Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 November 2017
The following article documents the expansion of high school exchange programs during the Cold War. It also examines the potential conflicts underlying that expansion, which relied on preexisting networks of government agencies and private philanthropies and sometimes conflated the rhetoric of world peace with a narrower pursuit of American interests. Ultimately, the article contends, experiences abroad prompted teenagers to criticize American foreign policy and to reform their sponsoring organizations along increasingly multilateral, anti-colonial, and socially conscious lines.
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9 Primary source material comes from the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Program (AFS Archives) in New York City, http://afs.org/archives/; the Southern Folklife Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina; the Wisconsin Historical Society; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, KS, https://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents.html; and Records of the Peace Corps, National Archives, Washington, DC, https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/490.html.
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21 Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in the fall of 1955 and an attack of ileitis in 1956. After the program's halting rollout, a minor stroke would leave Eisenhower unable to prevent the dissolution of its central committee in 1958. Juergensmeyer, The President, 4, 19–20, 49.
22 Glenn Wesley Leppert, “Dwight D. Eisenhower and People-to-People as an Experiment in Personal Diplomacy: A Missing Element of Understanding” (PhD diss., Kansas State University, 2003), 120–23.
23 “Confidential Inter-Office Memorandum: How We Got This Way,” March 18, 1958, People-to-People Program Records, DDE's Records as President, Official File, box 932, 325 (9), Eisenhower Library.
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27 Some conservatives doubted the Soviet Union's good faith, complaining that “under the pretext of ‘cultural exchange,’ People-to-People, Inc., assumes and exercises power and authority to specify … those persons with whom American students visiting abroad must live, and to whom indoctrination or supervision they are thus required to submit.” “Report of the Committee on Education of ‘We, the People,’” Sept. 22–23, 1962, American Council of Christian Laymen Records, box 7, folder 42; and Janet Esser to Verne Kaub, March 24, 1961, American Council of Christian Laymen Records, box 2, folder 16, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.
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29 Charles E. Wilson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Oct. 21, 1957, DDE's Records as President, Official File, box 931, 325 (8), Eisenhower Library.
30 Sargent Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps, was an early member of the Experiment in International Living, which offered logistical support during the early years of the Peace Corps. Eiseman, Everyone Has a Story to Tell, 2; Leppert, “Eisenhower and People-to-People,” 69–72, 124; and Scanlon, David G., ed., International Education: A Documentary History (New York: Teachers College Press, 1960), 147–58Google Scholar.
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36 Our Little World 20 (Dec. 1953), 9, AFS Archives.
37 Since tapes were less expensive in America, the organization suggested that Americans initiate contact with foreign nationals.
38 Marjorie Rubin, “Old Activity, New Twist,” New York Times, April 22, 1962, 14.
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40 Leslie L. Howard, “Membership Roster,” Tape Topics 6, no. 1, Feb. 1958, 3, folder 1353, World Tape Pals, series 2, Related Discographical Information, 1938–2005, subseries 2.5, Record and Tape Clubs, 1957–1977, Southern Folklife Collection.
41 Robert J. Carter, “Membership Roster,” Tape Topics 6, no. 1, Feb. 1958, 5, folder 1353, World Tape Pals, series 2, Related Discographical Information, 1938–2005, subseries 2.5, Record and Tape Clubs, 1957–1977, Southern Folklife Collection.
42 “California Girl Seeks Pals,” Tape Topics 6, no. 1, Feb. 1958, 6, folder 1353, World Tape Pals, series 2, Related Discographical Information, 1938–2005, subseries 2.5, Record and Tape Clubs, 1957–1977, Southern Folklife Collection.
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44 Steven R. Veenker, “Membership Roster,” Tape Topics 6, no. 1, Feb. 1958, 37, folder 1353, World Tape Pals, series 2, Related Discographical Information, 1938–2005, subseries 2.5, Record and Tape Clubs, 1957–1977, Southern Folklife Collection.
45 Howie Schwartz, “Membership Roster,” Tape Topics 6, no. 1, Feb. 1958, 27, folder 1353, World Tape Pals, series 2, Related Discographical Information, 1938–2005, subseries 2.5, Record and Tape Clubs, 1957–1977, Southern Folklife Collection.
46 Stephen D. Leddy, “Membership Roster,” Tape Topics 6, no. 1, Feb. 1958, 38, folder 1353, World Tape Pals, series 2, Related Discographical Information, 1938–2005, subseries 2.5, Record and Tape Clubs, 1957–1977, Southern Folklife Collection.
47 The AFS Story, 79. For connections between AFS and the State Department, see Our Little World, no. 73 (Summer 1967), 5, AFS Archives.
48 Howe Interview, AFS Archives.
49 High School Students and the Peace Corps (Washington, DC: Peace Corps Office of Public Affairs, c. 1967).
50 The AFS Story, 86–87.
51 Interview with James Cooney (videorecording), Oral History Collection, Legacy Project: Subseries 2B, 2002–2012, AFS Archives.
52 Eiseman, Everyone Has a Story to Tell, 34–36.
53 Our Little World 33, no. 5 (1956), 15–16, AFS Archives.
54 Eiseman, Everyone Has a Story to Tell, 22.
55 Eiseman, Everyone Has a Story to Tell, 26.
56 The AFS Story, 39–40.
57 Our Little World 33, no. 5 (1956), 12, AFS Archives.
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63 Our Little World 29, no. 1 (1956), 3, AFS Archives.
64 Our Little World 31, no. 3 (1956), 2, AFS Archives.
65 Our Little World 46 (April 1960), 2, AFS Archives.
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73 Our Little World 28 (May/June 1955), 15; Our Little World 29, no. 1 (1956), 2; Our Little World 43 (June 1959), 11; Our Little World 44 (Oct. 1959), 5, AFS Archives.
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75 Our Little World 21, no. 3 (1969), 6–8; Our Little World 21, no. 1 (1969), 5, AFS Archives.
76 Our Little World 22, no. 1 (1970), 8, AFS Archives.
77 Eiseman, Everyone Has a Story to Tell, 13–14.
78 Our Little World 21, no. 3 (1969), 2, AFS Archives.
79 Interview with William G. Meserve (videorecording, 2005), Oral History Collection, Legacy Project: Subseries 2B, 2002–2012, AFS Archives.
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87 Our Little World 21, no. 1 (1969), 6–7, AFS Archives.
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