Arts Chairman Has a Special Role

Because of my 25 years-plus of experience with government and the arts, as drafter of the legislation which created our National Endowment for the Arts, and as its former chairman, I am certain this position is virtually as complex as the arts themselves.

It is fulfilled when it combines leadership with a most attentive ear to guidance.

When the National Endowment for the Arts was growing slowly into legislative reality--amid skepticism, antagonisms and delays--there was great fear that the proposed program, precedent-setting for the United States, would create a “cultural czar” and that as a result, the “dead hand” of government would stifle American creativity.

In preparing the legislation for Sen. Claiborne Pell (D- R.I.), chairman of a wholly new subcommittee on the arts and humanities (and still after nearly 30 years, its chairman) I was deeply aware of this fear. Claiborne and I, longtime friends, discussed it carefully. We developed a fundamental and philosophic concept: the endowment, should creation occur, would be guided in all its endeavors by private citizen experts and not by a bureaucracy.

A peer panel system was authorized to review applications for help from the visual and performing arts, from architecture and film, radio and TV, from organizations undergirding them, and of great importance, from the individuals who make them come alive--the composers, sculptors, choreographers, writers, painters.

The ultimate guide established was a National Council on the Arts, to include the nation’s most distinguished artists and arts leaders.

The first national council began its endowment work in 1965 with great excitement. These were indeed pioneers, feeling that a minuscule budget would increase if the job was well done. Among them were Isaac Stern, Leonard Bernstein, Agnes de Mille , Gregory Peck. There was a wonderful spirit of participation. Roger Stevens was appointed endowment chairman by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The council could not dictate by itself the expenditure of federal funds. It was established to advise, to recommend, to review the recommendations of the panelists, the experts selected for each of the many arts areas.

Roger Stevens treated his council as if it were more than a board of directors. If only a few of the 26 were reluctant to approve a project, it was shelved. Immense respect was accorded to those private citizen guides.

I am convinced that the endowment’s remarkable success since September, 1965, is attributable to this basic process. The “cultural czar” syndrome vanished, the “dead hand” of government became instead truly creative.

Close to 90,000 grants have been awarded. Private giving to the arts, static during the previous decade, has grown at least 25-fold to today’s estimated $6.5 billion annually. Symphony orchestras, dance and opera companies, resident professional theaters have grown at similar dramatic ratios. State and local governments have contributed ever-increasing amounts of support in partnership with the endowment. Conceived to provide seed money for the arts, it has seen each federal dollar invested multiply at least five times over.

Private citizen experts in the arts--they are central to a catalyst that has so markedly shaped the cultural life of the country.

The chairman’s role must be integral to this process. In my time in the sunlight, only once did I, by myself, cancel an endowment grant recommended by council and panel. It was made to a small television station in New York which, in turn, subgranted funds to a young filmmaker who brought into the studio a small white dog, shot it in the stomach and watched it die, agonizingly, on camera. It was alleged to demonstrate man’s inhumanity and innate cruelty. I said it was some sort of political statement, not art. I was bitterly criticized for a short time for censorship. I did not regret my decision--and it was quickly made.

By their very nature, however, the arts are controversial. Great artists throughout history have worked on the frontiers of expressions. A chairman must recognize the excellence of the traditional in art and the values of the experimental as well.

I tried my hardest to make the endowment as responsive as possible to the broad constituency it serves, artists, arts organizations, the growing audience. I believe I strengthened the panel system through procedures for a regular rotation of members and through increased opportunities for a variety of points of view. The arts speak in many voices. All need a fair and objective hearing. I believe I strengthened the council by inviting and receiving a deeper sense of involvement, through committees on policy and planning, through the participation of state leaderships. Debates were suddenly more lively. With such assets, I feel a chairman must avoid, except at the rarest of times, unilateral decisions. They weaken the endowment’s fundamentals, and they invite excursions by sensation-seekers more concerned with notoriety than abiding quality.

A chairman must have strong convictions, must constantly strive for greater excellence, and always seek better and lasting relationships on Capitol Hill. A chairman must be open to innovation and must travel so that the marvelous panoply of the arts is viewed at first-hand. The chairman must be fully dedicated to the arts, in time, in energy. The joy I found in this position came so often after the working day concluded--in the countless evenings when we had the privilege of attending new performances large and small, in music, in theater, film and dance and of meeting with the artists involved. The individual artist is the key to it all.

Above all, the chairman must be able to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I suffered mine and emerged. Today’s firestorm is intense. To me, a vacuum was created by almost six months of endowment inaction. Enemies occupied the space. Vast exaggerations and distortions have occurred. A sense of perspective is urgently needed. The abiding values of the arts can provide a beacon for leadership for a chairman steadfast in heart and with an ear most carefully attuned to the best of private citizen guidance, past and present.