| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In 1944, the State Department created the Division of Public Liaison (DPL) with the ambitious aim of making the Department "an instrument of the American People." The DPL represented a formal structure for creating relationships with representative groups of the American public. An analysis of the DPL offers valuable insights into how the State Department worked with and perceived American public opinion with respect to the development of foreign relations. While the DPL was created to develop a two-way relationship between the Government and the American public, Cold War bureaucratic and structural tensions significantly altered and reduced the DPL's role by 1953. Nevertheless, the significance of the DPL is not that it failed in its attempt to create a two-way relationship with the public, but that such an attempt was made at all, and that for a brief period at least, it showed great promise.
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