The Foreign Service Journal, June 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2022 45 STATELIBRARYOFOHIO intervening years, OWI’s foreign activity still merits attention. Seen in retro- spect, it shows that commu- nication is full of dilemmas and inherently difficult to manage—whether one is dealing with the tension between policy and ideol- ogy on the one hand and a reporter’s objectivity or personal agenda on the other, or with the inevitabil- ity of “unintended conse- quences,” or with disinfor- mation and psychological warfare. More than anything else, however, OWI’s history points to and illustrates the vital importance of public diplomacy to national secu- rity that is no less true today than it was 80 years ago. A Belated Realization OWI’s international work was born from a belated realization in Washington, D.C., that propaganda and global communication had become essential to modern statecraft. During World War I, the United States had virtu- ally overnight built a global communications network under the Committee on Public Information, successfully propagating WoodrowWilson’s vision of the peace abroad if not at home. But the structure had not survived into peacetime. Moreover, though friendly nations and competitors alike stepped up media outreach with state-sponsored radio stations and international cultural agencies during the interwar period, the U.S. government had remained largely aloof. The United States had no equivalent to the BBC Empire Ser- vice radio (established in 1932) or the British Council (estab- lished in 1934). When, in 1929, Weimar Germany stunned the world with its cutting-edge contribution to the Barcelona Expo, the U.S. government was absent. The U.S. contribu- tion to the Expo in Paris in 1937 underwhelmed, whereas the pavilions built by Nazi and Bolshevik pro- pagandists at the height of their game put the competition quite literally in the shade. The Roosevelt adminis- tration used sophisticated media tools to sell its New Deal at home but was late to develop a capac- ity for communication in foreign policy. Initiatives were initially limited to educational exchanges with Latin America launched as part of the Good Neighbor policy. The fall of France in the spring of 1940 prompted a change of heart, and a flurry of U.S. government communication activity followed, including exter- nal programs. In the summer of 1940, FDR appointed Nelson Rockefeller to the new role of Coordinator of Inter- American Affairs to further develop cultural and economic contact with Latin America with a dedicated office of the same name within the Office of Emergency Management. Then, in 1941, Roosevelt launched a Foreign Information Service, which included U.S. Information Service (USIS) posts around the world to assist foreign media. In the early weeks of 1942, FIS began shortwave broadcasts that eventually became known as Voice of America (the name was surprisingly fluid during the war). But the patchwork of activity lacked coherence. Seeking to bring a level of order to wartime communication, FDR signed Executive Order 9182 on June 13, 1942, establish- ing a single Office of War Information. The Office of War Information produced this large color poster, of which 4 million sets were printed from 1943 to 1945. The poster features the four freedoms as illustrated by Norman Rockwell whose paintings famously depict American culture and everyday life.