Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs

The Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, later known as the Office for Inter-American Affairs, was a United States agency promoting inter-American cooperation (Pan-Americanism) during the 1940s, especially in commercial and economic areas. It was started in August 1940 as OCCCRBAR (Office for Coordination of Commercial and Cultural Relations between the American Republics) with Nelson Rockefeller as its head, appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[1]^[2]

The Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in the Executive Office of the President was formally established and enacted by US Executive Order 8840 on July 30, 1941, by President Roosevelt^[3]^[4] who named Nelson Rockefeller as the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA).

The agency's function was to counter Italian and German propaganda in the region. The FBI trained the secret police of friendly nations. German sales to military forces was displaced by American aid. Pro-German newspapers and radio stations were blacklisted. Government censorship was encouraged, while the Latin America was blanketed with pro-American propaganda. The OCIAA grew to be a large Federal agency with a budget of $38 million and 1,500 employees by 1943. 1942.^[5]^[6]

It was later renamed the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) with slightly changed powers by Executive order 9532 on March 23, 1945.^[7]

Postwar[edit]

By an Executive order of August 31, 1945, the informational activities of the Office of Inter-American Affairs were transferred to the Department of State. It became known as the Office for Inter-American Affairs. By an Executive order of April 10, 1946, the Office was abolished and its remaining functions and responsibilities were transferred to the State Department.^[31]

Coordinator of the Office for Coordination of Commercial and Cultural Relations between the American Republics and Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (1940–44):

Nelson Rockefeller

Director of the Office for Inter-American Affairs (1945–46)

Wallace Harrison

^[32]^{: 201, 346}

Marion Davis Berdecio

^[32]^: 187

Jack Fahy

Joseph Gregg^{: 111, 114}

[32]

^[32]^: 204

Helen Grace Scott Keenan

^[32]^{: 111, 114}

Robert Talbott Miller

^[32]^: 101

Willard Park

The Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs was penetrated by Soviet intelligence during World War II. The agency's code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona project is "Cabaret".^[32]^: 200 These American citizens were employees of the OCIAA and engaged in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union:

Hello Americans

The Sea Hound

It's All True

Viva América

Gracias Amigos

Erb, Claude C. "Prelude to point four: the Institute of Inter-American Affairs." Diplomatic History 9.3 (1985): 249–269.

Haines, Gerald K. "Under the Eagle's Wing: The Franklin Roosevelt Administration Forges an American Hemisphere." Diplomatic History 1.4 (1977): 373–388. .

online

Maxwell, Allen Brewster, Evoking Latin American collaboration in the Second World War: A study of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (1940–1946), PhD dissertation, Tufts University, Medford, MA., 1971.

Reich, Cary. The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908-1958 (1996), pp. 260–373; the standard scholarly biography.

Rowland, Donald W., History of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, US Government Printing Office, 1947. (United States Office of Inter-American Affairs).

Smith, Richard Norton. On his own terms: A life of Nelson Rockefeller (2014), pp. 143–88 a standard scholarly biography.

at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

Records of the Office of Inter-American Affairs

Busch, Noel F., Life, April 27, 1942, pp. 80–90

Close-Up: Nelson A. Rockefeller; As Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, a celebrated young heir runs a much-discussed and increasingly important Washington bureau.

Rockefeller Family Archives, , Record Group Name: Nelson A. Rockefeller, Personal, Washington, D.C. Files - Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Dates: August 1940-December 1944

Record Group #04

Films at the Internet Archive