Cultural philanthropy and political exile: The Ford Foundation between Argentina and The United States (1959-1979)

Abstract

This article aims to reconstruct the role played by a giant of American philanthropy—the Ford Foundation (FF) — in Argentina starting from a very critical moment for Inter-American relations during the Cold War: 1959. The research is based on an extensive amount of archive sources, including specific information about the grants given by the foundation to hard science professionals in order to escape the political emergency of the mid-Sixties. This contribution will be divided into three parts (i) a brief introduction to the main goals and strategy of the FF and strategy in Latin America in light of the imperatives of the bipolar conflict (ii) the role played in supporting social sciences and organizing resettlement programs (iii) the several contradictions in the process of welcoming these scholars in the U.S. academies.