An American Cultural Weapon?

Abstract In October 1958, Elvis was drafted and sent to West Germany, serving at the very frontline of the Cold War—a highly successful propaganda coup to win European “hearts and minds” in the cultural struggle between the two superpowers. How did Elvis manage to morph from America’s “inner enemy” into one of its key Cold War figureheads in only a few years? How did stardom and popular music transform the cultural conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union? What can Elvis’s story tell us about American soft power in the twentieth century more generally? Building on recent historiographical trends, this chapter uses Elvis’s story to investigate the role of popular music and consumerism in the Cold War. It reveals that, even though the US had initially sought to fight the cultural conflict primarily on the grounds of “high culture” and technology, Presley’s success unexpectedly gave America what would become one of its most potent cultural weapons—the public image of a nation freely endorsing consumer choice, innovation, and freedom of expression. It also argues that Elvis’s own adaptability and aloofness was key to his lasting success as a propaganda tool, allowing him to be easily transfigured into all sorts of things for various sorts of people. As America’s public image changed in the 1960s and 1970s, however, so did the image of its Cold War superhero.