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 ST. MARTIN'S PRESS New York © 1990 by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. 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.