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Prologue
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Prologue Today, the survival of many artists and arts organizations is threatened. Severe cutbacks in government funding and private support in the last decade have created a crisis in the arts community. In view of the present situation, it is instructive to look back to 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the performing arts not only as an important aspect of American life, but also as a powerful tool in the creation of world peace. He mandated the first public policy and government support for showcasing American dance, music, and theater companies to the rest of the world. The countries that received our performing artists in the 1950s were stunned-and enthralled. In their eyes we were boorish, uncultured, superficial, and materialistic. We exported movies like Blackboard Jungle and sex goddesses like Marilyn Monroe; we exported Elvis Presley with his wiggling hips and hound-dog songs. We sent diplomats abroad whose ignorance of the countries they served bred hostility and mistrust. When William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick published The Ugly American in 1958 excoriating U.S. diplomats in Asia, the title instantly became a household phrase. In 1948 my father received a Guggenheim Fellowship that took my parents and me to Europe and to Israel that year. I remember going to the movies and seeing nothing but cowboys and Indians. I remember, too, how people everywhere were amazed to find that we read books, went to museums, ate in cheap restaurants, could speak French and Hebrew, and did not own a car. The shock and surprise of how others saw Americans still remains with me. In the late 1940s and 1950s American politics centered on fears of Communism, its spread both within the U.S. and abroad, and the need for its containment. We were in a fighting mood, locked in struggle with the Soviet Union (our erstwhile ally during World War 11), fearful of its ideological and military power, its apparent success in capturing the bodies, minds, and souls of other countries, its willingness to spend millions of dollars on cultural relations, including tours by artists of the highest caliber . We fought the Communist menace at home as well as abroad. In 1947, the Hollywood Ten were jailed for refusing to "name names" to members of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Beginning in 1950, SenatorJoseph R. McCarthy, Republican from Wisconsin, made speeches 8 / P R O L O G U E asserting that dozens of "traitorous" subversives in the government were - selling the country out. His wild accusations struck terror in millions of ~mericans; witch-hunts became the order of the day, creating an environment hostile to dissent. Other countries were seen as dangerously vulnerable to Communist takeover, and to many an arms race seemed the only solution to preserving our economic and political role in the world. In 1954 Eisenhower took action. He went to Congress, and asked for funds to enlist the performing arts in the Cold War. Thus was born the President's ~ m e r g e n c ~ Fund for International Affairs, which underwrote the nation's first cultural export program geared to the performing arts and sent the JosC Lim6n Company-its first dance attraction-to Latin America in 1954. Eisenhower, who as a general had led the Allied troops to victory in World War 11, was now practicing "cultural diplomacy," using the arts-rather than bullets, occupying armies, or A-bombs-to win friends and influence policy. The program, a peacetime gamble by a wartime hero, was a resounding success. The media coverage in the countries where American artists performed, the audience attendance as reported in the foreign press, and reports from U.S. foreign service posts all attest to the powerful impression created by American performers wherever they went. In June 1955, when Eisenhower requested continuance of the Emerg e n c y ~ u n d and additional monies for it, hearings were held by a House Subcommittee on Appropriations to review the program. Despite some opposition, the Emergency Fund was confirmed, although there were no additional appropriations. Further congressional hearings were held in 1956 when the Emergency Fund was transformed into permanent legislation . The 1956 hearings are instructive and clearly show changes in attitude among key members of Congress toward the export of American artists. Indeed, the success of the latter as cultural ambassadors helped not only to pass the 1958 bill establishing a National Cultural Center but also to shape the development and organization of the...