«Construir un vinculo efectivo y fructífero entre los pueblos americanos». The cultural exchange programs and their impact on the cultural and political landscape of Chile under President Eisenhower

Propaganda and public diplomacy operations towards Latin America were not new to the Cold War, however in the post-war period they took on renewed forms and intensities. Chile was one of the countries most affected, although not in absolute terms but certainly in qualitative terms, by the plans of the US administration that promoted a cultural action based on the cooperation with the local elite, on the training of students, on the cultural exchange, rather than focusing just on information programs, in a context that was totally different from the European one, with no imminent communist threats. Therefore it was decided to support the more immediate political propaganda with a cultural diplomacy that, although it was part of the so-called soft power, was also a large-scale effort and a medium-term action, based on the exchange and on the circulation of ideas just to help people to understand and promote the American way of life, its principles and its innovations. The Exchange of Person Programs (EOP) - among which the Foreign Leader Program (FLP) is the most important, not so much for quantitative dimensions, as for the level of the people involved - were considered among the most effective tools (already in the Europe), so they were used also for the Chilean context.