The George Washington University, Thursday, July 23, 2009, Jack Morton Auditorium

Muscovites head toward the U.S. National Exhibiton.

Face-off to Facebook: From the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate to Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Jack Morton Auditorium, 805 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20006

GW’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at the School of Media and Public Affairs, in partnership with the Carnegie Corporation, the Walter Roberts Endowment, and the Kennan Institute, is pleased to announce a conference devoted to the 50th anniversary of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, with its famous Khrushchev-Nixon “Kitchen Debate,” as well as to the new opportunities for U.S. public diplomacy in a Web 2.0 world.   

The event will be held on Thursday, July 23, 2009 in Washington, D.C. at The George Washington University’s Jack Morton Auditorium.  The conference is open to scholars, journalists, diplomats, and innovators in the use of new media, along with interested members of the public.

The conference, entitled “Face-off to Facebook: From the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate to Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century,” celebrates the famous Sokolniki Park Exhibition that was the site of the verbal sparring match between then Vice-President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. This landmark exhibition at the height of the Cold War touched millions of Soviet citizens, giving them direct, unfiltered contact with American products, American arts, and Russian-speaking American guides. Half a century later, panelists and participants will examine that remarkable summer and why it is considered a high point in the history of the Cold War and of U.S. public diplomacy, with lessons even now for U.S. global outreach in a fast changing and challenging digital world.

The all-day conference will feature several panels.  The morning session will include a panel that will examine the significance of the Kitchen Debate in the history of U.S.-Soviet relations; what it represented in the dynamic of active Cold War ideological competition between the two superpowers; how it resonated with both the American and the Soviet publics; and what impact it had on the political fortunes of its principal players, Nixon and Khrushchev.   Historian Sergei Khrushchev, Professor Nina Khrushcheva, New York Times columnist and former Richrd Nixon speech writer William Safire, other scholars, and eyewitnesses to the Kitchen Debate will take part.

A second morning panel will focus on the landmark Sokolniki Exhibition itself, which brought a slice of American life – along with dozens of Russian-speaking American guides and exhibit staff – directly to the Soviet Union. The 1959 exhibition is credited with giving a human face and voice to America for a Soviet audience that had had virtually no previous contact with the United States.  The panel will be comprised of former exhibit guides and staff, many of who went on to distinguished careers.

The conference will also include the premiere of a short documentary film about the Kitchen Debate and the Sokolniki Exhibition, produced by Emmy award-winning director Nina Seavey of GW’s Documentary Center.

The afternoon session will focus on the new opportunities for U.S. public diplomacy in a contemporary international setting that bears little resemblance to the Cold War period, but which still poses urgent challenges to the U.S. and its ability to communicate effectively with the rest of the world.  Two panels will examine how today’s world of instant global communications affords the same opportunities to be innovative as the Moscow 1959 Exhibition did.

The lunch time speaker will be William Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and Former Ambassador to the Russian Federation.

Author Clay Shirky, of “Here Comes Everybody”, will be on hand for the afternoon session, exploring how to establish connections between the US and the rest of the world through new media networks. Based on his own work and contributions from leading thinkers in government and media, Shirky will present innovative ways to think about the role of the new media, digital technology and social networking in shaping 21st century public diplomacy initiatives. 

The session will also feature the concept for a new massively multi-player online game that foregrounds collaboration and diplomacy, created specially for the conference by a Duke University team led by Timothy Lenoir, a leading scholar and leader in bio-informatics and game-making.

The final panel of new media thinkers and practitioners – from business, government and the scholarly community– will discuss how these ideas might form a new strategy for U.S. public diplomacy in the 21st century.

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