The Cold War, Propaganda, and the State–Private Network

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby C. Rider
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychological Warfare ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
Private Network ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Time And Energy ◽  
The U.S

This chapter traces the reemergence of the U.S. psychological warfare apparatus—particularly propaganda—during the Cold War. Though widely deployed during the Second World War, these methods were initially held back in its aftermath. Nevertheless, the machinery for psychological warfare was designed, built, and refined under the presidency of Harry S. Truman and eagerly molded by his successor, Dwight Eisenhower. That both administrations decided to pour time and energy into propaganda also reveals much about the history of the twentieth century. This chapter maps out the United States' use of propaganda and psychological warfare in the years leading up to and during the Cold War. In addition, it also examines the U.S. government's use of private businesses, groups, and organizations to support U.S. foreign policy objectives.

Eduardo Frei, the U.S. Embassy, and the Election of Salvador Allende

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-188
Author(s):  
Sebastián Hurtado-Torres
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
Salvador Allende ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This chapter describes the efforts by the United States and Eduardo Frei to prevent Salvador Allende from attaining the presidency. The Nixon administration, after choosing not to involve itself in the 1970 presidential race to the extent the Johnson administration had in the 1964 election, reacted with great alacrity to Allende's victory in the popular election. Richard Nixon himself instructed CIA director Richard Helms to conduct covert operations in Chile, behind Ambassador Korry's back. In addition, Chilean politicians, particularly Christian Democrats of the Frei line, tried or at least explored ways of averting an Allende victory and sought for that purpose the support of the U.S. embassy in Santiago. Though many of the documents that tell this part of the story have been available to researchers since at least the early 2000s, only one scholarly work has treated these attempts by Chilean politicians, especially Eduardo Frei, in depth. The tendency of scholars of U.S. foreign relations during the Cold War to assume rather uncritically that the only decisions that mattered were taken in Washington has narrowed the perspectives from which the history of Cold War Chilean politics has been studied and interpreted.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby C. Rider
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
White House ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychological Warfare ◽  
The Government ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This concluding chapter considers the scope of the U.S. Cold War propaganda efforts during the late 1950s. In many ways, the 1950s had set the stage for the remainder of the Cold War. The superpower sporting rivalry continued to elevate the political significance of athletic exchanges, track meets, and a range of other competitions and interactions between sportsmen and sportswomen from the East and the West. For the U.S. public, the Olympics were still the source of much debate as each festival arrived on its quadrennial orbit. Victory or defeat at the Olympics clearly remained important to the public and to the White House. Declassified documents also suggest that in the post-Eisenhower years the government was still deploying the Olympics in the service of psychological warfare.

South Asia

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Rotter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
South Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Reaction ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the history of the Cold War in South Asia. It describes the position of South Asia in the Cold War, and investigates the reasons why Pakistan decided to side with the United States while India sought to avoid great power alliances and keep the Cold War at arm's length. The chapter highlights the negative reaction of India on the decision of the U.S. government to provide military aid to Pakistan, its main rival, and also considers Cold War legacies and the legacy of colonialism in India and Pakistan.

Building a Black Bridge: China's Interaction with African-American Activists during the Cold War

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 114-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongshan Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This article examines the interactions between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and African-American activists during the Cold War. Relying mostly on archival records and personal documents in English as well as Chinese, the article shows that the construction of the new “black bridge” was made possible because of the PRC's determination to achieve its policy objectives, the African-American activists' needs in fighting for racial equality, and the U.S. government's strict ban on travel to China. Both the PRC and the black activists were new to these transnational interactions, and they worked together in such an unprecedented manner that they redefined the nature and function of Sino-American cultural relations. The black bridge facilitated a limited flow of people and information but also carried misinformation that eventually led to greater misunderstanding and fiercer confrontation. The bridge began to fade in the late 1960s and early 1970s as Beijing was forced to readjust its policy toward the United States, which soon lifted its ban on travel to the PRC.

Fighting from a Distance

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose V. Fuentecilla
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
White House ◽  
History Of ◽  
Government Records ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This book describes how Filipino exiles and immigrants in the United States played a crucial role in the grassroots revolution that overthrew the fourteen-year dictatorship of former president Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986. A member of one of the major U.S.-based anti-Marcos movements, the author tells the story of how small groups of Filipino exiles—short on resources and shunned by some of their compatriots—overcame fear, apathy, and personal differences to form opposition organizations after Marcos's imposition of martial law and learned to lobby the U.S. government during the Cold War. In the process, the author draws from multiple hours of interviews with the principal activists, personal files of resistance leaders, and U.S. government records revealing the surveillance of the resistance by pro-Marcos White House administrations. The first full-length book to detail the history of U.S.-based opposition to the Marcos regime, it provides valuable lessons on how to persevere against a well-entrenched opponent.

The Passion of Anthropology in the U.S., circa 2007

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
George E. Marcus
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
Franz Boas ◽  
History Of ◽  
Institutional Model ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

For me, since the 1980s, the distinctive event in the recent history of social and cultural anthropology in the United States has been a profound cutting of the discipline (or rather of this influential component of the four-field disciplinary organisation of general anthropology) from moorings that defined it through much of the twentieth century. Certainly the discipline is still wedded functionally to certain aspects of the institutional model which has shaped the identity of social and cultural anthropologists, as pioneered through the works of such figures as Bronislaw Malinowski in England and Franz Boas in the United States. Most anthropologists still begin their careers with a geographical area specialisation outside the U.S. However, few receive the intensive areas studies education that was available and encouraged in the U.S. during the 1950s through to the 1970s when, in the atmosphere of the Cold War and development studies, there was a huge investment in such interdisciplinary programmes that has since waned.

scholarly journals “In God We Trust:” The U.S. National Motto and the Contested Concept of Civil Religion

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
Michael Lienesch
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Religious Symbolism ◽  
American Civil Religion ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

In this essay, “In God We Trust”, the official motto of the United States, is discussed as an illustration of the contested character of American civil religion. Applying and evaluating assumptions from Robert N. Bellah and his critics, a conceptual history of the motto is presented, showing how from its first appearance to today it has inspired debates about the place of civil religion in American culture, law, and politics. Examining these debates, the changing character of the motto is explored: its creation as a religious response to the Civil War; its secularization as a symbol on the nation’s currency at the turn of the twentieth century; its state-sponsored institutionalization during the Cold War; its part in the litigation that challenged the constitutionality of civil religious symbolism in the era of the culture wars; and its continuing role in the increasingly partisan political battles of our own time. In this essay, I make the case that, while seemingly timeless, the meaning of the motto has been repeatedly reinterpreted, with culture, law, and politics interacting in sometimes surprising ways to form one of the nation’s most commonly accepted and frequently challenged symbols. In concluding, I speculate on the future of the motto, as well as on the changing place of civil religion in a nation that is increasingly pluralistic in its religion and polarized in its politics.

Louis Menand: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. 2001. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 546 pp.

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-204
Author(s):  
Lance Kenney
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cold War ◽  
William James ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Oliver Wendell Holmes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Charles Peirce ◽  
The Cold War

Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, daunting in its choice of subject matter, closely aligns itself with the ancient sense of the word ‘history’ as a fluid, almost epic narrative. The Metaphysical Club of the title was a conversation group that met in Cambridge for a few months in 1872. Its membership roster listed some of the greatest intellectuals of the day: Charles Peirce, William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Chauncey Wright, amongst others. There is no record of the Club’s discussions or debates—in fact, the only direct reference to the Club is made by Peirce in a letter written thirty-five years later. Menand utilizes the Club as a jumping-off point for a sweeping analysis of the beliefs of the day. The subtitle of the book belies its true mission: ‘a story of ideas in America.’ Menand discusses the intellectual and social conditions that helped shape these men by the time they were members of the Club. He then shows the philosophical, political, and cultural impact that these men went on to have. In doing so, Menand traces a history of ideas in the United States from immediately prior to the Civil War to the beginning of the Cold War.

Ballet in the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Performing Artists ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union developed cultural exchange programs, in which they sent performing artists abroad in order to generate goodwill for their countries. Ballet companies were frequently called on to serve in these programs, particularly in the direct Soviet-American exchange. This book analyzes four of the early ballet exchange tours, demonstrating how this series of encounters changed both geopolitical relations and the history of dance. The ballet tours were enormously popular. Performances functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. At the same time, Soviet and American audiences did not understand ballet in the same way. As American companies toured in the Soviet Union and vice versa, audiences saw the performances through the lens of their own local aesthetics. Ballet in the Cold War introduces the concept of transliteration to understand this process, showing how much power viewers wielded in the exchange and explaining how the dynamics of the Cold War continue to shape ballet today.

The Invisible Hand of Diplomacy

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-376
Author(s):  
Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
First Time ◽  
Simple Narrative ◽  
The U.S

In December 1977, a tiny group of U.S. glove makers—most of whom were African American and Latina women—launched a petition before the U.S. International Trade Commission calling for protection from rising imports. Their target was China. Represented by the Work Glove Manufacturers Association, their petition called for quotas on a particular kind of glove entering the United States from China: cotton work gloves. This was a watershed moment. For the first time since the Communist Party came to power in 1949, U.S. workers singled out Chinese goods in pursuit of import relief. Because they were such a small group taking on a country as large as China, their supporters championed the cause as one of David versus Goliath. Yet the case has been forgotten, partly because the glove workers lost. Here I uncover their story, bringing the history of 1970s deindustrialization in the United States into conversation with U.S.-China rapprochement, one of the most significant political transformations of the Cold War. The case, and indeed the loss itself, reveals the tensions between the interests of U.S. workers, corporations, and diplomats. Yet the case does not provide a simple narrative of U.S. workers’ interests being suppressed by diplomats and policymakers nurturing globalized trade ties. Instead, it also underscored the conflicting interests within the U.S. labor movement at a time when manufacturing companies were moving their production jobs to East Asia.

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