of disseminating information about the organization’s “concrete achievements.”63 If the DPI could focus on the organization’s efforts to help refugees, provide disaster relief, and promote peace-keeping rather than polemics it could widen its support, especially in the West. Essentially, the Western powers argued the DPI should return to its founding principles and the innocuous output of its early days. The Third World was not swayed. Depoliticization was itself a political act that could only serve the neo-colonial agenda. Tunisia, in arguing for the continued DPI effort to publicize the status of the peoples in Palestine, Namibia, and southern Africa, asked why the department should “avoid politicizing its work at all costs.” After all, the information was “by nature highly politicized” and the “purpose of the United Nations was to keep the general public informed of everything of concern to the international community.” Egypt’s delegate articulated the key point: the DPI’s activities “reflected the will of the majority of countries composing the United Nations.” Therefore, “any attempt to depoliticize information could only be characterized as selective.”64 The will of the majority and the United Nations were synonymous, and therefore UN public diplomacy must reflect that will. 62 Special Political Committee,  November , A / SPC /  / SR., pp. –; U.N. General Assembly, th Session, th Committee, Summary Record Of The th Meeting, A / C. /  / SR.,  November , (Readex microfiche), pp. –. 63 Special Political Committee, A / SPC /  / SR., pp. –; Special Political Committee, A / SPC /  / SR., pp. , ; Special Political Committee, A / SPC /  / SR., p. . 64 Special Political Committee,  November , A / SPC /  / SR., pp. , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



The DPI continued its tightrope act between assertive Third Worldism and the charges leveled by Western states, but its position was transparently constrained by the instructions of the General Assembly and the COI to engage in “more positive” information activities to mobilize world public opinion. The DPI had “little room” to alter the information priorities established by its legislative overseers. The UN Secretariat was indeed cautious in its relations to member states, but that caution had increasingly led to more aggressive public diplomacy campaigns. As the head of the DPI explained, his department would continue to adhere to the General Assembly’s “promotional mandates,” while also “striving to preserve its impartial approach.” He hoped there was “no contradiction” in these goals.65

Conclusion As isolated episodes, many of the debates within the United Nations about public diplomacy seem almost petty—colors on maps, support for “name-calling” in UN publications, the style of the DPI output. Indeed, they appear to reify the image of an “irrelevant debating society.” Yet if we chart the difference from the  A Sacred Trust to the  A Trust Betrayed a significant ideological reorientation is clear. The genesis of this extraordinary transformation can be traced directly back to the changing composition of the General Assembly, the focus of attention within its committees, and the explicit efforts of the Third World to legislate, pressure, and finally oversee the UN information program. Despite the dramatic evolution in the content of DPI output, the DPI’s own role in the change was ambivalent. While the DPI message was increasingly active, its own approach to public diplomacy and its relationship to the rest of the UN system continued to be marked by caution. It largely refused to stake out its own positions, demurring to the will of the General Assembly and its mandates. Yet this very conservatism made it an ideal tool for the Third World to exploit because the DPI’s adherence to strict information dissemination made it an extraordinarily elastic vessel for conveying virtually whatever “raw material” came to it from the organization. As a bureaucracy it may very well have strove for “impartiality” but it could be no more or less impartial than the UN itself. 65 th Committee, Summary Record of the th Meeting,  November , A / C. /  / SR., –; Special Political Committee, A / SPC /  / SR., p. .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



seth center

It is difficult to escape the irony in this evolution. The more impartial the DPI was, the closer it moved toward serving the Third World ideology and the further it moved from the conservative philosophy of its founding mandates. An institution originally created to sustain public support for the organization in the West and advance the cause of the UN in the developing world was turned on its head. The developing world would advance its agenda through the DPI in the developed world regardless of the consequences for the United Nations’ own image in the West. In exploring the relationship between the Third World, public diplomacy, and the United Nations we are forced to reconsider the nature of the UN relationship to international politics. Judged by the absolute standards of a supranational authority, the UN cannot but invite critical observations. William F. Buckley, the conservative pundit and a U.S. delegate to the UN in the early s, was correct when he said, “While as a legislative body [the UN] is useless, and while as a debating body it is invaluable, it does a great deal of legislating, and absolutely no debating.”66 It is true that General Assembly debates were stagnant and resolutions had no legal implications for states. Moreover, by the late s, the Third World did not need to debate to pass resolutions in the General Assembly. But this very literal reading of the UN’s purposes helps to explain why the Third World’s pursuit of public diplomacy through the UN has been underappreciated and the relationship between the machinations within the UN and broader global competition for ideas is underexplored. The United Nations was not simply an echo chamber for Third World propaganda. The Third World leveraged its parliamentary power to shape the UN agenda and ensure that the DPI projected its global vision abroad. It needed to pass legislation to carry the debate to the peoples of the world—especially in the West. By bringing its concerns to the UN, formalizing them in UN legislation, and then articulating them in all of the UN’s venues, the Third World could tap into the United Nation’s public diplomacy institutions, which were a more reliable and powerful means of reaching world opinion than any single developing country or Third World movement possessed. By illuminating the Third World’s own effort for winning the hearts and minds of the world through UN public diplomacy, this essay reminds us that the public diplomacy contest of the post-war era was not merely 66 William F. Buckley, United Nations’ Journal: A Delegate’s Odyssey (New York: Putnam’s, ): .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

supranational public diplomacy



an outgrowth of the Cold War.67 Nor did the dissemination of propaganda only run from the powerful to the weak. Like the Nile River, propaganda could run from South to North even if it meant taking a circuitous route across New York’s East River. Both the founders of the United Nations and Third World advocates appreciated, albeit in very different ways, that public diplomacy was far more than an adjunct of traditional state power; it could in fact compensate for the absence of that very power.

67 Admittedly this essay does not address the successes and failures of the Third World’s UN public diplomacy strategy. However, it does offer an entirely different avenue for examining the impact of public diplomacy on international politics. Several immediate questions arise out of this study. Was the DPI the chief source of information about the UN in the developing world? How effective were UN efforts to sway public opinion in the West? How important were UN information programs to liberation movements? What impact did the UN’s public diplomacy efforts have in ending apartheid South Africa and for the realization of Namibian Independence? How successful was the Third World in advancing its new world orders through the UN? Were the successes and failures due to technical shortcomings in the DPI’s capabilities, or did the ideological vision itself lack the power to persuade? The answers to these questions deserve serious attention and should provide an agenda for the study of public diplomacy outside of the confines of state-based monographs and Cold War studies.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter six TRANSNATIONAL PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: ASSESSING SALVADORAN REVOLUTIONARY EFFORTS TO BUILD U.S. PUBLIC OPPOSITION TO REAGAN’S CENTRAL AMERICAN POLICY*

Héctor Perla Jr. In the s one of President Reagan’s most contested foreign policy initiatives was that toward El Salvador, where the administration sought the military defeat of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas. Despite spending significant political capital and monetary resources, as well as creating the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America to promote his agenda, Congressional and public support for U.S.-Central American policy throughout the decade was tenuous at best.1 While much has been made of the president’s public diplomacy effort,2 much less attention has been paid to addressing why the policy failed to galvanize mass public support or why it generated surprisingly stiff and uncharacteristic opposition in Congress. Specifically, one crucial element that has not been considered is the possibility that the Salvadoran revolutionaries used public diplomacy to influence U.S. public opinion.3 What role did the FMLN’s transnational *

I would like to thank Diana Rivas, Alberto Pereda, Jennifer Lopez, and Liz Demorest for their outstanding research assistance. 1 Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne, eds., The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (New York, NY: The New Press, ), –, . 2 The most prominent example is the case of the December  El Mozote massacre, where journalists from the New York Times and Washington Post reported on the massacre committed by the U.S. trained Atlactl Battalion of the Salvadoran armed forces, taking pictures and interviewing guerrillas, army sources, and survivors. Despite the overwhelming physical evidence, the administration spun the story effectively in such a way as to focus attention away from the story and onto the lack of credibility of the two journalists and their reporting. See Danner, Mark, The Massacre at El Mozote, (New York, NY: Vintage Press, ). 3 By Salvadoran revolutionaries I mean FMLN cadre, their supporters in mass and social movement organizations and members of allied civil society organizations in El Salvador, as well as their Salvadoran cadre and supporters residing in the United States.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

public diplomacy campaign play in undermining U.S. public support for Reagan’s foreign policy toward Central America? This chapter documents the FMLN’s public diplomacy efforts and provides evidence that the Salvadoran revolutionaries’ transnational campaign effectively moved U.S. public opinion. The chapter also has two broad goals beyond understanding just this particular case. First it draws attention to the ways in which supposedly weak transnational sub-state actors have confronted more powerful adversaries in asymmetric international conflicts, sometimes with great success.4 In this way it calls attention to the previous literature’s overemphasis on state actors and their strategies. The chapter’s second purpose is to advocate the use of a specific methodological technique—quantitative content analysis of constituency mail—as a valuable tool for accurately measuring a public diplomacy campaign's ability to influence U.S. public opinion. The chapter proceeds as follows; first, it provides a brief historical overview of the origins of the Salvadoran Civil War (–) and U.S. involvement in the conflict. This section also provides a theoretical grounding in some of the literature on public diplomacy, as well as in the scholarship that has studied U.S. public opinion in this particular case. The second section details the Salvadoran revolutionaries’ efforts to undermine U.S. public support for the Reagan administration’s Central American policy. The third section traces the process by which the Salvadoran revolutionaries sought to achieve their objective, specifically documenting their role in the creation and growth of what came to be known as the U.S.-Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement (CAPSM).5 It presents evidence that these transnational civil society, non-governmental, and social movement forces were pivotal in the success of the Central American revolutionaries’ public diplomacy campaign.6

4 By transnational sub-state actors I mean all those collective social forces, institutions, and organizations that act across international borders, but who are politically under the juridical authority of nation-states. I do not call them non-state actors because many of these entities have varying degrees and often complex ties to nation-states. 5 Because of space constraints this paper I will focus specifically on the role of the Salvadorans in the creation of the CAPSM. This does not mean nor is it meant to imply that revolutionary Nicaraguans or Guatemalans did not also play an important role in the movement’s creation and growth. To the contrary it means that to do their participation justice requires more space than permissible in a chapter-length piece. 6 Following Paul Sharp I define public diplomacy as “the process by which direct relations are pursued with a country’s people to advance the interests and extend the

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



Fourth, to judge the effectiveness of the Salvadoran revolutionaries’ efforts, the chapter uses a quantitative methodology for measuring the impact of the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign. Specifically, I operationalize the sources, nature, and origin of public opposition by conducting a content analysis of constituency mail sent to President Reagan on the subject.7 I then apply statistical techniques which show that the pressure generated by the CAPSM is what activated mass public opposition and led elites to oppose Reagan’s El Salvador policy. The chapter concludes by summarizing the findings of the case and looking at the implications of these findings for our understanding of public diplomacy efforts by non-governmental actors and movements in transnational and asymmetric conflicts.

The Civil War in El Salvador Beginning in the s the Central American republic of El Salvador was ruled by a series of military strongmen closely allied with the U.S., individuals who gained power either in successive sham elections or military coups. However, by the mid-s this system of governance was facing increased domestic challenges to its rule from ever-broader sectors of Salvadoran society. By the end of the decade the military-corporatist regime, which had safe-guarded the country’s established order for nearly  years, had been brought to an end by revolutionary upheaval. This process played out with great violence over the span of more than a decade. Beginning in the late s civil society organizations including labor, peasant, student and political organizations began actively mobilizing for economic and political change. Their demands were met largely with intransigence and repression including the arrests, harassment, torture, exile, and assassination of many key leaders. Throughout the s the mass mobilization of Salvadoran civil society continued and the social upheaval broadened to include opposition political parties in two successive elections (, ), which were won by a broad values of those being represented.” Paul Sharp, “Revolutionary States, Outlaw Regimes and the Techniques of Public Diplomacy,” in The New Public Diplomacy, ed. Jan Melissen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ), . 7 I adapt this technique from political scientist Taeku Lee who uses it to study grassroots activation of mass public opinion by African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. See Taeku Lee, Mobilizing Public Opinion: Black Insurgency and Racial Attitudes in the Civil Rights Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

coalition of center and left forces known as the Union Nacional Opositora (National Opposition Union—UNO).8 Yet, the coalition was never allowed to take office and their presidential candidate was tortured and exiled. In response, a group of reformist junior-ranking military officers staged a relatively bloodless coup in  and established a militarycivilian junta to govern the country.9 Within less than a year all the moderates (civilian and military) within the junta had been replaced by conservative elements who unleashed a tidal wave of state-sponsored terrorism against the civilian population. Caught up in this upsurge of violence (–) were over , Salvadoran citizens, including the country’s Catholic Archbishop who was killed while saying mass on March th, .10 At the same time, the deluge of death squad assassinations and disappearances forced many Salvadorans to face a grim choice: leave their country or take up arms and join the guerrillas. It is estimated that over a million left, most of them settling in the United States.11 Another –, are believed to have taken up arms, and countless others from all walks of life became clandestine supporters. On October ,  five incipient guerrilla organizations came together to form a unified front known as the FMLN; the Salvadoran civil war, which would last for the next twelve years, had begun.12 After Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in January  one of his first official acts was to increase military and economic aid to El Salvador’s governing junta.13 Essentially Reagan was drawing the line in El Salvador to stop what he claimed was the spearhead of a global communist conspiracy to take over the western hemisphere. For the next eight years the Reagan Administration would try unsuccessfully to convince the U.S. public to support his policy in El Salvador. One of his first attempts to convince the public was the issuance of a “white paper” that allegedly documented the origin of the Salvadoran insurgency: foreign communist subversion. According to the report, “The political direction, organization and arming of the Salvadoran insurgency is coordinated and 8

Tommie Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador (Boulder: Westview Press, ), , . 9 Ibid., . 10 Ibid., . 11 Most of the immigrants settled in five major metropolitan areas: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Houston, and New York. This immigration pattern is very important because it was in these cities that the first CAPSM organizations formed and from which they spread and still operate. 12 Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, . 13 Ibid., .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



heavily influenced by Cuba with the active support of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Vietnam and other Communist states. “The insurgency in El Salvador,” the report continued, “has been progressively transformed into a text-book case of indirect armed aggression by Communist powers through Cuba.”14 However, a movement of secular and religious grassroots organizations immediately assailed his position. This movement came to be known as the U.S.-Central American Peace & Solidarity Movement. Salvadoran immigrants, with strong ties to the social and political movements in their homeland, formed its earliest organizations. Sympathetic North Americans soon began gravitating to these organizations and were eventually asked to organize their own separate committees.15 Similarly, U.S. Catholic and Protestant denominations with strong missionary presences in El Salvador’s Comunidades Eclesiales de Base (Christian Base Communities) also started organizing as their coreligionists began suffering under state-sponsored persecution, including the murder of four North American religious women working with rural peasant organizations who were killed in December . In other words, since its inception the CAPSM was a transnational movement that directly connected politically active Salvadorans, both in the diaspora and the country proper, to attentive and sympathetic North Americans. CAPSM’s organizations assaulted the administration’s position by presenting evidence that contradicted its claims about the origins of the upheaval and documented that its rise in response to indigenous problems inherent to Salvadoran society. As a result of these organizations’ grassroots mobilizations massive amounts of public pressure was put on Congress to oppose U.S. policy in Central America.16 Many in Congress became firm opponents of the administration’s policy. Consequently throughout the decade Congress closely scrutinized successive reauthorizations of aid to certify that the Salvadoran government was improving with respect to human rights.17 The pressure also led Congress, which had historically allowed presidents great freedom on foreign security matters, to set limits on the amount of money and number of advisors 14

State Department “Whitepaper” on El Salvador, February , . Van Gosse, “ ‘The North American Front’: Central American Solidarity in the Reagan Era,” in Reshaping the U.S. Left, eds. Mike Davis and Michael Sprinker (New York: Verso, ), –. 16 Richard Sobel, ed., Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., ), –, . 17 Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, . 15

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

in El Salvador. Additionally, Congress put strict guidelines on military advisors such as prohibiting them from carrying combat weapons and militarily engaging the FMLN except in self-defense, as well as prohibiting their presence in combat zones. Eventually this pressure also led to the suspension of military aid in November .18

Transnational Public Diplomacy A central limitation with the study of public diplomacy to date has been the literature’s disproportionate focus on its use by nation-states and in particular the United States government. Most recently, much of the work has specifically turned to analyzing post- /  U.S. public diplomacy efforts in the Middle East. On the other hand, the work of scholars such as Connelly (), and the edited volume by Laville and Wilford () have begun to focus attention on public diplomacy efforts by non-state actors and U.S. citizens groups respectively.19 Despite these works much less attention has been given to the efforts by “weak” states and non-state actors to influence foreign publics, including the U.S. public. The case of U.S.-Salvadoran relations is no exception. This is particularly troubling given that most major international conflicts since the end of World War II have been asymmetric in nature, and that this is likely to continue to be true in the post- /  era. Thus, understanding the strategies and tactics used by “weak” actors, especially transnational sub-state actors, is more salient than ever. Consequently, this case—one of the last battles of the Cold War or alternatively one of the first of the post-Cold War— holds potentially valuable lessons for understanding the ways in which materially less powerful actors confront their more powerful adversaries. Unfortunately, previous scholarship on this particular case has sought to explain its outcomes through nation-state frameworks rather than transnational ones. As a result, while scholars have looked at the role that public opinion played in constraining U.S. foreign policy in Central America, none have looked at the transnational nature of grassroots pressures that pushed Congress to confront the president in this atypical

18

Ibid., . Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, ); Helen Laville and Hugh Wilford, eds., The U.S. Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War: The State-Private Network (New York, NY: Routledge Press), . 19

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



manner. Instead when this case has been considered it has been seen as a case of elite-led public opinion.20 Alternatively the episode has been viewed as a case in which Congress became more assertive on a foreign policy security issue to constrain executive policy because of domestic public opinion.21 Yet, both these accounts beg the question: why would this happen around Central America? Members of Congress gained nothing and risked much by confronting the president on an area of such little strategic value. Furthermore there was not any particularly compelling reason why the U.S. public should react so viscerally against this particular policy. In fact, few U.S. troops were killed throughout the conflict, the monetary costs involved were relatively low, the president was popular, the likelihood of his policy’s success was high and, most interestingly, other similar policies in different parts of the world did not meet with the same level of opposition.22 At the same time, the conceptualization of public diplomacy by practitioners often reflects a similar ontological bias. By assuming that public diplomacy is the unique domain of nation-states these theorists’ conceptualization a priori restricts its definition to include only governmentsponsored psychological warfare.23 By thus privileging their preferred ontological unit (the nation-state), this definition obscures more than it elucidates. Specifically, it limits analysts’ ability to study transnational sub-state actors and their capacity to engage in public diplomacy on par with state actors. However, if we relax this narrow ontological assumption what becomes evident is that previous accounts of the case have not considered the Salvadoran revolutionaries’ agency, specifically their ability to influence public support for U.S.-Central American policy. We must at least entertain the possibility that the FMLN both wanted to influence U.S. public opinion and more importantly had the potential means to do so.24 This does not imply that the FMLN had advanced technological means or huge monetary resources to do so, because it did not. On the contrary, the FMLN relied primarily on the low-tech means at its disposal. 20

John Zaller The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (New York: Cambridge), . Sobel, The Impact of Public Opinion. 22 For example support for the Marcos regime in the Philippines did not generate the same kind of outpouring of mass public opposition. 23 United States Information Agency Alumni Association “What is Public Diplomacy: Public Diplomacy Defined,” http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/.htm ( July ). 24 If we do not, then this ontological assumption becomes a theoretical presupposition rather than being empirically explored. 21

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

In particular, it relied on an established network of sympathetic immigrants in the United States with strong affective, social, and political ties to their home country, most of whom had fled the state-sponsored terror unleashed by the Salvadoran government.25 These immigrants’ organizing efforts quickly won the support of sympathetic North American solidarity activists, including university students, labor, peace, and human rights organizers, and leftist political activists.26 Similarly the Salvadorans also sought the support of a vast network of religious denominations with institutional ties and a missionary presence in El Salvador, leaders whose coreligionists were often at the forefront of their country’s revolutionary struggle. These direct human connections help explain the success of FMLN’s public diplomacy in the U.S. As Melissen explains, public diplomacy thrives “between countries that are linked by multiple transnational relationships and therefore a substantial degree of ‘interconnectedness’ between their civil societies.”27 In this case the immigrants themselves created the most important transnational relationships between El Salvador and the U.S. Yet, it must be made clear that these immigrants were structurally located in a disadvantageous position in U.S. society. The majority were in the country illegally or as legal residents, and the few that were citizens were not considered a significant political constituency at the national or even local level. Thus their political engagement and participation was manifested through what Guidry and Sawyer have called contentious pluralism. “Contentious pluralism,” they say, “imagines possibilities of agency and democratic reform that take account of the power dynamics that marginalize groups in the public sphere.”28

25

The United Nations Truth Commission Report on El Salvador entitled, From Madness to Hope states that, “Those giving testimony attributed almost  per cent of cases to agents of the State, paramilitary groups allied to them, and the death squads. Armed forces personnel were accused in almost  per cent of complaints, members of the security forces in approximately  per cent, members of military escorts and civil defence units in approximately  per cent, and members of the death squads in more than  per cent of cases. The complaints registered accused the FMLN in approximately  per cent of cases.” http://www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/el_salvador/tc_es__casesA .html ( March ). 26 Gosse, “ ‘The North American Front,’ ” –. 27 Jan Melissen, “The New Public Diplomacy: Between Theory and Practise,” in The New Public Diplomacy, ed. Jan Melissen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ),. 28 John Guidry and Mark Sawyer, “Contentious Pluralism: The Public Sphere and Democracy,” Perspectives on Politics  (): .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



Because of their marginalized status Salvadoran immigrants used various performative and informal methods in order to shape politics through their public interactions, most importantly through the telling of their personal testimonios (narratives). These stories were repeated in different social settings ranging from community meetings, candlelight vigils, church and religious gatherings, to university seminars, conferences, marches, and protests (both live as well as through film, art, music, books, newsletters, and pamphlets).

FMLN Objectives & Role in the Creation of the U.S.-CAPSM The FMLN had three primary objectives in helping to create the CAPSM. One was to draw U.S. citizens’ attention to the human suffering caused by the Reagan Administration’s support of the Salvadoran government. Another was to generate a sustained grassroots social movement by U.S. citizens to amplify their message against Reagan’s policy and, when possible, to generate support for the revolutionary movement. Their final objective was to influence the U.S. public’s understanding of U.S. policy and the Salvadoran conflict by presenting an alternative frame that contested Reagan’s version of the country’s problems. Consequently, the CAPSM became the primary conduit by which the Salvadoran revolutionaries were able to communicate directly to the U.S. public, thereby circumventing the near-monopoly on political information usually enjoyed by presidents on foreign policy security issues. The first element making this possible was the existence of large numbers of Salvadorans in the U.S. with strong ties to the Salvadoran social and revolutionary movements. These immigrants formed the earliest CAPSM organizations (Committee of Progressive Salvadorans, Casa El Salvador and Casa El Salvador-Farabundo Marti).29 The Committee of Progressive Salvadorans was the first organization formed. It was formed in response to the murder of peaceful student protestors from the University of El Salvador on the th of July . In outrage a group of young Salvadoran immigrants and U.S.-born Salvadorans came together in San Francisco California to protest the human rights violations occurring in their native country and educate North Americans and the Salvadoran community in the U.S. about the atrocities as well as the U.S.

29

Gosse, “ ‘The North American Front,’ ” .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

government’s complicity.30 This organization was linked to the legal Salvadoran political party called the Union Nacional Democratica (National Democratic Union), which was tied to the Communist Party of El Salvador. Similarly all the other guerrilla organizations that made up the FMLN had activists and sympathizers spread around the United States forming comparable organizations. Moreover, throughout the conflict the FMLN had its own official representatives in the United States openly working “to project the political analysis of the FMLN.”31 The second element facilitating the development of the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign was the creation of various organizations made up primarily by North Americans. The two largest of these organizations were particularly instrumental in the growth and coordination of efforts to oppose U.S. foreign policy in Central America. The first to form was the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), which was formed in October . Van Gosse, a national CISPES leader, acknowledged that in the months before CISPES’s founding “a few key activists met with the newly-formed Democratic Revolutionary Front [an umbrella coalition of Salvadoran civil society organizations and opposition political parties] in Mexico and agreed to help initiate a national solidarity effort,” and that CISPES’s leadership maintained close connections to the Popular Revolutionary Block. The Popular Revolutionary Block was not only a member of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, but it was also affiliated with the FMLN’s Popular Forces of Liberation.32 CISPES would become the largest and by some accounts the most effective nation-wide CAPSM organization throughout the s. The organization was instrumental in conveying information from the FMLN and its legal mass organizations to regional and local committees throughout the U.S., as well as launching and coordinating nationwide campaigns against U.S. Central American policy. Through its U.S. representatives the FMLN provided CISPES timely updates on a regular basis throughout the war.33 At its height there was a CISPES office in nearly every major U.S. city, well over  local chapters across the country.34 30 FK, founder of Salvadoreños Progresistas, interview by author, San Francisco, CA,  February . 31 The FMLN was recognized by the United Nations as a legitimate representative of the Salvadoran people. Don White, longtime CISPES activist, interview by author, Los Angeles, CA,  February . 32 Gosse, “ ‘The North American Front,’ ” –. 33 Don White,  February. 34 Gosse, “ ‘The North American Front,’ ” –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



The second important nationwide North American organization formed to challenge U.S.-Central American policy was the Salvadoran Humanitarian Aid Relief and Education Foundation (later renamed The SHARE Foundation: Building a New El Salvador Today). “SHARE was born in ,” according to the organization, “in response to a cry for solidarity that came from thousands that fled from the death squads to the refugee camps in El Salvador and Honduras, as well as from the refugees that sought sanctuary here in the U.S.”35 Since its inception the SHARE Foundation worked directly with the mainstream U.S. religious community, strengthening the transnational institutional ties linking U.S. and Salvadoran communities of faith. It served as a kind of ecumenical clearinghouse of information, coordination, and planning of delegations and tours, which linked U.S. parishes with Salvadoran parishes and communities, especially those devastated or displaced by the war. In particular SHARE worked on what it called “accompaniment.” This process consisted of forming delegations of North American religious communities and leaders to accompany organized Salvadoran refugee communities, especially in their efforts to repopulate the war zones. These politically mobilized communities were determined to return to the conflictive zones and relied on North American religious people as “human shields” and witnesses to impede the Salvadoran military from attacking them.36 “During the war, SHARE literally walked with our Salvadoran partners,” reported the organization. “U.S. citizens traveled to El Salvador to serve as human shields both in the refugee camps and as organized communities left the camps and walked home and began to rebuild in a war zone. Our advocacy support came in many forms including educating and advocating our communities back home in order to bring an end to the U.S. military support in El Salvador and to end the war.”37 The Central Americans (both in-country and in the diaspora) provided the call for help, the up-to-date information directly from El Salvador via the secular and religious organizations, and the moral authority to criticize U.S. policy because of their first-hand experience as its “beneficiaries.” The North Americans translated the message into culturally resonant practices and frames and amplified its scope and reach, by 35 SHARE Foundation Homepage, http://www.share-elsalvador.org / about /about .htm ( March ). 36 Jose Artiga, Executive Director of the SHARE Foundation, interview by author,  February . 37 SHARE Foundation Homepage, http://www.share-elsalvador.org / about /about .htm ( March ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

providing the economic, social, and political capital as U.S. citizens so that the message would carry political weight. This was a symbiotic relationship of a truly transnational social movement. Neither part controlled the other, but likewise neither could have been as effective as they became without the other. As a long-time CISPES leader explained, “We had to have a clear analysis from inside the country but the quid pro quo was that the FMLN knew that they gave us their analysis, but that they could not try to dictate our policies. We couldn’t take orders from them, we had to be an independent solidarity organization. . . . ”38 Conversely, the North Americans were conscious that they could not tell the Salvadorans how to make their revolution. Thus the CAPSM served as the conduit for the Salvadoran revolutionaries’ public diplomacy campaign by transmitting accurate information and a clear message about the causes of the war and its consequences for the Salvadoran people. However, the movement was able to maintain its credibility because clandestine FMLN activists and sympathizers were integrated into nearly all internationally respected religious and secular rights organizations in El Salvador. These organizations served as the primary sources of human rights information that U.S. activists used to denounce the Salvadoran government’s atrocities. Additionally, these organizations clearly articulated the causes of the conflict as arising from unjust social, political, and economic factors inherent to Salvadoran society, an explanation that more closely approximated the way the story was reported in the mainstream U.S. media and the way that most visitors to the region and Central Americanist scholars understood the situation. A clear example is found in a statement passed by the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies, which closely matches the claims of Salvadoran mass organizations and the FMLN: [T]he turmoil in El Salvador is primarily the result of long-standing social and economic injustice, persistent repression of non-violent forms of political participation, and the well documented brutality of government security forces. The growing popular opposition to the military dominated government in El Salvador is not the work of a small number of terrorists, nor is it engineered by external political forces hostile to the United States. The armed opposition in El Salvador represents an internal struggle against injustice and authoritarian rule.39 38

Don White,  February. Letter, Kristyna Demaree to Ronald Reagan, February , , ID, PR, WHORM: Subject File, Ronald Reagan Library. Compare to “The Legitimacy of Our Methods of Struggle,” an English-language pamphlet produced in Berkeley, CA and dis39

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



Effectiveness of Central American’s Transnational Public Diplomacy To judge whether the Salvadoran revolutionaries’ public diplomacy campaign was successful we need to ascertain what caused public opinion to oppose Reagan’s El Salvador policy. There are two contending explanations. The first is that opposition was elite-led, the product of Democratic congressional opposition filtering down to the mass public. Alternatively, the second explanation is that opposition was a product of the FMLN’s public diplomacy; activated through the CAPSM’s grassroots activism.40 If the latter is correct this would mean that the FMLN’s public diplomacy was successful. Conversely, if opposition was a product of domestic elite opposition, then the effectiveness of FMLN’s transnational public diplomacy campaign is in doubt. Thus, we have to disentangle what motivated the U.S. public to take a stand against Reagan’s policy. In other words, we need tangible evidence documenting that CAPSM activists, organizations, and their messages influenced those U.S. citizens who actively opposed Reagan’s El Salvador policy. However, this is not necessarily a straight forward matter because the most prevalent measure of mass opinion used in the social sciences (i.e. surveys) generally does not distinguish what social forces influence the public’s opinion. To overcome this limitation I draw on the work of political scientist Taeku Lee who proposes using an alternative measure of mass opinion that allows researchers to elucidate the forces that influence the public’s opinion formation: constituency mail.41 Thus by conducting a quantitative content analysis of the public’s letters to President Reagan on this subject we are able to clearly uncover what or who motivated the public to take a stand. To test these alternative propositions, I derive several hypotheses, which should be true if public opinion was activated by the CAPSM. Conversely, these hypotheses should be false if public opposition was led by domestic elites (i.e. Congressional Democrats). tributed by the FMLN’s Secretariat for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in  and the August  English Language pamphlet of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, entitled “El Salvador: Struggle for Democracy.” However, it must be noted that this comparison is not meant to suggest in any way that this was based lies or deceit, rather it is meant to illustrate the effectiveness with which the Salvadoran revolutionaries were able to disseminate the truth to the North American public. 40 Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion,  Lee, Mobilizing Public Opinion. 41 Lee, Mobilizing Public Opinion.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

The first hypothesis is that letters from opponents of Reagan’s Central American policy should come primarily or at least disproportionately from organizations that made up the CAPSM and their mass mailings / petitions. On the contrary, letters from supporters of the president’s policy should come primarily from individuals. This would indicate a strong degree of opinion activation emanating from grassroots sources within the CAPSM among opponents of Central American policy, rather than mainstream elite or partisan sources. It would also provide evidence that opponents of the president’s policy are receiving information and being mobilized to action by different forces (i.e. the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign) than supporters of the same policy. Second, letters from opponents of Reagan’s Central American policy should reference movement-initiated events including events taking place in Central America, rather than cues from U.S. political elites as the inspiration or motivation for writing. Conversely, if political elites led public opposition then opponents should reference elite-initiated events or speeches instead of movement cues, just like supporters of Reagan’s policy. Thus, if constituency mail from opponents were driven by elite cues my hypothesis would be refuted. If this were the case, opponent’s mail would reference speeches or positions taken by Democratic (elite) politicians who oppose Reagan’s policy. This hypothesis measures the degree to which the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign is driving mass public opinion. Third, letters from opponents of the president’s policy should frame the situation in Central America as resulting from domestic problems inherent to the structure of Central American society (e.g. poverty, inequality, death squads, and lack of justice, democracy, or human rights). I call this an Internal Political Change (IPC) frame. Conversely, supporters of the president’s policy should frame the situation in Central America as resulting from foreign intervention by communist forces (e.g. domino theory, stopping communists from taking over Central America, preventing another Cuba). I call this a Foreign Policy Restraint (FPR) frame.42 As noted above, the administration tried to frame its Central American policy as a response to defend the Western Hemisphere from Communist aggression, while the CAPSM sought to frame the region’s problems as arising from domestic causes. Therefore if opponents’ letters 42 The IPC and FPR categorizations are drawn from Bruce Jentleson, “The Pretty Prudent Public: Post Post-Vietnam American Opinion on the Use of Military Force,” International Studies Quarterly,  (): –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



frame the conflict as IPC while supporters frame the conflict as FPR, this is a strong indication that the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign not only reached attentive sectors of the U.S. public, but also had the desired effect. More importantly, this finding would also provide evidence that the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign successfully influenced public opinion by offering a resonant counter-frame to that promoted by the Reagan administration.

Methodology I explore these hypotheses using cross-tabs and then test them using contingency coefficients, chi-square, and lambda statistics as measures of association, significance, and direction respectively.43 I began by collecting all the letters available at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. This necessarily consisted of a sample of the constituency mail that was written regarding El Salvador during his two terms in office, because not all of the incoming material was available. I found a total of  letters in several different files and folders of various administration officials and offices. Of these letters,  took an identifiable issue position either in support (. ) or opposition (. ) to the President’s Central American policy. Twenty-eight of the letters that took an issue position were from lone individuals and  were from collective sources (i.e. letters from organizations, mass mailings, or petitions). Throughout the decade Central America was a hot-button foreign policy issue often receiving significantly more constituency mail than any other international topic.44 Thus this is a relatively small sample of letters compared to the tens of thousands that flooded the Congress and the White House from all over the United States. Nevertheless, in terms of overall public opinion—as measured both by public opinion polls and the totals of the weekly mail tallies (both averaged about   pro Reagan’s policy and   against it)—this sample is representative of the huge groundswell of public opposition that met and characterized constituency pressure on Reagan’s El Salvador and Central American policy during his administration. 43 Norman Blaikie, Analyzing Quantitative Data (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, ). 44 This assessment is based on the author’s analysis of weekly mail tallies of constituency mail found at the Reagan Library.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

To test the hypotheses several variables were then created to facilitate the measurement of the relevant aspects of public opinion on U.S.Central America policy. A copy of the coding sheet is included in Appendix A.45 Specifically of interest to the present study, the letters’ contents were analyzed for the type of letter (individual, organizational or mass mailing/petition), issue position (support or opposition to Central America policy), reference cue (whether the letter makes reference to being written in response to a particular elite or non-elite event or speech), and frame used in the letters (what constituents identified as the key problem in Central America: communist interference or domestic problems).

Results of Statistical Analysis To measure the impact of the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign on public opinion I use several statistical techniques. I also supplement the statistical analysis of the framing hypothesis with qualitative evidence drawn directly from the text of the letters. First, I tested the hypothesis that letters from opponents of Reagan’s Central American policy would come disproportionately from organizations and mass mailings / petitions. The results of the cross-tabulations are very supportive of my hypothesis. Of the  letters written by individuals that took an issue position,  ( ) are pro-Reagan’s Central America policy. This represents almost fifty percent ( ) of all the supportive letters. Roughly the opposite is true for letters that oppose Reagan’s policy. In the case of opponents to U.S.-Central American policy, only three letters are from an individual ( ), ten are as part of mass mailings / petitions ( ), and  are from organizations ( ).46 These organizations ranged from large national and regional Protestant Congregations, small Catholic orders, 45 Coding was conducted with the help of three undergraduate researchers working independently. Tests of inter-coder reliability between all the coders indicated above   agreement on the type of letter and issue position variables, and   agreement on the reference cue and frame variables. 46 The contingency coefficient statistic used to measure the strength of this association indicates a correlation of  . Next, to test whether this relationship was statistically significant I used a chi-square test. The chi-square value equals ., which is significant below the . level. To measure the direction of causality, I calculated a lambda statistic appropriate for nominal variables. With issue position as the dependent variable lambda equals . (p.), but with type of letter as the dependent variable lambda equals . and not statistically significant.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



large national CAPSM organizations, to independent non-denominational ecumenical organizations, local democratic political committees, as well as professional, legal and academic associations. These organizations had varying degrees of relationships with the Salvadoran revolutionaries, some knowingly others not. However, given the degree to which FMLN activists were integrated into all the major Salvadoran civil society organizations denouncing government abuses, this evidence shows that these networks effectively spread the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign to U.S. civil society organizations.47 Hypothesis two was tested in a similar fashion. Letters from opponents of the president’s policy were expected to write in response to nonelite cues from the CAPSM or FMLN, while supporters were expected to reference elite-cues. In line with these expectations, I found that letters supportive of Reagan’s policy overwhelmingly refer to elite-cues ( ), while opponents refer predominantly to CAPSM cues ( ). More specifically, of the  letters that only referenced movement cues,  ( ) opposed Reagan’s Central American policy. In stark contrast,  out of  ( ) letters that solely referenced elite cues supported Reagan’s Central America policy. Substantively, this indicates that the reference cue causing a person to write is a stronger predictor of their issue position rather than the other way around.48 This means that those members of the public who get their political information from elite sources tended to support the president’s policy. In contrast, those constituents who received their information from grassroots or movement sources were more likely to oppose the policy. Third, I hypothesized that letters from opponents to the President’s policy should frame the problem in Central America as arising from its domestic problems (Internal Political Change—IPC), which was the alternative framing of the situation that the FMLN’s public diplomacy used to challenge the administration’s policy and undermine public support. Meanwhile supporters of the policy should frame its problems as arising from Soviet or communist interference (Foreign Policy Restraint—FPR). Again I find strong support for both of these propositions. 47 Charles Brockett, Political Movements and Violence in Central America (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, ); Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador. 48 As seen in Table  the contingency coefficient statistic indicates a strong association between issue position and the cues letter-writers referenced. This relationship was found to be statistically significant below the . level using a chi-square test. Calculation of the lambda statistic indicated that with issue position as the dependent variable lambda equals .. With reference cue as the dependent variable lambda equals ..

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

Nearly all ( ) of the letters that opposed Reagan’s policy exclusively used an IPC frame. At the same time, almost   of all the supportive letters used solely an FPR frame. Substantively, this indicates that the framing of the Central American conflict, which a person used when writing their letter, is a stronger predictor of their issue position, rather than the other way around.49 More importantly, this finding strongly suggests that the Salvadoran revolutionaries’ public diplomacy campaign was successful not only at reaching its target audience, but also at convincing them of what the underlying causes of the conflict were and motivating them to oppose the policy. Below are a few examples of the contested understandings of the problems in Central America in the words of the constituents themselves. These letters illustrate how the competing frames were understood and used by both supporters and opponents of U.S. policy. Typically letters in support of the president’s policy made reference to fear of some perceived threat, usually communism. Similarly, supporters either acknowledge or demonstrate only minimal knowledge of the details of the situation in El Salvador, origins of the conflict, or the actors involved. Instead they rely heavily on elite cues and generic frames, especially easily identifiable scripts from the Cold War, such as preventing “another Cuba,” keeping the nation safe from communist / Marxist aggression, or dealing with a national security threat. For example, Sanford K. Knox of Montclair California, a boiler technician second class stationed on the USS Ranger CV patrolling off the coast of El Salvador, wrote on July , : Dear Mr. President . . . I think you are doing a great job as president . . . My country and family are very special to me and I will do whatever is necessary to keep them free and safe as long as I am able . . . In my opinion, the closer a communist backed government gets to us, the more danger there is of this [war] happening . . . I don’t know all the details or intricacies about the El Salvadorian [sic] situation but I would do whatever is necessary to stop the leftist rebels. I would put up a blockade to prevent them from receiving supplies from Russia or anywhere else via Nicaragua. We should go all out to keep another “Cuba” from the Americas. That would be very dangerous. Cuba has enough Russian military equipment at our doorstep. We don’t need more.50 49 The contingency coefficient statistic indicates a correlation of .. The value of chi-square equaled ., which is significant below the . level. The lambda statistic shows that when issue position is the dependent variable lambda equals .. With type of letter as the dependent variable lambda equals .. 50 Sanford Knox to Ronald Reagan,  July , ID, PR , WHORM: Subject File, Ronald Reagan Library.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



In contrast, letters from opponents of the President’s policy often demonstrate a very deep understanding of the origins of the conflict, and great knowledge about particular details of the situation and actors involved in Central America, as well as direct human relationships with the Central Americans themselves (movement cues). Instead of relying on generic frames and Cold War scripts, they offer compelling narratives with specific details of human suffering. For example, Bishop Robert M. Keller of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America forwards a resolution passed by the Synod that states in part, “WHEREAS, in  and , the Salvadoran Lutheran Synod has suffered repeated attacks on its ministries, including the bombing of the child care center at Fe y Esperanza Lutheran Home for refugees, death threats and harassments against Lutheran leaders, Bishop Medardo Gomez and others . . . ”51 Another noticeable difference is that opponents’ sources of information typically come from actors directly in Central America or with strong links to Central America (recent immigrants). A good example of this comes from Sister Mary Canavan, General Superior of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth. In October of  she wrote, Dear Mr. President . . . During the past five years, members of the Sisters of Charity of Convent Station, New Jersey have studied the plight of refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala who are in the United States without governmental sanction. The testimonies of these refugees, our religious workers in Central America and human rights agencies have led us to the conclusion that tremendous political and social upheaval in the region is at root of the displacement of millions of Central Americans . . . We believe that the foreign policy of the United States is directly responsible for that upheaval (emphasis added).52

Interpretation of Findings Taken as a whole what do these findings tell us about public opinion regarding U.S.-Central American policy during the s? First, the findings are supportive of all three hypotheses and provide powerful evidence that the FMLN’s public diplomacy was highly successful. In fact,

51 Robert M. Keller to Ronald Reagan,  August, Folder “Central AmericaPresidential Letters,” Box , Pastorino, Robert S. Files, Ronald Reagan Library. 52 Sister Mary Canavan to Ronald Reagan,  October  Folder “Central AmericaPresidential Letters,” Box , Pastorino, Robert S. Files, Ronald Reagan Library.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

the findings indicate that mass opinion was activated by non-elite actors and came from those involved in or receiving information from CAPSM organizations. Further, they indicate that opponents were motivated to write because of movement cues and that the frames they used to make their arguments against U.S. policy were those promoted by the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign through the CAPSM. The results also offer a clear view of what drove public opinion on this issue. When Lambda statistics were analyzed for all the variables a clear pattern of influence appears between type of letter, reference cue, frame, and issue position. Concretely, the letters provide statistical evidence that public opposition was activated by the CAPSM, reaching a targeted audience of secular and religious activists (type of letter), through their social networks (reference cue), with a powerful frame that motivated action (frame), and put pressure on elected officials (issue position). This causal chain is shown below in Figure .

In other words, these findings tell us how and why those constituents who opposed Reagan’s Central American policy became activated.53 First, they indicate that opponents were organized in civil society groups, and became mobilized politically in a different way than those without institutional or social connections to the CAPSM. Over the course of the decade Salvadoran immigrant organizations, large national CAPSM organizations such as CISPES and SHARE, as well as hundreds of smaller local North American organizations with which they worked, constantly kept U.S. policy toward the region on the public agenda, maintaining pressure on elected officials, especially Congress to stop aid for the Salvadoran government. They also launched nationwide educational and lobbying campaigns that reached out to many independent organizations, committees, parishes, and student groups, providing them with

53 Type of letter predicts reference cue (lambda = ., p.), frame (lambda = ., p.), and issue position (lambda = ., p.). The reference cue predicts the frame (lambda = ., p.) and issue position (lambda = ., p.), and the frame predicts (lambda = ., p.) issue position.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



up-to-date information directly from El Salvador. Analyses of the letters show that their efforts were extremely successful at mobilizing these organized constituencies. Second, the letters tell us that the information received from the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign moved constituents to action. One of the most important reasons for this was that opponents of the policy had much more fluid access to specific and timely information about El Salvador or directly from Salvadorans than those who supported it. Opponents would often receive information either via CISPES and SHARE or directly from Salvadoran social movements, human rights, and religious organizations with their leaders denouncing the atrocities the Salvadoran government—with U.S. aid—had visited on them, their organization, labor union, or parish. This is clearly illustrated by a resolution passed by the Provincial Council of Dominicans, Province of St. Albert the Great of Chicago, IL. The resolution states in part, Whereas according to reports from the Legal Aid Office of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, approximately , civilians were killed in El Salvador in  . . . Whereas Bishop Rivera Damas [sic] clearly identified those responsible for this violence and persecution when he said . . . ‘Therefore we hold the Security Forces and ultra-rightist groups responsible for the persecution against the Church and specifically for the assassination of priests and lay pastoral workers. We therefore also hold responsible the Government Junta . . . Therefore we demand . . . that the United States Government not provide military aid to our Government. Because, in spite of statements as to its use, the military aid facilitates repression against the people and facilitates persecution against the Church.’54

Third, as a result of this information, opponents of the policy understood and articulated the causes of Central America’s problems differently from those that received their information from the mainstream, elitedominated public sphere. Most importantly, the information received from these organizations not only helped constituents advocate a different solution to the conflict from that promoted by the Reagan Administration, and facilitated their ability to take an oppositional stance on U.S.-Central American policy, but also their information was a much more powerful motivator of political mobilization. This alternative view is succinctly illustrated by one of the early petitions circulated widely by the Religious Task Force for El Salvador: “The assassinations of four U.S. women working for the Church, of Archbishop Romero, and of more 54 Rev. Richard R.F. Shaw, O.P. to Ronald Reagan,  February, ID, PR , WHORM: Subject File, Ronald Reagan Library.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

than , Salvadoran people by government security forces, fills us with anger and grief. That our government is supporting a Salvadoran regime which lacks any popular base among the people, violates our democratic ideals and constitutes unjust interference in the affairs of another nation . . . Our government’s present policy of escalating U.S. military aid and advisors, is pointing us toward another Vietnam.”55 Finally, these findings provide strong evidence that the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign was effective at moving U.S. public opinion. The evidence suggests that the CAPSM allowed the Salvadoran revolutionaries to communicate their grievances directly to the U.S. public in a way that motivated significant public opposition and activated grassroots constituency pressure on elected officials in the U.S. As a result of its ability to create and sustain these links, the CAPSM became the primary mechanism by which the FMLN’s political message was disseminated transnationally.

Conclusion One of the most important lessons that can be learned from studies of past public diplomacy successes and failures is that its goals “cannot be achieved if they are believed to be inconsistent with a country’s foreign policy or military actions.”56 In other words, a public diplomacy campaign is vulnerable when it is contradicted by the policy it is trying to promote. In this case, the Reagan administration’s claims about its El Salvador policy were not only contradicted by the testimonies of U.S. religious missionaries, solidarity and human rights activists working in or returning from the region, but also by the Salvadoran refugees who were its supposed beneficiaries. Moreover, Melissen explains that if public diplomacy is “too closely tied to foreign policy objectives, it runs the risk of becoming counterproductive and indeed a failure when foreign policy itself is perceived to be a failure.”57 As the United Nations Truth Commission Report documented, approximately   of all the human rights violations commit-

55 Religious Task Force on El Salvador Petition forwarded to Ronald Reagan by U.S. Representative David Martin,  March , ID, PR , WHORM: Subject File, Ronald Reagan Library. Emphasis added. 56 Melissen, . 57 Melissen, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



ted during the Salvadoran civil war were committed by the very government that the Reagan Administration was funding and asking the U.S. public to support. Thus the failure of Reagan’s public diplomacy in El Salvador was intertwined with the faults of the policies on which it was based, rather than solely a failure of his public diplomacy per se. This is quite similar to the finding by Lucas and Kennedy who have noted that in the more recent case of U.S. public diplomacy targeting the Middle East, the administration’s policies have undermined its public diplomacy efforts.58 Undoubtedly, this was similar in the Salvadoran case and made the FMLN’s public diplomacy work easier. However, this does not imply that U.S. public opposition would have occurred automatically. Nor does it mean that opposition would have been as intense as it became without the FMLN’s public diplomacy campaign. On the contrary, as the  invasion of Iraq shows, faults in a foreign policy are no guarantee that public opposition will be greater than support. Rather it suggests that public opposition to the use of military force is constructed in civil society and public discourse just as support for the same policy is likewise constructed in the public sphere. Nevertheless, because of the asymmetric nature of these conflicts, revolutionary states and actors will tend to have more at stake and be more ambitious in their public diplomacy than counter-revolutionary states.59 Indeed, the Salvadoran revolutionaries both in-country and in the diaspora worked tirelessly at getting the U.S. public to understand the negative impact of Reagan’s policy on human rights in El Salvador. Consequently, many of the FMLN’s most talented organizers were dedicated to the “North American Front”:60 The most important aspect of Central American activism within North America, however, has been the practice of organizing a movement of North Americans as an ‘external front’ of the internal war of liberation . . . the Central Americans devoted their organizing efforts to those citizens who could affect U.S. policy, raise money, and provide ‘personal accompaniment’ through tours and delegations to the region . . . But without the intentionality of the exiles, the Central America movement . . . would have existed in embryo at best . . . 61 58 Kennedy, Liam, and Scott Lucas. “Enduring Freedom: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Policy.” American Quarterly  (): . 59 Sharp, . 60 Gosse, “ ‘The North American Front.’ ” 61 Van Gosse, “El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam,” in The Immigrant Left in the United States, eds. Paul Buhl and Dan Georgakas (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr.

The main keys to the FMLN’s success can be separated into three categories: psychological capital, social capital, and ideational power. The psychological capital that served as the foundation for their success was most directly provided by members of the Salvadoran Diaspora in the U.S. These politically active immigrants provided, what political scientist Lisa Garcia Bedolla has called a “mobilizing identity” for the CAPSM. This consisted of a positive affective group attachment, a positive view of their movement, and a belief that they had the ability and responsibility to act on behalf of the FMLN, which they transmitted to North Americans. “Put simply, for individuals to choose to act, they must feel that they are a part of something and that that ‘something’ is worthy of political effort. That feeling of attachment and group worthiness is what motivates them to act on behalf of the collective.”62 As Hugh Byrne, a CISPES leader explained, “I got involved in El Salvador solidarity work after meeting Salvadoran activists who had just arrived in Los Angeles, ‘fresh from the front,’ so to speak in the early s. They were experienced organizers, ‘on fire’ with passion for their cause, and filled with optimism. The continuous contact with them inspired me, as I am sure it did many other non-Central Americans who joined the solidarity movement.”63 The social capital was rooted in the political efficacy of North American citizens who became activated to oppose Reagan’s policy. They in turn tapped into their own networks and institutional resources to amplify public opposition. These social networks and institutions involved all those formal and informal, religious and secular networks of organizations such as CISPES and the SHARE Foundation and the thousands of local committees and parishes that gave these organizations a presence in hundreds of U.S. cities and states around the country. These mobilizing structures provided the linkages, access, and financial resources to spread the message. Finally, the FMLN’s ideational power was manifested in the form of a compelling counter-narrative to Reagan’s framing of U.S. policy. It provided the alternative interpretation of the same objective reality that motivated U.S. citizens to take an oppositional stance against their own government’s policy. This counter framing included the hard numbers 62 Lisa Garcia Bedolla, Fluid Borders: Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in Los Angeles (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, ), –. 63 Nora Hamilton and Norma Stoltz-Chinchilla, Seeking Community in a Global City (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



of how much money U.S. aid to El Salvador was costing, how many marchers attended protests, and the cold facts about how many Salvadorans were being tortured or dying on a yearly, monthly, or daily basis. But it also included the personal narratives and testimonies that framed the conflict in moral terms and evoked deep emotional responses from its audience. As former U.S. undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs Charlotte Beers has said, effective public diplomacy requires “communication that includes rational and logical discourse but also evokes our deepest emotions.”64 As the results of this investigation illustrate, in the s the FMLN’s public diplomacy was able to successfully evoke deep emotions within the U.S. public, while the Reagan Administration was unable to do the same except among those who were already ideologically predisposed to support it.

64

Lucas and Kennedy, “Enduring Freedom,” .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



héctor perla jr. Appendix A. Coding Sheet

Letter I.D. Number: Date of Letter:

mm/dd / yyyy

Year of Letter (What year was the letter written in?):         

        

Type of Letter (Is the letter written by a single individual, or on behalf of an organization, or as part of a Petition/mass mailing?): Individual Organizational Mass Mailing / Petition

  

Gender (Is the letter from an individual Male or Female?): NA (i.e. Organization / Petition) Male Female

  

Race (Is the letter from an individual of a particular racial group?): NA (i.e. Organization / Petition) White Black Latino Asian Middle eastern Other Don’t know

       

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

transnational public diplomacy



Region (of U.S. the letter is from?): NA / Don’t know / Other North South Midwest West

    

Issue Position (Does the letter support or oppose Reagan’s Central American policy?): Pro-Reagan Central American Policy Anti-Reagan Central American Policy Critical But Supportive NA / Neither/don’t know

   

Frame (Refers to whether the author of the letter identifies the problem of CA as being caused by External Actors or Internal Causes): FPR (i.e. External threat) Both (Domestic & External) IPC (Domestic Problems) NA / Neither/don’t know

-   

Reference / Cue (Why does the constituent say they are writing? In response to elite actions / policy, i.e. speech by Reagan, etc. or in response to movement actions / requests or repression against movement, i.e. murder of Romero, etc.?) Elite-initiated Movement-initiated Both NA

   

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

part ii THE UNITED STATES AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter seven FOREIGN RELATIONS AS DOMESTIC AFFAIRS: THE ROLE OF THE “PUBLIC” IN THE ORIGINS OF U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Justin Hart In the fall of , William Benton, the newly appointed assistant secretary of state for public affairs, appeared before Congress and gave a remarkable speech endorsing legislation designed to solidify a permanent place for the State Department’s fledgling programs in public diplomacy.1 Benton spoke that day to a skeptical crowd, many of whom viewed public diplomacy and its component parts—educational exchanges, cultural diplomacy, and propaganda—as, at best, a new-fangled waste of time and money and, at worst, evidence of communistic thinking. Throwing caution to the wind, he gave a passionate address explaining the importance of these initiatives to U.S. foreign policy in the postwar period. “There was a time,” Benton said, “when foreign affairs were rulerto-ruler relations”; then, even after “monarchies gave way to representative governments the relations often continued to be secret and private through ambassadors.” In the last twenty years, however, “the relations between nations ha[d] constantly been broadened to include not merely governments but also peoples.” And policymakers could not—or should not—ignore the fact that “the peoples of the world are exercising an ever larger influence upon decisions of foreign policy.”2 1 Since official legend has it that Edward Gullion coined the term “public diplomacy” in , one might argue that its use in an essay on the s is anachronistic. However, as Nick Cull has demonstrated, the phrase actually dates back to the mid-th century, and it was commonly used both during World War I and World War II. Even if we assume its contemporary usage to be closely associated with the activities of the U.S. Information Agency during the Cold War, the term still applies to the initiatives discussed in this essay, which are widely understood to have provided the foundation for the USIA. See Nicholas J. Cull, “ ‘Public Diplomacy’ before Gullion: The Evolution of a Phrase,” USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy Blog,  Apr. , http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/newsroom/pdblog_detail/_public_ diplomacy_before_gullion_the_evolution_of_a_phrase/ ( April ). 2 U.S. Congress, House, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Interchange of Knowledge and Skills between People of the United States and Peoples of Other Countries, th Cong., st. sess., , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

Whatever one may think of Benton’s analysis, the newly-minted diplomat advanced a strikingly original approach to foreign policy and to foreign relations that explicitly rejected traditional notions of diplomacy. He also encapsulated the logic and the assumptions behind the U.S. government’s decision to develop initiatives in public diplomacy beginning in the early s. Those assumptions stipulated, in short, that the proliferation of mass communications and the heightened mobility of people and ideas had effectively made “people”—at home and abroad—not just an external influence upon the formation of policy, but an organic component of a broadened conception of what constituted foreign relations.3 Benton and his colleagues were interested not just in public opinion as a factor for policymakers to accommodate (or manipulate, depending on one’s perspective), but in what I would call public participation in U.S. foreign relations. The trans-national possibilities of public participation took on a particular resonance for U.S. policymakers contemplating the prospect of the United States emerging as the world’s dominant empire amidst the decline of the traditional European imperial model of territorial colonialism. This quandary called for novel strategies to attract the loyalties— commercial and ideological—of millions of potentially autonomous peoples. In turn, many policymakers and pundits came to recognize that the way the United States was perceived in the world—the image of “America”—would have a great impact upon the success or failure of a non-territorial imperialism; and, furthermore, the power of modern mass communications ensured that domestic events would play a profound role in shaping perceptions of the United States. It is in this context that we must understand the startlingly blunt assertion by Archibald MacLeish, the Pulitzer-Prize winning poet and primary architect of U.S. public diplomacy, at a State Department meeting in : “Electric communications,” MacLeish said, “has made foreign relations domestic affairs.”4

3 Readers should be aware that throughout this essay I treat “foreign policy” as one of many component parts of “foreign relations.” One might argue, in fact, that the emergence of public diplomacy as a “foreign policy” issue during the s stemmed from an increasing awareness that just as “diplomacy” was only one part of “foreign policy,” “foreign policy” was only one part of “foreign relations.” 4 Minutes, Information Service Committee,  January , Box , Entry –, RG , National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (hereafter cited as NA).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



MacLeish’s radical perspective on the relationship of people to the foreign policy process—that people not only expressed opinions on policy, but, on some level, actually made policy—echoes Benton’s insistence that “the relations between nations” now included “not merely governments but also peoples.” Together, their statements (made just months apart in , by the first two assistant secretaries of state for public affairs5) effectively summarized the prevailing view of the officials who laid the foundation for U.S. public diplomacy during World War II.6 This essay explores the logic of their position and its implications for the conduct of U.S. foreign relations during the s and beyond. More specifically, it seeks to understand the role of the “public” in early conceptions of public diplomacy. The focus here, it should be noted, is upon the propaganda component of public diplomacy. Although governments utilize both propaganda and cultural relations to improve their image, propagandists deal much more directly with the impact of domestic events upon perceptions of the nation and its character. I start, then, with the story of the Office of War Information [OWI], the Roosevelt administration’s wartime propaganda bureau, in order to explain the formation of the consensus that Benton and MacLeish articulated in . I then turn to the State Department’s Office of Public Opinion Studies, run by the political scientist Schuyler Foster, to show how the State Department approached the problem of public opinion. Finally, I examine some of the reasons why the prospect of public participation in the policy process engendered such intense and unrelenting hostility—from Congressional attacks on the OWI to Joseph McCarthy’s investigation of the Voice of America—and what that hostility reveals about some of the dilemmas inherent to the practice of public diplomacy. Students of propaganda and cultural relations have devoted a great deal of attention to U.S. government efforts to influence foreign opinions of the United States and its policies. The emphasis here differs slightly, in 5 In , Archibald MacLeish became the first Assistant Secretary of State for Public and Cultural Relations. MacLeish’s appointment signaled the creation of what amounts to a cabinet-level position within the State Department for public diplomacy—elevating it to the level of Latin American affairs or economic affairs. As I explain below, this decision constituted a sharp departure from previous practices. When MacLeish stepped down in the summer of , Benton succeeded him with the slightly modified title of Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. 6 MacLeish’s statement—made behind closed doors—also provides a useful counterpoint to Benton’s public address in ascertaining whether policymakers really believed these proclamations about public participation, or just threw them out to garner stronger public support for their budding enterprise.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

that I am primarily concerned with the impact of domestic events and ideas upon the execution of that project. Policymakers like MacLeish, Benton, and their colleagues argued that crafting a credible message required not just an awareness of, but an engagement with, domestic realities. The sheer power of the private media in the United States ensured that any government proclamation made in an attempt to “sell America” abroad could—and would—be compared and contrasted to stories on the radio, in newspapers, and in magazines. This philosophy, however, often led policymakers onto thin ice. To present the United States to the world in a believable way sometimes required them to acknowledge unpleasant aspects of American life, exposing them to criticism at home for, in essence, airing their nation’s dirty laundry. Embracing the proposition that mass communications had made “foreign relations domestic affairs” amounted to embracing a Catch-—they were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. Accounting for the “public” in public diplomacy also raised a different, but related, set of questions about the very purpose of public diplomacy. Was it to communicate, to facilitate a dialogue between people at home and abroad, to supplement or perhaps spin existing media accounts, with an overall goal of making the United States—warts and all—better understood? Or was it pure propaganda, advertising an idealized “America” to the world, serving as the State Department’s megaphone, justifying and defending government policies reality be damned? Or was it simply a weapon of war? There was a lot at stake in these debates over public participation, because they were really debates over the nature of U.S. foreign relations in a rapidly shifting global environment. Moreover, they shed light on one of the under-recognized paradoxes of the United States’ emergence as perhaps the most dominant empire in the history of the world: The same phenomenon that awarded such extraordinary power to the policymakers who presided over the creation of the national security state simultaneously precipitated an astonishing dispersal of authority over foreign relations, more generally. In the view of MacLeish, Benton, and their colleagues, the success of the United States as an empire of ideas depended, to a substantial degree, upon the public—not just its willingness or unwillingness to support policies crafted on Foggy Bottom (although that mattered too), but through its participation in crafting the image of “America” in the world. The fact that image came to matter to U.S. foreign policy has often been assumed, but rarely explained. Consequently, the U.S. government’s deci-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



sion to develop programs in public diplomacy during the s appears in most historical accounts as a weak and generally inept response to the formidable operations of Nazi Germany and, later, Soviet Russia; or as an inevitable, almost unconscious, reaction to the evolution of communications technology.7 There is, of course, something to both of these interpretations. Throughout World War II and the Cold War, policymakers and pundits worried about how to compete with propaganda from closed societies, where governments exerted so much control over the media. And this concern undoubtedly led U.S. officials to reverse previous patterns and explore the potential uses of communications technology to counter the powerful propaganda machines of their enemies. But to emphasize the reactive aspects of the origins of U.S. public diplomacy minimizes the ways in which these policies functioned as an affirmative response to the arrival of what Henry Luce, in , famously dubbed the “American Century.”8 After all, the various technologies of

7

Here I think there is a tendency to impose a sort of technological determinism, in which the appearance of the technology drove the policy, almost as if: “ . . . of course policymakers had to respond in some way to the greater mobility of people and ideas . . . of course they couldn’t ignore entirely the explosion of radio, motion pictures, and later TV . . . ” The issues of technological determinism and the putatively reactive character of U.S. public diplomacy are more implicit than explicit in most works on the subject. Teleologically speaking, it is easy to look back and see how mass communications technology helped to fuel the ideological competitions, first with Germany and the Soviet Union, and then conclude that policymakers had little choice but to adopt measures that addressed image. Particularly in the case of the Cold War, the notion that U.S. information programs evolved primarily in response to the far superior (re: mendacious) Soviet offensive can perhaps be attributed to an equally powerful, and related, historical meta-narrative: that overall U.S. policy in the early Cold War period was predominantly reactive—that is, a measured response to the aggressive and provocative character of Soviet actions. This proposition, which I believe has been transposed to a certain extent onto the propaganda programs, has obviously received a through interrogation through the never-ending debate on the “origins” of the Cold War. 8 Henry Luce, “The American Century,” Life,  February , –. For all of its propagandistic schlock, Luce’s article does speak to a number of important issues raised here. According to Luce, the United States could claim its rightful place as the heir to the rapidly eroding British Empire, if only the American people would awake from their isolationist slumber and recognize that their nation “became in the th Century the most powerful and the most vital nation in the world.” Especially important is Luce’s description of the ideological foundation of the “American Century”: In his words, U.S. “internationalism” must be the “product of the imaginations of many men . . . It must be an internationalism of the people, by the people and for the people.” In talking about an “internationalism of the people” Luce did not mean military dominance, or even

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

mass communications, such as radio, motion pictures, and the like had already existed for somewhere between twenty and forty years prior to the war (even longer if one includes the trans-Atlantic cable and masscirculation print journalism). By World War II, most European governments, often spurred by a desire to communicate with their colonial territories, had been exploiting information technology for decades. Yet, with the exception of the brief and much-maligned career of Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information during World War I, the existence of these trends had been ignored almost entirely by the U.S. government.9 However, the U.S. entry into World War II marked a broader transformation in the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world, leaving U.S. officials searching for innovative responses to a changing geopolitical environment. The Stanford University historian Harley Notter captured this mood among policymakers well, in describing the attitudes expressed at the first meeting of the State Department’s Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy (which took place, optimistically, six weeks after Pearl Harbor): The fluidity introduced into world affairs, by the revolutionary course of events in [the past two] decades, by the changing character of thought and action everywhere since the war had begun, and by the anticipation that this process of change would continue after the war, made necessary a thorough study of the entire emerging scene. The future of states as separate

economic strength, per se. He focused, instead, on the instruments of cultural diplomacy (like jazz and Hollywood movies) and modernization ideology (“an America which will send out through the world its technical and artistic skills”). 9 For a good overview of the early history of radio as it relates to U.S. foreign policy, see David Krugler, The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles, –  (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, ), –; and Holly Cowan Shulman, The Voice of America: Propaganda and Democracy, – (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, ). Jonathan Reed Winkler, Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ) has interesting information on ambitious, but forsaken, plans for U.S. strategic communications following World War I. Michael Hogan, Informal Entente: The Private Structure of Cooperation in Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy, – (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, ) deals with some of the efforts by U.S. policymakers during the s to encourage the expansion of radio networks in Latin America under private auspices. This fits in with Hogan’s general framework of explaining how the United States, although politically isolationist during the s, nevertheless pursued economically expansionist policies during the decade. This is not the same thing, though, as the efforts of the British and French to build government networks around the world.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



and sovereign entities and the character of their rights and relationships were unsettled. The position, nature, and number of great powers were in flux. Beliefs and desires of whole peoples and areas were being shaped anew.10

Over the next several years, the “revolutionary course of events” and the resulting “fluidity” that Notter described precipitated an impressively diverse set of responses from U.S. officials. Fears of political and economic fragmentation were addressed through the integrative initiatives of, respectively, the United Nations and the Bretton Woods agreements. Meanwhile, the concern for the potential vacuum in the “beliefs and desires of whole peoples” spurred the creation of programs in public diplomacy. Although the Cold War amplified these dynamics by several orders of magnitude, the issues involved first entered the discussion as a byproduct of what Notter called “the changing character of thought and action everywhere” during World War II.

“Projecting America” at the OWI It is important to emphasize at the outset that, prior to World War II, the U.S. government did not regard propaganda as a foreign policy issue. Most historians agree that the origins of U.S. Cold War propaganda are to be found in the Roosevelt Administration’s Office of War Information [OWI]. However, President Roosevelt certainly did not anticipate when he established the OWI in June  that it would become enmeshed in debates over foreign policy. Neither, for that matter, did Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who spoke for many at the State Department when he informed the OWI that, in his view, war information did “not include information relating to the foreign policy of the United States.” By the end of the war, though, it had become clear not only that propaganda affected foreign policy, but that in disseminating information about the United States around the world propaganda was, in fact, foreign policy.11

10 Department of State, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, –, by Harley A. Notter, Publication  (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, ), –. 11 This quote comes from a letter Hull wrote to Elmer Davis, Director of the Office of War Information, in July . Prior to that, Hull seems to have ignored the creation of an autonomous propaganda agency outside the State Department. However, when

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

The OWI’s most important contributions to postwar public diplomacy came through its attempts to grapple systematically with America’s image in the world. In many ways, OWI officials defined, or at least identified, the parameters within which subsequent debates over propaganda would take place. They were really the first group to confront the role of public participation in defining the nation’s image abroad and, correspondingly, were also the first to develop a comprehensive approach to surveying opinion within the United States for foreign policy purposes. In the striking assessment of Robert Sherwood, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and director of the Overseas Branch of the OWI, “we think today in terms of peoples rather than nations.”12 Most of the complications that OWI officials faced stemmed from the dicey ambiguities of crafting what they liked to think of as a democratic propaganda policy—or, more accurately, a propaganda policy compatible with a pluralistic democracy committed (ostensibly) to freedom of information. In the United States, the sheer diversity of what OWI officials called “information channels” meant that the government would never be able to control the flow of information, at home or abroad, as totalitarian states would. At most, the government could try to facilitate better communication between “channels,” attempt to correct misinformation, and frame potentially damaging accounts in a more positive light. Government propaganda, in short, would never amount to more than a few drops in a very large bucket.13 For this reason, Archibald MacLeish—who, during his short tenure in government service did as much as anyone to shape the philosophy behind U.S. public diplomacy—demanded that U.S. propagandists pursue a “strategy of truth.”14 While the government would, of course,

he realized that the OWI might encroach upon his turf, he began to work overtime to undermine it. For this quote and Hull’s attitudes toward the OWI, see Allen Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda (New Haven: Yale University Press, ), pp. –. 12 Robert Sherwood, “Long-Range Directive,”  January , Box , Entry B, RG , NA. It is worth noting that this comment, like MacLeish’s above, was not designed for public consumption, but rather constituted the philosophical premise behind Sherwood’s long-range strategic plan for the Overseas Branch of the OWI. 13 OFF Bureau of Intelligence to OFF Director, Assistant Directors and Deputy Directors,  February , Box , Entry D, RG , NA. 14 Between  and , MacLeish served as Librarian of Congress, Director of the Office of Facts and Figures (the predecessor agency to the Domestic Branch of the OWI), Assistant Director of the OWI, advisor to the State Department’s Division of Cultural Relations, and the first Assistant Secretary of State for Public and Cultural Relations. In , MacLeish left government service for good, but, as I argue here, the

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



portray facts selectively and in a way favorable to the United States, it would not—or should not—disseminate outright distortions and lies. In MacLeish’s view, “the strategy of truth” was a win-win proposition: Material from the U.S. government would not only seem more persuasive than information coming from Germany and Japan—that is, it wouldn’t seem like propaganda—it would also avoid the inevitable hit to the government’s credibility from stories flatly contradicted by the press within the United States. As MacLeish like to brag, “We do not, like the propaganda bureaus of the dictators, tell one story at home and another abroad.”15 Needless to say, the boundary between spin and fabrication was a blurry one, subject to individual interpretation and manipulation. And the sometime protests of OWI officials that they were not really “propagandists” were not particularly plausible. But the broader call for public diplomats to at least grapple with this difficult distinction holds up as a principle to be transgressed only at considerable cost.16 Another part of MacLeish’s agenda the State Department eventually adopted was his practice of conducting extensive surveys of American opinion on virtually every conceivable foreign policy issue. (At one point the Surveys Division at the OWI employed both George Gallup and Elmo Roper—the two most famous pollsters of their day.) This is more notable than it may initially seem because of the reasons for doing so. The OWI public opinion surveys ultimately had less to do

strategies he pioneered during World War II lived on. For a fuller sense of my take on MacLeish’s importance, see Justin Hart, “Rediscovering Archibald MacLeish: The Poetry of U.S. Foreign Policy,” Historically Speaking  (January / February ): –. In this article, I make the point that MacLeish served, in a sense, as the George Kennan of U.S. information policy, in that his influence in framing the terms of subsequent debates far outlasted his actual tenure in government. MacLeish explains the “strategy of truth” in “The Strategy of Truth,” an address to the Annual Luncheon of the Associated Press on April , . This address is reprinted in MacLeish’s A Time to Act (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, ), –. 15 MacLeish to Davis, Eisenhower, Sherwood, and Cowles, “Basic Policy Statement on OWI Objectives,”  August , Box , Entry , RG , NA. 16 The enduring impact of this idea can be seen in its re-birth in  when Harry Truman used the phrase “campaign of truth” to describe the revamped and augmented propaganda program the State Department launched at the height of the Cold War. I should note, here, that this philosophy applies only to what became known during the Cold War as “white” propaganda—propaganda or “information” obviously attributed to its actual source. The debate over the strategy or efficacy of “black” propaganda— the disinformation either distributed anonymously or under a misleading attribution designed to discredit the apparent source—is another discussion entirely.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

with selling particular policies to the American people (although this was part of it) than with getting a handle on the flow of information (those “channels” again). The reports produced by the Surveys Division provided the critical foundation for the far-sighted and ambitious project the OWI called the “Projection of America.” Developed by Robert Sherwood in early , the “Projection of America” anticipated to a remarkable degree the general thrust of postwar public diplomacy. In canvassing American opinion on a host of issues related not just to the war, but also toward the postwar order, Sherwood’s Overseas Branch affirmed the basic principle that the government could not credibly “project America” to the world without an accurate understanding of domestic events.17 Yet the greatest problem the OWI encountered—a problem that nearly destroyed it—was explaining the relationship between its domestic and its foreign operations. In a decision policymakers would later regret, the initial setup of the OWI divided the agency into two separate branches— “Domestic” and “Overseas”. (Only through wartime experiences did the need to treat domestic and foreign affairs as interdependent become clear to propagandists.) As it turned out, critics of the OWI focused especially on the Domestic Branch and the propaganda it directed toward the American people. These attacks took many forms. In an increasingly common and consequential alliance, Republicans teamed up with conservative Democrats to accuse the agency of having a staff riddled with “crackpots,” “Communists,” and “incompetents”; serving as a covert campaign vehicle for Roosevelt’s fourth term; and advancing a liberal social agenda (most especially for reaching out to African Americans in trying to promote domestic unity).18 Part of this hostility can be chalked up to a profound distrust of government propaganda and of government in general. (“America needs no Goebbels sitting in Washington to tell the press what to publish,” Representative Starnes (D-AL) declared.)19 Political expediency also surely played a role, as the allegations of communists infiltrating the Roosevelt administration eerily foreshadowed the more vitriolic charges directed at the Truman administration a few years later. But the thread that tied all these various complaints together was a profound disagreement over how 17 Robert Sherwood, “Long-Range Directive,”  January , Box , Entry B, RG , NA. 18 “Congress Regains Status, Taft Says,” New York Times,  July . 19 “ Agencies Voted Nearly  Billions,” Washington Post,  June .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



“America” would be defined and who would be doing it. The Republican Congressman from Michigan, John Lesinski, revealingly called for U.S. propagandists to be “American born, American educated, and American indoctrinated,” though what, precisely, that meant opened up an even broader debate.20 The problem with trying to define “America” became especially clear during the controversy that erupted in early , when the OWI published an expensive, eighty-page pamphlet entitled “Negroes and the War.” The idea was to shore up support for the war among African Americans, who, polls showed, felt more than a little ambivalent about fighting a war for democracy abroad while facing systematic discrimination at home. OWI officials worried about the ability of the Japanese to exploit these feelings in an appeal to solidarity among non-white peoples. The OWI response hardly constituted a civil rights manifesto; “Negroes and the War” said almost nothing about touchstone issues like segregation, discrimination, and violence. Instead, it largely consisted of glossy photos, accompanied by a sparse, straight-forward text that stressed the contributions of individual African Americans to U.S. history. In fact, many black leaders objected to the patronizing tone and the tendency to softpedal controversial issues.21 Their response, however, paled in comparison to that of southern lawmakers, who launched a blistering attack on the OWI. The federal government was trying to “force upon the South a philosophy that is alien to us,” thundered Rep. Leonard Allen, a Democrat from Louisiana. The OWI, he claimed, had “done more to hurt the South in this war effort than any other agency.”22 “Negroes and the War” led to the defection of massive numbers of southern Democrats, who joined with Republicans during appropriations hearings that April in voting nearly two-to-one to cut all funding for the Domestic Branch. (Of the fifty Democrats who voted to eliminate the Domestic Branch, all but three came from the South.) The Senate later restored a few million dollars to keep it 20

Congressional Record, th Cong., st sess., vol. , pt. , . The controversy over “Negroes and the War” receives extensive coverage in Barbara Diane Savage, Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, – (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ), –; and Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda, –. 22 U.S. Congress, House, Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, National War Agencies Appropriation Bill for , Pt. , th Cong., st sess., , –; and “ Agencies Voted Nearly  Billions,” Washington Post, June , . 21

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

alive, but this paltry sum merely saved the Domestic Branch, as OWI Director Elmer Davis put it, the “odium of having [Congress] put us out of business.”23 Here was a perfect example of the Catch- of bringing the public into public diplomacy. Well aware that Axis propagandists exploited stories of racial discrimination and discord in the United States to undermine American claims to be fighting for democracy, the OWI took steps to promote unity and minimize conflict. (Whether the publication of “Negroes and the War” represented an effective approach to this issue is a separate question from why the project was undertaken in the first place.) Yet, in attempting to define the United States as liberal and racially inclusive, propagandists provoked a backlash from those who accused the OWI of promoting “racial equality” and undermining their vision of America. For public diplomats, the dilemma of how to handle the American Dilemma would only become more acute in the coming years, as Mary Dudziak and others have demonstrated. In essentially dismantling the Domestic Branch of the OWI, conservative legislators tried to send the message that propagandists should steer clear of domestic affairs. But with domestic debates increasingly being mainlined into the production of America’s image, this would not be possible.24

Public Diplomacy and Public Participation In August , as World War II wound down, the Truman administration confronted the question of what to do with the overseas propaganda programs of the OWI. Realizing this, the top brass at the OWI collaborated on a memo to President Truman that “emphatically” urged him to expand the government’s “information service . . . to the rest of the world” by transferring control of such operations to the State Depart-

23

Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round,” Washington Post, June , ; Davis quoted in Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda, . 24 For a much fuller treatment of the way that OWI officials understood the impact of domestic race relations upon America’s image in the world, see my “Making Democracy Safe for the World: Race, Propaganda, and the Transformation of U.S. Foreign Policy During World War II,” Pacific Historical Review,  (): –. This piece also has an extensive commentary on the now-large literature on the ways in which domestic civil rights became imbricated in the ideological struggles of the Cold War. Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, N.J., ) is the best-known explication of this phenomenon.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



ment. Based on their experiences during World War II, these officials concluded that “never again should America as a nation let the telling of its official story be left to chance . . . never again should the nation . . . be satisfied with an unbalanced picture of America which must result if private telling in many media is left wholly unsupplemented.”25 Two weeks later, the President signed Executive Order , which dissolved the OWI, but transferred its overseas propaganda functions to the State Department; the order also ostensibly abolished the functions of the Domestic Branch—now just a radioactive shell of its former self. In explaining the decision to continue wartime propaganda programs during peacetime, Truman focused on the changing “nature of present day foreign relations,” which “makes it essential for the United States to maintain informational activities abroad as an integral part of the conduct of our foreign affairs.” He carefully noted that the U.S. government would not attempt to compete with the private media (a few drops in the bucket . . .), but that it must ensure that “other peoples receive a full and fair picture of American life and of the aims and policies of the United States Government.”26 The State Department combined its new propaganda responsibilities with its existing programs in cultural relations, housing them in one division headed by William Benton, the newly appointed assistant secretary of state for public affairs.27 Benton brought with him a reputation as a brilliant Madison Avenue marketer—the co-founder (along with Chester Bowles, another future diplomat) of Benton & Bowles, one of the most successful advertising agencies of the s and s. His new boss, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, obviously hoped that Benton could sell “America,” as he had so successfully sold so many other brands. What Benton, Byrnes, and Truman did not admit to Congress, or really anyone else, was that the State Department had already essentially adopted many of the functions of the Domestic Branch of the OWI. Although not well known, the State Department established an Office 25

Edward Klauber to Harry S. Truman,  August , Reel , Part , in David H. Culbert, ed., Information Control and Propaganda: Records of the Office of War Information (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, ), microfilm. 26 Harry S. Truman, Executive Order ,  August , The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid= ( April ). “A full and fair picture” became the motto of U.S. public diplomacy during the early Cold War. 27 Had Benton’s predecessor, Archibald MacLeish, stayed one more month, he would have had the opportunity to integrate the OWI propaganda operation he did so much to design into the State Department.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

of Public Opinion Studies in  to give policymakers a better sense of public attitudes toward every conceivable foreign policy issue of the day. An Office of Public Affairs and a Division of Public Liaison followed soon after. To emphasize, the techniques MacLeish had pioneered for surveying public opinion at the OWI now made their way into the State Department—and, appropriately, became his responsibility when he too moved into the State Department in .28 Not surprisingly, these programs only expanded under Benton. After all, public opinion studies began on Madison Avenue, where George Gallup and Benton himself got their start. Through these changes in institutional structure, the State Department effectively endorsed (considerable resistance notwithstanding) MacLeish’s basic point about the convergence between foreign relations and domestic affairs. From the outset, the driving force behind the Office of Public Opinion Studies was H. Schuyler Foster, Jr., a former professor of political science at The Ohio State University. As a scholar, he focused on issues such as the mass media, interest group politics, and, especially, propaganda.29 In , at thirty-seven years old, Foster left academia for the State 28

I do not mean suggest here that the Office of Public Opinion Studies and the Office of Public Affairs simply picked up where the Domestic Branch of the OWI left off. There was nothing at the State Department that resembled the relentless propagandizing and message-discipline (Rosie the Riveter, and “loose lips sink ships,” etc.) that the OWI directed at the American people. That said, the basic mission of the Domestic Branch— to foster domestic unity and to offer soothing explanations of government policy— certainly became part of the State Department’s agenda in the postwar period in a way that it never had before. State Department officials like Dean Acheson made countless appearances (sometimes reluctantly) before domestic interest groups; the Office of Public Affairs produced radio broadcasts “explaining” the principles of U.S. foreign policy to the American people; and various officials and offices spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort monitoring public attitudes on every conceivable foreign policy issue. For documentary evidence on this point, see “Principles Underlying the Conduct of United States Overseas Information Activities,”  December , Box , Entry , RG , NA, which refers to “a continuation [emphasis mine] of the pattern for conducting the Department’s domestic information programs which has slowly been evolving and tested during the past few years.” Needless to say, the notion of a “domestic information program” at the State Department was not well advertised to Congress. 29 For samples of Foster’s scholarly output, see H. Schuyler Foster, Jr., and Carl J. Friedrich, “Letters to the Editor as a Means of Measuring the Effectiveness of Propaganda,” The American Political Science Review  (), –; H. Schuyler Foster, Jr., “Pressure Groups and Administrative Agencies,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science  (), –; H. Schuyler Foster, Jr., “How America Became Belligerent: A Quantitative Study of War News, –,” The American Journal of Sociology  (), –; and H. Schuyler Foster, Jr., The Public Opinion Quarterly  (), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



Department, where he remained for twenty-two years. During that time, his office authored tens of thousands of surveys (on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis) of American public opinion on every conceivable issue related to U.S. foreign policy. He also produced endless special reports on discrete topics, such as the United Nations, U.S.-Russian relations, and the Korean War. Looking back through these reports today, one is struck not only by the wealth of information they assembled, but also by the structure and the methodology employed. Foster and his staff utilized an expansive concept of “public opinion” that went far beyond simply accumulating relevant polling data. Even when using polls, they typically compared responses to dozens of questions from several different polling firms before drawing conclusions.30 More than anything else, Foster tended to rely on editorial opinion from newspapers, magazines, and opinion journals from around the country. As he later explained in a retrospective look back at his work, “editorial discussions are inherently more capable of considering a foreign policy issue in depth than one or two polling questions.” He also believed that, while editorial opinion typically tracked with public opinion, reading editorials gave more insight into the sources of opinion.31 The other really important aspect of the reports is the attention paid to domestic interest groups. On countless issues, from the “Great Power Veto” in the Security Council to the UN Genocide Convention, the Office of Public Opinion Studies recorded the position of dozens and dozens of organizations—everyone from the Amalgamated Garment Workers of America to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, from Hadassah to the National Association of Women Lawyers.32

30

The polling firms Foster typically cited were the American Institute of Public Opinion (the Gallup poll), The Fortune Survey, The National Opinion Research Center (University of Denver), and the Office of Public Opinion Research (Princeton University / Hadley Cantril). Foster’s reports can be found in various subsets of Entry , RG , NA. 31 H. Schuyler Foster, Jr., Activism Replaces Isolationism: U.S. Public Attitudes, –  (Washington, D.C.: Foxhall Press, ). For an example of the breadth of editorial opinion, just one of the many surveys on public attitudes toward U.S.-Russian relations sampled opinion from The New Republic, Daily Worker, PM, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boston Herald, Philadelphia Record, Montgomery Advertiser, Waterloo Courier, Christian Science Monitor, Indianapolis Star, Charleston Gazette, Tulsa World, Boston Globe, New York Herald Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. 32 See, for example, “Organization and Newspaper Opinion on the UN Genocide Convention,”  January , Box , Entry O, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

In other cases, Foster’s office devoted entire studies to the attitudes of particular interest groups and to the organizations representing those groups. Various surveys examined the opinions of “patriotic” organizations, farmers’ collectives, church groups, and business and manufacturing associations. Although the issues addressed varied from group to group, almost all of them—especially in the immediate aftermath of World War II—boiled down to one question: How committed were they to the policies that U.S. officials associated with an expanded U.S. presence in the postwar world? With bankers and manufacturers, Foster’s office wanted to know where they stood on Bretton Woods and cartels; with “patriotic” organizations (which included veterans’ groups such as the American Legion and the VFW) it was Universal Military Training and the UN Charter; with farmers—tariffs and free trade; and with churches—arms control and an international bill of rights.33 Reading between the lines allows one to use these studies to draw more general conclusions about conceptions of the “public” in the formulation of public diplomacy. It is absolutely clear from reading these surveys that they were written not for the purpose of managing public attitudes, but rather to understand those attitudes as fully as possible. The breadth of coverage—coast to coast, institutions and organizations of all sizes—suggests an interest in documentation over manipulation. Indeed, it would have been exceedingly difficult from Foster’s reports to design a focused campaign to sway public opinion on any given issue. Of the dozens, maybe hundreds, of sources cited in any given report, where would one start? The way the reports were compiled and the methodologies used suggests that, at least on some level, policymakers believed that the attitudes of these groups and the editorial opinions expressed in the American media would become the foreign policy of the United States. In a speech he gave in , Foster explained why he approached public opinion studies in the way he did. Essentially, he channeled Archibald MacLeish:

33 “Current Attitudes of Major Business Organizations toward Foreign Policy,”  October ; “Current Attitudes of Selected Patriotic Organizations toward International Issues,”  November ; “Current Attitudes of American Farmer Organizations toward International Relations,”  February ; and “Current Attitudes of Christian Church Groups toward International Questions,”  August ; all in Box , Entry J, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



Indeed, we all now realize that any action taken by Americans in dealing even with their own local problems—without any foreign person present or directly involved—can be picked up and instantly reported around the world. With present-day means of communication this treatment may be accorded developments in any country; but it is of particular importance in the case of this Nation, which is the acknowledged champion of the people’s rights and welfare in the settlement of world problems. Any news item which affects other countries’ judgments about the United States may affect the capacity of our Nation to carry out its role of world leadership, to secure the cooperation and collaboration of other countries in carrying out programs designed to promote the peace, the prosperity, and the welfare of peoples throughout the world—including our own country.34

Foster then continued by listing all the other ways in which the public contributes to U.S. foreign relations, in the broad sense: paying taxes (i.e. supporting foreign aid), military service, consumption and trade, private travel, and exchange programs. For Foster, all of these considerations combined to shape perceptions of the United States; over none of them did the government exert complete—or even substantial—control. Foster’s tone here reveals some of the ambivalence policymakers felt in coping with the phenomenon of public participation. On the one hand, they owed their jobs to a widespread acceptance of public diplomacy. Their appeals to public involvement in the process no doubt had something to do with their desire to garner public support for a more expansive program of propaganda and cultural relations. At the same time, they recognized that the abundance of information available on domestic events and debates made their jobs as propagandists infinitely more difficult; they could not just say whatever they wanted. In many cases, framing an issue in a certain light risked their credibility abroad, while framing it in a different light risked their credibility at home. U.S. propagandists can certainly be accused of having a highly malleable conception of “truth,” but, in defining the image of America, it turned out that there were many “truths” to choose from.

34 H. Schuyler Foster, “The Role of the Public in U.S. Foreign Relations,” Address Made Before the Foreign Policy Association of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart A Radical Departure

One thing about public diplomacy that has never been adequately explained is why it generated so much hostility over such a long period of time. Between  and —from the OWI to the USIA—was there any government program or set of programs that consistently provoked greater scrutiny and outrage than public diplomacy?35 Long before anyone had ever heard of Joseph McCarthy, hostile legislators spent countless hours grilling OWI officials about harboring foreign-born employees and including in their ranks what Representative Richard Wigglesworth (R-MA) called “a great many people of extremely radical points of view.”36 After World War II, William Benton faced the same sorts of questions—in many cases from the same people—as his OWI predecessors. Every year, when public diplomats appeared before Congress to secure funding for their programs, they were subjected to the same alarmist rhetoric and demagogic denunciations of their work. Benton soon recognized that without legislation establishing public diplomacy as a permanent component of foreign policy, his programs would depend upon continually surviving the vicissitudes of the yearly appropriations process.37 During  and , he attempted to drum up support on Capitol Hill for just such a measure. He tried everything to convince Congress that “the United States Government—and specifically the State Department—cannot be indifferent to the ways in which our nation is portrayed in other countries.” He stressed the “profound changes in the conduct of foreign relations in the Twentieth Century,” the “broad base of mutual understanding which makes for world peace,” and the possibility to

35

Nor, for that matter, did this hostility and scrutiny stop with the creation of the USIA in —a move that was supposed to stem the tide of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s attacks on the State Department by removing public diplomacy from State and installing it in a separate, autonomous agency. Despite this effort, these sorts of criticisms continued, periodically, all the way up to the demise of the USIA in the s, when another conservative Republican Senator (Jesse Helms from North Carolina) again targeted the messages disseminated by U.S. public diplomats. Helms’s crusade to dismantle the USIA brought everything full circle, as public diplomacy moved back into the State Department, where it has remained, largely neglected, for the last decade. 36 Congressional Record, th Cong., st sess., vol. , pt. , . 37 These concerns became even more acute after the Congressional Reorganization Act of , which supposedly prohibited appropriations for programs without specific legal authorization. “House Group Kills Program of U.S. Broadcasts Abroad,” New York Times, April , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



“build a firmer foundation for our commerce.” He even appealed to the fiscal responsibility of Congressional conservatives, noting that the annual cost of his entire program would not even “equal the cost of a battleship.”38 But nothing worked, and the bill died in the Senate at the behest of Ohio’s Robert Taft, the powerful Republican critic of internationalism.39 In addition to the standard array of objections, John Vorys of Ohio worried that exchanges of information would dilute the United States’ comparative advantage—technologically, militarily, and economically. Mike Mansfield, then a young Democratic congressman from Montana, worried that the State Department would present a narrow vision of “America” to the world. As Mansfield put it, “you have to show them more than New York and Atlanta.” Georgia Democrat Eugene Cox, the powerful chair of the House Rules Committee, offered the most damning criticism of all: He accused Benton of trying to re-create the OWI within the State Department.40 Cox was not alone in comparing the State Department’s new public diplomacy shop to the OWI. Many of the fiercest critics of the OWI resurfaced, on cue, to denounce Benton and his operation. Senator Styles Bridges of Maryland and Representatives John Taber (NY), Karl Stefan (NE), and Richard Wigglesworth (MA) all participated vocally in both sets of debates. And none of them liked government propaganda during the Cold War any better than they had during World War II. More to the point, they simply recycled the same attacks they used during World War II about the infiltration of foreign ideologies and the political orientation of the propagandists and their message. A colorful cast of characters, the opponents of public diplomacy came from many different backgrounds and represented a variety of political factions. There were the unreconstructed Southerners, like Leonard Allen and Eugene Cox, who believed that Roosevelt and Truman had 38 U.S. Congress, House, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Interchange of Knowledge and Skills between People of the United States and Peoples of Other Countries, th Cong., st. sess., . 39 Going back to the early s, public diplomacy had always served as a symbol of Rooseveltian internationalism. After all, why would one care what the world thinks about America unless America intends to be involved in the world? As one of the last holdouts against the bipartisan ascendance of ideologies of Cold War internationalism in the United States, Taft’s opposition is not surprising; in fact, it makes perfect sense. 40 U.S. Congress, House, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Interchange of Knowledge and Skills between People of the United States and Peoples of Other Countries, th Cong., st. sess., .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

abandoned the authentic principles of the Democratic Party; the budget hawks—most notably “Generous” John Taber, the “fiscal vigilante,” who once proposed reducing government expenditures by firing one million of the . million employees on the federal payroll; the Midwestern provincials, such as Karl Stefan and John Vorys; and the zealous anticommunists like Styles Bridges, the “Gray Eminence of the Republican Party,” who blasted Roosevelt and Truman for capitulation at Yalta and (later) in China. They were a pugnacious group, to say the least. (In fact, two of them gained notoriety for getting in fist-fights on the floor of Congress.) Collectively, they regarded America’s corps of public diplomats as a hotbed of “pinks and punks” and “alien-minded radicals.”41 So what was it that so infuriated them and consistently provoked a level of vituperation utterly disproportionate to the actual amount of time and money spent on public diplomacy? Some of it, again, might be explained by partisan politics. Republicans could castigate Truman’s State Department for wasting money on a capricious extravagance—just the sort of idealistic project one would expect from the fancy-pants elitists on Foggy Bottom. After World War II, in particular, this line of criticism conveniently buttressed Republican accusations that Democrats were “soft” on communism—both overseas and within their own administration. Yet the incessant and bipartisan nature of these attacks—and the fact that the association of public diplomacy with “Communistic” behavior predated the Cold War—suggests that there was something deeper motivating them. That deeper hostility stemmed, in my view, from what the House Appropriations Committee collectively labeled “a radical departure in the methods of conducting our foreign relations.”42

41

“Rep. Cox, , Fiery Foe of Truman Dies,” Los Angeles Times,  December ; “Ex-Rep. John Taber Dies at ,” New York Times,  November ; “Styles Bridges Is Dead at ,” New York Times,  November ; “House Group Asks Free Hand on State,” Washington Post,  January ; “Alien-Minded Seen,” New York Times,  May . The two legislators who distinguished themselves by getting into fistfights were Cox and Taber. 42 This highly revealing quote comes from the report put out by the House Appropriations Committee in  explaining their decision (discussed below) to eliminate funding for public diplomacy from the State Department Budget. Excerpts from this report are to be found in “Legislative History, International Information and Educational Activities,”  August , Box , George M. Elsey Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO (cited hereafter as HSTL).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



As originally conceived by Archibald MacLeish, Robert Sherwood, William Benton, and others, the “radical departure” of U.S. public diplomacy attempted to respond to several “radical” transformations in the nature of U.S. foreign relations: first, the mobility of ideas and ideologies that posed a fundamental challenge to the authority of the nation state and its leaders in the international arena; and second, the blurring of boundaries that made U.S. domestic affairs a tangible component of the nation’s foreign relations, just as international engagements had the potential to alter domestic structures. (Certainly, Congressmen Allen and Cox sensed the “radical” implications for the existing social order in the South if international imperatives required the United States to clean up its image on civil rights.) Implicitly or explicitly, the critics of early public diplomacy invariably rejected these premises—or at least the clear implication of these premises. They did not necessarily dismiss the notion that perceptions of the United States mattered to U.S. foreign policy; in fact, they took differing positions on the importance of image. While some scoffed at the notion that the communist tide could be stemmed through words and images, others acknowledged that the United States needed some sort of public diplomacy. But the point on which all the critics agreed was that they did not like either the message or the messengers from Truman’s State Department. Between  and  public diplomacy at the State Department floundered in the face of this opposition. Officials continued to debate and hone philosophical premises, but lacked a coherent structure in which to operate. Benton continued to press for permanent legislation, but struggled to gain any traction. His final appropriations hearings as assistant secretary in March  epitomized his difficulties, as well as the political pitfalls inherent to public diplomacy. Congressional critics grilled Benton from every conceivable angle. They first sparred over the efficacy of propaganda and cultural relations. Stefan brought up the Truman Doctrine to argue that it would take tangible military and economic assistance—not “cultural and informational fanfare”—to “halt the march of totalitarianism.” Benton responded as an advertiser, pointing out that policies did not “speak for themselves,” and that economic loans and gifts could be understood in many different ways.43 43 U.S. Congress, House, Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of State Appropriation Bill for , th Cong., st sess., , –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

Stefan subsequently turned his attention to cultural issues. As so often happened in these hearings, Stefan scoured the list of materials the United States sent abroad and then, in testimony, zeroed in on the most sensational items. Most commonly, these exchanges focused on works by communists or alleged communists. Over time, policymakers got the message and removed any book, work of art, or other cultural artifact with any conceivable connection to a radical political agenda. So Stefan focused, instead, on Edmund Wilson’s moderately racy Memoirs of Hecate County, which appeared on the list of books to be sent to U.S. libraries overseas. After dramatically asking all women to leave the room, he read several choice passages aloud.44 Stefan then flashed up slides of paintings from a well-reviewed, but highly abstract, show of modern art the State Department had put together for an international tour. “Mr. Benton, what is this?” Stefan barked out. “I can’t tell you,” Benton replied. Stefan continued: “I am putting it just about a foot from your eyes. Do you know what it is?” After Benton repeated that he would not even “hazard a guess of what that picture is,” Stefan scolded him: “You paid   for it and you can’t identify it.” Stefan closed his examination of Benton by quoting from a letter he had solicited from one of his constituents—a mural painter from Shelby, Nebraska. The artist from Shelby agreed with Stefan about the exhibit, calling it the “product of a tight little group in New York”—neither “sane” nor “American in spirit.” When Stefan asked Benton whether the exhibit depicted “America as it is,” Benton responded “that was not the purpose of the art.”45 Yet this was not really true; in fact, it missed the most important point entirely. The State Department, playing its role in supplementing private cultural exchanges and conversations, put together an art show to counteract what policymakers perceived as the contemptuous attitude of foreigners toward American culture. (American culture!?) In so doing, they emphasized certain aspects of American art (abstract expressionism), while largely ignoring others (folk art and mural painting). Whether they accomplished their goal, or whether that goal was (or is) even attainable through cultural exhibits and overseas libraries, are important questions, but ancillary to the point I am making here. Benton and his staff made a calculated, strategic judgment about how best to capitalize upon Amer44

Ibid., –. Ibid, –; and “Legislative History, International Information and Educational Activities,”  August , Box , George M. Elsey Papers, HSTL. 45

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



ican culture to enhance the nation’s image. But to engage in this process was an inherently political activity, subject to endless debate about who should speak for America and what they should say. In this particular case, though, Stefan had the last word, when the House voted to slash all funds for public diplomacy from the State Department budget. This embarrassment finally pushed Benton to capitulate to those critics who preferred what I would call a conservative propaganda strategy. Conservative, here, refers not only to the message, but also a more conventional view of propaganda as a top-down, unilateral effort to tell people abroad what to think about the United States. No more “strategy of truth,” no more propaganda as an “information policy,” and no more attempts to synchronize government proclamations with the various forms of public participation. Propaganda was to be treated as quite literally a weapon of war—psychological war—and deployed as such. Benton thus sought a legislative patron to help him strike this deal, and Republican Congressman Karl Mundt of South Dakota answered his call. In May , Mundt (along with his Senate colleague, New Jersey Republican H. Alexander Smith) introduced a bill to create a permanent program in public diplomacy. Karl Mundt was not the likeliest savior, but he was the timeliest. A fierce anticommunist and a staunch critic of the New Deal, Mundt came to the defense, essentially, of a series of initiatives that conservatives associated with what they saw as the quasi-communist tilt of Franklin Roosevelt’s foreign policy. Mundt differed from many of his political compatriots, however, in that he understood the potential value of mass communications for U.S. foreign policy. A former college teacher, Mundt preached the need to spread democratic values “to bring added happiness to additional people in foreign places.” The United States “must not hide freedom’s light under a bushel,” he said.46 Over the next six months, Benton and Mundt lobbied Congress relentlessly. They cited the emerging Cold War and the mendacity of Soviet propaganda to partially re-frame their arguments in the “realist” framework of “national security.” The new Secretary of State, George Marshall, threw his weight behind the bill as well. Trading on his considerable reputation as a war hero, Marshall testified before Congress about his experiences 46 U.S. Congress, House, Hearings before a Special Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of , th Cong., st sess., , –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

with Nazi propaganda during World War II. He also persuaded his friend, Dwight Eisenhower, to testify similarly. For Marshall and Eisenhower, battlefield experiences had convinced them that image was no ephemeral triviality.47 Congressmen still bickered over what, exactly, the United States should be sending abroad. Representative Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., (R-MA) argued that the United States should distort “the facts” to polish the image of America—especially on sensitive matters such as civil rights. As Lodge put it, “since you cannot broadcast all the facts, there is a matter of selection which arises.” While conceding the advantage of trying to “make it a little more subtle than propaganda as some of the totalitarians have used it,” Lodge saw no reason to try to be objective. Fight fire with fire, he concluded.48 The tide finally began to turn after several Congressmen journeyed to Europe and the Near East in September , as part of an ambitious and well-publicized fact-finding trip to examine the information programs on the ground. The American visitors described the situation in Europe as worse than they had imagined. In their eyes, misimpressions of the United States abounded, for which they blamed Soviet propaganda. They also now viewed the problem of image through the prism of the billions of dollars the U.S. government had pledged to Europe under the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. What if Europeans perceived these aid packages as part of an American plot to take control of the European market? They finally accepted Benton’s logic on at least one point: Policies did not “speak for themselves.” In January , two years of institutional chaos came to an end when Congress passed Public Law , The United States Informational and Educational Exchange Act of .49

47 As Kenneth Osgood makes clear in Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, ), Eisenhower was a true believer in public diplomacy—especially the propaganda end—and he considerably expanded these programs as president. 48 U.S. Congress, House, Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of , th Cong., st sess., , – . 49 The best and most complete account of the European trip and its impact on the eventual passage of the Smith-Mundt Act is found in Krugler, The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles, –. For the State Department’s perspective on how the trips solidified support in Congress for Smith-Mundt, see OIE Staff Meeting,  October ; and OIE Staff Meeting,  October ; both in Box , Entry , RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



Conclusion The Smith-Mundt Act, as it was typically known in honor of its two sponsors, marked a major turning point in the early years of U.S. public diplomacy. Some historians have argued that it also represented the demise of the optimistic vision articulated by people like Archibald MacLeish, Robert Sherwood, William Benton, and others. By wedding public diplomacy to the emerging anticommunist consensus, policymakers struck a Faustian bargain, according to this narrative. They agreed, essentially, to sacrifice the pluralistic premises of early public diplomacy upon the altar of Cold War nationalism; and they subverted the “strategy of truth” in favor of the unapologetic ideological advocacy of Cold War psychological warfare.50 Although there is some legitimacy to these charges, it would be a mistake to adopt this simple declension narrative in analyzing the trajectory of U.S. public diplomacy. For one thing, it defies logic to think that the OWI—even in the early days before its various controversies and the departure of MacLeish—never sacrificed its objectivity in an all-consuming quest to defeat Nazi Germany. In fact, the unrelenting focus upon anticommunism that emerged in the wake of Smith-Mundt is probably better understood as a return to the anti-Nazi slant of World War II propaganda. The period between  and , in which U.S. propaganda existed in the absence of a clearly defined external enemy, was actually the exception to the rule. Propagandists would in some sense always have to wrestle with the “strategy of truth.” Such were the exigencies—and the inherent contradictions—of crafting a “democratic” propaganda policy. The ultimate significance of this phase of public diplomacy lies not in the success or failure of individual initiatives, but in the assumptions that drove the U.S. government to develop these kinds of programs in the first place. Policymakers throughout the Roosevelt and Truman administrations came to recognize that they would need new strategies for grappling with the erosion of traditional imperial structures and the 50 See, for example, Nancy Bernhard, U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, – (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), –; Frank Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, – (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), –; Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, – (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), –; Krugler, The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles, –; and Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda, – and –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

mobility of ideas in the American Century. Public diplomats, for their part, stepped forward to argue that in such an environment, image would become an important strategic component of U.S. foreign policy, yet a component over which policymakers actually had very little control; for image, as the point of convergence between the domestic and the foreign, grew organically from foreign perceptions not just of American policy, but of American life. In crafting their messages, U.S. officials therefore had to be cognizant of the proliferation of connections between individuals at home and individuals abroad. Or, as Robert Sherwood put it, “we think today in terms of peoples rather than nations.” Public diplomacy has not figured prominently in most general histories of U.S. foreign policy during the s—focused, as they tend to be, on the rise of the national security state. However, to introduce public diplomacy and the theory of public participation into this narrative poses a fundamental challenge to the “realist” emphasis upon power politics that drives so much of the historiography on the origins of the Cold War. Perhaps more to the point, it provides an alternate framework for thinking about the emergence of U.S. hegemony and the participation of people and groups therein. In contrast to the overwhelming emphasis upon nation states and geo-strategy, to focus upon public diplomacy during the s points us toward a different, often overlooked, set of issues that would become increasingly important to U.S. foreign relations in the coming years: the role of hearts and minds in determining the successes and failures of U.S. foreign policies. Policymakers and scholars still disagree, to be sure, on whether public diplomacy represents a viable and effective strategy for attracting hearts and minds; so, too, with the question of whether that strategy was deployed as well as it could have been. But in assessing the success or failure of individual policies, we should not overlook the fact that the creation of these initiatives, in and of itself, marked a significant change in the nature of U.S. foreign relations—a change that had profound effects upon the relation of domestic affairs to U.S. foreign relations. In the short term, policymakers like Archibald MacLeish, William Benton, and their colleagues often failed in their efforts to sell this philosophy of foreign relations to legislators, pundits, and even skeptics within their own administration. In the long run, though, the issues and the dilemmas they identified far outlasted their individual tenures within the U.S. government. In , as the State Department transferred control of public diplomacy to the newly created United States Information Agency [USIA],

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



policymakers commissioned a study of “USIA Operating Assumptions.” The product, a five-volume report totaling more than a thousand pages, surveyed the thinking of  USIA employees, in order to describe the philosophy driving U.S. public diplomacy at the dawn of the USIA. Analysts found, not surprisingly, a wide variety of ideas about how to conduct overseas propaganda and cultural exchange. They were particularly interested in documenting disagreements among policymakers, so as to identify the parameters within which subsequent debates would occur. As the authors put it: Many of the controversies within the Information Agency stem from basic and long-standing differences in outlook which are not likely to be resolved easily as a result of executive or policy decisions. In part they reflect the profound moral issues of ends and means which face democracy in its struggle with a ruthless enemy. These issues are likely to remain alive regardless of the future course of events, and regardless of the philosophy of the incumbent Agency administration, although the position of minority and majority might shift.51

In other words, different approaches to public diplomacy stemmed from different philosophies of foreign policy and foreign relations. The intractable dilemmas over how to align ends with means would continue as long as public diplomacy continued; they would not simply melt away through changes in leadership or legislation or, for that matter, the creation of an entirely new agency. Appropriately, the report concluded not with any actual conclusions, but rather with a series of more than one hundred questions that public diplomats would continue to confront as they moved forward. Among those conclusion / questions were: . At what point does distortion or slanting in news lead to a loss of credibility? . Should unfavorable news (or descriptions of unpleasant features in American life) be reported in output or should they be ignored? . When information harmful to the U.S. is reported must it always be mitigated by favorable information or explanations in the same context, or is it better to avoid any appearance of justification? . Should the program accurately reflect all aspects of life in the U.S., or should it selectively emphasize the favorable aspects?

51 “A Study of USIA Operating Assumptions,” December , Vol. , C-, Box , “Reports,” USIA Historical Collection, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



justin hart

. Should material critical of the U.S. be included in output if it is not being disseminated by other (unofficial or foreign) media? Should material critical of the U.S. be included in output if it is being disseminated by other media?52

As much as critics might have wanted to wish—or legislate—away the specter of public participation in U.S. foreign relations, public diplomats recognized that they did not have that luxury. To offer one final example of the long-term impact of the ideas that fueled the creation of U.S. public diplomacy during the s, let me turn to the work of Hans Morgenthau, the University of Chicago political scientist often credited with founding the “realist” school of international relations. Morgenthau, whose ideas did so much to shape the formation of the national security state during the s, is perhaps best known for his insistence upon treating nation states as the only authentic actors in the international arena—and their pursuit of power as the only authentic force. In Politics among Nations, the foundational text for the “realist” school first published in , Morgenthau devoted roughly a dozen of his more than five hundred pages to topics related to public diplomacy. Public opinion, propaganda, culture, and ideology make only cameo appearances in his analysis of the international system.53 Over time, though, Morgenthau came to modify his views on the importance of what Joseph Nye has influentially labeled “soft power.” While never abandoning, of course, a nation-centric view, the second edition of Politics among Nations, published in , adds extensive material on “international morality” and “world public opinion.” Although one can only speculate about Moregenthau’s reasons for adding these new sections, it should be noted that, in the eight years between the first and second editions, the entire focus of U.S. foreign policy shifted from Europe to what had by then been labeled the “third world.” The vast majority of the key issues that U.S. policymakers confronted between  and  occurred outside of Europe: the Chinese revolution, decolonization in South Asia and the Middle East, Dienbienphu, Iran, Guatemala, and the biggest event of them all, the Korean War. Each one raised the question, in one way or another, of how to win the hearts and minds of peoples in those areas.

52

Ibid., C- & C-. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ). 53

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

foreign relations as domestic affairs



Another remarkable addition to Morgenthau’s revision of Politics among Nations was a slender, but startling, passage on “domestic government and foreign policy.” Here, he reflected on the importance of domestic affairs in shaping the appeal of the American brand abroad. It is not surprising that, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board and the famous bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, he called particular attention to domestic race relations: It is not enough, however, for a government to marshal national public opinion behind its foreign policies. It must also gain the support of the public opinion of other nations for its foreign and domestic policies. This requirement is a reflection of the changes that have occurred in recent times in the character of foreign policy . . . foreign policy is being pursued in our time not only with the traditional weapons of diplomacy and military might, but also with the novel weapon of propaganda. For the struggle for power on the international scene is today not only a struggle for military supremacy and political domination, but in a specific sense a struggle for the minds of men. The power of a nation, then, depends not only upon the skill of its diplomacy and the strength of its armed forces but also upon the attractiveness for other nations of its political philosophy, political institutions, and political policies . . . A nation, for instance, that embarked upon a policy of racial discrimination could not help losing the struggle for the minds of the colored nations of the earth . . . At this point, then . . . the traditional distinction between foreign and domestic policies tends to break down. One might almost be tempted to say that there are no longer any purely domestic affairs, for whatever a nation does or does not do is held for or against it as a reflection of its political philosophy, system of government, and way of life.54

Archibald MacLeish could not have said it any better himself.

54 Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter eight CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND THE CREATION OF THE THIRD WORLD, 1947–1950

Jason C. Parker The rise to independence of European-ruled areas of Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean constituted one of the great global challenges of the Cold War, which in many of these areas was anything but a “long peace.”1 It posed a particular challenge to those members of the Truman administration whose charge it was to engage the public-diplomacy front of that war. This was in part because both constructs—Cold War and “public diplomacy”—were themselves inchoate and evolving during the years immediately after World War II. Most scholarship focuses on the Eisenhower and Kennedy years as being the most important for U.S. public diplomacy. Less well-known are the Truman years during which many of the later practices were first developed. The “formative” aspect of this period was deepened by the onset of technological changes that refined the power of mass-media to drive mass-politics. While still rough and primitive by contemporary standards, the spread of audiovisual media technologies created a new arena in which the Cold War could be fought. That arena, moreover, increasingly encompassed those tropical and subtropical areas outside Europe still ruled from the latter’s western capitals. The conceptualization of the Cold War laid out in the March  Truman Doctrine posited a challenge that was simultaneously material, ideological, and strategic. Truman’s rallying of American opinion to this fight led inevitably to the matter of proverbial “hearts and minds” at home and abroad. This, equally inevitably, led to the deeper question: whose 1 French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the phrase “Third World” to denote those parts of the globe neither in the Capitalist “First” World nor the Communist “Second”: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. For an exploration of the term, see Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton, ), chapters one and two. It has recently given way to the phrase “Global South” instead, though no disrespect is intended by the use of either as terms of convenience.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

hearts and minds? The first answer was “Europe’s,” but reflection took this further. The diagnosis on the continent, after all, was that poverty and suffering would lead those hearts and minds into the communist trap, which when snapped shut would in turn endanger Western wellbeing. Similar suffering, compounded by the non-representative politics of colonial regimes, was widespread in the world outside Europe, which was presumably just as susceptible to the radicals’ call. The expanding definition of “hearts and minds” led naturally to two further questions in Washington: who are these non-Europeans, and how can they be won over to our side? The Truman administration’s public diplomacy among these populations started late and focused wrong. In the event, playing “catchup” in this way actually redounded to U.S. advantage, as Washington thereby stumbled into an effective “minimalist” stance during the last years of the s. This stance was then abandoned in the high stakes of hot war in Korea. However, this sequence left important legacies regarding institutional setup, “modes” of strategic public-relations, and frameworks for treating the sensitive issues of decolonization and its transnational chaperone, race. These, cumulatively, point to a larger and more important legacy. While the Truman administration can be faulted for not thinking creatively enough about how to reach non-European audiences, this was nonetheless an understandable failing. Those wildly diverse audiences inhabited wildly disparate areas, from Latin America to Africa to the Asian rimlands. These lands and peoples had only in common that they were neither West nor East in the Cold War, that they had suffered European imperialism past or present, and that their inhabitants were nonwhite and mired in poverty. The act of carrying the Cold War into these environs well outside of its main European theater, via public-diplomacy meant to win over non-European hearts and minds, helped to create a non-European geopolitical bloc. U.S. public diplomacy in areas outside Europe was meant to win over peoples there to the western side. Instead, it helped to create, in a sense, the “Third World.” Most areas of what would during these years be dubbed the “Third World” did not experience the early Cold War in the same violent way that Vietnam and Korea did. They instead experienced it as public diplomacy—as a war of ideas fought mostly in the media and to which the elites of their nationalist leadership responded. Cold War public diplomacy thus spurred the “creation” of the Third World, by engendering a collective identity among imperialized areas around a core of Cold War neutralism. That neutralism began as putatively non-racial but would

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



soon become “racialized” to such a degree that by the midpoint of the Cold War—by then called nonalignment—it was the default ideology of the Third World. The Truman years were the crucial, genesis phase of this process. Case-studies in Latin America, South Asia, and the Korean regional theater illuminate the lunging American grasp of a public diplomacy practiced mainly as a reactive measure whose effectiveness was limited at best. In fairness to the Truman administration, gauging whether or not public diplomacy is succeeding is a surprisingly tall order, then as now. For the purposes of this essay, effectiveness of U.S. public diplomacy in these theaters will be judged by whether or not it perceptibly hurt or helped Washington to achieve its stated strategic objectives. This essay will also engage the grand “unintended consequence” of its thesis— the birth of the “Third World”—that transcended shorter-term policy considerations. The case-study approach, though imperfect, is meant to underline how efforts in diverse areas could begin to coalesce into a semicoherent practice and philosophy of public diplomacy by the time Truman left office. Each of the case-studies accents a key aspect of the early stages of U.S. public diplomacy. Latin America had been the site of such activities for a decade by the time the Cold War started, and represents the “default” template for non-European areas. South Asia was the first major area of Europe’s empires to win its independence, launching the era of decolonization. Finally, Korea saw the Cold War first turn into hot combat in a sensitive non-European region, putting a premium on public diplomacy in and around the war-zone. These trials-and-errors of the Truman years, born of the need to battle for hearts and minds previously disregarded, bequeathed the machinery of public diplomacy to its successor and the concept of a new geopolitical bloc at which that machinery could be targeted. The need to conduct American public diplomacy in these diverse areas slowly brought together in the Washington mind the “whole” of the Third World—a construct that nationalist leaders there would before long embrace, embellish, and repossess.

Public Diplomacy in the Early Cold War World War II had taught Washington the importance of propaganda, or political- or psychological-warfare, which had been extensively used in military operations. After the war, however, the dismantling of the machinery of U.S. public diplomacy moved in step with the broader

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

down-ratchet of the American war effort. The institutional headquarters was in the Office of War Information (OWI), and its constituent parts the Voice of America (VOA) and the U.S. Information Service (USIS), which had carried out the bulk of the OWI’s overseas activities. A bureaucratic reshuffling at war’s end sent the USIS and VOA, along with some residual “overt-operations” functions of the OWI and similar ones in the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), into the Interim International Information Service (IIIS). This in turn was folded into the State Department. The covert-operations side was housed in the newborn CIA and charged with waging psychological war. Starved for funding and unloved in their new quarters, the wartime entities’ new position raised questions about their post-hostilities mission, and degraded what little institutional memory of U.S. public diplomacy still survived.2 Yet as U.S.-Soviet tensions rose and the Cold War took more visible shape in a series of  crises, public diplomacy came back to the Truman team’s attention. The crisis in Greece and Turkey which precipitated the Truman Doctrine subtly suggested the role that “publics” might play in the jelling Cold War conflict. Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously caught this in his comment that Truman would have to “scare the hell out of the American people.” Support from the American public would obviously be necessary to undertake the conflict. But given the very rough sense of what “victory” would look like, so too would foreign publics have to be won over. Most importantly, it had become clear that the Soviets were well ahead in this respect. Soviet-sponsored propaganda, especially in frozen Europe, abounded—and indeed was among the best evidence that the Cold War was underway, and on more than just the geopolitical plane. As with the Atlantic Charter which it echoed, the ultimate writ of the Truman Doctrine was a matter of some uncertainty. In both cases, the main audience was both friend and foe in Europe. Hence the Doctrine’s support for “free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation” meant those subjugated by the communism of its adversary rather than by the imperialism of its allies. But the main audience was not the only one. As nationalists across the global South heard the Doctrine, they posed uncomfortable questions. Forcing such clarifications made clear 2 Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America’s Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, – (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), ; NSC-A,  December , U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, –: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment (Washington, D.C.: GPO, ): –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



that even if the U.S. ranked Europe as most important in the Cold War, it was not the only one listening to American pronouncements—or for that matter to Soviet propaganda. From the Truman Doctrine through the early Korean War, U.S. public diplomacy proceeded haltingly, unevenly, and often un- or counter-productively outside Europe. The mechanical difficulties of executing it at this early stage were compounded by conceptual difficulties regarding its nature, the whipsaw of the early Cold War, and the “Afro-Asian” world. The Truman administration thus came only slowly to realize the importance of public diplomacy in the emerging conflict. The Truman Doctrine did make indirect reference to it, indicting totalitarian regimes for their “controlled press and radio” that allowed the minority to subjugate the majority. But most administration attention to the subject in  focused on its role in time of hot war.3 Beyond this, what outreach the administration did actively undertake—Marshall Plan publicity, TROY, expansion of VOA—added up to a slapdash, ad hoc public-diplomacy. It also added up to a focus on Europe to the exclusion of the rest of the atlas. But the logic of the Truman Doctrine, and Cold War-charged if not -generated events outside of Europe, led elsewhere. Slowly and unevenly, U.S. public-diplomacy followed. It would be early  before American officials would term select areas on the Cold War periphery a “danger zone”: non-Europe areas of strategic importance whose loyalty and stability were unsure. Arguably even after the “danger” designation was applied, such areas would remain a secondary focus of American strategy. Indeed, what is striking in retrospect are the opportunities Washington missed to make the West’s case at this early stage. This was, in considerable measure, because the notion of a Cold War threat to the sprawling and restive “Afro-Arab-Asian world” foundered on the fact that the latter concept was itself still inchoate. Two case-studies show how that geopolitical concept and the publicdiplomacy addressed to it slowly took shape in the wake of the Truman Doctrine. The two transpired half a world apart, and were not the only non-European areas to gain the Truman administration’s attention in the late s. But the two case-studies explored here have special claim in a study of U.S. public diplomacy outside Europe.

3 Moseley to Lovett,  October , FRUS –: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker Latin America

The first case study occurred in what Roger Trask, among others, labels the first real theater of the U.S. Cold War national-security doctrine: the western hemisphere. Latin America was the first region to be drawn into the Cold War alliance system, in some ways serving as a model for those that followed. Moreover, it offers an interesting test-case for U.S. public diplomacy of those years, since it had been the target of the first forays into Washington-sponsored cultural-diplomacy during the s, when Nelson Rockefeller’s OIAA sought to expand U.S. influence in part by facilitating inter-American goodwill. Though ostensibly nonpolitical in its mission, the subtext was easy enough to perceive. A large part of the United States’ problem in Latin America since  was the image of the bullying, greedy Yankee. The Rockefeller outreach was an essential companion to FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy whose purpose was to repudiate both the fact and the image. Later in the decade, the OIAA’s mission expanded to include the countering of German influence in Latin America. The mission had shifted from being a “soft” outreach highlighting U.S. sympathy, to a mix of soft and “hard” campaigns aimed at containing Germany.4 At first glance, Latin America would thus appear to have been the ideal Third World site to practice U.S. public diplomacy. In the event, this was not the case. Even with physical and media networks—of sorts— in place, and even given the precedent of a mission that included both soft-sell cultural outreach and harder-sell undercutting of a geopolitical rival, U.S. public diplomacy in Latin America was slow to act upon the Cold War that had been “declared” in the Truman Doctrine. Instead, it followed the traditional model of interstate affairs: as something executed between diplomats and largely leaving the public out of the equation. In their reports back home, U.S. diplomats did pay close attention to Latin American press coverage—but what is striking was the degree to which American diplomats merely reported rather than try to shape that coverage. The diplomats themselves did build some relationships with select editors and reporters, but this was the extent of 4 Frank Ninkovich, Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, – (New York, ); Max Paul Friedman, Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign Against the Germans of Latin America (New York, ). On the centers’ effectiveness, see U.S. Consulate-Concepcion to State,  December , . / – , Central Decimal File, Record Group [RG] , Records of the Department of State, National Archives, College Park, MD (hereafter NA).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



U.S. efforts to shape, if that active verb does not overstate the case, Latin American public opinion. Embassy reports about the impact of the Truman Doctrine in Latin America thus focused on its reception in the print media. The day before Truman’s speech, the U.S. ambassador in Uruguay gave a sense of the local landscape. A weekly publication ran a series quite “out of character” warning that a new phase of “American colonialism and imperialism” was likely at hand, thus marking the end of the Good Neighbor. Yet a survey of embassy reports after the speech revealed less concern. Indeed, several despatches said that the Truman Doctrine had galvanized Latin American anticommunism, and raised the sensitivity to communist propaganda in the region. The U.S. Ambassador to Chile wrote Truman that “[the Doctrine] has enormously increased your popularity [among Chileans]. The press here has played up your speeches and actions.” Another despatch affirmed this conclusion by way of pointing out a Brazilian editorial arguing that, the Cold War having been declared, the Americas should line up on the right side by holding a conference to showcase the “common accord” of hemispheric peoples.5 The interesting aspect of this in Cold War terms is that the files suggest no U.S. efforts to reach the Latin American masses beyond any other means than printmedia directed at the literate stratum of the population. It bears noting that this approach seems to have paid off, in contrast to ham-handed communist propaganda which in this instance looks to have backfired. At any rate, it lent momentum to U.S. plans for just the sort of hemispheric conference that had been called for, and one which would be somewhat more-heavily promoted in U.S. public diplomacy. The Rio conference in September  produced the first of the major Cold War alliances: the Rio Pact. In terms of public-diplomacy, it 5 U.S. Embassy-Montevideo to State,  March , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. One article asserted that “the Monroe Doctrine is a cloak for colonialism and imperialism . . . [resulting in interventions in] Santo Domingo and Haiti.” U.S. EmbassyRio de Janeiro to State,  April , . / –, CDF, RG, ; Shorthand notes of Speech by Brazilian Foreign Minister Raul Fernandes, undated, Box , CDF, RG ; U.S. Embassy-Santiago to Truman,  April , folder “Chile ,” Box , PSF-Subject Files, Papers of Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri (hereafter HSTL); U.S. Embassy-Rio to State,  April , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; Memorandum of Conversation,  May , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. This meshed with the “propaganda themes” suggested by U.S. intelligence for use in Latin America, which was seen as latently anticommunist. Report, “Soviet Objectives in Latin America,”  April , folder “ORE :–,” Box , PSF-Intelligence Files, Papers of Harry S. Truman, HSTL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

resembled many such developments in that it was an elite-level conversation conducted across the Americas among journalists and diplomats. That conversation quickened as the conference approached. Washington did pay some attention to the choreography, with an eye to Latin American opinion. One official foresaw that “[Rio] would of course be a superb opportunity to dramatize the solidarity of hemisphere.” Another suggested finessing Truman’s South America itinerary to “emphasize the cooperative angle [and] avoid the impression among Latinos of monopolising [sic] the show.” In neither comment, however, is any sense that the masses were the audience; rather, elites were. As the conference approached, the Latin American press split roughly into two factions: one critical of it on ideological or nationalistic grounds, and one supportive in the name of Cold War hemispheric solidarity.6 U.S. officials kept close tabs on both. The first appeared to be winning a public-relations battle which the U.S. was hardly fighting. Aside from chatting with editors, American diplomats did little to press the case to Latin American publics even as the conference was underway and thus in the print-media spotlight daily. In contrast, the communist side often “personalized” their propaganda. Brazilian military officers, for example, discovered planted in their barracks pamphlets blasting the Rio Pact and exhorting Brazilian soldiers to undermine it. The “campaign of information against the American invaders” was hyperbolic—but it was, in comparison to the airy and elite / media-focused U.S. approach, far more on-message and market-savvy.7 These qualities did not add up to communist success in altering Brazilian policy. To the contrary, as noted above, insofar as American diplomats could discern, such bombast may have galvanized the Latin American regimes’ anticommunist resolve. But

6

U.S. Embassy-Rio to State,  April ; Weekly Review, State Department,  July , folder “: Speech and Conference Notes / Memoranda,” Box , Truman Administration Papers: Speech File, George Elsey Papers, HSTL; Truman to Woodward,  July , “State Department Correspondence, –, ,” Box , White House Central File (WHCF), Papers of Harry S. Truman, HSTL; U.S. Embassy-Montevideo to State,  July , . / –; U.S. Embassy-Montevideo to State,  August , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; U.S. Embassy-San Jose to State,  August , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; U.S. Embassy-Santiago to State,  June , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; and U.S. Embassy-Santiago to State,  September , . / –, Box , CDF, RG , NA. 7 Latin American commentators concluded this too. See the editorial attached to U.S. Embassy-Panama to State,  September , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; U.S. Embassy-Rio to State,  October , . / –, Box , CDF, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



the difference between American and communist approaches to public diplomacy was nonetheless clear. The steps involved in the latter bespeak its sophistication. Identifying such target audiences as the officer corps— the traditional arbiter of domestic power in Latin America—and getting word to them under the noses of barracks-guards suggest the greater forethought on the communist side at this stage. If activities of this kind, whether targeting elite niches or mass sentiment, did not ultimately sway the Latin American status quo to the communist side—if indeed, they backfired—they nonetheless made U.S. activities look amateur in comparison. American diplomats reported so to Foggy Bottom, but did little to change their practices in the months between Rio and its main sequel: the establishment of the Organization of American States at Bogotá, Colombia, in March . Riots outside the proceedings offered yet another instance of what U.S. officials called “communist and subversive provocation” which nonetheless gave inadvertent advantage to the U.S. side. The most charitable reading of this public-diplomacy passivity was that it was a deliberate strategy of “rope-a-dope”—that it would backfire, and evoke revulsion against the radicals. While there was some evidence of such revulsion, there is none to suggest it was the fruit of the U.S. publicdiplomacy strategy. That strategy forewent outreach to the masses in favor of an elite / print-centric approach, itself believed to be paying dividends at and after Bogotá. But U.S. success in this regard is, and was, best seen as a happy accident. For one thing, it was less U.S. success than communist failure, as the latter’s overreaching happened to produce a result favorable to Washington. For another, to the extent that both sides defined “success” as pulling Latin American regimes to one pole or the other, the U.S. had the easier task, requiring only retention of the pro-American status quo. Finally, blithe optimism about the U.S. performance could become detached from the anti-Yankee sentiment that rose along with the popularity of communism as Latin Americans sought to define their place in the Cold War order. The “happy accident” got some of Truman’s public diplomats rethinking events in Latin America around the Rio and Bogotá meetings. They began gleaning a sounder interpretation, one whose conclusion that the public-relations war was a real one, which would have to be fought if the Truman Doctrine was to be upheld, and one which the United States was losing.8 8 “Hillenkoetter as DCI,” FRUS –: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, –; see also Memorandum of Conversation, Hillenkoetter et al.,  April

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker South Asia

The second  case-study, though halfway around the globe, would reinforce this same conclusion. The transfer of power in South Asia was a landmark event in the history of the modern era. Though the subcontinent was not the first colonial area to win its independence, it was the largest, richest, and most populated—and the first to achieve it in peaceful collaboration rather than through violent confrontation. The wartime protests of Winston Churchill notwithstanding, most parties from New Delhi to Washington saw South Asian independence to be virtually inevitable. Its precise course, though, was uncertain in almost equal measure. The subcontinent encompassed a dizzying array of divisions, peace among which had been maintained by the sometimesbloody rule of the Raj. The primary division was confessional, but neither that nor the other dividing lines obeyed any geographic logic. By early , British withdrawal was certain. But how peaceful the transition and its aftermath would ultimately be, and what cartographic shape it would take, were matters of deep confusion and deeper concern. The Roosevelt administration had pressed Britain to grant independence to India during the war. The United States continued to support that process in the region Washington knew would represent the crest of the first wave of decolonization. The process, seen through American eyes, was not without its worries. The prospect of violence was serious and might bode ill for decolonization processes elsewhere. The “partition” solution of June  sought to head off such a tragedy, with what would prove to be a notable lack of success. Perhaps most important, the Indian leadership, especially Jawaharlal Nehru, was unloved in Washington. Nehru was seen as effete, diffident, and unreliable even absent the U.S. fear that he might be a Trojan horse for communism.9 Nonetheless, U.S. officials recognized that much global attention was focused on

, in ibid.; Beaulac to State,  April , FRUS,  vol. :. A  assessment judged that the Brazilian communists were ahead of the curve in targeting demographic niches—as with the barracks-pamphlets—to greater effect than the default U.S. strategy of working through regular mass-media. “Brazil” (Country Paper),  April , folder: “USIA Country Papers —Latin America and Near East,” Box , Records of International Information Administration (State Department), RG , NA. 9 See Robert McMahon, The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, Pakistan, and India – (New York: Columbia University Press, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



South Asia as decolonization approached. That made it a test-case of the U.S. Cold War doctrine still taking shape, and at least an implicit challenge to the limitations of the Truman Doctrine. The Doctrine’s declaration of “support [for] free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” did not ipso facto include Indians—but it would if those Indians, once independent, fell under a communist regime. Even before the Doctrine, some U.S. officials grasped the importance of winning over Indian public opinion as independence drew near, figuring that if nothing else this would help to check Nehru’s less-desired tendencies. Previous outreach had been unevenly effective in reaching its targets. U.S. officials had had trouble placing items in Indian newspapers since much USIS output was “not particularly adapted to Indian interests,” while library programming had proven valuable given “the political situation, with all its historical implications, [which] has focused attention of the Indian political leaders on American history,” especially the Founding and the Civil War, which many Indian leaders saw as analogous to their struggles. U.S. public diplomats in India offered to help reach that mass audience on behalf of both U.S. and Indian interests. American statements of support for Indian independence would do just that.10 Yet two things stand out, and not only for their resemblance to patterns in Latin America. First, as in Latin America, U.S. efforts were limited to print and to a lesser extent radio—and in both media, U.S. activity was far less than that sponsored by the Soviets. Partly as a result, State Department analysts reported that the Indian press was “probably the most anti-American in the world outside the East bloc”—which meant few USIS materials were being republished locally. While some of this anti-American bent owed to Soviet cultivation of Indian editors, in larger measure it owed to Indian suspicion of the U.S. as an ally of the British,

10

Merrell to State,  February , FRUS , :; Block to Secretary of State / OIC,  April , “Department of State Information Programs (IP’s)——Monthly Reports—India,” Box , Papers of Charles Hulten, HSTL; Memorandum of Conversation, Hickerson et al.,  February , FRUS , :–; Near Eastern Affairs to Secretary,  February , . / –, Box , CDF, RG , NA; Acting Secretary of State to U.S. Embassy-London,  April, , FRUS , :. According to one analysis, the America public was of equal importance in the equation, and “should be encouraged to take a greater interest than it has in the past in Indian developments in order that we may have a enlightened support for . . . our new relationship with India.” NEA to Secretary,  February , . / –, CDF, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

and to Indian disgust at Jim Crow. Second, also as in Latin America, these efforts sparked debate about the ultimate aims of American policy. U.S. officials reported that even among Indians sympathetic towards the United States, concerns about American designs ran deep: “Now that [the U.S.] has become the world’s leading power, certain sections of the Indian press have transferred their professional bitterness toward Britain to the U.S. [It thus] must be remembered that releases dealing primarily with American democracy in the abstract will be treated with suspicion by large numbers of Indian editors.”11 This was true beyond press circles. Many members of the Indian leadership—beginning with Nehru—questioned the U.S. approach to the Cold War, especially the Truman Doctrine and its implications for independent India. Using language certain to resonate in a country on the cusp of decolonization, one Indian commentator decried the Truman Doctrine as “dollar imperialism out to colonise as much of the world as it can.” The brother-in-law of Pandit Nehru told the U.S. information officer at Bombay that “the tombstone of the United Nations [will read] ‘Here lies UN, Killed March th by Harry Truman.’ ”12 Fear that the Doctrine would kill the multilateral institution in its infancy, or would provide a cover for imperialism of a new but no less powerful kind, was no doubt genuine. But it should not be overlooked that the Truman Doctrine elided something even more basic. It proposed to stand with “subjugated peoples against totalitarian (communist) domination,” while managing to sound obtuse regarding peoples subjugated by imperialist domination. It redrew the world map along East-West lines, but was vague about the North-South split that was much more on the minds of Nehru and other colonial nationalists. The latter, after reflection, began redrawing the map

11

Ogburn to Vincent,  June , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. Though India would later be a main target of Moscow’s secret Third World operations, at this time it was still “regarded as an imperialist puppet.” Christopher Andrews, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, ), . This underlines the extent to which Indian suspicions of the United States were not simply the consequence of Soviet propaganda. See also McMahon, Cold War on the Periphery, –; Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, – (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ), –; and Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), –; U.S. Embassy-New Delhi to Acheson,  May , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. 12 U.S. Consulate-Bombay to State,  June , . / –, Box ; U.S. Consulate-Bombay to State,  August , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; U.S. ConsulateBombay to State,  August , . / –, CDF, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



themselves, in ways that would reject the Truman Doctrine and the Cold War, asserting instead the unity of the latitudes that both had left behind. This intellectual landscape helps to explain why U.S. public diplomacy surrounding the arrival of independence itself was so understated. Aside from pro-forma statements of support channeled through local presselites, the U.S. team concluded that its interests at the climactic moment of independence were best served by a kind of Hippocratic publicdiplomacy determined to “first, do no harm.” This was not an unreasonable conclusion. But it essentially ceded the field to the communists who had thus far been waging the P.R. fight in India far more actively and comprehensively. Moreover, after the transfer of power, U.S. officials in New Delhi and Foggy Bottom began to wonder if their stance had in fact been the worst of both worlds: neither winning over Indian opinion, nor pulling off the anticolonialist “good-guy” role. At a minimum, officials pondered whether Indian independence had been a missed opportunity. While Indian officials thanked Washington for its thus-understated support—and began wrestling with public diplomacy problems of their own, mostly stemming from the partition violence—U.S. diplomats wondered what goodwill had been achieved, especially given that by the end of the year, the United States was beginning to be blamed for the partition violence itself.13

Race and Decolonization On closer inspection, a running theme of the anti-Americanism found in Latin America and the colonial world shows why U.S. forays in public diplomacy there—such as they were—were an uphill climb. No matter what American officials said about decolonization or race, communist propaganda ensured that U.S. problems—especially those related to race—were always equally prominent. In India, the State Department found that “Stereotyped Conceptions of the U.S.” were “unfavorable [ones] which find some acceptance . . . [through] Soviet-inspired propaganda [which] portrays the U.S. as an imperialist partner of Britain and a country that practices racial discrimination.”14 Though civil rights 13

U.S. Consulate-Bombay to State,  December , . / –, CDF, RG ,

NA. 14 State Department Report,  December , “State Information Programs—Stereotyped Concepts of US,” Box , Hulten Papers, HSTL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

activism in the U.S. had not yet coalesced into a high-profile public movement, instances of racial oppression were common enough that Soviet propagandists never wanted for material. In the wake of the Holocaust and a race-tinted war in the Pacific, sensibilities about such matters were raw. The lynching of black veterans in Monroe, Georgia would have been little remarked, because of its commonality, in earlier decades. In  it was noticed around the globe. It became one of several causes celebres, along with such embarrassments as segregation in the American capitol. By the end of the decade, the Truman administration would submit an amicus curae brief on behalf of the Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit. It did so because of the “image problems” that racism was causing the United States in the global contest for allegiance. Were there no communist propagandists—were there no Cold War—well-earned bad press of this kind would still have stained the American image abroad. But there were such propaganda operatives, and both in the main-battleground of Europe and the emerging battlegrounds of her empires, they worked to make sure such stories reached the widest possible audience.15 In this way, the public discourse about racial and other issues relating to the Third World showed the Truman administration the importance of the global public-relations battle. However, as evidenced in South Asia and Latin America, persuading the masses of American virtues via public diplomacy was practically an afterthought to the traditional kind.

The Campaign of Truth and the Third World Perhaps as a consequence of hindsight about this approach in the world outside Europe,  saw organized American public diplomacy begin to take shape on a more global scale. For Truman’s NSC, this effort was primarily reactive in nature, but its importance would rise over time, given that the months since the Truman Doctrine had seen the arrival of “psychological warfare” worldwide.16 The terminology reflected 15 Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights (Princeton, ), ; Andrews, The World Was Going Our Way, . 16 NSC-,  December , FRUS –: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, –. In June, NSC- /  outlined the ways in which the United States was to join the battle. “The Inauguration of Political Warfare,” Policy Planning Staff,  May , –; NSC- / ,  June , FRUS –: Emergence of the Intel-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



the hardening Cold War mindset, convinced not only of the conflict’s widening scope but also its rising stakes, and the need for new means to win them. This analysis animated the debates around the January  SmithMundt Act. The Act created the International Information Administration (IIA) and wrote the charter for the U.S. overseas information and cultural activities that collectively constituted U.S. public diplomacy. It thus reorganized the ad hoc arrangements inherited from the war years or created on-the-fly since, and articulated their Cold War mission. That mission still focused overwhelmingly on the East and West blocs. Although certain areas outside Europe, including India and Pakistan, would soon be designated a “danger zone” in terms of American strategy and hence in terms of public diplomacy, they were still seen as ultimately peripheral.17 What is striking at first glance is the way in which recurrent crises around the periphery defined most broadly—from Greece to South Asia to South America—only sufficed to stir the peripheries of American strategy. In a sense, missed opportunities there underlined the importance of public diplomacy. However, in acting upon this conclusion, Washington did little to change its “First-World-first” habit as the

ligence Establishment, –. NSC- /  led to the creation of the Office of Policy Coordination, which according to Mitrovich signaled the point at which “psychological warfare [was] fully ensconced in the Truman administration’s Cold War repertoire.” Mitrovich, Undermining, . He also notes the key role played by George Kennan in the “ensconcing”—which may shed light on the low priority given to the Third World in such operations, given Kennan’s ranking of that global region below Eurasia in terms of U.S. strategy. The alternating use of the terms “political,” “psychological,” and “information” warfare is instructive. See Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, ), –, on the s evolution of this terminology. On the extent to which the terms “political warfare” and “psychological warfare” represented clashing bureaucratic responsibilities, see Mitrovich, Undermining, . Only much later, in the s, would the phrase “public diplomacy” come into wide use, although Nicholas Cull finds that the term has been around long before the  coinage of its present sense. Cull, “ ‘Public Diplomacy’ Before Gullion: The Evolution of a Phrase,” http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/pdfs/gullion.pdf (accessed February , ). 17 In this the Act echoed NSC-, which argued that “the present world situation requires the immediate strengthening and coordination of all foreign information measures of the U.S. Government designed to influence attitudes in foreign countries in a direction favorable to the attainment of its objectives and to counteract effects of anti-U.S. propaganda.” NSC ,  December , FRUS –: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment; Walter Hixson, Parting the Curtain, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

postwar iteration of public-diplomacy began coming together under Smith-Mundt. In fairness to the Truman administration, they were not alone in missing the story in the decolonizing world. That story, South Asia notwithstanding, had yet to cohere. Even at moments when it came close, crises in Europe—the main theater and highest priority of U.S. strategy—eclipsed it. From spring  until spring , events outside the continent were secondary, not just in the sense of lesser importance but of positive subordination. The transfer of power in India and the outbreak of war in Malaya, for example, weighed much more heavily on Washington for their impact on British power than for their import as harbingers of race-inflected nationalism, shifts in regional balances of power, or decolonization per se. The unambiguous entry of the Cold War into an area outside Europe reoriented American thinking. The communist takeover of China in late , along with Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb and the launch of McCarthy’s crusade, prompted what Walter LaFeber calls the “big turn” in U.S. strategy. In response to the one-two-three punch of the communist menace, the Truman administration spent early  drafting NSC-. The document envisioned an apocalyptic clash of ideology and strength, and called for measures more muscular than the basically passive doctrine of containment. Instead, it prescribed active confrontation in what had become a “total” conflict broader in several varieties of scope. In April, Truman approved NSC-, sketching the American posture for a new and ominous phase of Cold War geopolitics.18 Among its other conclusions, NSC- made more explicit the redefinition of the Cold War as a test of offensive strength rather than a matter of semi-defensive siege. It went much further than had the Truman Doctrine both in terms of its geographic reach into the Third World, especially in Asia, and of its psychological dimension there and elsewhere. Consequently, the machinery of U.S. public diplomacy was retooled for the now-enlarged mission. NSC- found that the Soviets held a significant advantage on this front. This was thanks to the national communist parties’ talent for “propaganda, subversion, and espionage,” and to the Kremlin’s message: “its peace campaigns and its championing of colonial peoples . . . in the free world these ideas find favorable responses in vulnerable segments of society. They have found a particularly receptive 18 Recent scholarship by Mitrovich, Osgood, and others has shown, however, that it is easy to overstate the “rollback” qualities of NSC-, given the aggressiveness of its antecedents.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



audience in Asia.” By comparison, NSC- suggested that U.S. Cold War public diplomacy suffered from the lack of a coherent and unified narrative regarding the “values” of American society.19 Truman himself sought to address this in his  April  announcement of what he called the “Campaign of Truth.” The Campaign would reach both domestic and foreign audiences, and would represent a systematic rebuttal to communist propaganda. It would counter communist lies about American intentions and avow the superiority of free societies to audiences in critical areas. As Shawn Parry-Giles puts it, “as Truman explained, the Campaign of Truth sought to empower those enslaved by communism to gain their own freedom against the despotic forces.” It would, in a sense, be the public face of the still-secret NSC- strategy. The campaign became a focus of short-term U.S. public diplomacy abroad almost immediately. Its timing makes it of particular interest as regards the Third World. Like NSC-, the campaign became the “battle plan” during an actual shooting war by the accident of timing. When fighting broke out in Korea on  June , it seemed to vindicate the vision of the Cold War that NSC- had laid out mere months before. In similar fashion, the campaign held that an aggressive information strategy would be key to overall victory in the Cold War, including in its “hot zones” wherever they may appear. The President’s Advisory Committee on Information found that Korea showed that Truman’s call for the campaign was “even truer now than when you gave utterance to it, because of the aggression in Korea [which] has made it all the more imperative that we intensify our effort.” The chair of the Advisory Committee on Educational Exchange concurred: “Korea serve[s] as a tragic illustration of why the Campaign of Truth should be put into effect immediately.”20

19

NSC-, April , , FRUS , :, –. On the Campaign of Truth, see Laura Belmonte, Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ), –, and Steven Casey, “Selling NSC-: The Truman Administration, Public Opinion, and the Politics of Mobilization, –,” Diplomatic History  (September ): –. See also Casey, “White House Publicity Operations During the Korean War, June June ,” Presidential Studies Quarterly  (December ): –, for an analysis of Truman’s troubles in crafting a domestic message about the war; Shawn Parry-Giles, The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda, and the Cold War, – (Westport, ), ; Ethridge to Truman,  July , OF r: USACI, Box , WHCF: OF, Papers of Harry S. Truman, HSTL; Branscomb to Truman,  July , OF s: Campaign of Truth, Box , WHCF: OF, Papers of Harry S. Truman, HSTL. 20

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker Korea

Korea thus presented the first real testing-ground of revamped American policy—including public diplomacy—in the Cold War Third World. It provides an especially interesting case-study for four reasons. First, the nearly constant state of crisis during the first year of the war made improvisation important to public diplomacy, and led to the use of old, and in some cases the invention of new, forms of outreach. Second, it led as well to the overshadowing of some such forms, notably cultural diplomacy. As Richard Arndt observes, “the Campaign of Truth had four goals: create a healthy international community and unite it behind U.S. leadership; present the U.S. fairly and counter lies; stress America’s peaceful intentions as well as its preparedness for war; and reduce Soviet influence. Culture or education did not appear in [this] program.” Third, precisely because part of Washington’s rationale for going to war in Korea was its “demonstrator” effect which would prove American reliability around the region and indeed the world, the use of Korea in Third World public diplomacy offers an index of how the Truman administration saw the relationship between that outreach and overall U.S. strategy. Finally, the challenge was acute given not only the relentlessness of communist public diplomacy but also its apparent success; as William Stueck notes, as the war began “the Communists had the upper hand in the propaganda war in Asia.” By the war’s first anniversary, the administration had experimented with more and different public-diplomacy techniques than in any previous span. It had done so on the ground in Asia—and it had drawn new lessons for organizing such efforts back in Washington.21 A quick glance at the lay of the public-diplomacy land on the eve of the Korean War reveals the contrast once the war began. U.S. public information efforts in East Asia, beyond a scattering of Fulbright affiliates, consisted of VOA and intermittent print-centric outreach. VOA had a large audience but an uneven effect. In the words of one assessment its “anti-communist propaganda [was] overdone” and marked by too much “triviality in picturing local US conditions.” A complementary experiment—mailing USIE materials in plain-wrapper to private individuals in mainland China—was underway and looked promising. But 21 Richard Arndt, The First Resort of Kings (Washington: Potomac Books, ), ; William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



there as elsewhere around the littoral, the lack of consistent, centralized “messaging” across media from Washington left U.S. efforts at best short of coherence, and at worst inapplicable to local conditions. In the Philippines, for example, a lack of trained personnel, the tendency of popular media like film and radio to operate out of sync with less-accessible text media, and the failure to work within local idioms and priorities undercut U.S. success. In September , the IIA would establish one of its three Regional Service Centers (RSC) in Manila. Before the RSC came online, however, for want of any local production facilities, U.S. print output in Asia was limited and rarely timely.22 For U.S. public diplomats, Kim Il Sung’s invasion of the south provided a vivid illustration for the campaign, and prompted its accelerated deployment to areas—including Korea—which it had designated as “crucial.” The importance of the public sphere to the outbreak of war was remarked at the time, and has been detailed by scholars since. A month before the invasion, Ambassador John Muccio had pleaded with Secretary of State Dean Acheson to order USIS coverage of U.S. security commitments to include Korea: “These omissions are always noted here in Korea, and they add to the sensitivity and fear of the Korean government and Korean citizens” and could encourage belligerence from across the th parallel. Acheson himself had authored the most famous such omission in his January  speech excluding Korea from America’s “defense perimeter.” But if the invasion suggested that Muccio had been right, it also showed that more immediate and mundane public-diplomacy tasks presented themselves too. That is, it was not always possible—nor, American officials concluded, necessary—to link particular initiatives to the overarching theme. Much of the U.S. public diplomacy in the Korean theater was run by the military, as an adjunct to war operations. Much of the rest in Korea itself, and all of its offshoots in neighboring countries around the Asian littoral, was run by diplomatic public-affairs personnel on-site. Both arms made use where possible of the Campaign of Truth— but more important for the broader picture of the U.S.’s Third World public diplomacy, the two gleaned experiences that would teach Washington lessons about that diplomacy’s place in American strategy.23

22 U.S. Embassy-Tokyo to State,  May , .a /–, CDF, RG , NA; U.S. Embassy-Manila to State,  August , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. 23 Barrett to Rooney,  July , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; Muccio to Rusk,  May , .b /–, CDF, RG , NA; Dyke to Sargeant,  November , folder “Correspondence: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, –,”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

Within Korea itself, the war prompted a response of American outreach to both North and South Korean troops and civilians alike. The rapidly-shifting lines of combat meant frequent overlap of audience and message—and consequent bureaucratic skirmishes.24 Most military-run public-diplomacy aimed to demoralize North Korean troops and bolster South Korean troops and civilians. The VOA, balloons, pamphletdrops, and comic books were the main media used. Cheap to produce and easy to “piggyback” onto military operations, these were arguably the most that U.S. public diplomacy could hope to get out in the months between Kim’s invasion and the September counterattack at Inchon. The dire events and prospects of those months could not be sugar-coated, nor did U.S. officials much try to do so. This is not to say that public diplomats did not “spin” for effect. Three weeks into the war, the VOA broadcast the sunny assessment that “the military situation had gone ‘exactly according to historical precedent’—that the aggressor always wins the first battles but ‘inevitably loses the last battle.’ ” A July  study compared VOA English-language broadcasts in the Far East before and after Kim’s invasion. It found that in the latter period, programming “became more hardhitting and outspoken [and] made more frequent allusions to the conflict between the democratic and communist worlds . . . [with] more partisan and less factual material than before [the war started].”25 In hindsight, two things are striking about the public diplomacy of the war’s early months. First, the need to address it to both military and civilian audiences in a combat theater showed that strategists were basically correct about its importance in time of crisis. The first NSC foray into the subject had been to game-plan such operations for a warzone, and for a war-footing at home. Experience in the pell-mell crisis in Korea seemed to confirm the essential correctness of integrating public-outreach with military missions in real time. However, the Korean crucible also showed that effective public diplomacy required a dedicated mechanism for the civilian sector before, during, and after hostil-

Box , Papers of Howland Sargeant, HSTL. See also Mark Jacobson, “Minds then Hearts: U.S. Political and Psychological Warfare During the Korean War,” (Ph.D. Diss., Ohio State University, ). 24 See Orr to Connors, , July , .a /–, CDF, RG , NA. 25 State to Far East Posts,  July , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; Article, Washington News,  July , folder “Foreign Relations—VOA,” Box , Elsey Papers, HSTL; Report, NYU Research Center on Human Relations, July , folder “VOA —Far East Broadcasts in Cold War and Korean War,” Box , Hulten Papers, HSTL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



ities. Unfortunately for the U.S., at the moment the war had broken out that mechanism had been disorganized at best, and the constant-crisis months leading up to Inchon offered little opportunity to reorganize it. The second aspect, whose implications extended well beyond the Inchon landing, is the way in which public diplomacy treated the war around the region. A survey of the “guidance” correspondence between Washington, Korea, and U.S. outposts in Asia provides a sense of the themes, messages, targets, and spin the U.S. applied to its coverage of the crisis. Given that part of the original rationale for the strong U.S. response had been to present the world an example of American resolve, the actual treatment of the Korean “message” as U.S. fortunes ebbed and flowed is instructive. Early outreach around the Pacific littoral presented the war as a showpiece of the U.S. commitment to Asia and especially to the United Nations. Indeed, a plan to use world-famous American actor Jimmy Stewart in a public-relations campaign was scrapped because “this would not [have] enough of a UN flavor.” Guidance from Foggy Bottom to Far Eastern posts outlined the message, which was essentially the dissemination of Truman’s first Korea speech tailored to U.S. actions in Formosa, Indochina, and the Philippines. In Formosa, public diplomats were told to emphasize “that by this impartial act [of military response the] U.S. is creating situation of peace in Far East and is neutralizing a sterile conflict which is draining strength of China.” For the Philippines and Indochina, emphasis was on how U.S. actions extended “existing U.S. policy to raise shield protecting peace, freedom, and orderly progress of nations and peoples involved.” This emphasis guided USIS-Manila’s dissemination of a record amount of newspaper column-inches, stepped-up production of booklets and pamphlets in English and Tagalog, the rebroadcast of speeches by Truman and the U.S. Ambassador, and the “heavy use of cartoons.”26 26

Memorandum of Conversation, Dyke, Sargeant, et al.,  November , folder “Correspondence: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, –,” Box , Papers of Howland Sargeant, HSTL. See also NYU Report, July , and the USIS pamphlet “United Action in Korea,” whose cover featured the UN flag, with no U.S. marking to be found. Pamphlet, undated, folder: “Pamphlets—Postwar Propaganda— English ,” Box , Hulten Papers, HSTL; State to Far Eastern posts,  June , . / –, Box ; U.S. Embassy-Manila to State,  July , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. In addition to cartoons, film was widely deployed, though more about Korea than in it; a July  USIE film highlighting the multilateral response to the invasion reached an estimated global audience of thirty million. Nicholas Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, – (New York: Oxford University Press, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

But the message could be a tough sell. U.S. officials around the region conveyed the disheartening local reactions to the war’s outbreak, and underlined the difficulty of the task facing public diplomats. Not least of their problems was that the United Nations was losing. Worse, events were outrunning any attempt at damage-control. The State Department informed its public diplomats that it would depart from the prewar pattern of weekly message-dissemination—instead directing its guidance ad hoc to capitalize on opportunities and minimize damage where possible—and stressed the need to follow the given action-lines. These, interestingly, included the need for factual reporting of hard news, for putting defeats in “perspective”, and the propping up of Korean morale. Interestingly, Foggy Bottom stressed the need to obscure any extraKorean involvement that might emerge, and to emphasize the Nehru statement regarding the importance to the Afro-Asian nations of resolving the crisis and the vital role of the U.N. in doing so. In other words, U.S. public diplomacy sought to minimize the strategic dimension of the crisis by avoiding any drawing-in of other hostile powers—and simultaneously to maximize the longer-term advantage of being on the “right side” of the Afro-Asian world. The latter’s sensitivities were much in mind on both sides of the Cold War, as shown in the choice of terms of approbation: each side accusing the other of “imperialism” and “colonialism” in Korea and elsewhere.27 Two other principal themes of U.S. public diplomacy in the first months of the Korean conflict—peace and multilateralism—were above all ripostes to the communists’ public diplomacy. The Soviets had launched a “peace offensive” which connected backwards to longerstanding Soviet memes. As with the Campaign of Truth, Korea provided a media opportunity to claim that one’s side had basically been right all along. Truman sought to counter this, and sound the two “American” themes, with a speech about the Korean situation. On the ground in Asia, however, American public diplomats perceived that however they used such outreach, their success was hostage to events on the

27 Gullion to State,  June , . / –, FRUS , :; State to All Posts,  June , . / –, FRUS , :; State to Far Eastern Posts,  June , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Far Eastern Posts,  June , . / – , CDF, RG , NA; Jessup to Rusk,  July , .a /–, CDF, RG , NA; VOA Broadcast Schedule and Transcript,  July , Box , VOA Daily Broadcast Reports and Script Translations, RG —Records of the United States Information Agency, NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



battlefield: “For general world use we should emphasize we are still trading space for time. Indications tide turning in our favor still premature.” USIS officials in Asia were directed to stress Korean popular support and allied-Asian support for UN efforts, along with regional stories such as the anniversary of Indonesian independence and the expansion of VOA in Indochina. Even if the two themes resonated to varying degrees in Taipei, Manila, or Saigon, their ultimate proof would be found in a military success thus far elusive. Nor could the Soviet adjuncts to the peace offensive—continued attacks on “Yankee racism and imperialism”—be ignored. The fear that racism was America’s “Achilles’ Heel,” as Truman had put it, haunted the administration in waging war against a non-white enemy.28 The three weeks on either side of the  September Inchon landing saw a mood-swing among U.S. public diplomats. Describing a “critical stage,” the State Department on  August lamented the status quo and the lack of spinnable news. The best that could be done, officials concluded, was to hold to broader abstractions they hoped would resonate, to stress atrocities and civilian suffering at the hands of the communists, and to avoid suggesting a “turning tide” so as not to raise unmeetable expectations. Indeed, a deeper fear seemed to be taking root in the administration: that Korea was merely a microcosm of looming defeat in the larger war for hearts and minds. The success at Inchon and after suggested that conditions had changed. As news from Korea got better, though, U.S. public diplomats on the whole remained restrained, especially concerning regional analogies: “do not,” field personnel were instructed, “repeat NOT draw comparisons [between Indochina] and the Korean situation.” American officials feared that the Vietminh might spin U.S. success in defending the “independence” of Asian people to their advantage in their struggle against Paris and its American-blessed puppet, the Bao Dai regime. By month’s end, events were generating cautious optimism. 28 Ethridge to Truman et al.,  July , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Certain Posts,  July , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Certain Posts,  July ; State to Far East Posts,  July ; State to Certain Posts (incl. Far East Annex),  August , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. The line of response varied according to region. In the western hemisphere, public diplomats were guided to “continue stressing the heroic conduct of U.S. Negro troops to counteract . . . ‘white versus colored’ propaganda on the Korean conflict.” A variation aimed at Europe and Asia three weeks later instructed that the “Race Rivalry” theme was a “serious continuing problem [because it gave the impression that Westernerrs are ranged against Asians.” State to Western Hemisphere Posts,  August , . / –; State to Certain Posts,  September , . / –, CDF, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

This was reflected in the continued emphasis on such items as alliedAsian contributions to post-Inchon success, and in the comic-book and cartoon-poster distribution through which that outreach was effected.29 The Truman administration was determined to press the offensive, raising the volume on two aspects of its message to the non-European world. U.S. information personnel were told to give heavy play to Truman’s restatement of U.S. interests in Korea as a way of rebutting charges of American imperialism. U.S. support for anticolonialism and reconstruction there, “with particular emphasis on the collective character of the program,” was the first aspect. The second was renewed attack on “imperialism” in language attuned to Asian ears: “Soviet imperialism really [is the] new colonialism.” In addition, stronger emphasis was placed on tailoring themes communicated from Washington to conditions in the field. As UN forces advanced northward, U.S. public diplomats sensed and pressed their advantage. In addition to battlefield momentum, they finally had the mechanical abilities to do so too. The RPC in Manila was now operating at full speed, and producing printed materials for quick distribution in the region, in order to, in the words of one field report, “stimulate [Asian] nationalism and at the same time attack Soviet imperialism . . . [RPC output] might be considered a sort of visual VOA.”30 The entry of Chinese forces into combat after U.S. troops crossed the Yalu River ended the latter’s momentum, complicating both the military and public-diplomacy calculations. At first, in keeping with the policy of de-emphasizing any widening of the military-strategic sphere of the war—even while simultaneously applying the political-ideological spheres of the Korea “model” as a rebuke to communist imperialism— 29 State to Certain Posts,  August , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  September , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; Barrett to Acheson,  September , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  September , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Certain Posts,  September , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Certain Posts,  October , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  September , . / –, CDF, RG , NA; State to Certain Posts,  October , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. 30 State to Certain Posts (incl. Far East Annex),  October , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  October , . / –; State to Certain Posts,  October , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  October , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  October , . / –; U.S. Embassy-Manila to State,  December , . / – ; U.S. Embassy-Manila to State,  Octobert , . / –; U.S. EmbassyManila to State,  October , . / –, CDF, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



U.S. officials downplayed Chinese participation. But communist propaganda soon began to make it widely known. Public diplomats were guided to proceed prudently: “avoid staking U.S. prestige on all-out victory . . . ditto for China, let them keep face . . . avoid empty threats [and] divert word attention from this nexus.” State officers were contemplating a simpler template—“punch-lines that would stick in the audience’s mind”—for applying the Korea case around the region. However, realities soon ran this impulse into “awkward problems since, for example, the horrid words ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ are apparently excluded from the vocabulary of American officials in Indochina.” That is, the sort of usable “punch-lines” available in practice numbered quite few. Moreover, the Chinese push deepened the tendency to hedge publicdiplomacy bets: “demolish Sino-Sov[iet] charges of UN or U.S. aggressive intent and depict current developments in Korea as a renewal of previously frustrated COMMIE aggression. Re-emphasize on all occasions fact that action in Korea is UN action . . . Avoid giving China and Soviets propaganda ammunition for their ‘imperialist aggression’ theme.” Perhaps most striking of the latter, and manifesting the tendency to avoid anything that might inflame the military situation, was the walking-back of Truman’s  November comments about the possibility of using the atomic bomb.31 Others among these directives included a reinvigorated psychological counteroffensive at the global and regional levels, and a more finelytuned one at the country level. On the former, the end of November saw the attempt to limit the military and public-diplomacy damage of the Chinese onslaught, as well as a broad stock-taking of the year on both fronts. Officials in Europe and the Near East were asked for local reactions to the Chinese offensive. Public diplomats around the Asian littoral were asked to collect local examples of communist propaganda, to be forwarded to Manila for analysis and riposte. This required careful handling in other American outposts. In the Philippines, for example, officers were told to “avoid reports [of] disgruntlement [among] Filipino troops” as the momentum swung against the U.N. Overall, the end of 31 State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  November , . / –; Stephens to Barrett,  November , .b /–, CDF, RG , NA; Ogburn to Connors,  November , folder: “Political & Psychological Warfare,” Box a, Lot File D: Records of Policy Planning Staff –, Lot Files, RG ; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  November , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  November , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  December , . / –, CDF, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

 and with it the end of the first six months of the “tennis-match” Korean war elicited Washington’s determination to keep the conflict at the center of the big picture. In its December  guidance, the State Department notified its troops that “forthcoming proposals, statements, and actions will lend themselves [to] making clear that Korea is only part of the total problem.”32 Two aspects of the late- experience stand out. First, events had by then persuaded public diplomats of the nuanced nature of their task in Asia. Korea had its uses in the global spotlight, but any such use had to be carefully considered in the local and regional ones as well. For example, U.S. propaganda about the reconstruction of Japan, presented as a sign of American good-faith and stake in Asian success, caused friction among Asian neighbors who had recently suffered at Japanese hands—and who had no particular sympathy for Japanese suffering. In Korea the picture appeared less fraught—until the Chinese entry into the war, which raised fears and hopes among, for example, Indochinese who knew they might be next. Second, the extent to which Foggy Bottom was more preoccupied with how Korea “played” outside the peninsula and region than within it is quite striking. The end-of-year assessments, which included solicitation of U.S. outposts for foreign reactions to events in Korea, focused at least as much on Europe as on East Asia, let alone on the broader Afro-Asian world.33 That is, even after six months of war and nearly a year of a concerted public-diplomacy campaign, the Truman administration proceeded according to their basic strategic calculus: Asia had shown its Cold War volatility and thus importance, but Europe was still ground-zero. However, there is evidence that this was the moment when Washington began to see a more nuanced global picture—i.e., that the lessons accumulated outside Europe, from the Truman Doctrine to the Yalu River counterattack, added up to a conclusion. Namely, that combat to protect non-European areas from communism by itself was not enough to win those areas over, no matter how skillful the public diplomacy. 32

State to Certain Posts,  November , . / –; State to Certain Officers,  November , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  November , . / –; State to Certain Officers,  December , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. 33 State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  December , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. Reports to Congress on the USIE Program, for example, would soon include expanded sections on areas outside Europe (Far East, Near East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America). Moore to DeLong,  November , . / –, CDF, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



Rather, the need was for a more comprehensive policy and rhetoric. These would need to encompass not just the airy “defense of the free world and peoples” but also combine economic development a la the Point Four Program, political progress as in India and Indonesia, and cultural outreach into an overall psychological strategy in the Afro-Asian world. Moreover, frustration over U.S. shortcomings seemed to have risen as high as the now-apparent stakes. Benton lamented to Acheson that “the stepup of the [Soviet] propaganda attack . . . seems to me almost as dismaying as the attack of the Chinese armies in Korea. For all its recent expansion of educational and information exchange, State still hasn’t pitched its sights to the level of a great national-defense operation in this field—nor even close to it . . . I am far more troubled even than I was some months back by our failures in this area.”34 In early , the military situation in Korea stabilized along battlelines that would last with minor adjustments for the rest of the war. The stalemate offered the chance to apply the lessons that had been gleaned about U.S. strategy and public diplomacy’s role within it. Attention to the foreign-public sphere had been part of U.S. foreign policy since the Smith-Mundt Act. It had been given a theme in the Campaign of Truth, applied across most of the board since spring . Yet having been tested in Korea, it seemed to have just barely passed. Too many moving parts— some not moving enough, and some too far apart—and an inability to measure success hindered the enterprise even as its importance rose. By  most parties agreed that information activities were important— but none could say for sure that these were succeeding. The fact that these operations were not integrated into the main channels of foreign policy compounded the hindrance. Finally, the Chinese revolution and the Korean War had made U.S. public diplomacy’s inattention to the nonEuropean world look foolish in hindsight, and in need of attention as the revamping of public diplomacy’s institutional infrastructure proceeded in early .35 34

State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  December ; State to Certain Officers,  December , . / –; State to Certain Posts (Far East Annex),  December , . / –; Benton to Acheson,  December , . / –, CDF, RG , NA. Benton was echoing the frustrations felt by others in his area, who felt that the lack of progress on the military front was matched on the psychological / publicdiplomacy one. McFall to Rusk and Barrett,  January , .b /–, CDF, RG , NA. 35 Barrett to Rooney,  July ; Moore to DeLong,  November ; Annex  to NSC- / ,  December , FRUS , Vol. I, ; McGhee to Warren,  August , FRUS , :.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

The first inklings that such a revamping was needed had stirred in the aftermath of Inchon. A rethinking of both message and means, in and near the war-zone, was underway by year’s end. This would attempt to resolve the understandable, unfortunate tensions between “informational” and “cultural” activities, and between Washington directives and local realities. Confusion over bureaucratic responsibilities, and the turf wars it generated, drove the discussion as well. The search for a usable metric of public-diplomacy effectiveness was another source of dissatisfaction for the Truman administration, as it would prove to be for subsequent ones.36 The creation of the Psychological Strategy Board in April  moved both public diplomacy and the Afro-Asian world closer to the center of American foreign-policymaking. The PSB combined abstract thinking about strategy and how to “sell” it, with an attempt at resolving bureaucratic battles and oversight of the nuts-and-bolts needed to make the sale. In enumerating the categories and themes to be addressed, it ranked as one target “dominant attitudes [which] cut across national, economic, and cultural groupings: nationalism . . . racial consciousness [and] familiarity or the lack of it with representative institutions.” This and the rest of the taxonomy of targets would guide the PSB’s first task: conceiving “a very definite idea, of our political warfare plans, in order to know what masses of men it is supposed to move where, when.” Even then, it would face the permanent public-diplomacy problem of the gap between word and deed: “[the PSB] would always have to live with the anomaly of having control only over the secondary instrument for getting the results it is supposed to achieve.” NSC- had recommended creating the PSB a year earlier, which helped give impetus to the Campaign of Truth. But it had done so in line with the administra36 Scammon to Nitze,  September , folder: “Political & Psychological Warfare,” Box a, Lot File D: Records of Policy Planning Staff –, Lot Files, RG , NA; U.S. Embassy-Manila to State,  December , . / –; U.S. EmbassyManila to State,  December , . / –; Benton to Acheson,  December ; U.S. Embassy-Manila to State,  December , . / –; U.S. EmbassyTaipei to State,  November , .a /–, CDF, RG , NA; Memorandum of Conversation, Dyke et al.,  December , folder: “Special Projects—Korea,” Box , (IFI / D) Special Projects Files –, Lot D, Miscellaneous Lot Files, RG ; Savage to Nitze,  December , folder: “Political & Psychological Warfare,” Box a, Lot File D: Records of Policy Planning Staff –, Lot Files, RG ; U.S. Embassy-Manila to State,  December , . / –, Box , CDF, RG , NA; Rankin to Dept. Asst. Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs,  December , FRUS , :.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



tion’s Europe-first focus. Since its recommendation, Korea had broadened that scope. In addition, the PSB would oversee more than just public diplomacy; it would also cover most other forms of Cold Warfare. However, the fact that public diplomacy had attained a bureaucratic parallel with those other forms as peer activities on the PSB was a significant step. Taken together, these aspects of the PSB’s formation suggested that public diplomacy would have a higher profile in Washington and a wider scope in the world as the Truman years wound down.37 Moreover, the PSB was but the institutional aspect of Cold War public diplomacy to coalesce in the late Truman years. Its conceptual aspect had begun to do so as well, with what would prove to be far-reaching consequences. Truman’s public diplomats had gradually learned the importance of tracking their messages once disseminated. They thus paid great attention to the leaders of emerging nations, especially Nehru, China’s Mao, Indochina’s Ho Chi Minh, Egypt’s Nasser, and Argentina’s Juan Peron, in hopes of discerning which U.S. messages were or were not having the desired effect. In the course of this research, some U.S. officials noted the lateral connections between, for example, Nehru and Sukarno, and began to identify the gestating Third World bloc even before it gained that name. The Policy Planning Staff put it this way: “The rebellion of Burma against Britain [for example] is therefore essentially the same kind of thing as the rebellion of the factory worker against the power and privileges of the factory owner, or of the American Negro against white supremacy . . . It is a manifestation of class war.”38 The confluence of racial, colonial, and economic confrontations within the ideological matrix of the Cold War prompted a reassessment of the geostrategic atlas. American efforts, however halting or clumsy at this early stage, to win “hearts and minds” in the world conflict led all parties to rethink the postwar dynamic. The timing is perhaps only coincidental but is definitely suggestive. Just as American diplomats were concluding around  that the “bipolar” world contained the makings of a still-forming third entity, an obscure French demographer coined the term “Third World”

37 Osgood, Total Cold War, ; Hooker to Nitze,  March , folder “– [],” Box a, Lot File D: Records of Policy Planning Staff –, Lot Files, RG . 38 Report, “Problems of U.S. Policy Regarding Colonial Areas,” Policy Planning Staff [PPS],  October , folder: Colonialism, Box , RG —PPS –, NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

in an academic journal. Within a decade the term had become commonplace in the capitals of East and West—and across the awakening global South as well.

Conclusion Most scholarship that touches on Truman-era propaganda and other public diplomacy characterizes the administration’s efforts as late-starting, ham-handed, ad hoc, fundamentally reactive, and marginally effective at best—and this was in its highest-priority targets in Europe. Areas outside Europe saw the same, in even shorter-shrift, as the above nonEuropean examples suggest. But the bigger picture is also a clearer one. In those and other episodes outside Europe—in for example Southeast Asia and the Middle East—the Truman administration inherited a number of structures and cross-fused them with an array of ideas, themes, theories, and attempts, with predictably ineffective results. Looming largest among these was the basic ambiguity about whether such activities were best conducted as public-relations, diplomatic-, or covert-operations. This ambiguity was only partially resolved by the PSB. More broadly, if public diplomacy outside Europe was even more ersatz and ineffective than on the continent, this was a true reflection of the Truman administration’s preoccupation with Europe, and its inclination to view events there and beyond exclusively through the prism of the Cold War. Thus even when issues of race and colonialism appeared on the administration’s mental horizons, they tended to be seen, so to speak, more in various tints of red than in black, brown, yellow, and white—a conceptual “warp” that privileged the anticommunist struggle over the anticolonial one, and which goes far toward explaining the scattershot nature of the Truman team’s public diplomacy. This conceptual shortcoming was not the only reason for the lack of public-diplomacy coherence in the early Cold War. Another was technical, as new technologies were applied, from the high-end of broadcast television to the low-end of better-quality balloons. Still another was the ongoing tension between information operations and cultural diplomacy. Complicating all of the above was the basic organizational problem made vivid in the Korean theater but predating that conflict: the sheer number of government actors in play. Three months into the war, one study had reported that there were “twenty-seven agencies or parts of agencies . . . concerned with psychological warfare. [And yet it was] the

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

crisis management and missed opportunities



most talked of and least prepared for activity in Washington.”39 Hence the lack of coherence and uncertain effectiveness were arguably as much mechanical and “organic” problems as conceptual ones. Walter Hixson observes that the trajectory of information operations in the final two years of the Truman administration matched the latter’s broader downtrend and drift abroad. This owed partly, perhaps largely and paradoxically, to the stalemate on the ground in Korea. Combat would seem on its face to be the ideal motif for waging an information campaign, embodying in physical “miniature” the larger psychological conflict the U.S. sought to wage. But in practice, it became a liability, as the stalemate made it difficult to claim that progress or victory were in prospect. Nonetheless, American experiments in public diplomacy between the Truman Doctrine and the Korean stalemate left behind important institutional and “issue” legacies for its successor. Chief among these was the PSB, although as Mitrovich notes, in the end that body arguably did as much harm as practical good. Others were the need to customize programming locally, through the use of area specialists and the “tracking” of various media on the ground.40 Data collection of this kind was still unsophisticated, in the same way that telephone polling of the time was proving of limited predictive value. But efforts in this vein were seen as crucial by the time Eisenhower took office, and would ask the most difficult question of public diplomacy: Is it working? At that moment, Washington was reordering its public-diplomacy organs—now ostensibly under the PSB umbrella—in seeking the answer. Moreover, that elusive answer did not prevent follow-up questions from, and an unintended consequence in, the “Third World”: who are we, and what is our stake in the Cold War? What is our inheritance from imperial rule and exploitation, and what should be our path forward? This is not to say that the Truman administration’s conduct of the Cold War, via public diplomacy, wholly created the nascent bloc. The agency of Nehru and his colleagues over subsequent years were decisive in that 39

Scammon to Nitze,  September . As Mitrovich puts it, “the PSB not only failed to offer the necessary [agency] coordination, it exacerbated the problem.” Mitrovich, Undermining, . Evans to Hutchins,  August , and Harris to Lacy,  May , folder “Information Centers – ,” Box , Office of Administration –, RG , NA; Report, Field Operations Branch,  July , folder “NSC-—Annex V Optimum Program FY,” IIA (IFI / D) Subject Files –, Box , Lot D, Miscellaneous Lot Files, RG , NA. For examples of the “tracking” of various media deployed locally, see individual country reports in Box , IIA—Subject Files of the Administrator –, RG , NA. 40

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



jason c. parker

creation. But it takes nothing away from their efforts to note that the Cold War, as conducted from Washington, Moscow, and allied capitals, set the parameters of postwar world affairs, within which Nehru and his compatriots worked. They sought to build a solidarity in opposition to those two poles, which were being re-magnetized daily in “Third World” media, thanks to the efforts of the IIA, VOA, USIS, and their Soviet counterparts. Cold War public diplomacy thus imposed a choice on the leaders of the embryonic bloc. Those leaders, already fighting for national independence, responded by essentially adding a second dimension to that struggle. As the superpower conflict deepened in the late s, they sought not only independence from imperial rule but—through the construction of a neutralist Third World—independence from the Cold War itself. It would take American public diplomats considerable time to digest this development, which their efforts had originally engendered. As the Truman years came to a close, though, their immediate concern was to reorient their activities in ways that improved their chances of success. Following through on the push for area specialists was a switch to country-specific programs, in contrast to the one-size-fits-all approach characteristic of the Campaign of Truth. As one report headed for the desks of the incoming administration officials put it, “in the vernacular this means exchanging the shotgun for the rifle [and] it is a further long step toward enabling us to take the ‘offensive’ in the war of ideas.” In addition, the reorganization of the IIA and its media activities would “ ‘speak’ overseas more through the voice of indigenous groups.”41 In an interesting reflection on the status quo during the transition from Truman to Eisenhower, the same report wondered if the “rifle” would do the job. Lamenting the American shortcomings in public diplomacy and in a “Third World”—now entrenching in the Cold War landscape, in ways not the case only five years earlier—it seemed that “we are not really trying to win,” and that the reorganization of public diplomacy would in the end be insufficient to change that. The writer, had he known it, would have taken some solace in the fact that the incoming administration—and the awakening Afro-Asian world—had other plans.

41 Excerpt from “Report on International Information Administration—,” IIA Administrator to Secretary of State,  December , folder “Report on IIA ,” Box , IIA—Subject Files of the Administrator –, RG , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter nine FILM AS PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: THE USIA’S COLD WAR AT TWENTY-FOUR FRAMES PER SECOND Nicholas J. Cull* There is a memorable moment in the Australian comedy film The Dish () in which a small New South Wales town with a big role to play as a relay point for Apollo moon shot transmissions welcomes the U.S. ambassador. The mayor announces the national anthem of the United States and the ambassador and his wife stand proudly with hands on their hearts. But the town band strikes up not the Star Spangled Banner but the brassy chords of the theme from the TV show Hawaii Five O. The scene plays with the confusion of America’s political and cultural presence in the world, and especially the reach of American film and television. As many historians have noted, the worlds of Hollywood and diplomacy were never hermetically sealed and have at some points worked together for mutual benefit. The State Department labored to facilitate the export of films; the White House, Office of War Information and even the CIA pressed for particular themes and attitudes in feature films for export. This paper engages one—neglected—section of that story, the career of the U.S. government as a film maker in its own right, and specifically the work of the United States Information Agency as a creator and distributor of documentary films. The body of this chapter will present a narrative of the development of film at USIA, but it will conclude with an analysis of the wider role and limits of film first as a mechanism of public diplomacy and finally as a source for its

* The author is grateful to the USIA veterans whose interviews contributed to this piece especially, from USIA film / television George Stevens, Bruce Herschensohn, Walter de Hoog, Leo Seltzer, Meyer Odze, Jerry Krell, Ashley Hawken and Alvin Snyder; former USIA directors the late Leonard Marks, Frank Shakespeare, the late Jim Keogh, John Reinhardt, the late Charles Z. Wick, Bruce Gelb, Henry Catto and Joseph Duffey and numerous veterans of the field who testified about usage of USIA film, especially Mike Schneider.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

historical study. But before that narrative begins it is helpful to locate film within the wider taxonomy of public diplomacy activity. As I have argued elsewhere, public diplomacy—which I define simply as an international actor’s attempt to conduct foreign policy by engaging with a foreign public—is an umbrella term covering five distinct activities.1 These activities are listening (systematically gathering, analyzing and feeding back information from and about a foreign public into the foreign policy process), advocacy (the presentation of a policy or information to a foreign public), cultural diplomacy (the facilitated export of an aspect of the actor’s culture for a foreign policy end), exchange (the exchange of persons with the target foreign public) and international news broadcasting (the facilitated transmission of news gathered according to the norm of journalistic practice). These activities are so distinct that in some countries they are conducted by separate entities.2 The United States has historically attempted to house all elements of public diplomacy together and, indeed, a desire to play to that logic led USIA to seek out an umbrella term for these activities in the first place. While this taxonomy fits most public diplomacy work easily, film does not sit easily within these divisions. As will be seen, USIA film was usually intended as a form of advocacy work, speaking in support of specific information goals, but some films sought to support the cultural side of public diplomacy, and yet others were so infused with the form and purpose of news as to resemble a form of international broadcasting. Listening in film public diplomacy would be monitoring the filmic output of others in the target market, and this too was part of USIA’s work in the Cold War. There are even—in the days before USIA—examples of collaborative film projects, suggestive of the ethics and approaches of international exchange. Film therefore is more than just a mechanism of advocacy, and herein, as will be seen, lay part of its problem. 1

See Nicholas John Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, – (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), preface; and Nicholas John Cull, Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past. A report for the Public Diplomacy Group of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, April  (Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, ) published in abridged form as ‘Public Diplomacy: Taxonomies and Histories,’ in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, March , Volume , in a special issue on Public Diplomacy in a Changing World co-edited with Geoffrey Cowan, –. 2 Germany has separate organs for advocacy, culture, academic exchange and international broadcasting. Britain has an additional organ to facilitate off-the-record debate and exchange within its public diplomacy apparatus: a Foreign Office conference center called Wilton Park.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



Film and USIA’s Predecessors Film first figured in American public diplomacy during the First World War. The Committee on Public Information created such titles as Pershing’s Crusaders and America’s Answer and distributed them overseas sometimes by making their screening part of a package deal for receipt of Hollywood entertainment films.3 While the U.S. government retreated from such work for the duration of the inter-war period, the same approach emerged in World War Two. The Office of War Information commissioned documentary films for domestic and overseas use including a monthly Magazine of the Screen and films which introduced the American way of life to neutral, allied, and newly liberated countries. OWI films for export included The Town (), introducing a typical American small town, and The Cummington Story (), which documented the process by which four immigrant families were assimilated.4 Particular hits included the light-hearted short Autobiography of a Jeep () and the Oscar-winning The True Glory (), a compilation of combat footage documenting the European campaign made in collaboration with Britain’s Ministry of Information.5 Film also played a key role in the re-education and ‘de-Nazification’ of occupied Germany. In May  the occupation’s Information Control Division launched a weekly newsreel called Welt im Film. Its fifth issue was devoted to horrific film evidence of the mass extermination in Nazi concentration camps.6

3 United States Committee on Public Information, Complete Report of the Chairman of the Committee on Public Information ; ; . (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, ), –; George Creel, How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information. (New York: Harper & Bros, ), –, ; James R. Mock and Cedric Larson, Words That Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public Information. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), esp. –. 4 Richard Dyer MacCann, The People’s Films: A Political History of U.S. Government Motion Pictures, (New York: Hastings House, ), –; Richard Barsam, Nonfiction Film: A Critical History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ), –. 5 MacCann, The People’s Films, –, –. For an archive copy of Autobiography of a Jeep see Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Branch (hereafter MPSVB), RG  , National Archives (hereafter NA). 6 Nicholas Pronay and Keith Wilson, eds., The Political Re-education of Germany and Her Allies after World War II (London: Croom Helm, ); James F. Tent, Mission on the Rhine: Re-education and De-nazification in American Occupied Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

The Marshall Plan had a documentary film component. Information offices in each participating country commissioned and distributed films and press stories documenting America’s generosity and the wider benefits of the American economic system. The Marshall Plan films were generally commissioned from local film makers and allowed the recipients of Marshall Aid to explain the program and its associated principles to their own people. Some might call it an exercise in facilitated self-indoctrination and others a testament to ideas of democratic pluralism and an acceptance that there was no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ message. Certainly the success of the films suggests that this was a fertile path not explored in America’s later Cold War public diplomacy.7 The main thrust of postwar U.S. public diplomacy was the State Department’s information program, authorized under the Smith-Mundt Act of . The Office of International Information maintained an International Motion Picture Division under Herbert T. Edwards, formerly director of motion picture distribution for the Republican National Committee. Edwards’ staff was divided between administration offices in Washington and the Production Branch in New York City. By the end of the Truman years the division now produced some forty reels of film itself and released a further sixty reels of commercially produced material each year, in fourteen language versions and two hundred prints. By  the estimated audience for OII film topped  million worldwide.8 The International Motion Picture division did not take film for granted. In  Edwards commissioned an internal report into the special problems of using film for cross-cultural communication. The report recognized the potential of film to transcend the barrier of literacy, but suggested that there was also an element of film literacy that needed to be taken into account. Certain documentary film techniques reportedly

7

Sandra Shulberg has led a crusade to preserve and make available the Marshall Plan films, screening them around the world in seasons under the title “Selling Democracy.” She plans to make as many as possible available on-line in a digital form. In the meantime German Marshall Plan films are readily available on like through the Deutsches Historiches Museum, Berlin: http://www.dhm.de/filmarchiv/marshall-plan-filme/ ( April ). 8 Charles Hulten papers, box , Dept. of State Info Programs, , Office of International Information organization, International Motion Picture Division, esp. budget and program comparison, Harry S. Truman Library (hereafter HSTL). The figures quoted are for FY .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



confused relatively new audiences: unfamiliar objects in the background of shots; unnecessarily complex wipes and other optical effects between sequences; overly rapid cutting; flashbacks and extreme close-ups, which could be seen to represent extreme size rather than proximity, all had to be avoided. The report also suggested that sound could be used to help explain unfamiliar pictures: “the sound of a familiar ‘moo’ would help an Iranian farmer to recognize some strange, new crossbred animal as a cow.” Above all the need was to stick to the simple formula of basic story and easily understandable action that had enabled Westerns and cartoons to conquer the world. The implication was that OII film still had a long way to go.9

Film and Eisenhower’s USIA When, in August , President Eisenhower rationalized U.S. international information work within the United States Information Agency, the film components of the Marshall Plan and OII came under a single roof. By the end of  USIA film boldly claimed an annual audience worldwide of  million. USIA served  U.S. film libraries around the world. USIS posts had a total stock of , projectors and  mobile motion picture units equipped to take film to the people. Regular products included Our Times, a monthly twenty-minute newsreel of “events bearing on U.S. policies,” launched in July  and soon shown in thirty-one language versions in eighty-four countries. USIA also distributed film of presidential press conferences. The agency director Ted Streibert determined that all USIA films should be either “hard hitting anti-Communist films calculated to expose Communist lies and distortions” or “designed to support and clarify American foreign policy.” He steered the agency away from Americana which had characterized output in the OWI and State Department eras. Typical USIA films were tales of Communist oppression like My Latvia, using actual film of the Communist takeover, Poles are a Stubborn People, telling the

9 Report by Jay Dresser, Frank Gulick and Gardner Hart,  November , Hulten papers, Department of State Information Programs, —Motion Picture Program (–), HSTL. The writers were not Federal employees but contract staff with film backgrounds. They are named among industry recipients of USIE contracts in William Edwards, “Film industry writers cash in on propaganda,” Chicago Tribune,  July .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

stories of the two defectors Korowics and Hajdukiewics, or An Unpleasant Subject, which documented Communist atrocities during the Korean War.10 USIA filmmakers produced much material locally. By  over twothirds of USIA’s films were made in the field with local settings and local talent. In the first half of  USIS posts created sixty-five documentary and feature films and  newsreel releases, while only nine documentaries were created centrally. USIS made films in France, Italy, and especially South East Asia. Box office successes released without USIA attribution included Kampong Sentosa, a two-hour feature film made in Singapore about the impact of Communist guerrillas on a single village and Huk, a feature film about international Communist control of the Philippine Communist movement. USIS films in Asia were not all anticommunist blood and thunder. USIS offices in Burma, the Philippines, and Thailand created films to communicate basic ideas about citizenship and democracy. Local production of films did not always guarantee audience satisfaction. An IIA film for Iraq in which puppets performed anticommunist versions of traditional “Hoja” stories left audiences confused and appalled. Undeterred USIA produced fresh language versions of these films in .11 Political films made in Europe included a forty-minute drama-documentary called Dance to Freedom. Produced in Germany in  by the occupation film unit, Dance to Freedom told the story of the Hungarian husband and wife ballet stars, Istvan Rabovsky and Nora Kovach, who defected in May . The two recreated their escape for the cameras. Cecil B. DeMille facilitated theatrical distribution overseas.12 This was not the only agency film exported with Hollywood’s help. Agency films released theatrically overseas in early  included Atomic Power for 10 Washburn to Streibert / Jackson,  January , CF subject files, box , USIA (), White House Central Files (hereafter WHCF), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (hereafter DDEL); USIA nd Review of Operations, January – June , ; USIA rd Report to Congress, July – December , . 11 OCB progress report to NSC on implementation of the recommendations of the Jackson Committee,  September , Annex B, , Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (hereafter OSANA), NSC / Subject files, box , DDEL; Washburn to Streibert / Jackson,  January , CF subject files, box , USIA (), WHCF, DDEL; USIA rd Report to Congress, July – December , . Joyce Battle essay http:// www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB/essay.htm ( April ) re doc . USIA th Review of Operations, January – June , –. 12 Washburn to Mrs Whitman (White House),  April  and attachments, OFJ-, box , WHCF, DDEL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



Peace (through Universal), The Korea Story (through Warner Brothers), and The Life of Eisenhower (through RKO).13 Other initiatives included “Project Kingfish,” the covert subsidy by USIA of a newsreel, created by Associated Newsreel, Inc. “Kingfish” brought images of world news from a U.S. point of view to over half a million viewers in the Middle and Far East who were simply not a viable audience in commercial terms alone. The subsidy of  , each six months represented about a sixth of USIA’s total motion picture budget. USIA also had strong editorial input into the Fox Movietone newsreel News of the Day, which also appeared without attribution. Country-specific newsreels followed.14 USIA handled television separately from film under the auspices of Voice of America. The unit spent its time not so much selling the U.S. as selling the very idea of television around the world.15 As one country after another began a television service, USIA was swift to provide material to fill holes in the schedule with programs like its weekly newsreel of events in U.S. business called Industry on Parade. Originally produced by NBC for the National Association of Manufacturers, the IIA placed thirty-eight episodes of Industry on Parade in Cuba, thirty-two in Brazil, thirty-one in Venezuela, and smaller numbers of episodes in ten other countries including the UK, Italy, and France.16 USIA supplied many of its propaganda films for un-attributed use on TV around the world.17 By , USIA supplied  programs (including thirty-four original productions) to  stations and an audience estimated at forty million. Report from America, a series of monthly programs profiling American 13 Washburn to Streibert / Jackson,  January , CF subject files, box , USIA (), WHCF, DDEL. 14 “Proposed New Projects—FY  and ” and “Proposal for new or extended project or activity FY ,”  February , box , file: ‘Reprogramming,’ RG , Office of Administration, –, NA. See also Near East () (), Dwight D. Eisenhower, NSC Staff Papers, –, OCB Central Files series, OCB  / , DDEL. OCB Memo “USIA information programming to the Middle East in Present Crisis,  December ” as cited in James Vaughan, The Anglo-American Relationship and Propaganda Strategies in the Middle East, –, London: Palgrave, , . 15 Jack De Viney, History (of USIA TV and Film Service), ch. , USIA Historical Branch, item , box  (Motion Pictures), RG --, NA. 16 Correspondence file H () evidence of Richard Hubbell, head of television desk, IBS New York,  April , Jackson Committee, box , DDEL. 17 OCB progress report to NSC on implementation of the recommendations of the Jackson Committee,  September , Annex B, , OSANA NSC / Subject files, box , DDEL; placements in the UK in  included the screening of the film UN Report on Prisoners of War, refuting a Communist atrocity story, screened on  April to an audience of eight million, see, Guarco (IMS) to C.D. Jackson,  May , C.D. Jackson, box , movies, DDEL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

life and politics created in conjunction with the BBC, proved sufficiently popular in Britain to justify a prime Sunday evening slot. The London Sunday Times waxed lyrical: “What is finest about these reports is the integrity that is written all over them. America speaks for herself, through un-doctored pictures of her streets and the untrained voices of men in them.”18 Film initiatives later in the Eisenhower years included a string of documentary films about the Hungarian Rising including A Nation in Torment and Now We Are Free,19 Washington Mosque, a twenty-minute documentary displaying freedom of religion in the U.S.A.,20 and films responding to the Sputnik launch by showcasing American scientific breakthroughs such as the launch of the Explorer and Vanguard satellites or the voyage of the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus beneath the North Pole.21 USIA films maintained their audience at around , each year, and USIA television programs were seen in forty-seven countries.22 Despite its considerable output USIA film production was insignificant compared to the reach of commercial Hollywood cinema—estimated in the s in the vicinity of  million viewers a week—yet here too USIA had a discreet role. During World War Two the studios had consented to a level of guidance in scripting films dealing with subjects that might provoke controversy overseas if mishandled. In the early Cold War period the CIA oversaw this guidance but it duly passed to USIA. Hollywood was rather more sympathetic, with the major studios agreeing in the s to shape their output with foreign sensibilities in

18

Jack De Viney, History (of USIA TV and Film Service), ch. ; USIA th Report to Congress, January – June , –, USIA Historical Branch, item , box  (Motion Pictures), RG --, NA. 19 IOP Dennis / Revey to Larson, ‘USIA coverage of the Hungarian Story.’  January  and Shelton to Larson, Motion Picture Service output on the Hungarian Revolt.,  January , Director’s Office, Subject Files, –, box , file: field-Hungary, RG  -A-, NA. 20 Washburn to Bryce Harlow (White House),  April , ZZ entry  (formerly ), Director’s Chronological files, –, box , microfilm reel , RG , NA. 21 Status of National Security Projects on  June  pt. , The USIA program, , OSANA NSC / Status of Projects, box , NSC  (), DDEL; USIA th Review of Operations, January -June , , –. On the voyage of the nuclear submarine U.S.S. Nautilus below the North Pole see The Nautilus Crosses the Top of the World. USIA th Review of Operations, July  – December , , . 22 Abbott Washburn, “Accomplishments of the Eisenhower administration in the field of international information,” July , as forwarded to Eisenhower on  November , OF , box , WHCF, DDEL; USIA th Review of Operations, January -June , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



mind. In  a commission into U.S. public diplomacy chaired by industrialist Mansfield Sprague examined the contact between USIA and Hollywood in the course of its research. Its remarks constitute one of the few surviving sources even speaking of the relationship: The present voluntary arrangements between the government and the film industry appear to have worked reasonably well, at least in modifying some types of objectionable material while films are still in the production stage. The difficulties and dangers which would be involved in going beyond such arrangements do not seem justified in terms of the probable gains to be realized. Present cooperative arrangements should be strengthened where possible and the situation kept under review.23

The committee’s briefing documents include a more detailed description of the nature of these informal contacts. A secret USIA summary reported: The Agency has given much attention to the task of maintaining liaison with the U.S. motion picture industry in efforts to reduce the negative impact abroad of U.S. commercial films and to improve their positive impact. Efforts along these lines, as the [Jackson] committee recommended, have been strengthened and are believed to have been increasingly effective over the years. The relationship between the Agency and the industry is delicate and highly confidential. This relationship works best with the more responsible producers and producing organizations. However, means have been developed to exercise influence on almost all elements of the theatrical motion picture industry. On the whole, the Agency’s influence with the industry in regard to specific films has been greater in regard to film sequences having foreign policy and foreign relations implications then in regard to aspects of American life depicted. On these matters the industry prefers to be guided largely by its own domestic code and by moral standards established by importing countries.24

23

On the post-war system see Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate, Eighty-Third Congress, first session on overseas information programs of the United States (Washington DC: GPO, ), –, esp. , . See also David N. Eldridge, “ ‘Dear Owen’: the CIA, Luigi Luraschi and Hollywood, ,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television,  (), –. On the Sprague Committee see Conclusions and Recommendations of the President’s Committee on Information Activities Abroad, December , section VI.–, Administrative Series, box , Sprague Committee file , Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers as President, (Ann Whitman file), DDEL. 24 “The U.S. Information Program since July ” undated secret memo (c. ), –, USIA , box , U.S. President’s Committee of International Information Activities (Sprague Committee), DDEL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

The secret special relationship between Hollywood and USIA did not endure into the Kennedy administration, suggesting perhaps that its architects were political appointees whose service ended with the transition. What USIA lost in its cozy relationship to Hollywood it sought to gain by up-grading the quality of its own output.

The Murrow Revolution John F. Kennedy understood the value of images. He had long traded on his own, and once in the White House he set about developing America’s image overseas. His choice as USIA director—Edward R. Murrow— understood the degree to which film created the international image of the United States. He also believed that neither the stodgy and ideologically charged USIA film output of the s, nor the sensationalism of Hollywood film served the best interests of American foreign policy overseas, and took steps to change things. In November , Murrow traveled to Los Angeles to cajole the leading lights of Hollywood into producing feature films that avoided mere escapism and showed the United States in a good light. “Movies,” Murrow warned a gathering of film makers on  November, “are doing a lot of harm to America. They convey the notion that America is a country of millionaires and crooks.”25 At the same time he began the search for a dynamic head for the motion picture branch. A suitable candidate soon presented himself. A young film producer named George Stevens Jr. (the son of the legendary director of such classics as Shane) approached Murrow with a proposal for a USIA documentary on Jacqueline Kennedy’s imminent visit to Pakistan.26 Murrow swiftly realized that he had found both his producer and an ideal prestige project. Stevens offered a unique combination of youth, energy, and Hollywood connections. January  found Stevens taking the reigns of USIA film production in Washington. He pledged to “improve the quality of USIA films” and “strengthen” the agency’s “relationships with the film industry.” The Jackie film became his pilot project.27 25 “Murrow furrows H’wood brow—criticizes ‘image’ of U.S. abroad created by films . . . ” Variety,  November , and “H’wood asks Murrow provide consultant to mirror ‘image,’ ” Variety,  November . 26 George Stevens Jr., interview with author,  and  April . 27 Wilson to president, Weekly Report (Secret),  January , box ,  file USIA, Salinger papers, John F. Kennedy Library (herafter JFKL). This document noted

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



Jackie Kennedy’s European tour of June  had been one of the year’s few unqualified propaganda successes, and her visit to Pakistan seemed an ideal opportunity for a film to showcase America’s interest in the developing world. To avoid offending India, Stevens also planned a parallel documentary on her visit to that country as well. Although obliged to assign the project to the lowest bidder—in this case Hearst Metrotone— Stevens persuaded them to allow an independent, Academy Awardwinning documentarist, Leo Seltzer, to direct the films. The resulting documentaries Invitation to Pakistan and Invitation to India fulfilled Stevens’ hopes. They mixed exquisite views of India and Pakistan with images of Jackie’s tour and won critical acclaim and audience appreciation.28 Stevens followed up with plans to develop USIA’s film output by recruiting the best young documentary filmmakers and developing a “school” along the lines of that which had flourished in Britain in the s.29 It was a testament to the bipartisan spirit of the Kennedy years that Stevens united the talents of established filmmakers from across the political spectrum, including James Blue, a Paris-trained liberal, whose early work focused on life in Algeria; Charles Guggenheim a director / producer who had worked for Adlai Stevenson; and Bruce Herschensohn, a “Goldwater conservative” from Southern California, whose specialty had hitherto been making documentary films about missiles for the defense industry. Older contributors included Seltzer, and some of the best filmmakers then working in the commercial newsreels, such the Dutch-born Walter de Hoog of Hearst. Much USIA work happened at the home facilities of the filmmakers who accepted USIA contracts (Herschensohn worked in California and Guggenheim in St. Louis) but Stevens also developed in-house production with an intern program.30 that Stevens’ experience included work as a producer on The Greatest Story Ever Told and Diary of Anne Frank, both directed by his father. 28 Leo Seltzer, interview with author,  April . For a full treatment of this film see Nicholas J. Cull, “Projecting Jackie: Kennedy administration film propaganda overseas in Leo Seltzer’s Invitation to India, Invitation to Pakistan and Jacqueline Kennedy’s Asian Journey ()” in Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton, eds, Propaganda: Political Rhetoric and Identity, –. (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, ), –. 29 For a survey of the Stevens period at USIA see MacCann, The People’s Films, Interviews: Stevens, Charles Guggenheim ( April ) and Bruce Herschensohn ( January ). 30 Jerry Krell, interview with author,  April ; Meyer Odze, interview with author,  April ; Walter de Hoog, interview with author by telephone,  April , and Bruce Herschensohn,  January .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

Under Stevens’ guidance these filmmakers created a genre of propaganda film dubbed by Newsweek as the “soft policy” film. The films typically showed the human side of one of the issues then central to USIA. Early examples included films in support of the Alliance for Progress. James Blue made The School of Rincon Santo, Letter from Columbia, and in  Evil Wind Out, dealing with a Colombian doctor’s overcoming of superstition in his practice. In the same cause Bruce Herschensohn offered Bridges of the Barrios, narrated by Paul Newman.31 Seltzer added a more conventional contribution: an account of Kennedy’s visit to Mexico called Progress Through Freedom. Other regular subjects for USIA films during the era included the space program and divided Berlin. Walter de Hoog’s powerful short documentary The Wall depicted ordinary life in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. Bruce Herschensohn’s film of John Glenn’s flight: Friendship Seven, commissioned by NASA, became staple of the USIA repertoire.32 The policy sections of USIA had a minimal input into these films. As Charles Guggenheim recalled, they might generate a general idea for a film and brief the filmmaker before he began work on a project, but they did little else until the final stages of production. Young recruit Jerry Krell suspected that he had more freedom than ninety percent of filmmakers working for the TV networks at the time. As the film neared completion, the USIA area directors would gather for a screening of the “interlock” print and debate the merits of what they saw and sometimes loftily demand changes based on their knowledge as regional specialists. Stevens had little time for meddling and became a master of defending the artistic integrity of his filmmakers. He knew he could count on Murrow for full support.33 Television remained the poor sister to film creating policy-related programs for placement around the world. The television branch was especially good at rapid turnarounds, producing programs in days against the months necessary for a documentary film. Success stories included a thirteen-part series for Japan on everyday life in the U.S.—World Americana—and a fifteen-minute weekly political discussion program in Spanish and Portuguese—Panorama Panamericano—which by  could

31 The School of Rincon Santo, RG .; Letter from Columbia, RG .; Evil Wind Out, RG ., NA MPSVB. Interviews: Stevens and Herschensohn. 32 Interviews: Seltzer and Stevens. The Wall may be viewed at http://www.youtube .com/watch?v=nchMbnvTqY 33 Interviews: Guggenheim, Stevens, Krell.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



be seen in nineteen Latin American countries. USIA also helped filmmakers from about the world depict the USA.34 USIA continued to produce newsreels, often in languages like Lao for which a newsreel would not otherwise be commercially viable. The agency also maintained the classified project “Kingfish” supplying funding and footage for the newsreel that now played in twenty-nine African and Asian countries.35 Other covert projects included an unattributed newsreel for the Congo.36 In the course of  the USIA produced thirty-six films within the U.S.A., a further  overseas, and issued  newsreels. They had , film prints in circulation in  countries, reaching an estimated audience of  million people.37 The agency also managed American participation in international film festivals. Stevens made good use of films that showed America facing-up to its social and racial problems, such as Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones (), featuring the actor who personified the struggle of the African American in that period: Sidney Poitier.38 USIA’s own films on the subject of the civil rights struggle proved a valuable addition to the wider agency effort on the subject of American race relations. When Civil Rights activists gathered for the March on Washington in August  Stevens commissioned a  mm documentary film of the event. He assembled a team of his own interns and contracted cameramen from Hearst to film the event under the direction of James Blue. The film would not be ready until early . Before the completion of The March USIA filmmakers were called on to engage with an event that would arguably prove their finest hour: the assassination of President Kennedy. Within hours of the news from Dallas, George Stevens Jr. formed a plan to commemorate Kennedy’s life with a feature-length documentary film build around  mm color footage of the funeral. Murrow agreed. Following the blueprint of the March on Washington coverage, Stevens hastily arranged multiple camera positions for the funeral and secured 34 Office of Public Information to USIA employees,  October , Memoranda file , USIA box , JFKL. Interview: Ashley Hawken ( September ). 35 Wilson to president,  November , box , CF USIA, WHCF CF; Lyndon Baines Johnson Library (hereafter LBJL), Interview: Stevens,  April . 36 Murrow to president,  December ; USIA , box , Salinger papers, JFKL. 37 Journal of the SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), Vol. , . 38 Interview: George Stevens Jr.,  April .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

the services of Bruce Herschensohn to direct. The film, John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums, became the most widely seen of any agency production. Murrow insisted that Herschensohn also make a ten-minute profile of LBJ to stress political continuity.39 Just forty-five days after the assassination, the LBJ film was ready. The agency shipped more than a thousand prints in thirty-nine languages to over a hundred countries. United Artists and MGM both tacked the film onto all their big overseas releases that winter. United Artists released the film in France and the Philippines, and MGM managed Belgium, Brazil, and India. In Mexico the film played in a chain of  theaters (with an audience of fourteen million), on eleven television stations (with an audience of two million) and in schools, labor meetings and other groups.40 But this was nothing compared to the success of Years of Lightning, Day of Drums, which brilliantly inter-cut spectacular color footage of the funeral with epic scenes from Kennedy’s time in office and intimate home movies of the president with his family. USIA released the film to worldwide critical acclaim on the first anniversary of Kennedy’s death. In South Africa, the deputy-chief editor of The Johannesburg Star wrote simply: “This film makes one want to be American.”41 Also in  USIA released James Blue’s documentary about the March on Washington: The March.42 While film critics approved, politicians at home had their doubts. Johnson saw the film as a trap. In a recorded phone conversation he told the Texas Governor John Connally that if USIA withdrew The March, “every nigrah’s gonna get mad because it looks like its a reflection on him” and that the “son-of-a-bitch Washington Post” would cry censorship.43 But positive responses from the field convinced USIA that the film had immense value. The agency released the film with a prologue delivered by USIA’s new African-American director, Carl T. Rowan, framing the picture as “a profound example of the procedures unfettered men use to broaden the horizons of freedom and 39

Interview: Stevens and Herschensohn. Interview: Stevens and Herschensohn, The President, LBJL MPSVB. Wilson to president,  January , box , Salinger papers, LBJL; Rowan to president,  May , agency reports for the president, CF USIA, box , WHCF CF, LBJL. 41 Years of Lightning file, USIS Review Report, A () box , RG , USIA historical collection, NA. 42 For background and analysis of the film see Nicholas J. Cull, “Auteurs of Ideology: USIA Documentary film propaganda in the Kennedy Era as seen in Bruce Herschensohn’s The Five Cities of June () and James Blue’s The March (),” Film History, Vol. , , –. 43 LBJ / Connally,  February , tape WH., PNO., LBJL. 40

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



deepen the meaning of personal liberty.”44 With this prologue the film became a staple of agency work.45 The other major USIA film to address the issue of race was Nine from Little Rock. Directed by Charles Guggenheim, the film told the story of the later lives of the nine black students who had broken the color line to attend a previously white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in , and their careers as students, teachers, journalists, and a civil rights organizer. It presented racism in America as a local issue being addressed by a benevolent federal government. It played in ninety-seven countries and seventeen languages, and in April  it won the Oscar for best documentary short.46 USIA film also engaged the issue of Vietnam and courted controversy thereby. In January  AP journalist Peter Arnett revealed that USIA planned to include “fake” combat sequences in a documentary called Night of the Dragon directed by Richard Heffron. While USIA director Carl Rowan immediately apologized and pledged to destroy all staged footage, the eventual film included such material.47 The film— narrated by Charlton Heston—made a vivid case. It emphasized North Vietnamese aggression, Viet Cong atrocities, and the endurance of Vietnamese children. In keeping with a favorite gambit of the propaganda war at this time it placed U.S. assistance along side parallel aid from Japan, Germany, Australia, the Philippines, and South Korea. Hollywood helped get the film to the widest audience, releasing it in some countries as a double bill with the year’s hit musical My Fair Lady.48

44

Rowan’s introduction survives on the National Archives print of the film. Interview: Stevens. For legislation introduced in  to allow The March to be shown domestically (specifically excepted for a TV documentary on King) see HR , th Congress, noted in Miller (OMB) to president,  July , sf PR , , White House Office of Records Management (hereafter WHORM), Ronald Reagan Library. 46 Interview: Guggenheim; Rowan to president,  April , Ex FG, box , WHCF Ex, LBJL, Nine From Little Rock, RG ., NA MPSVB. 47 Peter Arnett, “Filming in Vietnam: ‘Battle’ is staged for USIS,” Washingon Star,  January ; Interviews: Stevens and Guggenheim; Peter Arnett, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad,  years in the world’s war zones (London: Corgi, ), –. Use included commercial screenings in the Philippines: see Marks to president,  November , doc , box , NSF Agency USIA, LBJL; Valenti / Cater to president,  May , box , ND / CO, WHCF Ex, LBJL. 48 Night of the Dragon, RG  , LBJL MPSVB. Interviews: Guggenheim and Barry Zorthian ( December ). On My Fair Lady see Robert Elder, The Information Machine: The United States Information Agency. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, ), . 45

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

The later Johnson years saw uncomfortable changes in USIA film. Rowan’s replacement, Lyndon Johnson’s lawyer Leonard Marks, worked to increase the efficiency of the motion picture branch. By merging it with the television branch to create a single entity known as IMV, he saved over a million dollars. Needless to say the filmmakers were appalled.49 Successes in these years included The Journey, an account of the Pope’s visit to the United States, which achieved a wide audience in the Philippines as an unlikely supporting picture for the James Bond film Thunderball, and Cowboy, a short film updating a favorite American theme, which was nominated in the best documentary short category in .50 Marks initially invested in Project Kingfish, and from June  distribution included Burma, Iran, and Iceland.51 Then, on  February , Marks abruptly withdrew all agency support for Kingfish in a desperate bid to head off the blow to credibility that would accompany the revelation of any covert USIA projects.52 In place of Kingfish, USIA offered Washington Correspondent, a lively TV current affairs program for the developing world. By December  the program aired in twenty-nine countries.53 Meanwhile, George Stevens had devised a plan to use Hollywood’s back catalogue for public diplomacy. In  he launched the “American Classic Feature Film Program” a collection of classic films selected by critics for prestige screenings at American embassies around the world. USIA acquired three  mm English language prints of twenty-six films including Casablanca (), Viva Zapata, () and Some Like It Hot (), and two of Stevens’ father’s films: A Place in the Sun () and Shane (). Some of the films had political value for their approach to controversial subjects such as On the Waterfront () or the racial dramas: The Defiant Ones () and Lilies of the Field (), although 49 Marks to staff,  September  and Marks to Stevens,  December , Motion Pictures / TV merger, box , Leonard Marks papers, LBJL. 50 “Films from Uncle Sam,” Newsweek,  April , . The Journey, RG ., NA, MPSVB. 51 Marks to LBJ,  March , PR Motion Pictures, box , WHCF CF subject files, LBJL. For earlier correspondence see Marks to Stevens,  October , Memos to Area & Media Directors, , box  Leonard Marks papers, LBJL; Marks to Stevens,  June , Director’s memos to area / media directors, , box , Leonard Marks papers, LBJL. 52 Marks to Kintner,  February , CF PR Motion Pictures, CF, box , WHCF, LBJL. 53 Marks to president, via Maguire,  December , Ex FG , box , WHCF, LBJL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



USIA insisted that art alone justified their selection. The entire idea that Hollywood film was art ran against anti-American prejudice in many parts of the world. The scheme proved such a success with embassies that by  USIA decided to limit publicity for fear that a “hostile” observer might attempt to read politics into the selection of films and thereby jeopardize the operation. The only hitch came in Mauritius in  when guests at a screening of Mexican revolution drama Viva Zapata took offense at the depiction of peasant rebellion against evil sugar cane growers.54 Stevens and Marks did not work well together. Marks wanted USIA films to meet local needs in posts rather than grand themes and pressed Stevens accordingly.55 Stevens realized that a government agency simply was not the place to develop a national sensibility for film as art. At the end of  he left USIA to found the American Film Institute.56 Bruce Herschensohn succeeded him. Herschensohn believed passionately in the justice of the U.S. cause in Vietnam.57 Whereas Stevens had aimed for documentary art and drawn inspiration from the British documentary movement, Herschensohn looked elsewhere. Seeking to unlock the secrets of truly persuasive motion pictures, he screened a wide range of propaganda films for his staff including U.S. wartime films and Soviet, Chinese, and Nazi German examples. Some, he realized, could only have appealed to audiences who had never seen moving pictures before, but films like Leni Reifenstahl’s Triumph of the Will still held a devastating power. Herschensohn resolved to create films for America’s cause of equal impact.58 Soft policy films remained. Carroll Ballard made a wonderful featurelength documentary called Harvest. Armed with just a camera and an old van he followed the advancing wave of corn and fruit across the U.S.A. for a year. This film earned an Oscar nomination in . The agency

54 “Classic Film program,” USIA circular,  October  and associated correspondence, box , Leonard Marks papers, LBJL; Brewer (Port Louis, Mauritius) to USIA,  August  and Herschensohn to Halsema,  September , IMV films, box , RG  ., director’s subject files, NA; Herschensohn (by this time director of Motion Pictures) defended Viva Zapata on artistic merit and noted that this was the first such complaint. 55 Interview: Marks,  May . 56 Interviews: Stevens and Guggenheim. 57 Interview: Herschensohn; USIA World, Vol. , December , box , Leonard Marks papers, LBJL. 58 Interview: Herschensohn.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

also engaged Vietnam in documentaries including The Other War, on the role of humanitarian aid and development work in the country.59 As institutional pressure to support America’s war in Vietnam grew, the most liberal filmmakers left the agency. In  James Blue completed one last film for USIA, an Oscar-nominated multi-country view of the problem of international food shortages entitled A Few Notes on our Food Problem.60 But the pressure was not always for politically outspoken films; sometimes the policy makers wanted restraint, especially in relation to the USSR. By the later s U.S. foreign policy looked for engagement with the Soviet Union. The Glassboro Summit raised expectations, and official agency policy was to avoid antagonizing the old enemy even after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in the summer of . This restraint presented severe problems in USIA’s media branches. In Motion Pictures and Television, Herschensohn found that his plans for ideologically combative films were consistently blocked. He proposed a ninety-minute film with the title The American Dream. The administration refused. He proposed eight films on “areas in which the United States might be criticized abroad.” The policy office only approved one: a Civil Rights film focusing on the Martin Luther King: The Dream of Kings. Frustrated, Herschensohn set out to make a film about the fate of the Prague Spring. Knowing that such a film would be squashed at the script stage, he resolved to create a film without a script, using only music and images, and allow the pictures to speak for themselves. Herschensohn smuggled suitable footage into USIA headquarters in anonymously labeled cans, with generic entries in the expenses ledger: “film clips:  ,.” The Czechoslovakia project was a gift awaiting the Nixon-era USIA.61

59

The Other War, RG .; NA MPSVB. Interview: Jerry Krell,  April . Basil Wright, The Long View, cited in Gerald O’Grady, ‘Eulogy for James Blue,’ Independent, Vol. , July , –. Film Comment, Vol. , January / February , . Blue found his niche as a writer and teacher, at UCLA, Rice, SUNY Buffalo and the National Film School in London, where he worked as the head of the directorial department. On Blue’s later work see Peter Lunenfeld, “ ‘There are people in the streets who’ve never had a chance to speak’: James Blue and the Complex Documentary,” Journal of Film and Video, Spring , –. For obituaries see Colin Young, ‘James Blue,’ Sight and Sound, Vol. , Autumn , –; Gerald O’Grady, “Eulogy for James Blue,” Independent, Vol. , July ; Continental Film and Video Review, Vol. , November  and Film Comment, Vol. , January / February , –. 61 Interview: Herschensohn; Paul Grimes, “Conservatives surround USIA boss,” Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin,  October ; Len Baldyga to author,  August . 60

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



The Nixon Era Nixon’s director of USIA had a lively interest in film and TV—he was Frank Shakespeare a senior CBS executive. His approach was to allow creative freedom to his media divisions, and was delighted to find an ideological sole-mate in place in Bruce Herschensohn to direct the film effort. Herschensohn’s first priority in the Motion Picture and Television Branch was the completion of the Czechoslovakia film. Working with Denis Sanders and Robert M. Fresco, Herschensohn developed Czechoslovakia  a short film assembled from photographs and newsreel images of Czechoslovakia throughout the twentieth century.62 While the agency’s policy officers hated it, Shakespeare insisted that the film be released in time for the first anniversary of the Soviet invasion for use as individual PAOs thought best. It was very widely placed for both television and theatrical showings with excellent reactions. In April  it won an Oscar for the best documentary short. It was a testament to the quality of USIA’s output that other nominees for the Academy Award in  included a second USIA film: An Impression of John Steinbeck: Writer.63 Other agency offerings of the era included a moving obituary film for Eisenhower and a spectacular account of Apollo XI, directed by Walter de Hoog called The Infinite Journey.64 Herschensohn also sank some  , into a fifteen-minute profile of Vice President Spiro Agnew, narrated by John Wayne. The New York Times quipped that the volatile vice president represented an excellent choice for a USIA film as “the United States has few public relations problems of greater magnitude.”65 62

Czechoslovakia , RG ., NA MPSVB; Rosenfeld (I / R) to Shakespeare,  October , MVP-, Effectiveness, Evaluation, Assessment, box , RG  ., director’s subject files, NA. 63 Interview: Herschensohn; Aggrey (IMV / M) to Herschensohn,  September ; file: Motion Pictures, item , box ; RG .., USIA Historical branch, NA, On problems distributing in Germany see Ewing (PAO Bonn) to Herschensohn,  December , box , IMV films, director’s subject files, RG  ., NA. 64 Infinite Journey, RG ., NA MPSVB; Interview: De Hoog. Field reactions to Infinite Journey were mixed. In London, Britain’s government film division which often distributed USIS films through its film library thought the film “too pretentious and too long by half.” A Twentieth Century Fox equivalent had arrived some months earlier. UK Country Program Memo FY ,  June , file , box , State Department Bureau of Cultural Affairs collection, University of Arkansas. 65 Agnew, RG ., NA MPSVB; Interview: Herschensohn; Robert M. Smith, “Information Agency film on Agnew presents him as forthright and foe of racial discrimination,” New York Times,  July ,  and editorial,  July , ; Rosenfeld

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

Herschensohn’s other pet project was a documentary feature in defense of the Vietnam War which he commissioned by his boy-hood idol, Western film legend, John Ford.66 Ford himself visited Vietnam to oversee some of the making, but it was Herschensohn who managed the editing and successive versions of the hard-hitting script. By , after three years and  , the film—Vietnam! Vietnam!—was ready, but the agency now doubted the wisdom of releasing it. Only twenty-nine posts ever screened the film.67 Shortly thereafter Herschensohn was obliged to quit USIA for having publicly called Senator Fulbright—who was then attacking USIA as a relic of the Cold War—stupid. He swiftly found a niche on the media staff of Nixon’s White House.68

USIA Film in Decline In the years following Watergate USIA film steadily declined in significance in part because the commercial media was now so much more easily available overseas. Shakespeare’s successor, Jim Keogh, worked to use USIA film to fill the gaps left by the commercial view of America, commissioning series like Science Report to a touching half-hour documentary following the journey of a truck driver called Barney Barnetzke and his encounters with working men along the way: Stout Hearts, Strong Hands directed by Ashley Hawken. Hollywood did not document either American technical innovation or hardworking blue-collar lives.

(I / R) to Loomis, ‘Media reaction to “Agnew” film.’  July , IMV films, box , director’s subject files, RG  ., NA. For cartoon see Oliphant in Denver Post,  July . 66 Interview: Herschensohn, Vietnam! Vietnam! RG ., NA MPSVB. For the full text of Nixon’s speech see Public Papers of the Presidents: Richard Nixon, , doc. , Address before the th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations,  September , –. 67 Shakespeare to all PAOs,  August  and on unsuitability for Chile see Halsema to Herschensohn,  September , MTV-Films, , box , , director’s subject files, RG  ., NA. On the budget see Tad Szulc, ‘ , USIA Movie on Vietnam,  years in the Making, Being Shelved.’ New York Times,  June ; ‘Failures in USIA’s film program hit.’ Motion Picture Daily,  January , –; the release figure is in McBride, ‘Drums along the Mekong,’ . 68 Interview: Herschensohn; Frank Shakespeare ( January ); Richard L. Madden, ‘Fulbright urges ban on USIA film.’ New York Times,  March , ; Herschensohn to Shakespeare,  March  and reply  April , box , Exec. FG  (USIA), WHCF, RNPM. Also Loomis to Fulbright,  April  and Shakespeare to Fulbright,  March , box , Fulbright papers, University of Arkansas.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



Keogh noted that Science Report played on TV in seventy-nine countries. Together with Visions it accounted for two-thirds of agency film output.69 USIA’s Motion Picture and Television Service produced material to support the massive agency initiative to celebrate the bicentennial in  and trawled through the output of state film commissions and commercial producers to identify existing bicentennial films suitable for export. IMV also launched projects of its own. A series of half-hour programs called Century III explored areas of the future while a series of one-hour profiles called Reflections invited distinguished Americans such as Margaret Meade to look back over their life and work. The agency commissioned a series of student films on bicentennial themes. USIA also obtained special legislation to allow for the domestic release of some of USIA’s back-catalogue including The Numbers Start with the River, a treatment of a small Iowa town, Echoes which dramatized themes from U.S. history through the monuments in Washington, D.C., and two of the student films: Rendezvous recreating the life of pioneer fur trappers in Wyoming and , a three-minute psychedelic animated “trip” through American culture and symbols created by Vince Collins, best known for his work on Sesame Street and the cult classic Malice in Wonderland. Collins’ film was in no small measure subversive. At one point the map of the U.S. morphs into a horn of plenty which then in succession spews forth model T Fords, hamburgers, hotdogs and baseballs. The climax of Bicentennial work was a special television program called Salute by Satellite which used a mix of live feeds and prerecorded spots to cover the bicentennial festivities around the U.S. on  and  July.70 The Carter years saw a crop of films dealing with that administration’s human rights initiative, and some interesting treatments of agency arts activity in Africa, but none was a roaring success within the agency 69 Opening statement of James Keogh, director USIA before the committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. senate,  May , FG, box , WHCF subject files, Gerald R. Ford Library (hereafter GRFL). 70 USIA and the Bicentennial, report ca.  April ; file: USIA report; box , John Marsh files –, GRFL; Jerry Scott, “The Bicentennial on film and VTR: a report from IMV,” USIA World, vol. , July , filed in items , box  (movies); RG--, (USIA historical branch), NA; Hidalgo (IGC) to Scott (IMV),  December ; file: USIA, box , Kuropas papers, GRFL; “Congress authorizes domestic use of seven USIA films” USIA World, Vol. , October , filed in NA RG-A () USIA historical branch box  (motion pictures).  may be viewed on-line at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZRGEYcHMvk.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

or with audiences. Elsewhere in the agency budgets dwindled and— despite a re-organization which brought the new name United States International Communication Agency and a mandate to inform the American people about the rest of the world—the agency seemed in decline.

The Reagan Years The election of Ronald Reagan brought a president who understood the value of communication and, indeed, had campaigned on the need to rebuild USICA. His choice of USIA director—Charles Z. Wick—had worked as a film producer and was a great enthusiast for visual communication. Wick’s particular enthusiasm was for the medium of satellite television, and he pumped money into satellite TV specials like a multi-country spectacular in support of Solidarity called Let Poland Be Poland. He began a series of interactive interview programs which used satellite dishes at U.S. embassies to link local journalists to speakers in the U.S. under the brand name WORLDNET. WORLDNET soon added its own programs and newscasts and offered a visual equivalent of VOA to people with the necessary satellite dishes and certain European cable systems who cablecast the feed. It was an idea before its time.71 Film, now junior partner to TV, rallied to present the big issues of the era to the world. A USIA crew took Kirk Douglas to Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan in a moving documentary by Ashley Hawken called Thanksgiving in Peshawar, which was screened in seventy countries.72 USIA also drew together material filmed by thirteen broadcasters around the world to create Afghanistan: The Hidden War, an hour-long documentary which included actual scenes of combat between the Mujahedeen and the Soviet army.73 USIA also launched a fascinating exercise in what would now be called the public diplomacy of empowerment, training Afghan allies to record their own experiences in what was called

71 For a convenient summary of the Reagan-era USIA with an emphasis on film and TV activity see Alvin Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War. (New York: Arcade Publishing, ). 72 ‘USIA initiatives since June , ,’  June , , sf FG , , WHORM, RRL. 73 Wick to William P. Clark,  August ; sf FO –, , WHORM, RRL.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



the “Afghan media project.” USIA awarded a substantial grant to Boston University to teach journalism at an Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC) in Peshawar, Pakistan, and an even larger grant to the Hearst Corporation and King Features Syndicate to help AMRC produce, market, and distribute media materials created by Afghans. The combined school and news agency opened for business in February . Soon Afghan fighters crossed the border armed with USIA video cameras and the skills to use them. The astonishing combat footage, stills, and text they brought back opened the Afghan struggle to the world as never before.74 Other productions included Science World a series of documentaries on U.S. science which played in eighty-three countries including China; Solidarnosc, a ten minute montage of images which told tell the story of the movement; Human Rights: The Universal Struggle, a half-hour documentary produced in English, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Portuguese; a film exploring the involvement of the Communist bloc in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II,75 and USIA film’s contribution to the war on drugs: A Trip. Produced by Ashley Hawken this film displayed the impact of drug trafficking on individuals and their families, and was particularly sought after by drug educators in Latin America.76 But it was not USIA’s addition to the sum of world cinema which made headlines, rather its subtractions. In the mid s it emerged that USIA had been refusing duty free export licenses for American educational films which it felt showed the country in a negative light. In December  a group of filmmakers sued the agency for infringing their first

74

Lindburg (USIA acting gen. counsel / cong liaison) to Cooper (Dept of Justice),  February ; Burnett to Raymong (NSC),  August , file: Afghan Media Project, misc. files, s–s, RG  A () box , USIA historical collection, NA. Lionel Barber, “Afghan rebels financed for propaganda war,” Washington Post,  August , A. For a narrative of the project see Alvin Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, – . 75 “USIA initiatives since June , ,”  June , , , , sf FG , , WHORM, RRL; Project Truth progress report September to December : USIA television and film services, productions and acquisitions supporting Project Truth. sf FG , , WHORM, RRL. 76 Araujo to Barun (Office of the First Lady),  October , sf PR –, , WHORM, RRL; McGuire (USIA) to Turner,  December , sf FG ,  PD, WHORM, RRL also Burke (WORLDNET) to Turner,  November  including script etc. CI , USIA WORLDNET (), OA ,, Donald Ian MacDonald files, RRL. Allen C. Hansen, USIA: Public Diplomacy in the Computer Age. nd edition, (New York: Praeger, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

amendment rights.77 The case, known as Bullfrog v. Wick, dragged on until  when the courts found for the filmmakers and affirmed their entitlement to recover their costs.78

Public Diplomacy Film after the Cold War Following the end of the Cold War USIA film and the agency itself went into a major decline. Films appeared from time to time highlighting issues of concern to the agency. A firm on the ecology of reefs called Fragile Rim of Life won awards as did a moving film called Crimes Against Humanity on the treatment of trauma in child victims of the war in Bosnia created by agency veterans Meyer Odze and Jerry Krell. The major reorganization of  which merged USIA into the State Department, brought news elements of WORLDNET under the same room as VOA under the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The burden of America’s visual public diplomacy was now carried by VOA which had added TV services to several key languages, and the TV stations set up to serve particular markets, the best known being Al Hurra, the BBG’s Arabic language news station. Even in the age of satellite television film still has its place. In the autumn of  under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Karen Hughes, unveiled a film called Three Faiths which looked at the valued shared between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The director was one of George Steven’s original interns, Jerry Krell.

Film as Public Diplomacy While the career of USIA film—like that of the wider agency—has no shortage of engaging characters and spectacular successes, the medium 77 For summary history (), and texts of the Beirut Agreement and USIA’s regulations see file: Motion Pictures, ; box , USIA historical branch, subject files, RG A (), NA. 78 Katherine Macdonald, “Filmmakers sue USIA: Politics in distribution alleged,” Washington Post,  December , A; Deborah Caulfield, “Producers sue: USIA called censor of film exports,” Los Angeles Times,  October , ; Bill McAllister, “Court pans USIA’s case on rating film exports,” Washington Post,  March , A; note in “Attorneys’ column,” LA Times,  April  re: Bullfrog Films v. Catto, USDC (Cent Dist. Cal.), no. –,  March , Tashmia, J.,  of Daily Appellate Report.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



was not without major problems. Allowing sacred cows from the past to graze unchallenged will not help public diplomats of the future to develop effective programs or make the best of limited budgets. There are several problems inseparable from the medium of film. The first was readily apparent in the era of Stevens and Herschensohn: film was a slow medium best suited for cultural diplomacy being asked to do a fast medium’s advocacy diplomacy job. It took months even years to complete a USIA documentary and it was not unusual for either events or audience attitudes or both to move on before the film could be released. USIA minimized this problem by aiming for softer stories with a longer shelf life, and trusting crisis communication to other tools like Voice of America, but the problem remained. Secondly film was very expensive. This meant that the agency’s paymasters on Capitol Hill were unforgiving of flops and had a perennial sitting target for scoring points over USIA waste or political bias: attacks on the Jackie Kennedy Asian visit films or the Spiro Agnew films were cases in point. Associated with this was the problem of the high visibility of film as a medium—it drew attention to USIA’s agenda both overseas and at home. This was not always helpful. PAOs in the field came to see film screenings as potential lightning conductors for local anger over especially unpopular policies and so gave material projecting the Vietnam War an especially wide berth. Other techniques like circulating speeches or magazine articles, or cultivating key opinion formers were allowed to continue throughout the war without comment. The ultimate limitation on film was that it was a oneway, top-down medium. The audiences were expected to sit down and watch the images provided by the central authority of the agency, and had little mechanism for feeding responses back beyond participating in after-screening discussions. In an ideal world USIA would have been able to facilitate the distribution of internationally produced films within the United States, and introduced American audiences to the views of others. Still, the experience of USIA did demonstrate that film could be very effective. It could act as a multiplier for a successful campaign— extending the reach of particularly effective visiting lecturers of blockbuster exhibitions like Family of Man. Once created a film could endure in the agency’s repertoire for decades and still impress audiences—JFK: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums was a case in point—and endure in the memory of the audience. The civil rights films of the s seem to have had a special resonance with audiences in Europe. A second tier of problems comes when the relationship between USIA and Hollywood is included in the mix. As John Trumpbour’s work has

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

shown, the U.S. government initially helped Hollywood not as a mechanism of international communication but rather as simply an American export.79 The war years taught Washington the ideological value of film, and USIA reaped the rewards of the astonishing levels of consensus between Hollywood and the government in the s. But this relationship could not be sustained. Hollywood’s prime purpose must always be to make money and when that diverges from the international interests of the U.S. government, the interests of Hollywood tend to prevail. Hollywood has always behaved more like an ally of Washington than an auxiliary: aligning at some points but only when the mutual interest is clear. Successive USIA directors railed in vain against the negative images of America peddled by the movie industry. Equally the ideological interests of USIA trumped the artistic integrity of the films, so refuges from Hollywood who, like George Stevens Jr., sought to steer USIA film in artistic directions found themselves in an equally profound impasse with the agency’s policy staff or their masters in Congress. Given the difficulties with film as a medium it is hardly surprising that it is only rarely used for public diplomacy today. In the era of the interactive platforms of ‘web .’ public diplomacy can take a much more dynamic approach to the visual media. The successors to USIA should recruit its next generation of filmmakers not in Hollywood but from among the audiences overseas, enabling them to connect one with another in new patterns of engagement and dialogue horizontally across an expanding network. In terms of the taxonomy of public diplomacy outlined at the opening of this essay, web . can move visual public diplomacy from a position falling between the two stools of advocacy and cultural diplomacy, to a new role as a medium of exchange and a mechanism for listening. The limits to such work lie only in the imagination of the public diplomat and his or her audience.

Conclusion Unlike the wartime output of the Office of War Information or the U.S. Army Corps of Signals or even the films of the Marshall Plan, USIA films have attracted surprisingly little scholarly interest. This is no fault 79 John Trumpbour, Selling Hollywood to the World: The U.S. and European Struggles for Mastery of the Global Film Industry, –. (New York: Cambridge University Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

film as public diplomacy



of the films. The written archives of the USIA and the State Department are full of testimony to their impact on audiences. Rather the problem lies with the “original sin” of USIA, its authorizing legislation: the Smith-Mundt Act of . As eventually interpreted this act placed a ban on the domestic use of USIA products and this included restrictions on the availability of USIA films in the National Archives. The rules only relaxed in the era of George H.W. Bush and the absence of commercial copies of the films or a supporting literature limited their utility in the classroom. Cold War historians preferred to illustrate their classes with screenings of paranoid classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Manchurian Candidate rather than the films that actually served as weapons of the Cold War like USIA’s The Wall or Night of the Dragon. USIA films are now readily available at the National Archives College Park and the network of presidential libraries. Some may be ordered from the National Audio-Visual Service, some pop up on Library of Congress archive compilation disks, and one or two can even be found on YouTube. As a body of films they offer the historian much. They provide an invaluable window into USIA’s choice of priority themes and its approach to its audience: the Civil Rights films, for example reveal an attempt to cast the story of the civil rights movement as one of local injustice corrected as much by heroic federal intervention as by the efforts of the grass roots movement. They provide a window into changing technology as the balance shifts away from film towards the new medium of television. They also provide a window on the state-private relationship, and especially the delicate balance between the beguiling “Soft Power” of Hollywood and its potential to damage American interests through its emphasis on crime and sensation. The story of USIA film also opens a window into the agency’s shifting attitude towards covert activity. For its first decade USIA had no qualms about covertly subsidizing newsreels or distributing un-attributed materials. Leonard Marks was correct to identify a change in public attitude and reign in agency policy. USIA escaped the opprobrium which came down upon a certain corner of Langley, Virginia when its covert support for Radio Free Europe and a wide range of publications and political organizations became public knowledge. Finally the stories of individual films cast a valuable light in the internal workings of USIA. The machinations around The March or Czechoslovakia  show the policy process at work and give a fascinating look at the process by which individual pieces of American public diplomacy took shape.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



nicholas j. cull

This essay has merely scratched the surface of USIA’s use of film. Thousands of films remain to be studied and analyzed; the locally produced features of the s promise to be especially intriguing. While Mary Dudziak, Tony Shaw, and others have opened the issues around USIA’s presentation of Civil Rights, themes other than race remain largely terra incognita. Fertile lines of inquiry would include representation of gender and science and technology, as well as core elements in American ideology like democracy. Careful detective work in Hollywood studio files may yet uncover more information on USIA’s adjustment of film scripts in the s. Work in target countries will open up more on audience responses to the films. Finally historians have barely begun to conduct compare USIA’s film diplomacy with the output of other countries, whether allied like the United Kingdom or adversaries like the Soviet Union. Comparison of one state’s propaganda with another was an obvious part of the audience experience and should be part of the historians’ analysis also. Finally, the films remain as a visceral and immediate resource for teachers seeking to give their students an immediate taste of America’s Cold War, and USIA’s attempt to win it at  frames per second.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter ten MEDIATING PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: LOCAL CONDITIONS AND U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN NORWAY IN THE 1950s

Helge Danielsen Since its inception shortly after World War II, the public diplomacy of the United States towards Europe was closely linked to the overarching political and diplomatic objectives of the United States. At the core of this thinking there was a strong belief that the establishment of American “soft” power overseas would be a useful instrument in achieving support for “harder” political goals. According to official rhetoric, this cultural and informational program had as its main purpose to present “a full and fair picture” of the USA, to “correct misconceptions of the U.S.,” and to “tell America’s story overseas”—in order to establish and maintain a positive image of the United States—and in the case of public diplomacy toward (potential) allies: to secure support of U.S. Cold War policies. Several scholars have pointed to the fact that the public diplomacy of the United States in the s to a large extent had the same characteristics, if not worldwide, then towards most of the so-called “free world” countries. Kenneth Osgood has pointed out that in the early stages of the Cold War, the worldwide propaganda activity of the United States was rather uniform, and the differences present were differences in emphasis rather than in content. He also describes the policymaking process concerning the overseas information program as dominated by agencies and institutions in Washington, D.C., with the role of the local officers being to adapt these directives to the circumstances they faced in the field. With slight variations, “the United States in the s disseminated the same propaganda line across the globe”.1 While this general 1 See Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War. Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, ), particularly  f. See also Reinhold Wagnleitner, Coca-colonization and the Cold War. The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria after the Second World War (Chapel Hill: The University of

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

interpretation is valid, if one analyzes U.S. public diplomacy through a case-study approach, it is possible to paint a more nuanced or complicated picture, thus adding to the insights found in studies that have a broader or more general focus. Where most analyses of U.S. public diplomacy tend to focus either on what messages the United States wanted to convey (and in what manner they sought to do so)—or on how foreign audiences received and reacted to these messages, this article seeks to highlight the importance of an intermediary level, namely the local conditions and their interplay with the central ambitions of U.S. public diplomacy agencies. More specifically, the subject of this article is how the local conditions in Norway in the s were interpreted by the U.S. public diplomats working in that country, and to what extent and in which ways these interpretations affected the policy making behind the cultural and informational efforts directed towards Norway. In the early s the cultural and informational program of the United States in Norway was predominantly based on the image of America that politicians and officials in Washington wanted to exhibit. Tracing the development of U.S. public diplomacy in Norway throughout the decade shows how the program was somewhat modified, placing increased weight on the conditions for carrying out the program in the field, as these were understood by the local staff. These conditions included amongst other factors the local reactions to the developments in the Cold War itself, the influence from competing public diplomacy campaigns (notably by the USSR), local political developments, as well as local prejudices and preferences. Approaching , the program was thus to a higher degree influenced by the image of Norway held by Foreign Service and other American staff working in that country—and by their images of how Norwegians regarded America. This development did not only concern the content of the public diplomacy messages, but seem to be even more important with regard to the means and strategies for putting the messages through. This development, however, does not necessarily imply that the role of the field staff moved beyond adapting centrally determined ambitions to local conditions. It is rather an example of how such adaptation can be interpreted as a contribution to the development of policies and strategies in public diplomacy campaigns. I shall argue that the policy-making by adaptation of the field officers in North Carolina Press, ) and Richard Pells, Not Like US. How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture since World War II (New York: Basic Books, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



Oslo did have an important effect on the local program, even if it took place within the framework of a centrally led operation. This article further aims at being an example of how a case-study approach with a focus on this intermediary level can enhance our understanding of several aspects concerning the design and effect of public diplomacy operations. This is mainly due to the multiple roles of the local foreign service staff, and the scholarly possibilities for exploring them: The local staff ’s main task was, of course, to carry out the public diplomacy program in practice; furthermore they were in a good position to evaluate the effects of the operations, and to suggest changes in approach in order to increase effectiveness. In addition to being senders of a message, the local staff was in a position between sender and receiver—a position that could be of vast importance for future policy making, but that was not necessarily thought of as a resource. Focusing on this group thus not only broadens our understanding of policy-making and the carrying out in practice of public diplomacy operations, but also represents a not often used approach to the understanding of the effectiveness and potential of public diplomacy.

U.S. public diplomacy in Norway in the s As suggested above, descriptions of the program carried out in Norway around  appears to be almost a blueprint of the general presentations of the overseas information program as such, namely as an “information and educational exchange program” carried out by the U.S. government “employing press, radio, motion pictures, exchange of persons and overseas libraries” in order to present an image of Americans, including their daily life and their dreams and ideals, to the population of other countries. In a policy statement from , the working conditions and main objectives of the public diplomacy campaign towards Norway were summed up as follows: “The attitude of the Norwegian people toward the U.S., influenced by new and old ties, is friendly, although tempered by doubts concerning the reliability and consistency of U.S. foreign policy, by distrust in Labor circles of American capitalism and by uneasiness in some quarters about Norway’s commitments under the NAT and MDAP. To combat these reservations we will continue and intensify our program of information and educational exchange with Norway, including our program under the  Fulbright Agreement.” The basic operational conditions were thus seen as highly favorable, as Norway was a

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

democratic state, oriented westward, and since World War II increasingly oriented towards the United States. Most members of the small Norwegian elite, both the intellectual and the political one, were both receptive to information and largely positive towards the United States. Among the factors complicating this favorable basis was the fact that Norway was a welfare state, and that, in the eyes of the American diplomats, the dominating Labor Party still had some affinity for seemingly “socialist” ideals, at least in rhetoric. These factors were not considered strong enough to outweigh the generally positive attitudes towards the United States, nor to disrupt the belief among the field officers that the political similarities between the two countries were of greater significance than the dissimilarities.2 The impression of the working conditions in Norway found in such policy statements has to some degree been confirmed and repeated by scholarship on the Norwegian-American relations during the Cold War, for instance concerning the role of Norway in NATO and concerning Norway’s participation in the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program, ERP). In the first years after World War II, Norway made efforts to stay out of the disputes between the blocs. Through a revision of the nonalignment policy from  and onward, Norway committed to the Western alliance, both by accepting Marshall Aid and participating in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, and by taking part in the establishment of NATO. Even if these decisions were taken after initial doubts, and even if Norwegian authorities had their reservations concerning the consequences of these steps taken, Norway in the early s in the eyes of the people responsible for U.S. public diplomacy appeared to be both a reliable ally and fertile ground for U.S. propaganda. 2 See the pamphlet “Telling America’s Story Abroad. The State Department’s Information and Educational Exchange Program,” Published by the Office of Public Affairs, Department of State, November , in Record Group [RG] , General Records, Records Relating to International Information Activities, –, Box , National Archives, College Park, MD (hereafter NA); see also Policy Statement: NORWAY, Department of State  September . RG , General Records, Records Relating to International Information Activities, –, Box , NA and Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIE, covering the period from  January to  May , USIE-Oslo to the Department of State,  September , RG , Central Files –, .– ., Box , NA. From the establishment of the United States International Information and Educational Exchange Program (USIE) through “The Smith-Mundt Act” (PL  / ) until the establishment of the USIA in , the field operation in Oslo refers to itself as both USIS (United States Information Service) and USIE. To the Norwegian public it was known as USIS, which also was the official abbreviation from  and onwards.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



Concerning the role of Norway in NATO, previous research has been preoccupied with Norwegian ambivalence concerning the cooperation within the alliance. At the same time, the strong bilateral links between Norway and the United States, at times being referred to as an alliance within the alliance, have been highlighted.3 As to Norway’s participation in the ERP, several case-studies have pointed out how the political and strategic implications of this participation were more important than the economic policy objectives of the United States.4 The ERP is also highly interesting in a public diplomacy context, both because the program in itself contributed to a positive image of the USA in Norway, and because the program was supported by public diplomacy measures similar to the ones used by other American agencies at a later stage. Of direct interest for the subject of this article is also how the ERP in Norway is dealt with in the scholarship mentioned above, as several of the texts referred to both illustrate the benefits of a case-study approach, and are examples of the importance of including what I have called an intermediary level in the analyses. Particularly the role of the ECA-mission in Oslo is of interest here, as in several cases it defended the Norwegian point of view vis-à-vis the interests of ECA Washington. The role played by the ECA and other diplomats in Oslo was based on a combination of positive opinions on the policies proposed by the Norwegian government and a critique of ECA Washington’s proposals, based on the mission’s view of what policies would best further Norwegian economic recovery. In addition, strategic considerations played an important role in the mission’s positioning between the host country and the mother agency: The ECA-representatives in Oslo were preoccupied with what they regarded as a “spirit of rugged independence” on the part of the Norwegians. This was seen as a national characteristic that needed to be taken into consideration in the dealings of the ECA-administration with the Norwegian government. Any policy measure that might be 3 See for instance Olav Riste, Norway’s Foreign Relations—A History (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, ),  f. and  ff.; Jakob Sverdrup, Inn i storpolitikken, –, Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie, Bind  (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, ); Knut Einar Eriksen and Helge Pharo, Kald krig og internasjonalisering, –, Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie, Bind  (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, ); and Rolf Tamnes, The United States and the Cold War in the High North (Oslo: AdNotam, ). 4 Kai Roger Pedersen, “The United States and Norwegian Reconstruction, – ,” (Ph.D. diss., The University of Rochester, ), ; Helge Pharo, “Marshallplanen sett fra amerikansk side. Norge i komparativt perspektiv,” in Historisk Tidsskrift  ():  f.; and Geir Lundestad, America, Scandinavia, and the Cold War, – (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, ),  f.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

interpreted as an attempt at overruling Norwegian sovereignty in the eyes of ECA Oslo would be doomed to fail. In addition to being an illustration of how the understanding of the Marshall plan in Norway would be incomplete without such case-studies of the intermediary level, these examples show how the post in Oslo in this case played a surprisingly strong role vis-à-vis ECA Washington in the policy-making concerning American contributions to Norwegian recovery. This was made possible by different factors, including a close cooperation with Norwegian authorities, a certain degree of support from the Office of the Special Representative, and, not least, the fact that the diplomatic ambitions of the State Department, including the ambition to maintain a good relationship with Norway, weighed heavier than the interests of ECA Washington.5 The Public Diplomats in Oslo in the late s and the late s did not carry the same weight as their counterparts in Washington and the ECA-mission in Oslo. Neither were the effects of the USIS activities as visible as those of the ECA-mission, as the latter could have a direct influence on the level of American economic support to Norway. What they did have in common, was a relatively accurate understanding of local challenges and conditions, and an ambition to exploit this knowledge in carrying out their programs.

Neutralism and “cultural awareness” That the information program in Norway—and elsewhere—was dominated by central ambitions in the s, combined with the fact that the United States spread more or less the same propaganda message worldwide did not mean that the same things were being done everywhere, or that all areas of the world were accorded the same importance. An early attempt at program-tailoring on an intermediate level is found in the discussions of the plans for the Campaign of Truth, exemplified by the division of the world into different areas of concern that took place as part of this process. What level of priority a country was accorded depended on the degree of Communist influence in that country, and on the potential risk of such an influence, both in a physical and a psychological sense. In this context, Norway was placed on “Level E”, in the so-called “Sensi5 See for instance Pharo , –, Lundestad , , and especially Pedersen ,  f.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



tive Area”, along with the other Scandinavian countries and the UK. The idea behind this categorization was to develop common public diplomacy objectives and approaches for each group of countries (spanning from “The Hard Core” at Level A to the “Non-critical Area” at Level G). Towards the “Sensitive Area”, in addition to proclaiming “the dangers of Communism”, the main objective of the information efforts was to “create a sympathetic acceptance of our aims; to combat all unfriendly attitudes, induced from any cause or mistaken reason, which would be inimical to our vital interests.” Further objectives were to secure support for international organizations (like the United Nations), and for U.S. interests in these organs, and to encourage “democratic practices and beliefs” in the countries in question. Despite its rather general language, this memorandum reflects how public diplomacy objectives and more explicit and general diplomatic goals were linked together: The countries in the “E” category were all seen as positively predisposed towards the United States, and were considered to be able to cope with the communist threat at the time in question. At the same time, they played a crucial role as both military and ideological allies of the United States, and thus should not be neglected from a propaganda point-of-view.6 Both the understanding of the working conditions in Norway and the main public diplomacy objectives towards the country remained rather stable throughout the s. This includes that a perceived strong strain of neutralism in the Norwegian population was considered to be more of a concern than communism in itself, especially after the establishment of NATO in , with Norway as a founding member. To counteract communist influences in Norway thus could mean to counteract attempts at exploiting neutralist ideas in the Norwegian population. In a dissertation on the meaning and role of Northern Norway during the Cold War, Stian Bones (among other things) has analyzed the meaning of Norwegian neutralism and American reactions to it. According to Bones, the United States never doubted the Norwegian commitment to the Western bloc, but nevertheless expressed concerns regarding the possible consequences of a neutralism that was believed to be most explicit in the northern areas. Whereas the image of Norwegian neutralism at the beginning

6 See for instance Division of World into Areas of Concern, internal State Department Memorandum,  March , RG , Records Relating to International Information Activities, BOX , NA, and Minutes of meeting called by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information, Monday, October , , RG , General Records, Records Relating to International Information Activities, –, Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

of the decade was mainly based on a general impression on the part of the American diplomats, more systematic surveys of the subject carried out from the mid-s and onwards confirmed that the percentage of Norwegians nurturing one or more opinions that could be characterized as neutralist was relatively high. Interestingly, Bones points out that this was seen as a challenge that ought to be countered mainly on the ideological and cultural level, i.e. through public diplomacy efforts. The nature of these efforts will be dealt with below, but Bones’s analysis of how this public opinion matter was interpreted and dealt with is one of several examples of how local conditions were increasingly integrated into the planning of cultural diplomacy in Norway.7 The impression of the Norwegian population as being pro-Western but with a tendency towards neutralism was thus an element in the general image that the field officers in Norway held of their target group. In addition, the descriptions of local conditions by staff in Oslo mainly dealt with issues of relevance for public diplomacy efforts, like media habits and special characteristics seen in the local population. Similarities between Norwegians and Americans concerning cultural tastes, religious beliefs, and a fairly decent standard of living were mentioned as factors being to the benefit of public diplomacy activities. So were the absence of illiteracy, a fairly high percentage of English speakers, and the existence— and popularity—of a large number of newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters. Among the local characteristics that preoccupied the local staff were evaluations of the Norwegians as being both particularly adverse to outright propaganda, and characterized by a high degree of “cultural awareness.” The importance of cultural activities and the fact that cultural interest was found in broad segments of the population were repeated in reports on and evaluations of the program already from the early

7

See Stian Bones, “I oppdemmingspolitikkens grenseland. Nord-Norge i den kalde krigen –”, (Dr.art. (PhD) Diss., University of Tromsø, ). Primary material that deals with neutralism as a challenge for public diplomacy operations in Norway includes Report on trip made by F.J. Colligan and Dr. Walter Johnson to certain European countries, November  to December  , RG , Bureau of Public Affairs—International Educational Exchange Service—Correspondence, Memorandums, Reports, and Records of the Program Development Staff –, Box , IES Staff thru European trip, NA; see also several of the reports in RG , Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, European Country Files, – , Box  Italy—European Center of American Studies thru Norway—Fulbright general, NA, as well as several monthly, semi-annual and annual reports from the late s and early s.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



s.8 Nevertheless, at this time both the content and the media used for presenting the United States to the Norwegians were still dominated by central ambitions, not least as a result of how the Campaign of Truth was implemented.

From the Campaign of Truth to the USIA The re-direction of the overseas information program into the Campaign of Truth in the spring of , and the way in which this campaign was carried through, is probably one of the most explicit examples of policymaking being determined by central ambitions, implying a change not only of content in ongoing operations, but also in tone and approach. In a Department of State presentation pamphlet from , the Campaign of Truth was described as both an expansion and a redirection of U.S. public diplomacy. The need to increase public diplomacy activities and to give the program a “more dynamic content” was in part a reaction to an allegedly stepped up propaganda-activity by the USSR in the “Hate America”-campaign. The main subjects of the Campaign of Truth, namely the problems—and threats—of international communism, were in one respect a continuance and intensification of subjects introduced at an earlier stage—in line with overall U.S. Cold War policies. Reactions from the field, however, suggest that the campaign also represented a change in practices, both concerning the subjects dealt with and the way of communicating with the target groups. One example of this is found in a dispatch from USIS-Oslo on a proposed publications program, where the acting public affairs officer expressed a certain anxiety that the relatively sober approach used up until  would be replaced by a more aggressive (and in his view: counterproductive) one: “Our best hope for a fuller and more sympathetic understanding of the United States and its aims and policies on the part of the Norwegian people lies in the continued dissemination of objective factual information about our country, our people, our way of living, our ideals and our problems.”9 8 See for instance six sections of the USIE-Oslo Semi-annual Evaluation Report, USIE-Oslo to the Department of State,  January , and Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIS, covering the Period from June , , to November , , USISOslo to the Department of State,  February , both in RG , Central Files – , .–., Box , NA. 9 Airgram from the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  November , in RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA. See also

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

Several documents on the Campaign of Truth contain reflections on how increased contact between Washington and the field might be beneficial in order to achieve proper targeting of the output toward different audiences in different countries. According to an evaluation memo written approximately  months after the campaign’s inauguration, the information output had been regionalized, with materials being created and tailored “on the spot” in different countries, thus closing the gap between the “producer and consumer of information.” Statements like these show that the positive potential of a stronger inclusion of field staff in the development of policies and strategies to a certain extent was acknowledged. However, this realization did not lead to substantial changes in policy making practices at this point in time. The claims of an increased regionalization in programming appear to be somewhat exaggerated, judging both by descriptions of such practices in State Department documents presenting the campaign, and by communications from the field like the one quoted above. In addition, the Campaign of Truth, the establishment of the International Information Administration (IIA) and later of the USIA—as well as the operation directives of these agencies—were the results of discussions on policy making basically among State Department and White House officials in Washington, in itself an illustration of policy-making not being too strongly influenced from “below.”10 Another impression of how the central administration of the information programs perceived its interplay with the field posts can be found in a pamphlet presenting the IIA and its activities, published as late as April . The IIA was established in January , and the pamphlet presented the “psychological activities” of the government until the end of the pamphlet “The Campaign of Truth. The International and Educational Exchange Program ,” published by the U.S. Department of State, in RG , General Records of the U.S. Information Agency, Historical Collection, Subject Files –, Box , NA, as well as Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency. American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, – (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ),  ff.; Wilson P. Dizard, Jr., Inventing Public Diplomacy. The Story of the U.S. Information Agency (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, ),  f.; Pells, Not Like US,  f.; and Osgood, Total Cold War,  and  f. 10 See the above mentioned Minutes of meeting called by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information, Monday, October , , in RG , General Records, Records Relating to International Information Activities, –, Box , NA and the memorandum Achievement of Campaign of Truth, attachment to letter from Edward W. Barrett to amongst others Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Howland H. Sargeant, in RG , Miscellaneous Records of the Bureau of Public Affairs –, Records Relating to Worldwide Program Objectives, –, Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



June . Plans to strengthen the role of the overseas posts in the informational and educational programs of the United States were announced, and an increased decentralization of program operations was presented as one of the basic purposes of the reorganization that led to the establishment of the IIA. This decentralization, however, was limited by the fact that a “unity of policy and basic objectives” should be maintained. Furthermore, the presentation of the IIA organization and the responsibilities of the different levels clearly indicated that policy planning and programming were tasks dealt with in the administration itself, whilst the USIS-posts overseas were responsible for carrying out the program in practice—as effectively as possible. The inclusion of an illustrative country plan for “Country X” in the pamphlet indicates that there were ambitions within the IIA to pay closer attention to audience groups and local conditions in the development of such plans, as these were to be the result of cooperation between Washington and the field.11 Like the sources on the Campaign of Truth quoted above, this pamphlet gives the impression that there was a certain consciousness as to the potential benefits of allowing the field officers more influence on policy making, and of taking local factors into account when determining both country objectives and the means for achieving them. On the other hand, other passages of the text in the very same pamphlet contradict this impression, and the similarity between the illustrative plan for “Country X” and actual country plans for Norway maintains the impression that the information program in  still was rather uniform—and dominated by central, foreign policy objectives. It has been pointed out that the methods and strategies of the Campaign of Truth increasingly were considered too shrill and as an embarrassment by field post-personnel. It can be added that the lack of sufficient tailoring of the campaign to different audiences in different countries posed a problem for the same personnel: The Oslo staff seemed to be both puzzled and concerned by the change of practices the campaign represented. In a semiannual report covering the period from June to the end of November , the reporting officer stated that the announcement of the campaign had left the staff in Oslo in “considerable doubt”

11 See the Pamphlet IIA—The International Information Administration Program, published in April  as Department of State publication , International Information and Cultural Series , in RG , General Records of the USIA, Historical Collection, Bureau of Programs, Records Relating to Select USIA Programs –, Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

as to which implications this program would have for the ongoing activities in Norway. This considerable doubt most likely was linked to a fear that the change of emphasis worldwide would draw the activities in Norway in another direction than heretofore, focusing more on anticommunist themes than on furthering positive images of the United States. Fears were expressed that the program as a whole—and its different elements— would be regarded by Norwegians as less objective than earlier, the point being that reduced objectivity in any part of the program was perceived by the field staff as counter-productive to achieving public diplomacy goals in Norway.12

Promoting Local Conditions as a Basis for Policy-Making One of the positive effects of the Campaign of Truth—as seen from Oslo—was an increase in staff. In , according to the acting public affairs officer, the post was seriously understaffed. The number of American employees was five, the number of Norwegians ten. The reason for this was both financial deficits and vacant posts waiting to be filled. Among those was the post of public affairs officer—meaning that at the time when the Campaign of Truth was inaugurated, and an expansion of activities was asked for, the cultural affairs officer had to try and fill two positions. In , however, USIS-Oslo consisted of thirty individuals— nine American officers and twenty-one Norwegians. This situation was described as tolerable, comparing staff available and the scope of the information program.13 This increased both the possibilities for carrying out a stepped up program—and the possibilities for trying to influence the scope and content of the program from below—as the given working tasks no longer went far beyond the time at hand. In other words: The potential double function of the local staff became more visible. Their main task was still to carry out the program in practice, no matter where 12 Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIE, covering the period from June ,  – November , , USIE-Oslo to the Department of State,  April , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA. See also Pells, Not Like US,  f. and Osgood, Total Cold War,  f. 13 See Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIE, January st – May st , USIEOslo to the Department of State,  July , in RG , Central Files –, .– ., Box , NA and Memorandum on USIS Program for Norway, the American Embassy in Oslo to the IIA / the Department of State,  September , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



it had been planned or what it consisted of. In addition, their proximity to target audiences enabled them to suggest changes based on their own assessment of the program’s effectiveness. Even if their suggestions did not have a direct impact on policy-making during the years of the Campaign of Truth, they started outlining quite elaborate and far-fetching program suggestions at a very early stage. This development towards stronger field influence on programming was neither linear nor happening fast. Certain modifications of the means and messages were suggested in the early s, with varying outcomes. Country papers for Norway from these years reflect that the activities, priorities, and practices were in line with centrally determined ambitions and objectives. At the same time, these documents contained suggestions of program adaptations that only partially were taken into account in the planning of future activities: In the country paper for , the field officers in Oslo called for materials that were designed to “meet the existing topical requirements in Norway,” and they stated explicitly that addressing questions concerning “America” and its role in the world was more important than focusing on the USSR being despotic and undemocratic. Facing a possible increase in budget appropriations for the information program, the staff in Oslo suggested that an increased activity be used to refine the output, instead of merely increasing the volume of it, as the manner of communicating messages about the USA had greater importance than the amount of, for instance, press materials.14 In the same dispatch the PAO in Oslo commented upon the production of materials to be used in the information program, and on the fact that these were produced for large markets, realizing that the needs of other—and larger—countries might be more important than the local needs of the Norwegian operation. This being the case, he suggested a screening procedure that at least would give the local staff what could be called a negative influence on the content of the materials—meaning that they would be given the opportunity to determine whether suggested texts or other products were suitable for local use or not. Ideally, the reporting officer would have seen a system where central divisions such as the INP produced “basic texts” that could be revised and adapted to 14 See International Information and Educational Exchange Program, Country paper for Norway, July , in RG , General Records, Records Relating to International Information Activities, –, Box , NA, and Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIE, covering the period from January , to May , , the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  September , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

local audiences and produced in the field—a practice that would require a substantial increase both in staff and budgets of USIE-Oslo. The practice of sending English versions or pilots of pamphlets to Oslo to determine their suitability was established shortly after it was suggested. First, however, the suggestion was repeated in a reply from Oslo to a publications program proposed by the State Department, stating the need for a factual and straightforward approach, focusing on pro-U.S.-themes, not anticommunist ones. The suggestion in this dispatch was that English versions of materials be sent Oslo, and that the decision on translating them to Norwegian or not be taken by the local staff, a suggestion that was taken seriously and implemented shortly after.15 Not only pamphlets, but also films and other materials were screened by the USIS staff. Materials that caused negative reactions were reported continuously. An example from  illustrates that such reactions were not necessarily avoided by the screening of materials. The film “A year in Korea” had received severe criticism in the Norwegian press, including those parts of the press normally positive both to the United States and to USIS-Oslo. The PAO was puzzled at this criticism, as USIE and Embassystaff, along with representatives of the distributor, had evaluated the film before its public showing without finding “anything objectionable” about it. The PAO argued that the criticism should be taken seriously, and that several lessons could be learned from this experience. In preparing films for showing in Norway, commentary should be kept at a minimum, and be of a neutral and objective manner—not “machine-gun like.” Furthermore, the screening practices ought to be improved. The inclusion of Norwegians in the screening panels that already was being done concerning printed materials should also be applied concerning films. Similar points were made concerning radio broadcasts. In order to have IBD productions accepted by the single (State) Radio Station, in addition to having commentators speaking “real Norwegian”, the production had to be adapted to local customs: The tone of programs should be factual and sober. Norwegians generally, and certainly the State Radio, are not favorably impressed by the excited, (melo) dramatic character of many American radio programs. They do not like machine-gun voiced announcers and, strange as it may strike Americans, do not care for sleek, finished productions timed to the split15 See Airgram from the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  November , and reply (Airgram) from the Department of State  January , both in RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



second and replete with sound effects. Officials of the State Radio have told USIE that they can better use a program which might strike Americans as rather amateur and technically even primitive, so long as it rang true, rather than smooth, technically perfect productions which would strike Norwegians as forced or artificial.16

These practices and experiences illustrate the role of the field post in Oslo in the early s in several ways. Despite attempts at influencing the content of information materials produced centrally, the local officers realized that demanding that mass produced materials in all cases should be adjusted to Norwegian tastes and prejudices would be punching way above their weight, or necessitate a massive increase in the local staff. Therefore they adopted a strategy of avoiding the use of materials considered counterproductive, a practice that also was sanctioned by the State Department. In other words, the screening practices, or rather the reasons behind the wish of the post in Oslo for such practices did (naturally) not have any consequences concerning the overall program-orientations of the overseas information campaigns. However, it did have significance for the output and design of the local program, and thus in a sense the local staff played a role in “policy-making” in a more limited meaning of the term, and concerning just the local operation they were there to carry out.

More weight on local Conditions in the Late s? In the Department of States’ “Foreign Affairs Manual” on educational and cultural affairs, the chapter on the development of country plans (revised in march ) states that the International Educational Exchange Service (IES) should have the main responsibility for the development of country plans, including the preparation of instructions, coordination of activities, and the task of furnishing posts with advice and background information. Regional Bureaus had the role of advising on the “relative political priority of individual countries and on political considerations in their respective areas affecting the development of the program.” The role of the field posts was to furnish advice, background information, and data on “experience factors.” In the manual, certain fundamentals 16 Six sections of the USIE / Oslo Semi-annual Evaluation Report, USIE-Oslo to the Department of State,  January , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

were established, including the principle that the programs should be of mutual benefit to the United States and the foreign country in question (a principle stated in PL , th congress) and the point that the program in each country should be “consistent with” and “support United States foreign policy objectives and other official United States activities in the country.” The manual also stated that, even if the overall responsibility for program developments lay in Washington, the initiative in the program planning process should come from below, from the posts and the bi-national educational commissions in each country. The importance of the field posts is clearly visible also in the manual’s description of how a country plan should be developed. Such plans should be prepared and revised annually by local missions, however in accordance with central instructions, and contain both descriptions of local working conditions and an identification of target groups, as well as an outline of projects planned to further country objectives.17 The impression given in this manual on the part of the overseas operation run by the State Department, namely the exchange of persons programs, is that the role of the individuals and institutions in the field in developing the program was substantial, but that the IES in Washington had both a coordinating and advisory role—and in line with the formulations on principle responsibilities—the final saying in questions of policy making. The mere fact that the initiative in program development should come from below, however, suggests that policy-making routines nevertheless had changed to quite some degree since the late forties / early fifties. This manual did not formally concern the operations maintained by the USIA, but several sources suggest that policy making routines also concerning these activities followed a similar pattern. Two regular inspection reports on the USIS post in Oslo from the last half of the decennium clearly show how country plans were developed through a dialogue between USIA and the local mission, in more or less the following manner: USIA determined basic principles in the shape of instructions, and USIS-officers in the field developed a draft of a country plan, involving other parts of the diplomatic mission to secure consistency between public diplomacy and general diplomatic goals and interests. When the draft had been approved by the chief of mission, it was submitted to USIA for review and approval. In short, this system opened for a 17 See Chapter , points –, , and – in The Department of State, Foreign Affairs Manual, Volume . Educational and Cultural Affairs, RG , General Records of the USIA, Historical Collection, Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



strong influence on the country plans for well-functioning field posts, but still had built-in formal mechanisms that empowered the agency itself to take action and overrule decisions made locally that were not seen as productive or in accordance with basic objectives. A field post was heavily dependent on the agency, be it well-run or not, since the agency had the final say in program developments.18 Nevertheless, the formal room for maneuver was larger than before; thus the importance of the field officers interpretations of local conditions also was increased.

How were Local Conditions Perceived? Local conditions of relevance for the public diplomacy of the United States included a variety of factors, like the working conditions described above, the presence and activities of other public diplomacy operations, and general international and domestic political developments. In the following, I shall focus on some factors that the staff of the USIS and the Embassy in Oslo regarded as important for their own activities, factors they referred to in their dialogue with the USIA or the Department of State, and obviously tried to take into account in the development of the public diplomacy operations in Norway. This includes their understanding of local mentalities and practices, their interpretations of the characteristics of the local population, and their images of Norwegian perceptions of America. Furthermore, special conditions in the form of local possibilities outside of the program but somehow accessible to the field staff were of importance: In some cases, the qualifications and interests of certain individuals (or groups) opened up possibilities for USIS that they would not have had otherwise, and that they were rather apt at integrating into operations. A third local factor that obviously had an impact on program development was the competing cultural diplomacy of the Soviet Union. As mentioned above, the understanding of local characteristics were to a large extent oriented towards issues concerning communications and the potential of influencing local opinions. In addition to a fairly accurate picture of Norwegian media habits, one of the main elements 18 Operations Advisory Service Report on USIS Norway, , from Jean-M. Dery of the Operations Advisory Service to the USIA,  October , and Inspection Report, USIS Norway,  December , both in RG , Records of the Inspection Staff— Inspection Reports and Related Records, –, Box  Morocco thru Panama, NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

in the field officers’ image of local tastes was the strong reverence in Norway for cultural and academic achievement. Not only was “cultural appreciation” considered to be an important part of the Norwegian way of life, the cultural interests were seen as inseparably intertwined with political and economic interests. Thus, if the United States was to be accepted and respected, not only as an ally, but as a main party in the Western alliance, evidence of the “cultural depth” in U.S. national life was a prerequisite.19 The role of “the intellectual” in Norway was described in a similar manner, the interpretation being that there was in Norway a high esteem of academia, and that intellectuals (in a broad meaning of the word) were found in all social and political groupings—and certainly within the main target group, the Labor movement. Also the role of the teacher was highlighted, as the teacher was seen to hold a position of trust and influence in local communities that far transcended the role in the classroom.20 It is difficult to determine to what degree this judgment of the local population is representative or valid for the country at large; however it appears to be a reasonable analysis of the preferences of the most important target groups in Norway, namely (in order of priority) the Labor movement (including cabinet members and public officials), intellectuals, and students or “youth”. This opinion on the part of USIS-officials was not based on observations from a distance, but on close contact and co-operation with representatives from the different groups mentioned. Like in the examples from the role of the ECA-officials in Norway above, this illustrates how the local staff in the field of public diplomacy not only played their assigned part as messengers on the part of the United States in Norway, but also took on the role of educating their mother agency on their host country.

19

Such points were made in several reports, and repeated year after year, see for instance USIE-Oslo Semi-annual Report for the period June  – November  , USIE-Oslo to the Department of State,  January , RG , Central Files, Decimal File –, Box , and USIE-Oslo Semi-annual Report for the period December ,  – May , , USIE-Oslo to the Department of State,  July , RG , Central Files –, Box , NA. 20 See Report to the Board of Foreign Scholarships by Walter Johnson,  January , RG , Bureau of public affairs—International Educational Exchange Service— Correspondence, Memorandums, Reports, and Records of the Program Development Staff –, Box , IES Staff thru European trip, NA, and  Educational Exchange Prospectus Call from Norway, the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  June , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



The local staff also played a major role in assessing to what degree the image of America in Norway was satisfactory both in a general sense and concerning public diplomacy objectives. In these evaluations, local opinions on Cold War issues were highly important, as demonstrated above. But, in line with the idea that the United States needed to prove itself as a cultural power in order to earn its right to international leadership, local opinions on American culture were also of interest. In the eyes of the USIS-staff in Norway, such opinions were neither one-sided nor monolithic, rather to the contrary. To a certain extent, they observed a degree of “old world” opinions of American culture as being immature, shallow, materialistic and second-rate. On the other hand, the recognition of American achievements in some of the arts, like literature and drama, was reported to be very high. Some forms of American music and dance (notably ballet) were also positive assets, and the Norwegians had high thoughts of American schools and universities. Negative factors were the impressions of the position of organized labor in the United States, as well as an almost total condemnation of racial segregation policies. In addition, the cultural diplomats in Norway were ambivalent about the image of America projected by popular films and paperback novels.21 The public diplomats’ interpretations of local characteristics, as well as their views of Norwegian images of America, did play some role in program operations, initially because it determined how the local staff approached their target groups, later because the program increasingly was tailored to meet local conditions. The point-of-view that the local staff seemed most intent at putting through when it came to influencing programming and policy making concerns the observation of the Norwegians as being adverse to outright propaganda. An illustrating quotation is found in a report from : 21

See for instance USIE-OII-OEX Report from the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State, February ,  March , and Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIE, covering the period from  January to  May , USIE-Oslo to the Department of State,  September , both in RG , Central Files – , .–., Box , NA, Operations Memorandum, Subject: IIA:IMA / B— – USIS Mission Prospectus, Part I, Program Statement, the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  April , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA, Budget Estimate, FY , the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  June , RG , Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, European Country Files, –, Box  Italy—European Center of American Studies thru Norway—Fulbright general, NA, and the reports by F.J. Colligan and Dr. Walter Johnson quoted above.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen Even the casual visitor to Norway quickly feels the Norwegian resentment to and distrust of any semblance of propaganda. This is reflected in their scorn of American advertising methods, and frequently voiced dislike of what they term American hysteria over the dangers of Communism. Consequently, the Information Center in Norway cannot serve as a crass propaganda instrument without undermining the confidence of Norwegians in its services and alienating friends it has made for the United States through its concentration upon enlarging Norwegian understanding of the United States, its way of life, of thought, of action, and its efforts to insure for other countries of the free world the freedom and peace which are the American ideal.22

This quotation concerns the running of the library, or “Information Center,” but holds value also concerning other parts of the operation. As a consequence, and in order to increase the efficiency of the program, the reporting officer underlined the need for adapting the program to local factors. He asked specifically for the program to be based on a realization of the fact that there were differences in tastes and interests between Norwegians and Americans, and for a more scientific approach to determining methods and materials, in the shape of a survey of local receptivity to different aspects of the program that in turn should be used as a basis for program planning.

Local Conditions and Policy Making The above quoted report from  illustrates a development in the communication between the Mission in Oslo and the State Department and USIA. Compared to earlier reports, it was more outspoken and reflected direct ambitions to include local conditions as a factor in program planning. Among other things, it revealed an increasing self-confidence on the part of the local staff, possibly linked to the fact that the number of employees had been increased, so that the leading officers could devote more of their time to the development of the program, but possibly also a result of increased accumulated experience at the USIS-post in Oslo. Earlier reports, from the late s and first couple of years of the s on the one hand were thorough descriptions of how activities were upheld

22 Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIS, Covering the Period from June ,  to November , , the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  February , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



in the vast number of operations carried out, on the other hand they contained feedback on the content of the materials and suggestions on how to better adapt them to the local situation. In many ways, this is what was being done in this report as well, but here the questions were dealt with in a slightly different manner, as changes in programming were not only suggested, but also described as something the local staff had evaluated, discussed, and were about to carry through, if given permission. Among the measures suggested was a stronger prioritization within the program, a measure that would result in an increased focus on activities that had proven effective, and reduced efforts in other fields. As resources for carrying out surveys of the kind mentioned above were not present, the reporting officer presented the observations made by himself and the rest of the staff as a second-best solution. According to these observations, the approaches deemed to be most effective were the ones where individuals were reached either directly or through a group membership. Library services, traveling loan collections of books and magazines, gift subscriptions of American newspapers and magazines (in part to individuals or schools, but mainly to public libraries), film showings undertaken by trade unions and other organizations, and the spread of press materials were mentioned as activities that reached a high number of target group members, and that did have positive effects.23 Within all aspects of the program, the importance of cooperation with friendly-minded Norwegians was underscored. Quite a few, but not all, of these friendly-minded Norwegians had participated in one of the exchange or foreign visitors programs. The benefit of these programs went far beyond establishing local contacts, and did more than create a positive (and nuanced) image of the United States among those participating. This was a recurring subject in several reports, and the exchange programs were considered to be the single most important public diplomacy project carried out in Norway—not least because of its focus on scholarly and cultural exchange and its character of being nonpropagandistic. Among the examples of direct benefits of the exchanges mentioned in this report were signals sent by teachers to USIS on

23 According to Stian Bones, in  films distributed by USIS had , showings, reaching approx. . million viewers; in  the number of spectators was estimated to be slightly over  million, and at this time USIS in Oslo had a film collection of  films, while USIS-Tromsø had  film copies for use. All figures are based on USIS estimates, see Bones ,  f.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

expectancies of a “pedagogical revolution” in Norway, particularly in the natural and social sciences, led by teachers and others who had studied in the United States.24 In addition to being a possible result of improved working conditions owing to an increase in staff, the ambition to promote the importance of local conditions in program planning could be seen as a reflection of a certain change in climate within the overseas information program itself. This development did not have enormous effects on the cooperation between Washington or Oslo, or concerning the design of the local information program. It does however indicate a small increase in the role of the field staff when it comes to influencing local operations beyond the mere local adaptation that always had been a part of their responsibility, and it does reflect that their room for maneuver was slowly growing larger than before. This is particularly obvious if one considers a somewhat older report, based on an inspection of several European countries (including the Scandinavian ones) carried out by two examiners working for the Executive Office of the President, more specifically the Bureau of the Budget. In a memorandum dated  September , they presented an analysis of the overseas information program with critical comments both on the central ambitions of the operation and on the kind of local perspectives found in the Norwegian case. One of their main recommendations was an even stronger integration of United States propaganda overseas with the governments’ foreign policy operations, i.e. a stronger mobilization of propaganda resources behind the various aid and cooperation programs being carried out in Europe. The report called for a stronger focus on explicit propaganda, and the idea of depicting the United States as a carrier of high culture was frowned upon. No matter what shape the program took in a country, it should be thought of as propaganda—even if it in essence was a cultural affairs program. Another point of criticism was that field officers allegedly were more concerned with volume than with the possible effect of the materials used, in the examiners words, the “media tail” too often wagged the “propaganda dog.” The report also criticized the operations for having serious deficits concerning the definition of targets and objectives.25 24 Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIS, Covering the Period from June , , to November , , the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  February , in RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA. 25 The two examiners, Robert M. Beers and James D. Tallman, together had visited with representatives of USIE and ECA-information in Washington, New York, Paris and at HICOG. Beers had visited posts in Spain and Italy; Tallman had been in Norway, Swe-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



It is difficult to assess to what degree the recommendations of this report were taken into account in the development of the overseas information program in the years to follow. Some of the ideas in the presentation of the IIA quoted above resemble elements touched upon in the report; other recommendations obviously were ignored. The main point of interest in the report is perhaps the description it gives of the operations as they are planned and carried out in , especially in the criticism of the programs being too preoccupied with volume, and in the examiners pointing out that directives, or central programming, was so loosely defined that operations—and local adaptations—were hampered by it. The “media tail wagging the propaganda dog” situation was obviously present in Norway in the early fifties; this problem was also acknowledged by the responsible parties in Washington.26 The memorandum opened for an interpretation of the overseas information program as an operation where there was a strong focus on, and a drive towards, carrying out a relatively large set of operations, and that the carrying out of the program became a target in its own right. The report also implicitly suggested that some kind of power vacuum, rather than strict directives from Washington, D.C., was the reason for the program appearing to be insufficiently geared towards the local needs in the different countries. This suggests that there existed an informal maneuvering space for the people working in the field—an unused option, according to the report. Another possible way of looking at it is that both the existence of such a local maneuvering space, and the use of it, became visible only after it to some degree had been formalized or accepted also by Washington, D.C. Such a development apparently was taking place around the time of the establishment of the USIA in , and continued later in the decade. For instance, a basic guidance paper on USIA operations from  stressed the use of “evidence” and “factual approaches” rather than material based on “emotions” and “rhetoric.” It refuted that USIA was in the propaganda business, and underlined the importance of mutuality of den, Finland and Austria. See Report on United States Overseas Information Programs, to G.W. Lawson Jr. (Chief of International Activities Branch) from Robert M. Beers and James D. Tallman,  September , RG , General Records, Records Relating to International Information Activities, –, Box , NA. 26 See letter from Thurman L. Barnard (General Manager, International Information and Educational Exchange Programs) to G.W. Lawson, Jr.,  October , RG , General Records, Records Relating to International Information Activities, –, Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

themes in USIA operations. Furthermore, it called for the use of positive themes concerning the United States instead of negative descriptions of the Soviet Union—in other words, it was dominated by an understanding of what public diplomacy should be about that had obvious similarities to the one found at the USIS field post in Oslo from the early s and onwards.27

Consequences for U.S. public diplomacy in Norway As suggested above, the post in Oslo had tried to secure increased significance for local conditions in program planning already since the early s. One of the most important conclusions drawn from their interpretation of the challenges faced in the field was that the “slow” media like the exchange of persons programs were better suited for achieving country objectives than most other media. This included both exchanges on a scholarly level and through the so-called leader programs, as these reached important target groups outside the student and university circles. The Fulbright program in Norway was in operation as of May , and the first leader-specialists participating in the exchange program under the Smith-Mundt act went from Norway to the United States in . The exchange of persons-program under the authority of the State Department and the other informational and cultural activities under the authority of USIA in the field were carried out as a more or less integrated operation, run by USIS-officers in close cooperation with the United States Educational Foundation in Norway. Throughout the s, the exchange programs were evaluated as perhaps the most valuable parts of the U.S. public diplomacy; in  it was presented as the cornerstone of the entire American culture program in Norway. The importance of these programs is also reflected in the fact that between  and , more than  individuals (of a population around ,  million) went from Norway to the United States, including students, teachers, scholars, and leading citizens, whilst  Americans were given grants to go to Norway.28 27 USIA Basic guidance paper , RG , General Records of the U.S. Information Agency, Historical Collection, Subject Files –, Box  Agency history, – to Agency History Fact sheet, –, NA. 28 See for instance USIE-OII-OEX-report, March , from the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  April , RG , Central Files –, Box , NA; Report on Exchange of Persons Program July  through December , from

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



An increased focus on the exchange of persons program thus was in line with the opinions of the persons responsible for carrying out the public diplomacy programs in Norway. The exchange of students and scholars under the Fulbright program was the largest single operation within these programs. The field staff regarded the leader-specialist-program as highly important, and made several attempts at stepping up this activity. One of the reasons for this, in addition to reaching target groups outside of academia, was its relative flexibility, a flexibility that permitted the post to pick out grantees believed to be the best suited to further program objectives. In addition to community and political leaders the program included journalists, teachers and other influential public figures. An example of the flexibility of the leader-specialist exchange is linked to another instance of local conditions having a more direct influence on programming. From the mid-fifties, and increasingly towards the end of the decade, the Soviet Union stepped up its public diplomacy activities in Norway, in the shape of cultural presentations, educational exchange, sports cooperation and the like. This led to suggestions of a counteroffensive—this time initiated from below—in which the leader / specialist exchange program was given a relatively prominent role. One example is the sudden interest on the part of the USIS-Oslo staff to cooperate with the Norwegian sports world. In part, this change of focus came as a result of an acknowledgement of the public diplomacy potential in this field, but increased sports cooperation between Norway and the USSR obviously contributed to the increased attention of the USIS towards Norwegian athletes and their organizations. Even more significant was the increased focus on activities in northern Norway, where the Soviet activities were mainly concentrated. It should be noted that this competition in the cultural field from the USSR provoked a rather swift change of practice on the part of the United States—in contrast to the rather slow changes brought about by the dialogue between Washington and the field staff on other matters. As the Soviets increased their use of cultural presentations,

the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  April , RG , Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, European Country Files, –, Box  Italy—European Center of American Studies thru Norway—Fulbright general, NA; Educational Exchange, Fiscal Year  Country Program Proposal, the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  July , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA; and the document Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs: Norway (undated, but the content reveals that it is from ), in RG , Records of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs—Records relating to the evaluation of Cultural Programs and to staff visits overseas –, Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

the United States “replied” by increasing their use of the same kind of presentations. The planning of a stepped-up program concerning northern Norway started in , and the opening of a USIS sub-post in Tromsø in January  was visible proof that the situation was taken seriously. This increased focus on the North and on issues of Soviet influence both here and in the rest of Norway came after the initiative of the local diplomatic staff, and was based on the idea that the most efficient counteraction would be achieved by “positive steps.” In practice, this meant that the local staff found it appropriate to increase all forms of educational and cultural exchange, and to gear them towards the situation in northern Norway—by increasing the number of proposed grantees from the area.29 The main difference between local and central approaches to the Foreign Leader Program appeared in discrepancies between the number of grantees suggested and the budget allocation for the purpose; in principle there seemed to be agreement on the value of this activity. Also in the country program proposals for the early sixties the Foreign Leader Program was regarded as an important supplement to the scholarly exchanges. In addition to nominating grantees from the established target-groups, special local situations were acknowledged and had an influence on programming, for instance through extra funding for a TVspecialist in , the year the National Broadcasting Corporation of Norway (NRK) started their ordinary TV-programs.30 In addition to initiating exchange activities because of local challenges and because they were deemed to be appropriate means of reaching the most important target groups, the field staff in some cases were given the 29

See for instance  Educational Exchange Prospectus Call from Norway, the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  June , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA, Budget Estimate for FY , the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  June , RG , Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, European Country Files, –, Box  Italy—European Center of American Studies thru Norway—Fulbright general, NA, and Educational Exchange, Fiscal Year  Country Program Proposal, the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  July , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA. 30 See Panel of Foreign Leader Nominees for FY , American Embassy, the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  January , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA, and Educational Exchange: Fiscal Year  Program Proposal for Norway, American Embassy in Oslo to Department of State,  July , and Educational Exchange: FY  Proposed Educational Exchange Program for Norway, American Embassy in Oslo to Department of State,  June , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



possibility to promote selected program objectives due to local opportunities of a special kind. In the field of educational exchange and academic cooperation the most striking example of such an opportunity was represented by the existence of the American Institute at the University of Oslo and the activities of its first Professor, Sigmund Skard. Like in most other West European countries, USIS worked to promote the use of American English and for the inclusion of American literature and American civilization in English teaching at all levels. Skard, holding a chair in American literature from  onwards, not only made important contributions to the development of American Studies in Norway, but was also a central figure in the American Studies movement in Europe, not least through his preparation and publication of the twin-volume American Studies in Europe: Their history and present organization.31 This work was published not only with support from USIS in Oslo, but with extra funds from USIA. Being a key figure within the field of American Studies overseas from the early postwar years and onward, Skards’ efforts also received other forms of support, like funds for purchasing scholarly literature, frequent visits from guest lecturers and guest researchers for longer or shorter stays in Oslo and the like.32 This kind of cooperation with individuals in key positions, where the American public diplomats supported Norwegian organizations, institutions, and individuals who directly or indirectly promoted local objectives, took place in a number of fields. The interaction between Norwegian and American scholars within the social sciences, facilitated both by USIS and the Fulbright Program in Norway, as well as by private foundations, had a vast impact on the development of the social sciences in Norway—in line with American public diplomacy objectives.33 31 Sigmund Skard, American Studies in Europe. Their History and Present Organization,  vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press / Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, ). 32 Several documents on the cooperation between USIS-Oslo and the American Institute in Oslo, along with documents on the cooperation with Professor Skard are found in RG , General Records of the Department of State, Records of The Plans and Development Staff, Evaluation Branch, –, Box , NA. See also Development of American Studies in Foreign Universities, Colleges and Teacher Training Schools, joint USISOslo / American Embassy despatch to USIA and to the Department of State,  September , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA. 33 A thorough analysis of this interaction and its outcomes is found in Fredrik W. Thue: “In Quest of a Democratic Social Order: The Americanization of Norwegian Social Scholarship –,” (Dr.philos. (PhD) diss., University of Oslo, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

The personal approach and the close cooperation with Norwegians with a positive attitude to American public diplomacy objectives also took place outside of academia, for instance towards schools, teachers’ organizations, the Workers Educational Foundation, selected government officials, trade unions, librarians and journalists. The importance of having “friends at court” was underlined in several contexts, and such friends were in general not hard to find—or make. A central individual in this context was the powerful secretary general of the Labor Party, Haakon Lie, who had been the secretary of the Workers Educational Foundation in the s. Among the “friends” of the USIS-Oslo, Lie was without doubt the most influential one outside of academia. Among the examples of how Lie cooperated with USIS, there are several instances of publications on controversial issues, where the texts were produced by American Foreign Service staff, before pamphlets by way of Lie were produced and distributed by the Labor Party—sometimes in the name of the party, sometimes not.34

Conclusion As suggested above, the somewhat increased integration of central ambitions and local conditions in the public diplomacy campaigns of the United States towards Norway should not be interpreted as a refutation of the interpretation of the overseas information programs of the United States in the s as a rather uniform operation, where local adaptations mainly led to differences in emphasis and had less of an effect on the content. My argument has rather been that the local adaptations presented above did have certain consequences for the shape of the public diplomacy activity in the field, even without breaking with the established framework of the overall operation, and that these consequences can be 34 See for instance Educational Exchange: FY  Annual Report, the American Embassy in Oslo to The Department of State,  July , RG , Central Files – , .–., Box , NA. Haakon Lie’s role is dealt with in Kjetil Skogrand, “Vikarierende aktører og asymmetriske allianser: Norge og Koreakrigen – ,” Internasjonal Politikk,  (): –; Matthias Hannemann, “Kalter Kulturkrieg in Norwegen? Zum Wirken des ‘Kongress für kulturelle Freiheit’ in Skandinavien,” NORDEUROPAforum, Zeitschrift für Politikk, Wirtschaft und Kultur,  (), –; and Ingeborg Philipsen, “Out of Tune: The Congress for Cultural Freedom in Denmark –,” in The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe –, eds. Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (London / Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

mediating public diplomacy



interpreted as a sort of policy-making by adaptation. By this I mean that the adaptations and the tailoring made by the field staff did matter, not only in the planning of activities, but also concerning the output, effect, and effectiveness of the local operations. I have also tried to illustrate how the role of these actors developed from a negative one in the early s to a positive one later in the decade, in the sense that they first had the opportunity to avoid using materials and methods deemed unfit for their target groups, whilst they later were in a better position to initiate projects and influence strategies. In other words, their room for maneuver did increase—and was acknowledged by Washington. A possible argument against my opinion that the actions of the field staff did matter, is the seemingly paradox situation that the program practices in Norway were relatively similar throughout the s, even if both the relations between Washington and the field, as well as the aims and other defining principles of the overseas information operations did develop in the course of the decade. To what extent where these developments visible to and relevant for the target audience? The main public diplomacy objectives of the United States remained more or less the same during this period, so did, to a high degree, the local working conditions, the main target groups, and the methods used. In my opinion, this does not mean that there was no development of priorities or in approaches, and the impact of increased local influence on public diplomacy will probably have been relevant to the audience. Whether the developments in the informational and cultural program in Norway did matter or not is fundamentally a question of effectiveness. Assessing to what degree the public diplomacy campaigns in Norway were effective or not is not quite as simple as the public affairs officer in Oslo would have it in : “Since all USIS activities contain varying degrees of propaganda—actions aimed at achieving USIS objectives with audience groups—it does not seem illogical, in the opinion of the PAO, to reason that the popularity of these activities, since this signifies acceptance by Norwegians, also means that they are effective.”35 Nevertheless, if one avoids taking all self-assessment at face value, sources concerning the interplay and dialogue between for instance the USIA and local USIS-posts can have importance in assessing the

35 Semi-annual Evaluation Report for USIS, Covering the Period from June , , to November , , the American Embassy in Oslo to the Department of State,  February , RG , Central Files –, .–., Box , NA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



helge danielsen

effectiveness of public diplomacy operations. Such operations are characterized both by the objectives of the sender of a message and by the characteristics of and conditions affecting the receivers of this same message. In the present case, these specific characteristics and conditions were interpreted by representatives of the sending party, representatives that had the opportunity to, but not the sole (or even the main) responsibility of designing the public diplomacy operation in question. As seen above, the policy documents on Norway in the early s to a high degree reflect the overall objectives of the overseas public diplomacy program. Approaching , they increasingly appeared to be the result of a dialogue between Washington and Oslo: in addition to showing a high degree of loyalty to the program as such, the reporting practices of the field staff also show how they made efforts to determine the means used in Norway based on their own judgments both of the receiving party and the message, as well as their judgment of the effectiveness of the different means used to convey the message. In the case outlined in this paper, the communication between Washington and the field to a high degree concerned the possible use of impact assessments made locally in the development of future strategies for increased effectiveness. In fact, the relationship between such assessments and potential strategies seemed to be fundamental for the possible contribution of the local actors to central policy-making. Thus, an increase in the importance of local conditions as interpreted by the field staff did not only reflect a change of practice within the overseas public diplomacy program, but also revealed that such suggestions from below were deemed relevant—and effective—also by the main representatives of the programs’ central ambitions. In many ways, the role of the American public diplomats working in Norway was similar to the one of the members of the ECA-mission in Oslo, in that they became spokesmen on behalf of their host-country visà-vis their superiors in Washington. There is, however, at least one big difference between their roles: In stressing the importance and validity of the Norwegian recovery measures, ECA-Oslo counteracted the objectives of the mother agency. USIS-Oslo, on the other hand, in its efforts to increase the importance of local conditions in policy making, most probably contributed to an increased sympathy towards U.S. public diplomacy objectives in Norway.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter eleven DOMESTIC POLITICS AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: APPALACHIAN CULTURAL EXHIBITS AND THE CHANGING NATURE OF U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, 1964–1972

Michael L. Krenn Banjos, fiddles, and cornhusk dolls would appear to be more at home on the set of the movie Deliverance rather than serving as important parts of American cultural diplomacy. Yet, twice—in  and again in – —the U.S. government organized and financed the foreign travel and display of extensive collections of artifacts, speakers, and performers dealing with Appalachian culture as part of the nation’s cultural offensive during the Cold War. A closer examination of the two exhibits— “Appalachian Handcrafts” () and “Mountain Craftsmen: The Southern Appalachians” (–)—illuminates some important and often unappreciated issues about the nature of American public diplomacy during the Cold War years. Of perhaps paramount importance is understanding the way in which domestic political concerns so heavily influenced the shape and goals of the two exhibits, closely related in terms of subject matter and separated by a mere six years but each with a radically different “message” to impart to their foreign audiences. We must keep in mind that in those six years the United States moved from the “Great Society” of Lyndon Johnson— in which the American national government committed itself to wars on poverty, illiteracy, poor health care, and racial discrimination—to the “New Federalism” of Richard Nixon which sought to lessen the government’s economic and social roles and give more decision-making powers to the individual states. As the American political atmosphere changed, so too did the messages contained in the nation’s public diplomacy. In short, this study argues that the supposedly concrete and absolute “truths” about America, the steadfast and unchanging American “values,” and the “ideals” passed down generation after generation—in other words, those elements that supposedly formed the core of America’s psychological, public, and cultural diplomacy in the Cold War—

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

were, in fact, extraordinarily flexible and almost constantly in flux. Far from being a static, “one-note” variety of propaganda, America’s public diplomacy in the post-World War II years was a dynamic and everchanging response to both international and domestic pressures, concerns, and events. Using essentially the same exhibit style and content in  and –, the practitioners of America’s public diplomacy were nonetheless motivated by far different concerns in each instance and applied very different strategies and tactics to achieve their goals. The two exhibits were reflections of rapidly evolving and changing American public perceptions of a particular issue and a particular region: poverty in Appalachia. In both instances, the economic hardships, the people, and the culture of the Appalachian Mountains were viewed as excellent fodder for the U.S. overseas propaganda machine. However, while the exhibits themselves utilized many of the same artifacts and general set-up (and, it should be noted, while the region itself changed only very little during those six years), the symbolic and political meaning of Appalachia changed dramatically. Foreign audiences in  saw a very different Appalachia from those who figuratively traveled to the region in –. That difference reflected the change that had taken place in how both the causes of and the solutions for economic underdevelopment in Appalachia were viewed by the American government and many of its people during that short period of time. Finally, the two Appalachian exhibits allow us to better understand how the U.S. program of cultural diplomacy, which was by many accounts flying high in the early- to mid-s, was coming apart at the seams just a few years later in the early-s. Just as the domestic political context helped to shape—and then reshape—the “message” of America’s overseas cultural exhibits, constant and increasing bureaucratic infighting also exerted tremendous influence. The proponents of what might be referred to as a “pure” form of cultural diplomacy (as free as possible from blatant political overtones) and those who saw culture as a useful and quite pointed weapon in the nation’s Cold War arsenal waged an incessant battle and the constant wars eventually took their toll, leaving the cultural affairs aspect of U.S. international relations in tatters by the mid-s. The key period for understanding this sad denouement of the cultural diplomacy program was bracketed by the two Appalachian exhibits.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



Appalachia and American Culture How did one of the most culturally, economically, and politically isolated regions in America end up on the world stage in ? The Appalachian region of the United States was, throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, of only marginal interest to most Americans. The Hatfield-McCoy Feud (which involved two families from West Virginia and Kentucky that battled each other through both legal means and violence for over a decade), embellished upon and dramatized by journalists and dime novelists, created some fascination for “mountain culture” during the late-s. And stories about “moonshiners” and their constant battles with authorities trying to close down their stills provided the reading public with tales that were usually violent, sometimes comical, and always replete with a stock cast of “hillbillies.” These brief bursts of interest in Appalachia, however, were inevitably overshadowed by the widespread belief that the people of the region were of a quite different— and often threatening—sort than their fellow Americans. Uneducated, unrefined, and completely unrepentant for their laziness, sloth, and penchant for bloodshed, the mountain people were often viewed as (mercifully) isolated tribes and clans. Newspaper editorials, magazine stories, and fictionalized accounts of the region led many observers, including the British historian Arnold Toynbee, to conclude that the denizens of the Appalachian area were little more than “barbarians.”1 By the early-s, however, “hillbillies” had again emerged onto the radar—and television—screens of America. Perhaps in response to the complex and confusing times in which they lived, the American public embraced TV fare such as “The Andy Griffith Show” (which debuted in ) and “The Beverly Hillbillies” (which began its long run in ). To be sure, the Appalachian stereotypes were well represented on the shows—uneducated hillbillies; feuding families; “varmints” and “critters” galore; and even Granny from “The Beverly Hillbillies” nipping at her jug of “white lightening.” Now, however, it was all for laughs. Both shows also cast the natives of Appalachia in a more positive light, as examples 1 Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (New York: Oxford University Press, ), –. Some of the best studies of Appalachia are Allen W. Batteau, the Invention of Appalachia (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, ); Harry M. Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, ); John A. Williams, Appalachia: A History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ); David E. Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer: People, Power, and Planning in Appalachia (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

of simple, God-fearing people whose common sense and innate decency usually allowed them to outfox “city folk.”2 At the same time that the U.S. television-viewing audience was finding that the “country bumpkins” of Appalachia could be—in their humorous fashion and their stumbling language—exemplars of a simpler time and place, America was also discovering another, darker side of the Appalachian experience. Michael Harrington’s The Other America, published in , introduced the American people to an area in which poverty and want were endemic. This “other” America, far from the gleaming highways and hustle and bustle of urban America, was mired in an environment characterized by poor education, nearly non-existent medical care, and chronic joblessness. In many ways, Harrington was merely reintroducing the topic; backwardness and Appalachia nearly always went together in the American imagination. What his book did do, however, was present the situation as not simply a local affliction but as a national disgrace. In a land of plenty, how could it be that so many Americans suffered in such circumstances?3 CBS reporter Charles Kuralt brought the message directly into the homes of millions of Americans with his bleak  report, “Christmas in Appalachia.” Taking his audience into the “hollers” of eastern Kentucky, Kuralt’s Appalachians (which he constantly mispronounced) in many ways conformed to the Andy Griffith and Beverly Hillbillies stereotypes: uneducated, but simple, kindly, hard-working, strong-willed people with powerful family ties and religious beliefs. As he quickly noted, such traits did not bring many rewards to these people. Christmas in  (like so many before it) would be one without trees, presents, or sumptuous holiday meals. In a cramped and cold one-room schoolhouse, children sang Christmas carols but the holiday spirit was in short supply. Many of the children were hungry and the reporter informed the viewers that local charities subsidized the meager school lunches. (Hanging on to one particularly powerful stereotype, Kuralt hinted that some of the charities sold bootleg liquor to raise money for the lunch program.) The grim realities of Appalachia continued to unfold: thousands of people gathered around government warehouses to receive their monthly allotments of

2 For an interesting introduction to perceptions of Appalachia in the s see, David S. Walls and John B. Stephenson, eds., Appalachia in the Sixties: Decade of Reawakening (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, ). 3 Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: Penguin Books, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



food; children who lacked enough clothing to even go to school; a local general store that literally gave products away to the neediest families; and men laboring in small, local coal mines for less than six dollars a day—if work could be found at all. Through it all, the men and women of the region clung to their Bibles and their hopes, although Kuralt suggested that both faith and hope were in shorter and shorter supply with each passing day.4 The response from the rest of America was immediate. The region was flooded with boxes of clothing, shoes, and toys for the children. It was obvious, however, that more than charity was needed to rescue the people of Appalachia from the grinding poverty they stoically endured. After visiting the region with his wife, President Lyndon Johnson in April  announced from the front porch of a dilapidated shack in Inez, Kentucky that he was ready to wage a “war on poverty.” One year later Congress approved the Appalachian Regional Commission. Designed as a state and federal partnership, the ARC was supposed to assist the people of the region in creating more economic opportunities and developing the crumbling infrastructure of Appalachia (new roads were high on the agenda).5 Little did anyone think at the time that Appalachia was also about to enter the world of cultural diplomacy.

Cultural Diplomacy and the Smithsonian In –, America’s program of sending the nation’s art and culture overseas as part of its propaganda war with the communist bloc was entering a new and critical phase. After years of having the Department of State and then, after , the United States Information Agency, in charge of the official display of U.S. culture around the world, the decision was reached in  that the proper home for America’s international art program was the Smithsonian Institution. At first glance, it seemed to be very odd timing for such a radical change. Following two decades of bitter battles with congressmen who generally felt uneasy about government support of the arts (particularly when the art—and artists—so often seemed politically suspect), conservative American art groups who felt slighted by the program’s obvious emphasis on more modern art forms, 4

Christmas in Appalachia, VHS, New York: Carousel Films, . Michael Bradshaw, The Appalachian Regional Commission: Twenty-Five Years of Government Policy (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, ). 5

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

and even State and USIA officials who constantly questioned the value of art as part of the nation’s diplomacy, the international art effort seemed to be reaping rewards. At the  São Paulo Bienal and the  Venice Biennale, American artists took home the grand prize for painting. The Kennedy administration’s emphasis on art and culture at home also seemed to bode well for the international art effort.6 Yet, the years of battling for funding, tangling with artists and art groups that demanded more control, and contending with the vagaries of world audiences pushed the USIA into the decision in  to dump what one official referred to as a “hot potato.” By early-, the international art program was housed in the “good, gray Smithsonian,” as one reporter for the New York Times put it.7 It seemed a good fit at the time. Having the program in the Smithsonian would tend to blunt some domestic and international criticisms that the government-sponsored cultural exhibits smacked too much of propaganda and too little of art. And given the fact that the institution was a quasi-private organization, there would be fewer outcries from congressmen concerned about “wasting” government money on art shows. Excitement about the new possibilities inherent in having the international art program run through the wellrespected Smithsonian, however, was somewhat tempered right from the start by the USIA’s insistence that it “screen” requests for exhibits from overseas and provide primary guidance in terms of the “suitability” of particular projects for particular foreign nations or regions. The agency’s assurances that all questions of aesthetic content would be left entirely to experts in the Smithsonian did not completely quell concerns that political need would trump artistic quality in terms of setting up exhibits. While much of the Smithsonian’s effort in the field of cultural diplomacy was taken up with providing an American presence at the largest international art shows (São Paulo and Venice, for instance), it also 6

For general histories of the American cultural diplomacy offensive during the Cold War, see Leo Bogart, Premises for Propaganda: The United States Information Agency’s Operating Assumptions in the Cold War (New York: Free Press, ); Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, – (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ); Scott Lucas, Freedom’s War: The American Crusade Against the Soviet Union (New York: New York University Press, ); Frank Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, – (New York: Cambridge University Press, ). For specifics on the move of the international art program from USIA to the Smithsonian, see Michael L. Krenn, Fall-Out Shelters for the Human Spirit: American Art and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ), –. 7 Krenn, Fall-Out Shelters, , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



received requests from U.S. posts overseas for all kinds of exhibits— children’s toys; sculpture; ceramics; textiles; and modern and more traditional paintings. There were also occasional requests for American folk art. The USIA defined this art form in a fairly precise manner: “examples of native cottage crafts associated with such areas as the southern highlands or New England. This would include primitive wood carvings, simple stichery, weaving, dolls, baskets, ceramics, etc. made by self-taught craftsmen.” More typical, however, were reports from U.S. posts in Iceland and Finland. Asked to prioritize their requests for fine arts exhibits, folk art (including “Appalachian”) was always ranked far below contemporary paintings and sculpture.8

Bringing Appalachia and the Great Society to Helsinki It must have elicited some surprise in the USIA, therefore, when in early the public affairs officer in the U.S. embassy in Helsinki sent along a lengthy and detailed request for a program featuring the folk art and culture of Appalachia. In fact, however, the recommendation reflected both a new emphasis in America’s public diplomacy and some pressing concerns the United States had about its relations with Finland. Putting a positive spin on America’s economic and social liabilities—so recently highlighted by Harrington’s book and Kuralt’s journey through Appalachia—would at first seem a difficult task. However, by  President Johnson and other members of his administration were putting the accent on solutions to those problems, trumpeting the Great Society as more than just a collection of domestic bills designed to attack problems in the areas of poverty, education, medical treatment, and civil rights, but as a blueprint for America’s international goals. With a steadily escalating conflict in Vietnam garnering most of the world’s attention, U.S. officials attempted to steer the foreign audience toward a greater appreciation of what they portrayed as the true goals of the nation’s foreign policy. In this regard, the Great Society became a useful starting point. United States Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg commented that, “What we seek for our own people in a Great Society at home, we seek for all mankind.” It was left to Johnson himself to make 8 USIS Reykjavik to USIA,  June ; USIS Helsinki to USIA,  June , Record Unit , box , Official Communications with posts in Europe, – ( of ) folder, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington D.C.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

the point even more explicit: “We mean to show that this nation’s dream of a Great Society does not stop at the water’s edge and that it is not just an American dream.”9 Even before , the USIA was incorporating the most famous aspect of the Great Society—civil rights legislation—into the nation’s propaganda output. A  report indicated that coping with international criticisms of America’s race problem and describing the monumental progress in the field of civil rights then taking place were first priorities in U.S. international information programs. It was hardly surprising then that the world confronted an onslaught of USIA publications and films during the early-s dealing with African-Americans and their struggle for equal rights. With the  Civil Rights Act and  Voting Rights Act, however, USIA concluded that America’s race problem had been “solved,” and references to the issue in its propaganda began to disappear.10 As the program request from the Helsinki PAO indicated, the propaganda value of the Great Society had not been exhausted with the stunning civil rights victories. He saw some striking similarities between certain regions of Finland (“some of Europe’s most depressed areas”) and the forlorn mountains of Appalachia. Like its U.S. counterpart, the “Finnish Government has given much attention to these regions and thus the American concern for Appalachia is ideally suited as a vehicle by which a variety of related American concepts can be carried.” In particular, the use of Appalachian handicrafts would be sure to strike a resonant chord with the people of Finland. Just as the manufacture and sale of such crafts provided some much needed additional income to the poor mountain 9

“Statement Made by the U.S. Representative (Goldberg) Before the U.N. General Assembly,”  Sept. ; “Address by the President (Johnson) at the Smithson Bicentennial Celebration,”  Sept. , in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents,  (Washington: GPO, ), , ; . See John A. Andrews, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (New York: Ivan R. Dee Publishers, ); Doris Kearns Godwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: Harper and Row, ); Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (New York: Oxford University Press, ); Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, eds., Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World: American Foreign Policy, – (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); Marshall Kaplan and Peggy L. Cuciti, eds., The Great Society and Its Legacy: Twenty Years of U.S. Social Policy (Durham: Duke University Press, ); Robert A. Divine, ed., The Johnson Years, Volume One: Foreign Policy, the Great Society, and the White House (Lawrence: University of Kansas, ) for insights into Johnson, his Great Society, and its impact on his foreign policy. 10 Michael L. Krenn, Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, – (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, ), –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



folk in America, the “possible implications for similar activity in Finland’s depressed northern and eastern regions will be obvious.”11 There was more at work, however, than simply a desire to indicate to impoverished Finns that perhaps their salvation lay in turning out more dolls, quilts, and other local crafts. Given the scope of the exhibit being considered for Finland it is unlikely that the mere desire to draw parallels between Finnish and American efforts to deal with povertystricken regions in their homelands would have been sufficient to push the USIA to approve the idea and the Smithsonian to spend the time and effort necessary to mount the multi-layered program. The Appalachian handicrafts program must be considered within the context of earlys U.S.-Finnish relations. Just months into the administration of John F. Kennedy American concerns over developments in and around Finland were growing. During a visit to Washington by Finnish President Urho Kekkonen in October , it became clear that American officials were growing dismayed over Finland’s refusal to take a more definitive anti-Soviet stance in the Cold War. The granting of most-favored-nation status to the Soviet Union by Finland was just one example pointed to by U.S. officials as evidence of too great a tolerance of the communist giant. Kekkonen deflected such criticisms by pointing out that his nation had neither the resources nor the desire to become involved in the struggles between superpowers. Instead, he continually stressed his desire to focus on domestic issues such as economic growth and greater social programs. Besides, he rather philosophically concluded, the Soviets were continually moving toward capitalism and the United States was continually moving towards greater acceptance of at least some degree of socialism in their respective economic policies. Just give matters a couple of decades, the Finnish leader declared, and the two systems would be almost indistinguishable from one another.12 Kennedy and his advisors were obviously not mollified by Kekkonen’s rather sanguine view of the future of East-West relations. In a discussion 11 Charles Blosser to USIA,  Jan. , RU , box , Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder, SIA. 12 Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, D.C.,  Oct. , U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, –, Volume XVI: Eastern Europe; Cyprus; Greece; Turkey (Washington: Government Printing Office, ), –. For the best treatments of U.S. relations with Finland during the Cold War see two works by Jussi M. Hanhimäki: Containing Coexistence: America, Russia, and the “Finnish Solution” (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, ) and Scandinavia and the United States: An Insecure Friendship (New York: Twayne Publishers, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

held just two weeks after Kennedy’s talk with Kekkonen, it became clear that American concerns went beyond Finland’s rather tepid Cold War posture. Fears of Soviet designs on Finland were growing. The most likely scenario, according to U.S. statesmen, was that the Soviet Union— relying on communist sympathizers in Finland—would foment one or a series of crises that would destabilize Kekkonen’s government and then use this situation as a pretext for intervention. Just a short time later, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in his usual succinct style, wrote to President Kennedy that “it is necessary to accept a confrontation with the Soviets in Finland.”13 While the feared Soviet intrusion in Finland never developed, U.S. concerns over the future of relations with the Finnish government and people remained strong. A January  report on suggested guidelines for U.S. policy toward Finland included a number of options, including “strengthening and increasing the . . . cultural ties which link Finland with the free world.” It was probably little coincidence that shortly after that report appeared, the well-known African-American journalist Carl Rowan (who had been named as deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs by the Kennedy administration in ) was sent to Finland as U.S. ambassador. The Finns, like many other people around the world, found America’s race problem perplexing. A mid-s article from the NAACP publication The Crisis noted a year and a half long study by an American sociologist living in Finland. He claimed that the topic dominated discussions about the United States and that, “As long as a man cannot be served in a restaurant or be offered accommodation at a hotel because of his skin color, we must not expect the rest of the world to be enthusiastic about ‘the American way.’ ”14 By , however, matters in Finland took a definite turn for the worse when national elections resulted in a gain of fifty-five seats by the Social Democrats in the Finnish parliament. As the New York Times breathlessly reported, this meant that members of socialist and communist parties in Finland now controlled  of the -seat legislative body.

13 Memorandum of Conversation, Washington,  Nov. ; Memorandum from Secretary of State Rusk to President Kennedy,  Nov. , FRUS, –, :– ; . 14 Paper Prepared in the Department of State, Jan. , FRUS, –, :– ; Krenn, Black Diplomacy, –, –. Rowan’s stay in Finland was short-lived. In , Lyndon Johnson called him back home to serve as director of the USIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



“Appalachian Handcrafts”: The Exhibit in Helsinki,  At nearly the same time, the request came from the Helsinki PAO for the Appalachian exhibit. As the officer explained, what he really had in mind was a large-scale program showcasing Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, using Appalachia as the focal point: “Of all the aspects of the Great Society none is better suited for multiple-media exploitation in Finland than the Appalachia theme.” After outlining the propaganda value of the exhibit, the PAO made clear just how “multi-media” the program was that he envisioned: lectures on the “Appalachia Development Program” and the Tennessee Valley Authority (although how the TVA fit into the Great Society was somewhat unclear); a representative film on Johnson announcing the Great Society; music from Appalachia; and Appalachian handicrafts. It was obvious that the latter portion of the program was foremost in the PAO’s mind. Aside from appealing to the “depressed” areas of Finland, the display of “wood carvings, woven items, block-print tapestries, corn-shuck and corn-cob figurines” would also “appeal to the deep-rooted Finnish interest in and appreciation for skill and beauty in handiwork.”15 By March, just as the election results in Finland were becoming obvious, the PAO in Helsinki received the gratifying news that “action has been initiated to obtain a representative selection of Southern Appalachian handicrafts which can form the ‘piece de resistance’ of the Appalachia-Great Society program.” The completed program, which opened in Helsinki on  June , basically conformed to the general outline presented by the PAO earlier that year and was relatively well constructed in terms of sending the desired “message” to the Finnish audience. As the delighted PAO explained, the handcraft exhibit was the main “peg” for the show. Visitors found displays of “hand-wrought silver jewelry, colorful baskets dyed with walnut root sap, handsome animals carved in wood (including a dulcimer, the Appalachians’ ‘own’ musical instrument), home-produced textiles, attractive ceramic and enamelware, dolls in colorful mountain dress, and multi-tone candles.” A short film entitled Hands that described the work of the mountain craftspeople accompanied these items. Music was another important component of the show and included several performances by Dorothy Millar and John Gittings, 15 “Social Democrats in Finland Gain  Seats,” New York Times,  Mar. ; Charles Blosser to USIA,  Jan. , RU , box , Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

two folksingers who were familiar to Finnish audiences. The selection of songs did not seem particularly oriented toward “Appalachian” music, but instead was largely made up of a somewhat odd selection of folk music: “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” “House of the Rising Sun,” “On Top of Old Smoky,” and “Kisses Sweeter than Wine” were just a few of the choices.16 However, dolls, baskets, and music (whether strictly “Appalachian” or not) were only part of the show. These cultural manifestations of the Appalachian region were meant to show the innate creativity of the area’s people and the artistic vitality of this uniquely American enclave. The deeper meaning of the show was quickly explained to the visitors to the exhibit’s opening ceremony in a simple brochure entitled, “The Great Society and Appalachia.” Readers were told that one of the “most daring and dramatic activities underway in the ‘Great Society’ program is the opening up of Appalachia,” an area that had been “largely isolated from the rest of the nation.” Now, however, the American government had embarked on large-scale programs of highway construction, hospitals, and schools in “sparsely settled areas,” all of which “promises to give Appalachia inhabitants opportunities equal to those found elsewhere.” Two lectures were also featured parts of the exhibit. The U.S. embassy’s economic counselor delivered the first presentation, “The Great Society.” This summary of Johnson’s various economic projects in the war on poverty was accompanied by a film entitled “Shorelines of Progress,” which trumpeted the success of the Tennessee Valley Authority in bringing progress and modern living to the inhabitants of Appalachia. The second lecture, given by the embassy’s press attaché, was a more focused analysis of “America’s Mountain World—Appalachia.” While also accenting the federal government’s programs of economic development in the region, the talk further suggested that the idea of bringing Appalachia into modern America could also be accompanied by bringing America to the mountains. A film, “Land Between the Lakes,” focusing on the development of the Land Between the Lakes National Recreational Area in Tennessee and Kentucky that was inaugurated in , demonstrated to viewers that the “isolated” Appalachian region could be developed in

16 Blosser to USIA,  Mar. , RU , box , Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder; “The Great Society and Appalachia,” n.d.; “Appalachian Handicrafts. Project –  European area,” n.d., RU , box , USIA / IAP Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder; Blosser to USIA,  June , RU , box , Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



ways that attracted visitors and sightseers while maintaining its natural beauty and unique qualities.17 Guests attending the grand opening also received a very special surprise when Secretary of State Rusk was introduced to give a few remarks. Rusk had just arrived in Finland for a brief visit and talks with Finnish officials. He was met with peaceful protests from some Finns decrying U.S. policy in Vietnam, and the New York Times underscored the importance of his visit by informing readers that Rusk’s arrival came just four days after a new coalition government had taken power—the first to contain communists in eighteen years. At the opening of the Appalachian exhibit, however, Rusk ignored wider international issues and instead offered some very personal observations as a “son of Appalachia.” As with the brochure, he emphasized the isolation of the region and the Johnson administration’s efforts to bring progress and modernization to the people of Appalachia. Yet, he also noted one positive outcome of the region’s isolation, in that it “helped to preserve it as one of America’s greatest treasure houses of folk lore.” Rusk then called on the audience members to see Appalachia as a “source of inspiration to literally hundreds of millions of people in those areas that we call these days underdeveloped.” Using his own childhood experiences as an example, he declared that his own home had not seen electricity until he was fourteen, adding that cars and “pure drinking water” were rare items indeed. The fact that change was coming so rapidly to the people of Appalachia should serve notice to those in underdeveloped regions around the world that they “need not expect to wait for centuries” for similar progress.18 The brochure’s description of the exhibit, the lectures, the films, and Rusk’s remarks reflected another new area of emphasis in America’s cultural diplomacy. The Committee on Culture and Intellectual Exchange (part of the White House’s Conference on International Cooperation) reported in late- that “diversity” in the modern world was both a problem and a blessing. People all around the world, the document noted, were intensely aware of their “own special character.” This focus on “uniqueness” could serve to divide the human race, but it was “also 17 Blosser to USIA,  July , RU , box , Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder; “The Great Society and Appalachia,” n.d., RU , box , USIA / IAP Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder, SIA. 18 “Remarks by the Honorable Dean Rusk, Secretary of State at the Opening of the Exhibit of Appalachian Handicraft, United States Information Service Auditorium, Wednesday, June , ,” RU , box , USIA / IAP Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

an extraordinary resource for individuals and mankind.” One particular problem was that those cultures now being brought into the modern world through new technologies in communication and travel were often “confused and endangered by the intense process of acculturation.” It was, therefore, imperative for America’s cultural diplomacy to create “a structure and a spirit for communication” among the people of the world that was “consistent with the preservation of the differences between them, but that will also contain these differences and turn them to the common benefit of mankind.”19 The Great Society / Appalachia program nicely melded these issues together: problems of “acculturation,” ameliorated through efforts at both “containing” the differences of the region, while turning those differences to the “common benefit of mankind”; the impacts of new technologies in terms of breaking down cultural isolation; and the “special” nature of Appalachian culture serving as a beacon of hope to other underdeveloped peoples who both yearned for and simultaneously feared change and modernization. After nearly two weeks, the exhibit finally closed down and was then assessed for its successes and failures. Reaction from the Finnish audience seemed, on the whole, positive though a bit reserved. “Interesting” was the term most often used in press reports and statements from prominent Finnish officials and artists. There were some observations about the small size of the Appalachian handicrafts exhibit, but most of the commentary indicated that the basic message came through. As one newspaper put it, “no matter how unbelievable it sounds, over there, there still exists a large geographically isolated area where descendants of the pioneers still sit and carve in wood, or dip their home-spun yarn in steaming cauldrons of vegetable dyes.” The singers were generally well received. (One young Finnish musician was disappointed that the pair did not sing “protest songs.”) Attendance seemed a bit sparse; only about five hundred people attended the programs connected with the exhibit, although the PAO was quick to note that these were “mainly from the important youth and culture groups.” It was clear from the reports from Helsinki, however, that the handicrafts part of the show was the main attraction. Not only was the Finnish audience sure to see the “similarities to corresponding Finnish folk art,” but the entire exhibit was an introduc-

19 National Citizens’ Commission, “Report of the Committee on Culture and Intellectual Exchange,” , Rene d’Harnoncourt Papers, IC / P, box , White House Conference on International Cooperation,  folder, Museum of Modern Art Archives.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



tion to another, less materialistic aspect of American life—“a healthy antidote to washing-machines and new cars.”20 The exhibition was always more than just a “healthy antidote” to unflattering Finnish perceptions of American materialism. It utilized the Great Society—and, in particular, the war on poverty in Appalachia—as a means for combating Finnish neutralism in the Cold War. In response to Kekkonen’s argument that Finland could not possibly muster the resources to fight communism and simultaneously support important domestic reform programs, the “Appalachian Handcrafts” exhibit demonstrated that a truly great society could (and should) do both. If the United States could wage a Cold War and assist those trapped in poverty in Appalachia through programs that offered promises of economic development to the region’s people, then certainly Finland could do the same. And, as Secretary Rusk was quick to note, economic development did not necessarily mean that native cultures must perish. Indeed, modernization and traditional values could easily co-exist to the benefit of all concerned. The exhibition was also a living reflection of the Johnson administration’s belief that the Great Society could be a force for both domestic and international development and progress. For all of the fanfare associated with the exhibit, its existence was short-lived. There was one brief showing in Iceland, and the Smithsonian duly sent out invitations to other U.S. embassies in Europe. Once the show ended in Helsinki, however, there were apparently few takers. The USIS office in Lisbon offered the opinion that while northern Europeans (who had an “appreciation for handcraft products”) might enjoy the exhibit, “sophisticated urban Portuguese” would turn up their noses since their own nation was “flooded with cheap handmade imitations of handmade products still used in rural homes.” With nowhere else to go, the Smithsonian’s international art program project – quietly folded up its tents and retired.21 Perhaps, just as talk of a Great Society slowly faded from public view in the United States as the Vietnam War proceeded to devour the Johnson administration so, too, did interest in cultural diplomacy efforts centered on any notions of an international great society. 20 Blosser to USIA,  June ; Blosser to USIA,  July , RU , box , Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder, SIA. 21 Nearly three weeks after the exhibit closed, Blosser wrote that he had not received any instructions as to the “future schedule of the exhibit.” See Blosser to USIA,  July ; USIS Lisbon to USIA,  June , RU , box , Appalachian Handicrafts ( of ) folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn Art and Politics in the Nixon Years

Yet, just as with the sturdy inhabitants of the Appalachian region, the idea of an exhibit centered on the region’s handicrafts and culture proved to be remarkably resilient and adaptable to changing times. By the time a subsequent exhibit of “Southern highlands” art and culture formed in the early-s, much had certainly changed. The Johnson administration was long gone, together with any references to a Great Society. Richard Nixon was now president, with very different ideas about American society which he summed up in his so-called “New Federalism” that sought to divert federal monies (and direction) of most social and economic development programs to the states and localities. In announcing this significant change, Nixon argued that it was “a gesture of faith in America’s state and local governments and in the principle of democratic self-government.” He promised to drastically scale back the Great Society’s “welfare mess” and its social reform programs and often emphasized his belief that the free market, rather than what he felt was a crippling reliance on federal intervention in the economy, was what individual Americans needed.22 Perhaps just as important as the change in the country’s political climate was the turmoil brewing in the international art program. Fights over funding, direction, and “policy guidance” between the Smithsonian staff responsible for setting up the fine arts exhibits and the USIA, which continued to demand a large say in the content of the various shows, erupted with increasing frequency during the late-s and early-s. In the midst of these political and bureaucratic upheavals discussions began once again over the desirability of an exhibition centered on the Appalachian region. The result was the “Mountain Craftsmen: The Southern Appalachians” show that traveled overseas from late- through mid-. Even before the new Nixon administration settled firmly into office, tensions were mounting between the USIA and the Smithsonian over the international fine arts program. What had at first seemed a perfect match in  was developing into a major headache for the staff in the insti22 Quotes from Nixon found in Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, ), , . For more on Nixon and his domestic agenda, see Stephen A. Ambrose, Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician (New York: Simon and Schuster, ); Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ); John Robert Greene, The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



tution responsible for producing appropriate exhibits for display abroad. Foremost among the immediate problems was the issue of funding. A rather testy memorandum from  found the Smithsonian complaining about the lack of financial support from the USIA. Beginning with the observation that one of the main reasons for moving the international art program to the institution was to “stem the ebb of funds suffered in an agency where cultural projects were the first to be sacrificed under pressures of political priorities,” the document went on to note that despite the rising costs associated with mounting overseas exhibits the amount budgeted for the program in  was well below the figure for . In , the international art program mounted twenty-five projects; by , the forecast was for ten shows.23 Concerns were also growing over the amount of what many in the Smithsonian viewed as USIA interference with the content of the fine arts displays. The old battle lines between those who believed that the international art program should emphasize aesthetics and those who felt that the program needed to serve more pragmatic, propagandistic purposes re-emerged full blown by the late-s and early-s. David W. Scott, director of the National Collection of Fine Arts, vented his frustration in dealing with the USIA in a  letter. He disputed a recent claim that the international art program was a “joint venture,” declaring that “this has been a Smithsonian venture, pure and simple.” While he agreed that the USIA and the Smithsonian had to have a close working relationship, he also made clear that “we must all bear in mind that the International Art Program is in no way a service organization to USIA.” In fact, he continued, the primary purpose of moving the program to the Smithsonian had been to relieve it of “a primary obligation to support political objectives according to political priorities.” Allowed to work as it should, the international art program would serve as a wonderful instrument for delivering high quality exhibits to “broader audience cross-sections without obvious attachment to U.S. political or propaganda activities abroad.” Two years later, one of the international art program officials recorded their thoughts after a contentious meeting with representatives from the USIA. During the meeting, the latter made clear their intention to focus forthcoming exhibits on “agreed subject areas with a view to making 23 “Program Planning for General World-Wide Use”; “Official USA Participation in International Cultural Events”; “A. Determination of SI’s Base for Federal Funds for International Art Program”; “International Art Program,” c. , RU , box , Policy and Procedures, – folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

certain points or themes.” In fact, the agency’s “ ‘dictum’ ” was now that no programs would be approved beyond these thematic areas. The new direction seemed obvious: “The talk of ‘themes’ and ‘target countries’ implies propaganda. It seems obvious that our exhibitions are to be part of this propaganda effort. Whether we can retain our own integrity and accomplish our aims remains to be seen.”24 By this time, however, the lines between art and politics in regards to America’s international art program were truly being blurred beyond recognition. After years of confronting political criticisms of the program from congressmen, conservative artists and critics, and State Department and USIA officials who felt that cultural diplomacy was a waste of time and resources, the successes at the large international art shows in the mid-s seemed to finally validate the idea that the art in and of itself could serve as a valuable asset for the nation’s overseas prestige. By  American artists were now the ones turning their backs on the program, first boycotting the U.S. show at the São Paulo Bienal as a protest against the Vietnam War and the repressive Brazilian regime. A year later, another artist boycott, this time specifically centered on opposition to the war in Vietnam, threatened to cancel U.S. participation at the even more prestigious Venice Biennale. A small print “workshop” took the place of the usual show of American painting and sculpture, but even this gesture backfired when one of the U.S. artists infuriated USIA officials by producing a poster that called for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.25 By , USIA was taking a more aggressive attitude toward “policy guidance” of the international art program. A detailed report of that year laid out the “thematic programming” that would now be the focus of future endeavors in the field of American fine arts exhibits overseas. It began by listing the six “subject areas” for such programming: one on “foreign policy—political and economic,” and five others on “U.S. society” in the areas of political and social processes, economy, science and technology, education, and arts. These areas were to be fleshed out with various “themes” and “topics.” The remainder of the report outlined these and declared, “All thematic programs should be designed to address specific themes articulated in the six Thematic Programming 24 David W. Scott to Mr. Blitzer,  Mar. , RU , box , Briefing Materials for David W. Scott, NCFA,  folder; Margaret Cogswell, Memorandum for the record,  Sept. , RU , box , Relations with USIA ( of ) folder, SIA. 25 Krenn, Fall-Out Shelters, –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



Notebooks.” There was no mention of the Smithsonian.26 Fears that the institution’s international art program would become a mere “service organization” for the USIA seemed to be well founded.

Mountain Craftsmen: The Exhibit in Latin America – Even while the USIA-Smithsonian battles escalated, planning for exhibits continued, albeit on a much smaller scale than during the glory days of the mid-s. One of these began to take more concrete form in late and revolved around—once again—Appalachian culture and handicrafts. The “Mountain Craftsmen: The Southern Appalachians” exhibit was one of just six programs requested by the USIA in the last months of  for display overseas beginning in .27 Given the newer, tougher emphasis on political “themes” and “topics” the choice of yet another program on the Appalachian region (just five years after the “Appalachian Handcrafts” show of ) initially strikes one as odd. In fact, however, the new exhibit would demonstrate that cornhusk dolls and banjos had not lost their ability to serve as carriers of interesting and valuable propaganda messages to the people of the world. In order to better understand how the new Appalachian cultural display fit into the overall context of U.S. international programming, it is important to revisit the “themes” and “topics” being developed by USIA at that time. One theme to be accentuated in American propaganda was that the United States “supports the principles of national independence, selfdetermination, and voluntary international cooperation.” However, this needed to be understood in relation to the equally important theme of “economic interdependence.” America “recognizes the intricately interdependent nature of economic affairs in the world today.” Thus, “The fact that the modern internationalization of the world economy links all nations more closely together than ever before needs stress.” Economic isolation (or “economic nationalism,” as the document called it) was no longer an option in this new world. Therefore, “no country, including the 26 “A Basic Framework for Thematic Programming Notebooks,”  Oct. , RU , box , USIA Miscellaneous folder, SIA. 27 The name of the exhibit changed constantly. At one time or another it was known as “Handcrafts from the Southern Highlands,” “Crafts of the Southern Highlands,” and “Appalachian Crafts.” The “Mountain Craftsmen: The Southern Appalachians” name seemed most often used and is the name given in the guide to the papers of the International Art Program in the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

U.S., can operate independently from other countries of the world economic system.” The special nature of the American economy also needed to be explained, an economy which takes into account “the achievement of both material and spiritual prosperity as fundamental national goals.” The dynamic nature of the U.S. economy should be stressed, and, “The techniques used by business and government in America . . . should be dealt with in terms of their relevance to other nations’ economies.”28 The exhibit which was eventually assembled for overseas display in  dwarfed the  show both in scale and its much more sophisticated “marketing” approach. The earlier exhibit contained about fifty or so examples of mountain crafts. Over  items were in the new exhibition. Many were the same type shown in Finland six years before— cornhusk dolls, quilts, musical instruments, and so forth. There was much more emphasis, however, on more substantial products including pottery, “simple utilitarian items for the home,” and even furniture. In place of the rather informal structure of the first Appalachian show, there was much more of a professional museum approach taken in terms of the displays for the  exhibit. The artifacts, along with photographs of the Appalachian region, the craftsmen themselves, and other cultural products, would be shown in a “free-standing modular system of panels, poles, plexiglas display shelves,” utilizing display lighting. In certain areas of the exhibit, slide shows would be used to demonstrate the processes by which the crafts were produced. Instead of the live musicians from , taped music (authentic “mountain music”) would be played on a sound system. Given the heavy focus on economics in the USIA priority themes and topics, the pamphlet prepared to accompany the Appalachian handicrafts exhibit was far more than simply a survey of mountain culture and history. Carefully read, the document develops several interesting threads of argument and reasoning, all of which were designed to implant a very definite message into the minds of visitors to the exhibit. It began by noting that recently in America, as the “self-reliant way of living succumbs to urbanization and interdependence,” more and more people “look nostalgically to the simpler life-style of the mountains.” From that point on, however, the text starts to reiterate a number of points concerning economic development, cultural isolation, and modernization. According to the storyline, “the rest of the country passed the moun28 “A Basic Framework for Thematic Programming Notebooks,”  Oct. , RU , box , USIA Miscellaneous folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



tain people by.” Partly, this was the fault of the Appalachian people, who were “historically suspicious of government, including the government of their states.” Mountain folk seemed content to “take care of their own needs, administer their own justice, and sell their whiskey.” During this time, “Appalachia became an underdeveloped island within an industrial nation.” Yet, even an island has occasional contact with the outside world, and such contact often served to “instill hunger for bright, cheap factory-made goods.” The isolation also made the mountain people increasingly susceptible to “modern business dealings” in which they often lost their land and mineral rights to unscrupulous city slickers. Some of them became ashamed of their backward and “miserable” status. Fortunately, more progressive elements in American society were working to save the unique mountain culture, while simultaneously “bringing Appalachia into the present.” It was not an easy task, as the “problems of development were too complex to be solved in a short time.” The ultimate goal was to “develop the region for the benefit of its people.” Partly, this would require assuring the mountain people that “not all that was old had to be discarded as the highlands joined the modern world.” Appalachian handicrafts were, in this respect, a perfect example of the development and modernization of the mountains. The production of such items was an appealing way to bring much needed cash and employment to the region. The trick was to see that “the excellence and individuality of the old-time crafts had to be combined with more regular production, good business methods, and efficient ways of advertising and selling wares.” This was the “problem of defining the place of handcreated objects in a society dominated by mass production and mass consumption.” It involved nothing less than the “challenge of the modern world” for the mountain people living in Appalachia. Various private organizations, sometimes assisted by federal aid (the Great Society was notable by its absence in the document), were “helping to generate dignified, satisfying employment for the people of a changing region, and helping to preserve the spirit of craftsmanship which is one of the Southern Appalachians’ most promising resources.”29 For a fine arts exhibit, the brochure’s narrative is surprising for its lack of direct attention to the actual artifacts on display. Instead, the items are subsumed into a larger narrative of the forces of modernization, the breakdown of cultural isolation (and simultaneous protection of 29 Catalog draft for “Mountain Craftsmen” exhibit, n.d., RU , box , Mountain Craftsmen: The Southern Appalachians ( of ) folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

cultural heritage), and economic development in “backward” societies. The handicrafts serve as examples of creative adaptation by a society to a rapidly changing national economic and social matrix. With the use of just a few basic (and better) business skills and practices, handicraft production in Appalachia could serve as a basis for both economic growth and the protection of a precious cultural resource. From an isolated “island” of economic stagnation, the Appalachian craftsmen were now embracing the notion of interdependence while maintaining at least some semblance of their long-held traditions of independence and self-determination. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that the initial USIA requests for an exhibit dealing with Appalachian culture stressed these very points. In meetings with Smithsonian officials in September and October of , it was suggested that that “the current application of commercial production and distribution methods to the making of Appalachian crafts be shown in the exhibit.” Overall, it was hoped that the exhibit would “provide a setting in which we will explore the transition now taking place as contemporary production and distribution methods are established for certain of the folk objects.” These desires were passed along to prospective designers for the exhibit: “we wish to show some of the new ways in which these traditionally hand-crafted materials are being made available to a broader public without losing their identity or integrity as beautiful objects.”30 Latin America, in the view of the Nixon administration, was a perfect candidate for the messages contained within “Mountain Craftsmen.” During the Johnson years, the Alliance for Progress (actually begun under Kennedy) was touted as an important part of the international Great Society America desired to encourage. As President Johnson noted, there were many social and economic ills targeted by the Alliance. “This,” he concluded, “is the common thread which runs through the Great Society in my country and the Alliance for Progress in all countries.” President Nixon’s administration took a far different view of the matter. In many ways, Nixon’s view of the Alliance for Progress approach nicely dovetailed with his general domestic policy toward government intervention contained within his touted “New Federalism.” Even before his 30 Margaret Cogswell to Joshua Taylor,  Oct. ; Cogswell, Memorandum for the Record,  Sept. , RU , box , Relations with USIA ( of ;  of ) folders; Cogswell to Frank Macioge,  Sept. , RG , box , Mountain Craftsmen ( of ) folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



election, Nixon used the Alliance as an example of American foreign policy gone horribly wrong. Speaking in July , he charged that after years of effort the results of the Alliance in Latin America were almost non-existent. The region was “barely holding its own in the race between production and population” and risked becoming a “permanent international depressed area.” The approach taken by the Alliance was wrongheaded on several levels. First, he declared, “In Latin America . . . there should be more emphasis on agriculture, less on industrialization.” Second, “private, rather than government, enterprise should be encouraged, not because we are trying to impose our ideas but because one works and the other doesn’t.” Once in office, the same general theme prevailed. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger offered the opinion that U.S. policy toward Latin America should be one that “elicits Latin American initiatives and the Latin American contribution.” In Nixon’s opinion, “Latin America is a disaster.” The Alliance, with its focus on social concerns such as “health and housing,” was a terribly misguided effort. “This is wrong,” he argued. “We must help countries help themselves.” Thus, just as the Nixon administration hoped to clean up the domestic “welfare mess,” it also turned its attention to fixing the international examples of an over-reliance on “handouts.” It was no surprise, then, that when the “Mountain Craftsmen” exhibit was advertised to USIS posts in Latin America this new emphasis was made crystal clear. The display would demonstrate how the production of mountain crafts, now utilizing some modern business and marketing strategies, was helping to develop the entire Appalachian region: “many mountain people, who otherwise would be sustained only by public welfare, have become self-supporting craftsmen, taking pride in their work and their independence.”31 By all accounts, the initial showing in El Salvador was a huge success. According to the USIS post in San Salvador over , people attended the U.S. exhibit during a nearly three-week period. President Armando Molina personally visited the exhibit and his wife “enjoyed handling just 31 “Address by the President (Johnson) at a Fourth Anniversary Ceremony for the Alliance for Progress”  Aug. , American Foreign Policy: Current Documents,  (Washington: Government Printing Office, ), ; “Address by Richard M. Nixon to the Bohemian Club,”  July ; “White House Press Briefing by the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),”  Dec. ; “Memorandum of Conversation,”  Sept. , U.S. Department of State, FRUS, –, Vol. I: Foundations of Foreign Policy, – (Washington: Government Printing Office, ), –; ; ; USIA to All USIS ILA Principal Posts,  July , RU , box , Mountain Craftsmen ( of ) folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

about every item” on display. The economic meaning of the show also seemed to get through, as a “prominent Salvadoran furniture manufacturer” visited several times and floated the idea of initiating direct contacts with the Appalachian craftsmen responsible for making the furniture being exhibited. So, too, did the cultural message. As one Salvadoran newspaper noted, there were really “two distinct cultures” on display at the American exhibit. There was the “modern” side of life in the U.S., but there was also the “Appalachians, outside the mainstream of American life” who, despite this isolation, had “preserved their primitive forms [of] culture.” All in all, the article observed, the exhibit seemed to be saying that America was not just “space rockets, juvenile [sic] unrestraint, leftist pseudo-pacifism and strident music, but that there is a cultural continuity throughout the history” of the nation.32 From El Salvador, the exhibit moved on to Uruguay. Here, the reception was not quite as enthusiastic. Despite the fact that the Appalachian show stayed in Uruguay for nearly six weeks and was shown in both Punta del Este and Montevideo, attendance was far smaller than in El Salvador—less than , by USIS estimates. Only a few minor Uruguayan officials attended the exhibition. Even the official summary prepared by the USIS in Uruguay could only say that the people who attended the display “voiced surprise and praise about the rich cultural traditions of handcrafts.” As one local newspaper suggested, however, the real surprise of the show was that “even though the chosen objects may be representative, they are few, and scarcely go beyond being a conversation piece.” There was, the article continued, “an alarming lack of historicalcultural setting” dominating the show and a “visible difference between the products.” Some were “simple and rustic,” while others appeared to be from “semi-industrialized areas, contaminated by outside influences.” Overall, the exhibit seemed to have a “certain mercantilistic air” enveloping it.33 Apparently, the Uruguayans were more interested in art than economics (or propaganda). In any case, the exhibit did not appear to have the desired impact. After a rather desultory two week showing in Guatemala (seen by about , people), the exhibit moved on to the largest stop on the tour,

32 USIS San Salvador to USIA,  Feb. , RU , box , – folder; U.S. Embassy San Salvador to USIA,  Nov. , RU , box , – folder; translation of article from Salvadoran newspaper, n.d., RU , box , – folder, SIA. 33 USIS Montevideo to USIA,  Apr. ; Translation of article from Ultima Hora,  Mar. , RU , box , – folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



Mexico City. Despite USIS reports of the “enthusiastic” Mexican welcome, in nearly six weeks just a bit over , people stopped in to see the Appalachian crafts. Once again, no leading government officials visited the show, although many leaders from Mexican art and history institutes were in attendance. And, again, the intended message seemed to somewhat miss its mark. According to one Mexican newspaper account, the exhibit was an “anthropological curiosity.” Appalachian culture had been “preserved thanks to its isolation from the rest of the country” and “saved from the mechanization” so dominant in the rest of the United States. Instead of sensing the economic ties between the region and the rest of America, the report portrayed Appalachia as a sanctuary from the “urbanization and interdependence” so characteristic of the American people. For that reason alone, it represented a “folklore display . . . of considerable anthropological interest.”34 All things considered, the “Mountain Craftsmen” exhibit was only moderately successful in achieving its goals. Although many visitors to the show seemed to admire its artistic qualities (though even that was questioned in Uruguay), only in El Salvador did the intended propaganda message get through to any appreciable degree. The failure may have been due to the specific nature of the display. Illustrating themes about nationalism, isolation, modernization, and interdependence may have been a bit much to ask of dolls, baskets, and blankets. The accompanying literature for the exhibit often did little to help the cause. In Uruguay, a reviewer sniffed that one “couldn’t possibly call the rambling pamphlet” a catalogue.35 In another respect, however, the failure of the “Mountain Craftsmen” exhibit to reach its desired potential was simply another manifestation of one of the enduring problems of the U.S. international art program. The inability of U.S. officials to “use” art effectively had always been a perplexing situation. The very nature of art did not always lend itself to the sending of distinct propaganda messages. Even “folk” and “craft” items were capable of being interpreted in dozens of different ways by various audiences. And so it was with the exhibit of Appalachian crafts. In El Salvador, the items represented the enduring nature of American culture and the economic possibilities inherent even in such a “primitive” 34 American Embassy, Mexico City to USIA,  Feb. ; American Embassy, Mexico City to USIA,  Feb. , RU , box , –; – folders, SIA. 35 Translation of article from Salvadoran newspaper, n.d., RU , box , – folder, SIA.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

region. In Uruguay, the “mercantilistic” nature of the exhibit offended the artistic sensibilities of at least some, while the aesthetic value of the crafts failed to impress. And in Mexico, the whole affair seemed largely an “anthropological curiosity.” By the mid-s American interest in the Appalachian region had again waned. The Great Society was but a memory and many of the programs enacted under its auspices had either been eliminated or limped along with insufficient funding. Instead of Andy Griffith and Granny from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” the American public of the early-s confronted a very different and threatening view of the Appalachian region and the people who inhabited it. Deliverance was one of the most popular movies of  and was ultimately nominated for an Oscar for best picture. The story of four civilized urbanites traveling into the backwoods of Appalachia in search of adventure and communing with nature, and their subsequent introduction to half-witted crackers, the pathetic human results of in-breeding, and vicious sexual predators certainly made for drama. But it also helped shape a new generation of perceptions of the Appalachian region as one where backwardness, sloth, ignorance, and sudden outbursts of violence were commonplace. The region’s suitability as subject matter for international art program presentations around the world declined rapidly.36

Conclusion Nevertheless, the Appalachian handicraft shows of  and – remain significant for any appraisal of America’s Cold War cultural diplomacy. In terms of understanding the overall trajectory of the U.S. public diplomacy effort the two exhibits provide stark evidence of the rapidly deteriorating relationship between the USIA and the Smithsonian after  when the international art program was transferred to the lat36 The appearance of the movie “Deliverance” in  raises an interesting “what if ” question concerning the “Mountain Craftsmen” show. Had the movie appeared a year earlier (when the exhibit was being planned and already put into action) it is interesting to surmise whether the exhibition would have been mounted at all considering the negative images of Appalachian culture burned into people’s minds by the well-crafted film. In all of the documentary evidence uncovered so far the movie is never even mentioned by U.S. officials in either the Department of State or the Smithsonian exhibition office. A popular bumper sticker in my area of North Carolina attests to the lasting impact of the movie: “Paddle Faster—I Hear Banjo Music!”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



ter’s control. Beyond constant friction over funding, the issue of “policy guidance” steadily grew in magnitude. From a situation whereby the USIA supposedly left all concerns of aesthetics and artistic content to the experts at the Smithsonian, by the early-s USIA officials had developed an increasingly restrictive and limited series of “themes” and “topics” around which questions of artistic quality would simply have to adapt. By the time the “Mountain Craftsmen” exhibit came to a close in  the rupture between the Smithsonian and the USIA had reached the point of no return. Funding for the program steadily decreased during the s and in  the International Art Program (which had by then gone through several name changes) closed its offices. The USIA and Smithsonian parted ways, still unable to agree or compromise regarding the precise nature of the entire venture—whether it was primarily the display of fine arts to promote cultural understanding or the utilization of fine arts to promote distinct political messages. Of even more significance is the fact that both shows, featuring similar content and separated by a mere six years, highlight how rapidly the changing domestic political climate could influence the tone and nature of U.S. cultural displays overseas. In , Appalachian culture served as a shining example of how the American government was reacting to the nation’s pressing economic and social problems with the much-vaunted Great Society. Even the mountain hollers of Appalachia felt its power, as program after program lifted them from their backward isolation and introduced them to the American dream. The folksy, somewhat informal nature of the  show was also designed to reassure audiences that the breaking down of the walls of poverty, ignorance, and appalling social situations surrounding Appalachia did not mean that the region’s unique and valuable culture would be eradicated. This further served to illuminate an important foreign policy message: truly great societies could simultaneously defend themselves against the onslaught of communism and attack their main social and economic problems. By , with the Great Society largely just a memory, Appalachia now became a symbol of the misguided efforts to use massive government intervention to eradicate social and economic hardships of a particular area. The new “Mountain Craftsmen” show was much larger, more impressive, more sophisticated (and, given the muted crowd reactions, more impersonal). It also had a much more pointed message. “Welfare” (either at the domestic or international level) was not the answer to people’s problems. Instead, it was a matter of adapting one’s culture and society to the dictates of a fast-paced, technologically oriented, free market world. The exhibit

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



michael l. krenn

focused on how the tensions between the modern, industrial world and the underdeveloped world could be ameliorated. Instead of accenting the role of government in bringing change to Appalachia, the emphasis now was on how the rugged individualism and sturdy work ethic of its people would eventually lead to a healthy coexistence with the more advanced elements of American society. In such a fashion, the “native” culture would be protected from relentless change and technology, while simultaneously taking its place in an increasingly interdependent system of economic relationships. The drastic shift in style, emphasis, and message of the two exhibits strongly suggests that the scholars of America’s cultural diplomacy need to carefully consider these three conclusions. First, the bureaucratic infighting that nearly always accompanied the U.S. public diplomacy effort is not simply the dry minutiae of institutional history that needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible before moving on to the “meatier” topics of the form and reception of the resulting exhibitions. Instead, those inside battles clearly illuminate the constant struggle for what one might reasonably refer to as the “soul” of the cultural diplomatic effort between those forces that saw it as a means for simply bringing American culture to the world as a worthwhile tool for better international understanding, and others who viewed culture as merely another valuable weapon in the propaganda war with the communists. Second, that the sources for a greater understanding of America’s Cold War cultural diplomacy are not limited to the largest or most publicized exhibits. For every Venice Biennale, American National Exhibition in Moscow, world’s fair, tour by Louis Armstrong or the Harlem Globetrotters, Olympic games, and so forth, there were literally dozens of smaller shows and exhibitions all around the globe. No matter their size or length of time they were shown overseas each was carefully considered and constructed in terms of domestic concerns, international goals, and foreign audience appeal. This did not, of course, always guarantee success, but even the failures of these smaller shows can be enlightening. Finally, and of perhaps more far-reaching significance, historians of American cultural diplomacy need to more clearly understand and consider the domestic atmosphere in which exhibits were created. This means going beyond the internal official struggles noted above. And it means moving beyond mere considerations of America’s “Cold War culture.” The former consideration results in isolating the cultural diplomacy program in some sort of cloistered environment, drawing non-existent walls between the domestic and international aspects of public diplo-

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

domestic politics and public diplomacy



macy. The latter too often suggests a nearly immutable nature for the nation’s cultural diplomacy during the Cold War. Since the lines were clearly drawn between the United States and the Soviet Union, the messages in America’s cultural propaganda were simple and consistent. However, this examination of the two Appalachian exhibits paints a quite different picture. It suggests that American society’s definition of what was (and was not) truly “American culture” was given to rapid and sometimes nearly complete revision. In the space of little more than a decade, America’s perception of Appalachia went from viewing its inhabitants as isolated, mysterious, ignorant, and generally violent deviants, to seeing them as genial bumpkins with important lessons about “simplicity” and “nature” to impart to the “city slickers,” and back again to the bestial and savage results of inbreeding and incest. It also indicates that American politics generally followed along, first ignoring the region, then committing itself to a full-fledged war on poverty in the Appalachians, and then back to basically letting the area tend to itself. Finally, in the midst of this constantly changing domestic environment were born the Appalachian crafts exhibits of the s and s. These two very different views of both the reasons for poverty and backwardness among the mountain people and the best solutions to those problems were manifested in the two shows. In short, foreign audiences in  and – visited quite different Appalachias in large part because American society and politics during those periods came to quite different conclusions about what was Appalachia.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

chapter twelve NETWORKS OF INFLUENCE: U.S. EXCHANGE PROGRAMS AND WESTERN EUROPE IN THE 1980s

Giles Scott-Smith This chapter examines the use and effectiveness of exchange programs within U.S. public diplomacy strategy towards Western Europe during the s. In doing so it makes the broader claim that since World War II exchange programs have provided a much underrated contribution towards meeting the objectives of U.S. foreign policy. Special reference will be made here to the most prestigious of the U.S. government’s exchanges, the Department of State’s International Visitor Program (IVP).1 By the end of  it was calculated that approximately , people had travelled to the United States on the IVP alone since its inception in ,  of whom thereafter became head of state or government.2 Many famous examples could be given, such as Margaret Thatcher (), Nicolas Sarkozy (), Ehud Olmert (), and Hamid Karzai ().3 Exchanges have often been by-passed in studies of public diplomacy because of the difficulty in assessing what their exact impact was. Did these foreign leaders, for instance, in any way achieve their high office because of their trips to the United States many years earlier? To answer this in the affirmative, it would be necessary to outline the connections made during their visit that later assisted their rise to the top, a highly problematic (and somewhat simplistic) approach. Instead it is better to recognize that IVP “grantees” were selected by the respective U.S. 1

From – it was known as the Foreign Leader Program. Condoleeza Rice reintroduce the term “Leadership” into the IVP’s title when she became Secretary of State in . See http://exchanges.state.gov/education/ivp/ ( March ). For a broader study on this point see Giles Scott-Smith, Networks of Empire: The US State Department’s Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France, and Britain – (Brussels: Peter Lang, ). 2 See http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/usia/E-USIA/education/ivp/ivhistry.htm ( March ). 3 For a list of current heads of state who are former alumni see http://exchanges.state

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

embassies in their countries, meaning that their particular qualities, potential, and inquisitiveness towards the United States was noted at an early stage. Their subsequent visits to the United States effectively represented a “cultivation” of talented up-and-coming individuals, bringing them into contact with their professional counterparts in the USA in particular and introducing them to the country in general. This could lead to the building of more in-depth relations over time, such that if the grantees reached positions of power the United States and all it had to offer would occupy a prominent place in their political consciousness. Exchanges were therefore ideal for generating empathy with U.S. interests, establishing “channels of communication with specific audiences,” and in so doing reaching a wider public.4 Did the IVP function according to a specific goal? In  a major report on the IVP compiled by the United States Information Agency (USIA)5 emphasised above all the value of its varied purposes: “Professional linkage and information transfer”; making “the unique character of the American experience” available to others; a means to explore bilateral issues and “critical areas of difference” between the U.S. and other nations; to assist in dealing with “the common problems of an economically and politically independent world”; “to ‘reach’ or ‘influence’ present and potential political leadership.”6 However, one aspect of the IVP’s approach always remained central, and that was “to develop an informed nucleus of influential persons”7 who were “able to serve as interpreters between this and other nations.”8 The political significance of these long-term processes can only be teased out if one adopts a more subtle understanding of power and influ.gov/education/ivp/alumni.htm ( September ). On Margaret Thatcher’s IV experience see Giles Scott-Smith, “Her Rather Ambitious Washington Program: Margaret Thatcher’s IVP Visit to the United States in ,” Contemporary British History,  (): –. 4 Sherry Mueller, “U.S. Exchange of Persons Programs: A Question of Quality,” paper given to the conference of the International Studies Association, Annaheim,  March  (emphasis added). 5 The USIA was renamed the United States International Communication Agency during –. To avoid confusion the acronym USIA will be used here throughout. 6 The International Visitor Program: A Review, Directorate for Educational and Cultural Affairs, USIA, April , –. 7 “Foreign Leaders and Specialists,” n.d. [early s], Group IV Box  Folder , Archive of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Special Collections, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR (hereafter CU). 8 ‘The CU Program Concept,’ Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs,  October , , quoted in Sherry Mueller, “U.S. Exchange of Persons Programs: A Question of Quality.”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



ence akin to the “sociology of international relations” and the building and nurturing of cross-border networks on both a personal and an institutional basis.9 The IVP has effectively functioned as an ideal tool for managing “informal empire,” a phrase that refers to the engineering of favorable political communities and decision-making frameworks abroad which allow for the satisfaction of U.S. interests (political, economic, and military), without the need for direct political control.10 Thus in her recent book Victoria de Grazia argued forcefully that “if we hold to orthodox definitions, we miss the specific powers accumulating to the leading capitalist state in the twentieth century. These powers derived . . . from recognizing the advantages that derived from that position and developing these into a system of global leadership.”11 De Grazia outlined several factors that characterized U.S. informal empire, three of which are particularly important here: It “regarded other nations as having limited sovereignty over their public space,” it involved the export of U.S. civil society (“meaning its voluntary associations, social scientific knowledge, and civic spirit”), and it projected “the power of norms-making.”12 Over the past sixty years thousands of talented and influential individuals were invited to visit the United States, experiencing at first-hand the dynamism and openness of its civil society, learning about American world-views, training in specific skills, inculcating its attitudes, and making professional contacts. U.S. embassies could utilise exchanges as a flexible tool, adapting to local circumstances and shifting emphasis to build closer relations with specific “target groups” over time. Thus, in the words of Charles Maier, “empires have justified their supra-ethnic domination by invoking allegedly universal values or cultural supremacy, and have diffused these public goods by cultural diplomacy and exchanges.”13 Two case studies are used here to demonstrate how the International Visitor Program, in combination with other exchanges such as the Fulbright Program, was successfully employed to establish and build transatlantic “channels” of informal empire in support of U.S. foreign policy 9 Volker Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), xvi. 10 See the seminal article on this concept by J. Gallagher and R. Robinson (“The Imperialism of Free Trade” Economic History Review  (): –) where they state that “informal empire” represents channels of influence and power “which the conventional interpretation misses because it takes account only of formal methods of control.” 11 Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, ), . 12 Ibid. –. 13 Charles Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

objectives. Both deal with the concentrated attempt by the U.S. public diplomacy apparatus to influence public opinion in key allies during the s. The first concerns the effort to cultivate good relations within the British Labour Party in order to influence its foreign policy outlook away from anti-nuclear unilateralism and anti-American neutralism. This involves a detailed look at how young, talented, up-andcoming members of the party such as future leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were singled out by the U.S. embassy in London and their allegiance fostered by means of Visitor Program trips to the United States. The second case covers the expansion of U.S. public diplomacy activities in the Netherlands in response to the political crisis surrounding the placement of cruise missiles, which took place through –. Even though cruise missile placement in Britain and West Germany made the position of the Netherlands technically irrelevant, the threat that public and parliamentary resistance could force the government to back out of its NATO commitments made it a crucial ideological battle-ground during this period. Here the use of exchanges to develop a body of favourable opinion in Dutch policy-making circles is viewed within an examination of the broader effort of U.S. public diplomacy to build a more positive profile of the United States in Dutch public opinion, including the promotion of American Studies at Dutch universities. The strategies adopted by the respective U.S. embassies in London and The Hague are here tracked and examined, in terms of the targets that they identified and the connections that were made for securing both short-term policy goals and long-term bilateral relations. This attention to the details of implementing exchange programs for political goals is an important way forward for analysis, since it exactly “tracks the correlation between policy and action, a method of inquiry sometimes overlooked by diplomatic historians concerned with the making, rather than the implementation, of policies.”14 Several themes link these two cases. First, they demonstrate how exchanges played a role in the Reagan administration’s public diplomacy campaign to overcome anti-American sentiment in Western Europe and confront the Soviet attempt to disrupt Western unity on the nuclear issue. Second, this exposes how exchanges are utilised for clear U.S. interests and policy goals even though they are ostensibly functioning as neutral channels of “educational exchange” and “mutual understanding.” Third, they spotlight the elitism involved in the constant 14 Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



effort to identify and cultivate “leadership potential” abroad, and how it can be highly successful. Fourth, they point to how this particular form of public diplomacy is best applied not to radically alter opinions but to sway the doubtful and strengthen the position of close allies. Already in  Clifford Ketzel identified how a key distinguishing feature of the IVP was “the extent to which leaders are invited from those areas of the free world in which the United States is most desirous of maintaining its leadership or encouraging a maximum degree of understanding and tolerance of this leadership.”15 In this sense it represents above all an ideal set of tools for the maintenance of alliances, rather than a means to convince the critical.

Reagan, NATO, and Public Diplomacy The IVP has always operated with political intent, although this varied over time and was often buried under the overall orientation of the program towards promoting cross-cultural mutual understanding. In the period covered here, the politicisation of all U.S. public diplomacy programs was made more explicit. In  the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (responsible for the IVP) was transferred to USIA, thereby attaching exchange programs to the same apparatus that ran the more political, policy-orientated information programs. In a reassessment of their purpose, emphasis was placed on their effectiveness in terms of leadership development and “building broad continuing relationships, both public and private, with leadership structures in other countries.” Above all, the flexibility of the programs allowed embassies “to focus on the institutional structures that produce and influence leaders”.16 In June , Reagan appointed Charles Z. Wick, a close friend, as Director of USIA. Wick was determined to improve America’s image abroad, and he placed special emphasis on “fast media” methods such as the Voice of America and Worldnet to rapidly achieve this. One of Wick’s main challenges during the early s was Western Europe. The 15 Clifford Ketzel, Exchange of Persons and American Foreign Policy: The Foreign Leader Program of the Department of State (Ph.D. diss., University of California, ), . 16 NSC Undersecretaries Committee to President Carter, “Study of International Exchange,”  August , Document Number: CK, Reproduced in Declassified Documents Reference System. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

need to modernise NATO nuclear forces in response to the placement of Soviet SS  missiles had been apparent from the mid-s onwards. In December , in response to Dutch and German requests, the North Atlantic Council decided to pursue the stationing of Pershing and Cruise missiles in Western Europe while at the same time searching for an arms limitation agreement with the Soviet Union. This Twin-Track decision entailed the placement of Pershing II and cruise missiles in several Western European countries by , a decision which caused much political upheaval and social opposition in West Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.17 Wick led the effort to restore transatlantic public opinion in America’s favour with ‘Project Truth’, announced in August , which aimed to revive the anticommunist, anti-Soviet verve of USIA’s message. This was followed by President Reagan’s address in Westminster Palace, London, on  June  that outlined the cause of U.S. foreign policy “to foster the infrastructure of democracy—the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities—which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means”.18 Soon known as ‘Project Democracy’, this led to the formation of the National Endowment for Democracy and dramatically influenced the direction of U.S. public diplomacy during the rest of the decade. During the second half of  an Interagency Working Group on Public Diplomacy was established to develop implementation strategies. At a meeting in the State Department on  December  it was discussed “how to carry out vis-à-vis Europe the President’s Democracy Initiative.” Among the issues on the table were “programs for gaining greater understanding among the ‘Successor Generation’ ” and youth in general, involving “the formation of alumni groups of exchange programs such as Fulbright” and asking “their help in targeting younger persons from their countries who should be brought into these programs.”19 Broadly speaking, the notion of a “successor generation” became a key issue for U.S. public diplomacy from the late s onwards when it was recog17 Michael Kahler, “The United States and Western Europe,” in Eagle Defiant, eds. Kenneth Oye, Robert Lieber, & David Rothchild (Boston: Little Brown, ), –; James Kurth, “The United States and Western Europe in the Reagan Era,” in Crisis and Confrontation, ed. Morris Morley (Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, ), –. 18 Quoted on the NED website at http://www.ned.org/about/nedhistory.html ( March ). 19 EUR / P. Steve Steiner to Interagency Working Group on Public Diplomacy,  December , Declassified Documents Reference System.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



nized that new generations who had no personal experience of key events in the U.S.-European relationship such as World War II or the Marshall Plan were gradually entering positions of power. The focus on youth was therefore literally a way of “socializing” these upcoming talents with ways of thinking and decision-making that took a close transatlantic relationship for granted.20 In January  NSDD , entitled “Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security,” stated that “public diplomacy is comprised of those actions of the U.S. Government designed to generate support for our national security objectives.” Building on the Working Group set-up, NSDD  created an inter-agency Special Planning Group answerable to the National Security Council for the “overall planning, direction, coordination and monitoring of implementation of public diplomacy activities.”21 In the same month a special inter-agency committee was convened at the State Department under Peter Dailey to coordinate responses to public opposition to cruise and Pershing missile deployment within Western Europe.22 This was followed by NSDD  in March , which declared that the information program was “an integral and vital part of U.S. national security policy and strategy in the broad sense . . . It is a key strategic instrument for shaping fundamental political and ideological trends around the globe on a long-term basis and ultimately affecting the behavior of governments.”23 Initially Wick’s desire to shift resources into technology and “fast media” caused him to propose sweeping budget cuts for exchanges, regarded as “slow media” and unable to deliver the required rapid results. In  the Fulbright Program was facing a  percent cut ( . m) and the IVP  percent ( . m). However, a powerful coalition of congressmen and the public diplomacy community inside and outside government was able to derail much of Wick’s proposed agenda. While politicization remained a problem for many in that community, Congress accepted it in principle to give all programs a sharper edge in support of U.S. foreign policy in general. But the major turnaround was on the budget. The Pell amendment on the Fiscal Year (FY) 20

On this approach in Germany see Hans Tuch, Arthur Burns and the Successor Generation (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, ). 21 On the ‘successor generation’ approach see Stephen F. Szabo, The Successor Generation: International Perspectives of Postwar Europeans (London: Butterworths, ); Hans Tuch, Arthur Burns and the Successor Generation (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, ). 22 Nick Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), . 23 NSDD ,  March , available at http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/direct.htm ( June ).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

 budget for USIA, named after Senator Claiborne Pell, stated that the Wick proposals for expansion in the “fast media” apparatus would only be accepted if funding for all exchanges would be doubled over the ensuing four years. As a result, the IVP budget alone soared from  . m in FY  to  . m in FY  and remained at that level until the end of the decade.24 The IVP therefore became a well-funded tool available for U.S. embassies across Western Europe to use in support of NATO objectives. In the following sections it will be shown how the program was applied to improve political orientation and public opinion towards the United States among key sectors of two important allies, Britain and the Netherlands.

The UK in the s: Targeting the Labour Party In the context of NATO modernization and transatlantic relations in general, the UK was a vital strategic ally for the USA during the s. Therefore the fact that the Labour Party, which was in government from –, expressed hostility to the United States and actually came out in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament was a matter of deep concern for U.S. policy-makers. Looking to break these prejudices down, the U.S. Embassy used the IV Program to open up the party to new ideas and develop a better understanding of the United States among Labour members.25 Admittedly, the high level of professional mobility, the extent of private contacts, and the scale of media saturation on the United States prevent an accurate assessment of the IVP’s specific impact in this regard. With or without these exchanges, an “Americanization” of the style of British politics was occurring anyway. However, it would be a mistake to dismiss these activities as no more than a minor addition to the densely woven patterns of existing international relations. There was political intent behind the use of the IVP, as U.S. Embassy officers have openly admitted. A series of Embassy political officers directed their invitations to aspiring individuals in the Labour Party who showed the 24 Geoffrey Middlebrook, “The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and American Public Diplomacy during the Reagan Years,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii, ), –, –. 25 For a detailed analysis of this topic see Giles Scott-Smith, “Searching for the Successor Generation: Public Diplomacy, the US Embassy’s International Visitor Program and the Labour Party in the s,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations,  (): –.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



most potential to modernize (i.e. Atlanticize) the party. Future Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were at the forefront of that group. The strategy of the U.S. Embassy’s political officers was twofold. Firstly, according to Political Officer Robert Hopper (–), it meant “trying to get the Labour party people to be more internationalist,” meaning Atlanticist.26 Reaganite foreign policy and the placement of cruise missiles at Greenham Common and other United States Air Force bases was causing a visceral reaction among the Labour left, which tended to regard the United States as a monolithic imperial power. What the Embassy wanted to bring home to the party was the fact that there was plenty of political dissonance on these issues within the U.S. itself. As Robert Hopper’s successor as political officer, Jimmy Kolker, remarked, “we didn’t think they understood what the debate was about in the U.S.,” and there was a great need for Labour “to get the U.S. right for it to be taken seriously by the British public.” Second, and as a means to achieve this first aim, there was a determined drive to connect open-minded Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) with their “natural allies” in the U.S., the Democratic Party.27 Hopper, in his role liaising with the Labour Party, “consistently looked for people to meet with moderate Democrats,”28 as did his successor as political officer, Jimmy Kolker, and his predecessors, Richard Melton and Jack Binns. A key figure in this strategy was Raymond G. Seitz, from – the deputy chief of mission (DCM) in London (and from – the first career foreign service officer ever to be awarded the post of ambassador to the United Kingdom). Miles Pendleton, who worked under Seitz as political counsellor from – , recalled how Seitz had a “very refined notion of what an embassy could do to enhance contact across the political spectrum.”29 Seitz was active in encouraging his fellow Embassy officers to seek out all possible transatlantic links that would open up dialogue with the Labour Party.30 26 Robert Hopper (Political Officer, U.S. Embassy London –), telephone interview with author,  January . 27 Jimmy Kolker (Political Officer, U.S. Embassy London –), telephone interview with author,  November , and correspondence with author,  March . 28 Hopper, telephone interview. 29 Miles Pendleton (Political Counselor, –), telephone interview with author,  November . 30 Referring to the Blair-Clinton soirée at No.  following New Labour’s  victory, Seitz remarked that “the refraction of political light between New Democrat and New Labour was unmistakeable.” From his vantage point on Grosvenor Square Seitz had done his best to set this up. See Raymond Seitz, Over There (London: Orion, ), .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

In  the Labour Party went into the national elections with a radical manifesto that proclaimed unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from the European Community. The result was a devastating defeat at the hands of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party. In the wake of this debacle, the U.S. Embassy made special efforts to identify and make contact with open-minded Labourites around Westminster, no matter how far they may be down the party hierarchy. Invitations were sent out to party staffers for various Embassy events, and through these individuals contacts were made with MPs themselves. In light of the Pell Amendment, IVP grants for British participants increased dramatically from  in  (roughly the level they had been for the previous decade) to a total of  in . This increase was carefully managed by the London Embassy. A continuing spread across the parties was maintained to avoid any hint of political bias, despite the greater concern with the political direction of the Labour Party. Quality rather than quantity was the aim, making the selection process a careful series of judgements on who would bring the greatest “return.” But the element of chance always remained. As Robert Korengold (public affairs officer in London – ) has commented, “we wanted to cast our nets as widely as possible because, after all, we were interested in picking out people who might be leaders in their field not tomorrow or next year but perhaps in five or even ten years time. Who could predict with accuracy what the political considerations would be in those time frames?”31 Nevertheless, a distinct pattern emerges when examining the data on the IVP through the s.32 From the mid-s onwards the effort to connect with a new generation of up-and-coming “modernizers” is very apparent. It became potentially more valuable to concentrate on those who may change things than on those who would probably remain critical. Although various professions and levels within professional hierarchies are evident, and a regional diversity is still evident, the shift in focus towards new contact groups is clear. Also, by  there was a far more concerted attempt to reach out to wider civil society through the media, community groups, business, and particularly academia, secondary education, and the arts. For instance, a determined effort was made to build productive relations within Politics, International Relations, and American Studies departments across British universities. 31 Robert J. Korengold (public affairs officer, U.S. Embassy London –), correspondence with author,  October . 32 Obtained via Freedom of Information Act request.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



In  the IV Program showed the first signs of this approach, with invitations offered to among others Gordon Brown. Brown was Political Officer Robert Hopper’s candidate, and it is not hard to see why, since of the party’s thirty-two new MPs in  it was Brown who stood out from the crowd.33 Rector at Edinburgh University, chairman of the Scottish Labour Party, and author / editor of three books on devolution and Scottish policy, Brown turned thirty-two in  and was already well connected in the party hierarchy. A U.S. Embassy airgram from early  described how Brown was “already being seen as a leading light among the new members.” As he had never previously been to the United States “the IV Program will give him an ideal opportunity to learn firsthand about the U.S. political system and meet his American counterparts early in his career, which could have immense value to both sides of the Atlantic.”34 Brown’s program in the United States was dominated by three issues: the American political process at federal and state levels, U.S. defense policy, and regional and urban redevelopment schemes. Defense policy and NATO missile deployment was covered by the usual meetings at the Departments of State and Defense. On redevelopment questions, the Embassy was aware that Brown’s constituency of Dunfermline East was suffering from high unemployment and was also deeply involved in the miners’ strike. This was the background to his visit to Pittsburgh to view its urban renewal schemes, and his meetings with union officials (including infamous AFL-CIO International Affairs Director Irving Brown). But the main focus was on the apparatus of the political parties. Brown was interested in the organization, fund-raising, campaigning, and the role of Political Action Committees in both major parties. Embassy Officer Robert Hopper has since commented that “one of the things we concentrated on was getting him connected.” His access to the  Democratic National Convention was secured through Hopper’s contacts, as a U.S. Embassy telegram confirms: “Post political officer will arrange entrance to convention through Democratic National Committee.”35 Brown was definitely fascinated by the United States. He went back at every opportunity in subsequent years, and it was his IV trip that initially opened the door. 33

Anthony Seldon, Blair (London: Free Press, ), –. “FY- IV Grantee—Dr. Gordon Brown.” U.S. Embassy London to USIA Washington DC,  May , Archive of Meridian International, Washington DC (hereafter MI). 35 U.S. Embassy London to USIA Washington DC,  March , MI. 34

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

Alongside introducing as many talented Labour members as possible to the United States, the central quest lay in identifying early on a future leader who would have the ability and the open-mindedness to take the party in a new direction. Not for nothing has Robert Hopper said that “we were very busy with the ‘successor’ thing.”36 Brown would eventually become Labour leader—and British Prime Minister— in , but the person who led the way in transforming the party was Tony Blair. In  Blair became the first of the new MPs from  to occupy a major position, as deputy opposition Treasury spokesperson, and media exposure came with a valuable appearance on BBC television’s Question Time in May .37 Blair’s IVP nomination was put forward by the U.S. Embassy in July , which identified him as “one of the brightest and most ambitious of recent Labor intake.”38 In January  the Embassy emphasised that “Blair has had few contacts with American political counterparts and would benefit from meeting young Democrats. Such contacts will be of long-term benefit and will encourage a continuing dialogue between U.S. politicians / businessmen and a potentially influential young Labor politician.”39 Blair’s nomination was accepted three days later, but with a proviso that went against the Embassy’s strategy. Wanting to avoid any hint of political bias, USIA’s Europe desk cabled back that “the Program is designed to introduce visitors to a broad range of the political spectrum and to expose them to both conservative and liberal politicians. Post should emphasize in predeparture briefing that the Program will provide such political balance.”40 The Embassy’s push to connect Labour with the Democrats, now coming out into the open, was going against the ethical principles of balance which the IV Program administrators demanded. That this was occurring under a Republican presidency made it additionally awkward. Blair’s proposed IV schedule for the U.S. therefore duly requested meetings with Republican and Democratic Party functionaries. Not surprisingly, the Republican Party ultimately proved less interested in the young British leftist than the Democrats. Meanwhile, Blair’s Washington program included a full morning in session with the Democratic National Committee.

36 37 38 39 40

Robert Hopper, telephone interview. Seldon, Blair, –. U.S. Embassy London to USIA Washington DC,  July , MI. U.S. Embassy London to USIA Washington DC,  January , MI. USIA Washington to U.S. Embassy London,  January , MI.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



Blair’s itinerary was centred around U.S. economic and financial policy, a logical move considering his parliamentary position shadowing the Treasury, and fitting with the Embassy’s wish to open the party up to probusiness perspectives. International security affairs were also included as a major factor, and it is noteworthy how the Embassy perceived Blair’s stance on this particular issue in : “He is described as center-left, is a non-nuclearist, and pragmatic about the EEC.”41 Blair’s standpoint on particular issues of major importance was at times difficult to discern in the mid-s, and although he was a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament it is uncertain how deep his convictions went.42 Nevertheless, for the Americans this would have been a serious matter, and his IV Program was a good opportunity to provide him with the U.S. viewpoint on the transatlantic relationship and security questions such as the Strategic Defense Initiative. As with Brown, the aim was to get Blair “connected.” In  he was still an unknown around Washington political circles, yet his IV tour in  included an engagement at the Cosmos Club, one of the prime establishments for the Washington elite. Commenting on the long-term effects of this  IV trip, Blair biographer Anthony Seldon remarked that “the cumulative impact of meeting so many people in so many locations would have had a powerful effect in opening his mind to a country he hitherto barely knew.”43 Soon after his arrival in London to replace Robert Hopper, Political Officer Jimmy Kolker was assigned by his Political Counselor Miles Pendleton to keep in touch with Blair. When the young MP’s parents visited the United States in , it was Kolker who arranged for them White House tour tickets and entrance into the Congress gallery.44 DCM Raymond Seitz, who made a point of meeting with politicians both before and after their U.S. visits, recalled dining with an effervescent Tony Blair after the latter’s return from his IV trip, the young MP clearly delighted with the experience.45 There is no doubt that this kind of careful attention paid dividends in terms of building a long-term positive relationship. From  onwards the Embassy stepped up its efforts to link selected Labour members with their Democratic counterparts. Democrats who visited London for whatever reason were set up with meetings with

41 42 43 44 45

U.S. Embassy London to USIA Washington DC,  January , MI. Seldon, Blair, –. Ibid., . Jimmy Kolker, interview; Miles Pendleton, interview. Raymond Seitz, correspondence with author,  February .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

Labour personnel. Another General Election defeat in  increased the call for radical change from the modernizers in the Labour Party, and “the floodgates opened” for contacts with colleagues in the United States.46 The Embassy assisted further trips by both Blair and Brown, who together visited the Democratic National Convention (Brown’s second in four years) in Atlanta in the summer of  and who would make other trips alone in the following years.47 IV grants went increasingly to the cabal of modernizers and loyalists that was beginning to gather around Blair and Brown, several of whom, such as Charles Clarke, Peter Mandelson, and John Reid, would later take up ministerial posts when Labour entered government in . The momentum and the targeting of invitations to Labour MPs during this period is very evident. The U.S. embassy did not alone transform the political direction of the party, but it did aim to cultivate those party members who were looking to modernize their party and who were therefore more open to discovering what the United States had to offer to assist this process. In this sense U.S. public diplomacy successfully intervened in British political developments in order to subtly direct them toward certain paths.

The Netherlands in the s: Swaying Public Opinion Similar to Britain, the modernization of NATO’s Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) caused deep divisions within Dutch politics. Both on the Left and within the Christian Democratic movement, there had been a growing demand since the s to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons within Western security policy.48 Despite officially backing NATO policy, two successive coalition governments in – and – were forced to delay a decision on accepting cruise missiles in the Netherlands, and splits within the dominant Christian Democrat Party meant that the issue was politically precarious for the party itself. Feelings ran high. In October  the largest ever political demonstration took place in The Hague to pressure the government into rejecting missile placement.

46

Jimmy Kolker, interview. Seldon, Blair, . 48 For an in-depth analysis of these developments within Dutch politics see Remco van Diepen, Hollanditis: Nederland en het Kernwapendebat – (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, ). 47

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



During  a public petition against placement was circulated which drew a total of . million signatures.49 For the Americans the extent of public resistance in the Netherlands was a matter of major concern.50 The Netherlands, since World War II considered a “faithful ally” of the United States, had by the s become part of NATO’s “weakest link” struck by pacifist “Hollanditis.”51 In response the U.S. embassy sought ways to deploy its public diplomacy arsenal to have an impact on Dutch public opinion. As Embassy Information Officer Jake Gillespie has said, looking back on his time in The Hague from –, “NATO and INF was enormous the whole time I was there. It was always a problem.”52 Already in  USIA’s Deputy Director for International Exchange Yale Richmond had proposed holding regular meetings with Dutch officials to discuss cultural, informational, and educational matters of common concern. The first meeting, held in Washington D.C. in March , discussed the existing misconceptions of each country within their respective societies, the role of the media in perpetuating and breaking these misconceptions, and the uses of government information activities to improve mutual understanding. Along these lines the condition of American Studies in the Netherlands (and Dutch Studies in the U.S.) was also discussed. Follow-up meetings took place in  and , involving top-level information officials from 49 In June  the Christian Democrat Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers engineered a compromise, whereby he accepted the stationing of the missiles but delayed the actual preparations for their arrival until November . If a disarmament agreement had been struck with the Soviet Union before November , the stationing would have been further postponed, but this did not occur and the process of stationing duly began. However, no missiles had arrived by the time of the INF treaty between the USA and the USSR in December , which nullified the whole issue. See Duco Hellema, Neutraliteit en Vrijhandel: De Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Buitenlandse Betrekkingen (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, ), –. 50 A USIA survey at the time indicated that while the Dutch still on the whole looked to the Atlantic Alliance for military security, there was a sizeable section of the political Left, together with “dissidents” from the Christian Democrats, who preferred neutrality. “Public Opinion in the Netherlands on Aspects of Atlantic Cooperation,” VS: Culturele Betrekkingen met Nederland, Deel I, –, Code  –, Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague (hereafter MFA). 51 See Alfred van Staden, Een Trouwe Bondgenoot: Nederland en het Atlantisch Bondgenootschap – (Baarn: In den Toren, ); Walter Laqueur, “Hollanditis: A New Stage in European Neutralism,” Commentary  (): –. In relation to the arms control debate, in April  U.S. Senator Sam Nunn referred to the Netherlands, Belgium, and the ruling SPD party in West Germany as “the weakest links in the NATO chain.” 52 Jake Gillespie (Information Officer –), interview with author, Washington DC,  June .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

the Ministries of Defense, Foreign Affairs, and the Government Information Service in the Netherlands, and their counterparts from USIA, the Departments of State and Defense, and the White House. By this stage the main areas of concern were the state of Dutch public opinion towards U.S. foreign and security policy, and the clear need to coordinate information programs to deal with it.53 How was the IVP used in this case? Once again, as in Britain, it was the ideal flexible tool for the U.S. Embassy to both track and interact with emerging political developments and to reach out and engage with wider Dutch society. However, in The Hague the shift towards a broader societal approach for the IVP also relied on a timely change-over in personnel. Between – the U.S. ambassador was William Dyess, an experienced Foreign Service Officer who had served in various posts in Belgrade, Copenhagen, Moscow, Berlin, and as the Soviet desk officer in the State Department. Dyess also had direct experience in public diplomacy, having worked in the Far East Division of the Foreign Leader Program (the predecessor to the IVP) in the early s, and later becoming Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and State Department spokesman under President Carter. Having used these credentials to secure his ambassadorial post, Dyess’s number one priority was to “stop a negative decision” on missile deployment. He was convinced of his ability to achieve this.54 Pushing for an affirmative decision, Dyess intervened directly in public debates in order to express “a very legitimate point of view, one which represented the interests of our own country, the Alliance, and also the Netherlands.”55 Yet this activist approach was not even appreciated by his own Embassy staff,56 and his constant insistence on pushing the INF 53

Culturele Betrekkingen met Nederland –, M ., & VS: Voorlichting –, Code  –, MFA. Significant is the inclusion of ‘American policies and action in Central America’ on the agenda, due to Dutch accusations of U.S. implication in the killing of a Dutch film crew in El Salvador on  March . Jake Gillespie named Central America as one of the most important issues alongside INF that he had to deal with during his time in The Hague. 54 William J. Dyess, interview with Charles Taber,  March , Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (hereafter ADST), available at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/mfdipbib:@field (AUTHOR+@od (Dyess,+William+J+)) ( March ). 55 Dyess, interview with Charles Taber, ADST. 56 Dyess mentions two embassy officers who backed him completely on this, Peter Koromilas and Dixon Boggs. In the late s and early s Koromilas had been CIA chief of operations in Athens. See Yiannis Roubatis & Karen Wynn, “CIA Operations in Greece,” in eds. Philip Agee & Louis Wolf, Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe (London: Zed Press, ) .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



issue went far beyond what might be expected of an ambassador from a friendly state. His use of the IV Program as a means to achieve direct influence in decision-making exposed this field of public diplomacy as a blatant tool of manipulative political power. In his oral history he claims success, but the fact is that he was recalled to Washington in , after only  months, due to “Dutch unhappiness with his hard-line salesmanship of President Reagan’s policies on nuclear arms.”57 Dyess was replaced by L. Paul Bremer III, who was briefed to repair the diplomatic damage. Bremer, who was given free rein to develop his own strategy for doing so, soon decided to give no public statements on the INF issue, in total contrast to Dyess. In terms of their approach to Dutch politics, Dyess and Bremer did share one viewpoint—there was no point in spending time with the Dutch Labour Party, which remained opposed to deployment. Instead Bremer turned his attention, and the attention of the whole embassy, to gradually building blocks of support for deployment within parliament and to directing resources towards those sectors of society where opinion could be favourably turned around.58 From the late s onwards the IVP was clearly policy-driven, with a notable focus on “defense intellectuals” either directly or indirectly associated with the planning of Dutch security affairs. MPs who had voted against the December  NATO decision in parliament were deliberately picked out, One was Jan van Houwelingen, who went on to hold the crucial post of State Secretary for Defence from –. Van Houwelingen was a Christian Democrat who belonged to the same religious camp as those opposed to nuclear weapons. Making him State Secretary was a deliberate political move by his party leadership to give him governmental responsibility for deployment and so prevent him from becoming a disruptive presence in parliament. Van Houwelingen’s IV trip was dominated by U.S. socio-economic policy, the democratic apparatus, and nuclear proliferation, and included an in-depth conversation with Richard Perle, then an advisor to Senator Henry Jackson, concerning the details of Dutch political and religious opposition to nuclear weapons.59 Perle soon joined the Reagan administration as assistant 57

“US Envoy to the Hague said to be on way out,” New York Times,  March , A. Doeko Bosscher, “The Nadir of Dutch-American Relations: Ronald Reagan, El Salvador and Cruise Missiles,” in ed. Tity de Vries, Dynamics of Modernization: EuropeanAmerican Comparisons and Rejections (Amsterdam: Free University Press, ), –. Bosscher interviewed Bremer about his time in The Hague on  July . 59 Jan van Houwelingen, interview with the author, Middelburg,  November . 58

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

secretary of defense, directly involved in the transatlantic maneuverings of INF diplomacy. A fellow Christian Democrat “dissident MP” was Jan Nico Scholte, described by the U.S. Embassy as “known to have a critical view on nuclear weapons.” His IV trip was deliberately aimed to “broaden his understanding of U.S. views on nuclear weapons and defense and provide him general knowledge of U.S. society.”60 The Dutch security and defense community, predominantly in favor of deployment, formed something of a close-knit cabal within the maelstrom of Dutch parliamentary and public life in this period.61 A central figure in this group was Boudewijn van Eenennaam, a Foreign Affairs civil servant who willingly (and unusually) engaged in the debates in the Dutch press.62 Van Eenennaam has agreed that his IV grant in  could easily have been taken as a deliberate attempt by the U.S. embassy to gain political influence.63 The trip came at a crucial time as he soon moved higher up within the transatlantic security community, becoming political counselor at the Netherlands Embassy in Washington D.C. in , followed by political advisor to the Dutch permanent representative to NATO in Brussels, and eventually Dutch ambassador to the United States during –. The media was also a key battlefield of ideas, with U.S. Embassy staff following closely the moves taken by the daily and weekly press and identifying influential individuals who could, with some encouragement, come to play a significant role. One such person was Joep Bik of the daily paper the NRC Handelsblad, who “ended up probably being the driving force” in pro-INF discussion within the Dutch press.64 Bik was provided with an IV grant in  as well as several shorter trips for NATO briefings and base visits within Western Europe, and this assisted him to become the recognised expert in the daily press.65

60

“FY- IVP: Programming of Dutch Attitudes Towards NATO,” U.S. Embassy The Hague to USIA Washington DC,  April , MI. 61 To give a flavour of this mood, during his interview Jake Gillespie recalled attending a reception in The Hague in  when he was informed by Albert Sligting, then head of the Public Information Bureau of the Ministry of Defence (and an IV grantee in ), that “we are going to succeed on this thing.” 62 See B.J. van Eenennaam, “Zijn de Verenigde Staten nog steeds een trouwe bondgenoot,” NRC Handelsblad,  March . 63 Boudewijn van Eenennaam, interview with the author, Washington DC  June . 64 Jake Gillespie, interview with the author. The crucial role of Bik was also confirmed by van Eenennaam and by his former NRC Handelsblad colleague Jan Sampiemon. Jan Sampiemon, interview by the author, The Hague,  December . 65 See Joep Bik, “Onze Raketten,” NRC Handelsblad,  November .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



Bik’s position was all the more relevant because the paper he wrote for, NRC Handelsblad, was perhaps the most influential of the Dutch broadsheets, and its editorial staff were split on the deployment issue. By  the IVP’s emphasis was laid more on MPs and media personnel who could play a key role in the tense parliamentary debates on deployment. In the words of Ambassador Bremer, “we spent more time on the members of the Tweede Kamer [second chamber of parliament]— if you took the whole embassy—than on the government.”66 By this stage even members of the anti-INF Labour Party were being invited as attempts were made to link them up with counterparts in the USA involved in domestic socio-economic policy. Once again, the attempt to identify future leadership potential was an ever-present factor, and the U.S. Embassy in The Hague here succeeded as well as its partner in London. In August–September  Jan-Peter Balkenende, then a young staffer within the Christian Democrat party’s research institute, made his first trip to the USA as part of a four-man IV tour based around “Economic and Social Well-Being in the United States.” Balkenende returned thankful for the opportunity and open to applying what he had learned, commenting that it would be good to get “more people in key positions in the Netherlands to participate in such a project, especially the men who are on the boards of the trade unions.”67 In  Balkenende, by then leader of the Christian Democrats, became Minister President in the Netherlands and has since followed a determined path in foreign affairs as a close ally of the United States. Under Bremer the IV Program was also used to stimulate an improvement in public opinion towards the United States across various sectors of Dutch society, with special attention given to the field of education. Concerted efforts were made to establish positive relations with those professionals directly involved in formulating educational curricula, such as the Society for Teaching Plan Development (SLO). The aim was clearly to institutionalize the American influence in Dutch education not just in terms of the content of what was taught, but also in terms of transferring methods of operation that would lead to the two national education systems becoming more interchangeable. The benefits of this for smoothing out and expanding the process of educational exchange is obvious. 66

Quoted in Bosscher, . Evaluation Questionnaire, Economic and Social Well-Being in the United States,  August –  September , MI. 67

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

The promotion of American Studies within Dutch universities became a central goal of this long-term strategy.68 The first requirement for this was the necessary revival of the Fulbright Program, since by the early s the Netherlands-America Commission for Educational Exchange (NACEE), with too few meetings and too little publicity, had become ineffective in running it. When Ambassador Paul Bremer arrived in The Hague in , revitalizing the NACEE (and so the Fulbright) became one of his many goals for improving the image of the United States.69 In August  the director general of the Ministry of Education, Jan Veldhuis, was invited to the United States via the IVP to explore American methods of quality control, teacher training, and “the peculiarly American phenomenon of ranking and rating educational institutions.”70 Although at that point he was not directly related to the NACEE, Veldhuis had clearly been singled out as the local official through whom the reform process would be set in motion.71 With the backing of Bremer and Minister of Education Wim Deetman, Veldhuis was appointed to the NACEE board in January  and initiated a program that aimed to shift grant resources to the humanities and social sciences (“most conducive to mutual understanding”), expand its network beyond the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, and Wageningen, and “to focus on the members of the successor generation: graduate students, teachers and young scholars.”72 Over the next two years “almost the entire board was renewed to add up-to-date, scholarly and professional expertise to the 68

See Giles Scott-Smith, “The Ties That Bind: Dutch-American Relations, US Public Diplomacy, and the Promotion of American Studies in the Netherlands since WWII,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy,  (): –. 69 See Bosscher, “The Nadir of Dutch-American Relations,” in ed. de Vries, Dynamics of Modernization, –. 70 “Study tour of the United States at the invitation of the American government,  June –  July ,” J.G.F. Veldhuis, August  (author’s copy). 71 See Jan Rupp, Van Oude en Nieuwe Universiteiten: De Verdringing van Duitse door Amerikaanse Invloeden op de Wetenschapsbeoefening en het Hoger Onderwijs in Nederland – (The Hague: Sdu, ), , where he claims (based on an interview in ) that Veldhuis was called to Washington for a critical evaluation of the Program. However, it is clear that the Fulbright Program was not on Veldhuis’ original IV agenda and that it was added only after he arrived in the United States. Jan Veldhuis, interview with the author, Voorschoten  December ; Report: “Study Tour of the United States at the Invitation of the American Government,  June –  July  by Mr J.G.F. Veldhuis, Director-General at the Ministry of Education and Science and Inspector-General of Education,” author’s copy (with thanks to Jan Veldhuis). 72 NACEE Annual Report – & –, File: Annual Reports –, Archive of the Fulbright Commission, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg (hereafter Fulbright).

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



program.” Funding was also increased to expand the range of scholarships on offer, with American Studies and the social sciences being emphasized.73 The IVP was utilised to support this process. Dutch academics from History, Politics, and English departments became regular candidates for grants, several taking part in Regional Projects designed to take groups of West European academics on tours of U.S. universities. In February  the Embassy again assisted Veldhuis, by then President of Utrecht University, to return to the United States as part of a threeman university team to further examine U.S. methods in higher education.74 With NACEE back on track a concerted strategy was developed to nurture “a new crowd of scholars” to expand the existing American Studies community within Dutch higher education.75 In  the first of a series of prestigious chairs, the John Adams Visiting Scholar in American Civilization (now American History) was established at the University of Amsterdam. This was followed in  by the Walt Whitman chair in American Culture Studies (originally linked with Leiden) and in  the Thomas Jefferson chair in American Social Studies (originally linked with Utrecht). Cooperation with other U.S. embassies across Western Europe, encouraged by USIA in Washington, enabled a sharing of costs for bringing speakers over and organizing multinational events.76 Gurvin worked closely with a group of Dutch Americanists to reach a more general audience with Americana, a twice-yearly popular magazine with commercial distribution that ran from – .77 In all these activities, exchanges provided the perfect means to begin constructive relations, build common interests, and establish key figures as “local interpreters” of the United States for a Dutch audience. In doing so, an effort was made to ensure that this sustained effort to influence Dutch opinion did not overstep the limits of political etiquette, in that open manipulation was avoided. Nevertheless, the recall of Ambassador 73 NACEE Annual Report – & –, File: Annual Reports –, Fulbright. 74 Voluntary Visitor Itinerary, – February , MI. 75 Anne Gurvin, (Cultural Affairs Officer, The Hague, –), telephone interview with author, Washington DC,  June . 76 Anne Gurvin, interview. 77 Anne Gurvin, interview. Significantly the editorial board was made up of scholars from Groningen, Nijmegen, and Utrecht to ensure “different perceptions from different parts of the country.”

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

Dyess in  demonstrated that an aggressive public diplomacy campaign was more likely to generate resentment than to achieve its set goal of positively influencing local opinion. The IV Program is a subtle exercise that trades heavily on America’s considerable cultural and social capital—in other words its soft power. Whereas most public diplomacy activities take place either in a designated country or as part of an international event (e.g. Olympics, Venice Biennale), the IVP actually asks the participants to visit the metropole, at their own free will, to see for themselves. Thus the IVP, through subtle management, can lay out a potential path, with no obligations but plenty of benefits, which a recipient can voluntarily choose to accept. This is less the engineering of consent than the creation of the circumstances for its realization, and it is often highly effective. Therefore, this form of public diplomacy attempts not so much to change the decisions themselves, but to transform the context within which diplomatic and political decision-making is taken. It is therefore most successful in securing an impact, both on a personal as well as a party political level, when it engages with trends and opinions that are already in motion. For those who take part in the IVP, the impact is as much psychological as material. The  USIA report understood this dimension perfectly when it stated that “arching over all of [the IVP’s] purposes, we find more elusive questions of affect, of emotion, and of two-way learning . . .. [T]o underestimate the reality of this affective element and the IV contribution to American understanding is to miss the point of why the IV Program works.”78 Needless to say, there is a potent element of privilege involved in this, which is epitomized by the selection process and the seductive power of the invitation coming from the U.S. government via the U.S. ambassador. Of course, the program was but one limited means by which ideas and people criss-crossed the Atlantic during the s. Labour did not change direction and the Dutch did not eventually agree to the sitting of cruise missiles purely because of U.S. public diplomacy and the efforts of the respective U.S. embassies. Likewise it would be a mistake to give the embassy too much foresight and determinacy in the events and political trajectories of key players during that period. Nevertheless, it is clear that a form of “strategic public diplomacy” was being implemented,

78 The International Visitor Program: A Review, Directorate for Educational and Cultural Affairs, USIA, April , .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



with the deliberate intention of generating particular results.79 As the U.S. Embassy’s Country Plan for Britain for  stated, in amongst the plethora of transatlantic exchanges already taking place the IVP performed “an indispensable function” because it was the only program the Embassy could “direct and focus, to ensure an essential level of quality and relevance to U.S. foreign policy goals.”80

Conclusion Naturally, there are many factors that ensure this is not a foolproof process. There is no guarantee that all grantees will return from their U.S. trip with a favorable disposition towards American politics and society. Usually the openness that grantees experience in the USA enables them to balance any negative feelings with an appreciation for the honesty and candidness of their hosts. Yet it can sometimes have the opposite effect, the most famous example of this being that of the Egyptian Sayyed Qutb. Qutb was a civil servant who spent nearly two years in the United States during –, studying the education system via placements at the Wilson Teachers College in Washington D.C. and a high school in Greeley, Colorado. Before the Smith-Mundt Act of , grants for exchanges were authorised only for Latin America and a few other countries of particular significance for U.S. interests, one being Egypt. Qutb was therefore a “grantee” selected via the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and it is clear that this selection process either missed entirely Qutb’s developing Islamic radicalism or (more likely) thought that direct exposure to the United States would assist his career, moderate his views, and create another channel for U.S. ideas into Egyptian society. Instead Qutb returned openly repelled by what he saw as the decadence, amorality, and empty materialism of American society. It is therefore possible to argue that Qutb’s experience in the United States ultimately confirmed his prejudices and propelled his commitment to purifying Egyptian (and, ultimately, Islamic) society from alien Western influences.81 79 Jarol Manheim, Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy: The Evolution of Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), . 80 “Country Plan Proposal FY—CU Portion,” USIS London,  May , Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Historical Collection, MC , Box , Folder , Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, Arkansas. 81 Qutb joined the Muslin Brotherhood in  and was soon made head of its Propagation of the Call division. Although initially a supporter of General Abdul Nasser’s

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



giles scott-smith

This is an ever-present danger, and Qutb’s example also illustrates a certain degree of hubris from that time in the sense that it was assumed a trip to the United States could only generate a positive outcome as part of the individual’s educational development. Nevertheless, it is important to assess this in light of historical experience. The use of exchanges in deliberate support of U.S. foreign relations had previously been carried out by George Creel’s Committee on Public Information during World War I, and by the State Department’s Division of Cultural Relations and Nelson Rockefeller’s Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs during World War II. Yet no detailed assessments of either of these initiatives took place, and it was not until the late s and early s, in relation to the large-scale use of exchanges in support of the U.S.-led re-orientation programs in occupied Germany, that in-depth studies of the ways and means of exchanges as a tool of U.S. foreign policy were conducted. In other words, the example of Qutb points as much to the naiveté of U.S. public diplomacy in  as it does to the potential ‘blowback’ from radicalising grantees. It is instructive, after all, that the main example of ‘failure’ is from sixty years ago, before the IVP itself was even up and running. In terms of the case studies presented here, some concluding remarks on the value of exchanges can be made. First, they were useful for the political access they provided in the United States for grantees, especially as they acted as a primer which could attract and encourage further contact with the United States in the future. Second, the U.S. embassies were able via the IVP to communicate to prospective grantees that they were considered of some importance and talent. Power is an attractive commodity in politics and the United States can trade on this more than any other nation. Third, since each visit was based around intensive human contact, it often created a powerful sense of visitor and hosts being on the same side, if not on a policy level then at least on a personal level. As Dutch journalist and  Eisenhower Fellow Jan Sampiemon recalled, such a trip did not necessarily make you pro-American, but it did add to the personal fascination with the sheer diversity and scale of American life.82 Fourth, they mixed short-term (policy-oriented) and long-

Free Officer movement which seized power in , Qutb turned critical and was imprisoned in . He was executed in . His writings paved the way for others, such as the Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, to develop the idea of an Islamic vanguard dedicated to political revolution. 82 Jan Sampiemon, interview with the author, The Hague,  December .

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

networks of influence



term (mutual understanding) goals. In the Netherlands, while the shortterm focus on defense intellectuals and security policy-makers was vital, this was balanced by building up a longer-term platform for the dissemination of knowledge on the United States through the media and (especially) the educational apparatus. Finally, the Program helped to perpetuate “American exceptionalism” and the notion that the United States remained the source of significant social, cultural, and political change. Overall, it is not as if the removal of exchange programs would have caused any collapse in relations with Britain and the Netherlands. Instead, exchanges should be recognized as providing a unique contribution towards cultivating and strengthening existing transnational cultural affinities, and thus positively influencing the broader context in which policy decisions are taken.

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

INDEX A Year in Korea,  Acheson, Dean, n, ,  Afghanistan, , – Africa, , , , , , , , , n, , ,  see also individual countries African Americans, , –  see also Civil Rights, Race Afro-Asian Nations, see Third World Aiken, Frank,  Algemeen Nieuws en Telegraaf Agentschap (Aneta), , , n, , , n, , ,  Allen, Leonard, , ,  Alliance for Progress, –, –  Alliance Française, , –,  All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS),  America Houses,  American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic,  American Century, , n, –  American Friends of Irish Neutrality,  American National Exhibition in Moscow,  American Note crisis (Ireland), –  American Studies, , , , , – Americanization, ,  Anglo-Irish Treaty, – Annan, Kofi,  Appalachia, – and American people’s views of, –, , 

Appalachian Handcrafts exhibit, , –, – Appalachian Regional Commission,  Areilza, José Maria de, Conde de Montrico, ,  Argentina,  Arias Salgado, Gabriel, ,  Armstrong, Louis,  Art, –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, –  Asia, , , , , , –, –, , ,  see also South Asia, individual countries Atlantic Charter,  Bahrain,  Balkenende, Jan Peter,  Beers, Charlotte, ,  Benson, Frank W.,  Benton, William, –, –, n, –, –,  Bik, Joep, – bin Laden, Osama,  Binns, Jack,  Blair, Tony, , , , –,  Blue, James, –,  Bogotá Conference (),  Borsig, Ernst,  Botswana,  Brazil, ,  Bremer, L. Paul III., , ,  Brennan, Robert, , , – Bridges, Styles, – British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), , ,  British Council, 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



index

Broadcasting Board of Governors,  Bronston, Samuel, , , – Brown v. Board of Education (), ,  Brown, Gordon, , , – Brown, Irving,  Buckley, William F.,  Bullfrog v. Wick, – Bush, George H.W.,  Bush, George W., –, , , –,  Byrne, Hugh,  Byrnes, James F.,  Cadart, Jeanne Jégou-,  Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,  Campaign of Truth, see Harry S. Truman Carter, Jimmy,  Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement (CAPSM), , –, , , –, , , – Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), , , ,  Cervantes Institute, , ,  Chamberlain, Neville,  Chicago Tribune, , n,  Chile,  China, –, –, , , , –, , ,  Christie, Lansdell K.,  Churchill, Winston, , –, ,  Civil rights, , , , –, –, , , , – see also African Americans, Race Clarke, Charles,  Colijn, H.A.,  Colonialism, , , , , , , , ,  and United Nations public diplomacy, –,  anti-colonialism, –, ,  see also Decolonization, Race; Third World

Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), , , ,  Committee of Progressive Salvadorans,  Committee on Culture and Intellectual Cooperation, – Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy,  Committee on Public Information (CPI), , ,  Communist Party,  of El Salvador,  Confucius Institutes,  Congress for Cultural Freedom,  Congress of Vienna,  Connelly, Matthew,  Cox, Eugene, ,  Cudahy, John, – Cull, Nicholas,  Cultural diplomacy, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, , , –,  definition of, , n,  difference between public diplomacy, , n, ,  in th century, – in th and st centuries, – and non-governmental organizations, – Dutch, ,  and U.S. Smithsonian Institution, – see also Public diplomacy; Art; Music Cultural exchanges, see Cultural diplomacy; Exchange programs Cultural imperialism, , , , , ,  Cultural relations, see Cultural diplomacy Czechoslovakia , –,  Dante Alighieri Society,  Davis, Elmer, ,  DeHoog, Walter, , 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

index DeMille, Cecil B.  DeValera, Eamon, –, –, – and public diplomacy – and American Note crisis, – Decolonization, , , , , , ,  and United Nations public diplomacy, – and U.S. public diplomacy in the Third World, – see also Colonialism, Group of , Non-aligned movement, Race, Third World Deetman, Wim,  Deliverance,  Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR),  Dish, The,  Du Pont, Pierre S. rd, , , n, – Dudziak, Mary L.,  Dutch East Indies, see Indonesia Düwell, Kurt,  Dyess, William, –,  Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA): –, , ,  Egypt, ,  Eisenhower, Dwight D. , , , , , , , ,  El Camino Real (“The Royal Road”), – El Cid, , –, , , ,  El Salvador, – and “Mountain Craftsmen” exhibit, –,  El Valle de los Caidos (“The Valley of the Fallen”), , – Ethnic groups, –, , –,  Europe as focus of U.S. public diplomacy, –, –, ,  European Recovery Program (ERP), see Marshall Plan



Exchange programs, , , –, , , , –, , –, , , , , – in Norway, –, – see also International Visitor Program (IVP); Fulbright program; Foreign Leader Program Executive Order ,  Fall of the Roman Empire, The , ,  Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), , –, –, –, – Finland, , –,  Ford, John,  Foreign Leader Program (FLP), –  see also Exchange programs Formosa (Taiwan), ,  Foster, Schuyler, , n, – Fraga Iribarne, Manuel, , – , n, –, n France, , , , , –, – , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Franco, Francisco, –, – Fulbright Program, , , , , , , , , –, –  see also Exchange programs Fulbright, J. William,  Gallup, George, ,  Garcia Bedoya, Lisa,  German-Turkish Association (DTV), – Germany, , –, , –, – , –, –, , , –, –, , , , , , , , , n, , , , , ,  Gillespie, Jake  Gittings, John,  Glackens, William, 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



index

Goebbels, Josef, , ,  Goethe Institute, ,  Goldberg, Arthur,  Good Neighbor Policy, ,  Gray, David, –, , – Great Britain, , –, , , – , , , , , , , , –, , , , –, ,  and cultural diplomacy in th century, –,  and Irish-Americans during World War II, – and U.S. exchange programs in s, –, – Greece, ,  Gross, Ernest A.  Group of , , –, , – , n,  Guatemala,  Guggenheim, Charles, –,  Hammarskjold, Dag,  Harlem Globetrotters,  Harrington, Michael, ,  Harvest,  Hawken, Ashley, , ,  Herschensohn, Bruce, –, , –, . Hispanidad, , ,  Hollywood international influence of, , –, –, – and U.S. public diplomacy, – , –, –, –  Hopper, Robert, , ,  Hughes, Karen, ,  Huizinga, James, , , , n, , n, , , , n, , , n,  Hull, Cordell, ,  Hungary, ,  Hunt, Michael,  Iceland, ,  India, , , , , –, , , 

Indochina, , , , , , , ,  See also Vietnam, Vietnam War Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), , , , , –, , – and crisis with Netherlands, –  Information activities, see Public diplomacy Information Control Division,  Interim International Information Service (IIIS),  Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF), , , ,  International Broadcasting Division (IBD),  International Educational Exchange Service (IES), – International Information Administration (IIA), , , –, , , –,  International Visitor Program (IVP), , – in United Kingdom, – in Netherlands, – see also Exchange programs; Foreign Leader Program Internet,  Invitation to India, – Invitation to Pakistan, – Iraq,  Ireland, , –, – see also Irish Americans Irish Americans, –, – as targets of public diplomacy, , , , , –, ,  Irish Constitution (),  Iriye, Akira,  Isabella of Spain (unproduced film), ,  Jackson, C.D. (Charles Douglas),  Jackson, Henry,  Japan, , ,  John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums, , –, 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

index John Paul Jones, , , n, , – Johnson, Lyndon B., , , , , –, ,  Jong, Lou de, , n Juliana, Crown Princess of the Netherlands (later Queen),  Kaiser, Wolfram,  Karzai, Hamid, ,  Kekkonen, Urho, –,  Kennan, George F., , n Kennedy, Jacqueline, – Kennedy, John F., , – and relations with Finland, –  Kennedy, Liam, – Keogh, James,  King of Kings, ,  Kingfish, see Project Kingfish Kissinger, Henry,  Kleffens, Eelco N. van, –, , , n, n Knickerbocker Weekly, , , n Kolker, Jimmy, ,  Korea/Korean War, , , , , , , , , , –, , , ,  Korengold, Robert,  Kramer, Stanley,  Krell, Jerry, ,  Kuralt, Charles,  and “Christmas in Appalachia,” – Labor movement (Norway),  see also Workers Educational Foundation (Norway) Labor Party (Norway), – see also Labor movement (Norway) Labour Party (British),  Latin America, , , , , n, , , , , , , , , n, , , –, –, , , , ,  League of Nations, 



Lenin, Vladimir,  Lesinski, John,  Lie, Haakon,  Lie, Trygve,  Llovet, Enrique, –, – Lodge, Jr., Henry Cabot Lodge,  Loudon, A., , n, , n, n Lucas, Scott, , – Luce, Henry, , n MacLeish, Archibald, –, – , , , , –,  Malaya,  Mandelson, Peter,  Mansfield, Mike,  March, The, –, n,  Marcos, Ferdinand and Imelda,  Marks, Leonard, –,  Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program, ERP), , , , , , , –,  Marshall, George C., – Mazrui, Ali,  McCain, John,  McCarthy, Joseph, , ,  McDonald, Malcolm, ,  McMahon, Robert J.,  Meagher, Timothy,  Melton, Richard,  Menzel, Adolph,  Mexico, , , , – Millar, Dorothy,  Ministry of Information and Tourism (MIT), Spain, , – , –, n, – Molina, Armando,  Morgenthau, Hans, , – Mountain Craftsmen: The Southern Appalachians exhibit, , , , – Muccio, John,  Mundt, Karl,  Murrow, Edward R., , , , ,  Music, , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



index

Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP),  National Collection of Fine Arts,  National Security Strategy for Combating Terrorism,  Nehru, Jawaharlal, , , , ,  Netherlands America Commission for Educational Exchange,  Netherlands East Indies, see Indonesia Netherlands Information Bureau (NIB), , , – San Francisco branch of, ,  Netherlands News,  Netherlands, , , ,  occupation of, – and Dutch public diplomacy, –  and U.S. exchange programs in s, – see also Netherlands Information Bureau (NIB) Neutralism (Nonalignment), , –, –, ,  see also Non-aligned movement Neutrality (Irish), –, , ,  New International Economic Order (NIEO), , ,  New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), , – Newsreel, , , , , , ; see also Project Kingfish Nico Scholte, Jan,  Nine From Little Rock,  Ninkovich, Frank, , ,  Nixon, Richard M., , , –  Non-Aligned Movement, , – , –, – Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), , , , , , n, –, –, , , – North Atlantic Treaty (NAT), North Atlantic treaty organization

(NATO), , , –, , , –, , , , –  Norway, –, – Notter, Harley, – NSC-, –,  NSDD,  Nye, Joseph S., , n, ,  see also “soft power” Obama, Barack, , , ,  Objetivo , , , n Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), U.S., , ,  Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America,  Office of the Coordinator for InterAmerican Affairs,  Office of War Information (OWI), , , –, , , , ,  Olmert, Ehud, ,  Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC),  Organization of African Unity,  Organization of American States (OAS),  see also Bogotá Conference Osgood, Kenneth,  Oswald, Victor,  Pakistan,  Pell Amendment, ,  Pendleton, Miles, ,  Perle, Richard,  Pew Global Attitudes Project, –, n Philippines, , n, , , , , , – Pierrepont, R. Stuyvesant,  Place branding, , , ,  Popular Revolutionary Block (BPR),  Portugal,  Prins, Pieter,  Private groups, private sector, see Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

index Project Democracy,  Project Kingfish, , , ,  Project Truth,  Propaganda, see Public diplomacy Psychological Strategy Board (PSB), , , ,  Psychological warfare, , –, , n, , , , , –,  see also Public diplomacy Public diplomacy affected by power, – communist, –, –, , , , , , ,  definition of, –; –, , n, n,  and dictatorship,  difference between cultural diplomacy, , n, ,  and ethnic groups, –, , – ,  European public diplomacy in th century, – as global phenomenon, – and historiography of U.S. diplomatic history, – in the Third World, , , – military applications of,  and music, , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), , , , , , –, –, , , – and soft power, –, , , , , , , –, –, ,  supranational, ,  after terrorist attacks of  September , –, – and tourism, , , –, – , , –, –,  transnational, , , , , – , –, 

 and U.S. domestic politics, –, –, –, , – ,  see also U.S. Congress; and U.S. exchange programs, , , –, , , , –, , –, , , , , –, , –, –  passim also see individual countries, programs, agencies, and topics.

Qutb, Sayyed, – Race, , –, , , – , , –, , , , ,  see also Civil rights, Decolonization Radio Oranje, ,  Reagan, Ronald, –, , –, –, n, n, , – ,  Realism, Realists, , , ,  Regeringsvoorlichtingsdienst (RVD; Government Information Service), ,  Reid, John,  Rhodes, Cecil,  Richmond, Yale,  Rio Conference,  (Rio Pact), – Rittberger, Volker,  Robles Piquer, Carlos, n, , n, n, –, n, , n Rockefeller, Nelson,  Romero, Archbishop Oscar, ,  Roosevelt, Franklin D., , –, , –, , , –, , , ,  Roper, Elmo,  Rosenberg, Emily,  Rowan, Carl T., –,  Rusk, Dean, , , , 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



index

Sagaz, Angel, , n São Paulo Bienal, ,  Sarkozy, Nicolas, ,  Saudi Arabia,  Saunders, Frances Stonor,  Science Report, , –,  Scott, David W.,  Seitz, Raymond, ,  Shakespeare, Frank,  SHARE Foundation: Building a New El Salvador Today, , ,  Sherwood, Robert, , , , – Sinfonía Española, , –, n, – Skard, Sigmund,  Slotemaker de Bruine, N.A.C., – , –,  Smith, H. Alexander,  Smith-Mundt Act (U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of ), , –, –, , , , , ,  Smithsonian Institution, , , –, – soft power, –, , , , , , , –, –, , ,  see also Joseph S. Nye South Africa, , n South Asia, , –, , , – see also India Soviet Union, see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Space program, ,  Spain, ,  and “Hollywood in Madrid,” – ,  and “Operación Propaganda Exterior,” , –, ,  and Francisco Franco, –, , ,  and the “ Years of Peace” propaganda campaign, , –

see also Ministry of Information and Tourism (MIT) Sprague, Mansfield,  Stalin, Josef,  Stefan, Karl, – Stevens, Jr., George, –, n, n, –, – Stewart, Jimmy,  Stikker, Dirk,  Stoppelman, J.W.F., , n Taber, John, –, n Taft, Robert, , n Television, –,  Tennessee Valley Authority, ,  Thailand,  Thatcher, Margaret, , ,  Third World, , , –; origins and meaning of term, n, n and United Nations public diplomacy, – and Truman administration public diplomacy, – construction of Third World identity, , , – see also Non-Alignment Movement, Group of  Tourism, , , –, –, , –, –,  Toynbee, Arnold,  Treaty ports, , , ,  Truman, Harry S. and administration of, –, , –, – , –, n, –, , – Truman Doctrine, , , – , –, , , , ,  and public diplomacy in Latin America, – and Korean War public diplomacy, – and Campaign of Truth, , –, , , , , , – Turkey, , 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University

index U Thant,  U.S. Congress, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , –, , ,  relations with the Office of War Information, – relations with State Department, , – U.S. Department of State, , , , –, , , , , , – , , , , –, – , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , –, –, , , , , ,  and Office of Public Opinion Studies, , – and Office of War Information, , – U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of , see SmithMundt Act U.S. Information Agency, –, , –, , , , n, , , , –, , , , , n, ,  “operating assumptions” of, –  operations in Norway, – passim and civil rights, –, ,  and Appalachian cultural exhibits, – passim and Smithsonian Institution, –, – use of film, – and exchange programs, , , , , ,  and covert work by (see Project Kingfish) U.S. Information Service (USIS), see United States Information Agency (USIA) Uganda,  Union Nacional Democratica (UDN), 



Union Nacional Opositora (UNO),  Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), –, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , – , , , –, , , , , , , –, , –, , , , – United Nations (UN), , , , –, , –, , , , , , , , , ,  and pressure from General Assembly, – Soviet attitudes toward, , – , ,  Committee of , , , n Committee on Information, – ,  Department of Public Information (DPI), , –, , , – public diplomacy activities of, – Truth Commission Report on El Salvador,  United States (U.S.) entry into WWII,  and isolationism, , , , ,  and anti-colonialism, , , , ,  as object of public diplomacy, – attitude toward the United Nations, –, –. Uruguay, , , ,  van Eenennaam, Boudewijn  van Houwelingen, Jan  Vanderberg, Arthur,  Varende Hollander, De (The Flying Dutchman), ,  Veldhuis, Jan, – Venice Biennale, , , 

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University



index

Vibert & Cie.,  Vietnam! Vietnam!,  Vietnam/Vietnam War, , , , –, , ,  see also Indochina Voice of America (VOA), , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Von Bülow, Bernhard,  von Uechtritz-Steinkirch, Cuno, – , –,  Vorys, John, – Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands), – Wall, The, ,  Walshe, Joseph, ,  Welles, Sumner,  Wichers, Willard, , n, n, , n, n Wick, Charles Z., , , –, 

Wigglesworth, Richard, – Wilhelm II, Kaiser, ,  Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands, , , , , ,  Williams, Jay, , n,  Wilson, Woodrow,  Workers Educational Foundation (Norway), , , ,  see also Labor Party (Norway) World expositions,  World War II, , , , , , –, , , , , , , , ,  and Dutch foreign policy and public diplomacy, , –,  and Ireland and Irish Americans, , – World’s Fair, – WORLDNET,  Zimmerman, E.C.,  Zwaan, Bert van der, n, , n

Kenneth. A. Osgood - 978-90-47-43035-3 Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:28AM via Western University