Written by Edie Christian
12/10/2025
On 6 November 1955, The New York Times announced that “America’s secret weapon is a blue note in a minor key.” It was almost a decade into the Cold War ideological conflict between the United States (US) and Soviet Union (USSR), and both superpowers were beginning to approach their rivalry with a global outlook. The US was becoming increasingly anxious that their domestic segregation laws jeopardised their international reputation and ability to convince the opposing states of the benefits of capitalism. They subsequently launched a campaign to win over the hearts and minds of decolonised populations; the US State Department sent musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie on a series of global Jazz Ambassador tours. Their efforts were particularly pertinent in Africa, as they ran alongside a sustained campaign of covert action by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the Jazz Ambassador tours can certainly be read as a cultural proxy conflict that exploited the musicians as CIA mouthpieces and Africa as its stage.
Throughout the 1950s, the Cold War was becoming inextricably linked with rapidly increasing processes of European decolonisation. The membership of the United Nations (UN) had increased from 51 states in 1945 to 117 in 1965; in an increasingly Manichean world, these newly independent, and frequently non-aligned, states held some power over the international reputations of both superpowers. The USSR had been emphasising the pervasive racial inequality within the US; American officials, although reluctant to address the domestic segregation, felt compelled to reconstruct how they were perceived globally. Jazz musicians were selected to advocate for American interests abroad, as the jazz genre was ostensibly indigenous to the US. Furthermore, the racial diversity of many of these jazz bands presented a utopian ideal of racial harmony that belied the discriminatory reality for African Americans. Although intended to emphasise the unparalleled nature of American culture, jazz as a genre is underpinned by the trade of enslaved African people, with the lyrics and blues scale directly descending from the field songs of those enslaved in the Deep South. Although the US government employed a symbol of resistance to present an image of racial harmony abroad, this was darkly offset by worsening conditions of domestic racial segregation throughout the 1950s.
The State Department’s first Jazz Ambassador tour was headed by Dizzy Gillespie. It began in March 1956 and travelled around southern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Its unprecedented success laid the groundwork for such tours as pillars of American foreign policy. The musicians were well aware of the contradiction in such policy, however. Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong cancelled a diplomatic trip to Moscow in 1957 after President Eisenhower refused to send troops to forcibly enforce school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas. This decision would only be reversed a fortnight later, following heavy pressure and the counsel from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that Arkansas was “ruining our foreign policy.” Armstrong subsequently agreed to rejoin the tours, the most significant of which was arguably the months-long tour of decolonised Africa in 1960—when Armstrong arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), “drummers and dancers paraded him through the streets on a throne”.
Many of the audiences were under no illusions: enjoying jazz did not equate to agreeing with American foreign policy. However, the tours were also used to facilitate covert action undertaken by the CIA in order to undermine Soviet influence throughout the Congo and sub-Saharan Africa more widely. UN documents uncovered by historian Susan Williams demonstrate that the CIA “used the cover of the musician[s’] visit[s] to get access to […] Katanga”, the mineral-rich province which had recently seceded from the newly independent Congolese government. Of particular importance to the American government was the Shinkolobwe mine, which had been the primary source of uranium for the atomic bomb during World War II, and became a crucial bone of contention during the Cold War nuclear arms race. At the same time, the CIA was plotting to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, the DRC’s first democratically elected leader, for what they perceived to be socialist leanings. He was assassinated on 17 January 1961 by the Katangese gendarmerie, although this was certainly facilitated by actions taken by the CIA. Williams highlights that Armstrong “was basically a Trojan horse for the CIA. […] He would have been horrified.”
The Jazz Ambassador tours during the cultural Cold War were inherently paradoxical. The US government presented a utopian ideal of American racial harmony whilst simultaneously persecuting its African American population. These tours were presented as singularly invested in spreading global democracy to combat the evils of Soviet communism, whilst simultaneously being used as a cover for the destabilisation of the Congo and the planned assassination of its democratically elected leader. These tours were marketed as inherently anti-racist, and yet were built upon the commodification, exploitation, and deception of the Black musicians it placed front and centre. The Jazz Ambassador tours thereby act as microcosm of the American attitude during the Cold War; many of their actions were focused on upholding a moralistic international image whilst simultaneously eroding democratic ideals and stability abroad.
Bibliography
Burke, Jason. “Louis Armstrong and the Spy: How the CIA Used Him as a ‘Trojan Horse’ in Congo.” the Guardian, September 12, 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/12/louis-armstrong-and-the-spy-how-the-cia-used-him-as-a-trojan-horse-in-congo
Dollar, Steve. “How the CIA Used Jazz Greats as Cover for a 1961 Coup in Africa.” Los Angeles Times, February 12, 2025. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2025-02-12/soundtrack-coup-d-etat-documentary-jazz-greats.
Hall, Stephanie. “The Painful Birth of Blues and Jazz.” Loc.gov. Library of Congress, February 24, 2017. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2017/02/birth-of-blues-and-jazz/.
Kaplan, Fred. “When Ambassadors Had Rhythm (Published 2008).” The New York Times, June 29, 2008, sec. Arts. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/arts/music/29kapl.html
Perrigo, Billy. “How the U.S. Used Jazz as a Cold War Secret Weapon.” Time. Time, December 22, 2017. https://time.com/5056351/cold-war-jazz-ambassadors/.
Times, Felix Belair Jr special To the New York. “United States Has Secret Sonic Weapon–Jazz; SECRET WEAPON: A LONG BLUE NOTE Europe Falls Captive as Crowds Riot to Hear Dixieland but Vast Propaganda Value Is a Secret to Washington, Too.” The New York Times, November 6, 1955, sec. Archives. https://www.nytimes.com/1955/11/06/archives/united-states-has-secret-sonic-weaponjazz-secret-weapon-a-long-blue.html
image credit: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/03/jazz-ambassadors-america-cold-war-dizzy-gillespie
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