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9 Other NGO Exchanges
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9 OTHER NGO EXCHANGES Visiting the Soviet Union tranquilized the hawks. They saw, immediately, a totally unexpected third-world poverty and longstanding, deeply felt Russian fear of war. At the same time, visiting the Soviet Union disabused the doves. Nothing about the undemocratic and totalitarian way in which Russia operated could do anything but stir the apprehensions of dovish visitors. — . , Every Man Should Try The U.S. government was the major sponsor of exchanges with the Soviet Union, but scores of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also participated, some with and others without financial support from the U.S. government. Among them were the Alley Theater (Houston), American Bar Association, American College of Cardiology, American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco), American Council of Teachers of Russian, American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL), American Economic Association, American Field Service, AFSC, American Library Association, Chautauqua Institution, Communication Association of America, Esalen Institute, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis ), Institute for Soviet-American Relations, the U.S. Center of the International Theater Institute, League of Women Voters, National -H Council, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, National Governors Association, Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, Opera Company of Boston, Sister Cities International, U.S. Conference of Mayors, YMCA, and many American universities, colleges, and sports associations. These and other NGOs brought to the United States a wide range of Soviets, including, among many others, mayors of major cities, prime ministers of republics, members of parliament, leaders of women’s organizations, university presidents, journalists, librarians, theater directors, lawyers and judges, teachers, and young political leaders. A few of those reciprocal exchanges are described here. Young Political Leaders The Komsomol, the Young Communist League, was the first official organization to be infected with the spirit of change. — , Eternal Russia The American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL), which represents young Democrats and young Republicans, began an exchange in with the Committee of Youth Organizations (CYO), which represented the Komsomol, the youth organization of the Communist Party and the stepping-stone to Party and government positions. Supported by grants from the State Department, USIA, and corporate funding, the exchange was sustained through the demise of the Soviet Union and continues today with the Russian Federation and other independent states of the former Soviet Union. Each exchange consisted of a five-day seminar with young (under forty-one) political leaders of the two countries discussing—actually debating—domestic and foreign policy issues, followed by a study tour of one to two weeks in the host country, including, for the Soviets, stays in American homes. The CYO, as host, emphasized showing the visiting Americans how young people lived, were educated , and grew up in the Soviet Union; the ACYPL, as host, concentrated on U.S. politics and the American way of life. Through those visits, a generation of future political leaders gained firsthand experience in the other country that served most of them well in their future careers. As one American delegate reported after a seminar in the Soviet Union, the conservatives in the U.S. delegation found that they had more in common with the Soviets than they had anticipated, while the liberals discovered that they had less. On the U.S. side, participants included federal legislators; officials at the national, state, and local levels; state legislators; and political journalists. Among the more prominent participants (and their future positions) were Senator Richard J. Durbin; Congressional representatives Steny Hoyer, Wyche Fowler, Don Ritter, Dana Rohrabacher, Curt Weldon, Gerald C. Weller, and Michael Wise; Governors George F. Allen (Virginia), Robert A. Taft (Ohio), Donald K. Sundquist (Tennessee), and Winthrop Rockefeller (Arkansas); Mayor Michael R. White (Cleveland); Martin Anderson (Hoover Institution); Bernard W. Aronson (assistant secretary of state), Patrick J. Buchanan (candidate for president), Hodding Carter III (State Department spokesman and president, Knight Foundation), Frank Fahrenkopf (chair, Republican National Committee), Edwin J. Feulner (president, Heritage Foundation), M. Peter McPherson (president, Michigan State University), R. Spencer Oliver (director, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly), and Olin Robinson (president, Middlebury College). Soviet participants were mostly from the Komsomol, the media, scholarly institutes, and industrial and agricultural enterprises, with an occasional representative of the arts and letters. They are more difficult to trace in the post-Soviet period, but among those who are known to have achieved prominence are Geydar Aliyev (president of Azerbaijan), Aleksei G. Arbatov (deputy head, Duma Defense Committee), Tedo Z. Dzhaparidze (Georgian ambassador to the United States), [44.213.80.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:18 GMT...