Theater during the Cold War is beset by a curious paradox. Although the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall were mainly identified with restrictions in visa policies, traveling, the trading of goods, and so forth, we can observe a curious counter-tendency on the part of theater. Some productions, plays, or artists counteracted the stasis and impenetrability of the belligerent blocks. State-sponsored tours on both sides of the ideological divide functioned to transnationalize theater to a remarkable extent. Theater became mobile for the first time under the auspices of state sponsorship. This is a crucial difference to what we have so far discussed for the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The expansion of touring in this period was primarily commercial in orientation. Post war touring however, especially the state sponsored kind had a different agenda, it was as much about cultural diplomacy as it was about art or commerce. [MUSIC] Cultural diplomacy is a form of soft power. It means that governments try to gain sympathy and influence by displaying their cultural achievements. Compared to political propaganda it does not try and sell a message directly. But builds sympathy and perhaps allegiances by means of art, literature, language, and of course, theatre. It works through attraction, rather than coercion. Through books and plays, rather than by guns and embargos. Cultural diplomacy was employed onto both sides of the iron curtain, and in fact all over the world, as the great ideological struggle played out between capitalism and socialism. Between Western-style democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This became known as the Cultural Cold War, an often forgotten and covert theater of operations where the superpowers and the proxy states engaged in sustained conflict over several decades. In the USA, it was financed by a number of government bodies, including the CIA. To this end, the CIA set up a front organization called the Council for Cultural Freedom, through which it funneled tens of millions of dollars in the 1950s and 1960s. Already in the 1950s, President Eisenhower had established a special fund to support the performing arts as a weapon in the Cold War. The so-called Emergency Fund for International Affairs channeled public money into a cultural export program, which sent dance companies to Latin America, and jazz musicians to the Soviet Union. Only recently has the full extent of the CIA's involvement in the cultural matters become apparent. Via various foundations and front organizations, the CIA made a significant contribution to the funding of western arts organizations. So, that as Frances Stonor Saunders notes in her book "Who Paid The Piper?" I quote: "The CIA was, in effect, acting as America's ministry of culture." The CIA was, however, only one of a multitude of actors involved in the dissemination of theater against the background of a veritable explosion of theatrical exchanges. In which the state assumed a major, if not always directly acknowledged role. At the end of the 1950s, an international exhibition took place in Moscow, where Americans, among other technological achievements, proudly demonstrated their modern kitchens. Vice President Richard Nixon was present, and an argument ensued between him and the Soviet Party Chairman, Nikita Khrushchev. Who pronounced that "kitchens had nothing to do with culture". Khrushchev was claiming the higher moral ground, and in those days, at least, rightly so. Historian Norman Stone comments on this episode, and I quote, ""there was no question about it: Soviet high culture was far richer than American."
