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

79. Paper Prepared in the United States Information Agency¹

Washington, March 30, 1970

PLAN FOR USIA’S ROLE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

SUMMARY

USIA offers to provide the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission advice on overseas public opinion relating to the Bicentennial celebration. Within the limits of its resources it also offers assistance to the Commission and other Federal, state, municipal and private institutions on the international aspects of their Bicentennial programs. It will use its press, radio, television and motion picture services and an expansion of its exhibits programs to interpret to foreign audiences the Bicentennial and its most important themes and component events. For the same purpose the Agency hopes to expand its participation in international fairs during the Bicentennial period.

During the Bicentennial period, USIA will foster the study of the American Revolution and subsequent development of our society in foreign universities and special research centers through supplying them appropriate books and research materials and through arranging many lectures and seminars. In cooperation with the Department of State or a private foundation it will organize musical workshops, competitions for the best performances of American music and for outstanding research on American music. The Agency will also promote the expansion and improvement of English language teaching overseas and provide special study materials that will help the students to increase their knowledge of American society and its history.

The Voice of America will broadcast throughout the world four series of lectures for American government, literature, music, and on the ethnic origin of the American people, plus recordings of the talks of U.S. presidents and other historical American personages of the past half century.

The Agency and its overseas posts will help foreign media representatives cover the Bicentennial successfully. In its programs the USIA will make an especial effort to reach the young people in foreign countries.

These plans are, of course, subject to the availability of appropriated funds.

USIA Plans and Recommendations for the American Revolution Bicentennial Celebration

Items in this list represent ideas which have been submitted by various elements or individuals of the Agency for consideration by USIA and the Bicentennial Commission. The final selection of projects for adoption will be made from this list and other ideas which will be received prior to the completion of the final draft of USIA’s Plan which will be submitted to the Commission by mid-March, 1970.

I. Recommendation for domestic projects.

A. Complete a Model City by 1976 (William G. Hamilton)

B. Clean the Potomac by 1976 so that people can swim in it at Washington. (Kenneth Sparks)

C. Eliminate the drug problem in Washington (Kenneth Sparks)

D. The Bicentennial Bookshelf (Henry A. Dunlap)

E. Bicentennial Awards for American Achievement in areas of life (medicine), liberty (just laws), and pursuit of happiness (arts and environment).

F. Declaration of Inter-dependence by the President and the Congress.

G. Produce a series of three or four-hour long films showing the evolution of American concepts, modeled on BBC’s series “Civilization.” (James K. Welsh, Jr.)

H. Revive the Broadway Hit “1776”² with road companies to travel not only to major cities but also to smaller towns.

I. Begin or end an important U.S. space exploit on July 4, 1976. (IPS)

J. Revive the Freedom Train of Historic Documents,³ with trips abroad as well as in the U.S. (IPS)

K. The Liberty Bell should tour the world’s great cities. (IPS)

L. International, regional or national Conferences on various themes relating to the American Revolution.

M. Private foundations which have given grants to promote the design of outstanding posters in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution should produce a series of outstanding posters every year between now and 1976 on the United States, its history and ideals. These would be distributed widely in the U.S. and abroad.

II. Recommendations for programs in international field to be administered by some organization other than USIA.

A. Various projects suggested in CU’s field.

1. At least one major bicentennial festival of the performing arts for each world area.

2. Establishment of commemorative chairs of American studies at foreign universities.

3. Tours by small teams of American experts in appropriate fields to conduct seminars in each world area.

4. A greatly stepped-up CU program of grants to bring selected individuals to participate in such Bicentennial programs as seminars and workshops.

B. Series of major studies on various aspects of American Civilization each study to be prepared under the direction of an outstanding foreign scholar in the fashion of Gunnar Myrdal’s The American Dilemma.⁴ (Philip J. Conley)

C. The U.S. should make some significant gesture to the world. For example, it could offer a substantial grant to an international body for some purpose like improvement of the environment which is of great interest to all mankind.

D. Special and substantial discounts should be offered to foreigners, especially students for travel, hotels, and if possible, food.

E. An all-out program is necessary to develop the facilities and services needed to cope with the vast influx of visitors: guides, police and information assistants capable of dealing with visitors at least in the major languages; hotel and other lodging facilities and clearing houses for up-to-the-minute information on available space; etc.

F. A program to codify and, as desirable, translate documents in foreign countries relating to the U.S. for example, papers relating to Polish-American relations in the Revolutionary Period. (Wilson P. Dizard)

G. Grants to finance joint foreign-American scholarly research studies on subjects like the history of U.S. relationships with a given country, or the role played by the people from a certain country in the development of the U.S.

H. Beginning in 1976, Annual Bicentennial Awards by the National Foundation of the Arts and the Humanities and the National Science Foundation to be given to foreigners for outstanding achievements in major fields such as medicine, environment, sciences, the arts and the humanities.

I. Beginning in 1976 Annual Bicentennial Awards by the American Council of Learned Socialities to the author of the best foreign books and university theses on American history, governmental system, and society and on the arts and the humanities in America.

J. A comparative inter-American research project conducted by American and Latin American scholars on the relationship between the American Revolution and those of Latin America. (IAL)

K. Objects USA Exhibition of the Smithsonian Institution⁵ should be put on extended overseas tour accompanied by lecturers and visual aids. A counterpart Objects Latin America exhibit could be organized for showing in the U.S. by 1976.

L. Annual meetings of the various foreign Associations of American Studies should be held in the U.S. during 1976. Various international learned societies should also be invited to hold their meetings in this country during 1976.

M. Publication of collections of essays by distinguished foreign leaders and intellectuals on the American contributions to the world, especially in the spiritual and cultural realms.

N. Refit a major American passenger liner as a traveling exhibit and seminar platform for a worldwide, year-long tour. NASA, the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture, USIA, and many private firms could use the facilities of the vessel.

III. USIA Programs

A. Multi-Media Projects. Multi-media programs on the Early History, the Formative Years, the Western Saga, Problems of American History (such as growth, race, world responsibility, urbanization), Current Progress, and Long-Term National Goals. Two annually 1971–76. (ICS)

B. ICS’s Area of Interest

1. Traveling seminars (of several American scholars) on the meaning of the Revolution today.

2. Tours of volunteer individual American speakers to conduct seminars on the meaning of the Revolution today.

3. Augmentation of American studies collections in U.S. Information Centers and Binational Center Libraries.

4. The Agency should request funds to provide a substantial increase in the documentation resources of a few major research centers in Europe, Japan, and India specialized in research on the U.S. (Philip J. Conley)⁶

5. Improvement of the collection of books and other study materials at foreign universities and teacher training colleges which hold courses on the U.S. (Philip J. Conley)⁷

6. Series of English teaching study units based on the theme “The Continuing Revolution.”

7. Two series of leaflets on Distinguished Americans in graded English (1,000 to 2,000 words limit) as a supplement to existing materials. The series would cover (a) the “Founding Fathers” and (b) illustrious Americans in literature, art, science, education, politics, social movements, etc.

8. English teaching study guides based on the history of the American Revolution and the period leading up to it.

9. Special issues of the Agency’s magazine Forum for foreign teachers of English emphasizing Americans and American linguistics.

10. Publication of a variety of simplified books (The Ladder Series) as study guides for schools and libraries on the American Revolution, the Constitution, the American history.

11. Augmented translation program of books dealing with the American Revolution and subsequent developments of the American people. Annually from 1971 to 1975 the Agency proposes to acquire rights for publication of ten titles in twenty-four languages.

12. Book exhibits to promote wider commercial distribution and reading of books issued by American publishers on the American Revolution and the achievements of the U.S. over the past 200 years.

13. Prize essay contests in which students would express their own views of the significance of the American Revolution. (Perhaps in cooperation with another Federal agency.)

14. Exhibits programs on the Early History, the Formative Years, Western Saga, Problems in American History (such as growth, race, world responsibility), Current Progress, and Long-term National Goals. Annually from 1971 to 1976 this program will include six photogel exhibits (one for each area) and six panel exhibits.

15. The packet exhibits which are sent monthly to Africa will be increased by four extra ones each year 1971 to 1976.

16. As in the case of Apollo 11, the Agency will furnish to the field myriad small exhibit items, such as flags, buttons, posters, especially during the years 1975 and 1976.

17. To the extent possible the Agency will meet the numerous requests for exhibits and exhibit materials from foreign institutions and organizations desiring to mark our Bicentennial with complementary exhibits, festivals, or other forms of celebration.

18. The Agency should recommend that during the Bicentennial period the U.S. participate at least once in each of the international trade fairs held in foreign countries. At present, we are authorized to participate in the fairs at Berlin and in Eastern Europe. During this period the fairs in other parts of the world also offer exceptional opportunities to bring out the significance of the American Revolution and the entire American experience.

19. The Agency will give as wide overseas distribution as appropriate to the many valuable bibliographies of primary and secondary material relating to the Bicentennial that will be prepared by the Library of Congress, the National Archives and other Federal agencies, state and local governments and private organizations. In addition, the Agency will produce and issue supplementary bibliographies of secondary sources, whenever they seem desirable to meet a need of the overseas audiences.

20. Make especial effort to meet requests of foreign scholars for research materials relating to projects on the American Revolution and the development of the U.S. (Philip J. Conley)⁸

21. Produce or purchase available recordings of most significant American documents read by prominent Americans. (IPS)

C. IBS’s Area of Interest. The Voice of America plans several programs in its Forum series which are broadcast in English worldwide to an intellectual audience. With the exception of the anthology of recorded talks of outstanding Americans (Item 1), each Forum lecture will be by an outstanding scholar and each series will be coordinated by a distinguished scholar. Each series will also result in a hard and soft-back book for distribution overseas. The planned series will include:

1. “Voice of America’s Past—Fifty Years of Recorded History.” Talks will include those of U.S. presidents and great historical American personages of the past half century.

2. “Americans All: People from Everywhere.” A series of 26 talks on great Americans of various national and ethnic derivations. In addition to the normal Forum broadcast in English each talk would be translated and broadcast in the language of the country of origin of the American portrayed or of his ancestors.

3. “How the USA Governs Itself.” Twenty-six talks on American government at all levels with proper attention to the role of private groups.

4. “Two Centuries of American Literature” a radio anthology accompanied by literary comments.

5. “Two Centuries of American Music.” Discussion illustrated by musical examples of the great figures of American music.

D. IMV’s Area of Interest.

1. Up-date Agency’s film series “Scenes for American History.”

E. IPS’s Area of Interest.

1. Special issues of Dialogue, America Illustrated and other Agency magazines on Bicentennial themes.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1968–1972, Entry A1–42, Box 15, Policy and Plans (IOP)—General 1970. No classification marking. Under an April 2 covering memorandum, Shakespeare sent Sterling a copy of the paper and an additional statement of recommendations regarding international projects associated with the Bicentennial that might be undertaken by other agencies, noting that Sterling had requested this information in a January 30 letter. He concluded: “I assure you that this Agency is ready to assist your Commission in any way it can to make international aspects of the Bicentennial Celebration successful.” (Ibid.) Sterling’s January 30 letter, in which he noted that the ARBC required agency responses by April 1 in order to prepare a report to the President for submission by July 4, is ibid.
2. Reference is to the 1969 musical, later film, depicting the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
3. Reference is to the travelling collection, overseen by the American Heritage Foundation, of 126 key U.S. documents, including the Bill of Rights, Treaty of Paris, and Emancipation Proclamation, that departed Philadelphia by train on September 17, 1947. The train visited cities in 48 states before the tour ended on January 22, 1949.
4. Reference is to An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, published in 1944 and written by the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal, which focused on race relations in the United States.
5. The exhibit, consisting of craft objects rendered in various media, appeared at the Smithsonian Institution in 1969.
6. Asterisked items originated outside the medium office that would be the most concerned with it. When available the origin of the proposal is shown in parenthesis. [Footnote is in the original.]
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.