The Foreign Service Journal, May 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2013 67 USIA: Gone but Not Forgotten The Decline and Fall of the United States Information Agency: American Public Diplomacy, 1989-2001 Nicholas J. Cull, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, $85, hardcover, 257 pages. Reviewed by Allen C. Hansen Near the end of his magisterial The Cold War and the U.S. Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989, the precursor to this work (see my review in the July-August 2010 Foreign Service Journal ), Nicho- las J. Cull observes: “U.S. public diplomacy had been an important tool for minimizing disasters like Watergate, managing relationships with allies, blocking the enemy’s ability to win, and holding the imagination of the developing and nonaligned world until the American system had decisively passed the Soviet.” Yet as this companion volume docu- ments, just a few years after that victory USIA was no more. Equally remarkable, it departed the scene essentially unno- ticed and unmourned. The story Cull tells in The Decline and Fall of the United States Infor- mation Agency: American Public Diplomacy, 1989-2001 will already be painfully familiar to many read- ers of the Journal , no doubt. But as we enter another era of tightening federal budgets and the continued absence of a constituency for diplomacy, it is well worth revisiting that dismal decade in these pages. Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at the University of Southern Califor- nia, frames the book by presenting, in chronological order, the major interna- tional and domestic events that called for U.S. public diplomacy treat- ment during the period. Then, to assess how USIA handled each of those situations, he presents what public diplomats call “evidence of effective- ness,” drawing on statistical data. For instance, regarding the agency’s Inter- national Visitors Program, he notes that as of last year, 37 countries around the world, including some major powers, were led by IV program veterans. Although his account centers on the agency’s headquarters, the input of Foreign Service officers in the field is well represented. As part of his prodigious research, he is generous in crediting the many books USIA veterans have produced over the years, such as Alan Heil’s Voice of America: A History (Columbia University Press, 2003). The VOA certainly receives its due in Cull’s book, by the way. Unlike their colleagues, many Voice of America employees actually celebrated their emancipation from USIA in 1999. Unfortunately, as Cull wryly comments, “No one seemed concerned that the VOA might have traded an old set of shackles for a new set marked BBG” (Broadcasting Board of Governors)— until it was too late. Appropriately, Cull dedicates the book to Bernie Kamenske, who was chief of the VOA news division from 1973 to 1981. All who knew Bernie still recall his dedication to accurate, objec- tive and comprehensive newscasts, and his defense of the high standards laid down in the VOA Charter. Despite periodic attempts by some ambassadors and officials to seek a less-than-objec- tive view in Voice newscasts, he was adamant that the place for advocacy was in editorials or in clearly identifi- able sources. Dedicating this book to him is a welcome tribute. Reflecting on the handling of what many at USIA viewed as a “hostile take- over” by State, Cull joins many others in lamenting the cutbacks in spending for libraries, publications and research that followed the 1999 merger. He rightly observes: “Part of the trag- edy of the consolidation is that USIA’s approach so often included the sort of innovative approach that is essential in the new era but was smothered at the Department of State. By 2012, the department was showing real indica- tions that it had caught up, but half a generation had been lost while it learned on the job things that USIA had known all along.” Still, Cull cautions: “The lesson from the final years of USIA for America’s cur- rent foreign policy is not that a separate agency should be constructed. …The cultural function—which even within USIA was typically neglected by succes- sive administrations, only to be acknowl- edged at the eleventh hour—might do As in his first volume, Cull documents the major contributions America’s public diplomats have made to U.S. foreign policy. BOOKS