Soft power

Was Modern Art Really a CIA Psy-Op?

In the battle for “hearts and minds,” modern art was particularly effective. John Hay Whitney, both a president of MoMA and a member of the Whitney Family, which founded the Whitney Museum of American Art, explained that art stood out as a line of national defense, because it could “educate, inspire, and strengthen the hearts and wills of free men.”

Whitney succeeded Rockefeller as President of the Museum of Modern Art in January 1941, so that Nelson could turn his entire attention to his Coordinator duties. Under Whitney, MoMA served as “A Weapon of National Defense.” According to a Museum press release dated February 28, 1941, MoMA would “inaugurate a new program to speed the interchange of the art and culture of this hemisphere among all the twenty-one American republics.” The goal was “Pan-Americanism.” A “Traveling Art Caravan” through Latin America “would do more to bring us together as friends than ten years of commercial and political work.”