Table Of ContentCulture and ProPaganda
In memory of my grandparents, Christina and Carey Forge
Culture and Propaganda
The Progressive origins of american Public diplomacy,
1936–1953
Sarah ellen graham
University of Sydney, Australia
© Sarah ellen graham 2015
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Sarah ellen graham has asserted her right under the Copyright, designs and Patents act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
graham, Sarah ellen.
Culture and propaganda : the progressive origins of american public diplomacy, 1936–1953
/ by Sarah ellen graham.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBn 978-1-4724-5902-2 (hardcover)—ISBn 978-1-4724-5903-9 (e-book)—ISBn
978-1-4724-5904-6 (e-pub) 1. united States. Foreign Service. 2. diplomatic and consular
service, american. 3. united States—Foreign relations administration. 4. united States—
Foreign relations—1933–1945. 5. united States—Foreign relations—1945–1953.
6. Propaganda, american—history—20th century. 7. Politics and culture. 8. Cold War.
I. title.
JZ1480.a5g73 2015
327.73009’044—dc23
2015005736
ISBn: 9781472459022 (hbk)
ISBn: 9781472459039 (ebk – PdF)
ISBn: 9781472459046 (ebk – ePuB)
Printed in the united Kingdom by henry ling limited,
at the dorset Press, dorchester, dt1 1hd
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 “Let’s Not Be Suckers Again.” Propaganda Analysis,
Philanthropy, and American Foreign Relations between the
World Wars 17
2 “Enlightened and Far-Sighted Leadership.” Cultural Diplomacy:
Latin American Precedents and Wartime Expansion 49
3 Journalist or Diplomat? Wartime Broadcasting at the
Voice of America 81
4 “A Forum is also a Battleground:” The Founding of Unesco 111
5 The Limits of Reciprocity: Cultural Diplomacy in the Post-War
World Order 131
6 “Threats to Our Virtue:” Propaganda, Information and the
Cold War 155
7 Cultural Democracy and the Iron Curtain: Unesco,
Multilateralism and the Cold War 179
Conclusion 203
Bibliography 209
Index 265
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Acknowledgments
I have been sustained during the research and writing of this book by the support
of my friends, mentors, colleagues and family. At the University of Southern
California, where I was postdoctoral fellow, Nick Cull, Phil Seib, Geoff
Wiseman, Patrick James and Ann Tickner were among those who provided a
supportive environment in which to take this project in a new direction. My
fellow PhD students at ANU remain great friends and judicious commenters
on my ideas. I thank André Broome, Miwa Hirono, Joel Quirk, Shogo Suzuki,
Darshan Vigneswaran, and Ryan Walter for their camaraderie during the
early stages of this project. My academic advisors at ANU, Jacinta O’Hagan
and Christian Reus-Smit devoted a great deal of their time to sharpening my
early thoughts on this topic, as did the rest of the faculty at the Department
of International Relations. The archivists at the following destinations were
invariably knowledgeable and helpful: the United States National Archives and
Records Administration in College Park, the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential
Library, the Harry S. Truman Library, and the Library of Congress manuscripts
division. I also benefitted from the help of special collections archivists at the
following: the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the University of
Denver, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the University of Chicago,
and Georgetown University. I thank the Houghton Library and the University
of Chicago for permission to quote from their collections. At Ashgate, Sadie
Copley-May and Tom Gray have given diligent editorial oversight. My good
friends Mirimba Kovner and the late Simon Curtis kindly gave me a place to
stay during a busy few months as I finished the PhD dissertation upon which
this book is based—thank you. My deepest gratitude goes to my parents, and my
late grandparents. They have been ever supportive of my career and have done
more than they know to help me complete this book.
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Introduction
This book examines the US government’s adoption of diplomatic programs
that were designed to persuade, inform, and attract global public opinion in
the service of American national interests. These policies cultivating cultural
and informational influence are today known as “public diplomacy” and they
remain an important component of US foreign policy. In their founding phase,
however, these policies were generally referred to by the more contentious
term “propaganda.” Propaganda was a practice that since the end of the First
World War had been subject to a great deal of opprobrium by the American
public, fuelled by revelations about the deceptions and distortions in British and
American publicity in support of US intervention. An ongoing governmental
effort to cultivate the hearts and minds of publics abroad nevertheless became
an established part of the Department of State’s operations over the course
of a decade, beginning in 1936, the year during which the Franklin Delano
Roosevelt administration instigated Washington’s first, modest exchanges of
scholars between the United States and the Latin American republics.
The chapters to follow will examine the new ideas about foreign policy that
led to the adoption of cultural diplomacy and other “propaganda” formats
by the Roosevelt administration. It traces how a modest start in cultural and
educational exchange led to a far larger cultural, informational and multilateral
public diplomacy effort during the subsequent wartime and post-war years.
Following the adoption and expansion of the cultural and educational
activities overseen by the Department of State, the outbreak of the Second
World War led to the founding and expansion of an international information
program. In this enterprise Washington made particularly strong use of radio
broadcasts, embarking on international broadcasting even while the United
States was officially still a non-belligerent state. The Second World War also
saw the Department of State embark on the planning and establishment of a
multilateral educational, scientific and cultural organization, Unesco, which
would ultimately be placed under the umbrella of the United Nations. What is
interesting about these programs is how US officials represented their work—in
a deeply ambivalent way and expressing a preoccupation with democratic values
and public reason. The period of history analyzed in this book concludes in
1953, when the place of cultural and informational diplomacy in US foreign
policy had become more stable. The period I consider here was one in which
the nature and rationale for US cultural and informational diplomacy were
