Foundations of the American Century

by Inderjeet Parmar

  10. Ibid., 5.

  11. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, 170.

  12. Melvin P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992); Kathleen D. McCarthy, “From Cold War to Cultural Development: The International Cultural Activities of the Ford Foundation, 1950–1980,” Daedalus (Winter 1987): 93–117.

  13. Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe (London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).

  14. Marcus Cunliffe, “The Anatomy of Anti-Americanism,” in R. Kroes and M. Van Rossem, eds., Anti-Americanism in Europe (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1986); B. Appleyard, “Why Do They Hate America?” Sunday Times (September 23, 2001); R. Weikunat, “The Philosophical Origins of European Anti-Americanism,” Contemporary Review (July 2002).

  15. Humanities Discussion Papers; Trustee Subcommittee on Humanities and the Arts; Reports 016196, 5 March 1970; FFA.

  16. Although American Studies programs had existed in the United States since the 1920s, they only became fully established—complete with a professional association, annual conferences, and a learned journal, for example—during the Cold War; Spiller, “The Fulbright Program in American Studies Abroad,” 5.

  17. Tremaine McDowell argues that American Studies would unify Americans through greater self-knowledge, undermine isolationist sentiment, and promote internationalism; McDowell, American Studies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1948), 31.

  18. John W. Gardner, “Education in Values for Americans,” part 1, in Carnegie Corporation (CC) Grant Files, “American Values 1948–50”, April 24, 1950, in box 40, folder 14, 1.

  19. Ibid., part 2, 1.

  20. Ibid., part 2, 3–4.

  21. Ibid., part 2, 9. Emphasis added.

  22. Letter, Gordon W. Allport to John Gardner, September 28, 1948; box 40, folder 14.

  23. Letter, Gardner to Allport, October 19, 1948; box 40, folder 14.

  24. Gardner, “Education in Values for Americans,” part 2, 14.

  25. CC memorandum, “Grants for American Studies,” September 1958; box 411, folder 11.

  26. CC, “A Program of Research Grants for Historical Studies in the Field of American Civilization,” January 5, 1949.

  27. John W. Gardner, “Preliminary Notes for a Survey of Programs in American Studies,” ca. 1948; CC Grant Files, box 40, folder 8; emphasis added.

  28. CC memorandum, “Grants for American Studies,” September 1958; box 411, folder 11.

  29. Athan G. Theoharis, Seeds of Repression (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971).

  30. Statement by Dean Rusk on Behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation and the General Education Board to the Special Committee on Foundations, 39; Rusk Collection, box 4, folder 53; Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, New York.

  31. Ibid., 43–44.

  32. Scott Lucas, “A Document from the Harvard International Summer School,” in J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht and F. Schumacher, eds., Culture and International History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), 258.

  33. Inderjeet Parmar, “Conceptualising the State-Private Network in American Foreign Policy,” in Helen Laville and Hugh Wilford, eds., The U.S. Government, Citizen Groups, and the Cold War: The State-Private Network (London: Frank Cass, 2005); see also Liam Kennedy and Scott Lucas, “Enduring Freedom: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Policy,” American Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2005): 309–333.

  34. George Kennan endorsed the seminar plan as having “a worthy, dignified and useful purpose” when he forwarded it to the Ford Foundation for support; Memorandum, John B. Howard to Joseph M. McDaniel Jr., “Harvard Summer School Foreign Students Project,” May 24, 1951; PA55–9, reel 0942; Ford Foundation Archives (FFA), New York.

  35. Lucas, “A Document from the Harvard International Summer School,” 259. Kissinger was director of the seminar from 1951 to 1971.

  36. Kissinger was involved in recent similar activities in behalf of the German Marshall Fund’s transatlantic understanding programs; Annual Report (2003), 1–6.

  37. Henry Kissinger, “Report of the Subcommittee on Academic Programs” (undated, October/November, 1950), in Lucas, “A Document from the Harvard International Summer School,” 261–262. Emphasis added.

  38. Lucas, “A Document from the Harvard International Summer School,” 263. Emphasis added.

  39. In one letter concerning grant applications to Ford, Kissinger offered to provide supporting references from Allen W. Dulles (CIA director) and C. D. Jackson, head of the Congress for Cultural Freedom initiative; Kissinger to Don K. Price (FF associate director), December 10, 1953; PA53–159, reel 1118 (FFA); see also Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe.

  40. Ford Foundation annual reports; see also, Ford Foundation, American Studies Abroad; report 004642, April 1969. In total, FF granted Kissinger over $390,000; FFA.

  41. “Docket Excerpt. Executive Committee meeting September 27, 1956: International Programs: International Affairs: Harvard University International Seminar”; PA55–9; reel 0492 (FFA).

  42. Ibid.

  43. Ibid.

  44. “Excerpt from Docket: International Affairs: Harvard International Seminar,” October 29–30 1954; Grant file PA55–9; reel 0492; Ford Foundation Archives (FFA).

  45. “Docket excerpt, Executive Committee Mtg. September 27, 1956: International Programs: International Affairs. Harvard University International Seminar”; Grant file PA55–9; reel 0492; FFA.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Inter-Office Memorandum, Bernard L. Gladieux to Joseph M. McDaniel, “Harvard International Seminar (A351 Revised),” August 13, 1952; PA55–9, reel 0492 (FFA).

  48. “Docket Excerpt… September 27, 1956”; Grant File PA55–9; reel 0492 (FFA).

  49. “Docket excerpt, Executive Committee Mtg.,” September 27, 1956 (FFA). Emphasis added.

  50. It is an interesting use of language to refer to European dissent as “disturbance,” suggesting, perhaps, that opposition to America rests largely on psychological and emotional factors internal to the individual.

  51. Henry Kissinger, report on 1955 program; PA55–9; reel 0492 (FFA).

  52. “Extracts of Letters from Past Participants,” attached to a letter, Kissinger to Harold Swearer (FF), 4 November 1968; PA69–134, reel 2248 (FFA).

  53. Letter, Kissinger to Harold Swearer (FF), 4 November 1968; PA69–134, reel 2248 (FFA).

  54. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger (London: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 71.

  55. J. Gedmin and C. Kennedy, “Selling America, Short,” National Interest (Winter 2003).

  56. Inter-Office Memorandum, “Harvard International Seminar”, Bernard L. Gladieux to Joseph McDaniel, August 13 1952; PA55–9, reel 0942 (FFA).

  57. The phrase “the faint odor of cultural imperialism” is from an interoffice memorandum, Richard C. Sheldon to W. McNeill Lowry, “American Studies,” March 5, 1968, 2; PA69–134, reel 2248 (FFA).

  58. Indeed, this was precisely how Kissinger and Elliott contextualized their own efforts; letter, Elliott to Don K. Price (Ford Foundation), 13 February 1954; PA55–9, reel 0942 (FFA).

  59. “Clemens Heller: Founder of the ‘Marshall Plan of the Mind,’” http://www.salzburgglobal.org/2009/history.cfm?goto=heller.

  60. David E. Bell and McNeill Lowry, Grant Allocation to Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, Inc., January 20, 1970; 3; PA55–216; reel 2081 (FFA).

  61. Dexter Perkins, “A Proposal to Strengthen the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies,” March 1960; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA). The fellows were selected by “responsible” men in Europe and officers of the U.S. Information Service; many alumni subsequently went on to take up Commonwealth Fund study scholarships in the United States, becoming networked in a tightly organized set of U.S. East Coast establishment organizations.

  62. Letter, Grayson Kirk to Dexter Perkins (President, Salzburg Seminar), March 8, 1960; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA).

  63. All quotes
are from Paul M. Herzog (president, Salzburg Seminar), “Application to the Ford Foundation for a Grant for the Period 1970–1975,” October 1969; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA).

  64. Perkins, “A Proposal to Strengthen the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies,” March 1960; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA).

  65. Cited by Herzog, “Application to the Ford Foundation…”; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA).

  66. Bell and Lowry, Grant Allocation to Salzburg Seminar, January 20 1970; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA).

  67. Perkins, “A Proposal to Strengthen the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies.”

  68. Ibid., exhibit IV.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Bell and Lowry, Grant Allocation to Salzburg Seminar, January 20 1970; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA).

  71. Perkins, “A Proposal to Strengthen the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies,” exhibit XIV.

  72. Ibid.

  73. Letter, Daniel Bell to Dexter Perkins, March 1 1960; PA55–216, reel 2081 (FFA).

  74. Perkins, “A Proposal to Strengthen the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies.”

  75. Espinosa’s quotation in the epigraph to this section is cited in Giles Scott-Smith, Ali Fisher, and Inderjeet Parmar, “American Foundations, Public Diplomacy, and the Cold War: The Case of American Studies in the U.S., Britain, and the Netherlands,” unpublished paper (2005), 1.

  76. For details see D. Reynolds, “Whitehall, Washington, and the Promotion of American Studies in Britain During World War Two,” Journal of American Studies 16, no. 2: 165–188.

  77. R. Pells, Not Like Us (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

  78. Letter, Richard P. Jackson to E. F. D’Arms (associate director, division of humanities, Rockefeller Foundation), July 13 1955; Rockefeller Foundation Archives, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454; Tarrytown, New York. Jackson was reporting to the foundation on a recent meeting to draw up a BAAS constitution, at University College, Oxford (July 12, 1955).

  79. Letter, Frank Thistlethwaite to E. F. D’Arms (RF), 10 August 1955; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401 R, box 52, folder 454. No suggestion is made as to the motives of scholars in accepting or soliciting foundation grants. No charge is leveled that scholars produced research results foundations wanted nor that they robotically produced predetermined pro-American conclusions. It is argued that there was on the whole a coincidence of wants on the part of scholars and foundations, as Michael Heale argues. However, the foundations did narrow the space for other work, ideas, and scholars and thereby mobilize bias; Heale, “American History in Britain,” paper presented at BAAS conference, Cambridge, April 2005. This is, indeed, confirmation of Laski’s point, once again.

  80. The conferences were held at Oxford and Cambridge to lend academic prestige: 1952, St. John’s College, Cambridge; 1953, University and Magdalen Colleges, Oxford; 1954, Peterhouse, Cambridge; and 1955, University College, Cambridge; Final Report: The American Studies Conferences in the United Kingdom 1952–1955; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 76, folder 646.

  81. Mark L. Chadwin, The Hawks of World War II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968). In 1957, Herbert Agar, another war hawk and leader of the Fight for Freedom, joined BAAS’s Advisory Council; BAAS, Bulletin No. 4, April 1957; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 74, folder 644.

  82. Fulbright Commission, Final Report: The American Studies Conferences in the United Kingdom 1952–1955, 7; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 74, folder 646.

  83. In the extreme case of Germany after 1945, American Studies was promoted by the cultural officers of the U.S. Military Government and High Commission. Professor John A. Hawgood reports that much of the German interest in America in the “difficult years 1945–48 tended to follow the dollar…. All sorts of people in Germany discovered a hitherto unsuspected interest in the history and culture of the United States.”; BAAS Bulletin No. 6, February 1958, 14; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 74, folder 645. Precisely Laski’s point.

  84. Fulbright Commission, Final Report: The American Studies Conferences in the UK 1952–1955, 10; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 74, folder 646.

  85. Ibid.

  86. Pells argues that such individuals were attracted to American Studies and an identification with an egalitarian vision of America on the basis of their non-establishment social origins—they were Welsh or Scottish, working or lower middle class, or Jewish; Not Like Us, 117.

  87. Letter, Thistlethwaite to D’Arms, 10 August 1955.

  88. Memorandum to the ad hoc committee on American Studies, Richard P. Taylor, Executive Secretary, “Proposed Formation of a Council or Association of American Studies,” April 18, 1955; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454.

  89. Taylor was replaced as executive secretary in 1956 by Dr. W. L. Gaines, who had previously worked in the intelligence section of the U.S. embassy in London; Excerpt, E. F. D’Arms’s “Diary of Trip to Europe,” May 7, 1956; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454. Gaines felt that BAAS was “on a sound basis and should prove a valuable means of promoting American Studies.”

  90. Fulbright Commission, Final Report, 14.

  91. Letter, D’Arms (RF) to Frank Thistlethwaite, August 23 1955; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454.

  92. Letter, Taylor to D’Arms, October 31 1955, RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder Taylor was executive secretary of the U.S. Educational Commission (Fulbright Commission), United Kingdom, and treasurer of the RF’s grantinaid to University College, Oxford.

  93. Letter, Thistlethwaite to D’Arms, 9 August 1956; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454.

  94. Letter, Thistlethwaite to D’Arms, 9 August 1956; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454. By this time, BAAS was effectively administered from the Department of American Studies at the University of Manchester.

  95. Interview, E. F. D’Arms and Thistlethwaite, October 2, 1956; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454.

  96. BAAS memorandum (by Thistlethwaite), “Memorandum for the Rockefeller Foundation on the Needs of the British Association for American Studies,” n.d. but circa 1956; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 454.

  97. E. F. D’Arms diary note, February 27, 1957; RFA, RG 1.2 series 4021R, box 52, folder 454.

  98. Letter, Marcus Cunliffe to John H. Greenfield, Asst. Comptroller, Rockefeller Foundation, February 1, 1965; RFA, RG 1.2 series 401R, box 52, folder 457.

  99. For the negotiated character of the founding of BAAS, see Ali Fisher and Scott Lucas, “Master and Servant? The U.S. Government and the Founding of the BAAS,” European Journal of American Culture 21, no. 1 (2002): 16–25. Fisher argues elsewhere that, despite the protracted negotiations between British Americanists, the State Department, and the Rockefeller Foundation, their respective aims were “congruous to those of the [American] State”; Ali Fisher, “Sought by the U.S. Government, Facilitated by Philanthropy,” paper presented at BAAS conference, Cambridge, April 2005, 3.

  100. American Studies Abroad, with Particular Reference to the ACLS Program; Report 004642, FFA; 6.

  101. Ibid., 57.

  102. Humanities Discussion Papers, Trustee subcommittee on Humanities and the Arts, 5 March 1970; Report 016196; FFA.

  103. American Studies Abroad, 56–58.

  104. Ibid., 22–23.

  105. Memo, Richard C. Sheldon to W. McNeill Lowry, 5 March 1968, reel 2248, PA69–134, FFA.

  106. “American Studies,” Howard R. Swearer to Messrs. Bell, Sutton, Kohl and Gordon, 19 February 1968, reel 2248, PA69–134, FFA.

  107. “Grant-in-Aid to the EAAS Towards Its General Support and Conferences”; RFA, RG 1.2 series 700, box 17, folder 148. $6,000 was awarded in August 1956.

  108. Paper attached to “Grant-in-Aid to the EAAS…”; RFA, RG 1.2 series 700, box 17, folder 148.

  109. Letter, Robert Spiller to John Marshall (RF), 6 February 1959; RFA, RG 1.2 series 700, box 17, folder 148.

  110. American Studies Abroad, 161. Giles Scott-Smith notes, however, that two Dutch professors funded by a combination of Ford and U.S. st
ate grants were “forced to leave their positions because of leftwing radicalism”; Scott-Smith, “The Ties That Bind: Dutch-American Relations, U.S. Public Diplomacy, and the Promotion of American Studies Since the Second World War,” Hague Journal of Diplomacy 2 (2007): 299.

  111. Cited by Marcus Cunliffe, “American Studies in Europe,” in Robert H. Walker, ed., American Studies Abroad (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975), 50–51. Cunliffe was citing a (justly critical, in his view) review of one of his own books.

  112. Giles Scott-Smith, “The Congress for Cultural Freedom in Retrospect,” Storiografia 6 (2002); Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? Although Scott-Smith argues that the foundations were “bit players” in CCF in terms of funding, the aim above is to show that Ford did provide some funding and, even more, that Ford, CCF, and the CIA shared similar outlooks—and personnel—in regard to fighting America’s enemies in the Cold War.

  113. Scott-Smith, “The Congress for Cultural Freedom in Retrospect,” 183. CCF was formed in Berlin in 1950; key founders included Michael Josselson, James Burnham, Sidney Hook, Arthur Koestler, and Melvin Lasky.

  114. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? 142.

  115. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, 220–221.

  116. Giles Scott-Smith, “The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the End of Ideology, and the 1955 Milan Conference: ‘Defining the Parameters of Discourse,’” Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 3 (2002): 437–455.

  117. Ibid., 442.

  118. For the definitive study of this subject, Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left, and the Cold War (London: Frank Cass, 2003).

  119. Scott-Smith, “The Congress for Cultural Freedom,” 449. Schmidt argues that the Bilderberg conferences were “largely sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment”; Schmidt, “Small Atlantic World,” 122.

  120. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe.

  121. Militant Tendency, CIA Infiltration of the Labour Movement (London: Militant Tendency, 1982), 30.

  122. Francis X. Sutton, Inter-Office Memorandum to Messrs. McGeorge Bundy and David Bell, “Congress for Cultural Freedom,” September 21, 1967; Report 002784 (FFA).