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12 5 Defining the New America for the World America’s 44 million families own a total of 56 million cars, 50 million television sets, and 143 million radio sets. And they buy an average of nine dresses and suits and 14 pairs of shoes per family each year. . . . They hold their heads high as they proudly enjoy the highest standard of living of any people in the world’s history. Richard฀Nixon, Moscow, 24 July 1959 Indeed, the nation’s leaders, with their economic and cold war advisers, recognized by the 1950s that the set of ideas about “what distinguishes us from the rest of the world” could be used to project this new image of America around the globe. While the U.S. government felt compelled to explain its policies and what it stood for to foreign audiences during both world wars, it was only during the Truman and Eisenhower years that the United States developed a large-scale, permanent capacity for “public diplomacy,” or propaganda. The new programs were to curb the spread of communism and win economic and military allies by disseminating messages in a variety of media to discredit communism and extol the virtues of the United States. However, the messages sent, and the American virtues highlighted, shifted from the liberal idealism of the late 1940s to messages centering on American economic prowess, and what came to be called “people’s capitalism,” in the mid to late 1950s—messages consonant with those conveyed domestically. This change in how U.S. leaders presented America to the world can be seen in U.S. propaganda magazines such as Amerika, a Russian-language monthly published for Soviet audiences between 1945 and 1952, when vigorous Soviet efforts to obstruct distribution led the United States to stop publication; Free World, a magazine sent to East Asia that began publishing in English and various Asian languages in 1952; and America Illustrated, a Russian-language monthly published for three and a half decades beginning in 1956, as well as many pamphlets, comic books, and other printed material for overseas audiences. During this period, while political and C hA PT ER FI v E 130 philosophical ideals of liberty, democracy, and freedom continued to be widely touted, print propaganda focused increasingly on more materialistic “virtues,” such as the country’s high and rising standard of living and its economic dynamism and growth. For example, in the early 1950s, U.S. overseas propaganda articles and booklets often emphasized America’s time-honored “quest for freedom of mind and spirit,” and belief that “all men are created equal in the sight of God.” By the revised edition of the late 1950s, workers were still enjoying these pre-consumerist beliefs as well as “the fruits of people’s capitalism.” However, there was no more discussion about the “quest for freedom,” “freedom of mind and spirit,” or about all Americans being “created equal.”1 The United States was a reluctant latecomer to the international propaganda business, although, after the Second World War, the Truman administration successfully argued that sharing information among nations promoted peace and a permanent information service was necessary . Intense domestic disputes continued into the early 1950s over the propriety, goals, and content of U.S. propaganda—with opinion ranging from George Marshall arguing that “people believe implicitly what we say,” to U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman saying that America should tout its virtues, to his successor, Walter Bedell Smith, calling for head-on attacks on communism and the Soviet Union. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the propaganda agency heads and advisers they appointed believed in the efficacy of U.S. propaganda in recalibrating attitudes about the United States behind the Iron Curtain and globally. Scholars and propagandists themselves have questioned how to gauge the effectiveness of a publication, a broadcast, or other propaganda . Many scholars believe that exposure and the familiarity created by propaganda generally lead to more positive views in target audiences, and that messages that appeal to the aspirations of an audience or deeper values tend to be most effective. Nonetheless, a 1946 joint congressional committee, describing the extent of anti-Americanism, “notably in the economic area,” recommended that the government should assume a larger propaganda role. Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Act in January 1948 to “promote better understanding of the United States,” bringing the Voice of America under the State Department’s new Office of International Information and Educational Exchange, and a considerably expanded budget and staff...

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