What the SecDef Didn't Call For, But Should Have

What the SecDef Didn't Call For, But Should Have

By Matt Armstrong

Today, American public diplomacy wears combat boots. In the global media and the blogosphere, the military and its uniformed leaders shape the image of the United States. But that is not how it has always been. On the contrary, American public diplomacy was born out of the need to directly engage the global psyche and avoid direct martial engagement.

On November 26, 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, speaking at Kansas State University, recalled how the United States marshaled its national power at the beginning of the Cold War. Mr. Gates reminded his audience that sixty years ago the United States dramatically restructured itself in the face of a global threat and passed the National Security Act of 1947, created the United States Information Agency and the United States Agency for International Development, among other agencies and institutions. Key to the success of all of these was the timely creation and transmission of quality information, or truthful propaganda.

In his clarion call to revamp the current structures of government to meet modern threats, Mr. Gates sidestepped an obstacle that has been misinterpreted and misapplied over the last three decades: Public Law 402: United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, commonly known as the Smith-Mundt Act. Despite popular belief, the restrictions the Act is known for today were not designed or intended to be a prophylactic for sensitive American eyes and ears.

Understandably, Mr. Gates did not suggest revising the "anti-Goebbels" act, even if it is misunderstood (while his Department firmly believes themselves to be covered by the Act, a source tells me outgoing Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes was not aware of this until a few short months ago). Smith-Mundt has shaped the content and methods of communications from State and Defense through institutionalized firewalls created along artificial lines, fostering a bureaucratic culture of discrimination that hampers America's ability to participate in the modern struggle over ideas and managing perceptions.

Simple communications models of the 1940's have been replaced by global networks of formal and informal media. Perception overcomes fact as deliberation by both the consumers and producers of news shrinks to almost nothing. Too often, by the time the truth comes out, the audience and media have moved on. How America participates in this new world is central to the success of Mr. Gates' proposed reorganization.

What became known as public diplomacy was an alternative to hard power for manipulating the psyche of people in contested spaces, inside enemy countries, allied countries, and even within America's borders. Overseas, it exposed the lies of the enemy and highlighted our strengths, and even weaknesses as honest portrayals. Within our own borders, the psychological struggle inoculated the American public against enemy propaganda. Over the years, public diplomacy evolved and was manipulated as the threat to America transformed so that the public diplomacy of today is a shadow of what it was meant to be and the "five dollar" word "psychology" was relegated to the "dirty" practice of military psychological operations, or PSYOP. Today, public diplomacy is little understood, often denigrated, and artificially bifurcated in ways that would not be appropriate in the communications revolution of the 1940's, let alone today.

By the mid-1940's, it was clear the Soviet Union was spending heavily on propaganda in Western Europe and, despite the lies and distortions, it was having an impact. Friends, foes, and neutrals were second guessing previously positive perceptions of the United States. American propaganda, on the other hand, was at best a "silent whisper" that had little to no effect or worse, was counterproductive.

By 1947, in the backdrop of the vigorous debates over the National Security Act of 1947, Congress had enough and cut the funding for the Department of State's Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs (OIC) and by extension, the radio station of American outreach, the Voice of America (VOA). Congress was not questioning the act or need to propagandize, it was responding to the extremely poor quality and haphazard nature of U.S. efforts in light of communist inroads into Western public opinion.

Then, the key threat was not an overt invasion by the Soviet Union to take territory through military force, but the fear of communists capitalizing on economic and social unrest to expand their power and control through subversion and manipulation. To those paying attention at the time, policy and propaganda were inextricably intertwined. One of the most important realists of the time, Hans Morgenthau, noted that national morale and the quality of diplomacy, two of his nine elements of national power, were inherently unstable and subject to the effectiveness of domestic and foreign strategic influence. (2) The struggle for authority and relevance had shifted from the arena of power to the arena of ideas and international persuasion.

In 1947, as funding for OIC and VOA were cut, pre-Pearl Harbor isolationist Rep. Karl Mundt (R-SD) introduced H.R. 3342 to formalize State's information activities to ensure funding and quality thresholds. Co-sponsoring in the Senate was Sen. H. Alexander Smith (R-NJ). The intent of neither man was to curtail the overall information activities of the United States, but to increase its quality and to raise the volume of the "whisper" of State's information programs. The State Department itself admitted to lax oversight due to personnel and budget constraints, while the head of the House appropriations committee John Taber (R-NY) said if the "drones, the loafers, and the incompetents" were weeded out, he might allow a few million dollars for OIC. (2)

Rep. Mundt lined up an impressive list of supporters for the resolution, including Secretary of State George Marshall, Chief of Staff General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Undersecretary of States Dean Acheson, Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman, and US Ambassador to Russia Lt. General Walter Bedell Smith. (3) With one voice, they said that it was "folly" to spend millions for foreign aid and relief without explaining U.S. aims. Secretary of State Marshall said, "We have no idea how little we are understood, how much we are misunderstood." (4)

Concerns over internal propagandizing focused on a government news service that might dominate the domestic media market. In this regard, two antecedents were cited in debating the Act. First was the Nazi domination of domestic media and its role in the rise of Hitler and the second was the Committee for Public Information (CPI) in World War I. The CPI was widely viewed as a personal news agency of President Woodrow Wilson. The most substantial resistance came from those defending the investments and market share of private and corporate radio and press. The issue was not that propagandizing to the American public was wrong, but that a government news service might dominate domestic media and thus infringe on a free press and the right to make a profit. William Benton, State's champion for Smith-Mundt, not only worked closely with American news broadcasters and business leaders to support the Act, but later collaborated with them to shape domestic information activities. It was not about the information, but who delivered it.

After passing in the House but stalling in the Senate, the special subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee with the co-sponsors, the Vice President, and others, visited twenty-two countries. (5) Their report stated:

Hundreds of millions are being expended by the Soviets; and the United Kingdom, although heavily in debt, supports a program employing some 8700 people as against our less than 1400 and costing three times ours. Even little Holland is spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year and spent half a million last year in the United States alone to defend and explain her policies. We are spending just over $30,000 in the Netherlands.

It is the opinion of this Committee that America is old enough and strong enough to warrant a change of Voice. (6)

The bill, passed in the House, was resubmitted to the Senate with a recommendation by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations of "do pass" and comments that propaganda campaigns directed against the United States by Communist parties throughout the world called for "urgent, forthright, and dynamic measures to disseminate truth." (7) The Committee noted the danger poised "by the weapons of false propaganda and misinformation and the inability on the part of the United States to deal adequately with those weapons." The Committee further noted that "Truth can be a powerful weapon on behalf of peace. It is the firm belief of the Committee that H.R. 3342, with all the safeguards included in the bill, will constitute an important step in the right direction toward the adequate dissemination of the truth about America, our ideals, and our people." (8)

For the USIA to be effective, the Smith-Mundt committee enumerated five key requirements of the Act:

Tell the truth.

Explain the motives of the United States.

Bolster morale and extend hope.

Give a true and convincing picture of American life, methods and ideals.

Combat misrepresentation and distortion.

Aggressively interpret and support American foreign policy. (9)

A few years later after the Act was passed, presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, and subsequently president, made the "psychological struggle over minds and wills" an important element of his foreign policy. The USIA, as well as other propaganda efforts, was to concentrate on "objective, factual news reporting." (10)

Today, new terms like "strategic communications" and "smart power" emerged to fill the void left by the neglect and disappearance of public diplomacy's root concepts, purposes, and apparatuses. These, however, do not solve the problem of purpose and structure, they just repackage the tactics.

Gone is the active and constant struggle that shaped the discourse with foreign populations, requiring understanding the audience, their needs and wants as well as understanding enemy propaganda, and supported by the whole of government. It is now a binary fight, win (or lose) and move on, for emotional attractiveness through weakly, at best, coordinated efforts. Critics and champions alike of the new public diplomacy adopted the "winning hearts and minds" mantra ignoring the phrase's counterinsurgency roots that relied on a stick to back it up.

Resurrecting USIA and similar information assets requires removing the artificial handcuffs of Smith-Mundt. Today, the enemy, whether it is Al Qaeda, its affiliates, the Taliban, or insurgents of various flavors all know, understands, and manipulates information to undermine perceptions of security, commitment, and trust. Just as good tactics cannot overcome a bad strategy, reorganization cannot solve systemic problems and limits.

It is ironic that an act designed to increase the quality of American propaganda would itself become victim of misunderstanding and false interpretations. Smith-Mundt was not intended to protect sensitive American ears. If it was, then the President's press secretary could arguably be out of a job.

In his speech, Mr. Gates either took it upon himself or was tasked by the President to mobilize the public and Congress to support updated versions of initiatives put together in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations to deal with the complex threats of today. Successful implementation of Mr. Gates' initiatives requires a fundamental awareness of the power of ideas, perceptions, and persuasion. However, as asymmetry of influence increases, the payoff of kinetic responses decreases. Precision guided media displaces precision guided munitions as weapons of strategic influence.

It is time to revisit Smith-Mundt and understand its intended purposes. This does not mean it is time to propagandize the American people, there are other parts of the government other than Defense and State that do that effectively today. It means refocusing on the requirements of a high-quality and integrated information apparatus, focused on truth and removing the then-useful constraints on domestic competition. Weak American information and outreach programs were not just a liability but a strategic threat. Today is no different.

Matt Armstrong blogs at MountainRunner. In a couple of weeks, he will be 50% of the world's population holding a Masters in Public Diplomacy.

1. Hans J. Morgenthau and Kenneth W. Thompson, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 6th ed. (New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1985).

2. "The American Twang," Time Magazine, May 26 1947.

3. Robert William Pirsein, The Voice of America: An History of the International Broadcasting Activities of the United States Government, 1940-1962, Dissertations in Broadcasting (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 137.

4. "The American Twang."

5. Pirsein, The Voice of America: An History of the International Broadcasting Activities of the United States Government, 1940-1962, 137.

6. Department of State Semi-Annual Report of January 1st to June 30th, 1948, quoted in Ibid.

7. Ibid., 138.

8. Ibid., 138-9.

9. John William Henderson, The United States Information Agency (New York,: Praeger, 1969), 65.

10. The USIA's first director, Theordore Streibert, to President Eisenhower in 1953, quoted in Ibid.

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