71

At the height of the Cold War, the large and powerful Ford Foundation in the United States launched three scholarly exchange programs with Poland, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. These programs were controversial at a time when interaction with Communists was condemned or frowned upon by most Americans, and foundations were regarded as non-political and benign. This article argues that the East European exchange programs of the Ford Foundation developed and carried out by the International Affairs Program functioned as catalysts in the cultural war across the east-west divide, that they were fruitful, and that they were made obsolete because of a new shift in sentiments and approaches that made the Ford Foundation change their priorities.