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

174. Memorandum From the Associate Director for Programs, International Communication Agency (Schneidman) to the Director (Reinhardt)¹

Washington, July 13, 1979

SUBJECT

• Arts America

Attached is the plan requested in your memorandum of June 28.² We consulted all Agency elements in its formulation; we did not, however, incorporate all of their suggestions, and changed many of them. I alone am responsible for the contents of this proposal.

We began this exercise with the assumption that each region or sub-region of the world would require a substantially different plan, based on different cultural concerns, differences in the extent of access to and appreciation of the American arts, and differences in the levels of “sophistication” of our audiences. In short, we believed that we would need to say different things to different peoples through different—and most “culturally acceptable”—art forms. We culled Country Plans and area offices alike to determine the different foci of each region.

We were wrong. There are, certainly, important cultural differences among nations. We no longer believe, however, that our starting assumption is essentially valid; within the rule of reason (we might send the most “avant” of the avant-garde to Paris but not Peking) the Agency needs to say essentially the same thing about the arts in America to everyone. This puts us into direct disagreement with AF, for example, who would have us emphasize black American art in Africa. (Though I believe that whatever we send to Africa should contain representative works by black artists, and that the didactic context that we provide through our other products should place their contributions in perspective.) It also rejects the collective wisdom of many that because country-western music is popular in a given country, our cultural presentations should emphasize it. We are therefore presenting a rationale, communication themes, and products we believe to be valid on a worldwide basis.

At the resource and logistics level for very expensive “one time” activities such as cultural presentations and fine arts exhibitions, regional groupings do make sense; these activities can only travel so far for the buck. Accordingly, the plans for CP and exhibitions are presented on a regional basis. Specifically regarding this part of our presentation, however, there are some underlying assumptions on my part that should be tabled here.

—The cost estimates are pretty shaky and could be well far off the mark at both ends of the range. They are based on our experience—and our experience is not very rich in trying to do anything other than “pick up” cultural presentations already traveling. I have provided you with essentially the list of cultural presentations that I was provided by ECA/IC—although I will admit to changing figures which I took to be extraordinarily high, and emphasizing soloists and duos over large groups. I have no way of knowing whether or not ECA/IC can deliver on an increase of this order of magnitude, although that order of magnitude is theirs.

—I believe you should read this section of the paper as suggestive only. In fact, I believe that a real partnership with the Endowments can reduce some significant overhead costs, as would inclusion under the Indemnification Act, and the very real possibility that our program will inspire increased private entrepreneurship in countries where none exists. Too, with a sufficiently diversified menu—in time, place, and cost, I believe we can really engage the private sector, along the lines outlined in Tab D.³

—I am banking on your siding with me in the controversy over scale. The preponderant opinion in the Agency is to go with the “biggies”—large exhibits and large troupes that equate with an “event.” While I am not opposed to the occasional “event,” our multiple purposes—exchange, linkage, thrift of resources and staff time, are also well served by the deployment of solo or duo instrumentalists, vocalists or folk musicians to take on elite audiences in the Ambassador’s salon, our cultural center, the university auditorium.

On funding: Page 19 sets out the annualized costs for all proposals over FY–80 and 81, as against what we already have (or can reprogram internally, in the case of T and P) in our budgets for those activities. The order of “new” money for FY–80 is large. I recommend strongly that should you decide to augment the amount of resources we devote to the arts only incrementally, you give highest priority to the proposed magazine.⁴

And speaking of the magazine, it is truly the linchpin of “what’s new” in this proposal, and could be the most significant development in the Agency’s engagement with culture. T and the Voice will parallel and reinforce the magazine, and vice versa. Together they will form a kind of baseline context against which speakers, CPs, exhibits, films, and all the rest can play. The Arts Endowment has put together a working group of this country’s leading creative intellectuals to blaze a trail in the media arts. There is good reason to believe that the arts in America will, in the next decade, break out of their traditional museum and stage modes; the arts will belong to everyone through the media. In short order, the Endowment will provide us with a mother lode of people, materials, and ideas that will enable P, T, and VOA to be a part of this cultural breakthrough, and carry it to the rest of the world.

Finally, we are not including recommendations for the bureaucratic organization or reorganization of those parts of the Agency’s elements which deal with the arts in this paper. Such suggestions will derive from your content decisions.

Attachment

Proposal Prepared in the Associate Directorate for Programs, International Communication Agency⁵

Washington, undated

[Omitted here is the Table of Contents.]

RATIONALE

The reasons for integrated and coordinated programming on the arts in America on a world-wide basis are compelling.

This year’s Country Plans suggest some very basic and deeply held foreign perceptions of our society and the forces that motivate it. Too many abroad see our strengths as limited to the technological, the scientific, the managerial. Too many see us as crass and consumately materialistic, out for the fast buck and little moved by humanist or spiritual values.

The natural concomitant of these perceptions (and perhaps the inevitable result of the sweep of our economic and political influence) is the accusation of cultural imperialism. We are too often seen as blind to the traditions and vigor of other cultures—a powerful member of the world community that lacks even the most rudimentary understanding of the needs and strengths of its neighbors. Ours is the newest culture, an “up-start” that lacks the civilizing values of history and tradition.

Whatever the reasons for these perceptions of American life and culture, the problem for us is fundamental: they form a canted and even dangerous context for international communication in a world of inevitable and increasingly intractable political and economic conflicts. A nation whose basic goals are peace and a fuller life for all must be perceived as having a human face, as understanding and appreciating the achievements of others, if it is to gain the participation of others in pursuit of its goals.

The arts speak to these perceptions directly, in a language which transcends cultural difference; just as “the Eroica”⁶ reaches the souls of Nigerians and Brazilians as well as Germans, the constructions of Louise Nevelson are as aesthetically moving to Filipinos and Greeks as they are to Americans. With the simplicity and integrity born of the fact that the arts constitute our vision of ourselves for ourselves, they proclaim to the rest of the world that we are significantly more complex than popular stereotypes would have us:

—We value tradition but are not bound to it; we push the limits of the past to the future.

—We are materialistic and enchanted with technology; and we are consumed with questions of value, ethics, aesthetics;

—We are fiercely individual and competitive; and we value the group, the community, the collective good;

—We have the best of hopes and the worst of fears for the future of mankind;

—We are energetic and activist, as well as contemplative; elitist as well as populist; sacred as well as profane; and a thousand other things, all at once.

Thus are the arts more than the sum of their simple components. They are the “human face” of this nation. They are proof that we are a vital, individualist, free and questioning people engaged in the search for improvement in man’s nature as well as his condition. They are witness to the United States as a society deserving respect and, importantly, trust.

All of this does not imply that American arts themselves—or some parts of them—are not appreciated and admired by many overseas. To the contrary, studies reveal that those who have had access to the best of American arts (this usually means the most “sophisticated” of the urban populations of the “first world”), very much respect them.

But there are two important points to be made in this context. The first is that the number of foreigners who have had access to our arts is very small. Most of the world (and even most of the much smaller world of USICA publics) has not had access to our very expensive best. Most of the world has been the “beneficiary”, through the revolution in mass communications, of American culture through our routine and often shoddy film and television products. They have been denied our best—both because of its prohibitive cost, and because they have permitted our worst to dominate their vision—not recognizing that their own impulses have attracted our Kojaks and Angels,⁷ even as they abhor them.

More importantly, whether or not our arts are admired as arts, their commercial distribution cannot exploit their larger dimension. It is not enough to simply display our arts, in the hope that they will somehow achieve the communication that they so powerfully portend. It is certainly not enough to continue in the ad hoc and episodic fashion that has heretofore characterized our activities in this area. Without in any way trying to mold or control what the arts say about the United States, we must utilize the full range of the Agency’s assets to provide a continuous and integrated explanation of them and of the society that gives them birth—a kind of sociological, almost scholarly backdrop against which the truths of Tharp and Cage and Spielberg and Price and Nevelson and Mamet and a thousand others can be seen abroad. And understood.

[Omitted here are the sections “Communication Themes;” “Cultural Presentations and Fine Arts Exhibits;” “Films and Television;” “Press and Publications;” “Exhibits;” “Summary of FY–80 Budget Requirements;” and the five appendices “Concept Paper: The State of the Arts in America;” “ARTS AMERICA: Precepts and Sample Table of Contents;” “Sample Size and Paper for ARTS AMERICA Magazine;” “Proposal for Outside Support for the Agency’s Cultural Programs;” and “Summary of Current Agency Programming in the Arts.”]

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Associate Directorate for Programs, Subject Files of Basic Operating Documents, 1969–1982, Entry P–100, Basic Documents—1979. No classification marking. Printed from an unsigned and uninitialed copy. Copies were sent to Bray and Cohen.
2. See Document 172.
3. Attached but not printed at Tab D of the attached plan is an undated paper entitled “Proposal for Outside Support for the Agency’s Cultural Programs.”
4. Reference is to a proposed magazine entitled “ARTS AMERICA.”
5. No classification marking. An unknown hand wrote “Attached to July 13 memo” at the top of the plan.
6. Reference is to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major.
7. References are to the CBS television crime drama “Kojak” and the ABC television crime drama “Charlie’s Angels.”