FOCUS
The dispersal of career
diplomacy aspects of various options.
Murrow famously complained that
public diplomacy personnel were
not “in on the takeoffs,” but only
brought in afterward for the “crash
landings.” This seems not to have
changed with the merger.
Other USIA officers were transferred to new State bureaus, such
as International Information Programs or Educational and Cultural
Affairs. The latter bureau was
headed by an assistant secretary,
but both IIP and ECA stayed put across town in the old
USIA headquarters at 301 4th Street SW — out of sight
and mind of the policy people at Main State.
This dispersal of career PD officers around the State
Department destroyed the cohesion and efficiency of the
public diplomacy field support function in Washington
that had worked very well when USIA existed. All of the
transferred USIA officers now had
to work through layers of State Department bureaucracy to support
public affairs officers and other
public diplomacy professionals at
embassies and consulates around
the world.
Moreover, the new under secretary of State for public diplomacy
and public affairs, while nominally
the successor to the director of
USIA, in fact had none of that position’s authority over personnel
and budgets, and was therefore unable to provide cohesion and unified direction to PD officers at State or at
embassies abroad. And overseas, each PAO reported
only to the ambassador, and through the ambassador to
an assistant secretary — no longer to a public diplomacy
agency in Washington.
While USIA existed, its regional area offices deter-
PD officers around State has
destroyed the cohesion and
efficiency of support
for public diplomacy
field offices.
