Twitter Updates

    follow me on Twitter

    America's Dialogue with the World

    America's Dialogue with the World
    Available On Amazon

    Followers

    WELCOME TO PDWORLDWIDE'S WORLD

    This Blog is a work in progress.  In the meantime check out my website:  PDWorldwide.

    About Me

    My photo
    United States
    William P. Kiehl is the founder President and CEO of PD Worldwide, consultants in international public affairs, higher education management and cross-cultural understanding. He is also the Editor of the on-line journal American Diplomacy. Full bio available on: www.pdworldwide.com/bio Facebook me!

    Thursday, June 26, 2008

    Foreign Affairs Professional Reading List



    The Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and the President of the American Foreign Service Association have co-sponsored the creation of a Foreign Affairs Professional Reading List to serve as a resource for Foreign Service and Civil Service employees of the foreign affairs agencies. AFSA, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and the State Department's Ralph J. Bunche Library, Office of the Historian, and Office of E-Diplomacy have compiled the list, with help from regional and functional bureaus. The list seeks to identify useful books and websites to serve as a point of departure for career-long, self-directed professional development.

    Public Diplomacy

    Dizard, Wilson P. Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the United States Information Agency. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2004. A useful, clear, and compact account of a vitally important aspect of U.S. foreign policy. [E840.2.D59 2004]

    --- Digital Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Information Age. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001. [E840.D5 2001eb]

    Kiehl, William, ed. America's Dialogue with the World. Washington, DC: Public Diplomacy Council, 2006. Essays on strategic communication, cultural diplomacy, technology, exchanges and other subjects relating to the changing nature of U.S. public diplomacy. [E895.A43 2006]

    Nye, Joseph. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs, 2004. Makes the case for using the “soft power” of U.S. public diplomacy aboard. [JZ1480.N94 2004]

    Tuch, Hans N. Communicating with the World: U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. A seasoned practitioner vividly explains how diplomatic missions abroad practice public diplomacy. [JX1706.T78]

    For the full list:http://www.afsa.org/readinglist.cfm

    Thursday, June 19, 2008

    Dumpty Redux: Saving Public Democracy


    Humpty Dumpty Redux: Saving Public Democracy

    William P. Kiehl

    In my November 2003 American Diplomacy, article "Can Humpty Dumpty be Saved?" I noted:

    There are rare moments in the swirl of foreign policy debate where there is near unanimity on a single issue. At this moment one such issue dominates — the failure of United States public diplomacy. Critics on the right and on the left, Washington insiders and the public beyond the Beltway, members of both major political parties, even America's friends and foes abroad all recognize that, like Humpty Dumpty, U.S. public diplomacy has had a great fall. The questions that remain are whether it can be put together again and how that feat might be accomplished. (1)

    Regrettably for our nation, in the nearly five years since nothing has changed to alter that statement — no fundamental changes in American public diplomacy have taken place; no meaningful alterations to a flawed structure to provide a chain of command; no significant increases in budget or staffing; no systemic correction of the lack of understanding of the nature of public diplomacy; and no real integration of public diplomacy into the heart of American foreign policy.

    There have been, at last count, some 33 separate studies, reports, and findings about America's public diplomacy issued by governmental and non-governmental boards, commissions, associations, and ad hoc groups.(2) All of them repeat the mantra that American public diplomacy is failing; all note that there are systemic failures; all call for change. It is no less true today than it was in 2003 that: "America's recent public diplomacy failures have come not from lack of expertise nor because of flawed technique, but rather because of an absence of the will and the resources to pursue the effort." (1)

    Changes must be made and the time to make these changes is now. With a new administration in January 2009 there will be a narrow window to make fundamental changes to undo the damage that the absorption of USIA into the State Department and the spin-off of international broadcasting into a dysfunctional independent entity have caused. (3)

    A New Model USIA

    But creating a carbon copy of the former U.S. Information Agency is not the answer. As good an idea as it was in 1953 when President Eisenhower created the USIA, today's world calls for a different model.(4) The 1953 Buick Roadmaster was a great automobile in its day, but today new technologies provide us with the opportunity to build a vehicle that vastly outperforms it. And that is what America needs in a new agency to take on the task of American public diplomacy in the 21st century — an information-rich century that will be defined in terms of the ideological struggle between democracy and terrorism.

    The new structure for public diplomacy must have adequate funding and staffing to sustain and accomplish its mission over the long term. Like America's values and interests, the role of our nation's public diplomacy is not confined to a single issue, a single region, or a single administration. The necessity for the United States to reach the hearts and minds of the world — to reach out and engage the world in a dialogue — will remain just as long as traditional diplomacy and our armed forces will remain. We must recognize that public diplomacy is a key national security component. If we recognize this obvious fact, we can create a blueprint that will serve the nation for the ages.

    Public diplomacy may be defined in various ways. The Web site of the Public Diplomacy Alumni Association (formerly the USIA Alumni Association) lists the most common definitions. Often called strategic communication, public diplomacy must be separated from any other executive department and serve in a coordinated way all agencies of the executive branch. Indeed, its mandate goes beyond government to interface with the corporate and private sector, non-governmental organizations, academia, and individual citizen diplomats in a variety of ways. All of these components of American society have a role in shaping the world's perceptions of America and our perceptions of the world.

    "In on the Take-Offs"

    In order for cabinet secretaries and their staffs to pay attention to public diplomacy at the inception of policy as well as during its implementation, the new agency must have a direct link to the Presidency. The oft-repeated statement of Edward R. Murrow, USIA's director, that to be effective, public diplomacy "must be in on the take-offs as well as the crash landings of foreign policy," is no less true today.

    One solution would be the creation of a White House entity similar to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), or the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), called the Office of Strategic Communication (OSC) within the Executive Office of the President to coordinate all international efforts within the executive branch which have a public diplomacy component. The OSC would do for strategic communication what OMB does for budgeting and OPM does for human relations across the executive departments and agencies of our government.

    Working in close relationship with the existing National Security Council and with a new independent agency that would be responsible for operational international information, broadcasting, and educational and cultural exchanges, the OSC would report directly to and take its instructions directly from the President and his NSC. The extensive existing international information and exchange programs of State, Defense, USAID and other cabinet departments would constitute the staff and provide the initial financial support and resources to create both the OSC and the new independent operational agency. Thus, little if any new funding would be needed.

    Public diplomacy in any case costs a fraction of the most common alternative means of national influence — military force. No one knows this better than America's men and women in uniform who have consistently called for strengthening our strategic communication efforts. Indeed one of the strongest proponents of increased emphasis on the "soft power" of public diplomacy has been Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who noted in his Landon Lecture at Kansas State University in November 2007 just how essential public diplomacy is to national security. (5)

    The OSC and Interagency Relationships

    The OSC and Interagency Relationships

    The operational agency (call it the Public Diplomacy Agency) would pull together the tools that served the USIA so well for nearly five decades but would also utilize the latest tools available to today's public diplomacy. Thus educational and cultural exchanges, international civilian broadcasting, print publications, and the all-important person to person contact work by public diplomacy officers in the field would be augmented by state of the art new technologies including the internet, podcasts, virtual reality, desktop video conferencing, texting, and others only now in the imagination of our creative technologists.

    It is not the purpose of this essay to provide a detailed blueprint of how this new agency would be structured, but a look at that framework I proposed back in 2003 would not be too far from the mark. The key differences are, of course, that the public diplomacy operational agency would be an independent agency reporting to the President (through the OSC), and the creation of the OSC itself to coordinate all executive branch strategic information activities.

    The Public Diplomacy Agency

    The Public Diplomacy Agency

    In order to accomplish its ambitious mission, the new Public Diplomacy Agency should be funded at a minimum of $3.5 billion and staffed at the level of some 12,000 full time employees, about one half of whom would be Foreign National Employees abroad. This is actually fewer employees than were working for USIA and a budget in constant dollars less than USIA's in the late 1960s. Recognizing that “winning hearts and minds” is done overseas and not in the United States, of the 6,000 U.S. citizen employees no less than one-third should be serving abroad worldwide at any time.

    Already, international broadcasting through the BBG and public diplomacy programs of the Department of State account for about $1.7 billion. International Military Exchange and Training Programs and other peacetime military programs could effectively contribute to these civilian programs as could most of the public diplomacy efforts of USAID and the more than 60 federal departments, agencies, and bureaus that conduct some exchange programs abroad.

    When I wrote “Humpty Dumpty” nearly five years ago I did not expect to see so little progress in renewing American public diplomacy nor did I expect that America's standing in the world would sink to the level that it has. There is an even greater urgency today, and so I will repeat much of my concluding remarks in that long-ago essay in the hope that this time perhaps policy-makers will be listening and something will be accomplished.

    Realigning boxes on an organization chart and drawing lines of authority and relationships can be tedious, uninspiring and easily bore policy makers. It is not glamorous work but it is an essential ingredient in the renewal of public diplomacy ... With an organization designed to unify and strengthen public diplomacy in place and with … real authority over the work of the organization, public diplomacy can begin anew the long, difficult and unceasing task to tell America's story to the world. (1)

    Let us hope that a new administration and a new Congress at last will take a critical look at our public diplomacy structure and act to reverse the trends of the past decade. It is not yet too late to restore American public diplomacy and secure America's standing in the world.

    Notes

    1. Kiehl, W.P., "Can Humpty Dumpty be Saved?"American Diplomacy, November 13, 2003.

    2. A short sample of the reports on public diplomacy in recent years at a minimum would include the following:"Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication in the 21st Century", Defense Science Board: Washington, DC, January 2008;

    Center for Strategic & International Studies, CSIS Commission on Smart Power, Final Report, CSIS Press: Washington, DC, 2007 (See especially Part II, 3. Public Diplomacy, pp. 47-52

    "A Call for Action on Public Diplomacy," The Public Diplomacy Council, Washington, DC, October 2005;

    Business for Diplomatic Action, "America's Role in the World: A Business Perspective on Public Diplomacy",October 2007;

    "Office of Management and Budget's Program Assessment of Public Diplomacy for 2006", January 26, 2008, ExpectMore.Gov;

    Johnson, S. and Dale, H., "How to Reinvigorate U.S. Public Diplomacy", Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #1645, April 23, 2003;

    "Secretary Colin Powell's State Department: An Independent Assessment," Foreign Affairs Council Task Force Report, March 2003;

    "Public Diplomacy: A Strategy for Reform," A Report of an Independent Task Force on Public Diplomacy Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, July 30, 2002.

    3. See: Reorganization Plan and Report (revised March 1999) Submitted Pursuant to Section 1601 of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 as Contained in Public Law 105-277.

    4. The U.S. information Agency and its overseas identity, the U.S. Information Service, had a long and storied history. There are a number of works on the USIA including: Dizard, W., Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the U.S. Information Agency, Lynne Renner: Boulder, Co., 2004; Arndt, R. The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, Potomac Books: Washington, DC, 2005; Tuch, H., Communicating with the World: U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy: Washington, DC, 1990.

    5. An online video of the Landon Lecture is available from the Department of Defense Web site.

    Dr. William P. Kiehl is the President and CEO of PD Worldwide, international consultants in public affairs, cross-cultural communication, and higher education management. A 33-year veteran of the Foreign Service with the USIA and the State Department, he is the author of many articles on public diplomacy and the editor of America's Dialogue with the World, now in its second edition. Dr. Kiehl's original essay on this topic, "Can Humpty Dumpty be Saved?", also appears on PublicDiplomacy.org. Reprinted with permission.

    Monday, June 16, 2008

    Can Humpty Dumpty Be Saved?


    Can Humpty Dumpty be Saved?

    William P. Kiehl

    Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
    Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
    All the King's horses and all the King's men
    Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.
    by Lewis Carroll, Chapter 6 - Humpty Dumpty

    There are rare moments in the swirl of foreign policy debate where there is near unanimity on a single issue. At this moment one such issue dominates—the failure of United States public diplomacy. Critics on the right and on the left, Washington insiders and the public beyond the Beltway, members of both major political parties, even America’s friends and foes abroad all recognize that, like Humpty Dumpty, U.S. public diplomacy has had a great fall. The questions that remain are whether it can be put together again and how that feat might be accomplished.

    The Fall

    Once upon a time America had a formidable public diplomacy. One need only look at the history of the Office of War Information in World War II and the U.S. Information Agency during the Cold War to recognize that the United States could conduct public diplomacy to inform, persuade and “win hearts and minds” as well as any nation on the planet.1

    America’s recent public diplomacy failures have come not from lack of expertise nor because of flawed technique, but rather because of an absence of the will and the resources to pursue the effort. With the end of the Cold War, American policy makers saw no compelling need to continue to fund a U.S. Information Agency that they saw as a “relic” of the Cold War and ananachronism in the new era of America as the world’s sole super power. Throughout the nineties, USIA’s funds continued to decline, its leadership was rudderless and its raison d’etre was called into question. It was almost with a sense of relief for some USIA staff that, with the consolidation of the foreign affairs agencies, USIA was absorbed by the Department of State. At least, they argued, public diplomacy might now have a place at the table in a new and re-invigorated State Department. To paraphrase Edward R. Murrow, public diplomacy would be "in on the take offs as well as the crash landings" of American foreign policy.

    Alas, the devil is always in the details and the details of the merger (perhaps anschluss would be a better description) were not kind to USIA. The programs, products and personnel of the Agency, already seriously weakened by neglect in the decade following the end of the Cold War, were disbursed and diminished through reorganization. Congressional common sense prevailed in separating the information dissemination function from the Fulbright academic and other exchange programs and Congress also saw to it that remaining public diplomacy funds were insulated from the rest of the State Department budget. However, public diplomacy was shorn of its overseas operations—put under the control of the regional bureaus; its media reaction and public opinion research staffs were stripped away—placed within State’s Intelligence and Research bureau and its Foreign Press Centers were transferred to the domestic-oriented Bureau of Public Affairs (PA). PA joined the remnants of the USIA Information Bureau, renamed International Information Programs (IIP), and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) under a new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. A once formidable public affairs agency was reduced to a shadow on the periphery of foreign policy. 2

    Systemic Problems

    In the post 9-11 world, it became all too evident that this diminished and fragmented public diplomacy in the State Department was just not adequate to the task. Some minor adjustments and new (or new once again) programs were created under the new Under Secretary, but they proved to be much too little and far too late. There was only the near universal agreement that public diplomacy was broken and something must be done and done quickly to fix it. A number of thoughtful solutions have been proposed to solve the “PD problem” in recent years, from The Heritage Foundation to the Council on Foreign Relations and from the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy to the USIA Alumni Association. 3

    Each of the studies notes, or at least implies, that there are chronic and systemic problems within the Department of State that must be addressed in any renewal of American public diplomacy. The most serious of these are the absence of:

    • Understanding of the Nature of Public Diplomacy (PD) vis-a-vis Public Affairs (PA);
    • True Integration Within the State Department;
    • Central Authority over Public Diplomacy Operations;
    • Adequate Funding for Public Diplomacy Programs

    There are those who, in a burst of nostalgia, in this 50th anniversary year of the creation of USIA by President Eisenhower, would have an independent U.S. Information Agency recreated along the lines of the original 1953 model. Others see nothing to be gained by meddling with organization charts and lines of authority and responsibility. They would continue things much as they are, but with perhaps a few directives and band aids as a sop to the critics. The first assumes that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together exactly as though 2003 were really 1953. The second assumes that Humpty Dumpty’s fall somehow resulted in a better model. Most proposals for the future of PD lie in the great expanse between these unrealistic alternatives. Public diplomacy renewal must address the systemic failures of the current model.

    Public Diplomacy is not an overseas version of Public Affairs. The military separates public affairs from psychological operations because it recognizes that the two elements can be incompatible or even contradictory. The Public Affairs function deals principally with the media and is essentially reactive and informative, whether in response to an event or news story or to preempt the media by getting the story out first. The PA time line is usually measured in minutes to a few days. Public Diplomacy, like peacetime psychological operations, is pro-active. It deals with the whole spectrum of society. It seeks to change attitudes, persuade the target audience as well as to inform. Its time line can be from a few hours to several decades to achieve success. Overseas, public affairs officers are faced with mounting pressures from Embassy front offices to devote their energies to public affairs at the expense of public diplomacy.

    Those who practice Public Diplomacy are not mere technicians. If public diplomacy is ever to be at the heart of the foreign policy process, it must reside there. One cannot “call in” the public diplomacy team when needed. Public diplomacy officers must be among those who would be doing the “calling in.” In other words, senior leadership of the real power centers of the Department of State, the regional bureaus, must include senior public diplomacy officers at least at the Deputy Assistant Secretary level. In the current State Department, senior PD officers are, for the most part, restricted to the two ex-USIA bureaus, IIP and ECA. Since the reorganization of the foreign affairs agencies in October 1999, only a single public diplomacy officer has been assigned to a regional bureau at the DAS level, and that was only in the summer of 2003. Even at the office director level in the regional and functional bureaus, PD cone officers are rare indeed. If such exclusion were based on race, gender or ethnicity, it would surely evoke such an outcry that corrective action would be taken immediately.

    Unity of command leads to unity of action. Perhaps the single most serious flaw in the 1999 reorganization plan was the inclusion of the regional USIA offices as Public Diplomacy offices within the regional bureaus of the Department. This has meant that the PD office director and the PD staff were under the direct supervision of one of the DAS’s and ultimately under the Assistant Secretary in the regional bureau. The regional bureaus call the shots. No amount of “interaction” with the Under Secretary for PD and PA or other PD bureaus can alter this fact. The PD office director’s career is in the hands of those who may not well understand how PD works or who may have agendas that are contrary to what PD would hope to accomplish. As currently constituted, there are at least five different public diplomacies (one for each region) rather than unity of command and a coherent and single public diplomacy adapted to local conditions as needed. The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs has full responsibility for the conduct of public diplomacy worldwide but lacks the authority over that worldwide public diplomacy. It is a recipe for failure.

    Money can help but it alone is not the solution. So far in the war on terrorism some modest additional funds have come to public diplomacy. But this amount of money while welcome and already put to good use is only a down payment on an effective public diplomacy for the 21st century. Currently, America’s public diplomacy budget would not even match a mid-sized global business advertising account yet we have learned that informing and persuading foreign publics about U.S. foreign policy, our values and our motives is far more complex than selling Uncle Ben’s Rice or Coca-Cola. Increased funds are absolutely necessary but without a basic reform and restructuring of the public diplomacy function of the State Department, at home and abroad, additional monies will not result in a more effective public diplomacy.

    A New Organization for Public Diplomacy

    Renewal of American public diplomacy envisages a middle ground between the old USIA, an independent agency, and the weak structure that currently exists. The Under Secretary’s overall control of resources and policy direction would be strengthened with the addition of two offices directly reporting to the Under Secretary: An Office of Resources and Management incorporating the existing executive offices of the ECA-IIP and PA Bureaus and the joint IIP-ECA technology office; and an Office of Policy and Strategic Communications incorporating IIP’s Office of Strategic Communication, its liaison with the White House Office of Global Communication and other interagency coordination of international information with ECA’s policy and evaluation office and the Public Affairs Bureau’s strategic planning office. Public diplomacy then would have both a policy and a budgetary focal point.

    In a major departure from the current structure, the Office of the Department Spokesman and part of the Office of Press Relations would be relocated to report directly to the Secretary of State. This actually reflects the reality of the way the Spokesperson has functioned for many years as well as the nature of the Spokesman’s relationship with the Secretary. Removal of the Spokesman’s role from the remainder of the Public Affairs Bureau would allow the realigned Bureau to concentrate on lower profile but still very important outreach to the American public and institutions, countrywide media and intergovernmental relations as well as the Department Historian and the new U.S. Diplomacy Center.

    Figure 1. Proposed Organization Chart

    Organization Chart

    Click on chart for full-size image

    A New Public Diplomacy Organization

    With a central policy and resource core in the hands of the Under Secretary, public diplomacy would consist of four Bureaus reporting to the Under Secretary: Public Affairs and Liaison, International Information Programs, Public Diplomacy Operations and Educational and Cultural Affairs.

    The IIP Bureau would regain the Foreign Press Centers and associated Broadcast Services as well as consolidate the web sites of IIP and PA into a single entity. The Office of Media Reaction and Research would move from the INR Bureau back to public diplomacy in IIP. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs would remain largely the same, minus the policy and evaluation and executive offices that would migrate to the Under Secretary’s direct responsibility.

    A most far-reaching structural change would be in a new Bureau of Public Diplomacy Operations. This Bureau would be composed of the current Public Diplomacy offices now lodged in each of the five powerful geographic bureaus and the PD office in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. Each of these offices would continue to be the interface and communication conduit between public diplomacy in the Department and the PD field posts at overseas missions. To ensure the integrity of public diplomacy practiced abroad, each PD section chief at an overseas mission would receive a performance evaluation from both the Ambassador/DCM and the relevant PD geographic office director/ supervisory DAS. All assignments for Public Diplomacy section chiefs would be cleared with the Under Secretary’s office and field posts’ Information Officers and Cultural Affairs Officers would be vetted with the IIP and ECA bureaus respectively.

    Dynamic leadership at the Department of State by Secretary Colin Powell and Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage has brought increased funding and a new sense of purpose to a government agency badly in need of reform. 4 Much that is good has happened since January 2001 to reinvigorate State. Now is the time to extend that same energy and emphasis to the Department’s public diplomacy. This unfinished business ---a renewal of America’s public diplomacy cannot be postponed any longer.

    Major changes to the structure and function of public diplomacy within the Department of State, particularly the creation of a new bureau, cannot be accomplished without Congressional support and input into the process. Legislation will be necessary and this would be the appropriate time to amend the basic legislation regarding public diplomacy, the Smith Mundt Act of 1948. 5 This legislation has formed the foundation for U.S. information and exchange programs for 55 years. In the decades since its passage in the early days of the Cold War, it has stood the test of time remarkably well. Yet there is one provision that hamstrings American public diplomacy unnecessarily. The provision of the Smith-Mundt Act which prohibits the dissemination of American international informational material in the United States or to U.S. citizens has become both unenforceable and unnecessary in this age of global communication, 24/7 news and worldwide use of the internet.

    Realigning boxes on an organization chart and drawing lines of authority and relationships can be tedious, uninspiring and easily bore policy makers. It is not glamorous work but it is an essential ingredient in the renewal of public diplomacy in the Department of State. With an organization designed to unify and strengthen public diplomacy in place and with an Under Secretary in possession of real authority over the work of the organization, public diplomacy can begin anew the long, difficult and unceasing task to tell America’s story to the world.

    1. For a concise look at public diplomacy as practiced by the U.S. Information Agency see: Dizard, Wilson, “Remembering USIA“ Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2003.
    2. See: Reorganization Plan and Report (revised March 1999) Submitted Pursuant to Section 1601 of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 as Contained in Public Law 105-277.
    3. Of the numerous recent studies and reports on the state of public diplomacy, several stand out as most influential. They include: Johnson, Stephen and Dale, Halle, “How to Reinvigorate U.S. Public Diplomacy”, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #1645, April 23, 2003; “Secretary Colin Powell’s State Department: An Independent Assessment” Foreign Affairs Council Task Force Report, March 2003; “Public Diplomacy: A Strategy for Reform” A Report of an Independent Task Force on Public Diplomacy Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, July 30, 2002; “U. S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Expands Efforts but Faces Significant Challenges”, U. S. General Accounting Office Report to the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, GAO-03-951, September 2003; “Consolidation of USIA Into The State Department: An Assessment After One Year”, United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, October 2000 and two papers prepared by retired USIA officers and endorsed by the USIA Alumni Association, “Making Public Diplomacy Effective” May 23, 2003 and “Our Crippled Public Diplomacy” September 1, 2002
    4. For a description of the State Department’s corporate culture prior to the leadership of Secretary Powell and an earlier proposed organizational solution to Department inertia, see: Kiehl, William P. “Unfinished Business: Foreign Affairs Consolidation was only the Beginning”, National Security Studies Quarterly, Vol. VII No. 1, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Winter 2001, pp 117-129.
    5. Commonly known as the Smith Mundt Act, the United States Information and Educational Exchanges Act of 1948, as amended, 22 U.S.C. 1431, prohibits the dissemination of informational materials produced for overseas use in the U.S. or to U.S. citizens or residents.

    William P. Kiehl is the Diplomat in Residence at the Center for Strategic Leadership, U. S. Army War College and Senior Fellow of the U.S. Army Peacekeeping Institute. A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mr. Kiehl has served for thirty-three years as a Public Diplomacy officer at home and abroad. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of the organizations with which he is affiliated.

    Reprinted with permission of the author and American Diplomacy.Org, where the article first appeared, 13 November 2003.


    Blog Archive