64. Memorandum From the Executive Secretary of the Department of State (Battle) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
SUBJECT
- Report to the President on International Cultural Presentations Program
The following is in response to the President’s November 15 telephone request to Assistant Secretary Coombs for a report on the current International Cultural Presentations Program and future plans for the Program.
Since it began, in July 1954, the International Cultural Presentations Program has put before some 15 million people in almost every country in the world for them to see for themselves an authentic part of life in the United States. In this program, we have not made an argument or drawn a picture. We have exported actual examples, more than two hundred of them, of American excellence in the performing arts and sports. The performing groups—3/4 of them in music, dance, and theatre, and 1/4 in sports—have been well received abroad, nearly always with enthusiasm, appreciation, and respect, and not infrequently, with openly expressed admiration. (Lists of the attractions exported and where they have gone are attached.)2
Moreover, this program is effective everywhere. The Philadelphia Orchestra dazzled Paris; Louis Armstrong conquered sub-Sahara Africa; the University of Michigan Band triumphed in the Soviet Union. For the people of the western, economically advanced nations, our cultural presentations are a reminder of a common cultural inheritance, as well as a demonstration that we have respected and nurtured that [Page 175] inheritance, with consequent strengthening of traditional ties. To the people of the new nations, our cultural presentations demonstrate that in building our own nation we have not confined our best efforts to material and technological advancement, as many of them tend to believe. With the people of the Soviet bloc, to whom other channels are few and narrow, they are a direct and persuasive communication of shared devotion to cultural values transcending political differences.
In comparison with our international economic and military programs, cultural presentations are inexpensive; total costs have averaged about 2½ million dollars a year. It is unlikely that cost for cost they can be matched by many other programs in gaining prestige, respect, and good will for the United States. More and better use of international cultural presentations is called for as a matter of prudent allocation of the resources the nation devotes to foreign relations.
Five immediate steps are contemplated to make the International Cultural Presentations Program more effective:
1. Increase the scale. Doubling of the current 2½ million dollar budget is recommended for FY 1963, to be followed by 2½ million dollar annual increments until the scale of operations is at least four times present dimensions.3 Far-reaching as the program has been, it has been compelled, for lack of funds, to make the few greatest cities in each country abroad its normal outlets. A vast audience, many times greater than the audience reached thus far, remains untouched. Hence, the recommended increase is amply justified for the reasons suggested above, quite aside from the question of Soviet competition in this field. That the USSR is effectively carrying out a worldwide program of cultural exports and on a scale far greater than ours, however, is a special reason for stepping up our program.
2. Improve the quality. It is not suggested that the performing artists and athletes who have gone abroad in this program up to now have been inferior. On the contrary, they have been, by and large, the best of their kind. The improved quality recommended here is of a different order: it involves more attention to the types of audiences desired and to the suitability of each performing group for those particular audiences. Up to now the program has predominantly, but by no means [Page 176] uniformly, made the elite associated with political power, wealth, and social standing its typical audience, and performing groups suitable for this kind of audience have tended to dominate. The following changes of emphasis, accepted as policies of the program within recent months and already affecting its complexion, should continue:
(a) Give highest priority to youth, labor, and intellectuals as target audiences.
(b) Send out more attractions suited for these audiences. To the fullest extent possible without relaxing standards of performance, performing groups should be drawn from academic and labor circles and from the ranks of young artists in the early stages of their careers. Use of such performers in relatively small groups coupled with more sparing use of the most expensive large groups such as the major symphony orchestras (unless the costs are partially borne by non-government sources) would, of course, permit any given amount of funds to go further in reaching these special target audiences.
3. Strengthen the administrative organization and advisory machinery. The following measures are required here:
(a) Enlarge and reinforce the State Department staff concerned with operations of the program. The unit of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs which now has responsibility for operations is made up of three professionals and five clerical or stenographic employees. Augmentation of this staff with people experienced in production or management in the performing arts is essential.
(b) Improve outside agency arrangements. The Government’s major agent in the conduct of the program is the American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA). ANTA also maintains three specialized expert panels to pass on the artistic competence of performers for the program. Examination of both of these aspects of ANTA’s role is under way to determine whether modifications should be made.
(c) Strengthen United States cultural affairs offices abroad. In the field, administrative responsibility for this program falls upon the Cultural Affairs Officer, in most posts a USIA officer heading a one-man office heavily burdened with other cultural activities. The need for more qualified personnel in the cultural affairs staffs abroad is already acute. With expansion of the program it will be imperative.
(d) Reestablish a strong statutory Advisory Committee on the Arts. The Fulbright-Hays Act4 retains the Advisory Committee on the Arts established by the Trade Fair Participation and Cultural Exchange Act of 1956.5 Because of the expiration of the terms of all members on [Page 177] January 15, 1962, the opportunity to establish a new committee of “giants” in this field is presented. It is recommended that the ten new members be selected from the outstanding people in this field and that the reestablished Committee be called upon not only to advise the State Department and the USIA on international cultural activities but also, at the President’s discretion, to advise him on national and international cultural questions.
4. Establish administrative machinery for the reverse flow of cultural presentations. The Fulbright-Hays Act gives to the Federal Government for the first time authority to provide financial support for the importation on a non-profit basis of cultural presentations from abroad. The first appropriation to give effect to this authority will be sought next year.
5. Make systematic effort to enlist private support for international cultural activities. It is believed that at least two sources of private help can be tapped to a sufficient extent to strengthen the program significantly: (1) outstanding performing artists may offer their services at nominal or no cost; and (2) individual and corporate donors as well as foundations may contribute to the costs of sending large performing groups abroad, thereby permitting more use of our more spectacular attractions than would be possible under an exclusively government-financed program. The preliminary exploration of these possibilities, begun in recent months, should be followed as soon as feasible by establishment of the administrative organization necessary for marshalling these potential assets.
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Box 296, Cultural and Social Activities, General, 9/61–12/61. No classification marking. No drafting information appears on the memorandum; another copy of the memorandum indicates that it was drafted by Isenbergh on November 20 and Wakefield on November 22, retyped in S/S–RO on November 27, and approved by Ericson. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Files, 511.00/11–3061) In the top right-hand corner of the memorandum, Bundy wrote: “pass to Mrs. Lincoln for President’s reading. Only specific issue is whether President wants to support budget increase recommended on p. 2.” Bundy sent the memorandum to the President under a November 30 covering memorandum. (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Box 296, Cultural and Social Activities, General, 9/61–12/61)↩
- Not printed is the undated listing entitled “Projects Completed and Approved for Assistance from beginning, July 1954, through June 1961: FY–1955 through FY–1961.” The listing includes a geographical breakdown by area and country and lists both cultural and sports events.↩
- Bundy placed two parallel lines in the left-hand margin next to this sentence and drew an arrow pointing to the lines. In his November 30 covering memorandum (see footnote 1, above), Bundy indicated that the Bureau of the Budget had rejected Coombs’ request, as Coombs “has not yet made a good case” for specific uses and had not “worked out effective relations” with AID. Bundy recommended that the President “hint to Coombs that if he could get Hamilton’s support for a modest increase in his budget, you might approve it.” The President neither approved nor disapproved either the budget increase or the proposal that AID Administrator Hamilton review and support a modest increase in the budget.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 52.↩
- See footnote 7, Document 2.↩
- Brubeck signed for Battle above Battle’s typed signature.↩