USIA FACT SHEET FIVE KEY FACTS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES INFORMATION AGENCY 1) During the past two years the USIA has begun to significantly change its organization and operations in keeping with changing times. USIA is not simply a relic of the Cold War, whose mission was essentially completed with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unquestionably, the bipolar world in which USIA operated for more than a quarter century has been transformed into a multipolar one. Fragmentation, speed, intensity and the public nature of foreign affairs has grown exponentially. Nevertheless, the fundamental mission of the United States Information Agency has remained unchanged: - To explain and advocate U.S. policies in ways that are credible and meaningful to foreign audiences; - To provide information about American values, culture, institutions and society; - To build lasting relationships and mutual understanding through the exchange of people and ideas; To advise the President and other policymakers about foreign attitudes and their impact on U.S. policies. Both these realities -- a transformed world, an unchanging mission -- reinforce USIA's critical role in the conduct of American foreign policy. The Cold War world may have been more threatening in some ways, but it was also more predictable. In much of the world, public opinion was important, but not necessarily decisive. That has all changed. The democratic revolutions that swept away regimes from Prague to Pretoria over the last decade have meant that vast numbers of people not only can raise their voices -- they can vote. And when people vote and votes count, governments respond. In the cross currents and cacophony of this era, the clear, focused articulation of U.S. values and objectives to these audiences, these voters, is indispensable. Furthermore, it cannot be limited to the quiet rooms of foreign ministries, but must take place in editorial pages, television screens, academic conferences, personal encounters and electronic data exchanges everywhere that U.S. interests are engaged. 2) USIA retains an important and unique role in worldwide communication. Those who argue that CNN and other worldwide media have made USIA obsolete confuse volume with substance, noise with communication. CNN, Disney, MTV and Hollywood are indeed powerful, if indiscriminate, purveyors of certain aspects of the American experience. But quite properly, America's private news and entertainment channels have no mandate to cut through the white noise of the Information Age and articulate American foreign policy goals to influential audiences abroad. It is USIA, for example, which explains the connection between innovation and intellectual property rights to industry representatives in China; makes the case for NATO's Partnership for Peace to military officers in Central Europe; or advocates extension of the Nonproliferation Treaty to journalists in the Middle East and South Asia. Over the longer term, it is USIA that facilitates academic and institutional exchanges through the Fulbright and other programs which build mutual understanding and engagement. As new channels of communication proliferate and expand, moreover, USIA is uniquely positioned to take of advantage of them. USIA has been recently launched onto the Internet, which enables us to provide texts, transcripts, policy backgrounders, textbook materials, seminal documents in American history, and access to other U.S. databases to a new computer-literate generation throughout the world. 3) Public Diplomacy is not public relations. There are those who regard the public aspect of American diplomacy as an extra, an afterthought a final brushing of clothes and combing of hair before sending the youngest policy initiative toddling off to the school of hard knocks. This attitude misperceives the realities of the post-Cold War world and undercuts any policy's prospects for success. Put another way, a policy that cannot be explained to vastly different peoples throughout the world is no policy at all. Diplomats can conclude agreements; only public understanding and support can sustain them. What worked for the Congress of Vienna in 1815 will not work to promote U.S. trade initiatives in 1995. For its part, USIA works to build public support for U.S. policies and values every day through its primary resources -- international radio and television, targeted delivery of background and policy materials, educational and cultural exchanges, and the efforts of public affairs professionals working at embassies and diplomatic posts throughout the world. We call this public diplomacy. 4) Given the multiplicity of U.S. actions and interests in the international arena, foreign policy has become the realm of several Cabinet agencies, and the State Department is the first among equals. There is a widespread, if vague, feeling that having separate foreign affairs agencies such as USIA, USAID, and ACDA necessarily means a lack of coordination in foreign policy. This is not the real issue. The Secretary of State's primacy in the formulation of foreign policy is unquestioned, and I doubt anyone can cite a credible example of where USIA's independent status contributed to confusion or a lack of coordination in policy formulation or implementation. Consolidation cannot solve a problem that doesn't exist. On the other hand, take a look at the actual composition of our embassies overseas. Today, the State Department and the other three agencies represented here today constitute less than half of the personnel at a typical embassy. The rundown of other U.S. government officials provides a snapshot of the diversity of issues that the United States addresses in other countries: Defense, Treasury, Justice, Transportation, Commerce and Agriculture. USIA personnel come in at five percent fewer than the Justice Department and about the same number as work in the State Department's diplomatic security service alone. - USIA, with public affairs as its central focus, is positioned to integrate the policy interests of these "stakeholders" into a coherent, credible public diplomacy effort. We are not instrument of any single department or agency, and therefore we can integrate the strengths and expertise of such agencies into a coordinated public affairs programs supportive of U.S. initiatives, institutions and interests. 5) Consolidation is not reinvention. This proposal to eliminate USIA and fold its functions into the State Department seems dramatic enough to merit the term reinvention. But on closer examination it fails the efficiency test. Instead of shedding layers of middle management as USIA has already done, consolidation would add a massive bureaucratic overlay. Complex "horizontal" and "vertical" clearances would inevitably slow reaction time in an era where international events move at hyperspeed. Rather than an emphasis on flexibility and decentralization, we would be creating a bloated, top-down, centralized organization. As the Tofflers warn in their book, Creating a New Civilization, "the diversity and complexity of Third Wave society blow the circuits of highly centralized organizations." Consolidation would also deliver a body blow to the reinvention effort that USIA has been conducting over the last three years. Budgets and personnel at USIA have been cut dramatically. The International Broadcasting Act of 1994, for example, streamlined VOA, RFE/RL, WORLDNET, and Radio and TV Marti at a savings of more than $400 million and the elimination of 1,200 broadcasting positions over four years. Last year, we cut our magazine and exhibit divisions, and replaced the Policy and Program Bureau with a new Information Bureau that is 30 percent smaller and strips away substantial management layers. Moreover, the Information Bureau has been honored for its efforts to develop innovative, teambased methods of operation by Vice President Gore's National Performance Review. I would note at this juncture that the State Department has undertaken its own reinvention effort, the Strategic Management Initiative. We wish them well in an endeavor that we know, from our own experiences, will be difficult, painful and exhausting. Reinvention is hard work. It is my believe that nothing could be more disruptive of State's reinvention program than the burden of absorbing USIA, ACDA and AID. In short, the consolidation of the Agencies into the State Department threatens important reinvention initiatives in all our organizations. I would like to take a minute to comment briefly but specifically on some of the concerns raised by the consolidation proposal before this Committee. Although we oppose the consolidation proposal in its entirety, I would like to say that I believe some of the questions left unanswered by the legislation could have a dramatic impact on resources devoted to public diplomacy and thus our ability to carry out our mission within the State Department should this bill ever become law. For example: Is it the intent of this legislation to define and protect the resource base for the public diplomacy function, or would the determination on how much to allot to public diplomacy be left the managers of the State Department who are faced with budgetary shortfalls in their own traditional functions? In the proposed consolidated structure, who would make recommendations regarding priorities and funding for educational exchange or public diplomacy field staff levels: the Under-secretary for Public Diplomacy, State's Undersecretary for Management, or its regional bureaus? How would the public diplomacy function work with State's traditional public affairs function? Is it wise to transfer the Smith-Mundt and the Zorinsky amendment to both functions as now would appear to be the case in the legislation? Would this legislation ensure in this day of shrinking budgets and public calls for accountability that the "best management practices" -- not simply the standard operating procedures of the largest entity in the merger would be adopted in managing this new, large bureaucracy? - Would there be any protection for USIA's Civil Service complement through the consolidation transition -- a group which has already been significantly reduced over the past two years? - Would the legislation ensure that USIA's field practitioners of public diplomacy our Foreign Service Officer corps receive the same consideration of their specialized skills and experience that State Department Foreign Service Officers do in the assignments process? The way these questions are answered would determine whether this or any other consolidation proposal would result in the continued existence of the President's public diplomacy capabilities within a larger structure. |