ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Dutch public diplomacy between the First and Second World Wars. It actively engages with recent literature on public diplomacy which seeks to broaden the field by including cases predating the Cold War and by analysing the agency of non-state actors. The author shows that these insights can successfully be applied in Dutch historiography by analysing the National Bureau for Documentation on the Netherlands (1919–1935). The purpose of this organization, that was set up by the former parliamentarian F.J.W. Drion with the aid of Dutch businessmen, was to improve the public image of the Netherlands abroad via a network of ‘silent press attachés’, consisting of Dutch journalists who tried to promote the Dutch image by influencing foreign media. Although high officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stood in close contact with Drion and even provided the lion’s share of its funding, the Dutch government wanted to keep these connections a secret. A close reading of the correspondence between Drion and his attaché in London, journalist and historian P.C.A. Geyl, reveals the complex interactions between official and non-official actors in Dutch public diplomacy.
