Being regarded as key figures. In preserving cultural artifacts. The Wilson Center hosted this event. Its a little under 90 minutes. In recent years, scholars and the general public have learned about the exploits of american curators and Museum Officials in world war ii whos mission was to save the endangered art treasures in europe. I would note the work of the nicholas, robert edsalls remarkable efforts to recover the Monuments Foundation and of course the 2014 George Clooney film. All curators should want to be played by George Clooney. The Monuments Men and i should add monuments women, are compelling figures. They are celebrated for the role they played in wartime. Absent from this story of individual heroism is any analysis and assessment of the way that culture and knowledge mattered in world war ii. How winning the war became a reliant upon the accumulation of knowledge and included a commitment to the protection of culture. How the objectives of the American Government, the military and cultural institutions intertwined. And how practices and policies in this endeavor shifted with the shifting fortunes of war. And that they had long term effects. Without diminishing the efforts of any individuals involved, i aim to address these larger historical issues. In addition, my work shifts from the focus on art, which is typically unique and rare in terms of Cultural Heritage to , the world of print culture. Of books and texts that serves many purposes. We will see an allied mission under the auspices of the Monuments Men to preserve book collections. Most notably those stolen from jewish institutions and individuals. But that mission did not exist in isolation. Indeed, it was the hold into other Wartime Missions involving print culture including intelligence gathering, policies and a post war assertion of , American Intellectual leadership. During this time the american , book men and most of them were men, librarians, experts, collectors and the like were , involved in a set of actions that involved mass acquisitions. These were collecting missions that brought the world of text and world of war into a new and intimate relationship. World war ii produced an Unusual Alliance between American Intellectual and cultural elites and government officials, policymakers and the military. , i wanted to start by saying, this was not simply a product of wartime mobilization. It was the consequence of longer term trends beginning in the new deal. The Roosevelt Administration defined a new interest in cultural matters. Some of them related to books and documents. For example, programs like the historical Record Survey and the federal writers project and a new institution such as the National Archives, which was founded in 1934. In addition, the library of congress became the site of a robust cultural and governmental alliance with fdrs unusual appointment of poet and playwright Archibald Mcleish to librarian in 1939. Despite considerable opposition from the library profession. He raised the stakes for librarians. He called on them to be not only custodians of culture but to be defenders of freedom. Ill quote him here. In such a time as ours when wars are made against the expert spirit and its works, the keeping of these records is a type of warfare. The keepers whether they wish not cannot be neutral. Thats 1940. Americans awareness of the political of books and libraries had already been raised by protests over not the book burnings nazi book burnings. When the u. S. Entered the war, the defensive books became a symbol of the freedom to speak, write and read. It was continually underscored book collection drives and the annual remembrance of book burning led by the opposite war information. You can see several of their posters there and council of , books in wartime. A striking sign of this alliance between academic and cultural leaders and the government maybe seen on two initiatives. One with a very long name. That im not going to give you. Robertsnown as the commission, appointed in 1933 and chaired by the Supreme Court justice which was charged with , finding ways to protect and salvage art and other historical treasures in war zones. The armies monument fine arts and archives unit is known as the Monuments Men, who were charged executing this policy. Its important to note their mandate barely included books and textual records. At the meeting of the roberts commission, Archibald Mcleish was the only one to speak on libraries and her cargo records and the failure to protect them. He said theres nothing in the field of books that corresponds to the work being done in the field of art. By the end of the war, there were a small number of librarians and archivists active in europe. They continually felt sidelined. One of them repeatedly griped about the dominance of art boys and the little art in prior builders. I know this is pg rated. To be sure, the american policy towards Cultural Resources did protect a number of libraries and historical buildings holding book collections. The monuments officers in the field found frequent instances of looting and destruction. Including the burning of books for heat and using rare manuscripts to wrap food. They did what they could to preserve these works and educate military officers and troops about their cultural value. But it wasnt a policy towards the preservation of Cultural Heritage that was most important in the wartime handling of books, texts, and documents at , least not in the first instance. Rather it was the importance of their content in an era when new ideas about information were coming to the fore. Essentially, an early information turn or Information Age that had a profound impact on wartime thinking. Before the war, there was early version of Information Science known as documentation which gained adherence in research and Specialized Library and academia and government. They were interested in wider access to library materials, improving access to retrieval, and uses of new technology. Its all very similar today except that there new technology was microfilm. Not so new. The information had a broader usage as well. It referred to communication, propaganda and intelligence. , in this era, many social scientists and Public Opinion researchers have come together in a new loosely defined field of Mass Communications research. Much of it directed at the potential for propaganda to manipulate the Public Opinion and undermine liberal democracy. Interestingness arose in the world war i period and a group through the 1920s 1930s with the rise of radio. In 1939 the Rockefeller Foundation ran a secret seminar on understanding Public Opinion and protecting americans from nazi and soviet propaganda. Soon, there were a host of new research objects, including the war Communications Project housed at the library of congress. Now, in the summer of 1941, president roosevelt, many of you know this story, appointed William Donovan to be coordinator of information. Thats a really interesting title. I want to underscore it, coordinator of information. Intended to manage american intelligence, foreign propaganda , and domestic counterintelligence. Ultimately the c. O. I. Will be split into two divisions. One, the office of Strategic Services, and the office of war information, the propaganda arm. , as librarianish of congress, was involved in these activities. He established a division for research and analysis of foreign intelligence. That intertwined with donovans operations as coordinator of information. The first place that housed it was the library of congress. Strangely enough, the origins of americas vast intelligence toaratus might be traced morning meetings in the summer of between this unlikely pair, 1941 Archibald Mcleish and bill donovan. As article mcleish later recalls on the cool porch of in , excitement of great things to come. Little did he imagine. Even before the United States declared war then, an effort to acquire information initiated. The nature of this intelligence was not sending spies into Enemy Territory in the first instance. It was really to deploy the scholarship of the day. Looking at foreign newspapers, scientific periodicals and other kinds of published work. What today is called open sources. These could be analyzed using the tools of scholarship. With the International Book trade interrupted by war, means of acquisition had to be found and to do that, a committee was set up through the o. S. F. And c. O. I. I will give you the long name once, the Interdepartmental Committee for the acquisition of foreign publications. I will call it i. D. C. It was formed in december of 1941 chaired by William Langer at harvard. He hired a librarian name Frederick Kilgore who at the time was a 28yearold who worked in the harvard library. There may be some people for whom that name will bring about. The committee got off to a slow start in four months, it failed to acquire a single piece of information. They were beginning to get worried. They turned to traveling scholars to pick up material. They asked embassies to microfilm newspapers. They formed a liaison with the british. They sent eugene power who was a very energetic microfilm booster. He was recruited to set up an operation in london working with the ministry of information and the British Library association. This association had received funds from rockefeller to microfilm enemy periodicals. Now this effort was ramped up. With American Government backing. They worked out a plan to receive materials from the British Foreign offices and other Government Agencies and the americans would microfilm them for the american and British Intelligence. By the end of april 1942, much to everyones relief, the first 2000 feet of microfilm arrived in washington. By this time, plans had been set in motion to send a group of american librarians, book collectors, documentation specialists micro photographers , and academics to neutral cities around the world. Microfilm these materials. The most famous of these people is john fairbanks, the founder of china studies here in the United States. My own connection to this story and the route by which i got into this Massive Research project is that, a relative of mine was also one of these agents sent to acquire intelligence material at this time in lisbon. Unfortunately, i dont have many pictures because it was intelligence. [laughter] ill tell you a little bit about the stockholm and lisbon operation. The stockholm operation was headed by the only book woman among the group. I dont have a single photograph of her except her College Yearbook photo. She received a ph. D. From the university of chicago in 1930. In medieval linguistics. But like many women of her era, she was denied an academic career. Instead, she carried on her own research while employed by senior faculty at the university of chicago. She was sent abroad and she was sent there to photograph rare books and manuscripts for their scholarship, not her own. At the vatican library, 1934, she began to observe historians. Rapidly filming their Research Materials with miniature cameras. She trained herself to do the same. The war intervened and as it did, you can trace her through europe, canceling trips through to romania and denmark. She was in the Bavarian State Library when war was declared in and an air raid test was held. Beforee a hurried trip the germans marched into paris. Lisbon while to awaiting passage back to the United States in 1941. A year and a half later, she was sent abroad again. This time to stockholm to microphone enemy publications for the i. D. C. She worked closely with British Intelligence but also developed her own initiatives to procure materials. She went to local book sellers. She approached sympathetic academics and Government Agencies and librarians. She developed her own covert set of contacts. She knew people in the resistance, the clandestine im press. She worked with the british to smuggle technical manuals from germany into sweden. There are family stories that she did somewhat more robust forms of secret intelligence as well. Which i could not confirm. She was undoubtedly the most successful agent in the americans worldwide effort to acquire foreign publication. European large operation was in lisbon with this highly developed economy. It was known as a destination japanese,h, german, and american spies who out there together. The dictatorship did not prevent business in books and newspapers. Newspapers. Despite the sensors and customer restrictions and difficulty of navigating the politics of lisbon, but dealers found ways to import european publications and keep their shelves stocked. Many educated portuguese and travelers haunted the bookstores newsstands of the city. Among them were a group of american librarians. One who had been a librarian at harvard. Ralph carruthers, a microfilm specialist from the New York Public Library and someone working for the library of congress, manual sanchez. They made the round to bookstores, placed subscriptions, took buying trips and appealed to locals who were sympathetic to the allies. The bookstore there at the bottom in portugal even had the owners who were very sympathetic to the allies conduct some secret assignments for them including microfilming secret documents from the government. The i. D. C. Was only able to ship about 165 pounds of material by air a month on the panam clipper. This was not very much. Microfilm was essential in reducing the volume and bulk of what they acquired. Equipment was located in the american embassy. It was often going day or night. Im going to put this on a blank slide for a little bit of time. Its very difficult to assess the value of this intelligence. Despite the i. D. Cs claims, their operational importance was very limited. You compare to signal intelligence or code breaking. There was no comparison at all. Government officials in the war effort perceived this material to be highly value. They invested considerable resources in digging them out. For one thing, they were measurable. The number of books shipped, microfilm reel shot. They seemed to be a progress on the intelligence front that was still pretty murky. Printed texts also appeared to these people to be stable and credible, especially to the well educated who would favor print over spoken word. Ahead of american intelligence in lisbon found leaves, he said, simply by reading the daily press. You could mine the newspapers for information on enemy strength and industrial production. They were even advised to read the Society Columns because that inadvertently reveal the location of a regiment. Oss was always optimistic. Toy could provide clues scandals which a secret agent could exploit. By the end of 1942. Over one million pages of such materials had been duply duplicated and distributed to Government Agencies. That number continue to grow. There was much more to this than simply reading microfilm. Reading microfilm will only get you so far. [laughter] it will get you a headache within a half an hour. The librarians of the o. S. F. Needed to transform the familiar form of books and cereals into a genre. The genre of intelligence which required a fundamental shift in the way these librarians understood themselves and the mission. Initially Frederick Kilgore understood the job from the Library Point of view. Not too much from the point of view of the information in publications. As librarians, they were oriented to bound books and periodicals, properly catalogued and indexed by author title and subject. Responsibility for identifying the contents of these publications rested with the reader. Indeed, the i. D. C. Initially thought there would be Government Agencies who would tell them we need this particular issue of a magazine. So go find it. Thats how they would proceed. Of course, that is not what happened. In the press of wartime demands and the vast number of microfilm reels that arrived in washington, it was be careful what you wish for. Kilgore came to understand that information, not the publications themselves was the , i. D. C. s products. They needed to extract the useful information from the books and journals and to make it identifiable to the officials with many different interests. They had to find a way to guide users to what they required even to information they didnt know they needed. That is the real task of a great i