The Spirit and the Letter: Anti-Communism and Religious Print Propaganda in the 1950s

Abstract During the early years of the Cold War, the United States Information Agency (USIA) used religious propaganda as an ideological weapon. As part of a multifaceted information program, the Agency selected, produced, and translated religious literature for display at its overseas cultural libraries. To counter Soviet propaganda accusing Americans of materialism and greed, a group of liberal Protestants closely associated with the Eisenhower Administration worked to promote an affirming and universalized form of religion that expanded beyond the traditional focus on Judeo-Christian spirituality to include all world religions – Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim. Though these efforts frequently conflicted with those of conservative Protestants, Eisenhower’s propagandists consistently framed American spirituality as recognizing the core values present in all world beliefs in contradistinction to the atheistic Soviet Union. Relying on previously unexamined, declassified USIA documents, this study contributes to scholarship on religion and the Cold War as well as American religious history within the context of state propaganda. It concludes that the exigencies of the Global Cold War contributed to the United States Government’s promotion of religious pluralism during the 1950s by making spiritual inclusion a matter of national security.