[발췌: J. Hart's] Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U. S. Foreign Policy (2013)

출처: Justin Hart (2013). ^Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U. S. Foreign Policy^. Oxford University Press

자료: 구글도서

CF. Max Paul Friedman (2003). Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign Against the Germans of Latin America in World War II. Cambridge University Press.

※ 발췌 (excerpt): pp. 15 ~

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Chapter 1

"Down with Imperialism"

The Latin American Origins of U.S. Cultural Diplomacy

December 1, 1936 was a cloudless, sunny day in Buenos Aires. The vibrant, mauve flowers of the jacaranda trees had just begun to flower. Thousands lined the streets that beautiful day, taking advantage o the weather and the national holiday the Argentine government had declared in honor of the opening of the Buenos Aires Conference. As the motorcade slowly would its way downtown, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his Argentine counterpart, Augustin Justo, waved to the jubilant crowd. Roosevelt had arrived the day before, after an exhausting two-week, 6,000 mile voyage aboard the cruiser ^Indianapolis^. His appearance, to give the keynote address to the conference, marked the first official visit by a U.S. president to South America.[n.1]

  As the limousine approached the magisterial while marble palace of the Argentinean legislature─the building resembles the Capitol in Washington,' gushed the front-page coverage in the ^New York Times^ ... but "on a smaller scale"─FDR gathered his thoughts. Aided by the arm of his son James, Roosevelt entered the hall and hobbled to the podium in the massive Chamber of Deputies. He received a standing ovation that lasted several minutes. As the crowd quieted down, eager for Roosevelt to begin, a voice bellowed from near the back of the hall: "Down with imperialism!" FDR paused as police removed the heckler, then proceed with his speech.[n.2]

  Nearly a year earlier, when Roosevelt first proposed this gathering of what U.S. officials liked to call the "American republics," the president had emphasized hemispheric affairs. Eleven months later, his focus had changed. A shocking series of incidents around the globe led him to recast his original agenda within an international context. As FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull later recalled: " Japan had won a war in China, Italy in Ethiopia; Spain, the mother country of most of the Latin American Republics, was in civil war, with Italy, Russia, and Germany intervening; Germany and Japan were linked in a virtual alliance; Hitler was violating one treaty after another; Britain and France were vacillating; the League was limping toward its end; and the United States was set in a concrete mold of isolation." [n.3]

  Having to balance his instinctive call to action with his nation's hostility to involvement in European affairs, Roosevelt began cautiously. He spoke of "events elsewhere" that "have served only to strengthen our horror of war." Gradually, he grew more assertive, suggesting vaguely that "the Republics of the New World" do something to help the "Old World to avert the catastrophe which impends." The longer he spoke, the more forceful he became. By the end, FDR had made an eloquent appeal for the international agenda his administration had tried to pursue, with limited success and great resistance, for most of the past four years. He concluded with a comprehensive accounting of the relationship between democratic forms of government, the free exchange of commerce, greater security, and "a wider distribution of culture, of education, of thought, and of free expression." The audience responded enthusiastically to the speech, which was broadcast on three separate radio networks in Argentina. FDR was interrupted several times by "tumultuous applause," much like a State of the Union address back home.[n.4]

  The next day, thousands once again gathered outside, this time in heavy rain, to watch as the ^Indianapolis^ began its long journey back to the United States. The trip represented a thorough triumph, yet there was one thing that bothered FDR as his cruiser sailed out onto the open sea: It was the heckler. "Whay was I so slow?" the president complained, lamenting the lapse in his usually quick wit. "I should have answered ... 'That's right! Down with imperialism. That's why we are meeting in this conference.'" [n.5]

  Although not widely remembered as such, the Buenos Aires Conference stands as one of the more significant achievements in U.S. foreign policy during the mid-1930s. Both in rhetoric and reality the Buenos Aires Conference epitomized the Roosevelt administration's prewar approach to foreign policy. The proposal of the U.S. delegation espoused multilateralism─politically, culturally, and economically. Furthermore, these proposals bucked the popular mood within the United States by requiring both spiritual and a practical commitment to greater U.S. involvement in world affairs. [n.6] And the conference took place in Latin America, where the New Dealers first tested many of the initiatives they would later deploy on a global basis. [n.7]

  By far the most significant proposal in this regard─the only one introduced by the United States to make it into the final treaty─was the modest provision for a series of multilateral cultural exchanges between the nations of the Western Hemisphere. This agreement called for each of the twenty-one governments that signed the treaty to pay for the exchange of two graduate students per year, per country. It was not much. But it put the U.S. government in the business of "cultural diplomacy"─that is, the deliberate attempt to deploy cultural affairs in pursuit of foreign policy objectives. By the end of World War II, these simple exchanges had grown into a comprehensive program to shape the nation's image abroad, as U.S. officials combined cultual diplomacy with overseas propaganda, domestic information campaigns, and technological modernization initiatives to form the matrix of what became known as public diplomacy. Thus began the massive postwar project dedicated to winning "hearts and minds" around the world.

"Given Them a Share"

That these efforts started in Latin America was no accident. In fact, they must be understood as an essential expression of the Roosevelt administration's Good Neighbor Policy. FDR actually introduced the idea of the "good neighbor" in his inaugural─the address better remembered for "we have nothing to fear but fear itself..."─when he pledged to "dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor ... the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors." The president did not initially apply this idea to any particular region. Soon, though, the Good Neighbor Policy became the catchall label for the Roosevelt administration's much publicized attempt to scale back the arrogance of attitude and action that had prompted many Latinos to label his nation "El Coloso del Norte" ("the Colossus of the North"). [n.8] The United States officially renounced the sort of Big Stick diplomacy that had resulted in perpetual interference in the domestic politics of Latin American states over the past several decades. To back up his words with action, the president repudiated the Platt Amendment of 1901 (used repeatedly to justify intervention in Cuba), ordered the removal of U.S. marines from Haiti, and generally encouraged greater input from Latin American leaders about policies affecting their own countries. "Give them a share" was how Roosevelt described his administration's attitude towards Latin America. "They think they are just as good as we are, and many of them are." [n.9]

  This sort of tongue-in-cheek remark helps to explain why the Good Neighbor Policy has sometimes been viewed as a sham─as lofty rhetoric designed to facilitate a shift from military domination to economic hegemony. There is some truth to that accusation. However, critics of the Good Neighbor Policy have failed to address why a politician as skillful as Roosevelt would create, in the words of historian Bryce Wood, a "huge red, white, and blue target" for potential critics. The answer to that question lies in the role that Latin America played within the overall scope of U.S. foreign policy during the 1930s. [n.10]

  ( ... .... ) p.18