Americans were surprised to learn recently that an American-Soviet Textbook Study Project has been evaluating how textbooks in each country portray life in the other. A couple of weeks ago in Racine, Wisconsin, the professors working on this project came up with the recommendation that American textbooks should present a more “balanced” (i.e., friendly) discussion of Lenin and should give the Russians more “credit” for their role in World War II.
Can you believe that grown American men actually agreed to change U.S. textbooks to accommodate the Russians in such ways? In a typical example of U.S.-U.S.S.R. “cooperation,” the Soviets agreed to drop a passage in their textbooks accusing Americans of using smallpox as a weapon against the Indians.
No doubt we will see more of this kind of Soviet influence in U.S. textbooks because of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Agreement signed by Secretary of State George Shultz with Foreign Minister Schevardnadze in Geneva in November 1985. This remarkable agreement calls for “the exchange of primary and secondary school textbooks and other teaching materials.”
Although this agreement has had little media coverage, many Americans have been writing their Senators and Congressmen to protest this injection of Soviet influence into U.S. public school curricula, and also to demand an explanation of the connection between this agreement and a similar one signed two weeks earlier with the Soviets by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The letters of reply are very curious.
The U.S. Department of State’s Office of Soviet Union Affairs claims in a letter dated August 25, 1987, that this exchange will serve to expose large numbers of Soviet citizens — including young people — to American values. However, it is obvious that this Agreement will also serve to expose large numbers of American citizens — including young people — to Soviet Communist values.
The U.S. Department of State’s Office of Legislative Affairs claims in a letter dated October 23, 1987, that the Agreement’s terms “do not provide for the introduction of educational curricula to schoolchildren on either side.” This is just playing games with words.
Indeed, the Agreement does not use the word “introduction,” but it does provide for the exchange of primary and secondary school textbooks and other teaching materials. Is the State Department spokesman implying that the materials won’t be used after they are exchanged? That would be silly.
This State Department letter also tries to disassociate itself from the Carnegie Corporation, stating, “The Department of State does not grant private organizations authority to negotiate on behalf of the U.S. Government… The State Department is not involved in any way with Carnegie’s work.”
That’s very interesting when compared with what Carnegie is saying. Its president, David Hamburg, wrote letters on October 8, 1987, asserting that his negotiations with the Soviets “proceeded with the advice and encouragement of responsible officials in the Reagan Administration concerned with U.S.-Soviet relations.”
When Senators and Congressmen appealed to the Congressional Research Service for help in answering letters from constituents, CRS responded by forwarding a file on exchanges in the entertainment world that also resulted from this same 1985 Geneva Agreement. Many of us would agree that, if we get the Bolshoi Ballet and the Russians get a rock concert, we get the better of the deal.
But what goes on in the theater is no excuse or justification for what goes on in the elementary and secondary school classroom. Giving information about entertainment exchanges is just an attempt to divert attention from the education exchanges.
Most letters from U.S. citizens about this matter are now being answered by a form letter from the United States Information Agency (U.S.I.A.). These letters remind us that “local school boards and districts make their own decisions regarding curricula and course of study.”
Indeed they do. But that’s no justification for the Federal Government to use taxpayer funds to offer textbooks or other teaching materials that resulted from collaboration with the Soviet Union. The Federal Government is not supposed to be in the curriculum business at all, much less in cooperation with the Soviet Union about curriculum!
The Soviets know exactly what they are doing. As Vladimir Grenkov, chief of the foreign-relations section of the Soviet Ministry of Culture, said: “These are just the first little birds, as we say in Russian, and I hope that after these will follow entire flocks.”
