Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VII, Public Diplomacy, 1964–1968

119. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (Frankel) to the Under Secretary of State (Katzenbach)¹

Washington, December 15, 1966

SUBJECT

• The Program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs

Since September 1965, CU has been engaged in a fundamental redirection of its activities. In that month, in his Smithsonian Address, the President declared that educational cooperation with other countries would be a central and deliberately emphasized feature of U.S. foreign policy, and expressed an enduring national interest of the United States.² This was followed by the President’s Message to Congress of February 2, 1966.³

To carry this new initiative in foreign policy forward, fundamental changes are required both in CU and in the Government as a whole. More than 25 agencies of the Federal Government now carry on programs involving educational and cultural activities abroad. Most do so simply as a by-product of their normal activities—e.g. the NSF, NASA, AEC. AID, which has the largest budget for international education, is committed in principle to phasing out its assistance efforts, and is project-oriented mainly along technical and economic lines. In short, although the participation of Federal agencies in international education is both extensive and varied, the programs that have been inherited need to be coordinated and redesigned if educational and cultural policies are to be coherent, and are to be front and center in our foreign relations.

In all this, a special responsibility falls on CU. First, as a Bureau of the Department of State it has the responsibility for policy-guidance and leadership to facilitate coordination—a responsibility already fixed on it by Executive Order.⁴ Second, although its own programs are smaller than those of many other agencies, they are the most visible and symbolic, and are the prototypes of the cooperative binational and multinational programs envisaged by the President.

Accordingly, CU has been regrouping its forces during the past year in order to achieve certain central objectives:

1. The movement of educational and cultural relations to the front and center of U.S. foreign policy. This has been carried forward by CU’s participation in the preparation of the Smithsonian Address, the President’s Message of February 2, and other statements, by its leadership of the President’s special Task Force on International Education, by its active association with the planning and organization of the new Center for Educational Cooperation in HEW, and by its role in the preparation and passage of the International Education Act, the Florence and Beirut Agreements,⁵ the new rules governing visas for visitors invited to scholarly conferences, etc.

2. The improvement and sharpening of CU’s coordinative function. The existing mechanism for coordinating programs is the “Federal Interagency Council on International Educational and Cultural Affairs,” which is chaired by the Assistant Secretary. During the past year, old subcommittees have been reactivated and new sub-committees formed—e.g. for international book programs and English-language teaching abroad—which have greatly improved coordination. Other informal groups in the sciences and the arts have also been created which are proving effective.

However, this coordinative function is at present performed largely by means of persuasion, and remains limited and patchy. An Executive Order has accordingly been prepared, more or less parallel to the Sig-Irg Orders,⁶ sharpening and lifting the authority of the Assistant Secretary. All participating agencies in the Federal Interagency Council have accepted this new Executive Order. It is now stalled in the Bureau of the Budget.

3. The development within CU of programs that have specific and definable educational objectives in contrast with programs defined simply in terms of numbers of persons exchanged. Long-range replanning programs are being introduced, under which binational commissions abroad and the Board of Foreign Scholarships⁷ in Washington will seek greater selectivity and continuity in exchange programs. In each country certain priority fields of special interest to the host country or to the United States will be selected for emphasis so that exchange programs can be used systematically to fill educational needs.

4. The development of new procedures that will bring the U.S. educational community closer to the actual planning and implementation of exchange programs thus increasing its support for these programs and adding to the resources at our command. In keeping with this objective advisory planning teams composed of selected United States and foreign scholars have been formed to review and recommend long-range exchange programs.

5. The initial phases of a reorganization of CU have begun, the object of which is gradually to free its principal officers from purely operational and grant-writing responsibilities, so that they can participate more actively in foreign policy planning.⁸ This plan depends for completion on developments within State and other parts of the Executive Branch, for example, HEW.

CU’s Relations to the Other Bureaus in the Department

1. CU’s programs break down into three main types:

a. Academic programs;

b. Exchanges of leaders and specialists;

c. Presentations in the performing arts.

The academic programs are governed in a large number of cases by binational commissions established under the Fulbright-Hays law, and though chaired by an Embassy officer, are independent, on the whole, of the day-to-day political operations and plans of the regional bureaus or the country teams. The leaders and specialists program and cultural presentations programs are more responsive to the expressed desires of the regional bureaus and country teams. On the whole, however, CU has in the past functioned as a quasi-independent agency performing ad hoc services for the regional bureaus. This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. It is proposed that CU officers work as educational advisers within the regional bureaus in order to ensure that the plans of these bureaus will systematically incorporate plans for cooperative educational and cultural relations with other countries.

CU’s Relationship to USIS

In Washington, CU and USIA are independent. CU’s function under the Fulbright-Hays law⁹ is to promote mutual education and cultural exchange, largely through exchange of persons. USIA’s function is to promote sympathetic understanding of the United States, largely through use of the so-called “fast media,” although USIA also has a number of “long-range” programs—e.g. libraries, translations, etc. For practical purposes, CU deals in “persons”; USIA deals in “things.”

Despite the fact that the functions of the two agencies are distinct, CU’s programs overseas are conducted by Cultural Affairs Officers who are members of USIS, and who work under the immediate direction of a Public Affairs Officer. In short, the Assistant Secretary does not have overseas people directly responsible to him or the Ambassador for carrying out State Department policies. This administrative anomaly dates back to 1953 when what is now USIA was removed from the Department of State while the cultural program, as a result of a Congressional resolution, was separated from USIA and retained in the Department. At that time, however, the overseas administration of the Fulbright-Hays educational and cultural exchange program was left in the hands of USIA.

Significance of the International Education Act

As part of the effort to involve American colleges and universities more fully and directly in international education, the International Education Act was prepared and has now been passed. Over the years, assuming Congressional appropriations, this Act means that American universities are likely to engage in a large number of exchange programs they design and operate themselves, with the financial support of the Federal Government. Under these circumstances, the State Department programs will serve to fill out and supplement a federally supported effort, and should be closely coordinated with programs under the International Education Act.

In order to move in this direction, a new Center for Educational Cooperation has been created in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In addition to operating its own program of grants, this Center will conduct regular reviews and analyses of the American nation’s total resources and efforts in international education, something much needed for purposes of planning and coordination. The function of CU under these circumstances is to lead and coordinate the overseas side of this effort since foreign operations must remain under the control of the Secretary of State. As these new programs develop, it may be expected that some of CU’s present operational responsibilities will gradually shift to HEW. However, although preparations have already begun for such a step, it should obviously not be taken until we know better the character and quality of the new Center.

The East-West Center

The East-West Center in Hawaii is established under separate legislation and had the special interest of President Johnson, Congressmen Rooney and Bow, and Governor Burns of Hawaii. The Center is a federally supported institution, but the grant is made to the State of Hawaii, and, through the State, to the University of Hawaii. Legally the situation is fuzzy. Congress insists that the East-West Center is a federal institution; the Board of Regents at the University of Hawaii tend to regard the East-West Center as a responsibility of the University. It has been proposed that the East-West Center be established clearly as a federal corporation, and that the responsibility for it be shifted from State to HEW. This idea makes sense over the long run, but is clearly premature at the present moment and should be checked out with Congress and the White House.

CU’s Relations to the USSR Eastern European Exchange Program

The Cultural Exchange Agreement¹⁰ with the Soviet Union is so intermingled with large-scale political considerations affecting our relations with Eastern Europe that responsibility for negotiating these agreements and controlling their political aspects has been placed in the Europe Bureau. However, because there is a substantive educational and cultural aspect of this program, actual responsibility for recruiting people, preparing presentations, etc., has rested with CU, and the supporting budget for this operation is part of the CU appropriation. On the whole, this arrangement has worked satisfactorily, due largely to the fact that Assistant Secretaries Leddy and Frankel have consulted closely and that their staffs have a close and sympathetic relationship. Since the exchanges agreement with the Soviets include much that does not come under CU’s operational authority—e.g., agricultural exchanges, industrial exhibits, etc.—the problem of transferring total authority over exchanges to CU is complex. This is a matter that should be reviewed when the new structures created to carry the President’s International Education Program forward have become more clearly defined.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Files, Assistant Secretary for Education and Cultural Affairs Subject Files, 1966–1967, Lot 70D190, Entry UD UP 176, East-West Center—House Appropriations Committee Investigation EDR. No classification marking. Printed from an unsigned and uninitialed copy.
2. For Johnson’s remarks, see Document 60.
3. Reference is to Johnson’s Special Message to Congress Proposing International Education and Health Programs. See footnote 3, Document 89.
4. Not further identified.
5. See, footnote 3, Document 113.
6. For information about the SIG–IRG, see Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. XXXIII, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; United Nations, Documents 56 and 64.
7. See footnote 2, Document 104.
8. See Document 95.
9. See, footnote 4, Document 14.
10. See, footnote 8, Document 98.