Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XXX, Public Diplomacy

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

Washington, March 31, 1978

[Omitted here are Marks’ April 1, 1978, transmittal letter to Congress; the Table of Contents; and Section I: Summary and Recommendations.]

I. Introduction

This is the fourteenth regular report of the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs. It is also its last.

President Carter’s Reorganization Plan No. 2 proposed that the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs and the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information be replaced by one body, the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Communication, Cultural and Educational Affairs.² The plan was approved by the Congress on December 11, 1977.³ It became effective on April 1, 1978, as a result of an Executive Order⁴ issued by the President. Hence April 1, 1978, marked the terminal date of the life of our Commission.

This situation has inevitably conditioned the form and substance of this final report. The Commission’s enabling legislation (P.L. 87–256, the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961) stipulates that the Commission submit to the Congress an annual report of its activities and recommendations. This document fulfills this requirement by outlining its work since July 1, 1977. But the Commission feels that, since this will be the final report of an organization which has had a productive life for almost 16 years, it has additional obligations to:

• Make some observations on the work of the Commission during its long life;

• Pass on to its successor suggestions for its operation which stem from the Commission’s long experience.

These two subjects are, therefore, dealt with in the pages that follow.

In one important respect, however, this report follows a well-established precedent. It has become a tradition for the Commission to comment in its annual accounting to the Congress on the general climate for this country’s international educational and cultural exchange programs and their place in the implementation of U.S. foreign policy. We do not believe this is the moment to depart from this salutary tradition.

Over the years this Commission has spoken frequently of the “growing interdependence” of the world and has insisted upon the importance of international exchange in the development of the “mutual understanding” so essential to such a world. But its voice is no longer, as we once felt it was, a voice crying in the wilderness. On the contrary, there has been in recent years so much talk about interdependence and mutual understanding, that these words risk becoming pious platitudes, about as likely to stir controversy—or action—as sin and motherhood.

For this reason, the Commission wishes in this final report to reiterate in the strongest possible terms its continuing conviction that now, more than ever before, this country must rely upon international educational and cultural exchange to provide foreign audiences with accurate perceptions of the United States, and to provide American audiences with accurate perceptions of other nations.

In the first years of the 20th century, “splendid isolationism” seemed to most Americans a sound basis for a viable foreign policy. World War II put a sudden and unhappy end to this illusion. In the years immediately following the war, America’s unprecedented military and economic power lulled many of us into the smug belief that we could create a pax Americana simply by “telling America’s story to the world.” That dream, too, was shattered by events. Other countries grew in power and influence and became disinclined to accept our bland assumption that the United States had all the answers. Gone now are the days of the Marshall Plan,⁵ when European newspapers readily accepted press handouts from American sources. Gone are the days of the Truman Doctrine,⁶ when a Greek radio or television station felt obliged to air canned programs on the United States. Gone are the days when citizens of developing countries avidly snapped up subsidized translations of American books, flocked into USIS libraries, or crowded into theatres as they once did. As the societies of the world have evolved, it has been made abundantly clear that this now is a genuinely interdependent world; that common problems call for joint solutions; and that the exchange of ideas cuts two ways—not one.

President Carter neatly summarized the altered circumstances of the world and their implications for U.S. foreign policy in his commencement address at Notre Dame University, May 22, 1977:

It is a new world, but America should not fear it. It is a new world, and we should help shape it. It is a new world that calls for a new American foreign policy . . . We cannot make this kind of policy by manipulation. Our policy must be open; it must be candid; it must be one of constructive global involvement . . .⁷

The use of exchanges as a tool of foreign policy cannot be called “new.” It has been used by the United States to some extent for 40 years; and indeed previous Presidents have acknowledged its worth. In a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Commission on December 18, 1976, (Appendix D, the Thirteenth Report of the Advisory Commission), President Ford wrote, “International educational and cultural exchange programs have played an important role in our relations with other countries.”⁸ President Eisenhower, looking back on his presidency in an article in the Reader’s Digest, regretted that he had underestimated the value of exchange programs and noted the anomaly that the cost of one bomber exceeded the total appropriation for U.S. exchange programs.⁹ President Johnson assured the Chairman of our Commission, Leonard H. Marks, (then Director of USIA) that he shared these views and regretted that the Viet-Nam war prevented him from focusing on the problem.

What is different and significant in President Carter’s statement is the recognition of the importance of exchanges to foreign policy; for giving increased emphasis to international educational and cultural exchange is, we contend, one of the most obvious ways to achieve the open, candid, globally involved policy which the President advocates. The Commission therefore notes with satisfaction what appears to be a new awareness on the part of the Congress, the Administration, and the public that exchanges can help us to keep open channels of communication with other countries, enabling us to talk directly to other peoples, to state our views and listen to theirs, to avoid misunderstandings—in short, to serve our long-term interests.

Last June our Thirteenth Report noted that:

We feel encouraged to believe that the importance of “public diplomacy,” of which international exchange is an important part, is gaining the recognition it deserves in our foreign policy. We do not believe that this is a partisan development attributable solely to a change in Administrations; and yet it is true that the Administration appears ready to breathe new life into the exchange program . . .

Subsequent events have justified our cautious optimism. The number of foreign students coming to the United States has grown steadily. A consortium of leading associations in U.S. higher education has undertaken to identify positions which colleges and universities all over the world should be taking to meet the needs of an interdependent community of nations. A report of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities endorses “educating students for a highly multicultural and interdependent world as one of the top priorities of U.S. higher education.”

Our Government has reflected the attitude of the private sector. The first recommendation of the Commission’s previous report was that the Congress appropriate as a minimum for the exchange program the $70.5 million authorized by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as opposed to the fiscal year 1977 appropriation of $59 million. Congress did appropriate the requested amount, thus encouraging the State Department to ask for $74,750,000 for fiscal year 1979.

The President’s personal support of the Friendship Force led to several massive, well-publicized, people-to-people exchanges. The House Subcommittee on International Operations wrote to the President after 10 days of hearings on Reorganization Plan No. 2, “The key to effective use of our public diplomacy resources is an awareness of the utility of these resources and a willingness to use them to further policy objectives.”

This statement confirms our belief that Reorganization Plan No. 2 is the most significant development since 1953 affecting our exchange programs. It therefore deserves special attention in this report. Although the plan dealt specifically only with the management of a certain segment of the Government’s exchange and information programs, the discussions which preceded and succeeded the President’s recommendation on the reorganization focused on the purposes and principles of educational and cultural exchange more public and private attention than the subjects have probably ever before received in this country.

In the introduction to its Thirteenth Report, the Commission noted the impetus which its recommendation had given to a thorough study of our Government’s handling of its international information, educational and cultural programs, and summarized the actions which its initiatives had precipitated. This section of the report concluded: “It is therefore reasonable to expect that by the end of this year our Government will be better organized to exploit the possibilities of public diplomacy.”

That expectation came close to realization. On October 11, 1977, President Carter sent Reorganization Plan No. 2 to the Congress and released it to the public. Almost immediately committees of the House and Senate began hearings on it. The Chairman of the Commission contributed to these in a letter addressed to Senator Ribicoff, Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Simultaneously, many private organizations (principally from the academic community) made known their views. The hearings and the interventions of the academic community addressed basic questions of the role of international exchange in foreign affairs, as well as the structuring of Government to manage them. Paramount among these was one which particularly concerned this Commission: how to obtain genuine coordination of our information and cultural activities while at the same time retaining the integrity of the exchange programs.

As a result of these public and private observations, the President made several amendments to his proposal, and Reorganization Plan No. 2 was approved by the Congress on December 11, 1977. It established a new agency, the International Communication Agency (ICA), which “will have two distinct but related goals: to tell the world about our society and policies; . . . to tell ourselves about the world . . . The aim of this reorganization, therefore, is a more effective dialogue among peoples of the earth.”

An analysis of the plan is not pertinent to our interests here, and we have dwelt this long on it only to support our thesis that the time is ripe for the United States to, at long last, assure that international educational and cultural exchange is fully recognized as an essential element in the determination and implementation of U.S. foreign policy—and is utilized accordingly. Thanks largely to Reorganization Plan No. 2, influential members of Congress and the Executive Branch are alert as never before to the possibilities; and an agency has been established which has the potential to conduct exchange programs with maximum effectiveness.

In short, we tend to think that exchange programs between this and other countries of the world have come of age. What we now need to do is to assure that the interchange of scholars and scholarly materials which takes place within our borders is carried out internationally. This would, we firmly believe, lead to a more mature relationship between the United States and other countries; one in which human rights and a greater awareness of the need for individuals to be genuinely free to move and speak as they wish would be generally accepted.

These thoughts lead us to the first and most significant, recommendation of this report. We recommend that the Congress and our successor Advisory Commission supervise closely over the next year the operations of the newly established International Communication Agency to make certain that the international educational and cultural programs for which it is responsible do indeed—as Reorganization Plan No. 2 projects—“play a central role in building 2-way bridges of understanding between our people and other peoples of the world.”

[Omitted here are Section II: The Commission, 1977–1978; Section III: Unfinished Business, 1974–1978; Section IV: Unfinished Business, 1963–1973; Section V: Other Suggestions Affecting the Commission; and two Appendices.]

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Office of Research and Assessment, Library, Archives, Office of the Archivist/Historian, Records Relating to the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 1962–1978, Entry P–138, Box 2, U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 14th Report, March 31, 1978. No classification marking. All brackets are in the original. As of 1978, the members of the Advisory Commission were Marks, Brann, Burress, Leach, Milburn, Oldham, and French Smith.
2. See Document 93.
3. See Document 114.
4. See footnote 1, Document 121.
5. For the text of George Marshall’s June 5, 1947, Harvard University address, in which he proposed a comprehensive program to rebuild Europe, see Foreign Relations, 1947, vol. III, The British Commonwealth; Europe, pp. 237–239.
6. For the text of Truman’s March 12, 1947, address before a joint session of Congress, in which he pledged that the United States would provide political, military, and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat by internal or external authoritarian forces, see Public Papers: Truman, 1947, pp. 176–180.
7. See footnote 2, Document 57.
8. For an excerpt of the 13th annual report, see Document 76. The full report is in the National Archives, RG 306, Office of Research and Assessment, Library, Archives, Office of the Archivist/Historian, Records Relating to the U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 1962–1978, Entry P–138, Box 2, U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 13th Report, June 30, 1977.
9. Reference is to Eisenhower, “America’s Place in the World,” Readers Digest, October 1965, pp. 75–81. A copy of the article is in the National Archives, RG 306, USIA Historical Collection, Subject Files, 1953–2000, Entry A–1066, Box 45, USIA, Presidential Comments, 1965–1973.