The Foreign Service Journal, February 2008

grams to reduce poverty through sustained economic growth and self- sufficiency.” The commission urges, first, that the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 be rewritten to consolidate relevant legislation enacted piecemeal over the years. It further advocates de- velopment of a strong bipartisan stra- tegy for foreign assistance programs and a reorganization of all U.S. inter- national affairs functions, so that development is “elevated to equal status with defense and diplomacy.” While the majority of the panel members back formation of a “next- generation State Department” with four sub-Cabinet agencies reporting to the Secretary of State, a minority argues in a separate report for a new Cabinet-level Department for Inter- national Development with greater funding and stature ( www.american progress.org/issues/2007/12/reva mping_assistence.html ). At the Brookings event, HELP Commission Chairwoman Mary Bush and selected members were followed by a panel of independent experts led by Lael Brainard, director of Brook- ings’ Global Economy and Develop- ment program. The transcript of this lively and informative discussion is available online at www.brookings. edu/events/2007/1210help.aspx . PD: Changing of the Guard Karen Hughes left Washington in mid-December, after two years as under secretary of State for public diplomacy. Replacing her is Broad- casting Board of Governors Chair- man James Glassman, a former Wash- ington Post columnist and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Glassman served in 2003 on the congressionally mandated panel, headed by Ambassador Ed- ward P. Djerejian, that recommended overhauling public diplomacy pro- grams. But his main qualification was the fact that his nomination would not have to go back to the Senate for confirmation. Arguably the most powerful of the State PD overlords, Karen Hughes’ achievements are likely to be subject to debate for some time. “I feel that I have done what Secretary Rice and President Bush asked of me by trans- forming public diplomacy and mak- ing it a national security priority,” the Bush confidante told the New York Times when she announced her resignation on Oct. 31. On her watch, PD funding rose to $845 million in Fiscal Year 2008 from $616 million in FY 2004. She reversed a decline in the number of visas given to foreigners to study in the U.S. and launched many initia- tives, such as taking Muslim youth to watch the World Cup games in Ger- many, enlisting figure skater Michelle Kwan and baseball star Cal Ripken as public diplomacy envoys, and hosting Arab journalists at training seminars in Washington. She boosted the ranks of Arabic speakers represent- ing the U.S. in regional media and encouraged the use of Internet-based technology, launching the depart- ment’s own blog, DipNote. During the last half of her tenure Hughes concentrated more on in- stitutional changes. She set up re- gional media hubs to deal with the Arab media and a 24-hour, rapid- reaction team to monitor overseas news accounts and recommend mes- sages to counter damaging stories. Amb. Djerejian, for one, gives her “high marks” in this. But, as Craig Hayden of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy observes: “If institutional capacity has been her focus in recent months, then perhaps we have yet to see the fruits of the Hughes era” ( http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/ index.php/newsroom/pdblog_de tail/exit_karen_hughes/ ). Others, such as retired USIA FSO 10 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8 C Y B E R N O T E S