Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VIII, Public Diplomacy, 1969–1972

68. Memorandum From President Nixon to the President’s Assistant (Haldeman)¹

Washington, January 26, 1970

In talking to several people in Philadelphia² I heard concern expressed with regard to the Nancy Hanks-Garment operation³ on the ground that their thrust was to support those activities in the cultural field which were “novel” and broke new ground rather than to put any significant emphasis on the more traditional activities.

This is completely contrary to my views. I do not want to take it up directly with Garment and Hanks but I want you to. As you, of course, know those who are on the modern art and music kick are 95 percent against us anyway. I refer to the recent addicts of Leonard Bernstein and the whole New York crowd.

When I compare the horrible monstrosity of Lincoln Center with the Academy of Music in Philadelphia I realize how decadent the modern art and architecture have become.

This is what the Kennedy-Shriver crowd believed in and they had every right to encourage this kind of stuff when they were in. But I have no intention whatever of continuing to encourage it now. If this forces a show-down and even some resignations it’s all right with me. I am not going to have 40 million dollars scattered all over the country in projects of this type.

P.S. I also want a check made with regard to the incredibly atrocious modern art that has been scattered around the embassies around the world. I asked for this several months ago from Shakespeare and have heard nothing but silence since I made the request. I know that Keating has done some cleaning out of the Embassy in New Delhi, but I want to know what they are doing in some of the other places. One of the worst, incidentally, was Davis in Rumania.

We, of course, cannot tell the Ambassadors what kind of art they personally can have, but I found in travelling around the world that many of our Ambassadors were displaying the modern art due to the fact that they were compelled to because of some committee which once was headed up by Mrs. Kefauver⁴ and where they were loaned some of these little uglies from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. At least, I want a quiet check made—not one that is going to hit the newspapers and stir up all the troops—but I simply want it understood that this Administration is going to turn away from the policy of forcing our embassies abroad or those who receive assistance from the United States at home to move in the direction of off-beat art, music and literature.

1. Source: Nixon Library, White House Staff Files, Staff Member and Office Files: HR Haldeman, Box 229, P Memos 1970. No classification marking. Printed from an uninitialed copy.
2. The evening of January 24, the President and the First Lady traveled to Philadelphia by train in order to attend a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. That evening, Nixon also presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to violinist Eugene Ormandy, the Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. (Ibid., Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Central Files, President’s Daily Diary) For the text of the President’s remarks upon presenting the award, see Public Papers: Nixon, 1970, pp. 16–17.
3. Presumable reference to the efforts undertaken by the International Cultural Strategy Group regarding the promulgation of a national cultural policy. See Documents 38 and 42.
4. Reference is to Nancy Kefauver, the wife of Senator Estes Kefauver (D-Tennessee), the 1956 Democratic nominee for Vice President. President Kennedy had appointed Mrs. Kefauver Director of the Art in Embassies Program.