United States Information Agency

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 United States Information Agency Kenneth L. Hacker Q1 New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S.A. Abstract Like the Committee on Public Information of World War I and the Office of War Information in World War II, the United States Information Agency (USIA) was established to persuade people in other nations that the U.S. national interests and national security policies should be supported. The USIA was established in 1953 and was terminated in 1999 when its functions were returned to the Department of State. Since 1999, public diplomacy and U.S. strategic communication have been loosely coordinated and subject to competing paradigms and definitions of terms. Some observers believe that a new agency like the USIA needs to be established because of the war on terror and confusion among agencies that have differing approaches to public diplomacy. Others believe that the present pattern of continual assessment and improvement across agencies is working. The history of the world is replete with examples of political powers using communication to promote their interests and to warn enemies about their resolve to defend themselves. France, for example, promoted its revolution in the 18th century by sending messages directly to citizens of other nations. [1] Like the Alliance Francaise origins in 1883, other nations such as Italy and Germany established institutes for promoting their cultures. [2] Governmental use of persuasive political communication is generally referred to as strategic communication. Messages directed internally are generally part of public affairs while those directed toward foreign audiences are known as public diplomacy. Before World War II, there was little interest in the United States for large-scale public diplomacy. America had generally been reluctant to establish a permanent and large-scale ideological or information operations agency. [1,3] Other nations were not so reluctant. Before and during World War I, Americans were targeted by British and German propaganda. [1] This war saw the emergence of the Committee on Public Information (CPI) which was the first centralized propaganda agency of the U.S. government (USG). In 1917, President Wilson appointed George Creel, journalist and campaign consultant for Woodrow Wilson s reelection campaign in 1916, to be the director of the CPI. Creel used every avenue of information possible, including print, radio, movies, posters, and public speakers, to persuade Americans that the war was not the president s war, but their war. However, the CPI also directed messages to other nations. Millions of booklets about American ideals and good intentions for the war were distributed both at home and abroad. [4] The foreign division of the CPI was smaller than the domestic division but it did work to send messages to as many other nations as possible. [5] Creel turned out pamphets, organized tours, and worked with film makers to generate as many positive messages about America as possible. The connection of the CPI is the fact that the organization started some systematic techniques of public diplomacy that would be adopted later by the United States Information Agency (USIA). These included working with reporters, film makers, entertainers, universities, and businesses in order to generate positive messages about the United States and its policies. A key difference was that the CPI directed strategic communication to both internal and external audiences while the USIA targeted only foreign audiences. After World War I ended, many of the strategic influence efforts of President Wilson and CPI Director, George Creel, were criticized as no longer appropriate. Creel was disliked by members of the public and members of Congress. [1] One reason for the criticism is that the word propaganda had taken on negative connonations that did not exist with the origins of the term. Propaganda originally meant the agricultural sowing of seeds and then later propagating religious faith. [4] Academic researchers began to study the power of propaganda as some of them thought that the power of American, French, and German messages may have been too strong in selling the war. [4] During and after the CPI operations, the organization was accused of censorship, faking stories and photographs, and replicating the Hun ethnic stereotyping of the Germans begun by British propagandists. President Wilson and Congress had also passed legislations like the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act which resulted in many Americans being jailed for their criticisms of the 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 Encyclopedia of U.S. Intelligence DOI: 10.1081/E-EUSI-120048357 Copyright q 2014 by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. 1

2 United States Information Agency 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 war. Creel tried unsucessfully to disassociate himself from USG censorship. After World War I, America shut down its propaganda machine known as the CPI. During the postwar years, Hitler ramped up Germany s propaganda in part by learning from CPI tactics. Russian Bolsheviks made propaganda a major part of their foreign policy strategies. The British Broadcasing Corporation (BBC) was established in 1922. [1] The Dutch began their international broadcasting in 1927, the French in 1931, and the British in 1932. [6] The fascists in Italy and Germany had unified ideological operations up and running ahead of the United States. The Voice of America (VOA) and Office of War Information (OWI) began in 1942. Radio was not taken over by the USG as it was in many other nations in the 1920s. The Soviet Union, for example, had greatly expanded government radio to unify their empire. By the start of World War II, Russia had already made Radio Moscow an international broadcasting network. [7] Nazi Germany had developed a strong radio propaganda system and Britain had its BBC which began broadcasting international radio programs in 1932. [7] By the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, the USG had 12 shortwave transmitters capable of international reach while Germany had 68. [7] By 1945, the USG had 38 transmitters worldwide. Prior to World War II, the United States was the only major power that did not have a stategic influence or public diplomacy bureaucracy. Many American leaders were opposed to the idea of ideological operations as an official part of the USG. As with opposition to the CPI, Americans who saw a formally structured USG strategic influence as a ministry of propaganda were critical of more public diplomacy. [6] Some political leaders thought that truth was more important than propaganda. There were leaders in the military who believed that wars are fought weapons and not words. [6] This changed with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1942. Ideological operations became part of war mobilization. The first major technology used was the one used by America s allies and enemies. This was radio and it became the main tool of the VOA. The OWI was created to help define the role of the United States in the world. [7] The end of World War II brought a declining interest in ideological warfare, but it increased again with the emergence of the Cold War. Advocates of strong public diplomacy during World War II included Nelson Rockefeller and William Donovan, both of whom saw strong strategic influence as necessary to combat the propaganda of the Germans. [7] Both men were outspoken leaders who advocated stronger reactions by the United States to the Nazi regime of Germany. Donovan worked on establishing the espionage service that later became the CIA and a project to use propaganda to support British resistance to the Germans. Rockefeller lobbied for greater American efforts in Latin America in order to counter German influence there. [7] His efforts led to radio broadcasts directed into Latin America. Additionally, there were binational centers that exhibited American cultural productions such as art. There were about 70 of these centers in Latin America. [11] All of this provided groundwork later used by the USIA. President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Donovan as head of the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI). The COI collected intelligence by also conducted information operations designed to diminish the morale of the Germans. [7] The COI included a unit known as the Foreign Information Service (FIS). The FIS was an effort of Willian Donovan and President Roosevelt to expand ideological operations far beyond the influence campaign directed into Latin America. In 1942, the FIS initated radio broacasts with the name VOA. [7] Rockefeller negotiated with movie studios like Disney to make productions that promoted American interests and to keep products out of theaters in Latin America that were showing German propaganda films. [7] Numerous movie producers worked with the armed forces making films to help the war effort. They included John Ford, John Huston, and Franck Capra. [8] Studios working with the OWI included Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, RKO-Pathe Pictures, and Q2 MGM (Larson, 1948). Rockefeller also convinced movie studios to withhold their products from theaters in Latin America that were showing German propaganda films. [7] The COI became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942 and had the mandate of both intelligence and information operations. At the same time, more public information campaigns were being run by what was called the OWI. President Roosevelt created the OWI in 1942 to deal with accurate information about the war. [1] The OWI was allowed to target both American domestic audiences and audiences in other nations. The OWI was later succeeded by the USIA. [7] Experts in public opinion analysis, commercial marketing, and mass media were brought into OWI research projects. These experts included George Gallup, Harold Lasswell, and Wilbur Schramm. The OWI worked with publications like Readers Digest and various film makers. The OWI advised the latter on how they could deliver stronger messages about the need to win the war. The OWI also produced its own documentary films. [7] The general public knew very little about the OWI and it was continuously criticized by commercial media producers who perceived a threat to their own production freedoms. For example, the OWI was known to suggest changes to film scripts and also to deny help in making movies that it did like. [1] The OWI monitored films released from Hollywood to determine if they were helping the war effort. They made suggestions on how films could contain stronger win-the-war messages. [7] The opponents of the Roosevelt administration also argued that the OWI was not worth the funding it received. [7] While many people questioned the need or desirability of 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224

United States Information Agency 3 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 propaganda for a domestic audience, others also questioned the idea of propaganda for other nations during times of peace. [9] Ralph Block (1948), a State Department official at the time wrote that It is possible that more Americans approve of the use of the atomic bomb in defensensive warfare than approve of the use of propaganda to forestall war (p. 678). [9] The White House shut down the OWI in less than 2 weeks after the surrender of Japan. President Truman transferred the functions of the OWI to the State Department, where it became part of the Bureau of Public Affairs. The functions of the OSS were transferred to the War Department, including the covert psychological operations. [7] The State Department ran information operations projects through a unit called the United States Information Service (USIS). The USIS began as overseas offices of the OWI. [6] In 1948, the Smith Mundt Act established ideological or information operations as a key part of American foreign policy. [7] It is important to note that this legislation also made it clear that strategic influence should be use on foreign audiences only. To oppose Communism, President Truman spoke about the need for a Campaign of Truth that would promote the cause of freedom against the propaganda of slavery. [7] The Voice of America received more funding, and the State Department s International Information Administration (IIA) was able to open new USIS posts in different parts of the world. New posts were opened in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. [7] Despite this expansion, there was confusion about the role of the IIA concerning overseas propaganda in peacetime. [7] One source of confusion was the question about what should be overt and what should be covert. Dizard [7] observes that this question appears more in peacetime than in times of war. Before the formation of the USIA, information and ideological opertations, both overt and covert, were conducted by the military and the Department of State. The latter s Policy Planning Staff established efforts to roll back agression by the Soviets in Eastern Europe. [7] The CIA, which was the successor of the OSS, secretly ran Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberation. The content of these radio stations was consistent with the Department of State (DOS) Policy Planning Staff goals for challenging the Soviets. Broadcasting was targeted into Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. [7] One goal was to encourage dissension against Soviet domination. [7] At the time of the USIA formation, public diplomacy and information operations were influenced or conducted by the National Security Council, the CIA, the DOS, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the White House. The formation of the USIA was closely tied to the concept of ideological warfare. [7] After 1948, there was a reaction against using public diplomacy on the American people and it was forbidden. During World War II, members of the public thought that the OWI was withholding important information from them. [9] Some members of Congress suspected that the OWI was manipulated by a powerful president. [9] The USIA was launched in August of 1953 by the Eisenhower administration. The impetus for creating the USIA was closely related to USG objectives in the Cold War. President Eisenhower had been involved with the Atoms for Peace and Open Skies initiatives in the 1950s. The Atoms for Peace program plan called for the United States and the U.S.S.R. to both move nuclear resources away from military applications and toward civilian applications like electricity production. [7] These were programs designed to take the moral high ground away from the Soviets. [10] The USIA focused in its persuasion efforts on external audiences only. Many forms of communication were employed by the USIA to promote the American national images and its policies in world affairs. One tool was the trade fair. Hundreds of exhibits were set up worldwide to give other people a view of American life in the form of cultural exhibits. The American exhibits were popular and drew many visitors where they were established. They promoted both the American way of life and American exports. [7] The USIA used many tools to provide Russians with American contacts and cultures in order to diffuse Soviet propaganda against the United States. One USIA strategy for doing this was to allow the Russians to expose Americans to their cultural messages in exchange for American access to the Soviets. [7] Eisenhower appointed Theodore Streibert as the first USIA Director. [11] Streibert had been chairman of the board of the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network. [6] The USIA theme to be presented to other nations was that the United States had policies that were harmonious with the aspiration of other peoples. Streibert made it known that this principle should guide all of the activities of the USIA. [6] The goals of the agency were to explain the policies of the United States, counter adversary propaganda, and to help others understand American culture. [11] Cultural affairs officers, who believed that the State Department had started with the right focus on cultural diplomacy in 1938, were disappointed with these goals. They believed that the USIA did not concentrate enough on mutual understanding of populations along with various types of partnerships. [11] One type of partnership was the linking of universities in the United States with those in other nations. [11] The USIA promoted American commercial products to increase its public diplomacy reach. This included contracts with producers of books, movies, television programs, and other information products. [7] This partnership gave media producers increased audience reach while providing the United States with more channels of persuasion. The USIA published 14 magazines, produced more than 90 films a year, and established a VOA satellite TV network called Worldnet. [12] 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336

4 United States Information Agency 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 The 1999 demise of the USIA meant that public diplomacy would be steered officially by the DOS. Two components of the USIA, International Information Programs and the Educational and Cultural Affairs bureau, were now to be run by the undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. [10] A third part of the USIA, the Office of Media Research and Analysis became part of the State Department s Intelligence and Research Bureau. [10] The reasons for terminating the USIA were partially related to budget considerations and a perception that the agency was less needed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1998, the USIA had lost about one third of its 1993 funding and staff. [11] Some politicians, such as Senator Jesse Helms, argued the USIA became obsolete after the Cold War. [11] There were many positive accomplishments made by the USIA. One was the large-scale campaign exposing intellectual and ideological flaws in arguments supporting Communism. [6] Another was the combination of public diplomacy with traditional diplomacy done by diplomats abroad. [6] The Fulbright scholars program was started in 1947 and was overseen by the USIA overseas. The USIA also recruited students in other nations to study in the United States. [7] The USIA continued the success of the VOA in presenting news from the United States in a way that could claim be more informative than propaganda. It added Worldnet, a television source, to VOA radio. Worldnet was broadcasting satellite-based world news even before CNN. [7] This service reached 190 cities in 128 nations. [7] America House libraries and culture centers provided connections for people in other nations and research resources in the United States. [7] When the Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, banned the BBC and VOA in his nation, the USIA developed Serbianlanguage and Albanian-language websites for news materials to be available to people who sought them. It also exposed the disinformation disseminated by the Milosevic regime. [7] All nations conduct propaganda and public diplomacy regardless of what they call it. They also carry out information operations, which is a variant of strategic influence. Public diplomacy can be found in many forms and the USIA made major contributions to these. These include cultural diplomacy, soft power, relationship formation by educational exchanges, humanitarian diplomacy, and citizen diplomacy. The histories of the CPI, OWI, and USIA are similar in some ways but very different in others. A critical difference and strength of the USIA is that it did not use propaganda on American citizens (the CPI and OWI did). After the shuttering of the USIA, public diplomacy experts wondered what would replace it. There is a recurrent theme in literature concerning strategic communication, public diplomacy, and information operations that there should be better coordination in the USG regarding strategies and message content. [12] The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 purported to have the purpose of strengthening such coordination. [13] Less obvious than the history of propaganda and public diplomacy in USG strategic communications are the connection of public diplomacy and intelligence. This is true despite the fact that the linkages are critical to USG interventions. One of the stated goals for the USIA was to learn what attitudes other populations had regarding the United States and its policies. Such research could provide intelligence to the public diplomacy exerts at the USIA. With common claims about the USG strategic communication and public diplomacy continuing to be poorly coordinated and planned, there are at least three arguments for remedying the situation. One argument says that the USIA, or an organization like it, should be reintroduced. According to this argument, DOS is better at traditional and private diplomacy than at public diplomacy. With a new USIA, both DOS and DOD could leave public diplomacy to communication professionals and help to support what they do. [3] A second argument claims that the USIA needed to go and that public diplomacy should reside in the DOS with the latter making more investments and improvements. Finally, others believe that more work needs to be done in terms of linking public diplomacy to communication analysis along with increased collaboration among various USG agencies that conduct public diplomacy. Criticisms of the USIA have also been voiced regarding USG information operations in general. Many of these criticisms began with the negative reactions directed toward the Committee on Public Information created by the Wilson administration to promote U.S. involvement in World War I. American leaders have supported large-scale ideological operations in times of war such as the two world wars and the Cold War. After the Cold War and collapse of the U.S.S.R., it was assumed that the USIA was less necessary. Since then, however, the Cold War has been replaced by the present war on insurgencies and terrorists. This makes an agency like the USIA seem like a good idea to many observers because without such an agency, public diplomacy or ideological operations are disjointed and loosely coordinated. While there was support for centralized public diplomacy during the two world wars and the Cold War, some observers note that the USG was behind our allies in the commitment to ideological operations. [3] During the Cold War, the Voice of America which existed before and after the USIA reached about 80% of the Eastern European populations. Today, without the USIA, the VOA reaches only a small percentage of people in the Middle East. [3] For example, the VOA is heard by only 2% of Arabs. [1] The Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees the VOA today. [1] Today, it broadcasts in 53 languages to a total of about 93 million people. [1] 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448

United States Information Agency 5 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 CONCLUSION While there are tensions between strategic communication, public diplomacy, and ideolgical operations on one side of America s international influence and cultural diplomacy and partnerships on the other side, history shows the division is not necessary. Hard power and soft power sometimes work together while soft power can work on its own or in tandem with hard power. [1] Cultural diplomacy is preferable to information operations but is longer-term and does not address rapid attack communication from adversaries. The USIA was able to combine soft and hard communication and its effectiveness in the Cold War still presents a model, albeit not without problems, for a unified approach to USG international influence. In summary, the USIA emerges in a context of history, foreign policy, and international relations which makes the mission of strategic communication and public diplomacy one that continuously evolves in definitions and execution. From 1953 to 1999, the USIA was the central public diplomacy institution for the United States. The purpose of the agency was to promote American national interests and to both understand and persuade foreign audiences about the positive aspects of those interests. [13] The fact that the USIA was committed to the principle that the American people should not be recipients of public diplomacy messages kept public affairs and public diplomacy separate. The ending of the USIA makes the blending of public affairs and public diplomacy more likely. [14] This can be problematic because there appears to be a historical pattern of Americans being more accepting of strategic USG political messages being directed to foreign audiences than of USG political messages being directed to domestic audiences. [7] Some argue that the Smith Mundt separation of the two cannot be enforced when the VOA and other organs of public diplomacy have websites that can be viewed by both foreigners and American citizens. On the other hand, one should consider whether Americans are significantly inclined to visit sites like the VOA site. Unlike the CPI, the USIA was not viewed negatively by the public or Congress in any major sense. Its demise appears to be more related to the USG wanting a more active role for the DOS in public diplomacy and some politicians looking for cutting budget costs during another period of peace. The agency had successfully countered Soviet propaganda during the Cold War with VOA, Radio Marti, and Radio Liberation. It has also continued cultural diplomacy tools like cultural exchanges and scholarships. [12] Two federal departments today, DOS and DOD, both try to redefine strategic communication and public diplomacy. The DOD recently dropped the term psychological operations and replaced with military information support operations. Many experts have a sense that public diplomacy is essential to American national security but are unsure about how to organize it. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Nye, J. Soft Power; Perseus Books Group: Cambridge, MA, 2004. 2. Nye, J. The Paradox of American Power; Oxford University Press: New York, NY, 2002. 3. Doorey, T. Waging an effective strategic communication campaign in the war on terror. In Ideas as Weapons; David, G., McKeldin, T., III, Eds.; Potomac Books: Washington, DC, 2009; 145 161. 4. Rogers, E. A History of Communication Study; The Free Press: New York, NY, 1994. 5. Axelrod, A. Selling the Great War; St. Martin s Press: New York, NY, 2009. 6. Sorensen, T. The Word War: The Story of American Propaganda; Harper & Row Publishers: New York, NY, 1968. 7. Dizard, W. Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the United States Information Agency; Lynne Rienner: Boulder, CO, 2004. 8. Taylor, P. Munitions of the Mind; Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2003. 9. Block, R. Propaganda and the free society. Public Opinion Quarterly 1948, 12, 677 686. 10. Lord, C. Losing Hearts and Minds?; Praeger: Westport, CT, 2006. 11. Arndt, R. The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century; Potomac Books: Washington, DC, 2005. 12. Jowett, G.; D Donnell, V. Propaganda and Persuasion; Sage: Newbury Park, CA, 1992. 13. Armistead, L. Information Operations: Warfare and the Hard Reality of Soft Power; Brassey Publications: Washington, DC, 2010. 14. Armistead, L. Information Operations Matter; Potomac Books: Washington, DC, 2010. 15. Paul, C. Strategic Communication; ABC-Clio: Santa Barbara, CA, 2011. 16. Jones, J. Strategic communication: A mandate for the United States. In Ideas as Weapons; David, G., McKeldin, T., III, Eds.; Potomac Books: Washington, DC, 2009; 39 48. 17. Larsoan, C. The domestic motion picure work of the Office of War Information. Hollywood Quarterly 1948, 3, 434 443. 18. Little, D. Empowering United States public diplomacy for the war of ideas. In Information as Power; Caton, J., Groh, J., Eds.; United States Army War College: Carlisle Barracks, PA, 2010; 44 58. 19. Snow, N. Information War; Seven Stories Press: New York, NY, 2003. 20. Tuch, H. Communicating With the World; St. Martin s Press: New York, NY, 1990. 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560

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