Conclusion
U.S. government international communicators have come a
long way since Assistant Secretary of State Benton developed a nervous twitch
trying to influence Hollywood filmmakers in the 1940s. The results speak for
themselves. The Soviet Union had cautioned America that "try as you will, you
cannot win the battle for men's minds. All your efforts are doomed to
failure."12 In the end, however, we have
discovered from the secret
documents recently released from Russian archives that it was Soviet
propagandists who developed a nervous tic.
From the U.S. side, Cold War public diplomacy objectives were for the most part
carefully enunciated through the years by the White House and the Congress so
that information specialists knew what was expected of them. President John F.
Kennedy told USIA Director Edward R. Murrow in no uncertain terms that he was
to "influence public attitudes in other nations." Specifically, Murrow was to
extol the United States and "unmask" and "counter" the enemy. Ronald Reagan
issued a directive that U.S. government broadcasts were to combat Soviet
expansionism. Right or wrong, the government communicators had their marching
orders from the White House.
President Clinton should articulate his expectations for public diplomacy in a
similar fashion. Although another presidential commission is not needed, a
clear definition of the new post-Cold War mission from the President certainly
would be in order.
Further, government information specialists and the Congress should review
whether a broadcasting operations budget that commits 94.1 percent to radio and
only 5.9 percent to television is sound in the new technological age.
According to former
Expectations of the Congress also were articulated clearly through a series of
landmark White Papers on "Winning the Cold War: The U.S. Ideological
Offensive."13 In 1964 a House Foreign
Affairs Committee report said
that public diplomacy should "knock the myths that capitalism is exploitive and
wants to dominate the world, and that communism is inevitable . . . [and]
implant the notion that the future of the world belongs to democratic
societies."14 The House report continued:
"A clear-cut conception
of aims and objectives is an essential requirement of any program seeking to
influence a foreign population."
Congress should redefine its view of public diplomacy in today's world, perhaps
by an initiative entitled "Winning the Peace: the U.S. Information Offensive."
Congress also should hold hearings specifically devoted to repealing the
domestic dissemination provision of the Smith-Mundt Act, now obsolete because
of today's sophisticated communications technology. It can begin by
eliminating the three little words, "for examination only," to make information
more readily accessible to the American public.
