{"id":2805,"date":"2023-10-30T15:53:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T19:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2805"},"modified":"2023-10-30T15:53:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T19:53:11","slug":"the-cultural-cold-war-revisited-and-cultural-diplomacy-in-africa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/10\/the-cultural-cold-war-revisited-and-cultural-diplomacy-in-africa-today.html","title":{"rendered":"The Cultural Cold War Revisited — and Cultural Diplomacy in Africa Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Leonard Bernstein at a USIA exhibit in Moscow in 1959<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vanishing presence of the arts in the American experience has implications for America\u2019s reputation abroad, and for its pursuit of foreign policy goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the US is in fact embarking on a new Cold War, the cultural Cold War with the USSR is urgently pertinent. My latest \u201cMore than Music\u201d\u00a0program on NPR is \u201cThe Cultural Cold War Revisited<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s based on my new book\u00a0The Propaganda of Freedom: JFK, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and the Cultural Cold War.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a nutshell: the CIA-funded Congress of Cultural Freedom was initially a seminal Cold War propaganda instrument. In my book, I argue that, by claiming that only \u201cfree artists\u201d in \u201cfree societies\u201d produce great art, it failed to produce credible propaganda. Far more successful was cultural diplomacy with the Soviet Union, beginning in 1959 with Leonard Bernstein\u2019s New York Philharmonic (a visit about which I have new things to say). But as the Cold War waned, so did cultural diplomacy. So much so that when in 1986 Vladimir Horowitz triumphantly returned to Russia, Ambassador Arthur Hartman had to raise funds on his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, cultural diplomacy could be a formidable tool in, say, Central Africa, where the US is vying with China to exert influence. My \u201cMore than Music\u201d show features remarkable testimony from Alexander Laskaris, the US Ambassador to Chad \u2013 who recently hosted the African-American baritone Sidney Outlaw. You can hear Sidney Outlaw sing \u201cI am a Pilgrim of Sorrow\u201d for fishermen on an island in Chad \u2013 and hear them sing a fishing song of their own in response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Beyrle, former US Ambassador to Russia, contextualizes this vignette. Beyrle persuasively extols cultural diplomacy. He also worries that the arts today wind up \u201con the chopping block.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A LISTENING GUIDE. [listen here<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00 \u2013 Willis Conover\u2019s \u201cJazz Hour\u201d on the Voice of America and its electrifying impact in the USSR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:00 \u2013 About my new book The Propaganda of Freedom<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6:00 \u2013 The late Alexander Toradze on how jazz symbolized \u201cAmerican freedoms\u201d in Soviet Russia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10:00 \u2013 A knowledgeable Soviet audience boos Benny Goodman because he\u2019s old-fashioned<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12:00 \u2013 Leonard Bernstein speaks to a Moscow audience about musical bonds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16:25 \u2013 Contradicting CIA-sponsored propaganda, Bernstein extols Shostakovich in Russia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18:30 \u2013 Former US Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle on misconceived CIA-sponsored cultural propaganda <\/p>\n\n\n\n

21:30 \u2013 A triumph of cultural diplomacy: Vladimir Horowitz in Russia (1986) — a visit for which the US ambassador had to raise funds on his own<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25:00 \u2013 Horowitz performs Schumann before a weeping Moscow audience<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30:30 \u2013 Ambassador Beyrle: the arts \u201con the chopping block\u201d once the Cold War waned<\/p>\n\n\n\n

34:30 \u2013 Ambassador Beyrle on the potential importance of cultural diplomacy in Africa today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

35:15 \u2013 US Ambassador to Chad Alexander Laskaris on cultural diplomacy in Guinea and Chad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

38:25 \u2013 Sidney Outlaw singing in Chad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

40:00 \u2013 Ambassador Laskaris on the arts and US foreign policy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

43:00 \u2013 William Dawson\u2019s Negro Folk Symphony<\/em> \u2013 a foreign policy opportunity <\/p>\n\n\n\n

45:00 \u2013 Philadelphia Orchestra President Matias Tarnopolsky on visiting China<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leonard Bernstein at a USIA exhibit in Moscow in 1959 The vanishing presence of the arts in the American experience has implications for America\u2019s reputation abroad, and for its pursuit of foreign policy goals. If the US is in fact embarking on a new Cold War, the cultural Cold War with the USSR is urgently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-Jf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2805"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2809,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805\/revisions\/2809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}