The (Real)politiks of culture: U.S. cultural diplomacy in Unesco, 1946-1954

Diplomatic History

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 231-251

  Graham, S E ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33646713624     PISSN: 01452096     EISSN: 14677709     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2006.00548.x     Document Type: Article

References (134)

1. "Unesco" is not capitalized, in keeping with the usage in Unesco's documentation.
2. Unesco Relations Staff, Paris Embassy, "Records of Activities in Unesco House for the Week Ending August 4, 1950," 9 August 1950, 5, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State (hereafter FSP), Record Group (hereafter RG) 84, National Archives at College Park, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NA).
3. On the broader context of U.S. cultural diplomacy, see Frank Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938-1950 (Cambridge, UK, 1981)
4. Alan Heil, Jr., Voice of America: A History (New York, 2003).
5. These were Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia. On U.S. "guesswork" and Soviet intentions, see Chicago Daily Tribune, "Unesco Is Seen as Peace Agent by Dr. Stoddard," 1 May 1947.
6. Telegram from Foreign Office to Washington, 10 August 1950
7. "Unesco and the Korean Situation," FO371/88901, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
8. Edward H. Buehrig, "The Tribulations of Unesco," International Organization 30, no. 4 (Autumn 1976): 679-80.
9. See Sewell's account of Samuel Huntington's institutional theory in James P. Sewell, Unesco and World Politics: Engaging in International Relations (Princeton, NJ, 1975), 197-8.
10. Jan Kolasa, International Intellectual Cooperation: The League Experience and the Beginnings of Unesco (Wroclaw, Poland, 1962).
11. Sagarika Dutt, The Politicization of the UN Specialized Agencies: A Case Study of Unesco (Lewiston, NY, 1995), 43-4.
12. Clare Wells, The UN, Unesco and the Politics of Knowledge (London, 1987).
13. T. V. Sathayamurthy, The Politics of International Cooperation: Contrasting Conceptions of Unesco (Geneva, 1964), 91.
14. Akira Iriye's exceptional Cultural Internationalism and World Order highlights this tension between (progressive) cultural internationalism and (self-regarding) cultural nationalism over the first decades of the twentieth century. His helpful distinction is adopted here. Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore, MD, 1997).
15. Julie Reeves explores the academic background to the shift from humanism to pragmatism (or "anthropological" theories of culture) in cultural relations. Julie Reeves, Culture and International Relations: Narratives, Natives and Tourists (Oxford, 2004).
16. Ninkovich's Diplomacy of Ideas remains the touchstone study of the formation of U.S. cultural foreign policy in this period.
17. Letter to Alan Dudley from Richard Cowell, 11 April 1951; "Activities of 'Fellow Travellers' in the Unesco Secretariat," FO371/88294, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
18. There are too many examples of cultural history to note them all here - a survey of this journal over the last fifteen years will turn up many outstanding articles. Illuminating booklength studies of culture and American foreign relations not cited elsewhere in this article include Liping Bu, Making the World Like Us: Education, Cultural Expansion, and the American Century (Westport, CT, 2003)
19. Walter Hixon, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War (New York, 1997)
20. Gay E. Kraske, Missionaries of the Book: The American Library Profession and the Origins of United States Cultural Diplomacy (Westport, CT, 1985)
21. Richard Pells, Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture since World War II (New York, 1997)
22. Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945 (New York, 1982)
23. Giles Scott Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and Postwar American Hegemony (New York, 2002).
24. William I. Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1998), 203, Conclusion.
25. "Science" was a relatively late addition to the framework of Unesco, and plays a relatively minor part in the story told here because it was a less controversial area of Unesco's program as compared with information and culture.
26. These were South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
27. See Kolasa, International Intellectual Cooperation, 135.
28. On education see Sewell, Unesco and World Politics;
29. John A. Armstrong, "The Soviet Attitude toward Unesco," International Organization 8, no. 2 (May 1954): 217-8.
30. Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (Berkeley, CA, 2003).
31. H. S. Villard, "The Positive Approach to an Enduring Peace," Department of State Bulletin 2256 (28 January 1945): 140.
32. Assistant Secretary of State Shaw, "Cultural Cooperation Program of the Department of State," Department of State Bulletin 2125 (13 May 1944).
33. Letter to Sir John Maud from R. F. Adam, 23 October 1946; "Unesco Policy," BW1/29, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
34. The U.S. delegation was headed by Congressman J. William Fulbright, and also included Archibald MacLeish; head of the U.S. Institute of Education Reconstruction JohnW. Studebaker; Mildred Thompson of Vassar College; and Grayson Kefauver of Stanford University.
35. Letter to Duff Cooper from J. Chauvel, 21 August 1945, quoted in Luther H. Evans, ed., The United States and UNESCO: A Summary of the United States Delegation Meetings to the Constituent Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, in Washington and London, October-November 1945 (Dobbs Ferry, NY, 1971), 214-5.
36. On French views, see Charles S. Ascher, Unesco Relations Staff of the Department of State, "Forces in the Development of the World Plan of UNESCO," 13 January 1950, Records of the U.S. Delegation to Unesco 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, FSP, RG 84, NA.
37. See William R. Pendergast, "Unesco and French Cultural Relations," International Organization 30, no. 3 (Summer 1976): 453.
38. See also H. H. Krill de Capello, "The Creation of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation," International Organization 24, no. I (Winter, 1970): 30.
39. Blum quoted in Sewell, Unesco and World Politics, 77.
40. Evans, The United States and UNESCO, 143.
41. Byron Dexter, "Unesco Faces Two Worlds," Foreign Affairs 25, no. I (1947): 391.
42. Congressional Record cited in Kolasa, International Intellectual Cooperation, 140.
43. Statement of Archibald MacLeish to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, reprinted in "The Role of Unesco in Our Foreign Policy," Department of State Bulletin 2508 (14 April 1946): 629.
44. Statement of William Benton to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, reprinted in "The Role of Unesco in Our Foreign Policy," Department of State Bulletin 2508 (14 April 1946): 626.
45. The condemnation of Unesco's educational program in America foreshadows the attacks by various patriotic groups in 1952 on publications about "world citizenship" that were distributed by Unesco to U.S. schools. On mixed media views of Unesco in 1945-1946, see "Global Minds Cry for Peace via Propaganda," Chicago Daily Tribune, 25 March 1947
46. "Unity beyond Politics," Christian Science Monitor, 14 December 1945
47. Malvina Lindsay, "Classroom Jingoism," Washington Post, 25 April 1946.
48. For an explanation of U.S. government policy on educational reform and the ideology of global integration, see Klein, Cold War Orientalism.
49. Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983 (Philadelphia, 1984): 99-100, 108, 179.
50. Unesco, "General Conference 1st Session, Held at Unesco House, Paris, 20 November to 10 December, 1946," 256-7, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001145/114580e.pdf.
51. In two years the budget had risen only marginally, by less than $1 million, with large contributors such as the United States and Britain allocating far less to Unesco than to their national cultural programs. See Unesco, "Records of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation 3rd Session, Beirut, 1948," vol. 2, Resolutions, 39, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001145/11459e.pdf.
52. Unesco, "General Conference 1st Session," 64.
53. William Benton, "Report on the First General Conference of Unesco," Department of State Bulletin 2720 (5 January 1947): 20-21.
54. Armstrong, "The Soviet Attitude toward Unesco" has a slightly different explanation from Sewell, Unesco and World Politics.
55. Benton, "Report on the First General Conference of Unesco," 21.
56. T. H. White, "Unesco Is Dying," Continental Daily Mail, 25 July 1950. This is a sad irony given that Czech, Polish, and Yugoslavian exiles had been associated with the Unesco project from 1942.
57. Sewell, Unesco and World Politics, 92-5.
58. "United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization," International Organization 1, no. 3 (1947).
59. See Richard W. Burkhardt, "The Soviet Union in American School Textbooks," Public Opinion Quarterly 11, no. 4 (1947-48): 567-71.
60. Wells, The UN, Unesco and the Politics of Knowledge, 121-7.
61. Unesco, "General Conference 1st Session."
62. Report of the US National Commission for Unesco with Letter of Transmittal from Assistant Secretary Benton to the Secretary of State, United States in the United Nations: Report Series 4 (Washington, DC, 1946), 13-14.
63. "Resolutions Adopted by the General Conference during Its Second Session, Mexico, November-December 1947," http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001145/114580e.pdf.
64. Sathayamurthy, The Politics of International Cooperation, 156.
65. Byron Dexter, "Yardstick for Unesco," Foreign Affairs 28, no. 1 (1949): 57.
66. Sewell, Unesco and World Politics, 141.
67. Wells, The UN, Unesco and the Politics of Knowledge, 66-69
68. Poland Attacks U.S. Position at Unesco Parley," Chicago Daily Tribune, 12 November 1947.
69. Richard M. Freeland, The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism: Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and Internal Security 1946-1948 (New York, 1985), 8-9.
70. The CIA's budget increased nearly fourteen-fold between 1949 and 1952, highlighting the significance of counterpropaganda and subversion in the prosecution of the early Cold War. Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York, 1999), 40-41.
71. One witness cited cultural diplomacy as a basis to block Soviet expansion: "We have been forced to take our story directly to foreign people, many of whom live under regimes hostile to our country and what it stands for. This we have done by telling our side of the story direct to foreign people by every means in our power." Unattributed, "Statement of Principal Witness for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, International Information and Educational Exchange Activities," Pursuant to Public Law 402, 1-2; Records Relating to the International Information Activities 1938-1953, General Records of the Department of State, RG 59, NA.
72. "U.S. Protests Soviet Jamming of Voice of America," Department of State Bulletin 3503 (15 May 1949)
73. George V. Allen, "U.S. Information Program," Department of State Bulletin 3218 (18 July 1948)
74. on the selection of library materials, see Robert L. Johnson, "Press Statement," Report on the Operation of the Overseas Book and Library Program, July 15, 1953, Department of State International Information Administration, Unpublished Pamphlet, Lauinger Library General Collection, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 5-6.
75. Allen, "U.S. Information Program," 90.
76. United States Delegation to Unesco, "Position Paper on Unesco Program Concerning Freedom of Information," 17 November 1948, 2, Unesco 1945-1949, DF, General Records of the Department of State, RG 59, NA.
77. See also John B. Whitton, "Cold War Propaganda," American Journal of International Law 45, no. 1 (January 1951): 151-3.
78. Theodore Besterman, Unesco: Peace in the Minds of Men (London, 1951), 63.
79. J. L. Henderson, Unesco in Focus, American Education Fellowship Freedom Pamphlets Series (1949), 33.
80. See also United States Delegation to the Third Session of the General Conference of Unesco (U.S. Delegation), "Report on General Political Relations during Third Session of the Unesco General Conference, Beirut," 1, Unesco 1945-1949, DF, General Records of the Department of State, RG 59, NA.
81. See also Grayson Kefauver, The Pursuit of Education: An Autobiography (New York, 1981), 178.
82. Arthur A. Compton, "Confidential Report on Third Session Unesco General Conference, November-December 1948," 1, Unesco 1945-1949, Department of State Decimal Files (hereafter DF), General Records of the Department of State, RG 59, NA.
83. On the emerging voting bloc, see also U.S. Delegation "Report on General Political Relations during Third Session of the UNESCO General Conference, Beirut," 4-5, Unesco 1945-1949, DF, RG 59, NA.
84. Unattributed report on Executive Board meeting of 15 October 1948, "Third Session of the Unesco General Conference, Beirut, November, 1948," FO924/648, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
85. Unattributed letter to George V. Allen, Chair of Delegation to Unesco General Conference, 8 November 1949, 1, Unesco 1945-1949, DF, General Records of the Department of State, RG 59, NA.
86. Compton to Allen, "Confidential Report on Third Session Unesco General Conference, November-December 1948," 2, Unesco 1945-1949, DF, RG 59, NA.
87. Ibid., 2.
88. See also Dexter, "Yardstick for Unesco."
89. Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas, 154-5.
90. Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT, 1987), 158.
91. "Text of Truman Message to Congress on State of Union," New York Herald Tribune, 9 January 1951.
92. Draft Telegram "August 1950," "Unesco and the Korean Situation," FO 371/88901, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
93. Draft Letter to F. R. Cowell from D. S. Cape, 16 August 1950, 1-2, "Unesco and the Korean Situation," FO371/88901, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
94. See also Unesco Relations Staff (Unesco Staff), Paris Embassy, "Report on the Unesco Secretariat's Carrying Out of Unesco Executive Board Resolutions on Korea," 7 March 1951, 2-3, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, FSP, RG 84, NA. On Torres Bodet and the Unesco secretariat's views of the role of Unesco in Korea, which conflicted with the United States' instrumental view of culture,
95. see also Sewell, Unesco and World Politics, 149.
96. Kolasa, International Intellectual Cooperation, 155.
97. See, for example, Howland H. Sargeant, "Major Tasks of Unesco in Establishing Communication among Peoples of the World," Department of State Bulletin 4055 (1 January 1951).
98. Unesco Relations Staff, Paris Embassy (Unesco Staff), "Report of Activities at Unesco House for the Week Ending July 29, 1950," 4 August 1950, 2-3, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, FSP, RG 84, NA.
99. Ibid.
100. Julian Huxley, "Unesco: The First Phase," Manchester Guardian, 10 August 1950.
101. Unesco Staff, "Report on the Unesco Secretariat's Carrying Out of Unesco Executive Board Resolutions on Korea," 7-8, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, FSP, RG84, NA.
102. Compton, "Confidential Report on Third Session Unesco General Conference, November-December 1948," 3, Unesco 1945-1949, DF, RG 59, NA.
103. Paris Telegram No. 583, p. 2; "Debate on Resignation of Unesco Director-General Dr. Jaime Torres Bodet Because of Vote against His Budget, Followed by Other Resignations from the Executive Board; Constitution of the ILO; Staff Rules of the FAO and Unesco," FO 371/ 101529, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
104. Unesco Relations Staff, "Report of Activities at Unesco House for Week Ending August 25, 1950," 29 August 1950, 2, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, FSP, RG 84, NA.
105. Ibid., 1
106. On the rejection of propaganda, see Nancy E. Bernhard, "Clearer Than Truth: Public Affairs and the State Department's Domestic Information Campaigns, 1947-1952," Diplomatic History 21, no. 4 (Fall 1997)
107. J. Michael Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy: The American Experience of Media and Mass Persuasion (Cambridge, UK, 1997).
108. On the views of member states, see Kolasa, International Intellectual Cooperation, 156-7
109. Sewell, Unesco and World Politics, 149.
110. Unesco Relations Staff, "Report of Activities at Unesco House for Week Ending August 25, 1950," 1, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, FSP, RG 84, NA.
111. Unesco Staff, "Report on the Unesco Secretariat's Carrying Out of Unesco Executive Board Resolutions on Korea," 12, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, FSP, RG 84, NA.
112. "Records of Activities in UNESCO House for the Week Ending August 4, 1950," 5, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, RG 84, NA.
113. Unesco Staff, "Report on the Unesco Secretariat's Carrying Out of Unesco Executive Board Resolutions on Korea," 1, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, FSP, RG 84, NA.
114. Ibid., 2-3.
115. Letter to Charles A. Thomson from Arthur A. Compton, 9 February 1951, 2, Records of the Unesco Delegation 1950-1954, Records of the Paris Embassy, France, FSP, RG 84, NA.
116. Armstrong, "The Soviet Attitude toward Unesco," 217-33. This is supported by at least one other account stressing Soviet cultural isolationism prior to 1952.
117. Frederick C. Barghoorn and Paul W. Friedrich, "Cultural Relations and Soviet Foreign Policy," World Politics 8, no. 3 (April 1956).
118. Letter to the Unesco Director General from Polish Ambassador in Paris, 5 December 1952
119. "Admission of New Members to Unesco; Admission of Spain in Spite of Protests; Withdrawal of Poland from Unesco; Speculation as to Reasons for Portugal's Not Applying to Join," FO371/95913, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
120. Armstrong, "The Soviet Attitude toward Unesco," 229.
121. Unattributed, "Unesco Director General," 19 June 1953, 1; "Candidates for Director-Generalship of Unesco; Election of Dr. Luther Evans, of the USA, as Director General at a Special Session of Unesco in July 1953," FO371/107236, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
122. Robert S. Smith to Charles A. Thomson, "Report on Trip to the United States, July 21-August 8, 1952," 13 August 1952, 3, Records of the U.S. Delegation to Unesco 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, FSP, RG 84, NA.
123. Armstrong, "The Soviet Attitude toward Unesco";
124. Barghoorn and Friedrich, "Cultural Relations and Soviet Foreign Policy."
125. On the Soviet Union's "right" to join UN Specialised Agencies, see E. R. Warner, 13 November 1953, "Admission of Soviet Union to UN Specialised Agencies"; "UK and US Attitude to Application by Soviet Union to Join Some UN Specialised Agencies, Such as ILO, Unesco and WHO," FO371/107175.
126. On the idea of Unesco as a "bridge" between East and West, see File Notes, "Membership of Unesco: Application by Rumania";
127. "Admission of Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc Countries to Membership of Unesco," FO 371/112606.
128. On the role of great powers, see Draft Letter to B. Salt from H. F. Bartlett, undated (1954), "Admission of Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc Countries to Membership of Unesco," FO371/112607.
129. On Soviet subversion of Unesco, see "Soviet Bloc Tactics and Counter Measures at the General Conference of Unesco," 1954
130. "Organizations: Soviet Propaganda on Disarmament and Soviet Bloc Tactics at Unesco: Briefing for UK Delegation," FO1110/628. All Records from UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
131. E. R. Warner, "United Kingdom Contributions to Unesco," 1 July 1955 "Visit of Dr. Luther Evans, Director General of Unesco, to London 28 June 1955: Foreign Office Views on Unesco," FO371/117539, UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew.
132. Charles A. Thompson, Office Memorandum, 20 April 1954, Records of the U.S. Delegation to Unesco 1950-1954, Paris Embassy, France, FSP, RG 84, NA.
133. Sewell, Unesco and World Politics, 143, 169.
134. Laura A. Belmonte, "A Family Affair? Gender, the U.S. Information Agency, and Cold War Ideology, 1945-1960," in Culture and International History, eds. Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher (New York, 2003), 80.