Press Release Regarding the White House Conference on People-to-People Partnership

IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 31, 1956 James C. Hagerty, Press Secretary to the President THE WHITE HOUSE The President has invited a group of Americans representing many fields of activity to meet with him at the White House on June twelfth to explore the possibilities of a program for better people-to-people contacts and partnerships throughout the world, A list of these leaders is attached. The President will seek their ideas and help on the whole subject of people-to-people contacts (as distinct from Government contacts) -- contacts designed to create understanding among peoples and build a common effort to advance world peace. The group will also confer that day with the Secretary of State and other Government officials with responsibilities in the foreign relations field, In his letter of invitation mailed from the White House yesterday the President said: "Our Government, as you know, has a relatively modest apparatus for trying to make the United States' objectives and principles better understood throughout the world, I have asked Congress for additional funds to strengthen this activity during fiscal '57. "But, clearly, there will never be enough diplomats and information officers at work in the world to get the job done without help from the rest of us. Indeed, if our American ideology is eventually to win out in the great struggle being waged between the two opposing ways of life, it must have the active support of thousands of independent private groups and institutions and of millions of individual Americans acting through person-to-person communication in foreign lands. "Secretary Dulles and Mr. Theodore C. Streibert, Director of the U. S. Information Agency, join me in this conviction that there is something important which every U. S. citizen -- man, woman and child -- can do to help make the truth of our peaceful goals and of our respect for the rights of others known to more people overseas. "It is my intention to call upon U. S. citizens to help their Government in this task; but before doing so I would like to bring together at the White House a group of distinguished American leaders to assist with the organization of various phases of the work, I earnestly hope, therefore, that it will be possible for you to participate in our meeting here on Tuesday, June 12," (more)