The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2014

44 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL the Smithsonian launched a traveling exhibition service that assembled exhibits to be sent to Germany and Austria, with 12 exhibits circulating the following year to foreign countries and U.S. embassies. One result of this USIA-Smithsonian collabora- tion was a paper show based on the Smithsonian’s major quin- centennial exhibition, “Seeds of Change.” • USIA provided funding to the Smithsonian for an interna- tional exchange program of art exhibits from 1965 to 1975, at which point the office handling these activities was transferred, along with three employees, into the Institution. • In 1987, USIA worked with the National Portrait Gallery on an exhibit under the U.S.-China cultural-exchange agreement that was scheduled to tour Beijing, Shenyang, Nanyang and Chengdu; the agency contributed $190,000 toward the cost of mounting and transporting the works. After the Chinese govern- ment demanded that portraits of General Douglas MacArthur and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir be removed because of “their potential for offending the sensitivities of the Chinese people,” USIA cancelled the China tour; the exhibit went to Japan instead. • “Smithsonian’s America,” featured in American Festival Japan ’94, showcased 250 items from the Smithsonian collec- tions, including Thomas Edison’s light bulb, a Native American tepee, Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet and the Apollo 14 space capsule. • Although budget cutbacks at USIA put an end to major overseas exhibits, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibi- tion Service continues to field requests from abroad. SITES’ first digital exhibit, “Green Revolution,” is on display in Mexico, while its “Elvis at 21” paper show will open in Canberra in December. Scientific Americans Science and technology projects offer equally rich areas for cooperation, given the Smithsonian’s extensive international scientific involve- ment and the department’s pursuit of science diplomacy in more than 100 countries. The Smithsonian’s first sustained overseas operation, an observatory, started in Chile in 1918. Nearly a century later, in March 2012, Under Secretary for Science Eva Pell joined U.S. Ambassador to Chile Alejandro Wolff at the inaugural excava- tion blast at Las Campanas in the Atacama Desert, home of the future Giant Magel- lan Telescope. This 82-foot (24.5-meter) observatory is scanning the cosmos in unprecedented detail. Scientists from the Smithsonian Con- servation Biology Institute use their exper- tise in ecology, forestry, global change science, wildlife and other disciplines in 25 countries, including Panama, Peru, Gabon, Namibia, Botswana, Thailand, Malaysia, Mongolia, China, India and Jamaica. SCBI also plays a key role in major conservation partnerships like the Global Tiger Initia- Projects like the Global Tiger Initiative and the Deep Reef Observation Project unite Smithsonian scientists with State Department personnel fromOES and other bureaus. The U.S. consulate general in Shanghai assisted the Anacostia Community Museum in developing an exhibition called “Reclaiming the Edge: Urban Waterways and Civic Engagement.” It opened in October 2012. Courtesy of the Smithsonian