The United States 1967 National Policy on International Book and Library Activities

This study reconstructs the adoption and implementation of a United States National Policy on International Book and Library Activities (NPIBLA) from primary print sources found in the U.S. archives, government publications, and files accessed through a Freedom of Information Act.

Initially cognizant of the need for change, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, assisted by Robert Kennedy, Dean Rusk and Philip Coombs boosted cultural relations and formed the Government Advisory Committee on International Book and Library Activities (GAC) to counsel the government on its overseas book programs. That legacy of the Kennedy administration continued with President Lyndon Johnson's subsequent administration. Aided by Kennedy's associates and Charles Frankel, the new Assistant Secretary of State for Education and Cultural Affairs, the Johnson administration worked with GAC and U.S. publishers to foster NPIBLA in 1967.

NPIBLA was the first concerted effort by the United States to coordinate its government, philanthropic, intergovernmental and private print cultural activities with developing nations during the Cold War era.

The impetus for NPIBLA moved Congress to endorse pending implementation legislation for the Florence and Beirut Agreements; steered the U.S. to revise treaties that propagated the international flow of information, clear its records on the Berne and Universal copyright conventions, confront issues surrounding the pirating of U.S. books abroad, review issues surrounding U.S. overseas book trade, and sort out its relations with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Once enacted, NPIBLA motivated the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to negotiate a contract with the American Library Association (ALA) that survived from 1967 to 1972.

National resentment against the Vietnam War soon overshadowed dividends from international activities ultimately forcing the Johnson administration out of office in 1968. The new Republican administration in 1968 soon concentrated on ending the Vietnam War. By curtailing U.S. international involvement, NPIBLA became inconsequential. GAC's ultimate phase out in 1977 incidentally rendered NPIBLA impotent.

This study adds to the literature of United States foreign policy, especially its print cultural relations, with developing countries, during the Cold War.