Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXXVIII, Part 2, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; Public Diplomacy, 1973–1976

112. Briefing Paper Prepared in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs¹

Washington, undated.

EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS PROGRAM (CU)

The Issue

Two questions need to be answered before the capabilities and limitations of the U.S. educational and cultural program can be understood:

1. Are we properly organized to carry out the role that has been assigned to us?

2. Is there a coherent communications policy within the United States Government?

The answer to both these questions is “No.”

This paper will restate some views already offered in other contexts and present new ones born of action-forcing events facing us in the near- to mid-term.

Many of the problems discussed here have been the subject of study for at least two decades. The most pressing one, however, is that there is no organizational arrangement to facilitate the orderly consideration of international political communications problems and opportunities (including information as well as educational and cultural functions). Without adequate high level attention, a central point of coordination, and clearly assigned responsibility within the bureaucracy, the Government lacks the capability to identify issues, assign priorities, develop programs, coordinate action, and utilize the considerable communications experience available in the Department and in the United States Information Agency (USIA). This problem deserves early attention not only to bring about the needed coherence in present activities but also to take advantage of what may be a fleeting opportunity for the Department to play a significant creative role in formulating policies for the social and cultural aspects of our international relations and in developing the means to carry them out.

Historical Background

Since the creation of the United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1953, a half dozen reports have addressed the problem of international political communication (in earlier years under the rubric of “psychological strategy”). Among them were the Stanton Panel Report, March 1975;² the Murphy Commission Report, June 1975;³ a Congressional Research Service Report, August 1975;⁴ and most recently, the Linowitz Commission Report (on Latin American Relations), issued in December 1976⁵ which endorsed the Stanton and Murphy conclusions. These recommended transferring overseas press activities in support of U.S. foreign policy to the Department and establishing the Voice of America (VOA) as an independent agency under a Board of Directors. Remaining USIA functions (primarily long range information and cultural programs utilizing exhibits, films, libraries, etc.) would be combined with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (CU) and would be related to the Department of State as is the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA).

In response to a White House request for views on these recommendations, the Department in January 1976 favored the creation of the new agency, but with the VOA as a part of it.⁶ The Department also urged that its leadership role in this field be strengthened by making the Director of the new agency an Under Secretary of State. Action on these recommendations was deferred for a new Administration.

Pending resolution of the above organizational problems, an informal Communications Policy Group, chaired by the Deputy Secretary of State [including the principals of USIA, the Agency for International Development (AID), CU, and the other relevant Department offices], provides an embryo forum within which political communication questions can be considered.

Rationale for the Exchange Program

The patterns of communication across national, ideological and social boundaries have dramatically altered in the 30 years since Senator Fulbright inaugurated a systematic U.S. effort to influence the cultural/political environment through a scholarly exchange program.

In our increasingly complex, interactive and interdependent international community, governments are strongly influenced by pressures of domestic and international interest groups. Tendencies toward both conflict and cooperation are affected by the perceptions of increasingly aware and potent publics. As communication and travel technologies impact on habitual ways of thinking, improved habits of cooperation become more important. These take time and purposeful effort to develop.

It is within this context that the Executive Branch must seek to influence the way America communicates with other parts of the world. In some cases the influence is a by-product of activities undertaken for other reasons. But it is through direct, constructive, transnational human communication that reasonably accurate mutual perceptions and reasonably widespread empathies among leadership groups are most likely to be developed. Without understanding of this kind, based on first hand, face-to-face experience, there is little likelihood that nations with different traditions, values, ideologies, and economic systems can overcome their own preoccupations sufficiently to develop the common ground of shared interests on which cooperative effort can be built. Not only is it necessary for leaders—both governmental and nongovernmental—to understand the issue at hand, but they must also appreciate how and why other societies perceive the issue differently, for decisions on important problems are likely to be based as much on differing ways of thinking and believing as they are on “rational” considerations.

The flow of ideas, information, artifacts, and people among nations is no assurance of understanding. Indeed, an increasingly interactive world system produces more opportunity for conflict as well as for accommodation. The critical need in foreign relations terms is for purposeful two-way communication which fosters accurate perceptions and mutual confidence among responsible leaders. It is this need that CU’s programs meet as they exert an ever-widening circle of influence.

Program Responsibilities

CU carries out its responsibilities under a mandate from the Congress: The Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (MECEA).⁷ Under this law, CU is given broad responsibility “to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries” in order to assist “in the development of friendly, sympathetic, and peaceful relations between the United States and the other countries of the world.”

More than 175,000 scholars, specialists, and leaders—American and non-American—have taken part in the program of sponsored exchange.

They have done so:

• —in academic exchanges as professors, scholars, and teachers
• —as short term visitors to the United States for orientation and professional consultation
• —as American specialists traveling abroad to meet and consult with their counterparts on specific topics.

Increasingly, indirect strategies are favored. Therefore, CU encourages and assists countless private organizations and institutions in their conduct of exchange-of-person and other international programs. Three random examples of recent programs in support of the Department’s current policy trends are: an intensive multi-regional program on the operation of state and local governments in which participants came from Mauritius, Egypt, the Philippines, Kenya, and a number of European countries; a group of representatives from 18 countries traveled across the United States to obtain first-hand information on energy technology; and educators from Nigeria, Ghana, Mexico, Upper Volta, Peru, Cameroon, and the United States exchanged views and conferred on bilingual/bicultural education. The exchange program also supports trips abroad by some of America’s leading performing artists and athletes.

Many of the American participants in both the academic exchange programs and the American Specialists program experience for the first time the realities of life in a different society. Many of the foreign visitors coming here discover and correct misconceptions about race relations, the standard of living for the average worker, the state of the arts, and other facets of American life. They forge lasting friendships, establish working partnerships in productive research, and influence their societies in such widely divergent matters as university curriculum reform, improved social welfare programs, advanced urban design, and increased respect for human rights.

Many of the persons involved early in the program, then at the beginning of their careers, have subsequently risen to leadership positions in which they influence world affairs. Among them are 14 presidents, 23 prime ministers, and 251 cabinet members in 75 countries. Other participants have become university rectors, labor leaders, publishers, health administrators, and so on.

Mention should also be made of the Binational Commissions in 44 countries which have active exchange agreements with the United States. They are composed equally of distinguished foreign nationals and resident Americans. The Commissions are responsible for the administration of the academic exchange program in each country. Where there is no Commission, the U.S. Embassy performs this function.

In addition to the Binational (Fulbright) Commissions, CU has made use of other bilateral vehicles to promote intercultural communications objectives. Regular cultural conferences have been a part of U.S. relations with Japan, Germany, and Mexico for several years, and ad hoc meetings are held with numerous other countries each year. CU also participates in the several Joint Commissions formed in the past two years or so to reinforce and expand relations with a number of Near and Middle Eastern countries.

Finally, in spite of all that the CU programs have been able to achieve, it is important to keep in mind that we can and must do more. In remarks made recently, Senator Claiborne Pell put the issue squarely:

. . . neither we in the United States nor others in the Western community ought to be content with what has been achieved in the past through cultural exchanges. More can and must be done, for I fear that the future challenges to democratic values and the ability of disparate nations to live together in peace are greater than is generally realized.

In addition to the principal task of carrying out programs under the MECEA, CU has two other major responsibilities: 1) a coordinating role relating to all USG international exchange-of-persons programs, and 2) policy advice to the President, Secretary of State and other agencies on cultural relations matters.

In its coordinating role, CU chairs the inter-agency Subcommittee on International Exchanges (of the Under Secretaries Committee) under the authority of NSDM 143 of December 17, 1971.⁸ Other participants come from the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, USIA, AID, Action, and other agencies on an ad hoc basis. A number of projects have been undertaken by this Subcommittee, among them: revision and computerization of records of the Exchange Visitor (“J” visa) programs, a study of the economic problems facing foreign students in this country as a result of inflation, a review of USG educational and cultural relations with Latin America, and a review of problems associated with graduates of foreign medical schools who work in the United States.

Although effective coordination of all elements of the Government’s exchange programs remains a constant CU goal, it will not be achieved without increased support from higher level officials in the Executive Branch. Similarly, the CU policy advisory role will continue to have little substance until officials at higher levels give more attention to the significance of the cultural and social dimensions of foreign policy. For example, a speech on the subject from a top official could focus attention on this increasingly important foreign relations activity.

A by-product of CU programs is the extensive network of cooperative relationships linking the Department with hundreds of private American professional, civic, cultural, and educational organizations. It is estimated that some 800 voluntary organizations and perhaps 100,000 individual volunteers commit themselves and their skills to programs in which cooperation with the Department is an important feature. Colleges, universities, cities, and professional associations welcome visitors from foreign lands or send delegations to visit in return—often at their own expense. The business communities of the country, foundations, and service clubs all lend their support to programs facilitated or supported by CU. In this vast exchange there is the special satisfaction of mutual sharing, mutual enrichment, and mutual benefit.

New Challenges of Diplomacy

Many of the problems of the modern world—energy utilization, technology transfer, human rights, population expansion, food distribution, etc.—have only recently become grist for the mills of traditional diplomacy. “Cultural” programs have for many years been dealing both directly and indirectly with these subjects. They have developed world-wide networks of scientists, businessmen, scholars, and government officials. These networks of professionals who know each other’s backgrounds and analyze problems in similar conceptual frameworks and use like terminology are equipped to move more effectively to cooperative solutions to world problems.

For example, in the field of Human Rights cultural exchange activities often demonstrate subtly but persuasively the American sense of the worth of the individual, the value of the free play of ideas and the importance of professional, scientific and academic standards, unhampered by political pressures.⁹ The foreign professor who has the novel experience of lecturing to American students without official constraint or the American speaker who takes issue with official U.S. and host-country positions and opens himself to direct questioning by the foreign audience, can be catalytic elements in change processes far more powerful than hortatory rhetoric. And, of course, issues of human rights can also be addressed more directly in seminars, research projects and professional courses dealing with subjects such as the rule of law, women and minority rights, freedom of press, academic freedom, etc. Thus through careful use of the international cultural resources of the Government, it is possible to make substantial substantive contributions to the achievement of political aims, even while the basic “mutual understanding” objectives are also being served.

Similar effects can be achieved in other fields. A multinational group of energy economists, for example, is brought to the U.S. to meet with its counterparts. Programs dealing with the status of women are undertaken in support of International Women’s Year and its follow-on activities. Specialized programs in narcotics education, agricultural economics, urban affairs, pollution management: these are other examples.

The U.S. has exchange programs with some 125 countries around the world. They are flexible and can and do respond to our need for communications with such widely divergent societies as those in the developing countries of Africa and Latin America, in the industrialized countries of the West and Japan, and in the closed communist societies of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China.

What More is Needed

Despite the obvious and growing importance of the educational and cultural exchange program, not enough attention has been paid to utilizing it to the fullest extent possible. At the same time, there are several ways in which the program can be made even more effective. Some of them have already been pointed out. They are summarized here:

1. We need a coherent Government-wide international political communications policy.

2. We need an organizational framework that will facilitate

• —development of a coherent policy and
• —fulfillment of such a policy by carrying out properly coordinated programs through the appropriate departments, agencies, and bureaus, including the Department of State and USIA.

3. We need more involvement by individuals at higher levels of responsibility in the Executive Branch.

4. We need the goodwill of members of Congress who have supported the program in the past and of members who may not yet know enough about the program to have formed opinions one way or the other.

5. We need greater private sector involvement—both financially, institutionally, and personally—in the programs.

Finally, a sixth element is needed, adequate resources to do the task at hand. The case has been well stated by Senator Claiborne Pell whom we have already quoted in this paper. Here is another excerpt from remarks made on the floor of the Senate:

Mr. President, on September 23 I spoke before a visiting delegation from the European Parliament on the subject of cultural exchanges and democratic developments. I believe that exchanges play an important role not only in achieving their principal objective of fostering better understanding among nations of the world but also in promoting democratic development and respect for human rights. I expressed my concern to the European parliamentarians that despite the benefits which exchanges bring, democratic governments, including that of the United States, spend so little money on them. The Department of State, for example, spends only about $60 million annually on exchanges. A tenfold increase in that amount would only be the equivalent of two nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers. I urge the administration, whichever one takes office in January, to give serious consideration to increasing the amount budgeted for cultural exchanges.

1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 59, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of Policy and Plans, Subject Files, 1961–1977, FRC 306–81–24, State Department—Transition. No classification marking. Drafted on January 3. All brackets are in the original. A copy was sent to Assistant Legal Adviser for Human Rights Charles Runyon (L/HR). Roth (CU/OPP) forwarded the paper to Borg under a January 3 covering memorandum, which noted that the paper was CU’s third “issue paper” requested by Lake on behalf of the incoming Carter administration. CU’s two other transition papers are ibid.
2. Document 103.
3. See footnote 4, Document 106.
4. Not further identified.
5. The report of the Commission on United States-Latin American Relations, chaired by Sol Linowitz, The United States and Latin America, Next Steps: A Second Report, was issued in December. (New York: Center for Inter-American Relations, 1976)
6. See Document 109.
7. See footnote 3, Document 91.
8. See footnote 2, Document 88.
9. On July 6, 1976, Richardson sent a memorandum to Acting Secretary of State Robinson proposing that CU take certain measures to promote human rights. Robinson replied the next day, encouraging Richardson “to translate some of the ideas spelled out into actual projects.” No evidence of further action was found. (National Archives, RG 59, Records of the Deputy Secretary of State (Robinson), 1976–1977, Entry 5176, Box 2, D Chron, July 1976)