Regaining America's Voice Overseas: A Conference on U.S. Public Diplomacy (Long article)

The Heritage Foundation ^ | 1/13/04 | Edwin J. Feulner, et al.

[Valin]

Welcoming Remarks EDWIN J. FEULNER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ed Feulner, and I am President of The Heritage Foundation. On behalf of The Heritage Foundation, I welcome you to our conference on public diplomacy entitled "Regaining America's Voice Overseas."

Public diplomacy is a topic near and dear to my heart. From 1982 to 1994, under three Presidents, I served as a member--and for nine years as the Chairman--of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. I have been involved in the details and the programs of America's talented international communicators ever since.

The first thing I learned about public diplomacy is that public diplomacy is too important--and too different--to be left to the very talented State Department professionals who "earn their stripes" by influencing government-to-government relations di-rectly.

It is my pleasure to welcome not only a distinguished group of panelists this morning, but also a large and distinguished audience. Many of you, including some old friends whom I have known through our shared experiences in public diplomacy, have served our great country throughout your careers in this field. Some of you depend on this important function to improve and sustain good relations with foreign publics throughout the world. And a few of you here--from other countries--have been on the receiving end of U.S. public diplomacy efforts. I believe we have, in fact, four congressmen from Spain joining our audience this morning.

Historians might trace the beginnings of American public diplomacy to World War II and the establishment of the Voice of America to counter propaganda from German and Japanese enemy radio broadcasts. But even before World War II, Americans proved that we have always been good at advocating our own cause.

American colonists made sure their version of battles with British troops arrived in England before the official dispatches from the British field commanders. One of my personal heroes, and the founder of my alma mater, Benjamin Franklin, was in London at the time and I believe earned the title of "America's first public diplomacy officer." He made sure the colonists' accounts were spread far and wide, defusing the impact of official reports which often arrived days later.

Just as the power of communication helped throw off the yoke of colonialism more than 200 years ago, so, too, was it employed during World War II. Then, during the Cold War, it played a vital role in the defeat of communism. More than that, the advent of international broadcasting with the Voice of America, and then the surrogate radio outlets of Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty, helped spread the news about democracy and free markets to captive peoples around the world.

The subsequent creation of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) as the lead organization for America's public diplomacy efforts brought the various components together administratively: Through contacts with foreign journalists, with international visitor exchanges (IVs) and AMPARTS (American Participants) and other programs, by broadcasting to foreign audiences, with scholarship programs and workshops to train foreign journalists, and in dozens of other ways, America told its story directly to foreign publics, and we learned to listen as well.

But with the end of the Cold War, some in the Congress and in the White House believed that the need for public diplomacy was over. I hate to say that even some of my fellow conservatives advocated cutting public diplomacy's relatively modest budgets and folding the U.S. Information Agency into the Department of State. As all of you know, that is what happened in 1999.

It seemed to me at the time, and even today, that the real target was a spendthrift Agency for International Development. But AID was able to tell its story domestically, which USIA was prohibited by statute from doing, so AID saved itself from the chopping block through skillful advocacy. Unfortunately, USIA could not.

Today, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, lawmakers and policymakers agree that something must be done to bolster America's overseas communications capability. Not all of us agree on how that should be done--for example, whether USIA should be reconstituted separately, or whether public diplomacy can be strengthened within the Department of State--but I commend to you today's panelists, who will give you differing views of both what went wrong and, more important, how we can fix it.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska will join us to stress the importance of recovering this crucial capability. I want to thank him in advance for his willingness to share his views despite a very heavy legislative schedule.

Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D., is President of The Heritage Foundation.