In 1940,
Nelson Rockefeller began the exchange of persons program with Latin America, as the Coordinator of Commercial and Cultural Affairs for the American Republics. This program sent 130 journalists from Latin America to the United States. In 1942, The
United States Office of War Information (OWI) was created out of the United States Government's need for a centralized location for information. OWI was disbanded under the
Truman administration, though a small element of the original structure was maintained within the State Department as the Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs (OIC), which was renamed the Office of International Information and Educational Exchange. In 1948, the
Smith–Mundt Act sought to "promote a better understanding of the United States in other countries, and to increase mutual understanding." The educational and cultural exchange aspects of the State Department were removed from the
Bureau of Public Affairs and entered the newly created Bureau of Educational and Cultural Relations (CU) in 1959. In 1961, the
87th United States Congress passed the
Fulbright-Hays Act (Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act) to establish a program to "strengthen the ties which unite us with other nations by demonstrating the educational and cultural interests, developments, and achievements of the people of the United States and other nations". ==Programs== •
Alumni TIES (Thematic International Exchange Seminars) •
Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship •
Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange •
Cultural Heritage Center •
Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program •
EducationUSA •
English Teaching Forum: A Journal for the Teacher of English Outside the United States •
Fulbright Scholarship •
National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) •
Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) • Hubert Humphrey Fellowship •
International Visitor Leadership Program •
TechWomen •
The Stevens Initiative •
Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP) •
CLS Program •
Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) •
Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) •
Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) ==See also==