Cultural Exchange & the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain

by Yale Richmond

Release Date: June, 2003

Edition: Hardcover

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Readable and Exhilerating

Scholarly and illuminating, Richmond's book colorfully documents official, government Soviet-American cultural exchanges that began after Stalin died in 1953, and helped to break down barriers of fear and ignorance, at a time that many of us felt the Cold War was freezing all contact.

These cultural exchanges involved books, movies, writers, performing artists, scientists, technologists, think tanks, politicans, and scholars.

Richmond writes eloquently, liberally using quotes of people who took part in the exchanges. One was organized by Gerald Mikkelson, professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Kansas, and it flourished in the 1970s and 80s. From several days to several weeks, Soviet writers came to the university, experienced the Midwest, and went away forever changed.

"Those visits to Kansas," says Mikkelson, "not only broadened their horizons culturally and ideologically, and gave them plenty of food for thought that sometimes got translated into specific literary works or images, but it added to their prestige and emboldened them at home in their efforts to make the Soviet Union a more livable place for writers and people in the other creative and performing arts."

Imagine a Soviet writer being plunked down in Kansas!
And other new places!
The same for Americans in the Soviet Union!

Some Soviet scholars were not allowed to take part, because the Soviet Foreign Travel Commission didn't think they were "reliable" to travel abroad, for whatever reasons. One of them was Soviet professor George Mirsky, a Middle East expert, who whole-heartedly encouraged his students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations to go on such exchanges.

Mirsky writes, "Before the exchange, people believed that Western society, no matter how wealthy and affluent, was narrowly materialistic, devoid of any humanism and spirituality, selfish and arrogant, indifferent to moral, cultural, and artistic values, full of hostility for Russians and of anti-Communist crusading spirit.

"What amazed them was American hospitality, warmth, willingness to oblige, civility and politeness, lack of ethnic prejudices, care for disabled, richness of artistic life, pluralism of opinions, abundance of associations. The Soviets were able for the first time in their lives to see a functioning civil society. This was a great surprise...The exchange visitors would never be the same again."

As a musician and lover of the arts, I especially enjoyed the chapter on performing arts, with highlights of American impresario Sol Hurok's success in bringing Soviet musicians, dance troupes, ice shows, and circuses to the U.S. As a child, I had seen some of these performances, but not been aware of their long-range effect! Reciprocal trips took such Amerian writers as Norman Cousins, Robert Lowell, and Edward Albee, and such groups as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the American Ballet Theatre, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to the Soviet Union.

These cultural exchanges paved the way for the the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev to the presidency of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev and his wife had done a great deal of foreign travel in the 1970s and 80s, and loved it. They saw that another world existed beyond their country. As president, Gorbachev opened the door even farther and moved the Soviet Union forward to help end the Cold War.

I love this book because it is informative, inspiring, and written with obvious relish and passion. Richmond was there, working on these exchanges, helping to get people talking, and opening up their minds. He records this first-hand. Who else can tell such a great story so well? I recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn, to understand more about history, and to appreciate the people who changed it. Bravi!

OPENING DOORS TO THE ENEMY

The jacket of Richmond's book states that this work "demonstrates that the best policy to pursue with countries with whom we disagree is not isolation but engagement." Whether or not this is universally true, a very strong case is made for this argument in this study of cultural exchanges during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The exchanges between the two countries were initiated by President Eisenhower in a letter to Bulganin, the Soviet head of state, and were begun in 1958. Whatever concerns there might have been about potential Soviet espionage, the program found approval even from FBI Director J. Edger Hoover. Richmond demonstrates the wisdom of this program as thousands of Russians and Americans participated in these exchanges which continued up to the time when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The book's table of contents provides early clues to the range of the program. There were exchanges of scholars in science and in the political and social sciences, exchanges of scientists and technicians for conferences and participation in working groups, exchanges of journalists and diplomats, and the well publicized exchanges of performing artists in ballet, music and theater. Students in the exchange program often remained in the host country for several years; scientists and technicians only for the several weeks of a conference or working group.

The background to the exchange rogram is provided through citations from the reports of American administrators and scholars associated with it and through personal interviews in which they describe the difficulties of implementation in the face of bureaucratic obstacles from two mutually suspicious countries. It is the interviews with the exchange participants, however, which is at the very heart of this quiet but remarkable story. Of particular interest are the interviews with dozens of participants from the Soviet Union.

This reader was arrested by the positions held by the Soviet participants at the time of their arrival in the U.S. and by what became of them and their careers on their return to the home country. In contrast with the American exchange scholars who came largely out of academia, many from the Soviet appear to have held government positions when they arrived in the U.S. or at some earlier time. The nature of some of these positions is especially surprising to the lay reader. Among four students who came to study at Columbia University, for example, two were in the KGB, one in Soviet military intelligence, and the fourth in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. These backgrounds do not appear to have been exceptional among Soviet exchange scholars.

It is not certain from Richmond's reports if expsure to the U.S. through this program was, in general, an advantage or handicap to Soviet participants' careers on their return home. Nevertheless, it is evident from some of the case studies that some achieved positions of great influence. Alexander Yakolev, for example, became a senior advisor to Gorbechev and is known as the "godfather of glasnost." Rem Khoklov was awarded the Lenin Prize for his scientific research and became a member of the Soviet Parliament. What may have been of importance even greater than those who reached high positions, however, is that many scholars were inthe government and on the job when the Soviet Union collapsed and were prepared for the social and economic changes which were to come.

At a time of increasing barriers to those who would enter the U.S. as students or observers, CULTURAL EXCHANGES AND THE COLD WAR demonstrates the value of openness even during the most stressful periods of the Cold War. American leaders coming from a broad political spectrum took the risk of allowing access to this country by students and leaders from our most feared competitor. From this there appears to have been an unimagined payoff.