Philanthropic Power and Cultural Diplomacy: American Foundations in Cold War Europe
Keywords:
Philanthropy, cultural diplomacy, American foundations, Cold WarAbstract
During the Cold War, major American philanthropic foundations, including the Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations, played a significant, albeit often complex and understated, role in shaping cultural relations with Europe. This article investigates the multifaceted involvement of these foundations, exploring their overt philanthropic initiatives alongside their more covert engagements with U.S. foreign policy objectives. Drawing upon archival records and scholarly analyses, it examines how these organizations served as instruments of cultural diplomacy, fostering intellectual exchange, scientific collaboration, and artistic expression, often with the implicit aim of promoting American values and countering Soviet influence. By adopting an IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) framework, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations' contributions to the ideological struggle, their impact on European societies, and the ethical considerations arising from the blurred lines between private philanthropy and statecraft.
References
Alexander L. George, & Andrew Bennett. (2005). Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. The MIT Press.
Andrew Deruga. (2012). Hegemony needs society; Gramsci, the Ford foundation and democracy in Poland, 1980-1994. University of Otawa.
Anheier, H. K., & Leat, D. (2013). Philanthropic Foundations: What Rationales? Social Research, 80(2), 449–472. [suspicious link removed]
Audra J. Wolfe. (2018). Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold war struggle for the soul of science. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Christopher Lamont. (2021). Research Methods in International Relations. Sage Publications Ltd.
CIA Archive. (1951). Suggestions on kinds of projects we would like to see the Ford foundation support.
CIA Archive. (1952a). Eighth meeting of the psychological strategy board, Room 3E928, Item 2, PSB D8/b, NSC 127.
CIA Archive. (1952b). Psychological Strategic Board report, Report on Social Science Research in Cold War Operations.
CIA Archive. (1952c). Psychological Strategy Board, Procedure for evaluation of National Psychological effort, PSB E-4, Item 3.
CIA Archive. (1952d). Psychological Strategy Board, Social Science Research, Washington D.C.
CIA Archive. (1953). Psychological Strategy Board Meeting, CIA RDP8, Memorandum for the record.
CIA Archive. (1957a). Memorandum for OCB, Telephone conversation between Allen Dulles and Mr. Rowan Gaither from the Ford foundation.
CIA Archive. (1957b). Office of National Estimates, Consultants’ meeting 23-24 January 1957.
CIA Archive. (1957d). Office of the President, CIA’s Culture Group Renamed, RDP78.
CIA Archive. (1958). Polish Medical Aid Project.
CIA Archive. (1962). Correspondence between the Press Secretary to the President Mr. Pierre Salinger and Stanley J. Grogan, Assistant to the Director of the Ford foundation.
CIA Archive. (1964). CIA Mailroom Library, Larry Birns Show.
CIA Archive. (1967). Resume of OCB Luncheon Resume, C.P. Cabell, General, USAF Deputy Director.
CIA Archive. (1976). Cold War: Interview with James Algenton, The Head of Counter-intelligence at the CIA.
CIA Archive. (1977). Memorandum for Stan Turner, 31 May 77.
David Hammack. (1999). Foundations in the American Polity, 1900-1950. In Philanthropic Foundations: New Scholarship, New Possibilities. Indiana University Press.
Edward H. Berman. (1983). The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy. State University of New York Press.
ERDEM, M., & ROSE, K. W. (2000). AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY IN REPUBLICAN TURKEY: THE ROCKEFELLER AND FORD FOUNDATIONS. Milletleraras, 001–027. https://doi.org/10.1501/Intrel_0000000022
Fisher, D. (1983). THE ROLE OF PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATIONS IN THE REPRODUCTION AND PRODUCTION OF HEGEMONY: ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATIONS AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. Sociology, 17(2), 206–233. [suspicious link removed]
Ford Foundation Archive. (1952). Annual report for 1952.
Ford Foundation Archive. (1967). , International Affairs Records, Institute of International Education, Exchange and Scientific Activity with Eastern Europe including U.S.S.R.
Ford Foundation Records. (1955). Annual report 1955.
Ford Foundation Records. (1960). International Affairs Records, FA748, Exchanges, Series V, Box 7, Folder Title: Yugoslavian Program – General Information.
George Gershwin. (1935). English language opera.
George M Frederickson. (1968). The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union. Harper Torchbooks.
Helmut K. Anheier, & Stefan Toepler. (1999). Private Funds, Public Purpose: Philanthropic Foundations in International Perspective. Springer.
Huntington, S. P. (1973). Transnational Organizations in World Politics. World Politics, 25(3), 333–368. https://doi.org/10.2307/2010115
Inderjeet Parmar. (2012). Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power. Columbia University Press.
Parmar, I. (2002). American foundations and the development of international knowledge networks. Global Networks, 2(1), 13–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0374.00024
Parmar, I. (2015). The “Big 3” Foundations and American Global Power. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 74(4), 676–703. [suspicious link removed]
Raynor Memorial Libraries. (n.d.). Marquette university Archives, Manuscripts, Charles J. Kersten Papers, 1919-1972, Bulk 1946-1960, Biographical note.
Rockefeller Foundation Records. (1951). General Correspondence: Program for Soviet Orbit Escapees.
State Department Archive. (1957a). Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957, Soviet Union, Eastern Mediterranean.
State Department Archive. (1957b). The Exchange Program between the United States and the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe.
State Department Archive. (1967). Ex- Pomona Student Revealed CIA Aid.
Stephen Wertheim. (2020). Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy. Belknap Press.
US Senate. (1967). Congressional Record FOIAb3b.
Vogel, A. (2006). Who‟s making global civil society: philanthropy and US empire in world society. The British Journal of Sociology, 57(4), 635–655. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2006.00129.x
Volker R. Berghahn. (2002). America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe. Princeton University Press.
Wilson Carey McWilliams, & Lance Banning. (1994). The lost promise of progressivism. University Press of Kansas.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Prof. Alessandra M. Conti, Christophe Moreau
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain the copyright of their articles published in this journal. All articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly cited.