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In the 1950s at the height of Cold War tensions, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a number of cultural exchanges in the hope of generating goodwill. During a decade dominated by space-race competition and the threat of nuclear war, US and Soviet musicians, dancers and orchestras toured each other's countries for mutual benefit. Both powers hoped that this form of cultural diplomacy would lead to greater mutual understanding through meetings between peoples of the two nations. In the most high profile exchange of this period, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra undertook a ten-week tour to Europe and the Soviet Union in 1959 as part of President Eisenhower's Special International Program for Cultural Presentations. This was the largest cultural exchange tour by an American orchestra at that time and the first tour to follow the signing of a formalised exchange agreement in 1958. The highly publicised tour was led by Leonard Bernstein and saw the Philharmonic give a string of very well received performances in the Soviet Union.* 1
Following the New York Philharmonic's tour to Europe and the Soviet Union from August to October 1959, Soviet artists paid reciprocal visits to the United States as part of the increasing pattern of cultural exchanges. A group of Soviet composers, led by Dmitri Shostakovich, visited the United States in late October 1959 for a month and the Moscow State Symphony toured for six weeks from January 1960, resulting in only a short interval between the end of the Philharmonic tour and the arrival of the first group of Russian musicians. Consequently, these visits offer a comparison between the reception of Soviet and American artists in the United States and the portrayal of cultural exchange in the American press. By examining the American press reports upon the Philharmonic's return to the United States and during the Soviet composers and orchestra visit, it can be demonstrated how musical tours with the aim of generating goodwill still exhibited inevitable Cold War competition in a period of intense rivalry. In particular, the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that was present during this period of the Cold War is apparent, as direct comparisons were made between the quality of American and Soviet orchestras....