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Mr. TVA Grass-Root Development PDF
Mr. TVA Grass-Root Development PDF
The word “Tennessee” is well known all the way across from the Mediter-
ranean to the Pacific. . . . They know about Tennessee because they have
heard of the Tennessee Valley Authority. It is the Tennessee Valley Author-
ity that fits their needs and will solve many of their basic problems. The TVA
can also be utilized as one of the major influences to turn back the tide of
communism which today threatens to engulf Asia.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas,
TVA are magic letters the world over.
Milwaukee Journal,
*The author would like to thank Michael Adas, Nick Cullather, David Hamburg, Hiroshi Hori,
Michael Latham, Frank Ninkovich, Sarah Phillips, Noel Pugach, Rosalind A. Rosenberg, Patricia
Rosenfield, Anders Stephanson, and Eric Yellin, as well as the anonymous reviewers at
Diplomatic History, for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The author also expresses
appreciation to the University Seminars at Columbia University for their help in publication.
The ideas presented here have benefited from discussions in the University Seminar on
American Civilization.
. Address of Justice William O. Douglas Before the General Assembly of the State of
Tennessee, February , Appendix to the Congressional Record, nd Congress, sess., May .
. R. G. Lynch, “TVA’s World Offspring,” Milwaukee Journal, March .
D H, Vol. , No. (Summer ). © The Society for Historians of American
Foreign Relations (SHAFR). Published by Blackwell Publishing, Inc., Main Street, Malden,
MA, , USA and Cowley Road, Oxford, OX JF, UK.
:
The river is the Tennessee and the “great project” to deliver the planning
he promised was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The conspicuous
placement of the TVA in the monument is a lingering reminder of the power
the concepts behind the institution held through much of the twentieth century.
The multipurpose development program that was the TVA sought to harness
the energy locked in Tennessee River for the benefit of those in the region it
cut through. Dams and other imposing technologies would not only control
. I use the terms “modernization” and “development,” as many during the period discussed
did, as nearly synonymous terms. Nevertheless, there is debate over definitions of the terms, as
both can be used to describe far-reaching and continuous processes of change in social, economic,
cultural, and political spheres of societies. However, today modernization usually implies what is
“up to date” as well as Western and involves changes that are often seen in contrast to previous
“traditional” systems. See David Harrison, The Sociology of Modernization and Development (London,
), –.
. James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
(New Haven, ), .
. Ibid., , , , –; World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: A New
Framework for Decision-Making (Sterling, VA, ), –.
“Mr. TVA” :
media as “feudalism.” The TVA’s direct inspiration came from the various
plans to turn the Wilson Dam in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, into a mechanism
for the economic improvement of the Tennessee Valley. The dam, originally
planned to facilitate the production of explosives for World War I, had been
completed too late to play a part in the conflict. In the early s, industrialist
Henry Ford considered buying the dam and making it the keystone of a
commercial plan to create a “new Eden of our Mississippi Valley.” After this
scheme foundered, progressives continued to push for the federal government
to put the dam’s electric power generation capacity to public use, only to have
this idea fought to a standstill by private utilities.
Franklin Roosevelt eventually broke this logjam. After a personal visit to
Muscle Shoals, Roosevelt put forward a sweeping plan in as part of his “First
New Deal.” Although inspired by earlier programs proposed by Senator
George W. Norris for the public use of the Alabama dam, FDR’s plan went far
beyond Muscle Shoals. It would create a regional program to build more dams
for flood control and power generation, generate and distribute hydroelectric
. “Tennessee Valley Authority Act,” May , New Deal Network, December ,
http://newdeal.feri.org/acts/us.htm (last accessed February ).
. Nye, Electrifying America, –.
. “Roosevelt’s Development Plan Seen as Boon to South,” Greensboro Daily News, April .
. William E. Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, – (New York, ),
; Dewey W. Grantham, “TVA and the Ambiguity of American Reform” in TVA, ed. Hargrove
and Conkin, .
. Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York, ),
–; J. R. McNeill, Something New under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century
World (New York, ), –.
. J. B. Grant, “Tennessee Valley Authority,” December , box , RG ., Series ,
Rockefeller Archive Center, North Tarrytown, New York (hereafter cited as RAC).
:
. Favrot to Gunn, March , box and Interview (Leonard S. L. Hsu), August ,
box ; A. R. Mann to Gordon R. Clapp, May , box , RG . Projects, Series China, RAC.
. Roscoe C. Martin, TVA and International Technical Assistance: A Report to the Board of Directors
and the General Manager Tennessee Valley Authority (Syracuse, ), ; Knoxville Journal, October
. By the s, over , international visitors visited the TVA annually to view first-hand
how planning and engineering were reconciled within an American, democratic framework.
. Todd to Snow, June , box , Oliver J. Todd Papers, Hoover Institution on War
Revolution and Peace, Stanford University (hereafter cited as HI); Oliver J. Todd, Two Decades in
China (Peking, ), –.
. “Digest of TVA,” September–October , box , RG . Projects, Series , RAC.
. Steven M. Neuse, David E. Lilienthal: The Journey of an American Liberal (Knoxville, ),
and chs. –.
. Daniel T. Rogers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA, ),
–; and Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt, .
. Roy Talbert, Jr., FDR’s Utopian: Arthur Morgan of the TVA (Jackson, ), –.
“Mr. TVA” :
tailored them for public consumption. However, it was not a case of borrowing
concepts wholesale. Lilienthal meshed these and other ideas with his own
beliefs that the TVA’s programs were means to allow the inhabitants of the
valley to “change their thinking,” thereby permitting them to unleash their
“latent abilities.”
Lilienthal synthesized these existing ideas into what was to become a
fundamental part of the TVA creed in a speech before the Southern Political
. Erwin C. Hargrove, Prisoners of Myth: The Leadership of the Tennessee Valley Authority, –
(Princeton, ), , –.
. Quoted in John Gunther, Inside U.S.A. (New York, ), .
. David E. Lilienthal, “The TVA: An Experiment in the ‘Grass Roots’ Administration of
Federal Functions,” November , box , David E. Lilienthal Papers, Mudd Library, Prince-
ton University (hereafter cited as MLP). For a later and broader discussion of this concept, see
David E. Lilienthal, “The TVA and Decentralization,” Survey Graphic, June , New Deal
Network, http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/.htm (last accessed February ).
. Daniel Bell, The Winding Passage: Sociological Essays and Journeys (New Brunswick, NJ, ),
–; William E. Akin, Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement, –
(Berkeley, ); Nye, Electrifying America, –.
. Charles A. Beard and William Beard, American Leviathan: The Republic in the Machine Age
(New York, ), –; John Jordan, Machine Age Ideology: Social Engineering and American Liberalism,
– (Chapel Hill, ), –.
:
take into account the new social and political landscape constructed by the
forces of science and technology and saw the concepts within Lilienthal’s
“Grass Roots” speech as a means to reconcile questions of state administration
of technology with the needs of popular government. Appreciation of Lilien-
thal and his ideas did not stop with Beard: others, including Stuart Chase, Max
Lerner, and Felix Frankfurter, as well as Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, found
the grass-roots concept compelling. The president’s opinion of Lilienthal was
Democracy on the march, literally – the cover of David Lilienthal’s book, TVA: Democracy on the
“Mr. TVA” :
March
:
TVA-style practices would reflect the needs and desires of particular local
peoples and situations. Such methods assured a just framework in which
technical assistance could be provided to targeted areas.
Lilienthal also saw the TVA as an effective response to a world in the throes
of decolonialization. In his view, the TVA had been a tool against colonialism
(which he defined as the exploitation of hinterlands by a center) within the
United States. Successful programs in the Tennessee Valley provided a rising
. David E. Lilienthal, TVA: Democracy on the March, rev. ed. (New York, ), –
(emphasis in original). Ideas quoted here did not change from the first edition, published in .
. Ibid., –.
. Charles H. Houston and John P. Davis, “TVA: Lily-White,” Crisis (October ): –,
; Cranston Clayton, “The TVA and the Race Problem,” Opportunity (April ), New Deal
Network, http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/.htm (last accessed February ); and Nancy L.
Grant, TVA and African Americans: Planning for the Status Quo (Philadelphia, ).
. Hargrove, Prisoners of Myth, –; Norman Wengert, Valley of Tomorrow: The TVA and
Agriculture (Knoxville, ), –.
“Mr. TVA” :
. Richard A. Colignon, Power Plays: Critical Events in the Institutionalization of the Tennessee
Valley Authority (Albany, ), –.
. Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization
(Berkeley, ), –, ; Hargrove, Prisoners of Myth, –; Neuse, David E. Lilienthal, .
. Quoted in Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New
York, ), .
. Lilienthal, Journals, vol. I, , .
. Chinese News Service Press Release, “Y.V.A. Project to be Carried out on Smaller Scale
Within Six Years,” December , box , John D. Sumner Papers, Harry S. Truman Library,
Independence, Missouri (hereafter cited as HTL); Arthur N. Young, China and the Helping Hand,
– (Cambridge, MA, ), .
. Lockhart to Collado, April , Office Files of the Assist. Sec. of State for Economic
Affairs, –, and the Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs, –, box , Record
Group , HTL.
“Mr. TVA” :
In Europe, British planners floated ideas for a “DVA” in the Danube Valley
after the war, although this proposal did not escape the withering attack of an
eloquent foe of planning, F. A. Hayek. This criticism notwithstanding, to many
abroad the TVA came to stand for the multiple uses of a single river to fulfill
human needs. More importantly, in the words of popular English science writer
Julian Huxley, it was a “symbol of a new possibility for the democratic coun-
tries – the possibility of obtaining the efficiency of a coordinated plan without
. Committee on Atomic Energy, A Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy (Wash-
ington, D.C, ).
. Walter LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, th ed. (New York, ), .
. Lilienthal to U. Alexis Johnson, November , Records of the Bureau of Far Eastern
Affairs, Records of the Directors of Northeast Asia Affairs, Records of Northeast Asian Affairs
relating to Foreign Policy Decisions, Records of the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs (Briefing
Books), –, reel , RG General Records of the U.S. Department of State, National Archives,
College Park, Maryland (hereafter cited as NAMD).
. Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe,
– (New York, ), –; and Maier, “Politics of Productivity,” –.
. Nitze to Butterworth, October , “A Coordinated Economic Policy for the Far East,”
reel , RG , International Conferences, Commissions, and Exhibitions, –, NAMD.
“Mr. TVA” :
. Memo on Far Eastern Economic Policy, March , U.S. Delegation Subject Files,
–, reel , RG , NAMD.
. Harry S. Truman, “Inaugural Address,” January , Public Papers of the Presidents of the
United States, Harry S. Truman, , –. See also Thomas G. Paterson, Meeting the Communist
Threat: Truman to Reagan (New York, ), –; and Sergei Shenin, The United States and the Third
World: The Origins of Postwar Relations and the Point Four Program (Huntington, NY, ).
. Harry S. Truman, “Remarks at the Women’s National Democratic Club Dinner,” No-
vember , Public Papers, Harry S. Truman, , , and “Point IV,” Fortune (February ): –.
. Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the
Cold War (Stanford, ), .
. Richard Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the s and s,
d ed. (Hanover, NH, ), –.
:
The validity of his vision came from an understanding that the TVA, while a
massive technological accomplishment, was “built on an idea, an ethical idea.”
The New Republic, long an advocate of the TVA domestically (although not
always of Truman), joined the choir in support of international technical
assistance. As “nearly all countries are backward, from the American standard
of mass production,” the large and complicated technologies common in the
United States could not simply be transferred lock, stock, and barrel. There
. “O Ye of Little Faith!,” Chicago Sun-Times, January . The quote from St. Matthew
was “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, “Down to Earth with Point Four,” New Republic ( July ): –.
. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (Boston, ), –, –.
“Mr. TVA” :
the development of the Middle East led by Lilienthal’s successor at the TVA,
Gordon Clapp – showed that modernization could be reconciled with popular
government.
As technical assistance became an increasingly important component of the
confrontation with the Soviet Union, the TVA example provided a means to
set American development programs apart from communist counterparts. At
first glance, large, multipurpose technical programs based on government-
. Walter Lippman, “Two Approaches to the Misery of Asia,” Washington Post, January .
See also Final Report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East (Lake Success,
NY, ).
. V. I. Lenin, “Report of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Council of
the People’s Commissars on the Home and Foreign Policy at the Eighth All-Russia Congress of
Soviets,” December , in V. I. Lenin, On the Development of Heavy Industry and Electrification
(Moscow, ), (emphasis in original). See also Robert Lewis, Science and Industrialization in the
USSR (London, ); Anne D. Rassweiler, The Generation of Power: The History of the Dneprostroi (New
York, ), –. Contrary to what Americans asserted, Lenin hoped that the dissemination of
his electrification plan to schools and power stations would provide people in the Soviet Union
with a grass-roots means to learn about and participate in this technological change that would
necessarily lead not only to economic development but to social revolution as well.
. Willard R. Espy, Bold New Program (New York, ), , –.
. Pells, The Liberal Mind, –; and Brinkley, End of Reform, –.
:
. Neuse, David E. Lilienthal, –; Grace Goodell, The Elementary Structures of Political Life:
Rural Development in Pahlavi Iran (New York, ).
. David E. Lilienthal, “The Road to Change,” International Development Review (December
): –, .
. Ibid., .
“Mr. TVA” :
. “Terms of Reference in Exchange of Letters Between President Black and the Two Prime
Ministers,” box , Raymond Wheeler Papers, HI; Transcript, Eugene R. Black oral history
interview by Robert Oliver, August , interview , tape , Oral History Research Office,
Columbia University, –; Edward Mason and Robert Asher, The World Bank since Bretton Woods
(Washington, DC, ), –; and McNeill, Something New under the Sun, –.
. David E. Lilienthal, “Are We Losing India?” Colliers ( June ): –, –, .
. Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, “Nehru and History,” History and Theory (October ):
–.
. Kanwar Sain, America Through Indian Eyes (Lahore, ), , .
. Sain, America Through Indian Eyes, –.
. Henry Hart, Administrative Aspects of River Valley Development (New York, ), v, –; Henry
Hart, New India’s Rivers (Bombay, ), –.
. Jawaharlal Nehru, “Temples of the New Age,” July , in Jawarharlal Nehru’s Speeches,
vol. (Calcutta, ), –.
:
unaccountable to the people of the valley and for displacing tens of thousands.
Through the s, comparisons of foreign-aid programs to the New Deal
raised the hackles of Republicans in Congress and the executive who already
derided foreign aid as mere “giveaways.” Opponents of foreign aid found
further ammunition with the publication of William Lederer and Eugene
Burdick’s novel, The Ugly American. It decried most U.S. development
activity in the Third World as dilettantish, disjointed, and largely ineffective
. Donald Davidson, The Tennessee, vol. , The New River: Civil War to TVA (reprint, Nashville,
), –. Davidson derided Lilienthal’s “genius” in implementing plans that displaced persons
and upset the social life of the valley. Most of the Agrarians, however, were generally optimistic
about the effects the TVA would have on the region. See Edward Shapiro, “The Southern Agrarians
and the Tennessee Valley Authority,” American Quarterly (Winter ): –.
. William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American (New York, ), . The novel
was seen as such a threat to foreign aid that the International Cooperation Administration
published a pamphlet refuting the authors’ assertions point by point. See International Coopera-
tion Agency, Reply to the Criticism in the Ugly American (Washington, DC, ).
. “The President’s News Conference,” June , in Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, (Washington, DC, ), ; James T. Paterson, Grand Expectations: The United States,
– (New York, ), .
. Walt W. Rostow, The Diffusion of Power: An Essay in Recent History (New York, ), ; Kimber
Charles Pearce, Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid (East Lansing, MI, ), –.
. NSC , June , box , Records Relating to State Department Participation in the
Operations Coordinating Board and the National Security Council, –, RG , NAMD;
Dulles to Embassy in Israel, September , Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United
States –: The Near and Middle East, Part (Washington, DC, ), :– (hereafter cited as
“Mr. TVA” :
Thus, while support for development based on the TVA model was certainly
not unequivocal in the Eisenhower White House, on occasion it did find a place
in its foreign policy.
Regardless of the status of the TVA in the U.S. government’s overseas
development policies, by the mid- to late s there was a genuine concern
that the communists were having greater success in the “Third World” with
their development models than the United States. The Soviet Union seemed
FRUS, followed by appropriate year); Report by the Special Representative to the President,
November , FRUS –, :–. See also Charles T. Main, Inc., The Unified Development of
the Water Resources of the Jordan Valley Region, Prepared at the Request of UNRWA under the Direction of
the Tennessee Valley Authority (Boston, ).
. Memo of discussion at the d meeting of the National Security Council, Washington,
January , FRUS, –: Foreign Aid and Economic Defense Policy (Washington, DC, ), :–;
Walt W. Rostow, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Foreign Aid (Austin, TX, ), ; Burton I. Kaufman, Trade
and Aid: Eisenhower’s Foreign Economic Policy, – (Baltimore, ), –; Peter W. Rodman, More
Precious than Peace: The Cold War and the Struggle for the Third World (New York, ), –.
. Robert A. Divine, Eisenhower and the Cold War (New York, ), –; Walter McDougall,
The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York, ), –.
. Statement of Representative Henry S. Reuss, December , box , John H. Ohly
Papers, HTL.
. Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and The Soviet Union, –
(Stanford, ), –; Rostow, Foreign Aid, .
:
say we are not in an ‘aid race’ . . . then why are we running scared?” Distress
that the United States was being outpaced was not confined to the aid agencies.
There were real worries at the highest levels of the Eisenhower administration
about the “boldness” and success of Sino-Soviet attempts in courting underde-
veloped countries. This anxiety caused a rethinking of U.S. strategy in many
areas of the world, including Southeast Asia.
In this setting, Americans took notice of an evolving UN plan to tame the
. Caldwell, “Pitfalls in re ‘Soviet Economic Penetration,’” December , box , Ohly
Papers, HTL.
. Rostow, Foreign Aid, –; “Sino-Soviet Bloc Economic Activities in Underdeveloped
Areas, October– December ,” March , FRUS, –: Foreign Economic Policy (Wash-
ington, DC, ), :–; “The Nature of the Sino-Soviet Bloc Economic Threat in the Under-
developed Areas” August , FRUS, –, :–.
. Hiroshi Hori, The Mekong: Environment and Development (New York, ), –.
. Ibid., –; Thi Dieu Nguyen, The Mekong River and the Struggle for Indochina: War, Water,
Peace (Westport, CT, ), –.
. Gilbert F. White, Egbert de Vries, Harold B. Dunkerley, and John V. Krutilla, Economic and
Social Aspects of Lower Mekong Development, Report to the Committee for Coordination of Investi-
gations of the Lower Mekong Basin, , .
“Mr. TVA” :
and so were the sources: Canada provided for aerial mapping; Israel supported
irrigation planning; Japan provided engineering teams; India provided rain-
gauges; Iran gave petroleum products; and a cross-section of UN agencies
undertook a battery of studies and surveys. Despite this variety of backgrounds,
comparisons to the TVA remained direct. The Indian engineer, Kanwar Sain,
who had assumed the post of Director of Engineering Services for the Mekong
Commission, acknowledged some key differences but nevertheless drew clear
. Franklin P. Huddle, The Mekong Project: Opportunities and Problems of Regionalism (Washing-
ton, DC, ), –.
. Kanwar Sain, “Informal Consultation Concerning Comprehensive Development of the
Lower Mekong Basin as TVA-Type River Basin Development Project,” May , box ,
Raymond A. Wheeler Papers, HI.
. Gilbert White, “Vietnam: The Fourth Course,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (December
): –, reprinted in Geography, Resources, and Environment: Selected Writings of Gilbert F. White, vol. ,
ed. Robert W. Kates and Ian Burton (Chicago, ), –.
:
political asset of the United States in parts of the world other than our own.”
White hoped that Lilienthal would contact President Lyndon Johnson and
emphasize the benefits that lay within the modernization program, notably the
means it provided to maneuver out of a martial situation. Although Lilienthal
read White’s article with “fascination,” events outpaced action, leaving White’s
plan to influence U.S. policy moot.
What made Lilienthal’s renewed attention unnecessary was expanding U.S.
. Lilienthal to Bowles, February , box , Lilienthal Papers, MLP; Lilienthal to
Bowles, January ; box , Lilienthal Papers, MLP; Lloyd Gardner, “From the Colorado to
the Mekong,” in Vietnam: The Early Decisions, ed. Lloyd Gardner and Ted Gittinger (Austin, TX,
), .
. Lilienthal to White, January , White to Lilienthal, March , Lilienthal to
White, April , and White to Lilienthal, May , all box , Lilienthal Papers, MLP.
. Arthur Goldschmidt, “The Development of the U.S. South,” Scientific American
(September ): –. Goldschmidt’s view of the South as a colonial dependency of the North
was a view held by many at the time. For an influential exponent of the idea, see C. Vann
Woodward, A History of the South, vol. , Origins of the New South, – (Baton Rouge, ), –.
“Mr. TVA” :
. Goldschmidt, “The Development of the U.S. South,” , ; Transcript, Arthur
Goldschmidt oral history interview by Paige Mulhollan, June , interview , tape , –,
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas (hereafter cited as LBJL); Memo, Arthur
Goldschmidt to the Vice President, May , Confidential File, Oversize Attachments, box ,
LBJL.
. Press Release ECAFE/, May ; Memo, Ortiz-Tinoco, nd, Vietnam Country File,
National Security File (hereafter cited as NSF), box , LBJL.
. Johnson to Goldschmidt, September , Confidential File, Oversize Attachments,
box , LBJL.
. Lloyd C. Gardner, Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam (New York, ),
.
. Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York, ), ; Transcript,
Robert Komer oral history interview by Joe B. Frantz, January , interview , tape , , LBJL.
:
. Michael Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation-Building” in
the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, ). Opinions of Walt W. Rostow and Dean Rusk regarding
modernization were expressed in author’s interview with Walt Whitman Rostow, June .
. Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, – (New York,
), –; George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States in Vietnam, –, d ed.
(New York, ), –; and David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the
Vietnam War (Cambridge, MA, ), –.
. Memo from Rostow, “A Foreign Policy for the Johnson Administration,” March ,
and memo from Rostow, “A Johnson Doctrine,” March , Foreign Affairs (–), both
White House Confidential File (hereafter cited as WHCF), box , LBJL; Memo for the
President, April , Bundy Memos, box , LBJL; Walt W. Rostow, The United States and the Regional
Organization of Asia and the Pacific, – (Austin, TX, ), ; Gardner, Pay Any Price, , .
“Mr. TVA” :
world.” The president noted that the United Nations had already broken
ground on that cooperative effort in the form of the Mekong Commission.
The Mekong project promised to “provide food and water and power on a
scale to dwarf even our own TVA.” Johnson recalled that “[i]n the countryside
where I was born, and where I live, I have seen the night illuminated, and the
kitchens warmed, and the homes heated, where once the cheerless night and
the ceaseless cold held sway. And all this happened because electricity came to
. Lyndon Johnson, Address at Johns Hopkins University: “Peace Without Conquest,” April
, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, , vol. (Washington, DC,
), –; CBS Television Network coverage of the Johns Hopkins Speech, April , video
recording, Museum of Television and Radio, New York City.
. Johnson, “Peace Without Conquest,” .
. Johnson, “Peace Without Conquest,” ; Gardner, Pay Any Price, –.
. Research report, foreign-press reaction to President Johnson’s Johns Hopkins Speech on
Vietnam, WHCF, box , LBJL; Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the
Escalation of the War in Vietnam (Berkeley, ), ; Nguyen, Mekong River, –; Kaiser, American
Tragedy, –.
. Po-Wen Huang, The Asian Development Bank: Diplomacy and Development in Asia (New York,
), , ch. , ch. ; Yung-Hwan Jo, “Regional Cooperation in Southeast Asia and Japan’s Role,”
The Journal of Politics (August ): –.
:
a mere $. million. Adding to these strains was the troubled U.S. relationship
with Cambodia. As the situation in the region worsened in the s, Cambo-
dia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk became increasingly critical of U.S. interfer-
ence in his country and the region in general. In , he refused all U.S. military
and economic aid, while turning a blind eye to North Vietnamese sanctuaries
on Cambodian soil. Sihanouk also made demands that the Mekong Commis-
sion direct more of its efforts toward his country and shift its headquarters to
The need to gather support for a destructive war that was coming under
increasing international criticism drove Johnson to further clarify America’s
role in the Asia-Pacific region. In a July speech, he emphasized the place
of the United States on the Pacific Rim, a position that justified military and
economic interventions and singled out U.S. involvement in the ADB and the
Mekong project as some of the best examples of this engagement. This
position was further highlighted at the Manila Conference that October, which
insurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, to the Present (New York, ), –; Latham,
Modernization as Ideology, .
. Lyndon Johnson, “Remarks to the American Alumni Council: United States Asian Policy,”
July , Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, , vol. (Washington,
DC, ), .
. “Manila Declaration,” October , NSF – National Security Council Histories, box
, LBJL.
. Cable, State (Wm. Bundy) to Moyers, October , and cable, Moyers to Bundy,
October , Manila Conference and President’s Asian Trip, October –November , , vol. ,
backup material not referenced in narrative [III], NSF – National Security Council Histories,
box , LBJL; Lyndon Johnson, “Remarks at Chulalongkorn University,” October , in U.S.
Department of State, The Promise of the New Asia: United States Policy in the Far East as Stated by President
Johnson on His Pacific Journey (Washington, DC, ), –.
. Moorsteen to Komer, August , “Study of Postwar Reconstruction and Development
in Vietnam,” Komer-Leonhart File (–), NSF, box , LBJL; Nguyen, Mekong River, .
:
. North American Newspaper Alliance, press release, December , box , Lilienthal
Papers, MLP.
. “What Should We Do Now: Five Experts Give Their Answer” Look ( September ):
–, .
“Mr. TVA” :
Lilienthal brought the resources of D&R (for a hefty fee of $,) to the
U.S.-South Vietnamese Joint Development Group (JDG). The group itself was
devoted to laying out a general blueprint to guide long-term economic devel-
opment of the RVN. Keeping to his development philosophy, Lilienthal pro-
posed a program that, like the TVA, would be decentralized and autonomous.
Referencing D&R’s experiences in Colombia and Iran, he pitched the program
as the best way not simply to induce economic growth but also to impart the
. Martin Skala, “Old Hand at Development,” Christian Science Monitor, March .
. Joint Development Group, The Postwar Development of South Vietnam: Policies and Programs
(New York, ), ; U.S. Agency for International Development, Asia Bureau, “Economic Context
United States Economic Assistance to Viet Nam, –,” Vietnam Terminal Report, December
(available directly from USAID), ; Memorandum to the President, Attachment A: Vietnam
Rice Situation, August ,Vietnam B()a Economic Activity File, box , NSF, LBJL.
. “Selling Self-Help – at a Profit” Business Week, August , –, .
. Memo, Leonhart to Johnson, December , Vietnam B()a Economic Activity File,
box , NSF, LBJL; Joint Development Group, Postwar Development, ; “Selling Self-Help – At a
Profit,” Business Week, August . On Los Baños and rice research, see Dean Rusk with Richard
Rusk and Daniel S. Papp, As I Saw It (New York, ), ; and James Lang, Feeding a Hungry Planet:
Rice, Research, and Development in Asia and Latin America (Chapel Hill, ).
:
To accomplish this, Lilienthal and the other members of the JDG proposed
a Mekong Delta Development Authority (MDDA). Although tethered to the
regional Mekong project and thus limited in scope to the boundaries of the
RVN, the MDDA’s programs would nevertheless affect the lives of millions of
Vietnamese. In keeping with the general philosophy that had guided the TVA,
the MDDA was to be separate from but work in cooperation with the govern-
ment. It would be responsible not only for planning and executing the large-
. Joint Development Group, Postwar Development, , , and –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., ; Agency for International Development, Asia Bureau, “War Victims and Relief
and Rehabilitation United States Economic Assistance to Vietnam, –,” Vietnam Terminal
Report, December , , , .
“Mr. TVA” :
As the JDG’s investigations were entering their final stages, the military and
political situation in Vietnam changed radically. The Tet Offensive of early
called into question U.S. assertions that the war would end any time soon and
necessarily cast doubts on whether any postwar planning could be put into
operation. Too, Johnson had grown weary. On March , in the same speech
in which he announced his refusal to seek or accept another term as president,
he again offered up the Mekong project as proof of “our determination to build
. Lyndon Johnson, “President’s Address to the Nation,” March , Public Papers, Lyndon
B. Johnson, –, vol. (Washington, DC, ), –.
. Neuse, David E. Lilienthal, –.
. Lyndon Johnson, “Remarks at the Korean Consulate in Honolulu,” April , Public
Papers, Lyndon B. Johnson, –, vol. , .
:
. Eugene Black, Alternative in Southeast Asia (New York, ), , –, –.
. Transcript, Speaking Freely, NBC Television Network, March , and transcript, The
Today Show, NBC Television Network, May , both box , Lilienthal Papers, MLP.
. David Lilienthal, “Postwar Development in Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs (January ):
–.
. David Lilienthal, “Japan and the New World of the Pacific,” May , box ,
Lilienthal Papers, MLP.
“Mr. TVA” :
to face down the communist threat. The Nixon White House desired to reduce
American obligations in foreign aid and share them out among other developed
countries through multilateral organizations. Nixon did not abandon the
Mekong project altogether. In fact, it remained a symbol of American support
for regional efforts. Particular segments of the project were emphasized to gain
immediate political or military leverage. During the Paris peace negotiations,
the Mekong project surfaced as part of economic aid packages meant to entice
. William Bundy, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (New
York, ), ; Nguyen, Mekong River, .
. Nguyen, Mekong River, –, –, .
. This point had personal resonance for Lilienthal, as he and his son had bitterly disagreed
about U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. See Neuse, David E. Lilienthal, –.
. David E. Lilienthal, “Reconstruction Days,” New York Times, January .
. Lucian Pye, “Foreign Aid and American Involvement in the Developing World,” in The
Vietnam Legacy: The War, American Society, and the Future of American Foreign Policy, ed. Anthony Lake
(New York, ), –.
:
. Martha Finnemore, “Redefining Development at the World Bank,” in International Devel-
opment and the Social Sciences: Essays in the History and Politics of Knowledge, ed. Fredrick Cooper and
Randall Packard (Berkeley, ), –; Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty
of Nations, vols. (New York, ); E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered
(New York, ).
. Arthur E. Morgan, Dams and Other Disasters: A Century of the Army Corps of Engineers in Civil
Works (Boston, ).
. Patricia L. Rosenfield and Blair T. Bower, “Management Strategies for Mitigating Adverse
Health Impacts of Water Resource Development Projects,” Progress in Water Technology ():
–; Sanjeev Khagram, “Toward Democratic Governance for Sustainable Development:
Transnational Civil Society Organizing Around Big Dams,” in The Third Force: The Rise of
Transnational Civil Society, ed. Ann M. Florini (Washington, DC, ), .
. Thayer Scudder, “The Human Ecology of Big Projects: River Basin Development and
Resettlement,” Annual Review of Anthropology (): –; John E. Bardach, “Some Ecological
Implications of Mekong River Development Plans,” in The Careless Technology: Ecology and Inter-
national Development, ed. M. Taghi Farvar and John P. Milton (New York, ), –; Agency for
International Development, To Tame a River (Washington, DC, ), .
. Finnemore, “Redefining Development,” in International Development, ed. Cooper and
Packard, –; Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara (New
York, ), –; Rich, Mortgaging the Earth, .
“Mr. TVA” :
also sent a clear and early signal that it would provide no support for projects
on the Mekong.
The fate of Lilienthal’s own business highlights the sea change of the s
and the decline of the TVA model. D&R’s programs in Iran had often been held
up as prime examples of inclusive TVA-style development. During the s,
Lilienthal predicted that under D&R’s guidance the Khuzestan region would
become another “Garden of Eden.” Instead, D&R’s program helped lead to
. David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. , Unfinished Business, –
(New York, ), –.
. Goodell, Elementary Structures, .
. Ibid., –, –, ; Neuse, David E. Lilienthal, .
. Steve Neal, “The Man Behind the Mighty TVA Now Sees Energy in Our Streams,”
Philadelphia Inquirer, June ; Neuse, David E. Lilienthal, .
. Pete S. Michaels and Steven F. Napolitano, “The Hidden Costs of Hydroelectric Dams,”
Cultural Survival Quarterly (): –.
:
operation. No matter how embedded these plans were in the ethos of the TVA,
the American visions for the development of the Mekong could not coexist
with the realities of war and the limitations of the grass-roots ideology.
The new synthesis on development that emerged in the s did not spell
an end to the use of multipurpose development projects as a means to grasp
the benefits of modern society. Today, in places as different as China and Turkey,
hydraulic programs are underway that see the construction of dams as the
. Tom Zeller, “Ebb and Flow of Opinion: Big Dam Projects,” New York Times, November
; Robert S. Devine, “The Trouble With Dams,” Atlantic Monthly Au g ust ,
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/environ/dams.htm (last accessed February ).