No Diplomatic Immunity:
African Diplomats, the State
Department, and Civil Rights, 1961–1964

Renee Romano

On July 10, 1963, Secretary of State Dean Rusk made a historic appearance before the Senate Commerce Committee, testifying, not on behalf of a new foreign policy initiative, but for legislation that would transform the United States domestically. While the public accommodations bill of 1963 (which became the Civil Rights Act of 1964) seemed to have little to do with foreign policy, Rusk testified that its passage was crucial to the nation's ability to win the Cold War with the Soviet Union. In his testimony, Secretary Rusk outlined two particular concerns of the State Department: the fact that the Soviet Union capitalized on American racial incidents in its Cold War propaganda and the problems that nonwhite diplomats encountered in the United States because of legal segregation. When the United States was attempting to convince the rest of the world of the superiority of the American way of life, Rusk argued, racial discrimination called the country's commitment to its own ideals into question. Yet Rusk opened and closed his testimony by stressing that the benefits of the bill for United States foreign policy should be seen as secondary: "It is not my view that we should resolve these problems here at home merely in order to look good abroad," Rusk testified. "We must try to eliminate discrimination due to race, color, religion, not to make others think better of us but because it is incompatible with the great ideals to which our democratic society is dedicated."1	1
The lengthy testimony of Secretary of State Rusk in support of a domestic civil rights bill might seem to require little explanation, providing further evidence for the now well-established argument that domestic racism hampered the conduct of American foreign policy during the Cold War. A rich and growing scholarship on the relationship between Cold War foreign policy and American race relations suggests that the Cold War made American racism an international liability since segregation and discrimination tarnished the nation's image abroad. As Mary Dudziak argues, the intersection of race and Cold War diplomacy represented a "critical cultural and ideological weak point" in America's foreign relations. In the 1960s, that weak point became even more vulnerable as domestic racial protest put a spotlight on American racism.2	2
Yet, in spite of this international context, the State Department was not known as a hotbed of civil rights activism. In fact, the State Department was notorious, both within the government and among black activists, for its hostility to civil rights and its reluctance to become involved in domestic political affairs. Among government agencies, the department had one of the worst minority hiring records.3 Furthermore, as recent works make clear, the State Department in the 1950s was more concerned about painting a positive picture abroad than in improving conditions within the United States. In the 1950s the United States Information Agency (USIA) put far more energy into repressing criticism of American racial practices than into lobbying for civil rights reforms at home.4	3
Why then in 1963 was the secretary of state moved to give forceful testimony for a domestic civil rights bill before the Senate? If, in the 1940s and 1950s, the United States government responded to concerns about the international ramifications of domestic discrimination by trying to whitewash the American image overseas, why in the 1960s would the leading figure in the foreign policy establishment argue that there needed to be a federal law outlawing segregation?	. . .