The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 47 figures and try to speak persuasively in Russian to rebut his claims. This was near the end of a two-hour stretch of similar encounters on the exhibit floor, and I was utterly exhausted mentally—like a boxer in the 12th round of a fight who could barely keep his arms up to prevent being clobbered. My loud friend started off on a new tack, going on about how America was an imperial, colonialist power. Before I could even begin to refute this, a man standing next to him broke in and started haranguing him: “You know nothing about America! Historically, the United States has always been an anti -colonialist nation!” He went on, recount- ing our early history as a colony, the roots of the Revolution- ary War, and later our support for decolonialization after World War II. After the loudmouth moved on, my defender smiled and winked at me in an avuncular way, as if to say, “Don’t worry about that idiot—you and I know the real score here.” I never saw him again and have no idea who he was. But it was an unforgettable moment, an early reminder that I was privileged to have a front-row view into a society that was much more complex, deep, and multilayered than most Americans—including, as it turned out, me—understood. As U.S.-Russian relations worsened over the past decade, even before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, I was sometimes asked if I thought the onset of a new “Cold War” meant we should start thinking about reviving the USIA exhibits pro- gram. I think the answer is clearly no. Those exhibits were a product of the unique times that gave birth to them—a highly effective means of giving millions of Soviet citizens a mean- ingful encounter with a world that was otherwise entirely inaccessible to them. Today, or for now at least, millions of Russians can and do travel freely in what was once “the out- side world” on business, vacations, and family visits. Many millions more inside Russia can access streams of informa- tion from Russian media outlets that are not controlled by the state. There would thus be little value in sending teams of specialized Americans to Russia (even if we could) to try, at the retail level, to put a more human face on the United States. In a world of global connectivity unimaginable during the Cold War, there are far more sophisticated and effective ways to counter the Kremlin’s mendacious narrative and shine a spotlight on their aggression against Ukraine. What we learned from the exhibits program, and what I think is still relevant to today’s Russia, is that people’s desire for the truth grows in direct proportion to the extent to which the truth is denied them. We need to offer our strongest sup- port for the hundreds of thousands of Russians who now live in exile outside Russia—civil society activists and indepen- dent media journalists, scholars, and legal experts—who seek a different future for their country, and have both the skill and the will to ensure that the truth continues to reach the largest number of people inside Russia as possible. n John Beyrle is chairman of the U.S. Russia Foundation. He first visited the USSR in 1976 as a university student in Leningrad before working on the U.S. Information Agency exhibits program (as a guide on Photography USA in 1977, and as logistics director for Agriculture USA in 1978-1979). He joined the Foreign Service in 1983 and served his first tour in Moscow, attending the funerals of Soviet leaders Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, and accompany- ing Vice President George H.W. Bush to his first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. Later assignments included the Secretariat staff and the U.S. delegation to the Conventional Arms Forces in Europe arms control negotiation in Vienna. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, he served on the National Security Council staff, helping design assistance and exchange pro- grams with the newly independent states and leading preparations for the early summit meetings between Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin. He served as ambassador to Bulgaria (2005-2008) and as ambassador to Russia (2008-2012). Amb. Beyrle is married to Jocelyn Greene; the two first met as guides on the 1977 Photography USA exhibition and joined the Foreign Service together as a tandem couple. Also a Soviet/Russia expert, Ms. Greene was an FS information officer with USIA, serving as a cultural and press officer abroad and an exchanges specialist in her Washington assignments. Secretary Hillary Clinton personally presented her with the State Department’s Career Achievement Award when she and her husband retired as FSOs in 2012. As Embassy Moscow’s deputy chief of mission in 2004, John Beyrle visited Ufa and met two local residents who had attended the Photography USA exhibit there in 1977 and still had the brochure. They estimated close to 100 people had read it over the intervening 27 years; it was still in good shape but had been carefully re-stapled and taped at some point. COURTESYOFJOHNBEYRLE