Richard T. Arndt-The First Resort of Kings_ Americ

625 Pages·2010·2.36 MB·English

T F R K
HE IRST ESORT OF INGS
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● ●
T H E
F I R S T R E S O R T
O F K I N G S
A C
MERICAN ULTURAL
D
IPLOMACY IN THE
T C
WENTIETH ENTURY
● ●
R T. A
ICHARD RNDT
Potomac Books, Inc.
Washington, D.C.
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Firstpaperbackeditionpublished2006
Copyright(cid:3)2005byPotomacBooks,Inc.
PublishedintheUnitedStatesbyPotomacBooks,Inc.(formerlyBrassey’s,Inc.).Allrights
reserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanymannerwhatsoeverwithout
writtenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptinthecaseofbriefquotationsembodiedin
criticalarticlesandreviews.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Arndt,RichardT.,1928–
Thefirstresortofkings:Americanculturaldiplomacyinthetwentiethcentury/
RichardT.Arndt.—1sted.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN1-57488-587-1(alk.paper)
1.UnitedStates—Relations. 2.Culturalrelations—History—20th
century. 3.Diplomats—UnitedStates—History—20thcentury. 4.UnitedStates.
Dept.ofState—History—20thcentury. 5.UnitedStatesInformationAgency—
History—20thcentury. 6.Educationalexchanges—UnitedStates—History—20th
century. I.Title.
E744.5.A82 2005
327.73(cid:2)009(cid:2)04—dc22 2004060190
ISBN1-57488-587-1(hardcover)
ISBN1-57488-004-2(paperback)
PrintedinCanadaonacid-freepaperthatmeetsthe
AmericanNationalStandardsInstituteZ39-48Standard.
PotomacBooks,Inc.
22841QuicksilverDrive
Dulles,Virginia20166
FirstEdition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Dedicated to the memory of CarlBode, Cleanth Brooks, Phillips Brooks,
Robert R. R. Brooks, Frank E. Brown, John L. Brown, Jacob Canter,
MartinC. Carroll, JohnK.Fairbank,Wilma Fairbank,Albert Giesecke,
Albert Harkness, Charles Rufus Morey, Howard Lee Nostrand, Leon
Picon, Lois W. Roth, John Slocum, Frank M. Snowden, Theodore A.
Wertime, Wayne A. Wilcox , Robin W. Winks, Laurence Wylie, T.
CuylerYoung,andscoresofotherdepartedCAOcolleagueswho,intend-
ing the orchards of American education and culture abroad, managed
once, in another country, to convey a little of the national style, grace,
andgenius.
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CONTENTS
Introduction:AnAcademicMole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
CHAPTER1: CulturalDiplomacyfromtheBronzeAgeto
WorldWarI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER2: TotalWarandItsAftershocks,1917–1932 . . . . . . 24
CHAPTER3: DesigningCulturalRelations,1932–1940 . . . . . . 49
CHAPTER4: NelsonRockefellerandOtherNewBoys,
1940–1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
CHAPTER5: MacLeish’sMoment,Spring,1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
CHAPTER6: EarlyFieldStaffing:ThePointofContact . . . . . . . 121
CHAPTER7: TwoClassicCulturalProducts:Architecture
andLibraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
CHAPTER8: Benton,Fulbright,Smith,andMundt . . . . . . . . . 161
CHAPTER9: EnglishProductsandPeople:Books,andTwo
Visionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
CHAPTER10: PostwarLossesandFulbright’sGift . . . . . . . . . . . 213
CHAPTER11: ReorientingEnemies,CampaigningforTruth . . . . 237
CHAPTER12: TheBirthofUSIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
CHAPTER13: GeorgeAllenintheMiddle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
CHAPTER14: NewFrontiersforOld:MurrowandCoombs . . . . 314
CHAPTER15: Battle’sRescueandtheBirthofthePeaceCorps . . 338
CHAPTER16: TheArtsofVision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
CHAPTER17: TheOrdealofCharlesFrankel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
CHAPTER18: TheArtsofPerformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
CHAPTER19: Intellect,Government,andFulbrightDrift . . . . . . 418
CHAPTER20: NixonandFord,ShakespeareandRichardson . . . 437
CHAPTER21: SixIntellectualCAOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
CHAPTER22: Stanton’sChallenge:StatusQuoorChange?. . . . . 480
CHAPTER23: PavedwithGoodIntentions:Carter’s
Reorganization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
vii
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viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER24: TwoDecadesofDecline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
AFTERWORD: SunsetorNewDawn? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
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Introduction: An Academic Mole
I know of no profession which must more sorely try the souls of its
practitionersthanyours.
—GeorgeKennan,toaCulturalAttache´,19821
IN1961, HUNDREDSOFYOUNGPEOPLEleft comfortable careers to see what
they could do for their country. I was one of them. An academic late-
bloomerontracktoalifeasatweedyacademicfocusedonFrenchlitera-
tureoftheeighteenthcentury,ItookleavefromColumbiaUniversityto
jointheUSInformationAgency(USIA),almostasalark.OfUSIAIknew
only that John F. Kennedy had appointed national media hero Ed Mur-
row as director. My colleagues teased me about joining the Foreign Le-
gion. They were as ignorant as I about the scores of university figures
who, beginning in 1942, had leapt from their campuses to jump-start a
formal American diplomacy of cultures, improvising yet succeeding be-
yondallreasonableexpectationsandtherebyhelpingshapetheimageof
theU.S.abroadforgenerationstocome.
My case turned out differently. I fell in love—the only phrase that
fits—with cultural diplomacy and stayed with the practice for a quarter
of a century, clinging to my identity and style as a university don and
returning to other campuses after retirement. This book reports, among
otherthings,onthoseyears.
Beyondtheromanceofforeignserviceandthemurkyword‘‘informa-
tion’’buriedinUSIA’sname,IhadnoideawhatIwasjoining.Following
anaccidentalpath, Ihadstumbledontooneofthebetter-keptsecretsof
American life, already in 1961 obscured by much smoke and not a few
mirrors. I was assigned apprentice-style to the cultural office of the US
embassyinBeirut, inancientPhoenicia,adjoining thegreatmissionary-
founded American University, the AUB. There I encountered the diplo-
matic world and discovered within it a lesser-known underworld, dedi-
cated solely to the educational and cultural dimensions of relations
betweennations.
Without realizing it, I was a product of that underworld. In the first
contingents of Fulbright students going to France, Italy, and Britain in
1949, I received a letter signed by Eleanor Roosevelt appointing us all
‘‘ambassadors for America.’’ In Dijon, I began explaining inexplicable
America to others. After Dijon, where I courted a Burgundian wife, I
taught American students at Columbia the joys of discovering a foreign
ix
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