3 Milton Lehman, "We Must Sell America Abroad," Saturday
Evening Post,
November 15, 1947.
4 According to the USIA's 1993 mission statement, it is "an
independent foreign
affairs agency within the Executive Branch and is responsible for the U.S.
government's overseas information, exchange, and cultural programs. Its
director reports to the President and receives policy guidance from the
Secretary of State. Under law, the purpose of USIA is to disseminate
information abroad about the United States, its people, culture, and policies,
and to conduct educational and cultural exchanges between the United States and
other countries. (Fulbright-Hayes Act of 1961). USIA's programs include the
VOA, now broadcasting worldwide in 49 languages, WORLDNET, the Fulbright
scholarship, International Visitor and other educational exchange programs, the
American Speakers Abroad program, publications translated in more than 15
languages, the Wireless File, and a network of overseas operations, including
libraries and cultural centers."
5 RFE and RL, operated as separate entities in the early
1950s, were funded by
the CIA until 1971. In 1973 they were consolidated under the Board for
International Broadcasting, an independent federal agency. Although funded
entirely by the U.S. government, RFE/RL was set up as a private, nonprofit
company headquartered in Munich, Germany, and administered by the Board for
International Broadcasting.
6 Kenneth L. Adelman, "Speaking of America: Public Diplomacy
in our Time,"
Foreign Affairs, Spring 1981.
7 U.S. Information Agency, representing International
Broadcast Operations for
fiscal year (FY) 1994: VOA, $230.6 million (37.1%); WORLDNET, $23.9 million
(3.8%); Radio Free Asia, $2.2 million (.4%); RFE/RL, $210 million (33.8%); TV
Marti, $12.9 million (2.1%); Radio Marti, $17.7 million (2.8%); and VOA
construction, $124 million (20%). The FY 1994 budget totaled $621.3 million.
Numbers are based on the 1995 congressional submission including balances
carried over from previous years.
8 Section 501 of the United States Information and Educational
Exchange Act of
1948, the Smith-Mundt Act, provides in pertinent part:
The Director [of USIA] is authorized . . . to provide for the preparation . . .
and dissemination abroad, of information about the United States, its people,
and its policies, through press, publication, radio, motion pictures, and other
information media, and through information centers and instructors abroad. Any
such information . . . shall not be disseminated within the United
States, its territories, or possessions, but, on request, shall be
available in the English language at the agency, at all reasonable times
following its release as information abroad, for examination only by
representatives of the United States press associations, newspapers, magazines,
radio systems, and stations, and by research students and scholars, and on
request, shall be made available for examination only to members of
Congress.
9 Michael Gartner, "Making America's Voice a Little More
Audible," The Wall
Street Journal, November 2, 1989, p. A19.
10 Decision by United States District Court of the Southern
District of Iowa,
Central Division, Gartner v. United States Information Agency, October 12,
1989.
11 Ibid.
12 "Battle Lost in Advance," Soviet New Times,
1963.
