906 



field operations and the USIA has been cited as another limitation 

 of the program. ^^ 



Shortly after leaving his post as Assistant Secretary of State for 

 Educational and Cultural Affairs, Coombs wrote an evaluation of 

 the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange activities which he 

 had directed. Describing the incompatibilities which arise between 

 USIA "informational activities" and CU's educational and cultiiral 

 exchange activities, Coombs said: 



USIA ... is first and foremost an information agency, managed by people 

 skilled in journalism, schooled in the psychological approach. . . . The first claim 

 on USIA's budget and top managers is the latest crisis and each day's news. 

 ... At the same time USIA must . . . handle educational and cultural affairs 

 overseas . . . through a cultural affairs officer who is often torn between two 

 Washington bosses with apparentlj' conflicting approaches, and who is subordinate 

 to a public affairs officer whose first concern must be with USIA's information 

 mission. 



. . . The "informational approach" is essentially a one-way process, legitimately 

 preoccupied with developing sympathetic foreign attitudes. . . . Day by day it 

 endeavors to explain these policies and actions and to put them in the best light 

 that truth affords. It is also a competitive process, daily occupied with exposing 

 and criticizing policies and propaganda that are hostile to the United States. 

 The 'educational and cultural approach' is . . . also concerned with developing 

 honest and sympathetic understanding, but it is a two way process calculated to 

 foster mutual understanding and to benefit both parties.*' 



Field administration of overseas educational and cultural affairs, 

 according to the U.S. Advisory Commission, should be handled by 

 an Educational Affairs Officer who "represents the current dynamic 

 movements of the U.S. educational system [and who] can ". . . deal 

 with [American and foreign] educators on their own terms." ^^ 



THE AMBIGUOUS IMPACTS OF THE BINATIONAL COMMISSION 



Fulbright-Hays binational educational commissions have been es- 

 tablished in 47 countries. One of their major functions is to insulate 

 educational exchange from politics and to encourage the international 

 and binational cooperative emphasis of the program. However, 

 paradoxically, they have had deleterious effects on rates of scientific 

 and technical participation in the senior Fulbright-Hays program. 



Commissions are composed of distinguished national educators and 

 cultural leaders from the host country and the resident American 



M Possible CIA involvement has also been criticized. During the period 1964-1970, the Advisory Com- 

 mission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs complained vociferously in its reports to the 

 Congress about the need to insulate educational exchanges from politics and from the interference of CIA 

 intelligence gathering activities which had impacted on these programs. (See A Beacon of Hope. Second 

 Annual Report, 1964, p. 9.) Two special reports the Commission distributed in the mid-sixties, Research, 

 Appraisals and Reports (1964) and Government, the Universities and International Affairs: A Crisis in Identity 

 (1967), 18p^es, described a serious problem about USIA informational and covert CIA intelligence gather- 

 ing involvement in international educational programs administered by the Department of State. " Chief 

 among [its] concerns," the Commission reported "is the maintenance of the integrity of the educational 

 and cultural exchange programs of the U.S. Government. The Commission feels strongly that the effective- 

 ness of international educational and cultural relationships . . . depends upon free and open exchange. . . . 

 Like most of the educational community [the Commission] was shocked by the revelation of involvement 

 of the Central Intelligence Agency in exchange activities. . . . Government assistance to these organiza- 

 tions could and should have been given overtly." (Fifth Annual Report, 1968, pp. 25-*.) 



M TTie Fourth Dimension of Foreign Policy, op. cit., pp. 122-3. 



" U.S. Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, Fifth Annual Report, 

 op. cit., pp. 27-8. 



