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

75. Report of the United States Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs¹

Washington, March 1970

[Omitted here are Babbidges’s letter of transmittal, a title page, and a listing of Commission members.]

A MULTITUDE OF COUNSELORS

Seventh Annual Report of the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs

One who surveys international educational and cultural exchange programs cannot but be struck by their enormous variety; and as he comes upon the widely differing activities with their diverse goals, he feels as if he were peering into a kaleidoscope—so ever-changing are the patterns he sees. During the past year the Advisory Commission has itself looked at many of these programs from many points of view and with many counselors both inside and outside the Government. In this our Seventh Annual Report we wish to state some of our findings and conclusions.

In May of 1969 the Commission met with representatives of various outside organizations and other Government advisory groups to discuss the whole range of the Government’s educational and cultural exchange programs, how these are related to programs of information and propaganda, and a number of other pertinent questions with which we have concerned ourselves. There were present at this meeting representatives from the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs (NAFSA), the National Council for Community Services to International Visitors (COSERV), the Commission on International Education of the American Council on Education, the National Review Board of the East-West Center in Honolulu, the Government Advisory Committee on International Book and Library Programs, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information, the Board of Foreign Scholarships, the Committee on Youth in the office of the Under Secretary of State, and this Advisory Commission itself. Also present at this meeting was John Richardson, Jr., the newly designated Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, whose appointment at that time had not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

Then on September 12, 1969, the Advisory Commission held another meeting, this one with the full Board of Foreign Scholarships and the Commission on International Education of the American Council on Education.² Again, our objective in holding these joint meetings was perfectly simple: to get the best possible advice and guidance from the three groups concerning the whole range of international educational and cultural affairs, both public and private. We had written a strong and critical Sixth Annual Report,³ making a number of significant recommendations, one of which was that all possible effort be made to remove international educational and cultural programs from the Department of State and to combine these with certain educational and cultural portions of the U.S. Information Agency programs and with the programs of the Institute of International Studies in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Obviously, we had offered such recommendations for the most serious consideration of the new Administration, which was one day old when we submitted the report to the Congress and to the President and the Secretary of State.

We are pleased to note that in our joint meetings there was thoughtful deliberation of the variety of ways in which these programs might be arranged. There were discussions, for example, of moving all of the USIA back to the Department of State; of creating a quasi-public corporation, perhaps along the lines of the Smithsonian Institution or the National Academy of Sciences; and of simply removing the cultural affairs officers from the direct control of the U.S. Information Service overseas and creating a career service for these persons within the Department of State and/or the Foreign Service.

During the course of the summer and early fall, after Mr. Richardson’s confirmation and at subsequent meetings with him, we were pleased to note that both the Assistant Secretary and Secretary of State Rogers obviously intended to give more personal attention to the Department’s international education and cultural programs and to seek for them as much financial support as they thought Congress would permit. Further, it was the view of the Secretary that these programs could best be administered within the Department of State.

One manifestation of the increased support within the Department, the lack of which we had deplored in previous reports, is seen in the fiscal year 1971 budget request which is now before the Congress, asking that funds for educational and cultural exchanges be lifted from the $31.425 million, where they now have stood for 2 years, to $40 million.⁴ This may not be as much as we would wish, but it amounts to about a one-third increase in the request and, if granted by the Congress, will certainly put the international educational and cultural programs of this Government on the upswing.

In the light of the deliberations in the joint meetings mentioned above and the subsequent discussions with Assistant Secretary Richardson and with the Secretary himself, the Commission has decided that it will not now press for its earlier recommendation that the programs be removed from the State Department. In all fairness to the new Administration, and with much evidence of increasing support, we have informed the Department of State through the Assistant Secretary that we will watch to see what happens during the next year. If the programs do not receive the support we think they merit, we may then suggest again that they be reordered somehow in the complex of Government organizations concerned with them, or that they be removed from Government and placed in a quasi-public agency.

Secretary Rogers, in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on September 25, 1969, requesting a restoration in funds cut by the House from the Department’s fiscal year 1970 request for $35.4 million for educational and cultural programs, said:

“We not only think that this restoration is fully justified, but we would expect in any subsequent years to increase our budget request. I am convinced from observations I have made that in the educational field the money is very well spent. This story repeats itself many times when you talk to young people particularly around the world; how many of them were educated here; how much it has meant to them; and how helpful they will be to the United States in their own countries.”⁵

Moreover, we were impressed by the justification used in the Department’s budget presentation for fiscal 1971 requesting $40 million for mutual educational and cultural exchange activities. It seems to us that this is one of the best and most succinct statements we have read concerning the purposes of the Department’s educational and cultural exchange programs.

“Any sound strategy for effective response to the realities we face in world politics requires an improved U.S. capacity to communicate with other societies in the U.S. interest through mutually rewarding interactions among key leadership groups and individuals here and abroad. People-to-people programs of all kinds are therefore a realistic and effective means of enhancing constructive U.S. influence in the world. They can, if well managed, develop a sufficiently common perspective among key elements of other societies and our own to provide a solid base for strengthened economic, military and political, as well as cultural, relations.

“The management of such programs, along with the performance of the other policy and coordinating functions of the Secretary of State described above, are the business of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

“In discharging these responsibilities, the Bureau operates on the premise that increasing mass media control over the attention and short-term reactions of public opinion does not reduce the influence of individual opinion and decision-makers in the international arena any more than is the case in domestic affairs. And the face-to-face personal experiences those leaders have had with Americans and in America can be crucial for our relations with their countries.

“Similarly, mass tourism and the increasing volume of general academic, professional, performing arts and business travel does not at all reduce the significance of the specific positive or negative experiences of the individuals whose attitudes are or will become decisive in each country. Their personal experiences can result in trends and patterns of educational, creative, scientific and political thought leading directly either toward cooperation or conflict. Close and persisting personal, group and institutional relationships can be especially potent factors affecting these trends and patterns when they develop in fields of central social and (ultimately) political importance. Among these fields in most countries are education, science, journalism, public service, the professions and the arts.”

Agenda for the Coming Year

As the Advisory Commission watches the development of international programs in the coming year, it will also be cooperating with the Bureau and the Department on a number of tasks.

The final report of the joint meeting of September 12, which was transmitted to Assistant Secretary Richardson in a letter of October 23 from the Chairman of this Commission and the Chairman of the Board of Foreign Scholarships, lists 13 “topics requiring further study and recommendations.”⁶ Wishing to work more closely with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs than has been the case in the past, we asked Mr. Richardson for his suggestions as to which of these topics he thought should have priority. He listed a number of these in his answer of November 21,⁷ and it is these matters to which we intend to address ourselves in the next year.

It was the Commission’s feeling that the new program initiatives suggested at the joint meeting in September should be formulated by the Assistant Secretary’s office, and he has agreed to undertake this task.

The expansion of the use of binational commissions abroad for a number of purposes is a matter for the Board of Foreign Scholarships to undertake, and they have indeed agreed to give this subject thorough consideration.

As for the application to other cultures of the learning technology developed in the United States, further investigation of this topic will include study and discussion of a report, To Improve Learning, prepared by the Commission on Instructional Technology for the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.⁸ This report was just published this month (March) by the House Committee on Education and Labor.

The Policy and Research Staff of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is looking into the question of maintaining current central inventories of information on public and private activities relating to international educational and cultural programs.

The question of wider distribution of scholarly books and publications overseas and greater availability to the American scholar of similar publications from abroad we have referred to the Government Advisory Committee on International Book and Library Programs,⁹ which has already given a good deal of thought to this subject.

One topic for further study which we chose to inquire into, even though it was not on the Assistant Secretary’s list, was the proposed use of binational selection procedures for short-term visitors. We have been promised a study of this question by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Finally, both the Advisory Commission and the Board of Foreign Scholarships hope to meet with the President or a representative in the White House within the next year.

These, then, are some of the questions that we intend to give further attention and thought to in the coming year, and we look forward to ever-increasing cooperation with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in the Department of State in these matters.

Reaction to the Commission’s Sixth Annual Report

Readers of our Sixth Annual Report, entitled “Is Anyone Listening?”,¹⁰ will remember that we covered a broad number of subjects, directing attention to the need for a clear commitment on the part of the entire executive branch to international educational and cultural programs. We were pleased to note that this report was distributed more widely and was listened to by more people than any other report since A Beacon of Hope.¹¹ That was the Commission’s first annual report, in which we fulfilled a mandate from the Congress to make a survey of the effectiveness of the programs in international educational and cultural affairs of the Department of State from 1949 to 1962.

In addition to the congressional print, the usual form of publication of our annual reports, we reprinted it in full in the Spring 1969 issue of our quarterly Exchange. It received distribution in that way to over 8,000 persons. It went also, of course, in several copies each to 106 cultural affairs officers around the world. Moreover, during the course of the past year we have received more than a hundred letters requesting extra copies, sometimes as many as 40 copies. We reprint, as appendix C,¹² a sample of reactions to that report received by the Commission over the past year.

We regret to say, however, that another report, issued at about the same time, on the use of U.S.-owned excess foreign currencies,¹³ although well received in certain quarters, did not get the attention we had hoped it would. We remain of the opinion that this is a useful report for anyone dealing in excess foreign currencies who wishes to utilize them for international educational and cultural programs. Copies are available from the staff of the Commission.

Research and Evaluation

In last year’s report we made some fairly strong recommendations with respect to the research and evaluation function in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. We were therefore pleased to learn that one of the very first official acts of the new Assistant Secretary was to insert in the then virtually complete fiscal 1971 budget a request to the Congress for the sum of $100,000 for program research and evaluation. It is the Commission’s and the Bureau’s good fortune that he understands the methods and criteria of this function, and that he is being supported in his request for funds by the Department and the Bureau of the Budget.

We regret to note, however, that restrictive personnel policies in the Department have delayed the establishment of a permanent evaluation staff which, incidentally, we recommended last year. Along with the Assistant Secretary, we believe that the development of a social science research capability in the Bureau is a fundamental and urgent management requirement; and we hope the Assistant Secretary will be able to find ways within the personnel ceilings to establish such a staff.

Institutionalizing the evaluation and research function, needless to say, would give it the staying power which “contracting out” lacks. It would also provide the technical competence required for monitoring research contracts with independent research firms and centers. Finally, this institutionalizing would provide the daily evaluation and research continuity which operators of the program cannot themselves provide, and it would constantly remind all of us of those inevitable gaps between the goals that we envisage and the results we attain.

Conclusions

To sum up:

(1) After much discussion with “a multitude of counselors,” we have decided that it is reasonable to await the outcome of the 1971 budget presentations and final appropriations for international educational and cultural exchange programs before making any recommendations; and to observe the operation of the program by the Department of State. We are pleased to strike an optimistic note about both of these subjects.

(2) We have set an agenda for ourselves for the coming year, as noted, and will of course give our attention to other related matters as they come up.

(3) We urge the Department as soon as possible, pending availability of funds, to develop social science competence within the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs for the purpose of research, evaluation, and appraisal of effectiveness of the Bureau’s programs. We offer all possible cooperation in this endeavor since one of the statutory functions of this Commission is to “appraise the effectiveness of programs carried out pursuant to [the Fulbright-Hays Act].”¹⁴

[Omitted here are appendices A–D.]

1. Source: Seventh Annual Report of the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, Communication From the Chairman, the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs Transmitting the Seventh Annual Report of the Commission Pursuant to the Provisions of Public Law 87–256, 91st Congress, 2d Session, House Document No. 91–316 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970). The members of the Commission in 1969 were Babbidge, Sachar, Derge, LaFontant, Moody, Picker, Robinson, and Turner. Another copy of the report is in the National Archives, RG 306, Office of Research and Assessment, Library, Archives, Office of the Archivist/Historian, Records Relating to the Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 1962–1978, Entry P–138, Box 1.
2. A list of participants is included in appendix A. [Footnote is in the original.]
3. See Document 3.
4. Reference is to H.R. 17575, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill for fiscal year 1971.
5. Rogers’s testimony is printed in Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1970 Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations United States Senate Ninety-First Congress First Session on H.R. 12964, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1969.
6. See appendix A. [Footnote is in the original. The letter to Richardson is from both Babbidge and Roach. Bardos and White also attended the September 12, 1969, joint meeting. For their assessment, see Document 36.]
7. See appendix B. [Footnote is in the original.]
8. U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, To Improve Learning, A Report to the President and the Congress of the United States by the Commission on Instructional Technology, Committee Print 91–2, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970.
9. See appendix D for a paper prepared for this committee on “The American Library Presence Abroad.” [Footnote is in the original. The paper is entitled “The American Library Presence Abroad: A Report to the Government Advisory Committee on International Book and Library Programs.”]
10. Printed as Document 3.
11. A Beacon of Hope—The Exchange-of-Persons Program, a report from . . . The U.S. Advisory Commission on International Education and Cultural Affairs. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963) A copy of the report is in the National Archives, RG 306, Office of Research and Assessment, Library, Archives, Office of the Archivist/Historian, Records Relating to the Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 1962–1978, Entry P–138, Box 1. Additional information about the report and its genesis is in Foreign Relations, 1917–1972, vol. VI, Public Diplomacy, 1961–1963.
12. At appendix C are 10 pages of comments regarding the 1969 report.
13. The Use of U.S.-Owned Excess Foreign Currencies, by Professor Byron W. Brown. 91st Cong., 1st session, House Document No. 91–67. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969. [Footnote is in the original.]
14. An unknown hand added the brackets.