Communicating with the World

COMMUNICATING WITH THE WORLD THE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF DIPLOMACY concentrates on the processes of conducting foreign relations abroad, in the belief that studies of diplomatic operations are useful means of teaching or improving diplomatic skills and of broadening public understanding of diplomacy. Working closely with the academic program of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, the Institute conducts a program of research, publication, teaching, diplomats in residence, conferences, and lectures. COMMUNICATING WITH THE WORLD

U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas

Hans N. Tuch

Foreword by Marvin Kalb

An Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Book

For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

First published in the United States of America in 1990 Second paperback printing 1993

ISBN 978-0-312-04532-6 ISBN 978-0-312-04809-9 ISBN 978-1-137-10687-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-10687-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tuch, Hans N., 1924- Communicating with the world: U.S. public diplomacy overseas I by Hans N. Tuch; foreword by Marvin Kalb. p. cm. - (Martin F. Herz series on United States diplomacy) includes bibliographical references.

1. United States- Diplomatic and consular service. 2. Diplomacy. I. Title. II. Series. JX1706.T78 1990 327.2-dc20 89-49579 CIP To my wife, Mimi, who lovingly and unselfishly shared my life and my experiences in public diplomacy and contributed to making my years in the Foreign Service meaningful, satisfying, and memorable. This page intentionally left blank Contents

Foreword, Marvin Kalb . . . ix Preface ...... xiii Abbreviations and Acronyms . xv

Part I The Practice of U.S. Public Diplomacy Abroad 1 1. Defining Public Diplomacy ...... 3 2. The Origin and Development of U.S. Public Diplomacy 12 3. Practicing Public Diplomacy . 39 4. The Methods-The Media . 58 5. The Voice of America . . 87 6. Worldnet ...... 99 7. The Advisory Function . . . . 106 8. A Critique of U.S. Public Diplomacy 113

Part II Case Studies in the Practice of Public Diplomacy 123 9. The Beginning of U.S.-Soviet Cultural Relations . 125 10. Practicing Public Diplomacy in Brazil ...... 140 11. Dealing with the German "Successor Generation" . . 152 12. INF Deployment in the Federal Republic of Germany 161 Epilogue ...... 172

Appendices 175 1. Directors of the U.S. Information Agency 177 2. USIS Germany Country Plan Fiscal Year 1986 178 3. USIS Budget (10/1/88)-Colombia ...... 188 4. Public Affairs Goal Paper for President's Visit to the Federal Republic of Germany, June 1982 ...... 190 5. Quarterly Analysis from USIS Bonn to the U.S. Information Agency, January 4, 1983 193 6. USIS Country Plan (Brazil)-Fiscal Year 1989, Academic Exchange Program 199 Bibliographic Note 215 Index ...... 217 viii COMMUNICATING WITH THE WORLD

Vignettes

Roy Cohn's Descent on the Libraries of Europe ...... 19 Amerika Magazine in the Soviet Union ...... 52 Arts and Artifacts-Khrushchev at the American Exhibit . 63 Tit-for-Tat Diplomacy ...... 129 Cash for the Casa . . . . . 146 The Mothers of Filderstadt . . . . 167 Foreword

MARVINKALB

ans Tuch (who has always been known to his friends as Tom) has Hwritten a valuable book: valuable, first and foremost, to a new generation of Foreign Service officers beginning to grasp the essential lesson of the sad Vietnam experience- that a policy conceived in secrecy and implemented by deception, denied the popular support so essential in a democracy, will fail, no matter how honorable the original intent. The book is valuable also to the student of American foreign policy who has come to appreciate the fact that policy has at least two faces, one that remains private and the other that must be made public, and to the journalist, American or foreign, who is skeptical of any nugget of informa• tion that is officially volunteered or leaked rather than unearthed during independent pursuit of a story. (Why, after all, the journalist asks, would I be given a "fact" unless it serves the government's interest? If it serves the government's interest, then by definition it may be self-serving, perhaps even devoid of credibility, and thus lose its value to me.) Tom Tuch understands the rules of the game. He was, for more than thirty years, one of the most professional public affairs officers I have ever met. I don't know where- maybe in Moscow, or Berlin, or Brasilia, or Bonn, several of the capitals in which he served so ably-but somewhere he learned

ix X COMMUNICATING WITH THE WORW that the currency of public diplomacy is credibility, and that no matter how blunt the challenge, or how sensitive the information, he must never lie. He could dance and dodge, and Tuch has been quite adept at both, but he must never, as Harry Reasoner said years ago of Lyndon Johnson, be "less than candid." Once a PAO lies, he's finished. Journalists have a way of thinking that every lie is a big lie; they dismiss small lies, white lies, inadvertent lies, as simply lies, all these distinctions generally lost in the journalist's mind. There were many times when Tom Tuch could not tell the truth; but even on those occasions he did not mislead the press, not to the best of my knowledge. He steered reporters away from bad leads, and occasionally helped them with a few good ones. He is, in this sense, the perfect author for this book. He has a gentle, winning personality, able to expand contacts and retain friendships. In the age of "winning the hearts and minds" of contested parts of the world that was once the urgent mandate of the United States Information Agency, Tom Tuch was a super envoy. He never met a person he couldn't befriend, nor a language he couldn't master. From Russian to German to Portuguese he fluttered, always fluent enough to enhance his role as a serious diplomat eager to understand the nuances of the country to which he was assigned, while representing the subtlest shifts of American policy with clarity and tireless dedication. Communicating with the World: U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas is, in addition to being valuable, an important book. At its core, it recognizes that diplomacy has changed radically from the time a hundred years ago when a British envoy in the Near East reported to the Foreign Office that the pasha had died and "What should I do?" Many months later, the time consumed in the envoy's query reaching London and the Foreign Office's response ricocheting back to him, a cryptic, oddly amusing message finally arrived at the British mission to the pasha's homeland. "First suggest burial service," was the Foreign Office's advice. "Then convey Her Majesty's deepest regrets." What once took months now takes seconds. Technology has squeezed time for reflection out of old-fashioned diplomacy. Space has been obliterated. Now the diplomats have been forced to compete with the journalists to get their stories to the home office. It is an unfair contest. The diplomats are not paid to be quick, but often they learn about events in their own backyard from Foreword xi a bulletin on the radio or television, or from a call from a State Department colleague who has heard the same bulletin in Washington. Everyone is often dependent on the same sources of information, but not everyone, certainly not the journalist, is responsible for giving advice to the secretary of state or the president about what the United States should do. That is the diplomat's job. It is a job made all the more difficult by the increasingly central role that the press plays in the process of decision making. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev uses the press with stunning effectiveness. He caresses the lens like a professional anchorman, knowing that its power can enhance his diplomacy. During a visit to Bonn, he picked up a child with flowers, and this picture of friendliness bounced off every comer of the globe and did more to bury the hatchet in Soviet-German relations than any agreement he signed with Chancellor Helmut Kohl. One of Gorbachev's spokespersons told me recently that before he briefs foreign reporters in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, he watches CNN in his Moscow office to learn what's happening in the world and what questions he can expect to field. David Gergen, who once worked in the Reagan White House, says that the president's famous zero-option speech, which laid the basis for the medium-range missile agreement he later signed with Gorbachev, was delivered at 2:00PM, because the message was aimed at Western Europe and 2:00PM in Washington was prime time in Paris, London, and Bonn. Pollster Lou Harris estimates that there are now thirty million people in Western Europe who speak English and depend on American news organiza• tions for their news. Before the democracy movement was crushed in Beijing, the students communicated their cry for freedom through Western cameras, unfurling slogans in English and French and propping up their own version of the Statue of Liberty symbolically to convey their sympathy for American values and their impatience with Communism. The images from Tiananmen Square, first of democracy and then of repression, ignited strong emotions throughout the world, accelerating the pace of politics in China and of diplomacy everywhere else. It is a new world, linking technology, journalism, and diplomacy in a global loop of interdependence, and raising in virtually every trouble spot profound questions about American responsibilities, but also profound opportunities. Ronald Reagan, who throughout his presidency was on a first-name basis xii COMMUNICATING WITH THE WORLD with the camera, referred to information as the "oxygen of the modem age," the power that "seeps through the walls topped with barbed wire .... [M]ore than armies, more than diplomacy, more than the best intentions of democratic nations, the communications revolution will be the greatest force for the advancement of human freedom the world has ever seen." The best diplomacy these days takes advantage of the power of a free flow of information. Tom Tuch, in his book, focuses on public diplomacy and uses four case studies to amplify his points. They are, first, the start ofU.S.-Soviet cultural relations in the mid-1950s; second, the practice of public diplomacy in Brazil; third, dealing with the successor generation in Germany; and, finally, the deployment of medium-range missiles in West Germany in the early 1980s. In each case Tuch plays a key role, but he is wise enough to know that more senior officials in Washington make the decisions. As an ex• perienced public affairs officer in the field, Tuch can make a recommenda• tion, he can offer advice, he can raise a cautionary flag; but his is an advisory role in a key comer of diplomacy - "only one piston in the foreign affairs engine," as he puts it. Washington is beginning to understand the power and potential of public diplomacy, not propaganda but the unafraid exercise of ideas and information in the global marketplace. Tuch' s book is helpful instruction for a secretary of state, a director of central intelligence and, yes, even a president. Preface

hinese villagers in Szechuan listen over their communal Cloudspeakers to the news of student demonstrations in Beijing in a Voice of America Chinese broadcast. A Peruvian Fulbright student is studying environmental economics at the University of Florida. Leading U.S. and Soviet cardiologists discuss new techniques of combatting heart disease via satellite television on USIA's Worldnet. Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute discusses American reaction to the Pope's encyclical with an audience in Brazil. A Stockholm newspaper editor writes an editorial about the INF treaty on the basis of the full text of Secretary of State George Shultz's news conference, supplied him through the USIS Wireless File. A teenager from Olathe, Kansas spends the year living with a German family and attending high school in Freiburg as a participant in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program. A minister of education from Senegal travels around the southwestern United States for a month, visiting school boards, elementary and high schools, and universities as a USIA International Visitor. A nursing student from Cuernavaca checks out a book about obstetrical nursing in the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City. An American exhibit guide explains American information technology in Russian to a group of exhibit visitors in Tashkent, as two thousand others stand patiently in line to enter the exhibition hall. These are but a few routine examples of public diplomacy as practiced by the United States government. What public diplomacy is, why it is part of our

xiii XIV COMMUNICATING WITH THE WORLD foreign affairs process, how it is practiced by the u.s. government throughout the world, who the practitioners are, and whether it is effective - these questions are the subject of this study. Most of this book is based on my thirty-five years of experience in practicing public diplomacy. And most of that experience has been in three distinct areas of the world-Germany, the Soviet Union and other Com• munist countries of Eastern Europe, and Brazil. Readers will understand that the majority of examples I cite to illustrate the practice of public diplomacy will involve my service in those countries; and they will forgive me, I hope, ifl slight other areas, although I have tried to broaden my personal experience by consultation and conversation with colleagues experienced in public diplomacy whose service was in China and countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia with which I am not familiar. In a book which includes the distillation of so many years in the Foreign Service, many contribute to the thoughts, ideas, and opinions that the author expresses. With my gratitude to all who will recognize their input to this manuscript, I mention by name only those who helped with the actual publication of the book: David Newsom, who encouraged its writing and saw to its publication; Margery Boichel Thompson, who edited it expertly and thereby improved it greatly; Gifford Malone, Mary Brady, and Terrence Catherman, who read it critically and gave me indispensable advice and valuable suggestions; C. B. (Cliff) Groce, Alan Heil, and Robert Gosende, who, by reading pertinent parts of it, helped me with ideas and corrected mistakes; Martin Manning, who checked the manuscript for factual and historical errors and supplied needed documents; Nina Parmee, who assisted with research and indexing; and to Jeffry A. Robelen, manuscript production coordinator, and Michael Snyder, principal manuscript "word processor." My thanks to all. Finally, this volume is the first in the Martin F. Herz Series on United States Diplomacy, established by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy to honor the memory of an exemplary scholar-diplomat who was the Institute's first director of studies. Abbreviations and Acronyms

ABEA Brazilian Association of American Studies ABRAPUI Brazilian Association of University Professors of English Language and Literature AFS American Field Service, former name of AFS International, a youth exchange organization AmPart American Participant [Program] (USIA) BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BNC binational center BPAO branch public affairs officer CAMPUS Central American Program for Undergraduate Scholarships (USIA) CAO cultural affairs officer [or cultural attache] CAPES Brazilian government organization for foreign educational grants and scholarships CDU Christian Democratic Union (FRG) CNPq National Research Council (Brazil) CP country plan (USIS) csu Christian Social Union (FRG - Bavaria) cu State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs DAAD German Academic Exchange Service DRS Distribution and Records System (USIS) E/YX USIA Office of Youth Exchanges E/AA USIA Office of Academic Affairs EUR/CE State Department Office of Central European Affairs Euronet USIA television network, predecessor to Worldnet FAPESP Sao Paulo State Foundation for Research FDP Free Democratic Party (FRG) FRG Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany] xvi COMMUNICATING WITH THE WORLD

FSNE/FNE Foreign Service national employee FSO Foreign Service officer GAAS German Association of American Studies GAl German-American Institute GDR German Democratic Republic [East Germany] GOB Government of Brazil INF intermediate-range nuclear forces IREX International Research and Exchanges Board IUCTG Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants IV International Visitor [Program] (USIA) Komsomol Soviet Communist Youth League LASPAU Latin-American Scholarship Program with American Universities (USIA) MPAA Motion Picture Association of America NAPA National Partners of the Americas NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NSDD National Security Decision Directive NSF National Science Foundation PAO public affairs officer ppp U.S. Congress- FRG Bundestag Youth Exchange Program PRC People's Republic of China RFE Radio Free Europe RIAS Radio in the American Sector (Berlin) RL Radio Liberty SPD Social Democratic Party (FRG) US AID U.S. Agency for International Development USIA U.S. Information Agency USIAAA U.S. Information Agency Alumni Association USICA U.S. Information Agency Communication Agency USIS U.S. Information Service VOA Voice of America Worldnet USIA's worldwide television network YFU Youth for Understanding, Inc.