Good Neighbor Cultural Diplomacy in World War II: The Art of Making Friends

In August 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Nelson A. Rockefeller to head the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA), a new federal agency whose main objective was to strengthen cultural and commercial relations between the U.S and Latin America in order to route Axis influence there and secure hemispheric solidarity. Rockefeller hired some the country’s top figures in radio, film, literature, and the arts to head the various divisions dedicated to radio, film, print materials, art, libraries and educational activities for the agency’s cultural diplomacy initiatives. This was the US government’s first major investment in culture as a means not only to make friends abroad but also influence the public at home. Although the agency was not without its problems, the CIAA years have no equivalent in the U.S. history of foreign relations endeavors; it was also a high point of U.S. and Latin America friendship—a relationship that has never been duplicated since. My paper today is about the CIAA’s investment in art as a diplomatic force. An art patron, Rockefeller drew upon the resources at the MoMA (founded by his mother) and other museums nationwide to create a hemispheric dialogue in which artists for the first time had a significant voice. Among issues to be addressed is the preferred images the agency preferred to circulate in its exhibitions.