HistoryAtState

Stephen W. Bosworth, former Special Representative for North Korea Policy and Ambassador to Tunisia, the Philippines, and South Korea, died on January 4.

Ambassador Bosworth gave an oral history interview to the Office of the Historian in 2012, in which he touched on his legacy and time in East Asia. When asked about what he felt were some of his successes as Special Representative, he said: “I think we were able to bring coherence to the policy process—a sort of a relentless pursuit of a dialogue with the North Koreans that might not have been present otherwise.  I think we did very importantly maintain very good communication and coordination with our partners in the Six-Party process, particularly the South Koreans.  And out of all of this, one of the signal accomplishments, I think—not just of the North Korea Special Representative, but of the Administration—has been a great strengthening of what was already a good relationship between the U.S. and South Korea.”

Bosworth spoke of his sole official visit to North Korea: “As special representative, I only went there once.  I had been there a couple of times in the preceding years.  I was there when I was doing KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) twice.  It’s a very depressing place—very bleak.  It’s profoundly gray in all its aspects.  There’s very little green.  There’s been substantial erosion of most of the land out in the countryside.  It reminds me of what I used to imagine it would’ve been like living in George Orwell’s 1984.  It really is indescribably oppressed.” 

On the question of how much of a direct threat he believed North Korea posed to the United States, Bosworth was very pointed: “As a direct threat, almost none.  But as an indirect threat, through the possibility of instability in this vital region through pressure on our important economic and security ally, South Korea, I think there is a threat.  Now at some point, one could argue that if they continue to develop their long-range missiles and they make progress on weaponizing their North—their nuclear capabilities, then they could become an actual threat.  That’s not something that keeps me up at night.” 

What should I have done? More than 30,000 people, in fact the best and most qualified people from the [German Democratic Republic], left the country in July. You can easily calculate when the East German economy would have collapsed if we hadn’t done something soon against the mass flight. There were, though, only two kinds of countermeasures: cutting off air traffic or the Wall. The former would have brought us to a serious conflict with the United States which possibly could have led to war. I could not and did not want to risk that. So the Wall was the only remaining option.

—Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

It was an act of desperation, a “hateful thing,” in Khrushchev’s words, but the East German leadership had been pleading with their Soviet allies for months to take action against the refugee flow, and finally the situation had become intolerable. Berlin had been a breeding ground for crises since the earliest days of the Cold War; this latest round had begun with the Vienna Summit with Khrushchev and President John F. Kennedy in early June 1961. There Khrushchev demanded that Berlin be transformed into a demilitarized free city, a move that he considered recognition of the de facto status of Germany in the aftermath of WWII. Kennedy rejected this demand, convinced that a U.S. withdrawal from Berlin would cause devastating harm to the credibility of the United States.

The failure of the summit heightened fears of the East German populace that they might lose the option to cross the border, and so the flow of refugees increased—17,791 in May, 19,198 in June, then an acceleration to over 1000 per day in July and early August. The flow of skilled workers across the border threatened to destroy the East German economy. Finally on July 6, Khrushchev gave in to the long-standing East German plea that the Soviets seal the border to West Berlin. Khrushchev was concerned not just with the U.S. response, but with the East Germans’ willingness to confine the action to East German territory. “Not a millimeter farther,” he emphasized to East German leader Walter Ulbricht.

The decision triggered a remarkable preparatory stage. Closure would require a massive assembly of materiel, meticulous planning, and careful timing, all under conditions of absolute secrecy. Beyond the creation of physical barriers to movement, the East Germans executed planning on shutting down the vast range of transportation systems then active across the city. The Soviets and East Germans adjusted their military posture, both in command relations—transferring the control of the East German forces to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany— and in a quiet reinforcement and upgrade of Soviet troops in Germany. All was aimed at having the East Germans control the front lines of the borders, with the Soviets providing massive backup.

In early August, at a meeting of the leaders of the Warsaw Pact states in Moscow, the Soviets and East Germans informed their allies of the planned action in Berlin. There Khrushchev offered Ulbricht the opportunity to decide when to close the border. From the first days of planning the action, the East Germans had expected to execute the closure on a Sunday, when Western response would be delayed and many Berliners would be out of the city. Now Ulbricht and Khrushchev set the date for the night of August 12–13. “The date for beginning of border control,” Khrushchev later recalled, “was to be August 13, 1961. We kidded among ourselves that in the West the thirteenth is supposed to be an unlucky day. I joked that for us and for the entire socialist camp it would be a very lucky day indeed.”

Neither of the leaders underestimated the risks they were taking with this dramatic action. Ulbricht feared that the West would respond with an economic blockade; he and Khrushchev pressed the other Warsaw Pact allies to provide aid to the East Germans. In the best traditions of alliance relations, the allies responded unenthusiastically to the request for aid, all emphasizing their own economic problems. They were aware as well of the threat of military action, a threat that Khrushchev considered limited but could not entirely discount.

Ulbricht returned to Berlin, and on August 7 reported on the Warsaw Pact conference to the Politburo. There he announced the timing for the border control measure as the final preparations began. The Soviets and East Germans conducted a last joint planning meeting the day before the closing, and the Soviet representative, Ambassador Mikhail Pervukhin, took this last opportunity to emphasize the importance of not taking this action too far: “If something goes wrong,” he commented to Ulbricht, “we’ll both lose our heads.” Ulbricht signed the orders to close the border at 4 p.m. on August 12, and the operation began at midnight.  As Hope Harrison wrote, “the East Germans started by securing the border with barbed wire, but then added concrete blocks, guard towers, mine strips, dogs, and a shoot-to-kill ban. Free movement on foot, by car, truck, tram, and boat from East to West Berlin was terminated.” Four days later concrete blocks began to appear, eventually growing out into the massive wall that persisted for the decades ahead.

The extensive planning and preparation by the Soviets and East Germans were remarkably effective in preserving operational security. The Western allies and the United States were taken entirely by surprise. The reaction was further complicated by the need to operate in concert with the allies in different forums, with all the players unwilling to risk war or serious economic conflict. A meeting among the Four Power Ambassadorial Steering Group the day following the closure explored the options available in response—diplomatic protests, limitations on travel, limitations on cultural exchanges, and so on. All agreed that “propaganda exploitation” would be the most important response, and the British provided a list of themes that were accepted by the other powers.

Mayor Willy Brandt wrote President Kennedy a personal letter two days after the wall went up, and Kennedy responded on August 18. Kennedy conceded that there were “no steps available to us which can force a significant material change in this present situation. Since it represents a resounding confession of failure and of political weakness, this brutal border closing evidently represents a basic Soviet decision which only war could reverse. Neither you nor we, nor any of our Allies, have ever supposed that we should go to war on this point.”  Kennedy chose to respond through a reinforcement of the American garrison in Berlin, and through an acceleration of the military buildup already in progress.

In the end, the “propaganda exploitation” was in fact the most important response, and it maintained its power through the remaining decades of the Cold War. As the infrastructure of the Wall spread, and the casualties mounted, and as the images of East Germans shot while attempting to escape to the West multiplied, the Wall became an iconic symbol of the vast differences between the Soviet bloc and the West. Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan used the Wall as a backdrop for some of the most memorable remarks in modern American diplomatic history. Finally it was the fall of the Wall on November 9, 1989, that marked the end of the Cold War, as the unceasing impulse of the East German people to find freedom finally overcame the willingness of their leaders to impose control by force.

Sources:

Hope M. Harrison. Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. See especially pages 182–223.

On May 5, 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed former President Herbert Hoover as his personal representative at that year’s Brussels Universal and International Exhibition. Hoover was well-known to the Belgian people as the head of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium during the First World War. Unlike previous trips he made to the country, he joked in 1958, “this was a happier occasion.”[1] 

Herbert Hoover, January 11, 1917, Photo Credit: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library & Museum, 

Hoover and his delegation, which included Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert D. Murphy, a former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium (1949-52), arrived in Brussels on July 3. The next day, Hoover spoke “On American Ideals,” then marked “Hoover Day” on July 5 by speaking “On the Commission for the Relief of Belgium.” In praising the unprecedented organization that pioneered famine relief efforts in the twentieth century, Hoover said, 

“This is an occasion and a setting which reaches into the depths of our memories and our emotions. Here in this very room at this very table we worked together for long years in the First World War. Here we managed the supply of food for 10,000,000 people. We cared for the ill, the aged and the destitute. And beyond that our organizations sustained the morale, the unity and the spiritual strength of a people during those four dreadful years. My visit today to Belgium is a happier one for me than for any of your visitors.”[2] 

The former president culled his memories of those dark wartime years. In one incident, he recalled, a woman in charge of a soup kitchen told him, “the emblem of Belgium is now a child carrying a soup bucket.” The woman noted with pride that Belgians made the best soup on Earth. “And that is still true today,” he told the audience, “but you do not need a bucket to get it.”[3]

Hoover noted the lasting dividends from that experience. “The Belgian Relief Organization was unprecedented in history,” he said. “It pioneered the war Food Administrations in the modern world. It pioneered the methods of relief of great famines.”[4] 

By 1958, the emphasis on food was no longer solely about survival—instead, it was increasingly celebrated as a cultural endeavor. At the Brussels Exposition, the Brass Rail Restaurant introduced fairgoers to regional American cuisines. One popular highlight was a drugstore soda fountain that served ice creams and sodas. 

[1] “Hoover Comes Home, Praises U.S. Pavilion,” Washington Post and Times Herald, July 7, 1958, A3 

[2] Herbert Hoover, “On the Commission for the Relief of Belgium: Address Delivered in Brussels to the Belgian People on the Occasion of "Hoover Day" [July 5, 1958],” in Addresses Upon the American Road, 1955-60, (Caldwell, Idaho, 1961), 45. 

[3] Ibid, 48. 

[4] Ibid, 50. 

The Haiti Exposition of 1949, “Peace and Progress,” celebrated the bicentennial of Port-au-Prince’s founding and was the first time that an officially-designated world’s fair was held in the Caribbean. The first section of the exposition opened on December 8, 1949, during which President of Haiti Dumarsais Estimé dedicated the exposition’s main thoroughfare as “Boulevard Harry S. Truman.” 

Plaque on Truman Boulevard in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Credit : Harry S. Truman Library & Museum 

Although the U.S. President was unable to attend, he sent a message, which was delivered by U.S. Ambassador to Haiti William de Courcy at 3:30p.m, 

“I felicitate Your Excellency in the name of the people of the United States, and through you the Haitian people, upon the inauguration of this Exposition which commemorates the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city of Port-au-Prince. On an occasion so auspicious, Haiti can well look back with pride upon two centuries of history during which she won and has retained her independence as the second oldest republic of this hemisphere.”[1] 

 The exposition’s second portion, which featured international showcases, was inaugurated on February 12, 1950, the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln. The date was selected by the Haitians, “as a tribute to the man who freed the slaves in the vast country to the north.”[2]

Read the message of condolence sent by D. Bruno, Secretary and Acting Chargé of the Haitian Legation near the Government of the United States upon learning of Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. 

[1] “Haiti Inaugurates Bicentennial; Names Street for President Truman,” Department of State Bulletin, December 19, 1949, 945-6 

[2] “Haiti Honors Lincoln in Opening World’s Fair,” Christian Science Monitor, February 11, 1950. 

Despite the gathering clouds of war around the globe in 1938, Secretary of State Cordell Hull commended the planned 1939 New York Exposition as a tool to advance peace. By the fall of 1938, 62 nations and the League of Nations indicated that they would participate or be officially represented in the fair—despite the withdrawal of the German Third Reich earlier that year (citing financial constraints).[1] 

Secretary of State Cordell Hull, February 1939. Photo Credit: Library of Congress, Print and Photograph Division, Washington DC 

 The “World of Tomorrow” opened to the public on May 1, 1939, and celebrated, in part, the sesquicentennial of the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States. On May 20, the first regularly scheduled air route between the United States and Europe was inaugurated by a Pan American Airways “flying boat,” the Yankee Clipper.[2] The airliner departed from Port Washington, Long Island, on the twelve-year anniversary of the first nonstop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris undertaken by Charles Lindbergh. Before heading east over the Atlantic Ocean, the Yankee Clipper passed over the Aviation Building at the World’s Fair grounds. 

 Rather than serving as a harbinger of peace, the fair’s fall season was marred by the spread of war. Secretary Hull, speaking during the celebration of Pan American Day at the New York Exposition on September 22, nevertheless called on those states not yet embroiled in conflict to continue pressing for peaceful international relations: 

“Less than a quarter of a century ago, 12 of our American republics were involved in a world war. When that ordeal ended, all of us were determined to devote our best efforts toward the establishment of a world order in which recourse to war as an instrument of accomplishing national aims would be unthinkable….Now that a major war in Europe is a grim reality, there is greater necessity than ever before for all nations, still in a position to do so, to increase their exertions for the preservation of those fundamental principles of civilized international relations, through the application of which alone, we of the Americas are firmly convinced, the progress of the human race can be maintained. There is no other basis of enduring peace, of cultural and material advancement for nations and for individuals, of social and political institutions founded upon human freedom and the dignity of the human soul.”[3] 

 [1] “Hull Praises Fair as Force for Peace: Felicitates Whalen on Report,” New York Times, February 4, 1938, 23. 

[2] “Clipper at Azores as First Airliner with Europe Mail,” New York Times, May 21, 1939, 1. 

The voyage of the USS Jason was a charitable endeavor. Thanks to an initiative by Chicago writer Lilian Bell, the collier, known as the “Christmas Ship,” brought gifts to war orphans in Europe in November and December 1914. After it deposited its original cargo, the Jason loaded materials for its return voyage: artwork from war-torn Europe destined for exhibit at the 1915 world’s fair in San Francisco. Thanks to the quick coordination of U.S. diplomats and consuls, paintings, sculpture, and other items of fine art from Belgium, France, Italy, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Greece, and Spain made their way to California aboard the Jason, a cargo insured at $3,500,00.[1] 

“Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World’s Fair at San Francisco,” Photo Credit: Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Washington, D.C 

The exposition, known as the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. Despite the somber background of war around the globe, the PPIE opened on February 1915. One of the fair’s themes was food. The Palace of Food Products showcased an array of flavors that year, captured by Linie Loyall McLaren’s The Panama-Pacific Cookbook. The nearly 200-page collection, subtitled “Savory Bits from the World’s Fare,” contained recipes from 60 countries and represented the diversity of displays at the PPIE.

The San Francisco Exposition closed in November 1915. The artwork, however, did not immediately return to war-torn Europe. Instead, the treasures that the Jason carried to the New World were exhibited in U.S. cities including Brooklyn, Toledo, Des Moines, St. Louis, and Minneapolis. Read about how San Francisco won the 1915 exposition: “Fair Fight,” U.S. House of Representatives History Office. 

[1] Frank M. Todd, The Story of the Exposition, Volume 2, (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1921), 140. 

Today, the Office of the Historian is proud to announce our second quarterly “mass launch” of digital Foreign Relations of the United States publications, as we work toward the complete publication of our back catalog, extending back to 1861. This salvo includes sixteen volumes documenting the tumultuous early post-WWII years, beginning with the conferences at Malta and Yalta in 1945, and extending through 1951, as the contours of the Cold War were being drawn. 

The Yalta Foreign Relations volume, produced in response to a Congressional request for accelerated coverage of Franklin Roosevelt’s wartime diplomacy, represented a watershed for the series when it was first published in 1955. In producing the volume, Department of State historians pursued expanded access to significant records held by other government agencies. Although the Foreign Relations series remained focused on Department of State records for another generation, the Yalta volume began a long process of broadening coverage to incorporate essential documents held by other parts of the U.S. Government. 

The release of these publications represents a long-term partnership between the University of Wisconsin Madison Digital Collections Center and the Office of the Historian in a program to digitize the entire Foreign Relations series, and post these earlier volumes for public access at history.state.gov. To date, the digitization initiative has resulted in the publication of about 270 volumes—over half of the entire back catalog—of the Foreign Relations series. In general, we are publishing the volumes in reverse chronological order, with adjustments based on high-interest events and volumes—for example, we prioritized the release of the Lincoln condolence volume to commemorate his death on April 14, and volumes documenting U.S. diplomacy in the first days of World War I to coincide with the centennial of that war’s beginning. 

Future publications will move further into the back catalog, and we look forward to announcing their release in future quarters. The full list of volumes released today is below, with links to the online and ebook versions of these volumes. Researchers may also be interested in accessing the raw data for each volume; this can be found on our GitHub site.

Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers 

Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948 

Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, Volume IV 

The Far East and Australasia, Volume VI 

The Western Hemisphere, Volume IX

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949 

The Far East: China, Volume IX

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950 

Central and Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, Volume IV 

The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V 

East Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI 

Korea, Volume VII

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951 

The United Nations; the Western Hemisphere, Volume II 

European Security and the German Question, Volume III, Part 1 

European Security and the German Question, Volume III, Part 2 

Europe: Political and Economic Developments, Volume IV, Part 1 

Europe: Political and Economic Developments, Volume IV, Part 2 

Korea and China, Volume VII, Part 1 

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in St. Louis, Missouri, opened to the public on April 30, 1904. One of the largest international world fairs of the pre-World War One era, the event celebrated the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. Government’s acquisition of land from France and subsequent expansion westward.

An enchanted city, the St. Louis Exposition at night. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

On May 19, Secretary of State John Hay gave a speech to the press gathered at the exposition. In celebrating “this great festival of peace and of progress,” the St. Louis native (and former newspaperman) fondly recalled,

“The years of my boyhood were passed on the banks of the Mississippi, and the great river was the scene of my early dreams. The boys of my day led an amphibious life in and near its waters in the summer time, and in the winter its dazzling ice bridge of incomparable beauty and purity, was our favorite playground; while our imaginations were busy with the glamour and charm of the distant cities of the South, with their alluring French names and their legends of stirring adventure and pictures of perpetual summer.” [1]

Forty countries accepted invitations by the U.S. Government to attend, participate, or be represented in the St. Louis Exposition. Among the foreign exhibits were mosaics from Austria, a “collection of Royal presents” and ostrich feathers from Great Britain, fruits and fish from Canada, “liquors and sirups” from Haiti, cocoa from Peru, and game from New Zealand. Brazil’s display included elements highlighting its “coffee culture” while Ceylon shared its “tea culture” and spices.[2]

[1] “Address of the Secretary of State at the Opening of the Press Parliament of the World, at St. Louis, on May 19, 1904,” (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), 2.

[2] International Expositions, (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912), 14-15.

On April 27, 1893, President Grover Cleveland and his Cabinet boarded a special 4:30pm train in Washington, D.C., bound ultimately for Chicago and the opening ceremonies of the Columbian Exposition. Accompanying the President was noted Civil War hero, former Postmaster General, Secretary of the Treasury, judge, and, as of that March, U.S. Secretary of State Walter Quintin Gresham. The presidential convoy arrived in Chicago on April 29 and the following day President Cleveland officially opened the exposition to the fanfare of thousands. Secretary Gresham was amongst those on the presidential grandstand that morning.

Crowds of people at the opening day of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

After the official duties were completed, the President, Secretary Gresham, and others retired to a café on the fairgrounds for lunch. The Duke of Veragua, a descendant of Christopher Columbus and an honored guest of the United States at the exposition, was part of the 70-person luncheon party.

In 1892, the United States invited the descendants of Christopher Columbus to attend the Columbian Exposition in Chicago the following year. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1892-93, 498.

In a room reportedly filled with fragrant flowers and green plants, guests ate softshell crab consommé, julienned potatoes, cucumbers, roast beef with mushroom sauce, French peas, potatoes hollandaise, broiled snipe on bacon, and celery and potato salad. Dessert included strawberries and cream, cheese and crackers, and coffee. The meal was washed down with “Roman punch” and champagne. [1]

[1] “Presidential Party Takes Lunch,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 2, 1893, 1.

The United States was a regular and favorite contributor at World Expositions by the late nineteenth century, particularly at the Paris 1889 fair. The event fêted the centennial of the French Revolution and the growth of democracy. As such, many monarchies in Europe were wary of participating in an official capacity--but not France’s sister republic.

The (smaller) Statue of Liberty was inaugurated on July 4, 1889, during the Paris Exposition

Participation was comprehensive from the outset, not just for American exhibitors, but also for U.S. diplomats. Although nearing the end of his tour of duty, U.S. Minister to France Robert McLane attended the May 6 opening festivities. That afternoon, he was the sole diplomat on the viewing platform decked out in austere black. McLane attended other opening events in Paris and Versailles before turning over charge of U.S. diplomatic affairs to his successor, Whitelaw Reid. The new U.S. Minister to France presented his credentials to the French Foreign Ministry on May 15, the same day that the Eiffel Tower opened to the public.

Gustave Eiffel’s masterpiece was one of the fair’s main attractions, but another Parisian landmark was also launched during the 1889 exposition. On July 4, French President Sadi Carnot inaugurated a Statue of Liberty on the Ile des Cygnes in the Seine River. Reid praised the smaller-scale Bartholdi statue as a symbol of enduring Franco-American amité, born out of the American and French revolutions. He then boarded one of seven boats that transported invited individuals to the Hôtel de Ville for a luncheon in honor of the event.

The 1876 Philadelphia Exposition, officially known as the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, celebrated the republic’s centennial. As early as July 1873, the Department of State extended invitations to foreign governments to attend and participate in the festivities. Thirty-seven countries accepted, of which 11 constructed buildings on the centennial fair grounds. The exhibition served not only to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but also announced the emergence of the United States on the world’s stage.

President Grant declaring the exhibition open at the centennial at Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, 1876. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

The fair’s opening day, May 10, 1876, drew thousands of spectators and notable VIPs. President Ulysses S. Grant and Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil convoked the exposition. The Brazilian Emperor was only the second foreign head of state to make an official visit to the United States. During the opening ceremonies, U.S. and foreign dignitaries jostled for space on the overcrowded viewing platform. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish “elbowed the Austrian Minister” while other ambassadors, ministers, and politicians fought for space.[1] 

Philadelphia 1876 also introduced the United States as a major industrial power. Agricultural products and produce were featured regularly, and included a butcher’s parade, special displays for strawberries, butters, and cheeses, and a late fall poultry exhibit. C.K. Bullock from Philadelphia showcased flour mill machinery, the Chase Elevator Company demonstrated its grain elevator and conveyer, and countless spice grinding and coffee roasting devices, reapers, mowers, egg beaters, and ice cream freezers and churns were on view.[2] Some of the more notable manufactured U.S. food products were the American Sardine Company of New York’s boneless sardines, wines, champagnes, and brandies from New York and California, and canned fruits and vegetables.

[1] “Centennial: Successful Opening of the Philadelphia Exposition,” Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1876, 1

[2] See International Exhibition, 1876. Official Catalogue, (Philadelphia: John R. Nagle and Company, 1876). 

Following the U.S. Civil War, Secretary of State William Seward lobbied President Andrew Johnson to partake in the Paris Expo of 1867. Seward emphasized that it was in the country’s best economic interest to do so. Moreover, participation would reaffirm the country’s unity and ideals, important considerations as nationalism and the push for greater democracy marked the Western world.

View of the Paris Exposition of 1867 showing waterfront, main exhibit building, and balloon flying in the distance.  Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

The Universal Exposition of 1867 was held against the backdrop of a changing European landscape. Throughout the exposition’s tenure, April through November, U.S. Minister to France John Adams Dix reported to Washington about unrest in Central Europe as the Italian and German unification movements gained momentum. Dix also reported on the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II in the Bois de Boulogne that June: like many European monarchs, the Russian Emperor attended the exhibition while in Paris.

U.S. involvement not only served to demonstrate the Union’s desire for post-war stability, it also provided new opportunities for American food vendors: the production and sale of food for on-site consumption. According to the Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, introduction of “café restaurants as an element of international competition” at that year’s event was “a happy thought.”[1] Boston firm Dows & Guild ran a bar and restaurant which introduced American-style cocktails (noggs, smashes, and eye openers) and dishes (green corn, stewed oysters, and soft shell crabs) to the international public.

Some were disappointed. As honorary U.S. Commissioner W. E. Johnston wrote, “we had anticipated being called upon to taste horse, dog, and bear, swallows’ nests, sharks’ fins, fish-worms, grasshoppers, and sea-lions.”[2] But the American restaurant had an overwhelming success: its cream sodas, manufactured and sold in Europe for the first time. This unique “American specialty” was popular with the everyday fairgoer as well as with the royalty of Europe, who “often partook of the delicious draught.” Perhaps Dix and other members of the U.S. Legation in Paris also imbibed the bubbly delight.[3]

The following is part of our United States at the World Expo series, which spotlights U.S. participation in selected BIE-designated fairs over time.

The London 1851 Exposition at the newly-constructed Crystal Palace demonstrated the benefits and predicaments of official participation in such global displays of industry, agriculture, technology, and culture. Congress authorized the USS St. Lawrence, a Navy frigate, to transport U.S. exhibitors and their materials across the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, as former U.S. Minister to St. James’ Court (and former Secretary of State) Edward Everett remarked, “our exhibitors arrived friendless” when they docked at Southampton in February 1851: Congress failed to appropriate funding for the exposition itself. There was no cash to unload displays and haul them to London, nor money to decorate the large 40,000-sq. foot exhibition space. 

The Frigate St. Lawrence, off the Isle of Wight in 1848 Credit: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command

George Peabody, an American citizen and longtime London resident, intervened. After learning of the financial predicament faced by his countrymen, Peabody sent a $15,000 donation (roughly $455,000 today) to U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom Abbott Lawrence to finance the U.S. displays. The monetary lifeline enabled exhibitors like Cyrus McCormick (reaper) to transport and showcase their wares. Many of the U.S. entries were viewed with interest and intrigue by visitors, and seen as very practical. “The leading journal at London,” Everett said, “admitted that England had derived more real benefit from the contributions of the United States than from those of any other country.” Congress eventually repaid Peabody.

Observers felt that U.S. participation also improved relations between Washington and London. At the time, less than fifty years after the British burned the White House (1814), the bilateral relationship was not as close as it later became. On October 27, Peabody hosted a dinner at the London Coffee House on Ludgate Hill, where Benjamin Franklin once dined, to mark the exposition’s conclusion. The four-hour affair, which honored Lawrence and his British counterpart in Washington, Sir Henry Bulwer-Lytton, helped to further cement transatlantic ties.

Sources:

By May 8, 1945, the day that the unconditional surrender of Germany was announced, U.S. diplomats were already working towards the postwar world. Most U.S. Embassies in formerly occupied Western Europe were reopened: one of the earliest was U.S. Embassy Brussels, which was reestablished on September 14, 1944; one of the last was U.S. Embassy The Hague, which relocated from London on August 17, 1945. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius was in San Francisco as head of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Conference. In his absence, Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew gave a radio address to mark the day’s significance that drew upon one of the republic’s revered presidents to convey the magnitude of the day and the work still ahead.

U.S. Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew Stresses “unfinished business” in the Pacific in V-E- Day broadcast. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

“The lights are going on in darkened Europe,” said Acting Secretary Grew from Washington. “Today, while we salute with reverence and pride our honored dead, let us have constantly in mind those inspired words of Lincoln,

‘It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.’”