The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 31 Among the unpleasant experiences we had were those with “crowd controllers” who would monitor visitors who might seem overly friendly with the guides or who might visit the exhibit “too many times.” We heard back occasion- ally from these visitors that they had been called in by offi- cials or the militia and asked about their behavior, a clear attempt to intimidate them and discourage their engage- ment with us. In addition, I recall that in Minsk we would run into “agitators” who we learned had been recruited and coached to ask questions that might embarrass or at least befuddle us. As guides we would note when a number of us would get the same question, posed exactly the same way. In one case we got the same question, with exactly the same words, about remarks President Gerald Ford had made about some declining economic indicator. Only a few of us knew enough about the economy that we could answer and explain what it, in fact, meant. With guides who could not address the question, the agitator would then dismiss the guide as simply a propagandist who was only trying to pull the wool over the visitors’ eyes. Looking back, the exhibits were an effective tool: They gave Soviet citizens a more nuanced appreciation for life in the United States and countered disinformation from the Soviet media about American policies and history. It was one part of a triad of USIA products to counter Soviet propaganda, together with the Voice of America and Amerika magazine. The magazine is now gone, and the radios, including Radio Liberty, have devolved into internet media that are easily blocked by the Russian government. Furthermore, because the wartime generation in Russia has largely died off, the goodwill created by our alliance in World War II is gone today. So providing facts and perspective on life in the United States is not nearly as easy as it was 40 years ago. One can only imagine how an exhibit discussion, an open and uncensored dialogue, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine might go today! And that’s one reason why it’s hard to fathom the Russian government ever allowing American exhibits to come again. Tom Robertson served with the exhibits division in the U.S. Informa- tion Agency from 1975 to 1981, working in the USSR, Central Europe, and Africa. In 1981 he became a Foreign Service officer and served in the State Department and National Security Council, as well as in embassies in Moscow (twice), Bonn, Budapest (twice), and Slovenia, where he was ambassador from 2004 to 2007. His last assignment was as dean of the Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Service Institute, from 2007 to 2010. A Firsthand Look at “Agitprop” John Herbst Technology for the American Home / Zaporozhye, Leningrad, Minsk / 1975-1976 Working as a guide was the second of three steps I took toward becoming a Foreign Service officer focusing on the Soviet Union. This career idea first occurred to me in high school when I read George Kennan’s 1958 book The Decision to Intervene . The first step was to attend George- town’s School of Foreign Service and take the intensive Rus- sian course in the language school. Studying there for three years and one summer at Leningrad State University gave me a great grounding in Russian. My planned second step was to get a master’s degree in international affairs. But while a college senior, I read a flyer that offered the opportunity to “travel around the Soviet Union and to be paid money for the privilege”—an advertise- ment to work on the U.S. Information Agency’s Technology for the American Home exhibit. I put off my plans to attend the Fletcher School, took a job as a legal assistant in New York City, and applied to work at the exhibit. I reported to USIA in Washington, D.C., in August 1975. That was perhaps the most important decision I ever made. It not only facilitated a career in diplomacy, but it introduced me to my future wife, Nadya Christoff, who was also hired to work the exhibit. Seven months as an exhibit guide in the Soviet Union turned my solid grounding in Russian into fluency. We spent five hours a day, six days a week for over a month talking to Soviet citizens in each of the three cities where we opened the exhibit. But experience as an exhibit guide was far more than an excellent language lesson. It also provided a fascinating window into Soviet society. The exhibit comprised rooms in a typical American house. Guides would stand in the rooms to talk about both that room and any other subject the visitors chose to raise. Often these questions would focus on life in the United States, but at times it would also include politi- cal issues. This provided all exhibit guides a firsthand look at Soviet “agitprop” (agitation and propaganda). This was the elaborate Soviet program to sell their ideals, policies, and goals at home and abroad.