The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "
public diplomacy
In international relations, public diplomacy or people's diplomacy, broadly speaking, is any of the various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influen ...
". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of
intelligence agencies
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives.
Means of informatio ...
by President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
assigned USIA's cultural exchange and non-broadcasting intelligence functions to the newly created
at the
U.S. Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
. USIA's broadcasting functions were moved to the newly created
Broadcasting Board of Governors
The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), formerly the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), is an independent agency of the United States government that broadcasts news and information. It describes its mission, "vital to US nation ...
. The agency was previously known overseas as the United States Information Service (USIS) of the
U.S. Embassy
The United States has the second most Diplomatic mission, diplomatic missions of any country in the world List of diplomatic missions of China, after Mainland China, including 166 of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, as well as obse ...
; the current name, the Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, is sometimes translated as the Public Relations and Cultural Exchange Agency.
Former USIA Director of TV and Film Service
Alvin Snyder recalled in his 1995 memoir that "the U.S. government ran a full-service public relations organization, the largest in the world, about the size of the twenty biggest U.S. commercial PR firms combined. Its full-time professional staff of more than 10,000, spread out among some 150 countries, burnished America‘s image and trashed the Soviet Union 2,500 hours a week with a 'tower of babble' more than 70 languages, to the tune of over $2 billion per year". "The biggest branch of this propaganda machine" was the USIA.
Stated mission
![Propaganda poster exhorting Northern Vietnamese to move South during Operation Passage to Freedom - 306-ppb-225-2012-001-pr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Propaganda_poster_exhorting_Northern_Vietnamese_to_move_South_during_Operation_Passage_to_Freedom_-_306-ppb-225-2012-001-pr.jpg)
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
established the United States Information Agency in 1953, during the postwar tensions with the communist world known as the Cold War.
[ Snyder, Alvin, ''Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War'' 1995. Arcade Publishing, Inc. New York.] The USIA's mission was "to understand, inform and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest, and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions, and their counterparts abroad".
The USIA was established "to streamline the U.S. government's overseas information programs, and make them more effective".
The USIA was the largest full-service public relations organization in the world, spending over $2 billion per year to highlight the views of the U.S. while diminishing those of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, through about 150 different countries.
Its stated goals were to explain and advocate U.S. policies in terms that are credible and meaningful in foreign cultures; to provide information about the official policies of the United States, and about the people, values and institutions which influence those policies; to bring the benefits of international engagement to American citizens and institutions by helping them build strong long-term relationships with their counterparts overseas; and to advise the President and U.S. government policy-makers on the ways in which foreign attitudes would have a direct bearing on the effectiveness of U.S. policies.
During the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, some American officials believed that a propaganda program was essential to convey the United States and its culture and politics to the world, and to offset negative Soviet propaganda against the US. With heightened fears about the influence of communism, some Americans believed that the films produced by the Hollywood movie industry, when critical of American society, damaged its image in other countries.
[Lefever, Ernest. ''Ethics and United States Foreign Policy'' (Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company, 1957).] The USIA "exist
das much to provide a view of the world to the United States as it
idto give the world a view of America".
[ Robert E. Elder. ''The Information Machine: The United States Information Agency and American Foreign Policy'' (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1968).] Films produced by the USIA could by law not be screened publicly within the United States. This restriction also meant that Americans could not view the material even for study at the National Archives.
Within the US, the USIA was intended to assure Americans that "
e United States was working for a better world".
[Osgood, Kenneth. ''Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad''. 2006. University Press of Kansas. Lawrence, KS.] Abroad, the USIA tried to preserve a positive image of the U.S. regardless of negative depictions from communist propaganda. One notable example was
Project Pedro Project Pedro was a secretly funded program under the United States Information Agency during the 1950s to create newsreels in Mexico.Fein, Seth. "New Empire into Old: Making Mexican Newsreels the Cold War Way." ''Diplomatic History'' 28 (2004): 703 ...
. This secretly funded project created newsreels in Mexico during the 1950s that portrayed
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
unfavorably and the United States positively.
[Fein, Seth]
"New Empire into Old: Making Mexican Newsreels the Cold War Way."
''Diplomatic History
Diplomatic history deals with the history of international relations between states. Diplomatic history can be different from international relations in that the former can concern itself with the foreign policy of one state while the latter deals ...
'', Vol. 28, No. 5, November 2004, pp. 703-748. . . Articles reflecting the views promoted by the USIA were frequently published under fictitious
byline
The byline (or by-line in British English) on a newspaper or magazine article gives the name of the writer of the article. Bylines are commonly placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines (notably ''Reader's D ...
s, such as "Guy Sims Fitch".
The agency regularly conducted research on foreign public opinion about the United States and its policies, in order to inform the president and other key policymakers.
It conducted public opinion surveys throughout the world. It issued a variety of reports to government officials, including a twice-daily report on foreign media commentary around the world.
Media and divisions
![USIS-Johannesburg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/USIS-Johannesburg.agr.jpg)
From the beginning, President Dwight Eisenhower said that "audiences would be more receptive to the American message if they were kept from identifying it as propaganda. Avowedly propagandistic materials from the United States might convince few, but the same viewpoints presented by the seemingly independent voices would be more persuasive."
The USIA used various forms of media, including "personal contact, radio broadcasting, libraries, book publication and distribution, press motion pictures, television, exhibits, English-language instruction, and others". Through these different forms, the United States government distributed its materials more easily and engaged a greater concentration of people.
Four main divisions were established when the USIA began its programs.
* Broadcasting information
* Libraries and exhibits
* Press services
* Motion picture service
The first division dealt with broadcasting information, both in the United States and around the world. The radio was one of the most widely used forms of media at the onset of the Cold War, as television was not widely available. The
Smith–Mundt Act
The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (Public Law 80-402), popularly called the Smith–Mundt Act, was first introduced by Congressman Karl E. Mundt (R-SD) in January 1945 in the 79th Congress. It was subsequently passed by t ...
authorized information programs, including
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
. Voice of America was intended as an unbiased and balanced "Voice from America", as originally broadcast during World War II. The VOA was used to "tell America's stories ... to information deprived listeners behind the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
".
By 1967, the VOA was broadcasting in 38 languages to up to 26 million listeners.
In 1976 VOA gained its "Charter", requiring its news to be balanced.
The second division of the USIA consisted of libraries and exhibits. The Smith–Mundt Act and the
Fulbright–Hays Act of 1961
The Fulbright–Hays Act of 1961 is officially known as the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (, ). It was marshalled by United States Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR) and passed by the 87th United States Congress on Septem ...
both authorized international cultural and educational exchanges (including the
Fulbright Scholarship Program). USIA would mount exhibitions in its libraries overseas to reach people in other countries. "Fulbrighters" were grant recipients under the USIA educational and cultural exchange program. To ensure that those grant programs would be fair and unbiased, persons of educational and cultural expertise in the grant subject areas selected the grantee recipients.
The USIA's third division included press services. Within its first two decades, the "USIA publishe
sixty-six magazines, newspapers, and other periodicals, totaling almost 30 million copies annually, in twenty-eight languages".
The fourth division dealt with the motion picture service. After the USIA failed in its effort to collaborate with Hollywood filmmakers to portray America in a positive light, the agency began producing their own documentaries.
Non-broadcast educational and information efforts
By the time the agency was reorganized in 1999, the educational and informational efforts encompassed a wide range of activities, outside of broadcasting. These were focused in four areas, the agency produced extensive electronic and printed materials.
* Information service
* Speakers and Specialists Program
* Information Resource Centers
* Foreign press centers
Its ''The Washington File'' information service, was intended to provide, in the words of the agency "both time-sensitive and in-depth information in five languages", incorporating full transcripts of speeches, Congressional testimony, articles by Administration officials, and materials providing analysis of key issues. The Agency also ran a number of websites to transmit information.
Second, the agency ran a "Speakers and Specialists Program", sending Americans abroad for various public speaking and technical assistance roles.
These speakers were referred to as "American Participants" or "AmParts".
Third, the agency operated more than 100 "Information Resource Centers" abroad. These included some public-access libraries in developing countries.
Finally, the USIA-operated foreign press centers in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles to "assist resident and visiting foreign journalists". In other major American cities, such as Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, and Seattle, the USIA worked cooperatively with other international press centers.
Beginning with the 1958 Brussels World Fair, the USIA directed the design, construction, and operation of the U.S. pavilions representing the United States at major
world Expo
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
s.
Abolition and restructuring
The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, Division G of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, , abolished the U.S. Information Agency effective October 1, 1999. Its information and cultural exchange functions were folded into the Department of State under the newly created
.
When dismantled, the agency budget was $1.109 billion. After reductions of staff in 1997, the agency had 6,352 employees, of which almost half were civil service employees in the United States (2,521). About 1,800 of these employees worked in international broadcasting, while approximately 1,100 worked on the agency's educational and informational programs, such as the Fulbright program.
Foreign service officer
A Foreign Service Officer (FSO) is a commissioned member of the United States Foreign Service. Foreign Service Officers formulate and implement the foreign policy of the United States. FSOs spend most of their careers overseas as members of U ...
s comprised about 1,000 members of the work force. Broadcasting functions, including
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
, Radio and TV Marti,
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
(in Eastern Europe), Radio Free Asia, and Radio Liberty (in Russia and other areas of the former Soviet Union), were consolidated as an independent entity under the
Broadcasting Board of Governors
The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), formerly the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), is an independent agency of the United States government that broadcasts news and information. It describes its mission, "vital to US nation ...
(BBG). This continues to operate independently from the State Department. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, some commentators characterized United States international broadcasters, such as Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America as
United States propaganda
Propaganda in the United States is spread by both government and media entities. Propaganda is carefully curated information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread, usually to preserve the self-interest of a nation. It is used in advertising, rad ...
.
See also
*
WORLDNET Television and Film Service
*
Committee on Public Information
The Committee on Public Information (1917–1919), also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States under the Wilson administration created to influence public opinion to support the ...
*
Crusade for Freedom
The Crusade for Freedom was an American propaganda campaign operating from 1950–1960. Its public goal was to raise funds for Radio Free Europe; it also served to conceal the CIA's funding of Radio Free Europe and to generate domestic support fo ...
*
Cultural diplomacy
Cultural diplomacy is a type of public diplomacy and soft power that includes the "exchange of ideas, information, art, language and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to foster mutual understanding". The purpose ...
*
Clandestine HUMINT operational techniques
The Clandestine HUMINT page adheres to the functions within the discipline, including espionage and active counterintelligence.
The page deals with Clandestine HUMINT operational techniques, also known as "tradecraft". It applies to clandestine o ...
*''
Nine from Little Rock
''Nine from Little Rock'' is a 1964 American short documentary film directed by Charles Guggenheim about the Little Rock Nine, the first nine African-American students to attend an all-white Arkansas high school in 1957. The film was commissioned ...
'', an Academy Award-winning documentary by
Charles Guggenheim
Charles Eli Guggenheim (March 31, 1924 – October 9, 2002) was an American documentary film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was the most honored documentary filmmaker in the academy history, winning four Oscars from twelve nominations ...
, commissioned by the USIA
* U.S. Department of State's
Bureau of International Information Programs
'
The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) supports the department's public diplomacy efforts by providing and supporting the places, content, and infrastructure needed for sustained conversations with fo ...
*
Foreign Broadcast Information Service
The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was an open source intelligence component of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology. It monitored, translated, and disseminated within the U.S. government openly a ...
*
Arthur Kimball, initial, acting, director of the agency
*
Leo P. Ribuffo
References
Further reading
* Bardos, Arthur
"'Public Diplomacy': An Old Art, a New Profession" ''Virginia Quarterly Review'', Summer 2001
* Bogart, Leo, ''Premises For Propaganda: The United States Information Agency's Operating Assumptions in the Cold War'',
* Cull, Nicholas J. "The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989",
* Gerits, Frank,
Taking Off the Soft Power Lens: The United States Information Service in Cold War Belgium, 1950–1958” ''
Journal of Belgian History
The ''Journal of Belgian History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society (Cegesoma). It focuses on the history of Belgium in the 19th and 20th ...
'' 42 (Dec. 2012), 10–49.
* Snow, Nancy, ''Propaganda, Inc.: Selling America's Culture to the World'',
* Kiehl, William P. (ed.) "America's Dialogue with the World",
* Sorensen, Thomas C. "Word War: The Story of American Propaganda" (1968)
* Tobia, Simona "Advertising America. The United States Information Service in Italy (1945–1956)", LED Edizioni Universitarie,
* United States Information Agency, Commemoration Bookle
''Public Diplomacy: Looking Forward, Looking Back'' Commemorative volume, 1999
*Yoshida, Yukihiko, ''Jane Barlow and Witaly Osins, ballet teachers who worked in postwar Japan, and their students'', Pan-Asian Journal of Sports & Physical Education, Vol.3(Sep), 2012.
External links
in the National Archives
Archive of agency Web site
*
{{Authority control
1953 establishments in the United States
Defunct agencies of the United States government
Government agencies disestablished in 1999
United States Department of State
United States government propaganda organizations
Public relations in the United States
Anti-communist organizations in the United States
American propaganda during the Cold War