The Foreign Service Journal, June 2005

tury and tear down all the restored Muslim buildings in Samarkand. Beautiful as they all are, these build- ings really came along too late and are not part of the central point of view of these young people that he considers terrorists and locks up. At the same time, we’re concerned about these individuals because due process clear- ly doesn’t occur, and there are hun- d reds of [such incidents]. I go into all these details to indi- cate that the way we have to contin- ue to proceed is not for a moment to diminish our idealism and what we are about in the United States, but rather to translate it into steps through which our friends that we’ve acquired in the war on terrorism can make this transition to democracy, both diplomatically and via trade and with student and educational exchanges and in other ways that can make a profound difference for them. FSJ : Picking up on your mention of public diplomacy: there seems to be a growing consensus that our general approach needs retooling. Are you optimistic that the nomination of Karen Hughes as under secretary for public diplomacy will revitalize our efforts? RL : Yes, I think Karen Hughes will do a great job. She clearly not only has the confidence of the presi- dent but has his ear. This is as close as a public diplomacy coordinator can get to having the authority that comes from the White House. So the ques- tion then will be how successfully, how creatively she uses that authority, how well she is able to delegate and find other people who are kindred spirits. FSJ : A number of studies have traced some of the problems with pub- lic diplomacy back to the 1999 merger of the United States Information Agency into the Department of State. What are your views on that? RL: I have always had some skepticism as to how that has worked J U N E 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 25 “It appeared to me [in the 1990s] that therewas too much p reoccupation with saving money, with downsizng the department and these kinds of issues.”