this year it'll come to water and you know what i recognize the gentleman from california mr royce is joining us i want to welcome this very distinguished panel i think i know three out concise statement it's a customary practice in this subcommittee to have no rules we usually allow unlimited time but the ranking member mr rudd background myself have a briefing that broadcast because i believe in the power of ideas i remember our former budget chairman said you know these efforts are less than the cost of a fuel cap on a b fifty two and the fact is it's not sanctions it's not use of force it's not the other issues we've hotly debated it's promoting the free flow of information it's a way of supplying closed societies with information for those who are toiling against tyranny and i disagree with the premise that because cuba jams these broadcasts we should give up i'm sure there are flaws with t v marty's operations this is after all run by the federal government but instead of exerting our energy exposing the chinks in marty's armor why not put that effort into exploring ways to bolster the lifeline to democrats in cuba and the reason i say that is because i remember a few years ago we tried the airborne platform commander command solo they call it now private contractors to do that base of the us navy facility in florida keys in the cuban response of course was flying airborne jamming platforms so yes it's a challenge to stay ahead of the jamming efforts but are we really fated to lose i think not if we use a little ingenuity if our broadcasting to cuba is a waste of critics contend how come the government of castro spend so much time and his efforts to block it in the simple answer is they fear the free flow of information so ideas have consequences i support bolstering efforts to inject as much information to cuba as possible and t v marti does that thank you very much mr chairman thank you mr royce today's hearing fills one of the responsibilities of congress and this committee in particular to ensure taxpayer dollars being spent wisely and effectively in this case the us taxpayer have has spent over half a billion that's with a b dollars on two government run stations that broadcast t cuban radio marti and t v marti are based in miami and i managed by the office of cuba broadcasting known by its acronym as o c be stated mission of these broadcasts is support the cuban people's right to information and to give them objective news but as the gentleman from california indicated much is jammed by the cuban government and almost no one in cuba can watch it furthermore it's been subject to an enormous amount of controversy including biased allegations about bias broadcast to questionable programming to reports of nepotism to political manipulation to criminal charges of corruption and no it isn't simply allegations last year program director was convicted of taking over one hundred thousand dollars in kicks in kickbacks and sentenced to twenty seven months in prison and the current director who is a holdover hired his wife's nephew as his chief of staff even though he had no previous experience in broadcasting this is ackles of another u s government program reportedly to promote democracy in cuba several years ago i asked the government accountability office the investigative arm of congress to look into that spending turned out that it was extremely difficult to determine where exactly the money went but it was clear that not all went to cuba we discovered that some of it was spent in miami on chocolates and sony playstation and cashmere sweaters it was later discovered that an employee of the largest gran was topping off purchases meant the dissidents for his own use the did to the tune of eleven million rather eleven thousand dollars at costco  this building you used the millions and billions and the former chief of staff of the second largest grantee was just sentenced to thirty months in prison for stealing six hundred thousand dollars in federal funds and now that's not a pretty picture in any case what is important for our purposes today is the fundamental question of whether the taxpayers are receiving a fear a return on their investment is there a better way is there a more cost effective  of transmitting objective information to the cuban people or spreading american values and most importantly is anyone watching t v v marti has been examined by various bodies including the international broadcasting bureau which oversees as the statutory responsibility of overseeing the office of cuba broadcasting and the state department's inspector general most reviews have found serious problems often the same problems over and over and over again only one review ever gave a positive grade and that was highly questionable state department a state report in two thousand and seven that many investigators do not take seriously and fact the state at the time was laid up forced to resign amid charges of political cover up when he interfered with the we all concur is the gold standard when it comes to examining government programs and i want to publicly praise them for their work what  found in this case was that there was continuing problems with employee morale with here in journalistic standards with sloppy contracting with little transparency in the hire of so called talent contracts but what is most striking is that according to the most reliable figures compiled by the international broadcasting bureau t v marti has less than a one percent water audience in cuba less than one percent now to quote from the g a o report this is the language from the report itself none zero of the five hundred thirty three respondents share of the transmission budget for both stations in fiscal year two thousand and eight the office of cuba broadcasting spent eight and one half million on transmission over seven and a half million of that number was bought t v marti and sixty million of that was to fly a plane to broadcast to but by ib b s own figures it made no difference whatsoever in terms of t v marti audience that's why today the hearing is entitled does not seem to have an audience it's a station that no one watches so why spend all the money on it if something isn't working doing more of the same most likely will not produce a different result anecdotally i had a conversation within the past four or five months with a respected journalist when i won't identify but as spent considerable time in cuba reporting for a major media outlet and that individual in the ten years that that individual has been there is never met a cuban that is ever seen t v marti and that particular reporter interfaces with everyone in cuba including the dissidents who i know personally and to those who are desirous of an emerging civil society not one was there and in the entire ten year period was a discovered and individual who watched t v much now in its latest budget proposal the broadcasting board of governors which is in charge of o c b has suggested he has suggested changing the four mat of t v marti and cutting some staff as a cost saving measure but there are concerns as to whether this is enough of a change in focus and whether some of the staff reductions may be retaliation the whistleblower who spoke further because it's important to keep in mind as well the logic context the united states and cuban governments have indicated a willingness to dialogue cuban americans can now travel to cuba whenever they want as much as they want while most americans are still prohibited from visiting but that may change as well in this context does it make sense to continue to conduct these broadcasts should we experience experiment rather was no different technologies i noted the test the mody of missed the shambles it was thought provoking or should we just simply scrap t v mart and trust the american people to spread our values to cuba let me be clear in its current form i consider t v much to be a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars but i'm open to new ideas if there are out alternative ways to deliver video products i'm happy to listen i also realize that change is difficult it takes time to be responsible to the taxpayers we should have a public discussion on this issue and that's why we're here today and  and before i recognize the gentleman my rank my friend and ranking member from california let me note the president of the ranking member of the subcommittee on the west hemisphere mr connie mack and the gentle lady from california miss laura richardson welcome customarily we would welcome opening statements from just about anybody that set up here but as you indicated mr rohrabacher and i will be the only ones today because we're heading to to a briefing that is of some consequence dana e focused on how to scrap the communist dictatorship that the cuban people the last fifty years fidel castro came to power overthrowing a rotten dictatorship under a guy democracy he betrayed his people the current regime the castro regime murdered the very democratic revolutionaries that have put castro in power been true to what he had been promising lead cuba into an era of prosperity and peace instead he allied with every american regime that he could possibly make a deal with  fact that regime may now be because of castro's health may be on its last legs the very last thing we need to do now is to send a message that in some way we are going to pull back from our long time commitment for democracy in cuba we don't need to scrap radio marti some of the allegations that we've just heard may well be true but the symbolic nature of right now there is a chance for major change to take place in cuba and to leave this vicious dictatorship it would be unconscionable or wrong and much more costly in the long run to us we should be looking to try to work with those people who believe in democracy and freedom and friendship with the united states we reach out to those people right now and sending them a message you know we're closing down our communications now even before any taken place is exactly the wrong message now in and when you live in a dictatorship if someone calls you to ask if you are listening to radio broadcasts that attacked the dictatorship how many people are going to answer  and and chairman i will have to tell you that american journalists and their reporting of what is going on in cuba for the last fifty years i give them a big i wouldn't trust any  by a journalist who i don't know and i can't take a phone survey that's going to be a methodology for medium term and whether certain amounts of money are being wasted or not with that said make a dramatic step even before there is reform symbolically reducing our pressure would be exactly the wrong direction thank you mr chairman i thank the gentleman and i understand that our friend from  allowing me to be here and giving me just a minute mr chairman i listen closely to your statement and the feeling first of all i think we would all agree that the castro brothers it is a dictatorship the human rights violations the brutality of this dictatorship is something that i think all of us can agree on and that it's not a good thing and i too wanted to voice my concerns about basing that decision on responding to a telephone call in cuba asking whether or not you watch or listen to a broadcast that the brutal dictator do not want you to listen to or to watch you can't trust that that poll magine the fear and you can listen to just some of our colleagues who have had experiences growing up in cuba about how the the  people representing the cuban government would come into their homes and look for things that might be a pose that shows signs of being opposed to castro so imagine get imagine that phone call coming in  you probably believe that it's your own government trying to crack down on you so you can't you cannot trust i believe a telephone survey in cuba to base your decision on whether or not t v marti is worth continuing you know you also have so you have a range of somewhere between twenty one percent to less than one percent i would trust the people who have left cuba who say that yeah i was able to see t v marti in cuba and so let's say you don't let's say you don't believe in the twenty one percent let's say it's ten percent if you can provide a little hope for people who live in a country who are being whose dreams are being crushed by castro and royal castro that's the kind of hope that america should be for and fighting for freedom doesn't mean that you get to fight all time at one hundred percent but if you can reach the high end twenty one percent of the cuban people with t v marti it's a worthwhile program for the united states to be involved in and no time in no in no time is it more important than now for us to continue to spread a message of hope and give the people of cuba who are dying you have a thirst for information to give them that information and taking away t v marti radio marti does a disservice to the cuban people and does a disservice to the people of our country so with that i would just like to say i hope that when we look at the statistics that we we view him and what they are one has a hint of intimidation behind it the other is based upon people who have left cuba who are now living in freedom and have the ability to speak their mind without fear of their government either throwing them in jail or intimidating them and their families thank you thank you mr mack and we will proceed forthwith worth extensively in the national security international affairs area concerning trade foreign assistance and foreign policy issues he has managed audits of the agency event national development the state department and the department of defense received a bachelor's degree in political science from hiram college and a master's degree in international relations from the fletcher school of law and diplomacy he was also a cuba or issues it's entitled the cuba triangle and i would commend he serves as an advisor to the cuba working group in the house of representatives and has organized nine congressional delegation peters served in the state department under president ronald reagan and george herbert walker bush and holds degrees from georgetown university's school of foreign service and their graduate school john nichols is a professional professor of communications and international affairs and associate dean for graduate studies and research in the college of communications at the pennsylvania state held many leadership post at the university including chair of the university faculty senate shamblings that shamble is currently president of the american federation of government employees local eight hundred twelve has been in that position since june of two thousand is on one hundred percent official time with the union broadcasting board of governors he represents the broadcasters and journalists of the v o a and the office of cuba broadcasting he began union jesse welcome and why don't we proceed with your testimony but before you proceed i there's an interesting footnote i think in the report this is a response and i found it interesting to note that the b b requested a license to go to cuba and to conduct person to person interviews it was denied by our own government i found that rather interesting at the same time the i r i which is a a group to promote democracy under the auspices of the republican party the institute for republican the international republican institute thank you was granted a license and in fact did conduct person to person interviews and that information is available i found that rather mystifying but again there are all kinds of mysteries going on i'm always reminded of that message about waiting a little bit longer i think it's i think it's a song to just a little bit longer and there's a noted columnist and i've never met and have had no contact with who writes for the miami herald and most likely other outlets his name is undress oppenheimer and he's appears to be well respected who wrote a book which i read that was entitled the of thinking clearly this is ministration has charted a different course it will continue a different course in terms of the bilateral relationship with cuba but when i hear  to cuba for more than two decades via radio marti and t v marti the purpose of the broadcasts is to break the information blockade and to promote freedom and democracy in cuba u s television broadcast cuba is performed by the office of cuba broadcasting based in miami and is overseen by the broadcasting board of governors here in washington the o c b operates t v marti which broadcast news commentary and entertainment to cuba at the request of this subcommittee we reviewed a variety of issues related to the effectiveness of broadcast my remarks today are based on o reports issued in january of this year in july of last year based on your interest i'm going to focus my discussions primarily on t v marti in brief mr chairman we found certain actions are needed to improve the strategy and operations of u s television television broadcasting to cuba for example to assist decision makers in formulating a broadcast strategy and making funding decisions we recommended that the board of  broadcasters assemble data to help assess the effectiveness on the various types of transmissions from o c b we made a number of other recommendations which i can discuss later o c b broadcast t v mart over the air broadcast via an airplane called aero marti and two satellites and the internet there in the past three years o c b is allocated significantly more money to t v mart transmissions particularly the airplane than radio transmissions due to the us government's lack of access to cuba o c b has difficulty obtaining nationally represented data on its audience  and i want to make to emphasize this point that our government today today really has no overall good information on a national basis on audience size in addition decision makers have limited information to help assess the relative success on a return of investment for each of the transmission methods for example it's not possible to determine from the broadcasting boards tell of telephone surveys whether t v s marty's audience is due to the airplane which costs about five million dollars a year to operate or from direct t v transmission which costs about half a million dollars annually while there are no nationally representative data on the size of the audience the best available research from the i b b telephone survey which of which there have been four since two thousand and three indicate that t v marti audience size is small specifically the four telephone survey every ported less than one percent of the respondents had watched t v marti over the past week most notably the most recent surveys in two thousand and six and two thousand and eight to despite these efforts they still lack reliable that on the number type in effect in this of signal jammers as a result it is unclear how much of the television signals can be actually be seen or heard in cuba we have also reported that while the b g coordinates with other u s agencies on cuba policy issues it was not not optimizing the use of audience research done by other agencies we made a recommendation to the board that they coordinate more fully with other executive branch agencies that have information regarding audience information that o t b was not aware of at the time of our review we also know that the o c b still has not drafted a formal strategic plan that has been recommended by the state i g in two thousand and seven and far as we know that plan still has not been finalized with regard to the issue of journalistic standards our review identified some problems with with basic standards such as accuracy balance and objectivity since two thousand and three these types of reviews have made recommendations to o c b to improve their adherence to journalistic standards however o c b staff receive little training in compliance with the journalist and journalistic standards in our report we recommended that the b b c stablish a better training programs are always o c b staff to ensure that the standards  we also had a number of recommendations to improve the overall management and oversight of always time long among the type of issues that we reported was their need to enhance communications with their staff we noted there were a number of cases of employee morale issues being low and that the board for broadcasting needed to work with those to enhance communications with their staff finally mr chairman i just want to quickly go over the recommendations that we made in our report i can tell you that we got a positive response from the board on all of these recommendations we first recommended that  mentioned had not had no knowledge of some of that research information we also recommended that they had with regard to program reviews and also to ensure that they follow journalistic standards we also recommended that they provide staff which training in this area we also recommended that communications and they also tighten up their contracting practices in response to our july report which indicated that they had not f william buckley some time later to do a cover of national review we put castro on the cover with that with the headline i got my job through the new york times let me get to the point we're talking about t marti i don't plan to say any about radio much less to say we should get rid of it but i think the t v marti is a government program not to be flip about it is a joke it is i think that everybody gets the where there's a debate after nineteen years as to whether there's an audience for it or not there's a lot of evidence i've talked to people around i've tried to talk to people who have networks to bishops a statement just last year by three just just a few months ago by three major dissident groups that encompass all the dissidents home we know all the leaders of all the groups and they said in a letter to president obama among other things that the signal of t v marti quote simply does not reach cuban homes secondly i'll mention that in two thousand and seven the state department issued a report in the state department specter general and they disclosed that our diplomatic mission in cuba the u s interest section has a network of fifteen people all around the country who monitor radio and t v marti the results that  n the end this is not a joke public diplomacy is serious i believe in public diplomacy i believe in the tradition of all the radios that mr shamble and his colleagues work at all throughout the cold war i don't know how we've gotten ourselves in a position where this particular instrument of public diplomacy is a test of everyone's manhood with regard to communism in  cuba and i think that the only thing the t v marti is challenge is the congress truly cares about taxpayer money nineteen years no practical effect no audience and the money keeps rolling i don't think just sign of weakness to kill t v mart dollars a year on it and we could do with ten million dollars a year something that actually does communicate with you but i think that's the challenge for all of us regardless of how we come up the issue is a think of how could we care about communication with cuba and with cubans can we take this money you save the taxpayers the money and we would all appreciate that but if you want to dedicate it to public diplomacy dedicated to something that works one be to to use it to improve radio marti although i would have kept the system on that score because there's a lot of things in government that throwing more money at them doesn't solve the problem if the problem with radio marti is that it's not interesting and i think our influence with foreign publics their eyes not just government programs where you take our money but when the government gets out of our way and gives us our liberty in this case to travel to american travelers and the power of american civil society to go to cuba and engage with cubans in all walks of life secondly why not look at these programs that you already spend millions and millions on in the state department why not take a look at that in the case of cuba look at the private sector there are many possibilities i mentioned one of my written statement which i would ask that you include in the record mr chairman which is one of those developed that  i called the one laptop per child program it's an educational program where the geniuses at mit had developed a two hundred dollars laptop that has educational content on it and that network among  these laptops again two hundred dollars a copy and so it creates education and it's a communications device now that would require engaging with cuba maybe they wouldn't want to do it but the possibilities are endless don't take my word for it but i would encourage you to ask the state department to look at the possibilities and see what the options are i think it something we would all probably agree on that if v marti didn't exist and we were thinking now about public diplomacy with regard to q but we probably wouldn't think about building a t v station a foreign government t v station to broadcast into cuba right now we're all pretty concerned with what's it's citizen driven and so much of what we know from iran now is because people have a cell phone and they get audio and they get video and they send text over their cell phone we're in a different age and t v is really from a different  different age finally i'll just refer to what president reagan said about public diplomacy when he was defending and promoting exchanges with the soviet union in four he said that civilized people everywhere have a stake in keeping contacts communication and creativity as broad and free as possible and the way that governments can best promote methods that almost certainly would play contradiction with its international treaty obligations namely the international telecommunications convention and united states is a signatory to that convention and we rely united states must take corrective action to bring ourselves back into compliance we have not responded to those directives from the t v marty's response to this succession of failures over a two decade period has been to resort to ever more expensive technological gimmicks all richly funded by congress and none of those gimmicks such as the airplane have worked or probably can work without the compliance of the  cuban government the laws of physics and short t v marti is a highly wasteful and active operation in closing mr chairman i do want to emphasize that there are i strongly feel that there t open real opportunities for improved communication with the cuban people thank you again i look forward to answering your question thank you very much professor was a shamble i indicated earlier that i had read your testimony and i found it thought provoking i know there's been a lot of speculation about the consequences to employees clearly that's understandable let me tell you where i'm coming from right now so you get an idea because i don't know how long we're going to be able to be but you know this this plane that's costing us six million dollars and i didn't read professor nichols testimony as well as well all of your testimony it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever and it isn't increasing you know the the audience in the invisible audience is not being increased by the expenditure of six million in addition to that the permanent employees  in the in the marty operations i have met a number of them they appeared to be professional and dedicated but i have to tell you i've had enough of the contractors because as i review these contracts they arousing me in a suspicion that they can be awarded based upon political patronage  that does not encourage that does not i think enhance the marquee operations as a whole so at this point in  time understanding that change occurs incrementally and that it is slow a step by step process in my mind would be to let's get the plane back on the ground  and let's and the the the contracting which in other reports has been extremely problematic i can only think of the one with  a radio station that's also jammed receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars you know from the u s government and then running ads  that i'm sure the cubans found interesting if they wanted to join the national guard here in the united states but i presume they have their own military that  drafted into and of course if you have a problem with estate planning i doubt that that's a subject that the cuban people even members of the transmission has been problem since the beginning signal has been numerous efforts have been made to get the signal into the island latest aero martinez we heard it costs anywhere between five million and six million a year and it's not been affected by all accounts that being said audience measures have to be looked at dubiously as we've heard  as a tele tearing regime and taking telephone surveys of people in cuba and expecting them to answer honestly about listening to or watching stations that are not promoted by the cuban government is really not realistic does audience size matter anyway for government broadcasters you want to get as large an audience as possible but you're restricted in the programming  for government broadcasters we have a mission from our t v marti charter and the enacting legislation and that limits any kind of audience you're to get you're never going to get a ratings winner broadcasting a program on explanation of american foreign policy although it's important in the number of people you do reach is critical but it's not going to be a huge ratings winner that all that being said there's been a lot of discussion today about closing down t v more because the signal is jammed there's no reliable data on anybody seen the station but we're in a new media climate now terrestrial t v broadcasting is not the only way to get a video product to the viewer and v marti should be viewed as a video provider not just a television station you can use the internet to get a video product view or you can use cellphones now you can use other hand held devices such as i pods and this is what i should concentrate on terrestrial t v has always been a problem there is a let me interrupt mr campbell and i want others to consider these questions you know if we grounded the plane and relied on satellite or other technologies to change the programming from long form newscasts and information shows to five minute news and then eliminate between thirty to forty full time employees or a study done on  this by by management not that i know of and so they just came out of the air like errol as far as we know yes and the problem with that proposal is it doesn't address the problem the real problem with t v marti is the signal the transmission it's not the price i guess what i'm saying to you is you don't you know presume that you support the concept of transmission of initiatives you know whether it be satellite or other initiatives and you lose nothing and yet you affect the savings of five or six million dollars by getting rid of by getting rid of the plane yes you would i mean that's what i want to know get you know i would like you to do a survey of employees at zero c and you know give us give us some feedback you know i'm inclined to support the position of missing  and and and mr peters but yet at the same time you know there is a human element here and i know people are you know we're all facing a difficult patch and i'm sure that the talents of those that are currently there can be give me back something to help me save some money because this is from my way of thinking a absolute waste of american taxpayer dollars i like the ideas put forth by by mr peters in terms of being creative you know it is time for change the times they are a changing like you know dillon set so and i look towards you as a representative of the employees and i also like the idea about a voice of america latin america and i don't want you to go into it but you know let's get let's not just focus on cuba american latin american policy is been held hostage by a by lateral relationship that should change and that many of us here in congress working to change but if you can just morale the main issues i deal with are the overabundance of contractors and that's not just in the o c b by the way it's it's throughout the b g it's with the vo way as well we reported these issues before we believe that they're they're hiring contractors using them as employees which is a violation of the contracting rules and regulations if congress would take a look at the contracting issues i think that would really improve morale i'll tell you what i find really disturbing is in your testimony you say there's a real of retaliation in the office of cuba broadcasting and throughout the b g itself so employees are reluctant to do anything more than report the charges in the last three  office of personnel management surveys to be b g years been at or near the bottom of all government agencies and to the last survey showed the b p g e at the very bottom almost twice as often as a government wide average i mean it's not surprising that the g a o report of two thousand and nine some of the allegations were investigated but people appear to be concerned about their livelihood that must stop if morale is at that particular level that's just put aside the issue of marty operation put aside  put aside the issue of you know our policy visit to cuba that isn't healthy and i want to know about because this particular committee has jurisdiction not just over the office of cuba broadcasting but the b g itself and if that continues in terms of a trend it tells me that there we have a dysfunctional operation and  i'm going to cut you off because i want to go first to a republican then i'm going to go to miss richardson and i'll end up with that fighter of pork who comes from the state of missouri the vice  shortwave radios and so they can listen to broadcast to come from here but they can listen to bands international broadcasting to the b b c spanish service and so it's not an easy challenge plus  limit you know there may be a top limit on the on the potential audience share of radio marti that is that in the fact quite low i think that what you referred to congressman  richardson i'm confident that we would receive the permission of the cuban government if the boston red sox baseball game were part of this  because red sox nation does extend beyond boston beyond the united states it's an international phenomenon that i know would be welcome in cuba as want to ask just for the panel the survey of one percent or so people actually getting the programming how accurate do you think that is in terms of  people responding to a survey admitting that listening to this programming and are there any reports about reprisals against people that are receiving this kind of programming or throughout the entire country they've been doing that type of a survey since two thousand and three that done for them cording to the information they reported of how constable was what you will find is that surveys conducted by the office of cuba or broadcasting among recent arrivals cubans who were recently arrived now these are cubans who arrive and they come the united states and they're living in hope that within a year they're going to get their permanent residency and they have a package of government benefits that includes health care includes employment a system that includes free next line of questions no we're going to be very short on time for with regard to the contracting of the aero marti how many contractors are flying those and how if it the competitive nature of the selection and if there were any other companies involved that i think that would be instructive to the committee private contractors now that's a very good question i don't know the answer but there's been mention of the of the costs of those are appropriate appropriated costs as opposed to the indirect cost and i don't believe that they scholarships and changes that is and i think you really get it on the head mr peters when you talked about public diplomacy in the larger perspective we can we can take this money we can use it well we can respect government employees and we can accomplish much particularly as this richardson said have a collaborative and cooperative approach to the to the issue of people to people exchange with that