6. InterWar Public Diplomacy

This chapter examines public diplomacy during the interwar period, highlighting several key facets in the development of US public diplomacy. First, that despite discontinuing CPI operations completely, private organizations took up many of the same activities previously administered by the CPI or initiated new programs to engage with publics abroad. Second, this case will serve to highlight the continuity of public diplomacy in the USA generally. Third, the case will contrast the US government’s relationship between different private entities operating or supporting public diplomacy programs throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The chapter focuses particularly on how private foundations, specifically the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the International Institute for Education, tangent to general US policy, used various programs to engage with the European public to ensure future peace and stability.