While little about the episode could be described as amusing, a touch of sarcasm crept into Copland’s reflections, in thoughts confined to his diary. He compared the Wisconsin senator’s arrival to the “entrance of Toscanini—half the battle won before it begins through the power of personality.” McCarthy seemed to have “no idea who I was or what I did, other than the fact that I [had been] a part of the State Department’s exchange program.” In McCarthy, Copland noted, there was “a basic simplicity of purpose; power; and a simplicity of rallying cry: the Commies.” And in a prescient insight, Copland observed, “something about him suggests that he is a man who doesn’t really expect his luck to hold out. It’s been too phenomenal . . . and too recklessly achieved.” The musician likened the senator to a religious leader. When he “touches on his magic theme, the ‘Commies’ or ‘communism,’ his voice darkens like that of a minister.” Most significantly, Copland recorded his belief in his own innocence and, implicitly, in America. “[M]y conscience was clear,” he told his diary. In “a free America I had a right to affiliate openly with whom I pleased; to sign protests, statements, appeals, open letters, petitions, sponsor events . . . and no one had the right to question those affiliations.”161
In the months after his interrogation, the composer’s loyalty was subject to further scrutiny, as the federal government, academic institutions, and even a performing organization seemed convinced that his past activities were questionable. Although he would not be called to testify in public, the composer had his passport rescinded by the State Department, as the agency did not issue passports to those under subpoena. To visit Mexico, which, in those days, did not require having a passport, the composer had to give a sworn statement to a notary, declaring he was not a Communist. After that, the passport issue dogged Copland for several years, leading to countless expensive and time-consuming meetings and exchanges with his lawyers. Ultimately, his passport was reinstated, but not before he was compelled to provide evidence, which the passport office demanded, of his affiliation with anti-Communist organizations, along with affidavits from citizens who would vouch for his “pro-American position on various current issues,” the best of which was supplied by Olga Koussevitzky, the conductor’s widow.162
Passport difficulties aside, the composer, who had been in demand as a lecturer and conductor for many years, faced other challenges in the wake of his encounter with McCarthy. The first arose when the University of Alabama, where Copland had been invited to speak and to conduct at a three-day event, rescinded its invitation, telling him that “allegations of Communist sympathies . . . and the inaugural concert affair in Washington [made] it inadvisable for us to have you as our guest.” Responding, Copland wrote to Gurney Kennedy, the chairman of the Composers’ Forum Committee and the person with whom he had been in touch about the appearance. He spoke of the “loss of academic independence that such an action implies” and, referring to Congressman Busbey, Copland asserted that “freedom of thought [was] endangered in America if a large university . . . can be intimidated by the allegations of a single individual.” In his message, Copland said it was crucial that he and Kennedy maintain the right to discuss music with students “without fear of interference on alleged political grounds.”163
Further problems emerged out west, where Copland was scheduled to conduct the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl, only to be uninvited when several of the facility’s board members expressed disapproval over his political leanings. The University of Colorado likewise withdrew an invitation for a lecture Copland had been asked to deliver. Though the university offered no reason for the cancellation, Copland learned a few months later that his affiliations with Communist-front organizations led to the decision.164 On a far larger stage, in broadcasting a performance of A Lincoln Portrait in honor of the sixteenth president’s birthday, the namesake host of The Ed Sullivan Show failed to identify the man who had composed the music his television audience had just heard. For this “oversight,” Sullivan was taken to task by the composer William Schuman, who wrote to tell him it was distressing that Sullivan had not mentioned the most important thing about the composition, “namely, that it was composed by Aaron Copland.”165
While occasional efforts to silence Copland still surfaced into the 1960s, as in Rutland, Vermont, in 1967 when a letter to a local paper took exception to his proposed appearance with the Buffalo Philharmonic, by the second half of the 1950s, with the intensity of the Red Scare dissipating, Copland was, by and large, back in the good graces of the academic and music communities. As his past political affiliations became less problematic, he was often invited to lecture and conduct across the country.166 In 1961, Copland joined a group of artists and intellectuals at the Kennedy White House to hear cellist Pablo Casals, and the composer’s status as a cultural icon seemed beyond dispute when his music was heard at the 1973 inauguration of Richard Nixon, a politician with unassailable anti-Communist credentials.167
Despite the renewed enthusiasm for Copland’s work, one should not lose sight of the fact that after the war, the world of classical music in the United States became entangled in the developing tensions between Moscow and Washington, and ensnared by the pervasive notion that communism threatened the nation’s safety. If the precise nature of the peril was unclear—was it a geopolitical threat endangering Europe and Asia, an ideological threat endangering America at home, or some combination of the two?—by the latter half of the 1940s, a new adversary had emerged. This development, which would shape both international politics and American society for more than forty years, would inform the contours of the nation’s musical life. Whether one considers the extensive coverage of Soviet musical culture, which revealed the oppressive character of the Stalin regime; the ideological tensions exposed by the Waldorf conference, where a tormented Dmitri Shostakovich grabbed the nation’s attention; or the hounding of Aaron Copland, the geopolitical tensions and domestic anxieties of the postwar era permeated the classical-music community.
At a time when that community became inseparable from the insecurities unleashed by the Cold War, some of America’s leading musical institutions would be drawn into the struggle, becoming “diplomatic instruments” in the effort to counter the threat of communism. Over the next several years, as we shall see, America’s finest symphony orchestras would become key players on the world stage, their overseas tours serving as a novel form of Cold War weaponry.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Khrushchev Wouldn’t Know a B-flat if He Heard One”
Symphony Orchestras Fight the Cold War
THE PERFORMANCE WAS RIVETING, the setting was splendid, and the language Leonard Bernstein used to describe the experience underscored the idea that classical music might play a part in building a more compassionate and cooperative world. It would be “thrilling,” Bernstein declared, if “we knew we would never again have to indulge the brutal sin of war-making. . . . Instead of wasting our energies in hostility and our wealth on weaponry . . . we could feed and house and clothe everyone forever. . . . If our musical mission . . . [has contributed] to that eventual state of affairs, we are humbly grateful.”1 The words were spoken by the New York Philharmonic’s conductor after leading his orchestra in a performance in Moscow on September 11, 1959, as part of a ten-week US-government-sponsored tour to Europe. For the distinguished maestro, art and politics had long been intertwined, and like many who embraced the idea of musical universalism, he was certain classical music could strengthen the bonds among people across the world. More specifically, Bernstein believed classical music could empower Americans and Russians to transcend the forces that divided them. He was convinced that a performance by a superb symphony orchestra could have a constructive impact on those made insecure by the East-West competition.
Without question, Bernstein was rejecting the reigning conventions of Cold War America in an era when the power and authority of the national security state were increasing dramatically. To his Russian audience and
to countless Americans at home (the 1959 concert was taped and televised soon afterward), Bernstein advocated peace while US policy makers prepared for war, and he extolled the virtues of international cooperation even as many in Washington believed it would be folly for the United States to drop its guard against an aggressive foe. It is ironic that Leonard Bernstein came to play this role, as he had been targeted for years by government investigators because of his left-wing beliefs and affiliations. Nevertheless, he became a key participant in a Cold War program sponsored by the US government, which aimed to advance the country’s diplomatic goals.2
While Bernstein spoke eloquently about achieving international cooperation through music, US-government officials saw things differently, embracing, instead, a form of musical nationalism in the belief that American symphony orchestras could help the United States prevail in the East-West struggle. During the Eisenhower years, policy makers were less moved by the notion that distinguished ensembles could foster intercultural understanding or global cooperation than by the conviction that a brilliant concert by an American orchestra could fortify the nation’s position with its allies and provide sonic ammunition that could be used against its adversaries. Consequently, the government sent symphony orchestras around the world as part of a Cold War arts offensive that sought to display the fruits of liberal democracy to friend and foe. With their extraordinary sound and matchless virtuosity, America’s symphonic ensembles would show the world that the United States was capable of high achievement in the cultural realm. Government officials hoped people overseas would recognize that America could do more than make big-budget movies for mass audiences or bloated automobiles for American suburbanites. Propelled by this nationalistic vision, America’s “diplomatic instruments” were sent to Europe, Asia, and Latin America, subsidized by a government that believed violins and trumpets could help win the Cold War.
As the symphonic tours make clear, the East-West conflict was not simply a competition to see which nation could produce the most destructive tanks or the most accurate missiles. Just as the two systems competed for military superiority, they vied for artistic and cultural supremacy, which meant the concert hall became a setting in which to deploy American power.3
In these years, a number of America’s most distinguished musical organizations would help implement a key foreign-policy initiative by devoting considerable energy to foreign travel. And while those who worked for America’s orchestras undoubtedly supported the country’s diplomatic objectives, the symphonic community was less animated by a desire to advance the national interest than by the belief that music had the power to heal the rifts opened by the East-West struggle. Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, conductors, musicians, and orchestra administrators, along with members of the press and public, embraced the notion that classical music could help bridge the differences between people. As musical universalists, they believed the act of performing classical music overseas and of listening to those performances could create a communal experience, which could transform how people across the world interacted upon leaving the shared space of the concert hall.
On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died after collapsing at his dacha a few days before. With his passing, some political leaders began to consider the idea that world politics might be on the cusp of a more cooperative phase.4 In the uncertain weeks after the new leadership came to power in Moscow, a US State Department figure observed that one saw “more Soviet gestures toward the West than at any other similar period.”5 Having just assumed the presidency, Dwight Eisenhower recognized that the new Soviet leadership had begun waging a worldwide peace campaign, which convinced him it was essential for the United States to respond to Moscow’s novel tactics.
Whether or not the post-Stalin moment represented a genuine chance for Washington to improve relations with Moscow, US policy makers began to conceptualize and implement a new approach toward the Soviet Union.6 Significantly, the beginning of the post-Stalin era coincided with the start of a Republican administration, which was determined to pursue a foreign policy different from that of its Democratic predecessors. That new approach to the Soviet Union created space for cultural initiatives, which, it was hoped, would advance America’s interests around the world.
On April 16, Eisenhower addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors, delivering a speech titled “A Chance for Peace.” The “free world,” the president said, was focused on one central question: “the chance for a just peace for all peoples.” The former general considered the cost of the arms race in distinctly human terms: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” He looked toward a time when the world’s peoples might no longer have to live beneath “the cloud of threatening war.” With Stalin’s death, it was possible, the president observed, that a new era had arrived.7
While some have argued that Eisenhower’s April address was mainly a propaganda exercise, the president’s language suggests a degree of urgency within the administration.8 If nothing else, the new president and his advisers were determined to counter the Soviet strategy that had enabled Moscow to position itself as the great power most willing to escape the constraints of the Cold War. Indeed, between 1953 and 1955, the Russians increased by a factor of three the number of dance groups, theater companies, and musical organizations they exported to other countries.9 At mid-decade, the United States was subject to this Soviet cultural invasion when, in October 1955, pianist Emil Gilels traveled to America, where he thrilled audiences and astonished critics. One month later, violinist David Oistrakh landed in America, where his performances were also rapturously received.10 For American policy makers, these remarkable tours belied Moscow’s so-called willingness to search for a peaceful resolution to the Cold War, betraying, instead, an effort to convince the world that the Soviet Union was blessed with a rich creative culture, which, when compared with that of the United States, would incline others to emulate the Communist model.11
In this context, the Eisenhower administration began to construct a foreign policy that elevated the importance of cultural matters. Writing to his brother, the president spoke about the negative image the world had of the United States. He worried that “Europeans ha[d] been taught that we are a race of materialists, whose only diversions are golf, baseball, football, [and] horseracing.” Foreign people knew America for its automobiles, rather than for “worthwhile cultural works.” Some saw Americans as “bombastic” and “jingoistic,” the president asserted, which was harmful in the context of the East-West struggle.12 Cultural diplomacy thus became one way to combat such negative perceptions.13
On July 27, 1954, President Eisenhower sent a letter to the House Committee on Appropriations stating the administration’s belief in the importance of culture in the conduct of American foreign policy. “I consider it essential,” he wrote, “that we take immediate and vigorous action to demonstrate the superiority of the products and cultural values of our system.”14 The following month, the Congress passed Public Law 663, which gave birth to the President’s Emergency Fund for International Affairs. The $5 million fund was divided into three categories: Approximately half was allocated to the Commerce Department to develop US involvement in international trade fairs. Another $2,250,000 was channeled to the State Department to support overseas cultural presentations, including dance, music, theater, and sports. The remainder went to the United States Information Agency to publicize overseas cultural presentations.15
Throughout the mid-1950s, Congress debated the merits of this approach. These wide-ranging discussions shed light on how policy makers understood the nature of the struggle against communism and suggest that government officials believed exporting American culture could help the United States win the Cold War.16
In a 1954 hearing of a special subcommittee to the House Committee on Education and Labor, Congressman Albert Bosch of New
York considered the status of the United States in the eyes of others: “We are losing a great propaganda battle to the Communists,” who claim America is culturally deficient.17 According to the committee’s minority report, all the witnesses who had come before the panel had noted that the Soviets had undertaken an enormous “cultural offensive against the United States” in which they presented themselves as “the cradle of culture,” while picturing American citizens as “gum-chewing, insensitive, materialistic barbarians.” According to Congressman Jacob Javits of New York, the Russians had initiated an extensive arts export program, which allowed them to portray Americans “as the people who don’t care for culture,” while they sent “violinists, pianists, [and] whole ballet companies” around the world.18 The subcommittee report quoted Robert Schnitzer, a key official in the arts exchange initiative, who contended the Communist nations, by sending their finest artists around the world, created the impression that they were “the home of great art,” while the United States, by not doing enough, was seen as “not yet quite civilized.”19
In the other congressional chamber that same year, several senators described the nature of the East-West conflict and the role cultural exports could play in helping to achieve victory:
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