United States Information Agency

Encyclopedia : U : UN : UNI : United States Information Agency

The United States Information Agency (USIA), which existed from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy." The term public diplomacy (q.v.) is closely related to the word "propaganda," possibly synonymous with it depending on how the latter word is defined.

USIA's \"public diplomacy\" mission

The USIA's mission was to understand, inform and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest, to broaden the dialogue between Americans and US institutions and their counterparts abroad, and to foster exchanges of students, professors, and diverse categories of citizens between the US and foreign societies.

The USIA's goals were:

Increased understanding and acceptance of US policies and US society by foreign audiences.
Broadened dialogue between Americans and US institutions and their counterparts overseas.
Increased US Government knowledge and understanding of foreign attitudes and their implications for US foreign policy.

The USIA was established in August 1953, although cultural and educational exchange functions remained in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State until 1978, when they were shifted to USIA. Following a brief period during the Carter administration, when it was called the International Communications Agency, (USICA), the agency's name was restored to USIA in August 1982. The agency was known as United States Information Service (USIS) overseas but could not use that abbreviation domestically to avoid confusion with the United States Immigration Service.

There were two basic statutes authorizing the programs of the Agency, the Smith-Mundt Act which authorized information programs including Voice of America as well as the Radio and TV Marti broadcasts to Cuba, and the Fulbright-Hays Act which authorized the international cultural and educational exchanges (the Fulbright Scholarship Program). Thus "Fulbrighters" were grant recipients under the USIA educational and cultural exchange program.

To ensure that those grant programs would be fair and unbiased there were a series of grantees of educational and cultural expertise who chose the actual grantee recipents. Thus Bill Clinton was selected based on merit and not any political affiliation, the same as any other "Fulbrighter."

Similarly, Voice of America was intended as an unbiased and balanced "Voice from America" as oringinally broadcast during World War II. The Smith-Mundt Act established a so called "Charter" which required balanced news, dual sourcing, etc. Other broadcasts supported by the US Government (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) were more specific in their anti-communist intent and might more closely resemble "propaganda."

As part of the increased dialog between people of the US and people of foreign countries, USIA was also the agency principally responsible for US participation at World's Fairs outside the United States.

The Foreign Affairs and Restructuring Act abolished the US Information Agency effective October 1, 1999, when its information (but not broadcasting) and exchange functions were folded into the Department of State under a new Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, headed by an under secretary.

Broadcasting functions, including Voice of America, Radio and TV Marti as well as other US Government supported broadcasting such as Radio Free Europe (Eastern Europe) and Radio Liberty (the former Soviet Union) were consolidated as an independent entity under the International Braodcasting Board of Governors (IBB), which continues independently (as a separate entity from the State Department) today.

External links

[Archive of agency Web site]

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