Maintaining Transatlantic Community: US Public Diplomacy, the Ford Foundation and the Successor Generation Concept in US Foreign Affairs, 1960s–1980s

AbstractThis article explores the role of public–private partnerships in promoting transatlantic unity during the Cold War. Focusing predominantly on the combined activities of American state and private initiatives, it tracks in particular the meaning of the concept of "successor generations" and what this meant in practice in US public diplomacy. A key role was played in these activities by philanthropic organisations such as the Ford Foundation, which used its sizeable funds to support initiatives such as the Atlantic Institute over several decades. The successor generation approach reached its high point during the 1980s as part of the public diplomacy "offensive" in support of the proposed modernisation of NATO's Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF). Notes1. See Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 5ff.2. Article II of the North Atlantic Treaty refers to the need to "contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being". On the debates surrounding Article II and the efforts to promote it in civil society, see John Milloy, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Community or Alliance? (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006); Valerie Aubourg, "Creating the Texture of the Atlantic Community: The NATO Information Service, Private Atlantic Networks and the Atlantic Community in the 1950s", in Valerie Aubourg, Gerard Bossuat and Giles Scott-Smith (eds.), European Community, Atlantic Community? (Paris: Soleb, 2008), pp. 390–415.3. See Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht and Morten Rasmussen (eds.), The History of the European Union: Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity 1950–72 (London: Routledge, 2009); Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht and Michael Gehler (eds.), Transnational Networks in Regional Integration: Governing Europe 1945–83 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).4. Explorations of the foundations of these transatlantic links and their practical effects have already been made in, for instance, Volker Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Kenneth Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century (Cambridge, MA: DaCapo Press, 2009); Valerie Aubourg and Giles Scott-Smith (eds.), Atlantic, Euratlantic or Europe-America? (Paris: Soleb, 2011).5. See Philip Ziegler, Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarships (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).6. On these programmes, see Henry Kellermann, Cultural Relations as an Instrument of US Foreign Policy: The Educational Exchange Program between the United States and Germany 1945–1954 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1978); Oliver Schmidt, "Civil Empire by Cooptation: German-American Exchange Programs as Cultural Diplomacy, 1945–61", PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1999.7. Alan B. Spitzer, "The Historical Problem of Generations", American Historical Review, Vol. 78 (1973), pp. 1353–1385.8. See Kenneth P. Langston, Political Socialization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969); Richard E. Dawson and Kenneth Prewitt, Political Socialization (Boston, MA: Little Brown Co., 1969); Richard J. Samuels, Political Generations and Political Development (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1977).9. Kenneth Adler, "The Successor Generation: Why, Who, and How", in Stephen Szabo (ed.), The Successor Generation: International Perspectives of Postwar Europeans (London: Butterworths, 1983), pp. 4–16; Stephen Szabo, "The Successor Generation", in Alan Platt (ed.), The Atlantic Alliance: Perspectives from the Successor Generation (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1983), pp. 45–57.10. Karl Mannheim, "The Sociological Problem of Generations", in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1952); S.N. Eisenstadt, From Generation to Generation: Age Groups and Social Structure (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956); Kingsley Davis, "The Sociology of Parent–Youth Conflict", American Sociological Review, Vol. 5 (1940), pp. 523–535.11. Adler, op. cit., p. 7.12. Quoted in Martin Klimke, The Other Alliance: Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 146.13. Nicholas Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 207.14. A Beacon of Hope: The Exchange of Persons Program (Washington, DC: State Department, April 1963), pp. 3–4.15. Aubourg, "Creating the Texture", op. cit., p. 409.16. ACYPL was an amalgamation of the Democratic Clubs of America and the Young Republicans National Federation. While the original impetus was for "internationalising" those who had demonstrated "political leadership ability" within the parties' youth networks, ACYPL incorporated this within the broader aim of linking with similar organisations abroad, first in Europe and then further afield. With the belief that "international communication is universally recognised as one of the essential building blocks of a stable international structure", it hosted a group of Western Europeans—16 members of the International Union of Young Christian Democrats—to attend a conference in Washington, DC in June 1967 on explaining the US political system and its foreign policy, notably Vietnam. The ACYPL is now entirely global in its aims and contacts. "The Atlantic Council of the United States, Inc.: 1970", p. 24, and "Report of a Conference", Box 215, Folder 13, Young Political Leaders, Archive of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville (hereafter CU).17. Barry Karl, "Philanthropy and the Maintenance of Democratic Elites", Minerva, Vol. 35 (1997), pp. 207–220; Inderjeet Parmar, Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).18. On the Ford Foundations's transatlantic approach in this period, see Valerie Aubourg, "Problems of Transmission: The Atlantic Community and the Successor Generation as Seen by US Philanthropy, 1960s–1970s", in Aubourg and Scott-Smith, op. cit., pp. 416–443; Berghahn, op. cit.19. On the Institute's formation, see Valerie Aubourg, "Organising Atlanticism: The Bilderberg Group and the Atlantic Institute 1952–63", in G. Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (eds.), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 92–105.20. Statutes of the Atlantic Institute, 18 January 1972, Grant Nos. 65-157 and 65-161, Reel 2757, Archive of the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY (hereafter Ford).21. "Strengthening the Role of the Atlantic Institute", 10 February 1965, Grant Nos. 65-157 and 65-161, Reel 2757.22. Dowling to Slater, 28 July 1964, Grant Nos. 65-157 and 65-161, Reel 2757.23. Atlantic Institute: 1970 Report, Grant Nos. 65-157 and 65-161, Reel 2757.24. Joseph Harned, correspondence with the author, 22 July 2010.25. "Exchanges in the Atlantic Area of Young Leaders", 3 February 1964, Grant 06400173, Reel 0693, Ford.26. James Huntley, "A Program for Development of Rising Young Leaders", Discussion Paper, Office of International Relations, 1965, Report No. 2712, Log File 66-39, Ford. See also James Huntley, An Architect of Democracy (Washington, DC: New Academia, 2006), p. 258.27. "Ford Foundation Interest in Exchanges with Western Europe", December 1965, Group IV, Box 238, Folder 31, CU.28. Klimke, op. cit., pp. 152–153.29. John Tuthill (Director General 1969–73), "Past Five Years: Programme for Next Five Years—Financing", 11 February 1973, Grant No. 65-157 and 65-161, Reel 2757, Ford.30. "Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Governors", 12 June 1971, Grant Nos. 65-157 and 65-161, Reel 2757.31. Klimke, op. cit., pp. 232–234.32. Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 201–225.33. NSC Undersecretaries Committee to President Carter, "Study of International Exchange", 10 August 1977, Declassified Documents Reference System, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, The Netherlands (hereafter DDRS).34. Streit, the author of Union Now! (1938), a call for federal political integration among the English-speaking democracies, was a major influence on advocates of post-World War II transatlantic cooperation.35. "The Teaching of Values and the Successor Generation", The Atlantic Council's Working Group on the Successor Generation, February 1983.36. "The Successor Generation: Its Challenges and Responsibilities", The Atlantic Council's Working Group on the Successor Generation, January 1981.37. "The Successor Generation: Implications for European-American Relations", S-68-80, p. 4, Reel 21, Records of USIA, Part 1: Cold War Era Special Reports, Series B, 1964–1982. Significantly, this report also questioned the ability of existing public diplomacy techniques, heavily weighted to education, to still reach the post-Vietnam "Younger Generation": "Are traditional activities—much expanded—such as foreign language teaching, curriculum development, textbook publishing, etc., the best approach or must there be radical departures if we are to communicate effectively with them?"38. EUR/P Steve Steiner to Interagency Working Group on Public Diplomacy, 7 December 1982, DDRS.39. "Site Visit to RAND/RGI", 14 October 1983, International Affairs Program, Grant No. 08400289, Reel No. 6663, Ford.40. Alan Platt, telephone interview, 10 February 2010.41. Alan Platt, "US Policy toward the 'Opening to the Left' in Italy", PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1973.42. Platt, The Atlantic Alliance, op. cit., p. 1.43. Szabo, "The Sucessor Generation", p. 48.44. Ibid., p. 51.45. Ibid., p. 55.46. Ibid., pp. 52–53.47. Enid Schoettle (Ford) to Donald Rice (Rand), 18 November 1983 and Susan Berresford to Donald Rice, 3 June 1987, International Affairs Program, Grant No. 08400289, Reel No. 6663, Ford.48. Alan Platt, telephone interview, 10 February 2010. Status reports for the second Ford grant to RAND refer to Platt's book project in 1984 and 1985, but it then disappears from the record.49. Hans Tuch, Communicating with the World (New York: St Martins Press, 1990), p. 41.50. L. Paul Bremer III, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 22 September 2009.51. Robert Hopper, telephone interview, 10 January 2005.52. On Balkenende, see G. Scott-Smith, "Networks of Influence: US Exchange Programs and Western Europe in the 1980s", in Kenneth Osgood and Brian Etheridge (eds.), The United States and Public Diplomacy (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 345–369; on Sarkozy, see G. Scott-Smith, "Mutual Interests? US Public Diplomacy in the 1980s and Nicolas Sarkozy's First Trip to the United States", Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 9 (2011), pp. 326–341.53. See G. Scott-Smith, "Searching for the Successor Generation: The US Embassy, the International Visitor Program, and the Labour Party in the 1980s", British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 8 (2006), pp. 214–237.54. Melvin Small, "The Atlantic Council: The Early Years", NATO Research Fellowship Report, 1 June 1998, p. 54, available: <www.nato.int/acad/fellow/96-98/small.pdf> (accessed 14 July 2012).55. Ibid.56. See the YATA website at <http://www.atlantic-youth.org/index.php?p=history> (accessed 23 April 2010).

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