The Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) was an international NGO established in 1925 to provide a forum for discussion of problems and relations between nations of the Pacific Rim. The International Secretariat, the center of most IPR activity over the years, consisted of professional staff members who recommended policy to the Pacific Council and administered the international program. The various national councils were responsible for national, regional and local programming. Most participants were members of the business and academic communities in their respective countries. Funding came largely from businesses and philanthropies, especially the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropy, philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, aft ...

. IPR international headquarters were in Honolulu until the early 1930s when they were moved to New York and the American Council emerged as the dominant national council. IPR was founded in the spirit of Wilsonianism, an awareness of the United States' new role as a world power after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, and a belief that liberal democracy should be promoted throughout the world. To promote greater knowledge of issues, the IPR supported conferences, research projects and publications, and after 1932 published a quarterly journal ''

Pacific Affairs ''Pacific Affairs'' (''PA'') is a Canadian peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes academic research on contemporary political, economic, and social issues in Asia and the Pacific. The journal was founded in 1926 as the newsletter for th ...

''. After World War II, charges that the IPR was infiltrated with Communists led to Congressional hearings and loss of tax exempt status. The investigation of the IPR was the first major investigation initiated by the subcommittee. Many IPR members had liberal left orientations typical of internationalists of the 1930s, some ten IPR associates were shown to have been Communists, others were sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and the anti-imperialist tone of the leadership aroused resentment from some of the colonial powers, but the more dramatic charges, such as that the IPR was responsible for the fall of China, have not been generally accepted.

Founding and early years (1925–1939)

The IPR was the result of two sets of organizers, one in New York, another in Hawai'i. The New York-based effort was organized by Edward C. Carter, after graduating from Harvard in 1906, joined the

Student Volunteer Movement The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions was an organization founded in 1886 that sought to recruit college and university students in the United States for missionary service abroad. It also sought to publicize and encourage the mission ...

with the YMCA in India, then worked with the Y in France during World War I. After the war he joined The Inquiry, a liberal Protestant commission with a flavor both genteel and militant which organized conferences and publications on labor, race relations, business ethics, and international peace. Among Carter's constituents were John D. Rockefeller, III,

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller (October 26, 1874 – April 5, 1948) was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family through her marriage to financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller ...

, daughter of the Rhode Island U.S. Senator, and Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, President of Stanford University. Wilbur argued that a new organization devoted to Pacific affairs would fill a gap not addressed by East Coast foreign policy groups. Meanwhile, in Hawai'i, another group was organizing under the leadership of local business interests.

Criticism

Not everyone approved.

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...

called Carter, Wilbur, and The Inquiry a "strange and motley crew", a "little band of élite and erudite adventurers." Some in the American State Department and Navy opposed discussion of Pacific affairs, fearing that it might interfere with strategic planning at a time when Chinese and Japanese nationalism were on the rise. Carter countered with support from the

and the Carnegie Foundation. Using networks of the International YMCA, independent National Councils were organized in other countries, with an International Secretariat in Honolulu.

Conferences

The first conference was held in Honolulu in the summer of 1925, followed by another in Honolulu (1927), then conferences in Kyoto (1929), Hangzhou and Shanghai (1931), Banff, Canada (1933), Yosemite, USA (1936), and Virginia Beach, USA (1939). Each conference published its background papers and roundtable discussions in a volume in the series ''Problems of the Pacific''.

American Council leadership

Edward Carter took responsibility for the American Council. When he became Secretary General in 1933 he lobbied successfully to have the International Headquarters move to New York. Since 1928 his chief assistant had been

Frederick V. Field Frederick Vanderbilt Field (April 13, 1905 – February 1, 2000) was an American leftist political activist, political writer and a great-great-grandson of railroad tycoon Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt, disinherited by his wealthy relatives fo ...

, who worked with him until 1940. (Field was later attacked for his Communist allegiances: see below.) The American Council moved energetically on several fronts. One of Carter's concerns was that public opinion needed to be informed and school curriculum deepened. Another area was to commission or subsidize scholarship on all aspects of Asia. Over the next decades, the IPR imprint appeared on hundreds of books, including most of the important scholarship on China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Notable was the Chinese Dynastic History Project, headed by the German refugee scholar Karl Wittfogel, which set out to translate and annotate the official histories compiled by each Chinese dynasty for its predecessor. In 1932, the IPR determined to expand its Bulletin into a full-fledged journal,

. At the recommendation of longtime treaty port journalist H.G.E. Woodhead, Carter recruited

Owen Lattimore Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of ''Pacif ...

, a multi-sided scholar of Central Asia who, however, did not have a Ph.D. The IPR aimed to include all of the countries of the Pacific, including colonies, such as the Philippines and Korea (the Dutch government forbade participation from the Dutch East Indies), and the Soviet Union. As friction between Japan and China became more intense, the IPR became more overtly political. In 1931, the Japanese invasion forced the conference to move from Hangzhou to Shanghai. In 1932, the Japanese delegation withdrew and succeeding conferences were held without Japanese representation. Since the USSR was a longtime rival of Japan and a revolutionary Marxist power, Soviet participation raised many questions and problems. Marxist analysis, such as that brought by Wittfogel, was considered by some to add a powerful tool for understanding Chinese history, but Stalin's interest was scarcely limited to discussions and theories. Carter's sympathy for the Soviet Union led him to defend Stalin's purges and trials, although IPR publications contained both favorable and critical treatments of Soviet policies.

Publishing history

The IPR sponsored other important scholarly excursions into Asian history and society: R.H. Tawney's long memo for the 1931 Conference was published as his ''Land and Labor in China'' (1931); a Marxist analysis of geography by

Chi Ch'ao-ting Ji Chaoding (; 1903–1963) was a Chinese economist and political activist. His book ''Key Economic Areas in Chinese History'' (1936) influenced the conceptualization of Chinese history in the West by emphasizing geographic and economic factors ...

; the collaboration between Lattimore and Wittfogel which used an eclectic array of approaches including Arnold Toynbee,

Ellsworth Huntington __NOTOC__ Ellsworth Huntington (September 16, 1876 – October 17, 1947) was a professor of geography at Yale University during the early 20th century, known for his studies on environmental determinism/climatic determinism, economic growth, econo ...

, and

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

to develop a social history of China.

The war years

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the IPR organized two conferences, one conference at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, in December 1942 and the second conference in Hot Springs, Virginia in January 1945. One scholar noted that the non-official nature of these meetings meant that officials and influential leaders could join in the fray in an ostensibly private capacity, which "gave the I.P.R. a status well beyond its actual size."Christopher G. Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941-1945 (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, 1978): 212-214; 540- 541; Holland ''Memoirs''. Colonial issues, economic issues and post-war planning were the major areas of controversy. The Americans demanded that European colonial markets be opened to American goods by the removal of preference tariffs while the British expressed concerns that American economic might could be used as a "potential bludgeon". Another example was

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (''née'' Swarup Nehru; 18 August 1900 – 1 December 1990) was an Indian diplomat and politician who was the 6th Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964 and 8th President of the United Nations General Assembly from 19 ...

of India, asserting that the conflict in Asia was a race war, and other members of the conference from Asia warned that too harsh a treatment of Japan would lead to anti-Western feeling throughout the Far East. At the roundtables, there was criticism as well as doubt that British would follow the

Atlantic Charter The Atlantic Charter was a statement issued on 14 August 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II. The joint statement, later dubbed the Atlantic Charter, outlined the aims of the United States and ...

. The British pointed out that high-flown ideas were being pushed on them while American willingness to apply the same ideals within its own borders was questionable. Those in the International Secretariat were suspicious and critical of the British, noting that the delegation from India was more British than the British. Those representing American interests repeatedly insisted they were not fighting in order to reconstitute the British Empire; the representatives of the British concern replied that they would "not be hustled out of evolution into revolution," and that the US might "do well to look into her own Negro problem." As part of IPR's lasting impact in the region, the conferences helped to focus on the political and social developments within Japan after the war, especially the question of whether to abolish the imperial throne. Edward Carter summarized Anglo-American differences and fears: "continuing imperialism as a threat to world peace", on the one hand, and of "anti-colonialism as a recipe for chaos" on the other, and of "imperial tariff protections as a barrier to world trade and of American economic might as a potential bludgeon." Some have suggested that Carter left the Secretary General position in late 1945 because of pressure from the European council leaders due to his increasingly outspoken anti-colonialism. At home, the American Secretariat came under criticism.

Attacks over alleged Communist influences and demise

Toward the end of the war, the Institute came under criticism for alleged communist sympathies. The first major criticism of the Institute was a wartime study by dissident IPR member

Alfred Kohlberg Alfred Kohlberg (January 27, 1887, San Francisco, California, April 7, 1960, New York City, New York) was an American textile importer. A staunch anti-Communist, he was a member of the pro-Chiang "China lobby", as well as an ally of Wisconsin Sen ...

, an American who had owned a textile firm in prewar China. After finding what he believed were Communist sympathies in IPR, in particular

Frederick Vanderbilt Field Frederick Vanderbilt Field (April 13, 1905 – February 1, 2000) was an American leftist political activist, political writer and a great-great-grandson of railroad tycoon Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt, disinherited by his wealthy relatives fo ...

, Kohlberg first wrote to other members of the Board, published an 80-page report, then launched a publicity campaign against the Institute. The IPR came under further suspicion by government authorities as a result of the Venona intercepts and its close association with Amerasia. Amerasia came under investigation when a classified

OSS OSS or Oss may refer to: Places * Oss, a city and municipality in the Netherlands * Osh Airport, IATA code OSS People with the name * Oss (surname), a surname Arts and entertainment * ''O.S.S.'' (film), a 1946 World War II spy film about ...

report appeared as an article in the magazine. IPR was closely allied with ''Amerasia''. The two organizations shared the same building, and many members of the Editorial Board of ''Amerasia'' were officers or employees of IPR. An FBI review of ''Amerasia'' and IPR publications found that approximately 115 people contributed articles to both. The

Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy The Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy (CDFEP) was an organization that was active in 1945–52 in opposing US support for the Kuomintang government in China. History The CDFEP was founded in August 1945, towards the end of World War ...

was also housed in this building. Among IPR staffers claimed to be Communists or collaborators with Soviet intelligence agents were Kathleen Barnes, Hilda Austern, Elsie Fairfax-Cholmely, Chi Chao-ting, Guenter Stein, Harriet Levine, Talitha Gerlach,

Chen Han-seng Chen Hansheng (February 5, 1897 – March 13, 2004), also known as Chen Han-seng and Geoffrey Chen, was a Chinese historian, sociologist and social activist considered a pioneer of modern Chinese social science. He was an underground spy for ...

(a member of the Sorge spy ring), Michael Greenberg (named as a source in 1945 by defecting Soviet courier

Elizabeth Bentley Elizabeth Terrill Bentley (January 1, 1908 – December 3, 1963) was an American spy and member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). She served the Soviet Union from 1938 to 1945 until she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intellige ...

), and

T.A. Bisson Thomas Arthur Bisson, who wrote as T. A. Bisson (New York City, 1900–1979) was an American political writer, journalist, and government official who specialized in East Asian politics and economics. In the 1920s and 1930s, he worked for the Fo ...

( Venona's "Arthur"), as well as Kate Mitchell and Andrew Roth, both of whom were arrested in the 1945 '' Amerasia'' case.''Institute of Pacific Relations'', report of the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, 1952, p. 97. After the success of the Chinese Communist Revolution, criticism of the IPR increased. Its detractors accused it of having helped to "lose China" to Communism. In the early fifties, the IPR came under a lengthy investigation by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Critics charged that IPR scholars had been naïve in their statements regarding Communism, Chinese Communism and

Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...

Russia. Senator

Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican United States Senate, U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarth ...

of Wisconsin repeatedly criticized IPR and its former chairman Philip Jessup. McCarthy observed that Frederick V. Field, T.A. Bisson, and Owen Lattimore were active in IPR and claimed that they had worked to turn American China policy in favor of the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

. In 1952, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), chaired by Senator Pat McCarran, spent over a year reviewing some 20,000 documents from the files of IPR and questioning IPR personnel. The committee found it suspicious that

Marxists Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

had published articles in the IPR journal and that Communists had attended an IPR conference in 1942. In its final report the SISS stated:

The IPR itself was like a specialized political flypaper in its attractive power for Communists ...The IPR has been considered by the American Communist Party and by Soviet officials as an instrument of Communist policy, propaganda and military intelligence. The IPR disseminated and sought to popularize false information including information originating from Soviet and Communist sources.... The IPR was a vehicle used by the Communists to orient American far eastern policies toward Communist objectives.

Elizabeth Bentley testified that

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

spy chief Jacob Golos warned her to stay away from the IPR because it was "as red as a rose, and you shouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole." Likewise,

Louis Budenz Louis Francis Budenz (pronounced "byew-DENZ"; July 17, 1891 – April 27, 1972) was an American activist and writer, as well as a Soviet espionage agent and head of the ''Buben group'' of spies. He began as a labor activist and became a member ...

, former editor of the ''

Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were m ...

'', testified that

Alexander Trachtenberg Alexander "Alex" Trachtenberg (23 November 1884 – 26 December 1966) was an American publisher of radical political books and pamphlets, founder and manager of International Publishers of New York. He was a longtime activist in the Socialist Part ...

of the Communist Party-affiliated International Publishers told him that party leaders thought the IPR was "too much a concentration point for Communists; the control could be maintained without such a galaxy of Communists in it." The IPR lost its tax-exempt status as an educational body in 1955, when the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory t ...

alleged that the Institute had engaged in the dissemination of controversial and partisan propaganda, and had attempted to influence the policies or opinions of the government. Under the leadership of William L. Holland, the IPR pursued a long legal action to regain tax-exempt status, which lasted until 1959. The final court judgment rejected all allegations by the Internal Revenue Service. By the mid-1950s, the IPR was facing other challenges – notably the development of well-funded centers for Asian Studies at major American universities such as Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Michigan and Columbia. The rise of these centers created an opinion that the IPR was no longer necessary. The large foundations which had previously supported the IPR shifted their financial resources to the university centers.''Holland, William L.'', Remembering the Institute of Pacific Relations, 1995. At the end of the IRS case, a degree of financial support that the Institute had attracted due to free speech issues and the IRS case was lost to other causes. The IPR also had been gradually losing academic contributors due in part to the rise of the

Association for Asian Studies The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political and non-profit professional association focusing on Asia and the study of Asia. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The Association provides members with an Annu ...

. The Institute dissolved in 1960. Publication of the journal ''Pacific Affairs'' was transferred to

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thr ...

, in Vancouver, Canada. A few years later two successor organizations were established, the

Pacific Basin Economic Council The Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC) is an independent business association founded by Weldon B. Gibson in 1967 with the objective of facilitating business in the Asia-Pacific region. It has a rich history of supporting business leaders, acad ...

, an organization of regional business leaders founded in 1967, and the more academic Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD) in 1968.

Publications

International Secretariat

The International Secretariat had a publishing program that included a Research Series, an Inquiry Series, and a quarterly journal, ''

''. Savord, Ruth
"American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, Inc." ''American Agencies Interested in International Affairs''
New York: Published for the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is a nonprofit organization that is independent and nonpartisan. CFR is based in New York Ci ...

by F.A. Praeger, 1942, pp. 5-7. The American Council participated in this program.

American Council

The American Council published two periodicals of their own, a fortnightly journal ''Far Eastern Affairs'' and the biweekly ''Imparel'', a mimeographed summary of the news issued by the San Francisco Bay Region Division. The Council additionally published research volumes as a part of their ''Studies of the Pacific'' series, and more popular studies under their ''Far Eastern Pamphlets'' series.

Sources and notes

External links

''Pacific Affairs'' (journal)
official website *
Collected works
at

The Online Books Page The Online Books Page is an index of e-text books available on the Internet. It is edited by John Mark Ockerbloom and is hosted by the library of the University of Pennsylvania. The Online Books Page lists over 2 million books and has several f ...

Finding aid to the Institute of Pacific Relations records
at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Institute Of Pacific Relations Political and economic think tanks in the United States McCarthyism Espionage Organizations established in 1925 Organizations disestablished in 1960 International political organizations Non-governmental organizations

Founding and early years (1925–1939)

Criticism

Conferences

American Council leadership

Publishing history

The war years

Attacks over alleged Communist influences and demise

Publications

International Secretariat

American Council

Sources and notes

Further reading

Articles

Books

Dissertations

Government records

See also

External links