Foundations of the American Century

by Inderjeet Parmar

  The research on presidential radio addresses showed that listening to the president correlated positively with income and that listeners were mainly interventionists (pro-Britain) because they believed they had more to lose by a German victory. The research also showed that, following FDR’s fireside chat of December 29, 1940, the proportion of listeners favoring aid to Britain rose by 9 percent. More usefully, Cantril showed why that increase reverted, within four weeks, to its former level (because no presidential action had followed to maintain momentum). Concluding that FDR’s speeches did have “some influence,” Cantril suggested that their influence might be increased among lower-income groups if the broadcasts were more widely advertised in advance.84

  On the nature of a possible antiwar party, Cantril’s research suggested that women would outnumber men by three to two and that young people from lower-income groups would be “particularly noticeable.” Semiskilled and skilled workers would form over 40 percent of the party; farmers, 17 percent; employers, 13 percent; and professionals, 10 percent.85 Socioeconomic class appeared to be a fundamental variable. Interventionists were mainly men from the middle- and upper-income sectors of American society, who had the most to lose in the case of a Nazi victory and would suffer least from the privations of a war economy. “In brief,” Cantril concluded, “there is little conflict here between self-interest and sympathy [for Britain].”86

  Such findings, based on “scientific” analysis, were of use to policy makers. By 1943, $50,000 had been paid by government agencies and departments to Cantril’s office, not including unspecified amounts from the coordinator of inter-American affairs.87 Certainly, the foundation official principally involved with this work, John Marshall, believed that Cantril had “won… rather unusual recognition in government circles.”88 The U.S. Army (section G-2) even went so far as to open an office at Princeton (within Cantril’s own), a “Psychological Warfare Research Bureau.”89 By 1943, Cantril’s office was cooperating with twenty-two government (and private) agencies.90 The State Department was using Cantril (confidentially, so as not to publicly reveal its “worries”) to study public attitudes toward a postwar settlement.91 Cantril even received several appreciative letters from President Roosevelt.92

  To highlight his utility, the Rockefeller official John Marshall told Cantril that government was interested in two things: “what is being said” by political leaders and “studies of the effect.” Joseph Willits defended this argument when he wrote about the propaganda value of opinion polls. Although the foundation’s policy was to shun propaganda, he argued that, for the duration, “all bets may be off on this subject; social scientists,” he suggested, “are as much justified in making their skills and knowledge available for the conduct of the war as the natural scientist who works on gunsights.”93 Consequently, the foundation brought Cantril’s research findings to the attention of overtly political propaganda organizations such as the interventionist Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA).94 In practice, despite their prewar reservations, the Rockefeller Foundation funded studies to manipulate “mass sentiment” to ward off Nazi and Soviet threats.95

  By 1939, when the isolationist-interventionist debates were at their most fierce, the foundations funded organizations to press the case for American belligerence and to crush the case for isolation and neutrality, such as the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies and the Fight for Freedom. The prointerventionist and anti-isolationist CDAAA and FFF, which were in the main headed by leaders of the Council on Foreign Relations, reached out to numerous groups in American society, including organized labor and, for the first time, African Americans.96 The warhawks organized black branches in Harlem and Chicago, alongside two chapters at historically black universities (Howard and Lincoln). Having few connections with the black masses, they sought to mobilize the leaders of black opinion—trade-union leaders (A. Philip Randolph), churchmen (Adam Clayton Powell), academics (Ralph Bunche), and newspaper editors.97

  The CDAAA/FFF black-mobilization campaign linked the fight against Hitlerism with the struggle against domestic racial discrimination. The warhawks’ leaders were highly critical of America’s past record in racial matters and hoped to wean black Americans away from perceived “indifference” to Hitlerism or active support for isolationism and communism.98 In addition, they saw continuing racial discrimination in the defense industries as divisive and inefficient, as it diminished maximum production efforts. It was in this area that FFF, in particular, made a significant contribution by supporting President Roosevelt’ s executive order 8802 (in 1941) banning such discrimination. It is also clear that the warhawks recognized the importance attached to domestic U.S. race relations by the peoples of Asia and Africa and used the opportunities offered by the war to try to promote civil rights reforms.99

  Foundation officials consistently checked the quality of the work of Cantril’s office with independent external referees, including George Gallup, Edward Mead Earle, and Lester Markel and Arthur Hayes Sulzberger (both of the New York Times).100 By producing “scientific” research findings, Cantril impressed policy makers eager to exploit his research and techniques. Many public agencies began to use his research techniques. Politicians and the attentive public were concerned with his finding that popular commitment to internationalism was superficial and that much work remained to be done. Mastering techniques to discover the mysteries of public opinion was fundamental to Cantril’s utility. Once mastered, it was believed that such techniques could be used to alter radically the meaning of the term “the consent of the governed.” Popular consent could then be “manufactured” or “engineered” more effectively.101

  FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION (FPA)

  Formed in 1918, the FPA believed that the United States should play a larger part in the world than it had, making it incumbent on Americans to learn about foreign affairs.102 It was concerned with educating public opinion from a liberal-internationalist perspective, and it won the support of Carnegie philanthropy from its earliest years.

  By the late 1920s, the FPA developed a wide range of activities, including research and publications dealing with current and historical foreign policy matters, an active speaker’s bureau, numerous local branches, a Washington bureau, luncheon discussion meetings attracting over forty thousand people annually, and a weekly fifteen-minute program on NBC radio entitled “The World Today.”103 It was thus an organization that aimed at influencing public opinion at one end and contributing to government policy at the other. By World War II, the FPA had seventeen local branches and a membership in excess of ten thousand.104 It was also engaged in emergency war work for the U.S. government, especially in the State Department’s postwar foreign policy planning efforts, and its president, General Frank McCoy, served as a consultant to the Office of the Coordinator of Information.105

  In the late 1930s, the FPA developed a research department that, under the successive leadership of Edward Meade Earle, Raymond Leslie Buell, and Vera Micheles Dean, produced a fortnightly report that found its way into “the files of the majority of men seriously at work on foreign affairs, whether officials, editors, writers or professors.”106 From 1936, the FPA produced a large number of high-quality publications for popular consumption—its Headline Books series—which sold remarkably well. By 1942, there had been thirty such books published, selling 1,250,000 copies in total. The U.S. War Department bought 200,000 of the Headline Books for its orientation courses for the armed services in 1943.107

  Although the college educated were the chief targets of the FPA’s educational programs, other sections of the population did receive attention too, including organized labor, for which a special series of forums was arranged in 1942.108 It also cast its eye on high school and college students and toward school teachers, in a sustained campaign lasting over two decades. In 1943, the FPA received a $5,000 grant from CC to distribute its Headline Books to high school students. The previous year, 400,000 books had been sold to such st
udents.109 The CC’s sister organization, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, helpfully distributed two thousand books to its high school international relations clubs across the country, and the boards of education of eight cities placed Headline Books on their recommended lists. During the same period, FPA produced and distributed maps, study guides, and bibliographies for students, teachers, and club leaders and organized teacher-student seminars and a college students’ conference.110 The material produced was written, according to a Carnegie Corporation report, in a style “readily understood by young people.” Finally, the books were not merely sold as an end in themselves: special study kits were also distributed, consisting of suggestions for group projects, examination material, and additional literature.111

  The FPA also used the NBC radio network to further its educational work, broadcasting a series of talks entitled “America Looks Abroad” to the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe and Latin America.112 By 1943–1944, the association was cooperating with the University of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Radio Council in broadcasting a weekly fifteen-minute program devoted to foreign affairs.113 As an FPA memorandum pointed out, “to justify its existence, the Foreign Policy Association must not only demonstrate its capacity to do authoritative research, but establish its ability to put knowledge to work.”114 The producers of “The March of Time” films, which were shown in 11,000 cinemas globally, wrote that the FPA’s “reports have been a chief source of information for us on these foreign stories and have been invaluable because of our confidence in them.”115

  It is impossible to know the impact of all these lectures, broadcasts, and discussion groups. Certainly, it was widely perceived to be a highly important organization, one praised by official policy makers and by the Carnegie Corporation, which provided the FPA with over $65,000 in the decade up to 1945 and another $136,000 between 1947 and 1949 alone.116 Carnegie Corporation President Frederick Keppel wrote in 1938 that of all the attempts at adult education, “few, if any, have been so significant and so influential as the activities of the Foreign Policy Association.” Carnegie’s Charles Dollard wrote in 1942 that “the Corporation is proud to claim some small part in making possible the fine work you are doing.”117 Official policy makers also praised the work of the FPA as adding to the popular knowledge and understanding of foreign affairs in the United States and in promoting the United Nations.118

  INSTITUTE OF PACIFIC RELATIONS (IPR)

  The IPR was founded in 1925, in Honolulu, as an organization of nations with Pacific-area interests.119 Its original members included the United States, China, Japan, Canada, and Britain. The IPR aimed to be “non-sectarian, non-controversial, and non-propagandist”120 but was forced to disband by the early 1960s after a sustained McCarthyite campaign against it—for “losing” China.121 The American Council, later known as the American Institute of Pacific Relations, was the most powerful of the national councils and exerted “a strong influence over the International IPR,” according to Thomas.122 The most prominent names associated with the AIPR were the Asia scholar Owen Lattimore; Edward C. Carter, who headed the American and International IPR; and Frederick Vanderbilt Field, the Vanderbilt family millionaire and convert to communism.

  Carter was, by all accounts, a highly dynamic individual who strongly believed that the AIPR/IPR ought to discuss “current political questions,” even though the IPR could pronounce no institutional policy. Carter was responsible for making the IPR’s journals Pacific Affairs and Far Eastern Survey scholarly and respected publications. Carter also used his contacts in the philanthropic foundations to win funding for the AIPR.123

  Owen Lattimore, who became editor of Pacific Affairs in 1933, believed that although the AIPR was free or “independent of any official connections,” the other national councils—notably the British—were “establishment forces,” given the presence among them of official foreign policy makers.124 It is argued below, however, that the AIPR, though formally private, became connected with government and was, practically from its very formation, generously funded by the Carnegie Corporation, an important element within the American foreign policy establishment.125 Of South-West Asia, for example, he took the “realistic” establishment view: the United States, he wrote in a confidential Council on Foreign Relations paper, could not allow its enemies to control that region, because “we secure from it huge amounts of raw materials and sell to it huge amounts of finished goods.”126 It was, moreover, because of Lattimore’s identification as an “establishment” figure that he was persecuted in the 1950s, during the general anti-IPR campaign.127

  The Carnegie Corporation’s trustees valued the AIPR and provided generously for it. Up to 1932 alone, the corporation awarded $127,486 to its activities; between 1938 and 1945, this increased to $158,500; and in the years 1946 and 1947, when the AIPR received its final corporation grant, the sum rose still further to $175,000. In total, the CC gave the AIPR over $460,000.128 Rockefeller invested $950,000 in IPR between 1929 and 1941.129

  Public meetings, conferences, and a wartime program of popularly accessible publications constituted the bulk of the AIPR’s domestic activity. Focused mainly on West Coast cities, the AIPR established libraries and study centers, conducted teacher-training seminars, and aided local clubs, colleges, churches, and U.S. military educational divisions in gaining knowledge of Pacific matters.130 In San Francisco, the AIPR had 450 members, five full-time staff, and a teacher-training program on Pacific relations accredited by the local school board.131 In Seattle, the AIPR conducted twenty public forums for adults, students, and their teachers and sponsored a high school essay contest. It also held an annual joint conference with the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.132

  The AIPR also organized periodic two-day conferences across the United States, which were attended by local people and Far Eastern affairs experts. “For better or worse,” Peffer argues, “the Institute has been the means of increasing consciousness of the Far East in the United States.” In addition, Peffer credited the AIPR with having inspired the increased teaching of Pacific area studies and the establishment of Far Eastern departments in schools, colleges, and universities.133

  Cooperation with like-minded internationalist organizations such as the FPA and CEIP also occurred on a regular basis. Joint seminars were organized by the AIPR and FPA for New York teachers and high school students throughout the war years, to promote discussion of Japan, issues on the world war as a whole, postwar questions, and matters relating to the United Nations. Such events attracted several hundred students and helped promote “international-mindedness and student leadership.”134 The CEIP not only funded aspects of the AIPR program—to the tune of $15,000—of providing bibliographic material to teachers and news stories to the press and the preparation of radio broadcasts but also cooperated with the institute in a range of educational activities.135 In 1943 through 1945, the CEIP’s “international centers” in San Francisco and Chicago jointly sponsored the AIPR’s conferences on Far Eastern and general foreign policy matters.136

  The AIPR also had a highly developed and internationally respected program of research and publication. Its Economic Handbook of the Pacific Area had become “the standard work on the subject,” its fortnightly Far Eastern Survey was widely respected, and its quarterly Pacific Affairs was “a solid review,” according to Peffer. The IPR’s publication program, The Inquiry, ran to twenty-five short volumes, “the best available distillate of data pertaining to the Pacific,” and it would be invaluable to peacemakers after the war.137 For more popular consumption, the AIPR produced a series of pamphlets with titles such as Japan and the Opium Menace,138 Showdown at Singapore, Japan Strikes South, and China: America’s Ally. The U.S. Army alone had ordered ten thousand copies of each of the pamphlets “for use in its orientation courses.”139

  After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, AIPR became an essential part of the administration’s war effort. Its research program was increasingly “de
termined by Government needs,” because the AIPR was the “only agency [with] considerable… information about the area.”140 As the Office of War Information, the Office of Strategic Services, and the armed forces increased their demand for the AIPR’s research and knowledge, the corporation stepped up its support.141 AIPR was an important educational force for internationalism in the United States and commanded foundations’ financial support.

  CFR’S REGIONAL COMMITTEES ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

  Peffer’s report noted that the CFR’s membership was small but “chosen with a view to their strategically important position in their respective milieux.” CC trustees had themselves formed that very opinion: between 1923 and 1932, CC contributed $382,230; between 1938 and 1945, it contributed a further $261,300, a total of $643,530.142

  CC directly initiated the council’s program of regional committees from 1938 onward. CC’s aim was to improve “adult education” in foreign affairs, in a manner that would be “helpful” to the State Department. CC’s presidential assistant, Charles Dollard, was from the very beginning conscious of the need to “get in touch with the State Department,” before proceeding to officially contact the Council on Foreign Relations, the organization that would establish and run the committees. One foundation trustee, Arthur W. Page, suggested that President Frederick P. Keppel consult Secretary of State Cornell Hull “and ask him if there is any way, within our proper and legitimate… [sphere] in which we can help him.” The committees, everyone agreed, would be very useful in helping to “educate” regional public opinion, or at least that section of it that was made up of “opinion formers.”143

  The committees were, of course, conceived of in elitist terms by the council’s leaders: they were to be made up of “leading individuals” who were to be “assisted to [reach] right decisions… [who] will in turn, through their influential positions, affect the opinion and action of the masses.”144 Although CC had always rejected the charge that it ever sponsored propaganda, one of the referees that it appointed to examine its proposals suggested that such “education of public opinion” would break the “monopoly of effective methods” utilized by the “dictatorial regimes.” It would create, he concluded, “public support for an intelligent foreign policy.”145