The Abolition of USIA and Its Effects on U.S. Public Diplomacy December 9, 2009

Host: The Heritage Foundation. Founded in 1953, the mission of the United States Information Agency (USIA) was to "understand, inform and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest, and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions and their counterparts abroad." For years, USIA was the U.S. government’s public diplomacy arm, charged with telling America’s story abroad. Ten years ago, USIA was disbanded and its functions were folded into the State Department under the management of Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy. Since then, U.S. public diplomacy has fallen upon hard times. The new administration has repeatedly proclaimed that U.S. engagement in the world would be revitalized, and yet there has been little change at U.S. foreign policy’s lead agency. Our panelists will analyze the changes that U.S. public diplomacy has gone through in the past ten years and what should be done to improve America’s ability to "understand, inform and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest."