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Publishing American values: the Franklin Book Programs as Cold War cultural diplomacy

Library Trends, Wntr, 2007 by Louise S. Robbins

ABSTRACT

In 1951 librarians from the American Library Association's International Relations Committee and publishers from the American Book Publishers Council Foreign Trade Committee met at the Library of Congress to discuss how to meet the "need for books in developing countries." The nonprofit Franklin Book Programs they established existed from 1952 until 1978 and helped to make possible the publication of some 3,000 titles in languages such as Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Indonesian, and Portuguese; involved the intelligentsia of each country in the process of book selection and translation; and established both a publishing infrastructure and a market for U.S. books in areas where there had been none. Why were these countries and languages chosen? Was the decision to establish a nonprofit organization that could accept funding from the federal government a result of concerns about Cold War censorship? Was the decision another manifestation of librarians' and publishers' assertions of the importance of free access to ideas as a counter to communist ideology? Was it a way to build an international market for American values or American publishers? This research uses archival sources and oral history to explore the motives and actions of behind the Franklin Book Programs.

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If you tune into National Public Radio (NPR) these days, you might hear a short essay written and read by a prominent person--or a not-so-prominent person--in a series called "This I Believe." The original 1950s "This I Believe" was a project of famed radio and television broadcaster Edward R. Murrow at a time when the United States was, as the NPR home page for the project says, about as divided as it is today. When Murrow's broadcasts aired--and when many of the essays later found their way into print--the tensions at home reflected the struggles abroad. The United States was in a cold war against the Soviet Union, and extreme anticommunism at home created an atmosphere of suspicion. Murrow's "This I Believe," which he intended "to point to the common meeting grounds of beliefs, which is the essence of brotherhood and the floor of our civilization" (National Public Radio, n.d.), would become a weapon in a war "for the hearts and minds" (1) of people, fought then, as now, chiefly in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East. In fact, an edition of This I Believe sprinkled with essays written by prominent Arabs would become a best-selling title of a little known American publishing venture called Franklin Publications, selling 30,000 copies in Arabic in six months' time (Franklin Book Program Papers, 2001).

This I Believe was only one of some 3,000 titles published in a number of languages by Franklin Publications, later known as Franklin Book Programs. But book translation was only one of its activities. In 1969, when Carroll G. Bowen relinquished his position as publisher of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology Press and addressed the Annual Membership Meeting as Franklin's new president, he described the purpose of the nonprofit corporation: "to help strengthen and, where necessary, to help create local book publishing industries in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and to facilitate and increase the international flow of educational and cultural materials." (2)

He enumerated activities that were far more expansive than those originally envisioned when a group of librarians from the American Library Association's International Relations Committee and publishers from the American Book Publishers Council's Foreign Trade Committee met in 1951 at the Library of Congress to discuss how to meet the "need for books in developing countries" (Smith, 1983). They decided that books by American authors would be much more likely to reach their intended audience if they were translated into the languages of potential readers. The organization they established with the U.S. government's help in 1952 persisted until 1978. In addition to translations, Franklin published textbooks and weekly new readers' magazines; developed dictionaries and encyclopedias; helped to train illustrators, publishers, textbook writers, and book sellers; and even helped to establish school libraries in some countries. (3) Franklin's program originally focused on the Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East, of which Iraq is one, quickly moving into other Middle Eastern languages, such as Persian or Farsi, spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. Franklin entered these countries at a time during which they were a central arena in the contests of the Cold War and departed from them during a time of revolutionary upheaval. The effectiveness of the Franklin Book Programs in particular and cultural diplomacy in general are especially pertinent today as we wage a new kind of war in the Middle East.

An October 2001 editorial cartoon by Jim Borgman of the Cincinnati Enquirer, captioned "How to Terrorize the Taliban," included a panel depicting a horrified Taliban being bombarded by tomes from above, including Chicken Soup for the Taliban Soul; it bears the label "Bomb them with books" (Borgman, 2001). While the organization, Franklin Publications, was a product of a cold, rather than a shooting, war, it was born not only of a belief that developing countries had both a need and a desire for American books but that the interests of the United States and even of world peace could be served by the publication of quality American books in the wide variety of languages of the Muslim world. As one New York Times Book Review writer said in 1952 of the importance of Franklin Publications, "No one pretends that you can shoot books out of cannons, but there is a passionate hope that if you make ideas work for democracy you won't have to shoot the cannons at all" (Dempsey, 1952).

Publishing American values: the Franklin Book Programs as Cold War cultural diplomacy

Library Trends, Wntr, 2007 by Louise S. Robbins

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