Being regarded as key figures. In preserving cultural artifacts. The Wilson Center hosted this event. Its a little under 90 minutes. In recent years, scholars and the general public have learned about the exploits of american curators and Museum Officials in world war ii whos mission was to save the endangered art treasures in europe. I would note the work of the nicholas, robert edsalls remarkable efforts to recover the Monuments Foundation and of course the 2014 George Clooney film. All curators should want to be played by George Clooney. The Monuments Men and i should add monuments women, are compelling figures. They are celebrated for the role they played in wartime. Absent from this story of individual heroism is any analysis and assessment of the way that culture and knowledge mattered in world war ii. How winning the war became a reliant upon the accumulation of knowledge and included a commitment to the protection of culture. How the objectives of the American Government, the military and cultural institutions intertwined. And how practices and policies in this endeavor shifted with the shifting fortunes of war. And that they had long term effects. Without diminishing the efforts of any individuals involved, i aim to address these larger historical issues. In addition, my work shifts from the focus on art, which is typically unique and rare in terms of Cultural Heritage to , the world of print culture. Of books and texts that serves many purposes. We will see an allied mission under the auspices of the Monuments Men to preserve book collections. Most notably those stolen from jewish institutions and individuals. But that mission did not exist in isolation. Indeed, it was the hold into other Wartime Missions involving print culture including intelligence gathering, policies and a post war assertion of , American Intellectual leadership. During this time the american , book men and most of them were men, librarians, experts, collectors and the like were , involved in a set of actions that involved mass acquisitions. These were collecting missions that brought the world of text and world of war into a new and intimate relationship. World war ii produced an Unusual Alliance between American Intellectual and cultural elites and government officials, policymakers and the military. , i wanted to start by saying, this was not simply a product of wartime mobilization. It was the consequence of longer term trends beginning in the new deal. The Roosevelt Administration defined a new interest in cultural matters. Some of them related to books and documents. For example, programs like the historical Record Survey and the federal writers project and a new institution such as the National Archives, which was founded in 1934. In addition, the library of congress became the site of a robust cultural and governmental alliance with fdrs unusual appointment of poet and playwright Archibald Mcleish to librarian in 1939. Despite considerable opposition from the library profession. He raised the stakes for librarians. He called on them to be not only custodians of culture but to be defenders of freedom. Ill quote him here. In such a time as ours when wars are made against the expert spirit and its works, the keeping of these records is a type of warfare. The keepers whether they wish not cannot be neutral. Thats 1940. Americans awareness of the political of books and libraries had already been raised by protests over not the book burnings nazi book burnings. When the u. S. Entered the war, the defensive books became a symbol of the freedom to speak, write and read. It was continually underscored book collection drives and the annual remembrance of book burning led by the opposite war information. You can see several of their posters there and council of , books in wartime. A striking sign of this alliance between academic and cultural leaders and the government maybe seen on two initiatives. One with a very long name. That im not going to give you. Robertsnown as the commission, appointed in 1933 and chaired by the Supreme Court justice which was charged with , finding ways to protect and salvage art and other historical treasures in war zones. The armies monument fine arts and archives unit is known as the Monuments Men, who were charged executing this policy. Its important to note their mandate barely included books and textual records. At the meeting of the roberts commission, Archibald Mcleish was the only one to speak on libraries and her cargo records and the failure to protect them. He said theres nothing in the field of books that corresponds to the work being done in the field of art. By the end of the war, there were a small number of librarians and archivists active in europe. They continually felt sidelined. One of them repeatedly griped about the dominance of art boys and the little art in prior builders. I know this is pg rated. To be sure, the american policy towards Cultural Resources did protect a number of libraries and historical buildings holding book collections. The monuments officers in the field found frequent instances of looting and destruction. Including the burning of books for heat and using rare manuscripts to wrap food. They did what they could to preserve these works and educate military officers and troops about their cultural value. But it wasnt a policy towards the preservation of Cultural Heritage that was most important in the wartime handling of books, texts, and documents at , least not in the first instance. Rather it was the importance of their content in an era when new ideas about information were coming to the fore. Essentially, an early information turn or Information Age that had a profound impact on wartime thinking. Before the war, there was early version of Information Science known as documentation which gained adherence in research and Specialized Library and academia and government. They were interested in wider access to library materials, improving access to retrieval, and uses of new technology. Its all very similar today except that there new technology was microfilm. Not so new. The information had a broader usage as well. It referred to communication, propaganda and intelligence. , in this era, many social scientists and Public Opinion researchers have come together in a new loosely defined field of Mass Communications research. Much of it directed at the potential for propaganda to manipulate the Public Opinion and undermine liberal democracy. Interestingness arose in the world war i period and a group through the 1920s 1930s with the rise of radio. In 1939 the Rockefeller Foundation ran a secret seminar on understanding Public Opinion and protecting americans from nazi and soviet propaganda. Soon, there were a host of new research objects, including the war Communications Project housed at the library of congress. Now, in the summer of 1941, president roosevelt, many of you know this story, appointed William Donovan to be coordinator of information. Thats a really interesting title. I want to underscore it, coordinator of information. Intended to manage american intelligence, foreign propaganda , and domestic counterintelligence. Ultimately the c. O. I. Will be split into two divisions. One, the office of Strategic Services, and the office of war information, the propaganda arm. , as librarianish of congress, was involved in these activities. He established a division for research and analysis of foreign intelligence. That intertwined with donovans operations as coordinator of information. The first place that housed it was the library of congress. Strangely enough, the origins of americas vast intelligence toaratus might be traced morning meetings in the summer of between this unlikely pair, 1941 Archibald Mcleish and bill donovan. As article mcleish later recalls on the cool porch of in , excitement of great things to come. Little did he imagine. Even before the United States declared war then, an effort to acquire information initiated. The nature of this intelligence was not sending spies into Enemy Territory in the first instance. It was really to deploy the scholarship of the day. Looking at foreign newspapers, scientific periodicals and other kinds of published work. What today is called open sources. These could be analyzed using the tools of scholarship. With the International Book trade interrupted by war, means of acquisition had to be found and to do that, a committee was set up through the o. S. F. And c. O. I. I will give you the long name once, the Interdepartmental Committee for the acquisition of foreign publications. I will call it i. D. C. It was formed in december of 1941 chaired by William Langer at harvard. He hired a librarian name Frederick Kilgore who at the time was a 28yearold who worked in the harvard library. There may be some people for whom that name will bring about. The committee got off to a slow start in four months, it failed to acquire a single piece of information. They were beginning to get worried. They turned to traveling scholars to pick up material. They asked embassies to microfilm newspapers. They formed a liaison with the british. They sent eugene power who was a very energetic microfilm booster. He was recruited to set up an operation in london working with the ministry of information and the British Library association. This association had received funds from rockefeller to microfilm enemy periodicals. Now this effort was ramped up. With American Government backing. They worked out a plan to receive materials from the British Foreign offices and other Government Agencies and the americans would microfilm them for the american and British Intelligence. By the end of april 1942, much to everyones relief, the first 2000 feet of microfilm arrived in washington. By this time, plans had been set in motion to send a group of american librarians, book collectors, documentation specialists micro photographers , and academics to neutral cities around the world. Microfilm these materials. The most famous of these people is john fairbanks, the founder of china studies here in the United States. My own connection to this story and the route by which i got into this Massive Research project is that, a relative of mine was also one of these agents sent to acquire intelligence material at this time in lisbon. Unfortunately, i dont have many pictures because it was intelligence. [laughter] ill tell you a little bit about the stockholm and lisbon operation. The stockholm operation was headed by the only book woman among the group. I dont have a single photograph of her except her College Yearbook photo. She received a ph. D. From the university of chicago in 1930. In medieval linguistics. But like many women of her era, she was denied an academic career. Instead, she carried on her own research while employed by senior faculty at the university of chicago. She was sent abroad and she was sent there to photograph rare books and manuscripts for their scholarship, not her own. At the vatican library, 1934, she began to observe historians. Rapidly filming their Research Materials with miniature cameras. She trained herself to do the same. The war intervened and as it did, you can trace her through europe, canceling trips through to romania and denmark. She was in the Bavarian State Library when war was declared in and an air raid test was held. Beforee a hurried trip the germans marched into paris. Lisbon while to awaiting passage back to the United States in 1941. A year and a half later, she was sent abroad again. This time to stockholm to microphone enemy publications for the i. D. C. She worked closely with British Intelligence but also developed her own initiatives to procure materials. She went to local book sellers. She approached sympathetic academics and Government Agencies and librarians. She developed her own covert set of contacts. She knew people in the resistance, the clandestine im press. She worked with the british to smuggle technical manuals from germany into sweden. There are family stories that she did somewhat more robust forms of secret intelligence as well. Which i could not confirm. She was undoubtedly the most successful agent in the americans worldwide effort to acquire foreign publication. European large operation was in lisbon with this highly developed economy. It was known as a destination japanese,h, german, and american spies who out there together. The dictatorship did not prevent business in books and newspapers. Newspapers. Despite the sensors and customer restrictions and difficulty of navigating the politics of lisbon, but dealers found ways to import european publications and keep their shelves stocked. Many educated portuguese and travelers haunted the bookstores newsstands of the city. Among them were a group of american librarians. One who had been a librarian at harvard. Ralph carruthers, a microfilm specialist from the New York Public Library and someone working for the library of congress, manual sanchez. They made the round to bookstores, placed subscriptions, took buying trips and appealed to locals who were sympathetic to the allies. The bookstore there at the bottom in portugal even had the owners who were very sympathetic to the allies conduct some secret assignments for them including microfilming secret documents from the government. The i. D. C. Was only able to ship about 165 pounds of material by air a month on the panam clipper. This was not very much. Microfilm was essential in reducing the volume and bulk of what they acquired. Equipment was located in the american embassy. It was often going day or night. Im going to put this on a blank slide for a little bit of time. Its very difficult to assess the value of this intelligence. Despite the i. D. Cs claims, their operational importance was very limited. You compare to signal intelligence or code breaking. There was no comparison at all. Government officials in the war effort perceived this material to be highly value. They invested considerable resources in digging them out. For one thing, they were measurable. The number of books shipped, microfilm reel shot. They seemed to be a progress on the intelligence front that was still pretty murky. Printed texts also appeared to these people to be stable and credible, especially to the well educated who would favor print over spoken word. Ahead of american intelligence in lisbon found leaves, he said, simply by reading the daily press. You could mine the newspapers for information on enemy strength and industrial production. They were even advised to read the Society Columns because that inadvertently reveal the location of a regiment. Oss was always optimistic. Toy could provide clues scandals which a secret agent could exploit. By the end of 1942. Over one million pages of such materials had been duply duplicated and distributed to Government Agencies. That number continue to grow. There was much more to this than simply reading microfilm. Reading microfilm will only get you so far. [laughter] it will get you a headache within a half an hour. The librarians of the o. S. F. Needed to transform the familiar form of books and cereals into a genre. The genre of intelligence which required a fundamental shift in the way these librarians understood themselves and the mission. Initially Frederick Kilgore understood the job from the Library Point of view. Not too much from the point of view of the information in publications. As librarians, they were oriented to bound books and periodicals, properly catalogued and indexed by author title and subject. Responsibility for identifying the contents of these publications rested with the reader. Indeed, the i. D. C. Initially thought there would be Government Agencies who would tell them we need this particular issue of a magazine. So go find it. Thats how they would proceed. Of course, that is not what happened. In the press of wartime demands and the vast number of microfilm reels that arrived in washington, it was be careful what you wish for. Kilgore came to understand that information, not the publications themselves was the , i. D. C. s products. They needed to extract the useful information from the books and journals and to make it identifiable to the officials with many different interests. They had to find a way to guide users to what they required even to information they didnt know they needed. That is the real task of a great informationoriented librarian. They polled the wartime agency asking for keywords. They created a subject index of newspapers and periodicals that were tailored to those needs. This digest became a dilly daily publication with 300 copies distributed to Government Agencies. When they found an item of interest, they could ask for an abstract and full text translation. About 4 of all the materials they acquired were produced in the form of abstracts and the i. D. C. Has a capacity to translate 42 languages including 16 of them quickly. As you can imagine in this era before computers, their personnel roles expanded exponentially. With these efforts, they just grew hiring an army of translators and indexers. Many of them were in the grace immigrants who had Language Skills and women. Ultimately this acquisition mission contributed to the development of Information Science and its uses for intelligence as an instrument of the american state. The embrace of technologies of document reproduction, the disassembly and transformation of physical texts into bundles of information, the effort to solve the problems of access using human labor in this case this did not originate with the , war. But it achieved liftoff in the wartime context. Many of the librarians associated with this effort went on to become post war pioneers of library information, technology and management. , most notably Frederick Kilgore himself who founded o. C. L. C. In 1971. A system that is now known as the Worlds Largest online bibliographic database. I just read on the website that the last printed catalog cards were printed last week. [laughter] the end of an era. The collecting mission of librarians, scholars and book men and women continued through the war. It changed after dday in june of 1944. Up to then, they acted as book buyers and collectors, ordering subscriptions, etc. Now they became part of a military operation. Members of collecting teams that were known as tforces, which followed behind the allied armies as they advanced, scouring targets for operational or strategic information. They began to wear military uniforms and operated under army command and served as specialists who were able to select records often on the fly. Literally as the troops were moving forward. This was an unlikely role for many of them. I will describe for you one of these collectors. I dont have a world war ii picture of him. His name was ross phinney. A composer and Smith College music professor who volunteered to do acquisition work. As he wrote his wife he learned , slightly different methods of acquiring foreign publications than i or anyone in hampton would use. He interrogated informants. He followed suspicious people. He found massive quantities of printed materials which he confiscated. I requisitioned a 2. 5 ton truck today, he wrote. On thanksgiving day 1944 he made his biggest discovery, the huge cache of patent abstracts concerning rockets and jet propulsion. At the same time, these collectors began to direct their attention to the fate of the european will book role. Let me describe one other person here, no photograph. Loeb, who fled germany in 1937 and established himself as a book dealer in new york. Army and wasn the assigned in london in 1944. At that time there were strong interest in the impact of allied bombing an academic and cultural institutions and concern about how the Publishing Industry could be rebuilt in planning for the postwar. Max loeb came up with the idea of interrogating german prisoners of war who had connections to the book trade. Working on his own, he interviewed 200 pows about the status and location of archives and publishers and book dealers. s investigation produced information about industrial targets about the relocation of government and not to Party Offices and other intelligence. And even the war cabinet. With the traditional work of bibliography now defined in researchtarget, related to weaponry, airing on to another war related fields and other records that would be useful in the prosecution of war crimes and in managing the reconstruction. Teams not only seized all manner of scientific technical and medical research but began to sweep up other works as well. Ortainly those with nazi military content, those that might be useful in postwar reconstruction and those it might be advantageous with the soviet union. In this was dogged regard, hunting out specialized libraries in industrial plants there were so many tempting targets explain. Even after good and simple all periodicals, of 12 he still felt uneasy because theres still so much and done. Arise arrived in leipzig, which had been devastated by the bombing. Nevertheless they track down many publishers and the coal and they went street by street to find these things. They requisitioned a number of volumes from bookstores and publishing houses. They removed books from the chamber of commerce library. They were ordered to inspect the integrity of University Libraries but when they found collections in the service of ideology, there was an institute for race signs that was housed in a University Library and they consider that fair game and took it. As investigators dubbed more deeply, they found vast quantities of books and other publications stashed in surprising places. Wake of the bombing campaigns, authorities had relocated and hidden state archives, rare books and library collections. These are examples of bomb sites for the had been books and newspapers. In cavesstored them and castles for safety along with the art and other treasures looted by the nazis that we know summative out. Movement knowledge of had only touched the surface. Andsalt mine where goal other treasures have been stored yields up only part of the library, piled up in tunnels in disarray were 2 million of books and journals and other records, maps, a rare geographic library with no card catalog. Tragically, a fire had burned for several months. Likely set by refugees trying to keep warm and the mine was in a process of rental destruction from fumes, smoke, and dampness. This was one of only 25 places where that single library had been stored. By july 1945 over 800 minds, country houses, hospitals and other public buildings have been found in the number just continued to grow into 1946. The unforeseen discovery in s burgomaster collecting push by the americans. They were racing the clock before the area was going to be turned over to the soviet union on july 1, 1945. One official wrote, again and again the team came across collections of such size that it had no hope of transporting the collection entirely or making appropriate selections on the spot. The compulsive logic of collection, its expanding reach and scope, its opportunistic even to wholeed libraries. So this wartime history lay the groundwork for the treatment of books as current artifacts during the postwar. Created would be crated and shipped the american libraries . Which would be destroyed . For the American Government, library of congress, these were compelling and complex questions. Library of congress established a mission in late summer 1945 which continued to 1947. This arrangement made with the war and state department drew upon the expertise and collecting procedures of the wartime idc. They were simply transferred from the oss to work for the library of congress. He is the man in the picture. A group of wellknown Research Librarians joined the mission in 1946, including a 70yearold former head of the New York Public Library and dean of american librarians, and the elderly gentleman second from the right is harry. These were books that were on Standing Order to American Research libraries. They had not been delivered before the soviet takeover of the city. There was a delicate negotiation that went on between the library of Congress Mission and the soviet authorities for their release and it was actually successful, and people were surprised as the cold war was already beginning to be felt. However, what was initially a narrowly defined mission for the library of congress evolved into something else. These representatives operated under the authority in germany and prove mutually advantageous to permit librarians to go does with ah confiscated materials. They were charged with screening and evaluating the vast quantities of publications that had already been seized and were now gathered and collecting points are documents Centers Across the americans own. This became an industrial scale collecting program and required a vast system of distribution as well known as the farmington plan or cooperative acquisitions planned which allocated work by to Research Libraries around the country. Most Research Libraries had them somewhere in storage where you will never find them. One dimension of the mass collecting project involved the seizure of what seem to have militaristic content. This is a sample book at the yale University Library. On can see that little stamp the page after the title page that indicates that it was seized by the library of Congress Mission. The joint chiefs of staff issued in directive 1945 as well as the potsdam agreement that august had ordered the elimination of german militarism in all its forms. As the u. S. Army took german territory, military commanders close the libraries and that alls and demand objectionable material be put under lock and key in a separate room. In may 1946, the allied control Council Issue more expensive ed known as order number four, which was to seize and destroy all literature and materials of a nazi nature, including militarism, racism, and civil disorder. It was madeve, when public, was highly controversial in the United States because librarians and the press immediately received it to be a betrayal of democratic values. The wall street journal called it book burning, american style. To counter the negative publicity and allay public concerns, the American Military government worked with the library of Congress Mission to come up with a acceptable solution. Libraries, schools, bookstores and publishers would all turn in their books that have these qualities to a centralized location. Private citizens were not required to but were encouraged to do so. The initial draft of the order was to include private citizens. These collecting centers were operated by americans by germans but american librarians would oversee the screen. 150 copies of each were deemed objectionable, or up to 100 50 copies, would be put aside for future research and as a record sm. Nazi i dont think they did collect 150 copies, but many of them have disappeared. The collection and selection work became part of the machinery of destruction. Were ins publications paper stock. There were different interpretations of militaristic content. They could mean many things. Also difficult judgments about , as thes themselves librarians had a term of art that used to describe the books. Popular novels, romance, and the like. At the same time, about 2 million bonds made their way to american University Libraries. Publications accusation acrid plan. Only occasionally did american libraries have bonds about the program. One was at my own university where the library and returned a number of german books because they did not have the accession stamps. Vast efforts gave many universities Extensive International holdings for the first time. In this sense, research furtheredreflected in american aims to lead and dominate the postwar production and dissemination of knowledge. We should consider this remarkable effort by the u. S. To rest intopices the collections that had been nazis. By the at its height, house 2. 5 million volumes and a significant number of manuscripts to schools and other cultural objects. Most, not all, seized from jewish institutions and individuals. In some cases there clear provenance led to their relatively rapid restitution as in this case here. Restitution was to the country of origin as stipulated by allied policy and international law. Not directly to individuals. Worker, large numbers of of judaica whose owners were not identifiable, raise the question of what should be done. Despite strong commitments dashed off statements about the american commitment to protect and restore european cultural time of, this was a general demobilization and only a small number of american personnel were assigned to this task. They oversaw a large group of germans who did the heavy, physical work of organizing, cataloging and shipping the books. Whoe were very creative men were directors of the archival deco. They had immigrated to the United States as children, pomerantz from ukraine and the other from russia. Pomerantz had worked with the National Archives before the war. The other had served as an army captain during the war. They were gifted as administrators who found a way to shelter, repair, and identify the orphaned books on the profound, political challenges and ethical dilemmas as well. Faced with millions of volumes in disarray in a german workers that cannot read other languages, he came up with the idea of photographing book stamps and bookplates and putting them on pages like this. These were memorized and used by the workers to rapidly sort the inks and ultimately aided the decisions around restitution. Thething to note is that book stamps may not reflect the library from which the book was taken. There were several dozen book stamps from american libraries, as you can see here. I will just give a plug for an interesting digital project that was initiated by one of my colleagues in the library. To map the location of these comestamps and bookplates and had to be opensource of people who might know something about these libraries can add on to this site. The question of restitution was a thorny one. Ultimately the usbased jewish cold for reconstruction incorporated, which was in organization headed by a scholar and wellknown political gained the authority to distribute the volumes. The owners could not be identified. I think i have one more slide. The work would be an important step in the evolution of settling disputes over cultural property. As a manager in effort, it became the most visible instance of american wartime policy and practices towards books and knowledge. Those involved in the preservation and restitution activities extensively documented their work, not only in official or warts but in photograph albums. This is where actually have my images. They presented the deco as the azi looting and destruction. It was aided by International Cooperation to preserve the books called for ohara stitch heritage coulter will heritage. The diary has disappeared but we have this one quote, which if you a historian come even nervous about not having the diary. He said this. They were brought together like scattered sheep into one fold. I would find myself straightening out these books and arranging them in the boxes with the sense of personal tenderness as if they belonged to someone dear to me and recently deceased. Such reflection of skewers some of the strains of the depot and questionable decisions made about its holdings in the most serious instance, an Army Chaplain illegally released boxes of rare manuscripts which had been identified by the jewish scholar and it enabled them to be should to palestine to the hebrew university. Largely husheds up all that there was a brief article and Stars Stripes about it. Americans wanted to distinguish their values and behavior as opposed to the plundering committed by nazi germany and the trophy taking by the postwar soviet union. And legitimate leave for the most part offered a powerful illustration of that contrast. To conclude, the american wartime engagement was multifaceted. There was concern with Cultural Heritage. For librarians and the worst burden intimate relationship to the state and prompted new ways of thinking about fundamental aspects of their fundamental work such as storage and retrieval of printed material. It led to Information Science and technology that would be fully realized only decades later. Of mass collecting missions the war and postwar era also had seizedences such as journals, patents records and other documents, a program that extended far beyond the actions of the book men and women i described today. Called field Information Agency technical which started under the auspices of the army and then became it agency of the department of commerce. Republishednts were and made available at low cost to American Business and industry. The program is one a historian meant in and it knowledge of intellectual reparations. The books played an important ast in german reconstruction bookstores, libraries and schools were purged of the literature that supported militarism. Easier than more generally in public life. It was a measure of accomplishment. Everyone involved was aware that the restitution of jewish book was a hot potato and required careful and deft response. At the same time, those who encountered looted books, bob libraries and collections stacked in caves were gripped by the destruction they witnessed and they wanted to repair the damage. Culture was bound up with the entire complex of wartime values and postwar aims, mixing instrumental in political political concerns but sense ofntly responsibility toward the preservation and continuity of culture and knowledge in the aftermath of a devastating war. What a fascinating story and talk. We have a little more than a half hour for your comments and questions. If you could please wait for the microphone and please state your name and affiliation if you like. Here. Over thank you for an enlightening talk. The paper does a nice job of complementing and adding to the work of scholars as well as the Monuments Men. I heard you say that archibald was involved and somehow the origins of this map started there. I guess i still don understand what the urge was to collect so much information. Surely they must have had the right reports on what good stuff they got and how it was implemented. You mentioned aeronautics and some scientific intelligence. Do they find anything in this open source material telling moved herehe nazis or there or whatever . Thats a great question. In the early years of american involvement in the war, these documents were used by a large number of academics to produce many, many reports including the research and analysis brand of oss. Most of those reports are contextualizing reports about party,itics of the nazi the psychology and the rowel of the german people. They dont have that kind of would have use that been most important to the armed forces. , especiallyo change after dday. In the early days they were hamstrung by not being able to get direct access to what was going on on the ground. Claim these were important and useful. Whether they actually were is really up for grabs. Also a commentary on election of massive amounts of information. If i am allowed to be a little bit insular and ask about there is the role of historians but of other academics and academic institutions. Was in the effort made to constituent members of 1919 it was the American Historical Association or the Mississippi Valley historical association. And i suppose others could be asked also about it. I would like to think the answer is yes, but im worried about what it is. I will give you answer i hope will maybe not thrill you but maybe a good enough answer. Is was very involved in the issue of protection and salvaging and ultimately restitution of Cultural Heritage , especially artworks. A cls, the National Gallery of art, the metropolitan museum of art, that effort i call the roberts mission, they were involved in mobilizing support for its creation, as was a group at harvard, American Defense harvard group, and there were groups like this and other institutions that wanted more interventionist stance that also were very concerned about the world scholarship and culture during the war. The American Historical Association im not so sure washer as an association it involved in this, but of course many historians were members of the office of Strategic Services and reusing the documents it had been gathered by the librarians and other collectors. And some of the collectors were scholars. There were several anthropologists in china and india. , thank you very much, its a fascinating topic and one that is new to me. Im interested in the way she was picked up by the government and put to work. It seems like such a huge learning curve and im intrigued to know whether you found out anything about how they were trained so quickly to do such potentially dangerous work. She had the experience with micro photography. She had learned herself. She gain some additional experience in london. She was there for about six weeks. They had to wait for a certain weather patterns so they could fly her in from scotland into sweden safely. For about six weeks she was learning some additional microfilming, just the technical training. She had incredibly good judgment. Shes the only one who left meticulous records of what she had done. , imhe was actually found suspecting it was languor, shes the only one when i went to look at everyones personnel files. The personnel files are now open. I called herself and there was her vile and it said it was empty. Theres probably some story there and i dont know what it is. Im at george mason university. Question about the status of the information being reported on the early intelligence work. Ts very much in flux there were a couple of Supreme Court cases in world war ii german and soviet agents in the u. S. Who are doing open source material. The material is not secret. The material is being produced, is it being classified, at what point is it being classified and how is it being considered internally in the agency . When the agents go abroad, they go abroad under their own ,ath for 10 they are identified usually connected with the embassy they are attached to. Librarianst called but there is no real question there of what theyre doing , its aboveboard and that is a way of protecting them. Nine to my knowledge have secret names, and ive spent a lot of to decode the secret names and numbers and of them seem to have it. The materials were classified secret, i believe, not high secret but secret. The remain so until declassification starting in the 1970s and onward. In fact in the library of congress when i was looking at how the library of congress was linked up with the idc, some of those papers were still classified. Nobody had declassified them and had thes nobody there power to declassified in on the spot. They were just habitually labeled unclassified, even though they were extremely innocuous materials. Its andi take it then ask a couple of questions . Can you talk a little bit about the sources for your study, the archives and collections that you look at . It looks like there were some Great Research trips connected with this process. Secondly, i wonder if you could based on your , what did therch movie get right in what did it get terribly wrong . , at the woodrow Wilson Center we like to connect scholarship and Public Policy for todays policymaking, what kind of lessons would you draw from the experience . All great questions. Give me a little time on that. Implied, ias i stumbled on this project when i learned about my fathers oldest brother who had done this work, and he was long dead. He was dead before i was born. Knew he was a librarian, but i didnt know he had done this work at all. Its like a classic google search, youre searching for something on your own last name, and there is a relative who happen to be in intelligence. There were no family records whatsoever on him, not even a photograph of him from my parents. I kind of started by following 1952,nd when he died in there was a preface to a book that he had translated which was a memorial in addition. It was 15 pages of recollections about him written by many of the leading lights in the library field. I was really surprised and i sent everybody was dead. I went to find where their papers were. Atned out that fred kilgore that time was still alive and he had an email address. I emailed him and he called me that night saying, im so glad you called. And did notars old tell me anything i did not already know. As the project became bigger, clearly i wasnt writing a book about this relative. The National Archives, the oss records and state Department Records were crucially important. The library of Congress Mission records as well as the library of Congress Central file. One of the things thats interesting is that a number of the Monuments Men should have simply given their materials to the official agency and they shouldve wound up in the national archive, but in fact, they didnt. So i have found in the personal of richard alexander, who is involved in the declassification of book at the university of virginia, i went on a glorious Research Trip to the university of saskatchewan and found the papers of yet another monuments man who had offenbachved in the archival demo. Ive been to the british National Archives. Our friends in germany say the records there are not going to as they are very u. S. Focused. Those have been the main sources i have used. The Monuments Men film, i know that many historians would love to be disgruntled and get up in meltabout when filmmakers make films about historical subjects. Good to have people are about this remarkable moment in American History. It was a little bit of a cartoonish version of what happened, and so much of the activity was not something you would make a film about. It was about restitution, about trying to trace provenance. That whole side of it, not simply returning the artworks to part, and for the most the Monuments Men were not in any physical danger. Version, butywood im glad people had some awareness about it. Would recommend the documentary on the subject, its a firstrate documentary. Policymakers,r and also for academics. Whats interesting is that this period and they didnt have so much hostility toward each other and they were able to Work Together to do something that was remarkable, maybe not as much as they would have wanted to, but its a very remarkable story and i contrast that with the difficulty in protecting the national library, National Museum in baghdad during the second iraq war, the difficulty that American Scholars have been thinking about working with governments, that somehow by definition it is a fraud and compromise relationship. I do think there is the occasion when each party can really learn from each other and we cut it does so much better job in protecting some of the Cultural Heritage. Once it is gone, it is gone. Say would be what i would frome lesson i would draw the history. I will take my prerogative to get one of my many questions in. This has to do with restitution and the coming cold war. Your final slide had all the of what was going to different countries. If i was able to read the small print correctly, it was just under a order million volumes headed toward moscow. You also made reference to the soviet unions trophy taking, infamous as it was. Being returned to but they areion not going in the other direction. Correct, i did that play into the american policymakers discussion about our wartime ally in the postwar, not much of an ally, when participating in the same exchange that the americans are . Was there larger political purpose in sending books to places where who knows what would happen to them . That slide is a little bit deceptive, i think. It was sort of the wishful version of what was happening. Soviet restitution officers who came and identified materials that clearly belonged to soviet institutions. The issue that was more problematic was the return of jewish book to the soviet union and poland, the czechoslovakian in particular. They stopped those from being sent there. There was a lot of political pressure being placed by jewish organizations, american and also in palestine and later israel, not to send them to the soviet union. Fraughtready a somewhat issue for the policymakers. Thats why the idea of it being a hot potato not only on the but alsoganizations because of the awareness that they would be going to countries where they might never be seen again or might never be used again i jewish groups. There were a couple more questions. Well start with the one in the back. Thank you very much. I was involved in some of this later. On whate two things later became the open source documentts not a rare , its that that is sliced and diced for open source intel. Then you have the artifacts, the valuable cultural artifacts, illustrated manuscripts and whatever. All together in world war ii being dealt with, and so many things were invented during that time. Ake us to the next chapter do the valuable books just get returned and that was the end of the story . And the cia takes over the whole notion of collecting current periodicals. The library of congress on taxes were just buying everything in print. I would like to know the connection between the world youre describing in the world i live in i really am looking at the immediate postwar time. I made a decision early on to the newspapers, textdicals, the reproduced and the rare text because they usually are separated. We usually think about them separately and i wanted to think about entire world of print culture in a sense. The happens afterwards is rare materials are rested to do to typically the countries of origin. As weve seen over recent nevers, some of that really got back to their owners. Some is still being contested in germany, france, and in the united dates theres a whole question of opportunistic looting or taking by individual soldiers, and those materials being returned to where they had been created or who their owners were. One of the consequences was to expand the microfilming programs so that the idea that everybody could see what these rare wasrials looked like, which an initiative that started in the 1930s before the threat of poor and destruction but really took off during the war. That continue so that american libraries would have microfilm or micro print copies of some of the rare manuscripts in europe. That was very much pushed by like americans call. The library of Congress Mission, which i describe here, is a shortterm effort during a time when the book trade still had been suspended. Normality,return to 1947, 1948, increasingly the state Department Sets up publications procurement offices, the library of congress has their people going out and purchasing, as had been true before, without a much higher level. Some of the practices before the war continue but are ramped up and wrapped up in the more propagandistic elements of the usia and bringing the american ry to the libraries american libraries around the world. Thats how it see the different strands come together here, continuing but at a more accelerated pace after world war ii. The gentleman up here patiently waiting. I work at the library of congress and i have seen you there. I thought you looked familiar. [laughter] by the role the library of congress had. After Archibald Mcleish left the library of congress to work in the state department is a political scientist, one question was, the fact that he ,as in the state department there is a special dynamic there in carrying out the programs. Thatanother institution probably was involved, and a lot are members of the American Library association. I was wondering if the archives were helpful to you. I looked at them early on and i had forgotten that the archives at the university of were offered incredibly helpful on all the subjects. They had a very Robust International division and my sevenyearold in germany in 1946 was the leader on international librarianship. He is an american type out of mark twain or something. It was great to read his work and there were other librarians who left their papers there. Resource. A great as far as the relationship between Archibald Mcleish and luther evans, ive not really looked at it from the point when please goes to the state department and evans is the library of congress. Luther evans was very much behind the library of Congress Mission idea. He was already the library and by the time it gets off the ground. Ansomewhat more of administrator. Actually mcleish was a great administrator, but also a visionary with an understanding of what was at stake. Hes saying what is at stake is your right. Evans was more bureaucratic. He started to get really worried about whether it could be read as looting. Is this looting . I dont know the name warner clapp means anything. He had him write a piece that appears in one of the library about this is not looting, it is legitimate acquisition. I want to go back to couple of specific questions. You mentioned a. C. L. Avenue aclf. Ands an excel see a she with a skeletal kind of staff. , andondering how that work you also mentioned the Rockefeller Foundation. , without anhere is isolated thing or were they much more involved . And also were other foundations involved . I dont know about other foundations. Had put a fair amount of effort into microfilm at the technology in the 1930s and the importance of microfilm not only for preservation purposes but also access purposes. The idea of interlibrary loan. Theres an old concept among librarians going back to world war i that interlibrary loan would be a force for world peace. [laughter]. Ou can always hope but the idea that the exchange of knowledge, Intercultural Exchange is a good thing. Put a nice amount of money behind that and continue to support it during the war years. Involved largely as a clearinghouse for identifying scholars who could be helpful. This was particularly with the aim of protecting what they called cultural monuments in war areas. So they got archaeologists, art historians, curators and a variety of people to create these lists of the most important monuments in rome to protect from bombing. They created these lists and map them on maps. These maps were taken on board planes that were bombing around rome, for example. It was athe way question of who were the experts and how can they be mobilized to protect cultural treasures. Where quickly running out of time so lets take a few questions and give you one more chance to respond and then we will wrap it up. Im from the museum across the street. I was interested in your comments about the restitution of war. As i understood what you were saying, the material simply return to the country from which it had been looted. Was that the end of it as far as the americans were concerned, or was there some policy or suggestions about returning it to the original owners . Admittedly many of them were dead and unavailable, but certainly many were not. Im from the university of china. Theuestion was about japanese records after the second world war. Japan,he surrender of the records were in american hands. I was kind of concerned about the fate of these records. What was the standard of that selection . The lady in blue on the right side. On the library at the United States Holocaust Memorial museum. My question is, how do you think the restitution that was done affects the issues that are still happening today, there were materials that were never returned, there are libraries in various parts of army that are funny books they did not realize they had are the americans missed, and now theyre trying to restitution them 70 years later. Do you think it was positive for negative of what we did back then that is impacting today . On laste piggyback question. Has everything been found . [laughter] there is the train that may now be buried underground. What percentage of materials t were looted happen round have been found . A uniquely american in denver, or are there examples in other countries to engage in this kind of effort . Very quickly, ive got five questions here. The restitution to country of origin, that was an understanding that was sort of , and itnternational law was codified by the allied powers. Ablellies were not really to come up with an agreement on the details of individual restitution. So they fell back on if it had the looted from a house in netherlands and there was a book step on it, it went back. In thater materials category. The great question. I dont know very much about it. What i do know is there was not partind of program on the of the library of congress are the American Military government to make the selections. I know that massive quantities were brought to the United States and i think it was pretty indiscriminate. It was not seen as something that was wrapped up with the issue of Cultural Heritage, cultural protection as it was in europe. That says something about the different status of the pacific and in europe. Titution 70 years later positive or negative, its really hard to know as a historian how to assess this. If nothing had happened, it would have been terrible. Thats the bottom line for me. There are plenty of instances where nothing would have happened. I think they did a relatively good job, given the political pressures of this time, particularly around the jewish materials. The fact that the holocaust, but also that there was no state of israel. To ouldve been sent that mightve been one solution but as this was starting out, jewish cultural reconstruction, one can argue about their, the decisions they made about where materials should go. I think somebody will really need to look at that on a book by book, library by library basis. I done so looking at that at the university of pennsylvania and we have some odd things that came in under the rubric of jewish cultural reconstruction that probably should not have come into the library. The percentage of materials ever looted that we now have, i dont know if thats possible to know. I think thats just an unknown. And whether was uniquely , i think the idea of mass acquisition, industrialstrength acquisition is american. There were some efforts on the part of the british to do restitution. They were not particularly in the book acquisition projects of the library of congress, for example. Before this time, i cannot think of another country that engaged in this kind of activity. It seems to me very much an american style mission. On that note we have to draw this seminar to a close, but please join us right now for a reception on the other side of those doors. I will note that there will be no seminar next week in this room, as it is columbus day. But october 19 you can come back. Thank you to our participants. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] American History tv is featuring cspans original series, first ladies influence and image at 8 p. M. Eastern time on sunday night throughout the rest of this year. Cspan produced the series in cooperation with the White House Historical association. Through conversations with experts, video tours of historic sites, and questions from cspans audience, we tell the stories of americas 45 first ladies
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