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Making Friends at Court: Slow and Indirect Media in US Public Diplomacy in Norway, 1950–1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

HELGE DANIELSEN
HELGE DANIELSEN*
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo, Institutt for arkeologi, konservering og historie, Historieseksjonen, PB 1008 Blindern, N-0315 Oslo, Norway; danielsen.helge@gmail.com.
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Abstract

This article explores why slow and indirect media were regarded as particularly appropriate means in the US public diplomacy efforts towards Norway in the period 1950–65. The article traces how these strategies were carried out in practice by using as examples exchange programmes and the setting up of American Studies in Norway. The Norwegian case is seen in relation to similar efforts elsewhere, and the article discusses whether this case should be seen as a singular one or as a local variation of more general US public diplomacy strategies. In conclusion, it is suggested that the Norwegian case appears to be an almost ideal-typical example of how ‘culturalist’ public diplomacy approaches were mobilised for political purposes.

Faire des amis à la cour: slow and indirect media dans la diplomatie publique américaine en norvège 1950–1965

Cet article analyse les motifs pour lesquels les slow and indirect media ont été considérés comme particulièrement appropriés dans les efforts de diplomatie publique américains vis-à-vis de la Norvège entre 1950 et 1965. L'auteur retrace la manière dont ces stratégies ont été mises en pratique à travers des programmes d'échange et la mise en place de filières en American Studies en Norvège. Par l'entremise d'une comparaison avec d'autres cas, on s'interroge sur la valeur de l'exemple norvégien, dont la spécificité ou au contraire l'inscription dans les stratégies générales de la diplomatie publique américaine est débattue. En conclusion, il est suggéré que le cas norvégien constitue un idéal type pour comprendre les modalités de l'emploi politique d'une diplomatie publique ‘culturaliste’.

Freunde am hof gewinnen: indirekte medien der in der amerikanischen kulturdiplomatie in norwegen 1950–1965

Dieser Artikel erforscht, warum indirekte Medien als besonders wirksame Mittel in den amerikanisch–norwegischen Kulturbeziehungen im Zeitraum von 1950 bis 1965 angesehen wurden. Der Autor zeichnet nach, wie diese Strategien praktisch umgesetzt wurden, indem er Austauschprogramme und die Errichtung Studiengänge über Amerika in Norwegen als Beispiele verwendet. Der norwegische Fall wird im Zusammenhang mit ähnlichen Bemühungen in anderen westeuropäischen Ländern untersucht, und es wird die Frage gestellt, ob dieser Fall als einzigartig oder als eine lokale Variante von generelleren öffentlichen amerikanischen Diplomatiestrategien angesehen werden sollte. Abschlieβend wird vorgeschlagen, dass der norwegische Fall als ideal-typisches Beispiel aufzeigt, wie ‘kulturalistische’ Ansätze der öffentlichen Diplomatie für politische Zwecke mobilisiert wurden.

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Contemporary European History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , May 2009 , pp. 179 - 198
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Norwegian–US relations and US public diplomacy

After 1945, as elsewhere in western Europe, the US government carried out a public diplomacy programme in Norway, using informational, cultural and educational means in order to promote positive images of the United States.Footnote 1 Generally speaking, the main objective of US public diplomacy in Norway was to correct so-called misconceptions of the United States as a shallow, ill-cultured nation by creating a counter-image focusing on the ‘richness and variety of American life’ and on ‘cultural advancement rather than the economic well-being of the American individual’.Footnote 2 Active attempts were thus made to establish and maintain a form of US ‘soft power’ in order to strengthen and secure the support for ‘hard power’ objectives.Footnote 3 One of the main objectives of the United States concerning Norway was to secure government and popular support for the nation's participation in the Western alliance, another to develop its ‘ability and willingness’ – along with the other members of the Atlantic community – to oppose the military and ideological threat posed by the Soviet Union.Footnote 4 Being a small country of approximately 3.5 million people, Norway was still described as important to the United States for a number of reasons, including its geopolitical position and its purported influence on other Nordic countries in questions concerning security and alliance policy.Footnote 5 Norway's decision to affiliate with the West, both by taking part in the European Recovery Program (ERP, commonly known as the Marshall Plan) in 1947–8, and in becoming one of the charter members of NATO in 1949, marked a change in what had been the country's policy of non-alignment, or so-called ‘bridge-building’, from 1945 onwards.Footnote 6

These developments have been described as a confirmation of a previously ‘unspoken reliance on support from a friendly western power’, and as a replacement of the United Kingdom as the ‘principal protecting power’ by the United States.Footnote 7 In addition to joining NATO, the Norwegian government worked to establish a close bilateral relationship with the United States, particularly with regard to military and strategic co-operation. The outcome of this has been referred to as an ‘alliance within the alliance’.Footnote 8 Both the contacts and the co-operation between the United States and Norway were thus increased and intensified. This process was seen by both sides as being conditioned by historically good relations between the two countries, mutual adherence to democratic values and a high degree of personal and kinship ties between the countries through trade, travel and emigration.Footnote 9

The good bilateral relationship was also reflected in how the US foreign service officers (FSOs) in Oslo responsible for public and cultural affairs described their own working conditions. Public opinion on the United States was largely positive and the local press was described as ‘extremely hospitable’, the radio as ‘generally friendly’ and the local elite as being ‘friendly to the United States and receptive toward American material’.Footnote 10 On the political level, the initial post-war popularity of the Norwegian Communist Party was less of a concern, as the parliamentary elections of 1949 saw none of the party's eleven representatives re-elected.Footnote 11 Neutralism, on the other hand, did pose a challenge, particularly since strains of neutralism were clearly present within the main target group of US public diplomacy – the non-communist labour movement.Footnote 12 On the cultural level, American films and literature were popular. However, according to reports sent from Oslo to Washington, the United States was still associated with technological pre-eminence and the material well-being of its citizens, rather than with its cultural achievements. The US culture and information programme was at times hampered by staff shortages and lack of adequate office space, but, despite this, the output and the general level of activity appear to have been high, notwithstanding that the operation was among the smaller ones in Europe.Footnote 13

These working conditions and priorities remained fairly stable throughout the period under consideration, from approximately 1950 to 1965. From the perspective of public diplomacy this period differed from the years before and after for a variety of reasons. The years prior to 1949/50 were dominated by the question of Norway's post-war affiliation and by issues related to reconstruction and economic co-operation. As elsewhere, the local Marshall Plan mission had its own information branch, working in co-operation with both embassy and United States Information Service (USIS) personnel.Footnote 14 The experiences arising from this co-operation did play a role in the period under scrutiny, but the public diplomacy challenges had changed from trying to promote alignment with the Western powers to securing continued popular support for such a policy. From the mid-1960s onwards, various changes took place that affected US public diplomacy both locally and on a global scale. Policy papers on Norway reveal a certain change in approach, particularly concerning targeting: politicians, bureaucrats and economic leaders were given increased attention compared with the earlier focus on, for example, labour and so-called intellectuals.Footnote 15 This can be seen in relation to domestic political changes in Norway: from 1945 to 1961 Labour had held an absolute majority in parliament and, with the exception of a short intermezzo (from 28 August to 25 September 1963), was the sole governing party until 1965, when it was replaced by a centre-right cabinet. On a larger scale, US policies on international cultural and educational relations were somewhat modified in this period, resulting in increased attention being paid to other parts of the world than western Europe.Footnote 16 In addition, the Vietnam War came to dominate US cultural and informational efforts worldwide.Footnote 17 I would like to argue that the main public diplomacy strategy of the United States in Norway in this period was to try to exploit so-called ‘slow’ or ‘indirect’ media. In the following, I shall explore the background for this focus, and analyse how this strategy was carried out in practice by using as examples the exchange of persons programmes and the build-up of American Studies in Norway.

How best to reach the Norwegian audience: ‘slow’ media and the use of ‘multipliers’

Several scholars have pointed to a division, or perhaps a duality, in the general objectives of US public diplomacy during the cold war. On the one hand, there was the ambition to promote a positive image of the United States, on the other the aim of combating communism and the threat posed by the Soviet bloc on the ideological level.Footnote 18 Even if the anti-communist tinge was present at times also in Norway, the more ‘positive’ ambitions seem to have dominated local public diplomacy efforts. In addition to the intended instrumental functions mentioned above (for example securing popular support for Norwegian participation in the Western alliance), one of the main long-term objectives was to legitimate the United States’ assumption of the role of leader of the ‘free world’. In order to achieve and defend such a position, it was necessary to promote an image of the United States as something more (and something other) than a military and financial superpower:

The interchange of ideas, productions and exhibits on the cultural level in Norway have direct bearing on the attitudes Norwegians develop toward the United States as a world leader. Their respect for and understanding of the United States as a nation worthy of leadership will in the long run depend upon ability [sic] of the United States to show evidence of cultural depth in its national life.Footnote 19

The promotion of positive images of the United States was carried out through a number of activities similar to those used in other countries, including a press service, a film programme, book, library and translations programmes, exchange programmes and different forms of academic co-operation. Among these activities the press service appears to have been a fairly efficient and important part of the programme from the late 1940s onwards. Also the film programme, lending documentaries and information films to non-commercial organisations, reached a vast number of viewers, especially in the important labour target group.Footnote 20 Nevertheless, the public diplomacy strategies most cherished by the US FSOs in Norway were of a kind that can be characterised as public diplomacy by proxy, in the sense that local intermediaries were important in putting over the messages that the Americans wanted to convey.Footnote 21 In addition, so-called ‘slow’ media (such as personal exchanges, cultural presentations and scholarly co-operation) were seen as fundamental to communicating successfully with the Norwegian public.

This orientation of the programme in Norway can, to a certain extent, be seen as an example of what Frank Ninkovich has called a ‘cultural’ (as opposed to an ‘informational’) approach to public diplomacy. In his analysis of cultural relations and US foreign policy between 1938 and 1950, Ninkovich presents the cultural approach as oriented towards the use of slow media, aimed at members of foreign elites and having as its aim the creation of long-term mutual sympathy and respect. The informational approach, on the other hand, was oriented towards short-term objectives and to the use of fast and modern mass-media.Footnote 22 Ninkovich also outlines the way in which the US government entered a field of cultural relations previously dominated by private philanthropic US actors, and explores how a liberal form of cultural internationalism was politicised in the process, describing how this internationalism by 1950 had become ‘an instrument of national policy’.Footnote 23

Ninkovich's analysis of early developments in the ideology behind a cultural foreign policy is in many ways echoed in and supplemented by Kenneth Osgood's study of what he calls ‘Eisenhower's secret propaganda battle’, during which seemingly non-political, non-propagandistic activities were transformed into tools of US foreign policy. According to Osgood, the start of the cold war was accompanied by a change in the definition of the term ‘psychological warfare’. While the concept had previously formed an accompaniment to ordinary warfare, it now came to cover ‘any action taken to influence public opinion or to advance policy interests by nonmilitary means’.Footnote 24 Whereas US public diplomacy had been directed into a more propagandistic mode during the last years of the Truman administration, under Eisenhower it was refined and reoriented towards a more sophisticated and ‘camouflaged’ form, mobilising private citizens, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and other, in Osgood's term, ‘surrogate’ communicators.Footnote 25 Osgood supplements this understanding with the description of a cold war mindset in which political warfare was the dominant trope. Even if this mindset was more or less all-encompassing, and even if the public diplomacy objectives were more or less the same on a global scale, the messages and methods were to a certain extent tailored to function in different settings. Nevertheless, both Ninkovich and Osgood illustrate how the focus on slow and subtle media was part of the overall ideology of the US political warfare regime.

Various case studies either analyse or point to the way in which, for instance, citizen exchange programmes of an academic and non-academic nature have been of importance for US public diplomacy towards countries where public opinion regarding the United States was considered to be relatively friendly and where scholarly co-operation and free travel (for both private and professional purposes) were actually possible.Footnote 26 Several scholars have acknowledged the importance of the Fulbright programme, and in a recent study on the Foreign Leader Program (FLP) of the United States, Giles Scott-Smith argues that this programme was considered to be an extremely effective way of promoting foreign policy objectives by way of cultural means.Footnote 27 Scott-Smith also refers to the way in which participating opinion leaders were christened ‘multipliers’ within the jargon of the FLP. This was in line with new insights from the social sciences claiming that information received from a member of a respected elite would have a greater effect than information received from the original (and less familiar) source.Footnote 28 Closing in on Scandinavia, the Danish case appears to have had a certain similarity to that of Norway. According to Sørensen and Petersen, the Danish population strongly resented criticism from outsiders, and the best way to influence them was by using Danish sources as mediators.Footnote 29

The Norwegian case thus appears to be a good example of how US public diplomacy towards a basically friendly ally could manifest itself. The approach can also be seen as an example of a politicised culturalism in the sense described above, as the relevant slow media were invoked not only for the purpose of long-term mutual understanding, but also in order to achieve more outspoken public diplomacy objectives. A closer look at the Norwegian case reveals that the choice of subtle communication strategies was also motivated by the ways in which US diplomats interpreted the Norwegian target audience, and that the main policy objectives for Norway pulled in the same direction. In the reports and country plans produced by USIS and embassy officers in Oslo, the local population was described as extremely literate, respectful of scholarly knowledge, avid newspaper readers and with a high degree of interest in cultural life.Footnote 30 Yet Norwegians were also known to resent obvious propaganda, and this affected the general tone of the US information programme in Norway. Already at an early stage, the approach was described as ‘objective, straightforward, dignified (not stuffy) and above-board’, and the obvious fact that the activities of USIS had the purpose of promoting US interests was ‘tempered by the stated or implied conviction that USIS operations simultaneously were in the interests of Norway’.Footnote 31 Straightforward propaganda was avoided, not only because it was considered inappropriate in itself, but also because it would negatively affect local opinion regarding other USIS material.Footnote 32

The exchange programmes: how to make ‘friends at court’

The factors mentioned above only partly explain why the use of ‘slow’ media and local mediators was seen as the most suitable way of approaching the Norwegian audience. Local working conditions, especially the absence of illiteracy and the large consumption of newspapers, suggested that the use of a traditional information programme, oriented towards a press service as well as direct, personal contact with journalists and editors, might be more than useful. Of course, efforts were made to exploit this potential, and at an early stage this approach was seen to be equally as important as the various exchange programmes. The reason why these exchange programmes nevertheless came to be considered as more effective seems to be that they had better long-time effects, not least because they were important tools in building up and maintaining the kind of personal contacts that might pay off at a later stage. In addition, the exchange programmes were not only considered to be highly appropriate and efficient means of public diplomacy in their own right; they were also meant to be a main channel for the recruitment of possible intermediaries. Reports on the exchange programmes for Norway emphasised that they had contributed to the ‘creation of a solid core of US oriented leaders and potential leaders in widely diversified fields’.Footnote 33 Jack M. Fleischer, a public affairs officer in Oslo in the early 1950s, made this point in a rather blunt manner, stating that ‘if we were to be as cynical as the Russians in our attitude, it is felt that we would regard these Norwegian exchangees by and large as part of the nucleus of a US “fifth column” in Norway’.Footnote 34 Instances of former participants in one or the other exchange programme being appointed to important positions were thus enthusiastically reported to Washington.Footnote 35

The potential role of a so-called multiplier was not limited to those individuals taking part in the leader programme, but also – at least in Norway – included those in other programmes, such as Fulbright grantees. The Fulbright programme was the largest of the exchange programmes in Norway, and despite some disappointment during its first academic year (1949/50), it was soon considered to be a success.Footnote 36 Throughout the period from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s, exchanges under the Fulbright programme were praised as being among the most efficient instruments in reaching local public diplomacy objectives. Initially this positive impression of the programme's impact was based on more or less systematic qualitative evaluations made by USIS and embassy officers. These included follow-up interviews with and letters from participants, newspaper articles and observations of how former grantees participated in public life. All these sources gave reason to believe that not only did the returning grantees develop positive attitudes towards the United States, they also came to function as ‘multipliers’, more or less consciously.Footnote 37

Attempts were soon made to develop a more scientific basis for the evaluation of the educational exchange programme. In January 1953 the United States Educational Foundation, at the initiative of USIS, hired the Institute for Social Research (ISR) in Oslo to carry out an empirical study of the impact of the programme on its Norwegian participants. The choice of the ISR was by no means a coincidence. Both the inauguration of this institute in 1950 and its further development were seen as instrumental for a possible and sought-after ‘Americanisation’ of the social sciences in Norway. The ambitions of USIS and the possibilities presented by the Fulbright programme also corresponded with the ambitions and interests of the group of scholars behind the ISR, both in a scholarly sense and because the Fulbright programme represented a possible source for future funding of institute activities.Footnote 38 Sverre Lysgaard, who directed the study, commented in its preface that, since several of the researchers at the institute had visited the United States as students or scholars, the task had ‘a very personal appeal’.Footnote 39 Both before the survey was carried out and in the final report Lysgaard expressed methodological reservations as to the possibility of finding empirical foundations for checking in which ways the programme actually brought about a better understanding between the United States and other countries.Footnote 40 These reservations notwithstanding, the report went far in suggesting that the effects of the programme were positive from a US point of view. For instance, it was argued that the survey did, at least partially, ‘confirm the assumption, underlying the exchange of person programs, that a stay abroad will effect an increase of “international understanding” in a general sense’.Footnote 41 In addition, 94 per cent of the 198 interviewees (of a possible total of 227) were reportedly either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with their stay in the United States. A varying majority also expressed positive impressions of life in the United States and of individual Americans. On the other hand, they were somewhat critical in their evaluation of US politics, particularly concerning social and economic policies. The report suggested that both these main points of view could be explained by the extent to which the actual experience of life in the United States corresponded with what the grantees had expected – they were, for example, positively surprised by their experiences of everyday life, and they had held an idealised image of US democracy that their observations did not confirm. Nevertheless, the grantees generally seemed not only to adjust well to life in the United States, but also to develop a markedly stronger identification with the United States than before their visits.Footnote 42

According to the report, grantees to a high degree acted as local ‘specialists on America’ on their return; 55 per cent stated that they ‘frequently’ corrected impressions of the United States held by other Norwegians. Among the attitudes in need of correction they identified both simplistic views of the US political system and impressions of the American people as being too materialistic, ‘success-minded’ and ‘shaky’ concerning moral, religious and cultural issues. The most common channel of communication appeared to be informal, private conversations. In addition, 49 per cent of the respondents reported that they had communicated personal experiences in either lectures to members of various associations, press articles or radio appearances. Yet only 31 per cent reported the use of books, articles or lectures to communicate professional experiences from their grantee period. Accordingly, the report concluded that the non-professional aspects of participating in an exchange programme were the most important ones, both for the development of the grantees’ attitudes and for their potential to function as multipliers afterwards.Footnote 43 Reports from Oslo to the Department of State subsequent to this study give the impression that its main use was in the planning of practical programme developments.Footnote 44 There are reasons to believe, however, that the report's findings were also used indirectly in the continued emphasis on the importance and relevance of the exchange programme as a means of public diplomacy. Not only did the survey appear to confirm the rationale behind the exchange programme at large, it also provided a seemingly scientific basis for what had earlier been more or less qualified assumptions on the part of the diplomatic staff in Oslo.

Throughout the 1950s and in the early 1960s the Fulbright programme was repeatedly described as a cornerstone of the public diplomacy operations in Norway. Even if the main arguments in favour of the programme stressed its long-term effects, short-term objectives were also given attention. One example of this is the stated aim that returning Norwegian students and scholars (as well as visiting Americans) should contribute to a transformation of academia in Norway, on an organisational as well as a scholarly level – particularly concerning disciplines such as the social and natural sciences.Footnote 45 The fact that approximately 60 per cent of Norwegian social scientists and 50 per cent of natural scientists had spent at least six months at a US academic institution by 1968 illustrates that the Fulbright programme and other exchanges were in the interests both of USIS and of the potential participants, albeit for very different reasons.Footnote 46 The links between the exchange programme and other short-term, hard-power objectives were expressed in a number of reports and policy documents from the late 1950s and the early 1960s. For example, a report from 1958 argued that the educational exchange programme contributed to very different country objectives, such as creating a better understanding of the Atlantic community and of Norway's responsibilities as a NATO member and helping to combat neutralism and communism, and that it represented an opportunity to ‘demonstrate at first hand America's sincere desire to aid small democratic countries to maintain their democratic institutions’.Footnote 47 Other documents underscored the potential of the exchange programmes to function as a corrective to the increased cultural diplomacy efforts of the USSR.Footnote 48 Also, the importance of the exchange programme in creating a favourable climate for a better understanding of US foreign policy was emphasised. The insight that participants not only developed a taste for what the United States represented, but also tended to influence others was repeated over and over again, both by the officers responsible for the programme overseas and in central documents from the Department of State.Footnote 49

Some of the examples mentioned above not only concerned the academic exchange programmes, but also leader and specialist exchanges, most notably the FLP. The Norwegian public did, however, tend to see purely educational or cultural exchanges as more ‘objective’ than the FLP. Leader grants were regarded as a form of ‘propaganda’ grants with the objective of ‘selling’ the United States, but without being deemed an unacceptable form of propaganda.Footnote 50 The existence of such a programme in Norway was regarded as very important, particularly with non-communist labour groups being the main target for US public diplomacy. The majority within this category did not have the academic qualifications required for participation in the Fulbright exchanges, and the FLP was thus seen as an excellent supplement. In addition to its flexibility concerning choice of focus and targeting, the FLP was considered to be a more efficient and more appropriate way of communicating with the relevant target groups than were, for instance, the press and other media, especially concerning controversial issues in US domestic or foreign affairs. The expectations as to the potential impact of the leader programme were therefore great.

In the first half of the 1950s, three to four grantees left for the United States under the FLP each year, the first three in 1950.Footnote 51 USIS in Oslo would have liked to see a larger number of participants in the programme, but at the same time made efforts to make the available resources reach as far as possible. As a consequence, attempts were made to nominate individuals who covered more than one field of interest. Even if the number of participants was fairly small, a typical group of grantees tended to represent the labour movement, the educational sector, written or broadcasting media, the civil service and a professional or other non-governmental organisation. The groups of grantees often consisted of both well-established leaders – such as Kaare Fostervoll, head of the Norwegian Broadcasting System (NRK), who was a grantee in 1952 – and people who were considered to be up-and-coming in their particular career. Of course, making such predictions was no exact science, but among the younger individuals who were nominated for or actually participated in the programme, quite a few went on to play an important role in Norwegian public life.Footnote 52

The basic features of the FLP in Norway – its ideological background, its aims and the kind of individuals recruited – were fairly similar to how this programme was carried out in a selection of other west European countries. But the discrepancy between the expressed expectations as to the importance of the programme and the accessible resources seems to have been greater in Norway than in larger European countries. Giles Scott-Smith has pointed out that the FLP exchanges, like the scholarly exchanges, were in the interests of both the US government and the participants themselves, as participation obviously could be to their personal gain.Footnote 53 In addition to allowing foreign elites to gain some knowledge of the United States, the FLP left it to these individuals to ‘adopt the American mentality and methods voluntarily’, and, potentially, to become a part of an elite network with knowledge of and sympathy for the United States as well as develop ‘a commitment to the US model of modernisation’.Footnote 54 Scott-Smith's analysis is based on the study of the FLP in the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom, but it is in many ways also a good summary of the intended effects of the programme in Norway.

The same can be said of Scott-Smith's description of the FLP as a form of ‘“psychological cement” within the Atlantic alliance’, and as a highly flexible programme.Footnote 55 In Norway this flexibility was reflected in how the allocation of grants was directly influenced by changes in programme objectives. Increasing concerns about attitudes towards neutralism and communism in northern Norway in the second half of the 1950s, for instance, lead to the prioritisation of FLP grantees from that region.Footnote 56 An example from 1958 illustrates well how participation was planned and carried out, and what impact it had on the grantee, in this case a representative of the labour unions in northern Norway. Kåre Hansen, the district secretary of the Office and Clerical Workers Union, took part in the FLP along with a colleague from the Building Workers Union in the same region. In addition to the general objective of promoting mutual understanding, the selection of these individuals was motivated by the aim of showing that the United States had a functioning social welfare system, and to modify negative impressions in Norway of US trade unions and of US race relations. On their return, these two grantees reported that their opinions on these issues had become move positive as a result of their newly acquired first-hand knowledge.Footnote 57 Hansen later reported to USIS-Oslo that he had given eight lectures to a total audience of approximately 300 people and that he intended to communicate his experiences to other audiences in the future. The tone in his letter was one of gratitude, and he expressed some bewilderment concerning the fact that he was selected for participation and the use of resources, and regretting that ‘there are so few possibilities for me to do anything in return’.Footnote 58 To the recipients of his report, Hansen's descriptions of what he did and how he thought about the United States after returning must have appeared to be exactly the kind of pay-off from the FLP that they could hope for.

The total number of Norwegian participants in the various exchange programmes run by the Department of State or an affiliated public agency between 1949 and 1965 was 949 students, 290 research scholars, 50 lecturers, 141 teachers, 47 specialists and 133 ‘foreign leaders’. In proportion to the Norwegian population these figures were high compared with those of other European countries. The number of participants was also high in absolute terms, particularly in the teacher, student and researcher categories, where only West Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy (plus Finland in the teacher category) had more grantees.Footnote 59 These figures strongly suggest that the stress on the exchange of persons as a public diplomacy tool in Norway was not just a verbal exercise but that it was followed up in practice and reflected in budgetary priorities. Reasons for this, other than the combination of policy objectives and evaluations of the target audience, resulting in a focus on long-term strategies, are not easy to establish. Giles Scott-Smith has suggested that the FLP was particularly well thought of among US public diplomats working in the Netherlands, because the country was relatively small and had a high degree of literacy and a well-established educational system – a combination that apparently led to an increase of the multiplying effect of a single individual.Footnote 60 The Norwegian audience was described in much the same way, so that Scott-Smith's argument might apply also for this case. Yet other analyses suggest that such effects were also substantial in larger European countries.Footnote 61

Notwithstanding the relatively large number of exchangees from Norway, the responsible officers in Oslo would gladly have sent more individuals on transatlantic study trips, as would their colleagues in The Hague. As this opportunity was not available to them, other ways of reaching relevant audiences in suitable ways were of importance. In this context, the establishment and development of the discipline of American Studies in Norway (as in the rest of Europe), is of much interest.

On ‘fertile grounds’ and ‘devoted gardeners’: American Studies as public diplomacy

The rise and growth of this academic discipline was primarily seen as a potential contribution to increasing knowledge of the United States in Europe. Moreover, both the organisation of the discipline and its character as a ‘movement’ suggest that some of the dynamics behind the public diplomacy involvement in this field were similar to those found in the exchange programmes. One example is the obvious presence of mutual interest on the part of European mediators and US diplomats that characterised this case, too. In addition, the promotion of the discipline also illustrates how US public diplomacy was reinforced by private philanthropic actors also in the post-war period. These issues have been subject to several recent analyses; for instance, A. R. Fischer has pointed out how European scholars engaged in the academic study of the United States had an enormous potential to fulfil a mediating or ‘multiplying’ role similar to that accorded to the participants in the FLP.Footnote 62

The promotion of American Studies was not limited to the attempts at establishing the subject as an academic discipline; it also concerned the place of American language, literature and civilisation in secondary schools. Within the Norwegian school system, UK and US English were given equal status as early as 1951.Footnote 63 This did not mean that both language forms and societies were immediately given equal attention; but it paved the way for a gradual increase in the focus on American subjects. Allegedly, information on US society and cultural life – compared with similar coverage of Britain – went from a ratio of 10–90 per cent to approximately 30–70 per cent during the first half of the 1950s.Footnote 64 This development was consciously promoted by the US embassy in Oslo, USIS and the USEF through the different exchange programmes, the organisation of workshops and seminars for teachers and the production and presentation of books and other materials concerning, for instance, US history and geography.Footnote 65 At university level, the establishment of a chair in American literature in 1946 came to be of particular importance, not least because the professorship was given to Sigmund Skard. Skard not only co-operated widely with USIS and the USEF in Norway, but also became one of the central figures within the American Studies movement as a whole. Throughout the 1950s Skard worked on a compilation covering the history, scope and organisation of the American Studies institutions in Europe.Footnote 66 Skard's efforts in this field were supported by both USIS-Oslo and other US sources, as such a survey would obviously be a useful tool in the future development of the field. In addition, it was seen as a great advantage that this work was done by a ‘neutral’ scholar, representing a respected institution. The publication might also strengthen the reputation of the American Institute in Oslo, nationally as well as internationally, and this did not lessen the enthusiasm of the FSO in Norway.Footnote 67 The promotion of American Studies in Norway also included support from both government and private US funds for the organisation of conferences and seminars, and to an expansion and update of the American Institute's library.Footnote 68 Between 1949 and 1969, nineteen visiting scholars in American Studies were sent to the University of Oslo, thus contributing substantially to the education and research carried out there.

An argument for strengthening the discipline used by USIS and Professor Skard was that the equal standing of US and UK English in secondary schools created a need for teachers who were qualified to teach in both forms. In reality, these efforts on the part of USIS and the USEF were also motivated by other factors, best spelled out by themselves:

The Institute provides exactly the kind of fertile ground where the seeds of American generosity – not to say self-interest – can best be planted with every expectation of a bountiful yield. This is particularly true inasmuch as there is a devoted gardener in attendance, in the person of Professor Sigmund Skard, whose appointment to the full chair of ‘Literature, especially American’ in 1946 gave the initial impetus for the founding of the American institute, for the inclusion of much American literature in the University's English courses and for making use of American Fulbright professors as visiting lecturers.Footnote 69

Sigmund Skard, like other pioneers of the American Studies movement, was in many ways a special figure, also as a mediator in both a Norwegian and a larger European context.Footnote 70 Without underestimating the significance of his efforts, the co-operation between Skard and US representatives in Norway appears to be typical of how the transatlantic interaction concerning American Studies took place. This concerns both the division of work between US ‘planters’ and European ‘gardeners’ discussed above and the use of scholarly exchanges in order to facilitate the promotion of the discipline. What might set Norway apart in this context is that some developments concerning American Studies took place comparatively early, and that the main local actor played an important role beyond a national level. It could also be argued that these factors, along with the stress on so-called non-propagandistic approaches, gave the development of American Studies a relatively central place in US public diplomacy towards Norway. On the other hand, the development of American Studies has been described, both in recent analyses and by former FSOs, as an integral part of government efforts to spread US culture abroad. In 2005 Liam Kennedy and Scott Lucas argued that the kind of cold war public diplomacy that combined overt and covert informational strategies was quite successful in promoting and consolidating a Western US-led bloc, but that it did not succeed in rolling back the Soviet influence in the east of Europe.Footnote 71 In their 1965 account of the history of the Fulbright programme, Walter Johnson and Francis J. Colligan (both ‘insiders’ in the sense that they had been respectively chairman and executive secretary of the Board of Foreign Scholarships) pointed out that the exchange programmes, including those parts devoted to promoting American Studies, had been affected by outside pressure to bring about a more ‘immediate impact’, but without turning into propaganda in the traditional sense of the word.Footnote 72

Conclusions

The dichotomy between culturalist and informationalist approaches, as well as attempts at utilising seemingly non-propagandist efforts to achieve a propaganda effect were issues of relevance for US cultural and informational foreign policy as a whole, and were not confined to a few cases. This is obvious, for example, from the reports to Congress from the Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In the 1965 annual report, with reference to communications from diplomatic posts in western Europe, it was stated that the exchange programmes not only played a role in fulfilling educational needs, but also had become ‘an indispensable and highly valued part of our international relations’. This report also underlined the fact that former exchange students all over western Europe not only had positive impressions of the United States themselves, but had ‘exhibited a commendable willingness to share with their fellows the experience and insights they gained in the American milieu’.Footnote 73 In the same report American Studies was described as the ‘cornerstone of US cultural diplomacy in Western Europe’. A memorandum on the informational and cultural programme from 1973 went even further in highlighting the importance of a focus on foreign ‘multipliers’. According to this memo the United States Information Agency (USIA) and its predecessor agencies had always concentrated on different elite groups, cultivating them as a potential link to foreign populations, believing that information and hence understanding would trickle down from the leaders to broader sections of the population. This orientation was explained by several factors, including limited resources and inspiration from new insights in communications theory, focusing on personal contact and interaction.Footnote 74 This document highlights the line of thought that appeared to be dominant behind the activities in Norway and similar countries, but on the other hand seems to underestimate the importance of the informational activities of the USIA and does not address the double role of the USIA as, in the words of Richard Pells, both a ‘clearing house for culture’ and a ‘ministry of information and propaganda’.Footnote 75 Two reports published in 1963 by the newly founded Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs also exemplify how both exchange programmes and support for American Studies were praised as important and efficient elements of the overseas cultural programmes.Footnote 76 The report on the exchange programme, entitled ‘A Beacon of Hope – The Exchange-of-Persons Program’, was based on interviews with almost 2,700 former grantees in twenty countries, enquiries of twenty-six US embassies and communications with a large number of relevant organisations and individuals. On the basis of this broad range of information, the report illustrated the importance of slow media and the use of ‘multipliers’ for US public diplomacy, and emphasised the political potential of cultural activities. The report also heavily underlined the importance of country-by-country planning: ‘The character of the exchange program in any given country must be determined by the needs and character of that country, and not by a formula applied indiscriminately to a group of countries.’Footnote 77

The aim of giving the information programme in Norway a seemingly ‘non-propagandistic’ character and the inclusion of ‘multipliers’ in the communications strategy can be seen in relation to the above, as well as to the development of a politicised culturalism as described by Ninkovich. It also reflects the refinement of public diplomacy strategies that took place from 1953.Footnote 78 These strategies relate not only to what Osgood has described as ‘camouflaged propaganda’, but also to the so-called ‘people-to-people’ programme that sought to mobilise US citizens to contribute to making Americans appear more human in the eyes of overseas audiences.Footnote 79 The development described by Osgood shows how the aim of winning hearts and minds was given increased importance in the moulding of public diplomacy strategies, and that anti-communist propaganda was toned down somewhat, albeit without disappearing entirely. As suggested above, the choice of public diplomacy strategies depended on a combination of foreign-policy objectives, analyses of the target groups and their characteristics, and on the means and resources available. The main approaches dealt with in this case have been described as more suited to maintaining and strengthening existing (positive) attitudes than to combating negative opinions, thus being preferred in countries where the population was considered to be basically friendly towards the United States.Footnote 80

The Norwegian case not only fits well into this framework; it also adds to the analysis by highlighting the flexibility and possible impact of these slow ‘by proxy’ strategies in a relatively small and integrated nation-state. As suggested above, it is difficult to establish an argument along small-state lines in this context, as the similarities between the programmes in Norway and the Netherlands, for example, were apparently not exclusive to these or other small European countries. Nevertheless, it is possible to argue that, even if the choice of indirect approaches was not peculiar to this or similar cases, the impact of such strategies might have been expected to be larger in a small country. A programme proposal from the USEF in Norway from the mid-1950s, for instance, stated that even if it was difficult to measure the effect that a ‘penetrating and broad-based cultural and educational influence’ might have on ‘a small and homogeneous society [such] as Norway’, it was fairly obvious that both the scope – and the impact – of the exchange programmes was larger than anything the Norwegian academic and civil society had experienced before.Footnote 81

Seen from a public diplomacy point of view, Norway was in many respects comparatively similar to other west European countries. But there were also differences in the sense that the local challenges were particular, due to, for example, the high propensity to neutralism of the Norwegian population and Norway's geopolitical position. At the same time, the figures quoted above concerning both the support for American Studies and the number of Norwegian exchangees suggest that these activities were of particular importance in Norway.

The Norwegian case offers, therefore, a good example of how informational activities, cultural presentations, scholarly co-operation and exchanges were carried out in ways that gave good propaganda effects without actually being markedly propagandist. The public diplomacy operations of the United States in Norway were developed into an almost ideal-typical example of how the United States mobilised ‘culturalist’ approaches for political purposes, of how slow media were given dominance over other means and methods, and of how a strong belief in a ‘trickle-down’ effect could manifest itself in practice.

References

1 US public diplomacy has been the subject of a range of studies in the last decades; recent publications include Cull, Nicholas, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Osgood, Kenneth, Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006)Google Scholar, and Stephan, Alexander, ed., The Americanization of Europe: Culture, Diplomacy and Anti-Americanism after 1945 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006)Google Scholar.

2 The Department of State (hereafter Department) to US Information and Exchange (USIE)-Oslo, 5 March 1952, in Record Group 59, Department of State (hereafter RG 59), Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, National Archives, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NA).

3 ‘Soft power’ has been defined as ‘getting others to want the outcomes you want’ by co-optation, not coercion. Nye, Joseph S. Jr, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Perseus, 2004), 5Google Scholar.

4 See for instance Policy Statement, Norway, Department of State, 15 Sept. 1950, RG 59, Records Relating to International Information Activities 1938–53, Box 40, NA, and FY 1961 Country Plan for Norway, USIS-Oslo to the United States Information Agency (USIA), 28 June 1960, RG 59, Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Planning and Development Staff, Country files 1955–64, Box 215, Folder R10k7, Program Proposals Oslo, NA.

5 According to US diplomats, Norway's foreign policy was of great importance to the policies of, for example, Denmark and Iceland, and Norway's influence within NATO and the UN was described as disproportionate to the country's size. With a so-called ‘anti-colonial tradition’ and ‘a moderately socialist government’, Norway was also described as a potential role model for possible future allies, both newly independent states and states aspiring to independence in the Third World, as well as east and central European Soviet satellites, should they break out of their bloc. See USIA Country Plan for Norway, 31 Aug. 1965, RG 59, Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Planning and Development Staff, Country files 1955–64, Box 215, Folder R10k7, Program Proposals Oslo, NA. See also the FY 1961 Country Plan for Norway, USIS-Oslo to USIA, 28 June 1960, RG 59, Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Planning and Development Staff, Country files 1955–64, Box 215, Folder R10k7, Program Proposals Oslo, NA, and Report on the Educational Exchange Program for Norway for July–December 1954, US Embassy in Oslo (hereafter Oslo) to the Department, 29 April 1955, RG 59, Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, Correspondence, Memorandums, Reports and other Records of the Program Development Staff 1951–56, Box 3, NA, and FY 1963 Annual Report on the Educational Exchange Program, Oslo to the Department, 25 July 1963, in RG 59, Records of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs – Records Relating to the Evaluation of Cultural Programs and to Staff Visits Overseas 1952–60, Box 6, Folder Oslo (Eur) PRS, NA. Norway also played a mediating role between neutral Sweden and NATO: see Petersson, Magnus, ‘Brödrafolkens väl’: Svensk-norska säkerhetsrelationer 1949–1969 (Stockholm: Santérus, 2003)Google Scholar.

6 The post-war policy of non-alignment should be seen in relation to Norway's positions before and during the Second World War. Prior to the attack on (and subsequent occupation of) Norway by Nazi Germany on 9 April 1940, Norway's official policy had been one of neutrality. The Norwegian government-in-exile brought the country into the Grand Alliance, a participation that has been described as ‘primarily a British–Norwegian affair’. See Riste, Olav, Norway's Foreign Relations – A History (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2001), 181Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., 205. See also Lundestad, Geir, America, Scandinavia and the Cold War, 1945–1949 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1980)Google Scholar.

8 Within this ‘alliance’, security issues (such as Norwegian rearmament, air bases and military intelligence) were more important than general political or economic issues. See Eriksen, Knut Einar and Pharo, Helge, Kald krig og internasjonalisering, 1949–1965, Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie, Bind 5 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1997), 77–8Google Scholar.

9 See Cole, Wayne S., Norway and the United States 1905–1955: Two Democracies in Peace and War (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Frode Liland, ‘De som elsket Amerika: Kollektive forestillinger om Amerika i Norge 1945–49’, M.A. thesis, University of Oslo, 1992. Concerning migration, between 1825 and 1925 approximately 800,000 Norwegians emigrated to the United States (and around a quarter of these re-migrated). In relative figures, the only European country with a larger emigration than Norway was Ireland.

10 USIE-Oslo to the Department, 1 Sept. 1950, in RG 59, Central Files, 1950–4, 511.57–576, Box 2414, NA.

11 Three representatives of the party were, however, re-elected in the 1953 parliamentary elections and one in the election of 1957, the last year in which the party won a seat.

12 See USIE-Oslo to the Department, 1 Sept. 1950, in RG 59, Central Files, 1950–1954, 511.57–576, Box 2414, NA.. For a discussion of Norwegian neutralism see Stian Bones, ‘I oppdemmingspolitikkens grenseland. Nord-Norge i den kalde krigen 1947–70’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Tromsø, 2007, 159–60.

13 In 1950 the United States Information Service (USIS) in Norway was described as ‘a modest program in all senses of the adjective’. It suffered from a serious lack of manpower, as it consisted of five US and ten Norwegian employees. Two years later, the situation was described as acceptable, the staff now comprising nine Americans and twenty-one others, while in 1958 there were five American and eighteen Norwegian employees (two and a half positions being at the subpost in Tromsø). See Oslo to the Department, 1 Sept. 1950, in RG 59, Central Files, 1950–4, 511.57–576, Box 2414, NA; Oslo to the Department, 18 July 1951, and Oslo to the Department, 12 Sept. 1952, both in RG 59, Central Files 1950–4, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA; and Inspection report, USIS Norway, 3 Dec. 1958, RG 306, Records of the USIA, Records of the Inspections Staff – Inspection Reports and Related Records, 1954–62, Box 7, NA. Until the establishment of the semi-independent USIA in 1953, US public diplomacy was handled by various offices within the State Department. Several activities, like the Fulbright program, continued to be the responsibility of the Department also after 1953. This organisational division on the central level was not clearly reflected in local operations like the one in Norway. Exchanges and cultural and informational activities were all taken care of within the framework of the USIS (formerly USIE). There existed a bi-national Educational Foundation (with four American and four Norwegian members, employing a half-time secretary) responsible for approving Fulbright applications. A report from 1953, however, reveals that the cultural affairs officer in Oslo spent 75 per cent of his time working with exchanges (Oslo to the Department, 27 Feb. 1953, in RG 59, Central files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA).

14 See e.g. USIE-Oslo to the Department 11 April 1951, Semi-annual evaluation report May–November, 1950, in RG 59, Central Files 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA.

15 Oslo to the Department, 16 May 1965, Educational and Cultural exchange, Country Program Plans and Priorities for FY 1966 and 1967, RG 59, Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Planning and development staff, Country files 1955–64, Box 215, Folder R10k9, Country Background, Oslo, NA.

16 See Annual report to Congress on the International Educational and Cultural Exchange Program Fiscal Year 1965 by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, in RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, Box 385 Culture and Information, Education and Culture, Folder EDX 2, NA.

17 Cull, Cold War, 256. For accounts of Norwegian attitudes to Vietnam, see Riste, Foreign Relations, 260, and James Godbolt, ‘Den norske vietnambevegelsen 1967–1973’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Oslo, 2008, 24 ff.

18 See Osgood, Total Cold War, 105 ff, and Berghahn, Volker R., America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 286 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 USIE-Oslo to the Department, 11 Jan. 1952, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA.

20 In the early 1950s, such films could be viewed by up to 80,000 individuals per month. See Country Paper for Norway, July 1950, RG 59, Records Relating to International Information Activities 1938–53, Box 41, NA.

21 In addition to this comes the practice of co-operating directly with Norwegian organisations or individuals that had for example policy interests that corresponded with US objectives. The aim of this article is not to trace such relations, but to explore US strategies on a more structural level.

22 Ninkovich, Frank, The Diplomacy of Ideas: US Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations 1938–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 119Google Scholar.

23 Ninkovich, Diplomacy, 167.

24 Osgood, Total Cold War, 34.

25 Ibid., 5 and 76–7. The increased level of sophistication did not necessarily apply, however, to the kind of psychological warfare that was carried out clandestinely, such as the ‘unattributed’ propaganda put out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The full story of such operations in Norway remains to be written, but existing research reveals that the presence of, for example, the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) played a lesser role in Norway than in a number of other European countries. However, Haakon Lie, long-time secretary-general of the Labour Party and devoted Atlanticist and anti-communist, participated in the first congress in Berlin in 1950, and for some years was the main local contact of the CCF. Among the few documented activities of the CCF in Norway was their support for the quarterly Minervas Kvartalsskrift, published by conservative students in Oslo. See Hannemann, Matthias, ‘Kalter Kulturkrieg in Norwegen? Zum Wirken des “Kongress für kulturelle Freiheit” in Skandinavien’, NORDEUROPAforum, Zeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur, new ser., 2, 2 (1999), 15–41Google Scholar; Philipsen, Ingeborg, ‘Out of Tune: The Congress for Cultural Freedom in Denmark 1953–1960’, in Scott-Smith, Giles and Krabbendam, Hans, eds., The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 237–53Google Scholar, and Løvhaug, Johannes W., Politikk som idékamp. Et intellektuelt gruppeportrett av Minerva-kretsen 1957–1972 (Oslo: Pax, 2007), 220–7Google Scholar.

26 See Hugh Wilford, ‘Britain: In Between’ (23–43), Dag Blanck, ‘Television, Education and the Vietnam War: Sweden and the United States During the Postwar Era’ (91–114), Nils Arne Sørensen and Claus Petersen, ‘Ameri-Danes and Pro-American Anti-Americans: Cultural Americanization and Anti-Americanism in Denmark after 1945’ (115–46), and Günter Bischof, ‘Two Sides of the Coin: The Americanization of Austria and Austrian Anti-Americanism’ (147–81), all in Stephan, Americanization. See also Wagnleitner, Reinhold, Coca-colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria after the Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)Google Scholar. Efforts to reach audiences in eastern Europe are described as dominated by other means, such as broadcasting, publications and, to the extent possible, exhibitions and cultural presentations. See Marsha Siefert, ‘From Cold War to Wary Peace: American Culture in the USSR and Russia’ (185–217), and Andrzej Antoszek and Kate Delaney, ‘Poland: Transmissions and Translations’ (218–50), both in Stephan, Americanization; and Hixson, Walter, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War 1945–61 (London: Macmillan, 1997)Google Scholar.

27 See, e.g., Pells, Richard, Not Like US: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture Since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 61–2Google Scholar; Cull, Cold War; and Scott-Smith, Giles, Networks of Empire: The US State Department's Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France and Britain 1950–1970 (Brussels: P.I.E Peter Lang, 2008), 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Scott-Smith, Networks, 59–60. Estimates concerning the exchange programmes in West Germany and Austria illustrate how far-reaching such a multiplying effect could be on the personal level, as they suggest that each returning grantee spoke to an average of 150 people after their stay in the United States: Bischof, ‘Two Sides’, 162.

29 Sørensen and Petersen, ‘Ameri-Danes’, 118. In this chapter the authors also use the term ‘Americanization by proxy’ to illustrate that influences perceived of as American in many cases either had made a ‘detour’ via another European country (the United Kingdom, particularly), or, in the case of consumer goods, were ‘look-alike products’ manufactured and marketed by local agents.

30 See e.g. USIE-Oslo to the Department, 25 July 1952, in RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA.

31 USIE-Oslo to the Department, 11 Jan. 1952, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA.

32 I have argued elsewhere that the influence of local staff on programming increased during the 1950s, and that the room for manoeuvre of the FSO in Norway was larger in the late 1950s than, for example, during the Campaign of Truth. The increased focus on non-propagandistic approaches can be seen partly as a result of this. See Danielsen, Helge, ‘Mediating Public Diplomacy: Local Conditions and US Public Diplomacy in Norway in the 1950s’, in Etheridge, Brian and Osgood, Kenneth, eds., Washington and Beyond: Public Diplomacy and US Foreign Relations: Toward an International History (Leiden: Brill, 2009, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

33 Oslo to the Department, 25 July 1963, in RG 59, Records of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs – Records Relating to the Evaluation of Cultural Programs and to Staff Visits Overseas 1952–60, Box 6, Folder Oslo (Eur) PRS, NA.

34 Oslo to the International Information Agency, Department of State, 12 Sept. 1952, in RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA.

35 See, e.g., ‘Educational Exchange: FY 1959 Annual Report’, Oslo to the Department, 22 July 1959, RG 59, Central Files, 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2167, NA.

36 The agreement on Norwegian participation was signed as early as 25 May 1949, and in one sense the programme was a success from the very start, as a US Educational Foundation (USEF) was established and a full-scale programme organised in a very short time. On the other hand the programme was perceived by many as being mainly of benefit to the United States itself, and more or less imposed on Norway. Such attitudes were explained by a number of factors, including the difficulty of recruiting to the USEF board American members from outside the embassy, making the foundation appear as less independent than it was supposed to be. Oslo to the Department, 20 Feb. 1950, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2416, NA.

37 USIE-Oslo to the Department, 11 Jan. 1952, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA.

38 According to Fredrik Thue, the transatlantic orientation of the institute – manifested for example by a series of distinguished American visiting scholars –was motivated in part by the ambition of the ISR to become a ‘strategic bridgehead and co-ordination centre for transatlantic co-operation in the social sciences’. Fredrik W. Thue, ‘In Quest of a Democratic Social Order. The Americanization of Norwegian Social Scholarship 1918–1970’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Oslo, 2006, 338.

39 Sverre Lysgaard: ‘A Study of Intercultural Contact: Norwegian Fulbright Grantees Visiting the United States’, Report (ISR, Oslo, 1954), i.

40 See Lysgaard's sketch of the study, Enclosure to despatch from Oslo to the Department, 15 Dec. 1952, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2416, NA.

41 Lysgaard, ‘Study of Intercultural Contact’, 130.

42 Ibid., 89–106.

43 Ibid., 128 ff.

44 See for instance Oslo to the Department, 2 Aug. 1954, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2416, NA.

45 I do not delve deeper into these issues, as they deserve (and in part have been the subject of) more thorough analyses in their own right. See, e.g., Thue, ‘Quest’.

46 These figures appear in Lundestad, Geir, ‘Research Trends and Accomplishments in Norway on United States History’, in Hanke, Lewis, ed., Guide to the Study of United States History outside the US 1945–1980, Volume III (White Plains, New York: Kraus International Publications, 1985), 256–7Google Scholar.

47 Oslo to the Department, 22 Aug. 1958, RG 59, Central Files, 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2167, NA.

48 See for instance Oslo to the Department, 2 July 1957, and 3 June 1959, both in RG 59, Central Files, 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2167, NA. From the mid-1950s the USSR supplemented its existing activities (e.g. broadcasting, publications and contact with ‘friendship societies’) with a focus on trade unions and youth and student groups, whose members were invited to the USSR, individually or in groups. The US FSOs were, however, most concerned by the high quality of the cultural programme of the Soviets, fearing that US programmes did not match up to the world-class artists, orchestras, athletes and sports instructors who were sent to Norway from the USSR. Oslo to the Department, 29 April 1955, in RG 59, Central Files 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2166, NA.

49 See, e.g., Annual report to Congress on the International Educational and Cultural Exchange Program Fiscal Year 1965 by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, in RG 59, Central Files 1964–1966, Box 385 Culture and Information, Education and Culture, Folder EDX 2, NA.

50 Oslo to the Department, 14 Sept. 1954, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2416, NA.

51 Oslo to the Department, 3 April 1950, in RG 59, Central Files 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2415, NA.

52 One example is Torolf Elster, an FLP grantee in 1950, then editor of the monthly journal Kontakt. Elster moved on to other central media positions, first on the largest Labour daily, then in NRK (executive director 1972–81, after having been programme director of the radio branch in 1963–72).

53 Scott-Smith, Networks, 32.

54 Ibid., 56–7 (emphasis in original).

55 Ibid., 419 ff.

56 See, e.g., Oslo to the Department, 2 July 1957, RG 59, Central Files 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2167, NA. See also Danielsen, ‘Mediating’, and Bones, ‘Grenseland’.

57 Oslo to the Department, 22 Aug. 1958, RG 59, Central Files, 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2167, NA.

58 Translation of letter from Kåre Hansen, Oslo to the Department, 10 June 1959, RG 59, Central Files, 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2167, NA.

59 All figures from the ‘United States Grantee Directory Fiscal Year 1965’, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State, March 1966.

60 Scott-Smith, Networks, 418.

61 See, e.g., Bischof, ‘Two Sides’, 162.

62 Alastair Robert Fischer, ‘Changing the Odds: The Influence of the State–Private Network on the Development of American Studies in Europe’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 2005, 8–9 and 37–8. See also Cornelis A. van Minnen and Sylvia L. Hilton, ‘The Academic Study of US History in Europe’ (7–45) and Giles Scott-Smith, ‘Laying the Foundations: US Public Diplomacy and the Promotion of American Studies in Europe’ (47–61), both in van Minnen and Hilton, eds., Teaching and Studying US History in Europe: Past, Present and Future (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2005); Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold War; and Kennedy, Liam and Lucas, Scott, ‘Enduring Freedom: Public Diplomacy and US Foreign Policy’, American Quarterly, 57, 2 (2005), 309–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 In Denmark, for example, this took place twenty years later, in 1971, apparently due to a strong scepticism about US culture on the part of Danish politicians and educators. See Sørensen and Petersen, ‘Ameri-Danes’, 126 f.

64 Oslo to the Department, 29 April 1955, RG 59, Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, European Country Files, 1951–56, Box 6, Folder: General reports – Norway, NA.

65 Among the materials published were An Outline of American History and USA – its Geography and Growth, books that were published worldwide, beginning in the early 1950s and with new editions appearing throughout the post-war era. The English-language version of Outline was first introduced to Norway in 1952; a Norwegian version appeared the year after. Geography appeared in English in 1954, in Norwegian the year after. See, e.g., Oslo to the Department, 29 April 1955, RG 59, Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, Correspondence, Memorandums, Reports and other Records of the Program Development Staff 1951–56, Box 3, NA, as well as Oslo to the Department, 4 June 1954, RG 59, Central Files, 1950–54, 511.57–576, Box 2416, NA, and Oslo to USIA, 21 Feb. 1955, Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, European Country Files, 1951–56, Box 6, Folder: General reports – Norway, NA.

66 Skard, Sigmund, American Studies in Europe: Their History and Present Organization, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

67 See Oslo to the Department, 9 Jan. 1953, RG 59, Records of The Plans and Development Staff, Evaluation Branch, 1955–60, Box 45, Folder: American Studies, Madrid, Spain to Oslo, Norway, NA. See also letters from the embassy to the Department, 25 May 1954, 22 March 1956 and 1 Aug. 1956, and from USIA, Washington, to Oslo, 17 June 1954, all ibid. These letters show that Skard applied for, but did not receive, financial support from USEF-Norway in 1952 – even if the Board of the Foundation was willing to use its reserve fund to support his work. Instead, Skard received what he had applied for from the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1956 USIS-Oslo decided to support the production and publication of his volumes, a decision that was sanctioned by the USIA.

68 See Oslo to the Department, 11 March 1958, ibid.

69 Joint USIS-Oslo/Embassy despatch to USIA/the Department, 28 Sept. 1959, RG 59, Central Files, 1955–59, 511.57–576, Box 2167, NA.

70 For instance, Skard used his network to secure financial support for US-related research also beyond his own institute. For example, he contributed to the establishment (in 1963) of a chair in American history at the University of Oslo, initially financed by the American Council of Learned Societies. Lundestad, ‘Research Trends’, 258, Helge Pharo, ‘The Teaching of United States History in Norwegian Universities’, in Hanke, Guide, 232–46.

71 Kennedy and Lucas, ‘Enduring’, 315.

72 Johnson, Walter and Colligan, Francis J., The Fulbright Program: A History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 70 ff. and 120–1Google Scholar. Both this study and that by Kennedy and Lucas deal with the national security aspects of public diplomacy, a perspective that underlines that public diplomacy is motivated by more than merely the goal of international popularity.

73 See Annual report to Congress on the International Educational and Cultural Exchange Program Fiscal Year 1965 by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, in RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, Box 385 Culture and Information, Education and Culture, Folder EDX 2, NA.

74 ‘USIA and the target audience’, memorandum dated 28 Aug. 1973, RG 306, General Records of the USIA, Historical Collection, Subject files 1953–2000, Box 14, Folder: Policy 1973, NA.

75 Pells, Not Like US, 84, and Johnson and Colligan, Fulbright, 81 ff.

76 See Cull, Cold War, 221–2.

77 ‘A Beacon of Hope – The Exchange-of-Persons Program’, report from the US Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, April 1963 (emphasis in original).

78 Ninkovich, Diplomacy; Osgood, Total Cold War, 76–7.

79 Osgood, Total Cold War, 232 ff.

80 See, e.g., Scott-Smith, ‘Foundations’, 53.

81 Oslo to State 23 April 1954, RG 59, Bureau of Public Affairs, International Educational Exchange Service, European Country Files, 1951–56, Box 6, Folder: Norway: Fulbright General.