Peacemaker in the Cold War: Norman Cousins and the Making of a Citizen Diplomat in the Atomic Age

This dissertation serves as the first academic study of the life and work of Norman Cousins. Although most widely known as the prominent editor of the weekly literary review The Saturday Review of Literature for 34 years (1940-1972/74-76), Cousins’s deep impact on post-war international humanitarian aid and Cold War diplomacy has been previously unexplored.

This dissertation argues that Cousins was among the vanguard of what is now often called Track-II Diplomacy — efforts by individual citizens who maneuver within the state system to influence the behavior of states from outside the diplomatic corps, often compensating for government inaction.
Cousins’s progressive, non-partisan editorials in Saturday Review earned him the respect of the public and U.S. government officials alike, allowing him to transition from editorial voice into the role of unofficial advisor and diplomatic messenger to three successive U.S. presidents and other prominent foreign figures such as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Pope John XXIII. In a number of cases that this study explores, Cousins undertook efforts to personally lobby or pressure American and foreign governments to take action on long-ignored humanitarian issues, ultimately succeeding in changing government policies as a result of his citizen diplomacy.

This dissertation aims to not only shed new light on the important but overlooked political activities of Norman Cousins, but to contribute to the field of New Diplomacy by showing how citizen diplomacy played a role in some of the Cold War’s pivotal turning points.