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Eisenhower’s initiative is still alive and well, half a century later. Make a Google search on People to People, and you’ll find more than a million hits of organizations and information from all over the world.
In far-away Sweden, Brita and I got involved with one of the activities inspired by the People to People plan. It happened in a very indirect way in the early fifties. I bought my first reel-to-reel tape recorder, an American Ampro machine.
This was a rather young technology in the hands of regular consumers at that time. Among the brochures which came with the tape recorder was information on an American magazine, dedicated to tape recording. I subscribed to it, and found an article describing a modern form of ‘pen pals’, using tape recordings instead of regular letters.
There were several American clubs hosting such communications, and some did make reference to the People to People program (which we knew nothing about at the time). We ended up joining one club, ‘World Tape Pals’, headquartered in Dallas, TX and another, The Voicespondence Club from Noel, VA.
Both clubs operated in a similar way. For a membership fee of a few dollars, each member could write a brief presentation, basically containing the mailing address and a listing of main hobbies or interests to be published in the annual roster.
Members would study those listings and send letters to potentially compatible other members, suggesting a start of tape communication. If the suggestion was accepted, the first member would send the first tape. The addressee would listen to the tape, make notes, and send a response on the same physical reel of tape.
In many cases those correspondences would lead to serious friendships. Back in those days with much less communications between people, living far away from each other, this was a way to learn about and understand the everyday lives of other people. Many of those people would also make efforts to meet in person on vacation trips, etc.
We visited several of our tape friends in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, USA, and Sweden (!), and we had several come to see us at our home just outside Stockholm. Just imagine how much more you would get out of a vacation trip with the inside advice from the locals.
As was said at the announcement of the People to People program: “ The president knew from his experience as a military commander that ordinary citizens of different nations could make a difference where governments could not. He wanted people to know and understand that while we are all very different, our values, goals, and day-to-day issues are very much the same.”
That was true half a century ago, and it is just as true today.
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