SHAFR/H-Diplo Conference Report (Report #8)

2004 Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) Conference,
University of Texas at Austin and the LBJ Library

Panel 8:  "Educating the Public” during the Cold War

Chair:  Lori Lyn Bogle, United States Naval Academy

"Paths to Understanding:  Florida’s Cold War 'Mental Defense' Program and the
Sputnik Crisis"
Steve Hach, University of Florida

"Creating 'World-Minded Americans':  Eisenhower and the Educational Policies
Commission"
Chris Tudda, Office of the Historian, Department of State

"From the Ivory Tower to Foggy Bottom:  Roger Hilsman and Academic Training in
the Cold War"
Michael Nelson, Presbyterian College

Commentary:  Christopher Endy, California State University, Los Angeles
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SHAFR/H-Diplo Commentary by George Fujii, UCSB, gfujii@umail.ucsb.edu

Steve Hach of the University of Florida opened this panel with a discussion of
an attempt at "civic garrisonization" in late 1950s Florida.  Hach argued that
Florida's Cold War Education (CWE) campaign was a good example of a second wave
of "civic garrisonization" underway during this period.  In addition, Florida's
CWE campaign received support from the builders of the "New South" (such as
business leaders).  According to Hach the CWE campaign also has broader
implications for studies of other topics, such as the drug war.  Hach argued
that this campaign was a conservative, preventative effort at combating
communism based on the premise that communists made communists (rather than
other factors, such as poverty).

Florida governor (Cecil) Farris Bryant, a self-described "freedomist,"
spearheaded Florida’s CWE campaign, and Hach argued that this campaign bore
some resemblance to the efforts of Barry Goldwater supporters in Orange County,
California, as described in Lisa McGirr's _Suburban Warriors_ [1].  Bryant
rejected peaceful coexistence and interdependence and Hach said that he was not
a "responsible anticommunist," according to the categories of communists
defined in Richard Gid Power's _Not Without Honor_ [2].  Hach argued that the
official response to the communist threat in Florida was out of proportion to
the actual threat, consisting first of a spike and then a "moral panic."

During the 1950s Florida's population doubled and the state began experiencing
growth paints with shifting social norms and increased federal government
intervention in social matters.  The resulting anticommunist campaign, however,
found few communists, although it did find homosexuals.  Hach argued that these
anticommunist efforts were structured to protest business interests and to
attack college professors, African Americans, and, broadly speaking, liberals.
He added that builders of the "New South," a modernizing project dependent on
federal aid, tended to support these efforts.

Elected governor in 1960, Bryant worked on bolstering Florida’s civil defense
preparations (including disaster preparedness training and the building of
fallout shelters) as well as the state’s "mental defenses," including efforts
to make citizens more aware of communism.  Byant railed against the "sugar cane
curtain" of Castro and he feared that Americans would become "ugly," "timid,"
and "conquered."  In response, Bryant launched Florida's CWE campaign, which
began with high school by adding a required course on "Americanism versus
Communism."  The goal of the course was to bolster mental, physical, and
spiritual preparations against communism.  Hach also noted that this course was
planned to have a clear goal as indicated in Bryant’s statement that "academic
freedom should not permit academic discussion of whether we are right."  In an
indication of its broader influence, the Young Americans for Freedom used the
Florida legislation establishing the CWE program as a model for similar efforts
elsewhere.  According to Hach, Bryant did have wider ambitions for this program
and he criticized the lack of an equivalent federal effort.

The peak for the Florida CWE program Hach argued was in 1962 with a
well-attended educational seminar in Miami Beach held by the Center for Florida
Cold War Education (the organization established to run the CWE program).
(Hach noted that the pleasant settings for the conference may also have helped
bolster attendance).  Subsequent seminars were less well attended and in
December 1964 (Bryant's last attempt to go national) only representatives from
16 states attended.  By 1964 Hach argued the sense of "moral panic" had eased
after Goldwater's defeat and increasing Vietnam War tensions made this revived
garrison state untenable.  An additional difficulty came from the 1964
publication of a third page pamphlet by Florida’s equivalent of HUAC that came
to be called "The Purple Pamphlet."  Hach stated that this pamphlet’s graphic
images served to discredit the committee.  One of the legacies of Florida’s
CWE, according to Hach, was that its supporters came to form the cadre for the
subsequent conservative revival.  As for Bryant, he went on to work on federal
civil defense efforts.

Chris Tudda of the State Department's Office of the Historian spoke next,
beginning with the disclaimer that his views did not necessarily reflect those
of the State Department or of the US government.  According to Tudda, his
presentation would discuss Eisenhower's establishment of a "globalist foreign
policy" during his work on a National Educational Association (NEA) committee
that sought to create "world-minded Americans."  Tudda argued that Eisenhower
believed in the value of education for preventing future wars through the
creation of an American citizenry that was knowledgeable about the world.
Eisenhower believed that educators needed to reduce US parochialism and that
educators needed to teach that "tolerance is better than a bullet."
(Eisenhower also had nuclear weapons in mind, according to Tudda).  Eisenhower
then linked education to globalism and he also called for citizens to be
trained on their role in a democracy.  Eisenhower thought that public
education, therefore, could support world piece, according to Tudda.
Conversely, Eisenhower also was surprised at what he perceived to be the rest
of the world’s lack of knowledge about the US.  An example of broader interest
in educational exchanges during this period was the passage of the Smith-Mundt
Bill.

James B. Conant, then president of Harvard University, urged Eisenhower, then
president of Columbia, to join the Educational Policies Commission (EPC) of the
NEA and Ike agreed by January 1999.  Tudda mentioned that he came upon EPC as a
topic via James Hershberg's biography of Conant [3].  Hershberg, according to
Tudda, focused on the strongly anticommunist aspects of EPC (including its
debates over loyalty oaths) and its "nationalistic ideologically fused"
education system, a view with which Tudda disagreed.  Instead, Tudda argued
that Conant and Eisenhower were more world-minded and sought to defeat the
Soviet Union without war.

According to Tudda, the NEA's efforts mirrored Eisenhower's private remarks on
this topic.  Tudda noted ten characteristics of the "world minded American,"
including the belief that war was not inevitable, that education "can be a
powerful force for achieving international understanding and world peace," that
common humanity underlay national differences, and that Americans should
maintain a continuing interest in world affairs, among others.  The EPC also
focused on making Americans understand why the UN was so important.
Eisenhower, therefore, stood in contrast to Robert Taft and Herbert Hoover,
according to Tudda.

Michael Nelson of Presbyterian College then discussed an example of academic
who
moved into government service and then back to academia in his presentation on
Roger Hilsman, a member of JFK’s “best and the brightest.  Born in 1919, the
"army brat" Hilsman attended West Point, which he disliked, before eventually
serving in first the China-Burma-India theater and than the OSS.  Hilsman
stayed on with OSS after the war and helped to create the CIA before leaving
for academia.  A PhD by 33, Hilsman moved to the Center for International
Studies at Princeton where he built a name for himself through his speaking
abilities before switching to the Legislative Reference Service (later the
Congressional Reference Service).  In this position Hilsman ended up drafting
speeches for congressmen and he critiqued Eisenhower’s massive retaliation
policy.

Hilsman came to the attention of JFK who offered Hilsman a position as his
foreign policy advisor, which Hilsman refused in favor of informally offering
advice.  Ultimately, after JFK's victory, Hilsman chose to accept an offer to
head the Department of State's intelligence arm (INR).  Hilsman, according to
Nelson, saw himself as a policy advocate who ran "interference" during policy
discussions.  While Hilsman streamlined INR, he faced CIA and Pentagon
opposition and little encouragement from Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
Hilsman’s "brash and overconfident" approach, according to Nelson did not
endear him to others.

Hilsman then received and initially accepted an offer to chair Yale's IR
(international relations) department before refusing after JFK's "Thanksgiving
Day" massacre.  Hilsman subsequently focused on Southeast Asian policy where he
sought the establishment of a coalition government through a three-stage
process.  He also called for a "calibrated, flexible response" and viewed the
conflict in Vietnam as a civic rather than as a military problem.  Hilsman
though became associated with the strategic hamlet program and its failures.
Nelson argued that Hilsman challenged others too much and spoke too often,
qualities that made him disliked by Rusk and loathed by Johnson.  The fall of
Diem and the death of JFK led to a decline in Hilsman's influence.  Although
Kennedy appreciated what Nelson termed Hilsman's academic discourse, LBJ did
not and Hilsman left government service for a full professorship at Columbia.
Nelson concluded that Hilsman was simply not a successful politician.

Christopher Endy of Cal State LA then began his commentary by noting how that
the topic of the panel bears on the question of what it means to be a good
citizen as well as on the nature of Cold War culture.  Hach's paper, according
to Endy, offered a useful reminder on the role of the politics of state
governments as well as on connections between state policies and the
"channeling" of federal funds.  Endy then asked how does one measure the
success of these types of programs as the CWE campaign Hach discussed.  Tudda's
paper offered a reminder that containment was not the only possible Cold War
framework and Endy mentioned Christina Klein's _Cold War Orientalism_ in this
context [4].  Endy asked whether one could be both globalist and nationalist,
by for example, supporting NATO.  Endy argued that cosmopolitanism and flag
waving could go hand in hand.  In addition, Endy also asked about additional
evidence of how seriously Eisenhower took public education asking what risks
Eisenhower took over educational policy and how his efforts were more than a
feel-good policy.  Finally, as to Nelson's paper, Endy noted that this
presentation portrayed Hilsman as thinking "outside the box."  Endy questioned,
though, in what ways might Hilsman have been conventional in his thought, as
with modernization theory, perhaps?  Endy concluded by remarking on the
educational and policymaking connections of these works as well as noting how
these three papers probed the exact depth of the Cold War's influence on
educational programs.

Subsequent discussion focused on a number of topics including the issue of
distinguishing between what is education and what is indoctrination, as well as
some comments on differences between Hillman and Kissinger, both academics who
moved into government service but with rather different results.

Notes:

[1] Lisa McGirr, _Suburban Warriors:  The Origins of the New American Right_
(Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 2002).
[2] Richard Gid Powers, _Not Without Honor:  The History of American
Anticommunism_ (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1998).
[3] James G. Hershberg, _James B. Conant:  Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making
of the Nuclear Age_ (Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press, 1993).
[4] Christina Klein, _Cold War Orientalism:  Asia in the Middlebrow
Imagination,
1945-1961_ (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA:  The University of California Press,
2003).

George Fujii
University of California, Santa Barbara

For a complete listing of all sessions at SHAFR 2004, the conference
program may be viewed at http://www.utexas.edu/cola/shafr/program/.

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Copyright (c) 2004 by H-Diplo, all rights reserved.  For any proposed
use, contact the H-Diplo Editors at h-diplo@h-net.msu.edu or the
H-Diplo article discussion coordinator, George Fujii, at
gfujii@umail.ucsb.edu.
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