Cultural policy in a time of war: the American response to endangered books in World War II.

ABSTRACT

For the first time in U.S. history, the protection of books and other cultural resources became an official war aim during World War II. Examining the broad historical process by which this policy was formed and executed, this article focuses on three key factors: the new role of intellectual and cultural elites, who forged close ties with the state; the expansion of intelligence gathering and its unintended consequences for the preservation of cultural material; and the extraordinary actions of individual librarians, curators, and ordinary soldiers on the ground, who improvised solutions to the problems of preservation and restoration.

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In April 2003, as American combat operations in Iraq gave way to the early days of occupation, journalists reported widespread looting and damage to Iraqi museums, libraries, and archives. At a news briefing on April 11, responding to questions about the failure to protect Iraq's cultural heritage, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously replied: "Stuff happens!" Complaining about the recurring broadcast of "some boy walking out with a vase," he observed, "it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." He went on, "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that's what's going to happen here" (U.S. Department of Defense, 2003). The early reports indicated a catastrophic loss of art, archaeological artifacts, and rare manuscripts. Later investigations showed that Iraqi officials had removed many treasures for safekeeping, and that some American military officers had acted quickly to guard the National Museum and recover stolen objects (University of Pennsylvania Museum, n.d.; Bogdanos, 2005; Johnson, 2005). Still, the destruction and disorder underscored the limited forethought given to protecting such resources. Freedom and fatalism seemed to go hand in hand.

Such planning was hardly outside the realm of possibility or imagination. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a directive of December 29, 1943, during the Allied invasion of Italy, addressed the protection of "cultural monuments," by which he meant not only historical buildings and churches but also portable forms of culture, such as books and art. His words are worth quoting at length:

 
   Today we are fighting in a country which has contributed a great 
   deal to our cultural inheritance, a country rich in monuments which 
   by their creation helped and now in their old age illustrate the 
   growth of the civilization which is ours. We are bound to respect 
   those monuments so far as war allows.... Nothing can stand against 
   the argument of military necessity. That is an accepted principle. 
   But the phrase "military necessity" is sometimes used where it 
   would be more truthful to speak of military convenience or even of 
   personal convenience. I do not want it to cloak slackness or 
   indifference. (1) 

The difference is striking across sixty years--in the message, tone, and assumptions of wartime leaders, and in the policies and procedures they oversaw. There are several immediate reasons one could give for the disparity between 1943 and 2003. The most obvious is that Americans esteem European civilization as their cultural inheritance and, perhaps, as a source of cultural superiority; Islamic tradition and Arabic culture do not have such resonance. This may well be true, but it hardly explains why the government instituted a program of cultural protection during World War II and but apparently did little in the run-up to the Iraq war. Americans' Eurocentrism did not lead inevitably to Eisenhower's directive, nor were present-day policymakers and the military unaware that cultural sensitivity was necessary in Iraq.

Why, then, was cultural protection a war aim in World War II? How was a policy effected, and to what extent did it address the specific question of endangered books and libraries among other treasures? How might we comprehend these efforts--and their limits--in the social, cultural, and political currents of the 1940s? Are there insights from the World War II experience that might help us better address the challenges to books and other cultural resources in current times of crisis and war?

At the outbreak of World War II, leaders of learned societies, philanthropic foundations, research libraries, museums, and professional associations began to anticipate the impact of war on cultural resources. The Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and other institutions put in motion plans to safeguard their most treasured documents and books. The leadership of the American Library Association (ALA), with its strong internationalist bent, saw a prominent role for libraries on the home front. Indeed, when the United States entered the war, many libraries offered public programs, mounted exhibits, and created information centers on a host of issues, from defense jobs to rationing. Librarians joined those who mobilized the world of learning and culture for the national defense (Becker, 2005; Kraske, 1985; Lincove, 1991).

At this time, a small number of individuals turned their attention to the looming devastation of European culture, with the hope of finding ways to safeguard it. These were, by and large, men of the nation's intellectual and cultural elites. After the fall of France in June 1940, Harvard faculty formed the American Defense-Harvard Group to combat isolationism and provide intellectual backing and expertise for the war effort. Paul J. Sachs and George L. Stout of the Fogg Museum of Art, spurred by reports from abroad, worked with the leadership of the Metropolitan Museum and the National Gallery of Art to push for a federal commitment to protect cultural resources. David Finley, director of the National Gallery, used his political connections in the War Department, the Office of Strategic Services, and most crucially with Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Stone to approach President Franklin Roosevelt with a plan to safeguard cultural sites in war areas. The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) had begun its own discussions and established a Committee for the Protection of European Cultural Material in January 1943; led by William Bell Dinsmoor, director of the Archaeological Institute of America, its membership included Archibald MacLeish, then Librarian of Congress, and Solon Buck, archivist of the United States. It too lobbied for a commission. (2)

Roosevelt approved the plan, and in June 1943 the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, chaired by Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts, began its work. Cooperating with the Harvard Group and ACLS, the Roberts Commission provided maps and lists of cultural sites to the military and identified army personnel qualified to safeguard cultural resources in the field of battle. Although it included the Far East in its mission--including "war areas" in its title--it remained focused on the threat to European civilization. The first Monuments Officer, Harvard classicist Mason Hammond, was sent to North Africa in 1943 and then accompanied the troops into Italy. The Allied command created a unit called the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section (MFAA), whose small band of officers tried to cordon off historic buildings, minimize looting, and give first aid to art and books; when the war ended, the MFAA turned its attention to the recovery and restitution of cultural objects.

This was a remarkable decision: the first time the American government had established the cultural protection of art, books, and historic buildings as a war aim. The importance of cultural property had begun to be recognized in international law since the late nineteenth century, but vaguely stated principles had produced few concrete results, even in World War I. By the early 1940s, a convergence of events, memories, ideology, and…