Preparing U.S. Citizens to be “Overseas Americans”

“According to government figures,” begins the 1960 publication, The Overseas Americans, “there were 1,590,000 American citizens living abroad on March 31, 1959.” The report goes on to note that a significant portion of these Americans were working for U.S. organizations, including government agencies. Realizing that many such individuals would spend their careers “engaged in activities of critical importance for [America],” as Carnegie Corporation’s 1961 annual report explained, a number of Corporation-supported efforts were launched to understand how well these men and women were prepared to discharge their duties and how they could be better educated to do so. The Overseas Americans, written by Harlan Cleveland, then of Syracuse University (who later served as Assistant Secretary of State in the Kennedy administration and under President Lyndon Johnson as U.S. Ambassador to NATO), along with scholars Gerard J. Mangone and John C. Adams, was one important result of this work.  Among other outcomes, the report led the Corporation to support the establishment of a program for training young Americans for overseas service at Syracuse University.