Exchange programmes have been a part of US foreign relations since the nineteenth century, but it was only during and after World War II that they were applied by the US government on a large scale to influence foreign publics in support of strategic objectives. This book looks at the background, organisation, and goals of the Department of State's most prestigious activity in this field, the Foreign Leader Program. The Program (still running as the International Visitor Leadership Program) enabled US Embassies to select and invite talented, influential ‘opinion leaders' to visit the United States, meet their professional counterparts, and gain a broad understanding of American attitudes and opinions from around the country. By tracking the operation of the Program in three key transatlantic allies of the United States a full picture is given of who was selected and why, and how the target groups changed over time in line with a developing US-European relationship. The book therefore takes a unique in-depth look at the importance of exchanges for the extension of US ‘informal empire' and the maintenance of the transatlantic alliance during the Cold War.

Networks of Empire - The US State Department’s Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France, and Britain 1950–70

European Community, Atlantic Community? For more than forty years the security alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty symbolised the common interests of Western Europe and the United States, and provided the context for all transatlantic political and economic relations. Yet the loss of a common enemy in the Soviet Union forced a reconsideration of the purpose of Nato and the mutual interests that still existed between Europe and the United States. These contributions build on this post-Cold War reframing of transatlantic relations and offer a multi-faceted study of the values, purposes, milieus and networks that underlay the Atlantic Community after 1945. For a long time the notion of "Atlantic Community" was a widely used phrase denoting a taken-for-granted state of affairs-the organization of the West in front of the Soviet threat -with very little conceptual clarity behind it. In particular, the chapters consider what it meant, how the transatlantic intellectual and policy-making elites sought to convey it to their national publics, which circles supported it, and what the effects were in social life as a whole.

European Community, Atlantic Community?

Atlantic, Euratlantic or Europe-America? What did the Atlantic Community mean for the nations of North America and Western Europe during the 1960s and early 1970s? This book, spanning the period from presidents Kennedy to Nixon, offers a wide-ranging set of views on this topic. National perspectives from the main protagonists-the United States, Britain, France, and West Germany- are complemented by studies on the role of non-state institutions and public diplomacy in maintaining close transatlantic relations. The book moves from the high optimism of the Kennedy years, with the attempt to reframe transatlantic relations around two more equal poles in the United States and a uniting Europe, to the series of disagreements and disputes that energised transatlantic diplomacy during the Nixon years. In doing so, the book provides a unique overview of the main trends and troubles of the transatlantic relationship during a critical period, and shows how various channels-both diplomatic and non-diplomatic-were used to overcome them and maintain a strong alliance.

Atlantic, Euratlantic or Europe-America?

In November 2008 Barack Obama was elected as President of the United States after a campaign that promised change and renewal. Many in the United States – and Europe – hoped for a new beginning. But what has been achieved ? The nineteen essays in this book provide a timely assessment of the ‘Obama Effect' in transatlantic relations during the first years of his administration. Ranging from Obama's importance within US domestic politics to his impact on specific policy areas (national security, international law, the environment) and regions (Middle East, South Asia), the book combines perspectives from the United States and across the European continent to present a unique multi-layered assessment of Obama's political influence and the current state of play within US-European relations.

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