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PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 10, 2004

Serial No. 108–153

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

——— ———

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

——— ———

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

THOMAS COSTA, Professional Staff Member

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 10, 2004 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade, General Accounting Office; Stephen Johnson, senior policy analyst, the Heritage Foundation; David E. Morey, president and CEO, DMG, Inc., and member,

Council on Foreign Relations Public Diplomacy Task Force; and Stephen P. Cohen, president, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, and member, Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab

and Muslim World ........................................................................................ 56

Tomlinson, Kenneth Y., chairman, Broadcasting Board of Governors, accompanied by Norman J. Pattiz, founder and chairman, Westwood

One, member, Broadcasting Board of Governors; and Harold Pachios,

chairman, Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy .............................. 29

Tutwiler, Margaret, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and

Public Affairs, Department of State ............................................................ 6

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Cohen, Stephen P., president, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, and member, Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the

Arab and Muslim World, prepared statement of ....................................... 99

Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade, General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ................................................................ 59

Johnson, Stephen, senior policy analyst, the Heritage Foundation, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 76

Morey, David E., president and CEO, DMG, Inc., and member, Council

on Foreign Relations Public Diplomacy Task Force, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 87

Pachios, Harold, chairman, Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 42

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Tomlinson, Kenneth Y., chairman, Broadcasting Board of Governors, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 33

Tutwiler, Margaret, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and

Public Affairs, Department of State:

Letter dated February 11, 2004 ............................................................... 22

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 9

(1)

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) Presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Ruppersberger and Tierney.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel;

Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Robert A. Briggs, clerk;

Richard Lundberg, fellow; Andrew Su, minority professional staff

member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations

hearing entitled, ‘‘Public Diplomacy in the Middle East,’’ is called

to order.

The end of the cold war was seen by many as the ultimate victory in the global ideological struggle. Using words as weapons to

kindle the spark of liberty and oppressed peoples, the forces of freedom helped defeat communism in the decisive battle without firing

a shot. Public diplomacy, the cultural exchanges, education programs and broadcasts used to promote U.S. interests to foreign audiences, pierced the Iron Curtain more effectively and efficiently in

some ways than missiles.

But then the tools that helped bring down the Berlin Wall and

splintered the Soviet Union were allowed to rust in the mistaken

belief that the battle of ideas was over. Subsumed within the State

Department’s ‘‘stifling culture and starved for resources,’’ public diplomacy was left to wither without strategic focus or organizational

direction. So when the United States needed a strong voice to

counter the toxic antipathy emanating from radical factions and

terrorists in the Middle East, the world often heard only a hoarse,

fragmented whisper.

Studies and analyses done inside and outside the Federal Government concluded our public diplomacy capacity lagged far behind

the critical requirement to counter terrorism on the rhetorical and

ideological battlefields of that volatile region. According to the

State Department’s Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the

Arab and Muslim World, ‘‘The United States today lacks the capabilities in public diplomacy to meet the national security threat

emanating from political instability, economic depravation and exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Jun 24, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94158.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tremism.’’ Others we will hear from today have been equally critical of U.S. public diplomacy as lacking strategic cohesion and sustained leadership.

Nowhere is our stunted reach into the hearts and minds of Arabs

and Muslims more obvious and perilous than Iraq. All public diplomacy in this region today should be keenly focused on persuading

Iraqis and their neighbors that we are there as liberators, not as

occupiers, and that’s the truth. They need to know it. But halting

efforts by the Coalition Provisional Authority [CPA], and a lack of

coordination between the other Federal organs of public statecraft

have left control of the airwaves and the debate to al-Jazeera and

al-Arabiya and the purveyors of the rampant anti-Americanism.

Last month in Iraq, CPA officials told us they were accelerating

efforts to build U.S. and indigenous media capacity to balance the

current one-sided public discourse. But as if to underscore the second-class status of public diplomacy in the interagency realm, neither CPA nor the Department of Defense chose to provide a witness or testimony today. They will evidently do so at a future hearing. Their absence speaks volumes to me.

However, we do welcome testimony today from the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Margaret

Tutwiler. Although only recently confirmed, and without a full

team of deputies in place, she waived the usual protocols to join us

today. Madam Secretary, thank you for coming.

Words matter. The language of liberty, equality and opportunity

liberated us from the royalist yoke. With the right message conveyed through culturally attuned media, the revolutionary message

of freedom and democracy has the extraordinary power to accomplish what guns cannot: transform subjects into citizens, victims

into voters. U.S. public diplomacy now has to rise to meet that

challenge.

Our witnesses today bring impressive expertise and important

recommendations to our discussion of public diplomacy reforms. We

welcome them, and we look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair would recognize the distinguished Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you for this hearing. It’s very relevant at this time and what’s happening in the world.

Following the events of September 11, the need for strengthening

public diplomacy became that much greater as the administration

started to make Muslim peoples in the Middle East and elsewhere

aware that America’s war on terrorism is not a war on Islam.

The war in Iraq has exacerbated our public diplomacy challenges

in the region. Public diplomacy is defined as cultural, educational

and information programs, citizen exchange programs or broadcasts used to promote the national interest of the United States

through understanding, informing and influencing foreign audiences. Last year the House recognized need to increase and improve understanding of the United States among overseas audiences and change attitudes. In the Freedom Support Act of 2002,

adopted by House vote on September 22, 2002, was a comprehensive attempt to restructure and refinance public diplomacy and rationalize the diverse elements making up U.S. international broadcasting.

This is an important hearing. We cannot win the engagements

that are within our world now, such as terrorism, the war in Iraq,

the war in Afghanistan, by just going to war with our military. We

need to work the diplomacy side also. So I’m looking forward to

this hearing, and I hope we will learn so that we can help and gain

world peace.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to take care of a little housekeeping here

first. I ask unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the record and

the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statement in the record. Without objection,

so ordered.

I would welcome our first witness, Margaret Tutwiler, Under

Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Department of

State. I said to you that she has a lot of fans in and outside of the

State Department, and one of the many compliments to her is her

straight talking, so we look forward to that.

As you know, we swear in all our witnesses and I will just ask

you to rise.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Our witness has responded in the affirmative. There

is only one person in my many, many years as chairman that we

didn’t swear in, and I was a coward, and that was Senator Byrd.

So, Madam Secretary, you have the floor. What we are going to

do is have a 5-minute clock, but we are going to roll the clock over

so you will have 10 minutes if you need it. You will see a green

light and then another green.

6

STATEMENT OF MARGARET TUTWILER, UNDER SECRETARY

OF STATE FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS,

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Ms. TUTWILER. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today.

I experienced September 11 and all that has come afterwards

from the perspective of living and working overseas in an Arab nation. Regrettably, as both of you have said, today too many nations

and their citizens have a very different view of the United States

than we would desire. Much of what I have learned about foreign

views of our country has been from listening, engaging and interacting with Arabs from all walks of life, and much of what I have

learned was troubling and disturbing.

I have a much better understanding of how our country is

viewed, both the positives and the negatives, because of my recent

service overseas. In the brief time that I have been serving as the

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs,

I have gained a greater understanding and appreciation of what

the Under Secretary’s office, the three bureaus, the public diplomacy offices of the regional bureaus and our overseas posts do.

Over the past 2 years, as you point out, much has been written

and debated about the effectiveness or noneffectiveness of the U.S.

Government’s public diplomacy activities and programs overseas.

Helpful and responsible reports by my friend Ambassador Ed

Djerejian’s advisory committee, by Dr. Abshire’s Center for the

Study of the Presidency, the Council on Foreign Relations and the

Heritage Foundation have served to help us examine that which

our government does well and that which can be improved. Many

of their insights and recommendations we can all agree upon.

As we all know, unfortunately, our country has a problem in far

too many parts of the world today, especially in the Middle East

and Southeast Asia, a problem we have regrettably developed over

many years through both Republican and Democratic administrations, and a problem that does not lend itself to a quick fix, a single

solution or a simple plan. Just as it has taken us many years to

get into this situation, it is my opinion that it will take many years

of hard, focused work to get out of it.

I believe that our strategic goals are very clear. We need to continue to focus and deliver meaningful programs and activities in

those areas of the world where there has been a deterioration in

the view of our Nation. That deterioration is, of course, most stark

in the Arab and Muslim world. At the same time, we must work

equally as hard in those areas where the opinion of the United

States has not changed to date.

We should listen more not only to foreign audiences, but to our

own PD overseas. Shortly all public diplomacy officers will be able

to communicate and share ideas and information across all regions

through a new interactive Web site devoted to public diplomacy.

Effective policy advocacy remains a priority, and I believe we basically, as government officials overseas, do a good job of advocating our policies and explaining our actions. Audiences may not

agree or like what we say and do, but we are communicating our

policies to governments and influential elites, including the foreign

7

media. Our senior officials, Ambassadors and embassy staff, are

out there explaining U.S. policy goals and initiatives.

We can, of course, do better. We must do a better job of reaching

beyond the traditional elites and government officials overseas. We

have not, in my opinion, placed enough effort and focus on the

nonelites, who, today, much more so than in the past, are a very

strong force within their countries. This must be a priority focus

now and in the future. We only have to look at the outreach activities of many U.S. corporations overseas to see the value of being

present and engaged in neighborhoods that we in government have

for too long neglected.

We need to support those programs and activities that go to the

bottom line of halting and reversing this deterioration. We need to

constantly ask ourselves, is this activity or program still effective

in today’s world. If it is, we should keep it. If it is judged to no

longer contribute, then we should let it go. We must develop effective mechanisms for evaluating program impact and effectiveness

of all our programs and activities.

We must continue to pursue new initiatives and improve older

ones in the hopes of reaching younger, broader and deeper audiences.

I believe we can all agree that programs that bring Americans

and foreigners together, whether in person or in a video or press

conference, creates greater understanding. We have numerous activities and programs which are doing just this. I have highlighted

and give details of many of them in my written testimony, programs such as School Internet Connectivity Program; Partnerships

for Learning, which reaches high school exchange students.

We started a new initiative since I have been here which are

microscholarships for English learning and attendance at our

American schools overseas; American Corners; virtual consulates;

English teaching; book programs; private sector cooperation; Culture Connect; television, Internet and numerous exchange programs. However we do it, we must engage, listen and interact, especially with the young and nonelites. They are the key to a peaceful future.

Interagency coordination is, of course, essential to the effectiveness of public diplomacy. The new State USAID-Joint Policy Council and the State-USAID Management Council are intended to improve program coordination and public diplomacy, as in other

areas, and help ensure the most effective use of program resources

in both the Department and at the U.S. Agency for International

Development.

Regrettably, all too often our important and meaningful assistance to the developing countries is going unnoticed and

unappreciated, while other nations’ assistance to these same countries is widely known and appreciated. This must change. Governmentwide we have to do a much better job of ensuring that the

U.S. efforts are widely known well beyond the foreign government

officials that we interact with every day. We can no longer afford

the recipients overseas to have no idea that the people of the

United States provide assistance to their country and to their citizens.

8

In closing, Mr. Chairman, let me say again we all know there is

much work to be done. We all know that our public diplomacy programs, those I have mentioned and others, must advance our national interest and do a better job of explaining not only our policies, but also who we are as a people. In a world of finite funding,

we must ensure that our public diplomacy resources are used as effectively as possible. We must prioritize and ask ourselves, is the

activity I am doing getting the job done. We must listen to our field

force. Today the State Department has approximately 1,200 employees working in the field of public diplomacy. I also maintain

that every American, regardless of agency or department, has to

make an extra effort to communicate, listen and engage with not

only our traditional audiences, but to an audience to whom we previously have not given as much effort or time. We must simply

move beyond the walls of our embassies overseas and spending

time in foreign government offices.

I am realistically optimistic that we can achieve over time a better, healthier and much more accurate impression of our Nation

and people. No one, most especially myself, underestimates the

challenge and difficult task at hand. The public diplomacy officials

that I work with are reaching, questioning and searching for more

effective ways to enunciate our policies and have our values understood. We will continue to make mistakes, but I truly believe we

will all ultimately get there. We have no choice, and, in my opinion,

we must. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Tutwiler follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Before asking Mr. Ruppersberger to ask questions, I

need to know if it is better to call you Ambassador or Madam Secretary.

Ms. TUTWILER. You can call me Margaret, whichever you prefer.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Ambassador, first, it’s rare that I agree

with everything a witness has said, but I agree with everything

you have said. We have a lot of challenges there. We know the future of our world is based on diplomacy.

Couple of things. First thing, I want to give you a little story. I

had an experience about 12 years ago in another local elected capacity. I went to Israel with the Baltimore Jewish Council, and

they allowed our group to spend a day with the leadership in the

Palestine community. And this one individual who was very high

up, close to Arafat—and one of the things he pointed out a story,

he said, you know what I’m worried about more than anything, and

we all eventually want peace, every time there is a strike or whatever, and the borders close, and the military, usually 19, 20-yearold Israeli soldiers, are very touchy because they are concerned

about anybody having a bomb, they become very arrogant to Palestinian families that come to Jerusalem every day, where you

have grandparents, parents, grandparents, children—children, 9,

10, 11 years old. And when these young children see how their parents and grandparents are treated and humiliated, they will be our

terrorists of tomorrow.

And you mentioned the issue of the youth. Just like we do in

America, if we don’t get to the youth, they could be our future

criminals of tomorrow. And I think it is very important to address

that.

And is there a program specifically just to address the younger

generation and the youth that exists now? And how do you feel

about that, or what are you doing with respect to the youth?

Ms. TUTWILER. I agree with you, and there are a number of existing programs where the State Department traditionally has

reached out to youth. I will tell you that since September 11, there

has been a reallocation of resources in some different programs up

to the point in scholarships of a 25 percent reallocation to high

school and undergraduates. Traditionally we had done a lot of

graduate work. And I fully support that. We are going to continue

it. Hopefully we will be able in the existing budget to do a little

bit more reallocation.

And as I mentioned, we have literally in the last 2 weeks started

something that I think has enormous benefit for our country, and

that is basically taking the concept that you all are very familiar

with—we all are—that worked so well for our country overseas, the

microcredit loan structure, and take it and apply it in a way to

microscholarships for young people and not the elites. The elites,

after all, have access to information. They travel. They have an opportunity for a very good education; and to try, sir, as you are

pointing out, to get into neighborhoods that we traditionally as

Americans, regardless of party affiliation, have been in. And I

think it is very important that we engage and participate in those

particular neighborhoods, which happen to be quite large.

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Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. What concerns me especially with the

Wahabiism and religious schools throughout the Middle East,

there’s a lot of radical teachings that are going on, and there needs

to be a program to counter that, and that is education. And that

indoctrination, forget it. Do you think we are getting anywhere to

counter the religious schools that are existing now?

Ms. TUTWILER. I know in one or two countries, I have met with

the U.S. Ambassadors when they have been back here, and they

are doing very innovative things along those lines. I cannot speak

to every embassy, but I am aware of one or two that actually are

trying to tackle that. And we also, sir, are looking at—as you know,

the U.S. Government has a fairly large role in the American

schools overseas, almost in every post on where we have an embassy. Many of them are not at full occupancy, and I am looking

at, and have people right now, can we not fill up existing structures that we already have, and they are under the umbrella of the

embassy, and take young people and give them a true American experience in one of our American schools overseas.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. One of these issues is communication.

There has been a lot of money spent on the message being sent out

through TV or communication, but that is one-way communication.

I think experts in some of the articles I have read said probably

the most effective way to communicate, especially in the Middle

East where the Muslim communities are, is face to face. Do you

agree with that, and what programs do we have that we are attempting to communicate on more of a face-to-face basis than actual mass media?

Ms. TUTWILER. I agree with your statement that the situation we

find ourselves in does not lend itself to a single-source solution. I

think there are a number of things that we are doing that we

should continue doing.

I am in the process of trying to give guidance to a very serious

look at what are the things that we have been doing that really are

no longer effective, and it is multimedia, and it is across the board.

And I can’t answer for you today where I believe where we should

be putting, within the existing budget, additional resources.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Is our actual message the problem?

Ms. TUTWILER. No. I will tell you as a sitting Ambassador, sitting

in a country of 30 plus million Arabs and Muslims, I had to wrestle

with that, and I believe that each of us, whether in private sector

or governmental public service, we handle complex portfolios. Part

of my job as Ambassador, and I hope—I certainly tried to do it aggressively, is the defense and articulation aggressively with the

local media, and I definitely tried to do that on a daily basis. But

in addition, I decided—well, some people will say you can’t do anything. That is the policy. I fundamentally disagree. If you accept

that, in my opinion, then we accept we cannot do anything. So I

tried most sincerely to find ways that we could do what we are

paid to do as public servants, articulate and defend the policy of

the U.S. Government, but also do exactly what you are saying and

most sincerely engage as Americans regardless of title in that country in which we were serving in. And I believe that both are effective. I believe that personnel overseas have to do both.

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Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Getting back to the face-to-face issue,

which seems to be the most effective, and whether it is Iraq, Israel

or whatever, it seems to me—and you have to refocus—we are looking for the ultimate quick fix, and it is not going to happen, and

it takes a long time. And we have teams of military where they

should be, and we have other teams of diplomats where they

should be.

But it seems to me we are going to have to get into individual

communities such as in the southwest or southeast of Washington,

and what you might need is a combination of a team of—a political

team, an economic team and a social team, who literally will deal

with all three of those issues and can start developing those relationships and buildup the trust, because a lot of times issues that

occur is whether it relates to lack of trust with a community or

those individuals that could be recruited into terrorism or al

Qaeda. If you get to them at that level—because there is a lot of

poverty throughout the world, and those people are vulnerable to

problems that exist. And you know, is there a plan to do the type

of thing that I just talked about, or is there money and resources?

Ms. TUTWILER. You are absolutely right. And you and I never

met, and you said that you rarely agree with everything a witness

says, and I have tell you that I agree with everything you were

saying. It is exactly the model that I brought back here based on

experience that I am trying, to the best of my ability, to get us to

participate in more.

And all of us in this room are in some shape or fashion political.

We understand grass-roots, door-to-door politics. And I know at the

State Department that we are nonpartisan. But it is that type of

activity, in my mind, in addition to the other activities that we are

doing that I have mentioned and that others will testify today are

responsible for, it is exactly the kind of thing that I believe we

should be doing and that we are very effective at as Americans and

know how to do.

And so I can’t tell you today exactly what my plan is, but I can

tell you in the short time I have been here—I will mention it again,

these microscholarships, I am talking about coming from the very

neighborhoods you are concerned about, nontraditional neighborhoods that we have not reached into, we have not been in, we don’t

know the people, we don’t know the neighborhood captains, etc. So

it’s an attempt. We are starting in five Arab countries, and I hope

to be in a whole host of countries. And I can also assure that you

every child who receives such an opportunity is going to know that

it came from the U.S. people.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Let me ask you this, and this is my last

question. Since we agree on most things so far, how would you implement, or where are we implementing, or if you were the Secretary of State and you had the budget to do what you wanted to

do, what would your plan of implementation be to do the things

you just talked about? More money, more trained personnel, all different parts of the world? I mean, we are focusing on the Middle

East, but what countries in the Middle East? What would you do

if you could press a button and get everything you want?

Ms. TUTWILER. I take it seriously, and it doesn’t lend itself to a

simple answer, most sincerely. Part of it is, as you say, if you were

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king of the world, it would be competent staff overseas, more, that

would be in situations that we all have real security concerns, as

we know.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. You talk about staff, but does that mean

people who have expertise as social workers in creating jobs? That’s

where we are looking, because you probably don’t have that much.

Ms. TUTWILER. To be really candid, people have good old common

sense, and that is—honestly, you don’t have to be extremely intellectual to be able to do the types of things that I believe you and

I are both on the same wavelength over. So that is—again, I want

to be clear, I am planning to work within existing personnel and

existing budget.

You asked me what if, so I am going on the limb here in answering you. One of the issues is additional manhours, and I say that

because in the cuts that went on in the 1990’s—I now have mentioned in my statement we have 1,200 personnel overseas. In the

90’s, it used to be 2,500. It shows you the reduction in numbers.

Just on manpower, it doesn’t necessarily solve it, but the manpower that is out there today has additional administrative burdens that were not on them before. I am trying to eliminate, where

I can, admin burdens on personnel that are serving overseas so

they can be out in the field and in the neighborhoods. That is one

part of this.

No. 2 is to look at most sincerely without threatening a very

large, stable bureaucracy, honestly asking ourselves what programs

are effective; what activities that we are doing today are making

a difference for the United States overseas. That’s going on right

now. Within the existing budget, if you believe that the United

States should be paying a larger percentage of our time to nontraditional neighborhoods, I have already found funds, and I hope

to find more with the cooperation of my colleagues at the State Department, to get into those neighborhoods in various ways. The

first way I have identified in the 5 weeks I have been in office is

through scholarships to learn English. It’s a window on the world.

It’s access to the cybernet cafe, to get on the Internet. It opens up

a whole flock of avenues that I think are in our self-interest. So I

will continue to really and truly search and probe for activities that

make a difference.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you for your professional testimony.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Tierney, thank you for joining us. The gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you for your testimony and candor. You answered mostly everything we have asked you, and I don’t want to

prolong this.

You mentioned the security concerns are real for the people

working over there, and we have had other hearings that have

mentioned these issues. Are we being so security-conscious in some

of the more delicate areas for our diplomacy that our diplomatic

corps and people associated with those efforts aren’t getting enough

contact with the local people, that we are not getting out and listening, and not interacting, and when we do get out, we are so

overwhelmingly protected by military or other security people that

there is no real chance to connect?

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Ms. TUTWILER. It is a problem, and I can tell you as Ambassador,

the No. 1 priority for me, most sincerely—and it is a very serious

responsibility—for the decisionmaking concerning an American

community overseas; should we be out, should we be in shutdown,

should we be in the Medinas, should we not, etc. There are also

times, sir, they don’t want to be with us; when their situations and

their streets are tense, and they will—really don’t want to be seen

with us. So it is a problem. But there are many, many times when

it is perfectly safe, calm, etc., to be out.

And it’s a large bureaucracy. There are lots of people who enjoy

engaging. There are lots of people who want to stay within the

walls of an embassy. But I believe there are ways to encourage people to go out and to—as an ambassador or senior leadership at the

embassy—to take a leadership role and take yourself out and ask

others to go with you. But it is a problem, and there is not an easy

solution, and it is usually dictated by the situation on the ground

and also an ambassador’s leadership.

Mr. TIERNEY. We have wrestled with that same problem. Obviously the first concern is security, but the mission is also a problem. And in your mind it is the Ambassador’s decision, and he or

she has to exercise the leadership or tone.

Ms. TUTWILER. They get advice from the regional security officer,

from others on the country team. But it’s basically—it is really

true, and I learned it—an ambassador sets the tone and the priorities.

Mr. TIERNEY. Question arises, sometimes we see with the new

embassies that are being built, some of them are so well protected

they are almost set apart by moat. And if people don’t come out,

you wonder how you are going to get out there and get that interaction where it is real and feedback on that.

How much listening do you think we do in terms of developing

our message for the other aspects that you are trying to do in

terms of promoting the American position and policy? Are we listening to people so that they know we are listening? Do they feel

they are getting a sense of being able to express the satisfaction

with our policies or practices? Is there an opportunity within the

context of our work to do that?

Ms. TUTWILER. There are 57 countries, as you know, where the

majority of the population is Muslim. I can’t comment to the degree

to which American personnel overseas are or are not listening, but

I can attest to since I have been back, I believe we are doing a better job of listening as we formulate product to people who live in

the region versus thinking we here know how, with our cultural

Western American model, know how to make product that works

in another person’s culture. So I believe we are doing a better job

of asking before we produce, and I think that is a step, obviously,

in the right direction.

Mr. TIERNEY. Last my question would be in terms of evaluation,

what are we doing to evaluate our work product on that and then

determine if we are in the right direction or wrong direction, and

how we can improve?

Ms. TUTWILER. It’s very tricky. I cannot measure in 30 years a

high schooler who came here and had a terrific experience with a

family in your home State. We are trying, but I believe the benefits

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of that show up year after year when challenged or tested. We are,

in the three bureaus, actively pursuing and in some instances implementing—and I will get you the details of it instead of going

through the tick tock here of programs—to try to do a better job

of measuring and evaluating those activities and programs that we

do. I am not ducking your question, but to avoid going through all

the tick tock, I would rather get it for you.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Ambassador, how would you describe the differences

between U.S. communication style and that of the Arab world? I

realize that could be a long answer, but in general, what would you

describe are the differences?

Ms. TUTWILER. What I learned, and one of my good friends in the

news media will not like this, we in the West, or in—at least in

America, to a certain degree have a sanitized visual. And by that

I mean I learned and watched, whether it was newspaper or TV,

horrific, I mean seriously horrific, visuals on the front pages of

newspapers, not rag sheets, responsible newspapers. I have seen on

TV, in color, visuals and film footage that I simply could not believe. And we sit here and wonder how it pushes emotional buttons. There is no doubt in my mind if you watch this over and over

and over, it would push anybody’s emotional buttons.

And so where we use—I don’t know the correct technology or

term—fuzzy pictures to black out something that would be horrifying, a decapitated head, a baby that is blown up, etc., they just put

it all out there. And I don’t know which system is right or wrong

to be perfectly honest with you, but it is very different and visual.

I will also say that we have, what, 228 years’ worth of incredible

journalism and the standards that we expect. If you take only in

the last 10 years electronic media, that’s been their experience of

nongovernment control, and much of it, as we know, is on the

verbal side of this and in many instances irresponsible, and others,

alarmists. And they have a lot of rhetoric going in their newly

found, through the last 8 or 9 years, independent media. So it is

definitely different.

And I will be very honest with you, and I won’t take very much

time, I used to get in the car every morning with Moroccan gentlemen. One was university-educated, and one was not—my security

detail. And I would ask every morning, what did the Arab television tell you last night about what is going on in Iraq? And more

mornings than not—and I would watch ours through AFN, because

I had a direct feed to America. What America was seeing, they

were 360 degrees away from each other.

And 1 day, one of these gentlemen said, how do you know what

you are being told is the truth? So in their heads—we keep saying,

you are just being fed all this stuff. They have to learn, which I

said, you will find out that I am telling the truth and that our

media is telling the truth, but it is a long, drawn-out process and

can take many days for the truth to finally get onto their outlets.

Mr. SHAYS. That begs the question, why aren’t they telling the

truth?

Ms. TUTWILER. I can’t answer that. I don’t know—and I believe

you will have other people who will be testifying, so I will not get

into their testimony or their questions, but I actually believe—I

know there are some that are critical of the U.S. efforts in radio

and television. I happen to believe they are wrong. I think we

should have been in this game. I know we are in radio, but we certainly should have been in TV when access to information was

greater 8 or 9 years ago, and we weren’t, and I think we are paying

a price for it.

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And I believe that this is an admirable thing we are trying to do.

We are 8 or 9 years behind the loop. But if one person listens to

our version in their language of rational, honest journalism, I happen to actually believe there is a good likelihood that the irrational

on their channels will be forced to become more rational because

people are people in the world over. These people are not stupid.

So if there’s nothing that has been countering it for all these years,

they get away with it. But all of a sudden we have a shot of us

saying, here’s what really went on today, and at some point the

other will have to get more in line with what’s real.

Mr. SHAYS. I am struck by a number of issues I would like to

talk to you about. I have been to Iraq four times and three times

outside the umbrella of the military. And there was a gentleman

named Muhammad Abdullah Asani, and he almost grabbed me by

the shoulders and he said, you don’t know us, and we don’t know

you.

To what extent do you think the United States has ignored cultural differences in its public diplomacy initiatives in the region of

the Middle East?

Ms. TUTWILER. I think what we have done, and I don’t think

there was any malice intended with this—I think as a Nation we

are problem solvers. We are impatient people, and we like to get

in, solve a problem and move on. And I believe what we did not

do as an effective job that we could have was to ask people who

live in that particular country, not people who live in parts of our

country, but people who actually live there, if you were going to

make a pamphlet, if you were going to make a book, if you were

going to do the following, how would you do it.

The other day I met for almost 2 hours with the 25 Iraqi Fulbright scholars that are here. I asked to meet with them. I wanted

to ask them very specific questions and listen to their answers.

And I asked each one of them to tell me how did you learn about

my country, through what medium? They said, it was from someone who had been in the West or in your country and would come

back and tell us about it. The second way they said was through

movies, U.S. movies. So I actually learned something.

So I believe that when we make product, that we have to be asking the recipients for genuine, honest input over what is it that will

work in their culture.

Mr. SHAYS. You may have answered this in a different way, but

I actually had someone tell me I needed to ask you this question.

Ms. TUTWILER. I hope it’s a friend.

Mr. SHAYS. He said what did you learn while you were Ambassador of Morocco that you didn’t know, and was that the experience

about getting in the car? When you were actually Ambassador of

Morocco, what did you learn that shaped how you feel today about

this whole issue?

Ms. TUTWILER. I think what I learned the most, and it was not

from government officials, but from real people, is that the portrait

that regrettably has been painted of us is very flawed. And I found

it very troubling and very disturbing that people do not know us.

And I was very—I really struggled with this, and I really, really

tried to the best of my ability to understand this. Some of it regretVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Jun 24, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94158.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tably has been through our own product. But the picture of us is

a cartoon, is an exaggeration, is in large measure false.

At the same time, having said that, as we all know, everybody

wants a visa to come here; everybody listens to our music and movies and blah, blah, blah. But it was probably to me—I think what

motivates me the most is the realization that we really and truly

have a problem, not alarmed, but a problem that is going to take

all of our efforts and a long time to get out of, and we have to focus

and pay attention, in my personal opinion.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to describe four reactions that I had in

Iraq the last time I was there, and I want to know what the antidote to it is. One reaction is that I realized that you have this dichotomy between Iraqis wanting us to stay and they want us to

leave. I mean, it’s like both show up high on the surveys. The majority want us to go, and majority want us to stay. Figure that one

out.

One observation I realized is that the Iraqis are angry at us for

a few things. They are angry that we weren’t there after we had

encouraged them to rebel after the Gulf war, and the Republican

Guard had been left intact and annihilated the Kurds and a lot of

Shiites. They were angry and annoyed with the embargo because

they didn’t blame Saddam, they blamed us and the U.N. They are

angry in another way because they don’t think we are going to

stay, and they think we are going to leave. And their anger is I

don’t know whether to be a friend to you, because I’ll befriend you,

and then you’ll leave, and then I will have to deal with what happens afterwards. They were angry in a way because we are the

government now, and they never had a government that they can

like or trust.

Does public diplomacy have a role to play in any of the issues

I mentioned.

Ms. TUTWILER. We absolutely have a role to play. And I, too,

served in Iraq, in Baghdad, and went all over and had an opportunity to ask questions and listen to them, and I agree with you

on exactly what you are saying.

We absolutely have a role to play, and it is not just the State Department. There are many, many things that I know that you know

of that our military is doing every day in the 18 regions all over

that country to help people, whether it is to put in their gas lines,

to rebuild schools, to reinstitute hospitals, and the people are

aware of that, and they are watching us.

As you know, or may not know, the State Department is going

to have shortly the largest contingent of public diplomacy officers

deployed anywhere in any country in Iraq working on various sundry things that I hope are effective and do help educate many of

these people over the very things that you were talking about, and

there is much that we are doing there that is to the good. I hope

it’s getting out. As you know, the Fulbrighters are here, and I hope

you had an opportunity to meet with them. We just had the Iraqi

Symphony here. And Americans, as Americans are, we are so generous; we sent them back each with a new instrument, including

a new Steinway piano, and an American company volunteered to

pay to get that piano back to Iraq. Their libraries have been destroyed, their musical libraries, and the Kennedy Center put out

27

calls to our American music libraries and shipped back some 500

new sets of classical music.

There are many, many things that Americans are doing in Iraq

that I hope over time will buildup what I think you are basically

asking me is trust.

Mr. SHAYS. I just have two more questions. Why don’t I go to you

and come back.

Mr. TIERNEY. My question was rather general. As members of

this panel were to travel to Morocco, what should they see and do

there, and what would benefit their understanding about the

things we discussed today?

Ms. TUTWILER. One of the things I am urging all U.S. officials

when they travel and you, Congress, when you travel, in addition

to the standard CODEL or the standard U.S. official visit in a

place, push back on embassy personnel and say, I want to have a

meeting with normal—in this case, it would be Moroccans. I want

to have a dialog. I want to be able to have an unstructured conversation so that I can listen.

Obviously, it is very important each time you travel and makes

a huge impact for our country most sincerely when you meet with

the leaders and with the officials. But to be able——

Mr. TIERNEY. I’m only smiling because we are running up

against the same things we ran up before. There is so much caution on the security things. But I agree with you, I think that is

absolutely essential.

Ms. TUTWILER. The impact it makes. Plus we become more educated by having the opportunity to have a dialog and listen to people who are not government officials. I think it is really useful for

all of us.

Mr. SHAYS. I am trying to visualize broadcasting just for a second. You have al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. Do you visualize an organization that would compete head to head with these two organizations? Would you visualize that we would have a broadcasting capability by satellite that would be able to go head to head with

these organizations?

Ms. TUTWILER. Well, we are getting ready to. The curtain is

going up this Saturday, I believe, at 10:30 a.m., and these gentlemen are going to testify about this. I mean, we are going to try.

And I know and have read all the back and forth in the press, but

I again ask those who are criticizing this to sincerely think about

it; is it better 20 minutes of a different view and balance than not

at all? And maybe we will get better and there will be 6 hours of

us and 6 hours of them.

I don’t think the issue most sincerely is trying to make them go

away. That’s not going to happen. They have emotionally engaged

and internalized these channels. This is not going to happen. So,

in my mind, how do we get on the playing field? And I only know

one way, which is what is getting ready to happen.

Mr. SHAYS. When I was coming back in January, we met with

the King and Queen of Jordan, and Queen Rania expressed absolute amazement that this country, with all its capabilities and talents, has taken so long to have done this, because in April we were

talking about it. And I just am delighted that you will be focused

on this issue.

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And I guess I want to ask as my last question—what kind of control does a Secretary have in D.C. over this issue worldwide, the

whole issue of public diplomacy? Do you have direct ability to replace people in various countries that you do not think—who you

think may not be performing the way they need to be?

Ms. TUTWILER. No. I don’t know of any under secretary in any

department that has that authority over the career establishment.

I’m just not aware of it.

What you have to do in this vast bureaucracy that is worldwide

is work very, very hard to try to formulate a plan, a strategy, whatever you wish to call it, that’s credible, and then try to get buyin. Because if you get buy-in from the field force, then they are obviously going to implement it. And that takes a lot of effort, and

it takes a lot of focus and time to try to get that to happen.

I don’t know whether I will be successful or not, but I know that

when I came here one of the complaints I heard was in the integration of USIA, that no one listened to the field. Well, I’ve changed

that. We are listening. I have created—or, having created this new

site for public diplomacy, officials, regardless of rank or tenure, can

all communicate, including myself. So that’s across all regions. So

if there is a young Foreign Service officer that is really doing a

really effective program in, say, South Africa, and he views that it

might be effective in other countries, all of a sudden we can share

this with every public diplomacy official.

Well, I think this has potentially some benefit and that we can

get something done, but it is something that—as you know, I

served previously in the State Department, and it is something

that you have to get buy-in from the field force and from personnel.

Mr. SHAYS. You have been great. Is there anything that you wish

we had asked that you want to put on the record, because we

would love you to put it on the record. Is there anything that you

think needs to be said that hasn’t been put on the record by you?

Ms. TUTWILER. Not that I can think of. Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you very much for caring and for your interest,

all of you, most sincerely, because it really does matter, and we are

all in this together, and we have all got to try—like when you take

your next trip, push back on here are some things that I want to

do, and I am in X, Y, Z country.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, we agree. And you do very important work, and

we wish you well.

Ms. TUTWILER. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Hold on just 1 second.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can you just tell me quickly when that system for

all the DP offices to interconnect is going to be up and running?

Ms. TUTWILER. We started—I learned about it during my confirmation preparations, and I’ve got a gentleman in the African Bureau who is helping me. And he told me within 2 weeks we will

be doing this. So that’s pretty fast for State—for any large bureaucracy.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you so much.

Ms. TUTWILER. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. We will go to our second panel here.

Thank you Ambassador.

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Our second panel is Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman, Broadcasting

Board of Governors, accompanied by Norman Pattiz, founder and

chairman, Westwood One, and member of the Broadcasting Board

of Governors; and Harold Pachios, chairman, Advisory Commission

on Public Diplomacy. We welcome them. And I am going to have

you gentlemen stand so we can swear all of you in. And we have

two testimonies and three answering questions is how we are going

to proceed.

Raising your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record that all of our witnesses have responded affirmatively.

And, Mr. Tomlinson, we will start with you.

STATEMENTS OF KENNETH Y. TOMLINSON, CHAIRMAN,

BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS, ACCOMPANIED BY

NORMAN J. PATTIZ, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, WESTWOOD

ONE, MEMBER, BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS;

AND HAROLD PACHIOS, CHAIRMAN, ADVISORY COMMISSION

ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Mr. TOMLINSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am joined here today by two splendid gentlemen, Norman

Pattiz, the father of Radio Sawa and an irrepressible force for

international broadcasting; and Harold Pachios, the former chairman of the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. He is still

a member, and a man who’s credited years ago with proposing that

we do Middle East television.

In recent months and years, we’ve heard a great deal about public diplomacy from think tanks and study groups and academia.

They speak of strategic direction and process and policy coordination. I submit, with all due respect, we should be focused on vision

and leadership and action. That is why, with the enthusiastic support of President Bush and key leaders of the administration and

Congress, the BBG will be launching later this week an Arabic-language satellite television service to the Middle East.

It is no accident that President Bush speaks of open debate and

truth when he describes what this network will be to the people

of the Middle East. The network will be called Alhurra, Arabic for

‘‘the free one.’’ We will challenge the voices of hate and repression

with truth and voices of tolerance and reason. The people will hear

free and open discussions, not just about the conflict in the Middle

East, but also about subjects critical to that region’s future. We are

talking about economic development and human rights and respect

for minorities.

I wish I could take you this afternoon out to Alhurra’s broadcast

complex in northern Virginia where in a little more than 4 months

an abandoned building has been transformed into a state-of-the-art

broadcast facility. The set designs are magnificent, worthy of what

the world would expect from the United States. Since October,

some 900,000 feet of cable have been installed in this facility.

Look over there. Norm, you’re to be congratulated. This is just

extraordinary progress forward of where we need to be.

But what is also truly extraordinary is the sea of Middle Eastern

faces, newsmen and newswomen enthusiastically preparing amidst

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the work of carpenters and electricians to launch this network.

Some have said Alhurra will be the most significant development

in international broadcasting since the launch of Voice of America

during World War II, and I believe that will be the case.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors has been in business for

less than 10 years. We were created by Members of Congress led

by Delaware Senator Joe Biden who understood the role broadcasting played in our victory in the cold war. Solidarity founder Lech

Walesa once was asked, is there a relationship between Radio Free

Europe and the fall of communism and the rise of free and democratic institutions in Poland? And he replied: Would there be an

Earth without the Sun?

Our competitive edge in the Middle East is our very dedication

to truth and free and open debate, and we will stand out like a beacon of light in a media market dominated by sensationalism and

distortion, as we heard earlier today. That is what brought immediate success to the Voice of America’s new Persian-language satellite television program, ‘‘News and Views,’’ that’s broadcast to the

people of Iran.

Typical of what creative broadcasting can do is the new segment

launched by News and Views called Your Voice. Iranian viewers

were invited to submit e-mails on the controversy surrounding the

February 20 Parliamentary elections, from the banning of candidates to calls for election boycott. We opened a dialog that is allowing Iranians to share their view with other Iranians, and the

response has been extraordinary. Allow me to pay tribute to

Blanquita Cullum, one of our board members who played such an

important role in the establishment of this service last summer.

It is no accident that satellite television is a vehicle for our latest

broadcast initiative. As Thomas Friedman has explained, satellite

television is not just the most important media phenomenon in the

Middle East, it is also the most important political phenomenon.

That is why we at the BBG believe that satellite television is to

our future what shortwave radio was to our past.

My predecessors likewise brought great innovation to radio

broadcast that proved vital to the success of our Afghan radio network which broadcasts in Dari and Pashto and our youth-oriented

Radio Farda to Iran and Radio Sawa to the Arab world.

When Norman Pattiz was in the process of creating Radio Sawa,

he traveled throughout the Middle East to negotiate heretofore unattainable agreements for American AM and FM transmitters in

Middle Eastern countries so that we could be heard on radios of

choice in the region. And the same is true with our Internet technology.

Radio Sawa has been a phenomenal success. I have submitted for

the record a comprehensive ACNielsen survey which demonstrates

Sawa’s market dominance and other documents, but I will submit

that accurate news and serious content is equally important in defining the success of Sawa. Under the leadership of Mouafac Harb,

Sawa’s outstanding news director who will assume the same post

for Alhurra, the station has been a source of a host of shows that

explore freedom and democracy. Typical of these are the Free Zone,

a 30-minute weekly review and discussion of democracy and freedom as they relate specifically to the Middle East; Ask the World

31

Now, where U.S. policymakers respond to questions from Middle

East listeners; and Sawa Chat, where reporters go to the streets

in the Middle East with a question of the day. And, of course, the

latest initiative that we are pursuing is a youth-oriented Urdu

broadcast to Pakistan.

Mr. Chairman, critical to this initiative is one of your constituents, Steve Simmons, a vital member of our board.

You asked that I address coordination among Federal agencies,

and I do so in my testimony that I submitted for the record.

As much as we value coordination, we also appreciate this administration’s dedication to the firewall that separates the shortterm policy objectives of instruments of government and our responsibility to journalistic independence in order to achieve audience credibility. We believe it is important to maintain the strength

of public diplomacy and the traditions of international broadcasting. I am convinced that we will not be successful in our overall

mission to deliver our message to the world if we fail to grasp that

these are two independent spheres, and they operate according to

two sets of rules.

It is very important that those who speak for our government

take America’s message to the world passionately and aggressively.

We should not be ashamed of public advocacy on behalf of freedom

and democracy in the United States.

International broadcasting, on the other hand, is called upon to

reflect the high standards of independent journalism as the best

means of demonstrating to international audiences that truth is on

the side of democratic values. These arms of public diplomacy

should be parallel pursuits, because the effectiveness of either is

adversely affected when one attempts to impose its methods on the

other.

I remember 30 years ago when RFE/RL and VOA began broadcasting the Watergate hearings. Those broadcasts caused heartburn for many in Washington. But looking back we see they constituted a veritable civics lesson on the importance of separation of

powers and rule of law and aspects of democracy you have to understand to understand our system. Over the years I’ve heard so

many citizens of post-Communist countries tell us how these broadcasts helped them understand the real meaning of freedom and democracy.

I would like to conclude with a word about our future. In the

years between the end of the cold war and September 11, international broadcasting saw its budget reduced 40 percent in real

terms. Cuts in personnel followed numerically close behind. Today,

less than 3 years after September 11, with the administration’s and

Congress’ support for expanding broadcast efforts in the Middle

East and Muslim nations, the BBG has established a record of success that is a sturdy foundation for future growth. This record

points toward our global broadcasting vision of 2010 that is currently in the works.

We must build on our achievements and reach out to others in

the world of Islam and beyond whose sources of information about

the United States and democracy have misled them and continue

to do so today. Again, the truth remains our constant guide. When

others have the assets to have access to the facts for which BBG

32

stands, we believe that we will have made a material and lasting

contribution to the security of the United States.

Again, I thank you for allowing this statement, and I look forward to hearing from my colleagues.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Tomlinson.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tomlinson follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Pattiz, I was just reading your incredible resume,

and we look forward to having your participation in these questions

in just a little while.

I will go first to you Mr. Pachios. And you have a statement, I

believe. Correct?

Mr. PACHIOS. I just have a relatively short statement, Mr. Chairman.

First, thank you for inviting a member of our Commission, the

U.S. Commission on Public Diplomacy, to testify here. We have

been around for 50 years. All the members are appointed by the

President, confirmed by the Senate. And this has been our focus

since shortly after World War II.

I am no longer the chairman. A very distinguished woman from

Arizona, Barbara Barrett, is now chairman; I am now a member.

And I am accompanied by another member from Florida, Tre’

Evers, who is sitting just behind me.

I want to say from—I’ve been on this Commission for 11 years,

and I’ve traveled around the world, and I’ve talked to a lot of people about public diplomacy long before September 11, and there

weren’t a lot of people paying much attention to it. Radio Sawa and

Middle East television network Alhurra are extremely important

initiatives. I served on the Djerejian Task Force on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world with many, many distinguished people. I differ from their conclusions mostly in the area

of Sawa and Middle East television network. I think they are extremely important.

Ninety-seven percent of the people in the Middle East get news

and information from television, and Members of Congress who

travel to the region get in the car and drive around and see all of

these television receivers on every balcony everywhere. People in

every village get their news and information from television.

And I would also say as an aside here that Members of Congress

probably understand opinionmaking better than anybody in this

town. They understand how to reach people, how to deliver a message, and how to have people understand what they are saying. So

there is no mystery to this. It is in many respects the power of television and the communications revolution, including the Internet,

because the Internet will become as important as television.

Al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya present some opportunities. We have

to do a much better job of booking people and coordinating the

booking of people on these television stations. We don’t use thirdparty validators very well. We don’t have anybody in our government charged with just doing that, and they ought to be. But there

is an anti-American bias, and everybody recognizes it, with those

stations. And keep in mind, when Charlotte Beers had this advertising campaign, it was ill-fated, when she wanted to put ads on

television, these stations wouldn’t carry the ads; it was paid advertising, and they wouldn’t accept it.

So, if Sawa and Middle East television only broadcast objective

news, over time, as the VOA did after World War II and during the

cold war, it will be effective and important.

Face to face is good, I agree with what the Under Secretary said.

Face to face is good, but most face to face is with elites. And the

Under Secretary stressed that we have to begin changing public diVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Jun 24, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94158.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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plomacy, we have to maintain what we have traditionally done

with elites, but we have to redirect our focus to nonelites and the

masses, and you can only do that effectively through radio and television. It’s the same way we affect public opinion in our own country.

A couple of other quick points. Since September 11 there have

been innumerable studies and reports issued by a great number of

organizations, and they all generally say the same thing: More

money for the State Department to do traditional public diplomacy

programming such as exchanges, information programs, books,

magazines, more people. And we should continue to do that. Longterm public diplomacy is important; over the last decade we let it

slip. But we have to emphasize communication with mass audiences and to use the most effective tools we know of today, which

is television and, in the future, the Internet, and I think what

these gentlemen have done in a very short time is remarkable.

One final thing. It is true that our image abroad is tied to a large

degree to what we do and what we say. We need to elevate this

process of determining what we are going to say to mass audiences

in the Middle East and elsewhere to the White House. I worked in

the White House in the Johnson administration; I was the assistant White House press secretary. We knew how to coordinate a

message to domestic audiences. Global audiences are now as important as domestic audiences; they affect everything we do, and so we

need to do for global audiences what we have done for domestic audiences in the White House all these years.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pachios follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Am I pronouncing your name correctly? I want to say

Pachios.

Mr. PACHIOS. Yes, you did.

Mr. SHAYS. Am I pronouncing your name—Pattiz? Is that the

way I say it?

Mr. PATTIZ. Right on the money.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you.

Mr. Pachios, I just want you to know, your most important job

that you ever had was when you worked for the Peace Corps.

Mr. PACHIOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was actually the

very best job I ever had, and I was the 35th employee of the Peace

Corps in 1961, actually before it was authorized by Congress.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say job well done.

Mr. PACHIOS. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Pattiz, I’m thinking of how you set up an extraordinary network, both you and Mr. Thomas. I just want to

thank you both for serving on the broadcast board, the Broadcasting Board of Governors. You know, this isn’t something you have

to do, and it is very appreciated. But I am amazed, frankly, that

it has taken us so darned long to have involved you in this process.

And I need to know, was that Congress’s fault? Was that DOD’s

fault? Was that State Department’s fault? Was it the White

House’s fault? Was it your fault? I mean, it just stares us in the

face. You should have been there; you should have been there a

long time ago.

Mr. Pattiz, I’m going to start with you.

Mr. PATTIZ. Thank you very much.

When I joined the Broadcasting Board of Governors in the year

2000, I was appointed by President Clinton, I was then reappointed

by President Bush. I was the only broadcaster on the Broadcasting

Board of Governors. I’m happen to say that under Chairman Tomlinson’s leadership, we have several broadcasters on the Broadcasting Board of Governors and a lot of folks who are very savvy with

the media.

I’m not a government person, I’m a broadcaster by trade. Because I was the only broadcaster on the board, I was given the assignment of being the chairman of the language review subcommittee, which is the subcommittee that is mandated by Congress to,

on an annual basis, take a look at how we spread our resources

over the 60-plus languages that we broadcast in. And in doing that,

one particular area of the world stood out to me not because of

what we were doing, but because of what we weren’t doing, and

that area is the Middle East. Our total commitment to the Middle

East was 7 hours a day of Arabic language programming from the

Voice of America in a one-size-fits-all approach to the entire region

broadcast primarily on shortwave, which nobody listened to. I reported that back to the board, and I think it was, ‘‘Congratulations,

Norm. You are now the chairman of the Middle East committee. Go

fix it.’’

So we jumped on a plane with some staffers and visited a number of countries in the region, and have since visited that region

in the last year and a half three times, and found out that we could

get 21st century distribution, AM/FM, digital stereo distribution,

throughout the region. And in doing some research—and let me

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just say that Radio Sawa and now Alhurra, our television network,

are the most research-driven media projects, I think, in the history

of international broadcasting.

For Radio Sawa, we do weekly research every week to determine

what will resonate with our audience. You know, we have a saying

which is, marry the mission to the market. We need to know—very

much in keeping with what Secretary Tutwiler was saying, we

need to connect with our audience and determine how we are going

to attract them to listen to what our message is. This isn’t like the

cold war in the Middle East where there were lots of people yearning to hear what we had to say who are under the thumb of oppressive dictatorships. In the Middle East we are very unpopular.

There is a wide variety of news organizations, and they believe

that they are getting plenty of information. But that media environment is characterized by hatespeak on radio and television, incitement to violence, disinformation, government censorship and

journalistic self-censorship. So it is within that environment that

the Arab street gets its opinions not only of U.S. policy, but of our

people, of our culture, of our society, of all things American.

So we didn’t have a horse in this race, we were not on the playing field, and we put together the plan for Radio Sawa, which is

to focus on the under–30 audience with a primary objective of really establishing that core 15 to 30 audience by using American and

Arabic hit music to attract the audience, with about 25 percent of

our programming devoted to news and informational programming.

And I’m happy to say that wherever Radio Sawa is heard on FM,

and in many, many other places, it is not only the most listened

to and most popular radio station in those markets, but it also has

a very, very large percentage of people who feel that the news is

reliable and credible. And, more important than that—and then I

will stop talking—in the latest survey that was done by

ACNielsen—not our internal research, but by ACNielsen—and in

other research projects that were not started by us, but where the

information was shared with us, by a margin of 3 to 2, Sawa listeners have a far more positive view of the United States of America

than do non-Sawa listeners.

Mr. SHAYS. But before going on to Mr. Tierney, because I want

him to get active in this, and then I will come back, I want to know

your reaction, all three of you, to the fact that you knew that we

simply weren’t stepping up to the plate to counteract al-Jazeera

and al-Arabiya, and you had to know that we could do a good job

to respond. And so maybe you can’t tell me why it didn’t happen,

but give me some confidence that this was something that you guys

were thinking about.

Mr. TOMLINSON. Mr. Chairman, we had to change the way this

town reacts to broadcasting and all we do. As I said, in the cold

war and September 11, there was a 40 percent reduction in spending on broadcasting.

Mr. SHAYS. So it was somewhat a funding issue?

Mr. TOMLINSON. It was absolutely a funding issue.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. TOMLINSON. You know, the great movie The Right Stuff, no

bucks, no Buck Rogers. And it’s also—it’s more expensive to

produce information-driven programming than it is to play music.

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Mr. SHAYS. But I happen to believe that if we are spending billions, that there are probably some American soldiers who are dead

today because we just didn’t, frankly, deal with the issue of diplomacy, the public diplomacy, in a much more effective way.

Mr. TOMLINSON. And if I can say one more thing. It’s so hard in

this town to get around traditional views of public diplomacy.

Sometimes some of my colleagues are involved in trying to hang

onto old ways of doing things in public diplomacy. They are kind

of like whipmakers in 1920 when faced with the automobile, saying, no, we need these whips. Well, we also need broadcasting, we

need television, we need radio, we need radio people will listen to.

Television is expensive.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. PACHIOS. Bureaucracy is risk-averse. And in this town, as all

of you know very well, it is hard to change things. There are entrenched interests. It moves very, very slowly. Very slowly.

I happen to agree with what Mr. Tomlinson said. It’s—a lot of

things were overdue. You just don’t change the way things are

done very easily.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m looking for someone to describe their reaction,

though, to how—you must have felt, my God, why aren’t we there?

What do we need to do to get there? Why isn’t DOD saying get

there? Why did they sign a contract with an outfit that had basically no experience?

I mean, tell me that these were things that you were thinking.

Mr. Pattiz.

Mr. PATTIZ. Oh, absolutely I was thinking about that. I am still

thinking about it today. But there has been a—you know, a lot of

people are very concerned about change when they have been with

an institution for 30 or 40 years and always done it exactly the

same way. It’s pretty commonplace. The chairman is fond of saying,

you’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Believe me,

doing Radio Sawa we had to crack a few dozen eggs. And a lot of

criticism of Radio Sawa comes from people within our own family;

you know, within international broadcasting from other services

and from people who have worked in international broadcasting in

the past who believe with great conviction that using 21st century

broadcasting techniques is somehow anathema to the mission that

we have at hand. My feeling is where the crime lies is going out

and having journalists put themselves in harm’s way to tell important stories and have nobody listen.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, let me just say—I’m going to give you the floor.

I’m going to make one observation. And I hear you loud and clear.

I think the thing I am remembering most from what the Secretary

said to us is that—what I’m going to take from this is that alJazeera and al-Arabiya are going to become better in the competition, and that they are not going to disappear, but they are going

to be forced to be more realistic, more straightforward. And the

sooner that happens, the better, obviously.

I am excited if that will be the result because, in essence, it won’t

be two positions versus one, it will be one position that will help

make maybe those other two programs you can watch and feel like

you are getting more accurate information from.

50

Mr. PATTIZ. You know, Mr. Chairman, a lot of the criticisms that

I am hearing in advance of the launch of Alhurra, our television

network, are exactly the same criticisms that I heard prior to the

launch of Radio Sawa, our television—I mean, our radio network.

In the case of Sawa, we have research to back it up. In the case

of Alhurra, we think that in short order people will understand

why it’s important for us to be there.

But there are a number of people—and I read it in the Arabic

Press all the time because I get copies of the Arabic Press, and

they are translated and what have you. There is an attitude that

because we are going to put on a television station, that somehow

that means that we don’t think they have a free press because

there is a tremendous feeling of victimization within the region on

a number of different issues.

The fact of the matter is that al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya are in

the early stages of being a free press. They feel that they are free

to report it the way they see it; they just don’t feel like they are

obligated to present any balance or maybe the opposite point of

view like they really ought to do it.

Mr. TOMLINSON. Or truth.

Mr. PATTIZ. Well, in some cases absolutely. But I think, when the

history of Middle East broadcasting is written, that they will

show—there will be a time when you will see these outlets of networks move toward a more generally accepted journalistic approach

to what it is that they do. And I think the fact that we are there

will help spur that on. So I agree 100 percent with what you said.

Mr. SHAYS. I will just say, given that we don’t have those two

networks here, I want to acknowledge the fact that there are some

in the Arab community who can draw on past experiences and be

very suspicious of the Western world, to some measure obviously

the United States, and that is a reality, too. And I have empathy

for how they could have a view today that maybe we won’t be what

we know we will be.

I really appreciate you all being here.

Mr. Tierney, you have the floor for as long as you would like.

Mr. TIERNEY. I won’t need that long. Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen. When you finish trying to lift the discourse from hatespeak radio over there, I hope you come back over

here and do a little work. There’s a tremendous amount of work to

be done on hatespeak radio that can be accomplished and maybe

lift us to a better discourse. And the same goes to balance in all

our media.

Mr. Pattiz, I don’t want to be repetitive, but your report made

a statement, and I would like you to just extrapolate on it or expand a little bit on it. You said that an attractive, less costly alternative or supplement to METN may be the aggressive development

or programming and partnership with private firms, nonprofit institutions, and government agencies both in the United States and

the Arab and Muslim nations. This programming can then be distributed through existing channels in the region.

Mr. PATTIZ. Yes. That’s a recommendation from the Djerejian report. And I would say that’s just an erroneous conclusion. It presupposes that the indigenous media is not the problem, that it’s the

solution. I mean, if we were going to take our programming and

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present it to the indigenous media, I mean, first of all, why would

they carry our news? They have their own news. And second, if

they won’t even carry the ‘‘shared value’’ commercials that were

paid for by Under Secretary Charlotte Beers when she was doing

it, what makes us think that programming of substance that we

feel it is important to communicate to the Arab world would even

be given a fair chance to be on the air; and even if it was on the

air, that it wouldn’t be buried? And if it was on the air and it

wasn’t buried, we can’t control what goes in front of it or behind

it.

It’s incredibly important that we control our own distribution

pipeline so that we can program this in the same way they can program theirs. If we are going to compete, don’t tie one hand behind

our back.

So the model of using a Corporation of Public Broadcasting-type

model, to me, is foolhardy because that simply means we are in the

syndication business depending upon independent or indigenous

broadcasters to carry our program as opposed to being a legitimate

network that controls its programming from start to finish so that

we can compete effectively with other networks that do exactly the

same thing.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I would like each of you to respond to my next questions.

How are we going to have a network that’s balanced between a

positive message about the United States, which some would term

propaganda, and the objectivity in such a way that we’d foster

trust? Who is going to determine what is objective, or the objectivity, and how is an audience going to be persuaded that, in fact, it

is objective?

Mr. TOMLINSON. I believe we did that consistently throughout the

postwar years on Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and you

saw the results with the end of the cold war. It’s tough, but it’s not

rocket science. First of all, you go with the truth; you report what’s

going on. And second, you focus on what the real issues are. And

as I said before, I think the real issues involve economic development and—for example, in the Middle East they are every bit as

important as the issues that inflame.

Mr. PACHIOS. Congressman, I think that both of you asked a

question that’s important here. There is controversy over this. I

mean, the report you cited, I happen to be a member of that group

that issued the report, and they were terrific people; one of them

here, a person who I have enormous respect for. People think, well,

this television or—this television initiative won’t have enough propaganda in it. Why are we spending $65 million if we are really not

going to sell America, if we are just going to be an objective organization? And the people say the same of Sawa. They say, well, how

is it moving the needle? That was what people on our commission

said. How is it moving the needle if you have all this music and

then some straight news?

But VOA is a good example. There are many people who matured

in the years of the cold war in Eastern Europe who were moved

by VOA and objective news.

There’s more to do. I mean, actually one of my colleagues and I

traveled to Hollywood last year. We met with Norm, we went to

52

television programming people, people that do A&E, the History

Channel, biographies. They want to participate in this, too. And we

can get Arab producers, people in the Middle East to produce programming about America through their eyes to put on these stations. So there is a lot that we can do to show our culture and not

be a biased organization.

Mr. TOMLINSON. The debates between moderates and radicals on

Alhurra are going to be critical. I believe the moderates will win

those debates. I believe that the people of the Middle East have

rarely heard the truth about what’s going on in the region, the

underdevelopment, the lack of freedom and democracy, and all

these things will become naturals for our talk shows, for our callin shows.

Mr. PATTIZ. If we are perceived as a propaganda organization

and we are perceived——

Mr. SHAYS. Is your mic on?

Mr. PATTIZ. Sorry. If we are perceived as a propaganda organization or simply a mouthpiece of the U.S. Government, we will—the

same fate will befall us that’s happening to IMN right now. Our

stock in trade is credibility.

Let me give you a quick example with Sawa, because we have,

you know, almost 2 years of Sawa to look back. When we first

started, the first place we started broadcasting was Amman, Jordan; 60 percent Palestinian either by birth or heritage, not a place

that any of the polls lately have shown has a particularly——

Mr. SHAYS. If you could just speak a little slower. I’m actually

interested in what you are saying.

Mr. PATTIZ. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. And my mind is——

Mr. TIERNEY. The weird part of that is that most of us in New

England speak that fast all the time, and it isn’t a problem for us.

Mr. PATTIZ. I will do that. But in the case of Sawa, when we

launched in Amman, Jordan, which was the first place that we

launched, and we did research immediately thereafter, within 30

days, in its target audience 30 and under, Sawa was viewed by the

30 and under population as their favorite radio station among 50

percent of those surveyed. And among 90 percent of those surveyed, they indicated that they had listened to the station within

the last 24 hours. But at that time, 30 days after we launched, only

1 percent of the audience said that they listened to the news or

that they thought the news was reliable and credible. A few

months later, 50 percent still said it was their favorite radio station, 90 percent still said they listened to it within the last 24

hours, but 40 percent said that the news was reliable and credible

and that they listened to Sawa most for news.

That’s an incredible, I think, example of what we can accomplish—of what we have accomplished on radio, but what we now

need to accomplish on television. They are two entirely different

mediums; they are very compatible, and I think we’ve learned a lot

of good lessons, and we know a lot about what we are doing in this

area.

Mr. TIERNEY. You answered my next question, which was, you

had made a statement that the large number of people who listen

to Sawa thought it was credible, and I was going to ask you how

53

that was measured. I guess by surveys. Who’s conducting the surveys?

Mr. PATTIZ. We have our own internal research that we do on a

weekly basis, which is put together by Edison Research here in the

United States. Edison Research is a company that is used heavily

by commercial television and radio stations and television networks

to do audience research to determine what their programming is

going to be and what their formats are going to be. They subcontract out with local research firms in the region to go out and

actually physically do that. We also commissioned ACNielsen to do

a study for us. And there were two other studies that have been

done, one by the Oxford Research, and the name of the third escapes me.

But the important point about all of these studies is they all

showed the same thing: The numbers may vary a little bit, but

they all show that Sawa is very important and most listened to

among the target audience listeners that we are focused on.

Mr. TIERNEY. Were any of those not commissioned by you?

Mr. PATTIZ. Oxford Research was not commissioned by the BBG,

and then there is another one which name escapes me, its initials.

Mr. TIERNEY. And that was also independent?

Mr. PATTIZ. That was independent, yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I am exposing my ignorance, which I sometimes do

in chairing the committees or asking questions, but I always made

an assumption that Voice of America was propaganda. I do accept,

Mr. Pattiz, your point that honesty attracts, but let me understand

the format. Is it conceivable that this program will—this new

Alhurra—that’s the name, correct——

Mr. PATTIZ. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. Will be critical of something that happens by U.S. officials if criticism is deserved?

Mr. PATTIZ. Mr. Chairman, let me just say this. I think it’s fortuitous that we will be launching this channel on Tuesday—pardon

me, on Saturday—and that we are right now in the middle of an

election year. We will cover what’s going on in the elections over

here, so I think there will be a number of things said by a number

of people that will make everybody equally concerned on both sides

of the aisle.

Mr. SHAYS. So how do you do that? In other words, you give total

independence to this group, or what happens?

Mr. PATTIZ. Well, first of all, we have professional journalists

who run this operation, who use professional journalistic standards. And, Mr. Chairman, maybe you want to talk a little about

those standards being a career journalist yourself?

Mr. TOMLINSON. Mr. Chairman, when the Voice of America went

into business in World War II, we said the news may be good from

the standpoint of the United States, and the news may be bad from

the standpoint of the United States, but we are going to give you

the truth, and that’s been our tradition through the years. I was

director of the Voice of America in the first Reagan term, and as

I say, in the decade before that we had the Watergate hearings; we

broadcasted the Watergate hearings. You have to cover the news.

54

But you can also cover the stories behind the stories. And it’s

very, very important to, as I say, cover the economies in the Middle

East as well as the human right records, all the records that all

fit within the journalistic blanket.

Mr. PATTIZ. Oh, come on. Ask it.

Mr. SHAYS. Come on, John.

Mr. TIERNEY. We have some stations in this country that aren’t

all that objective. I hope you’re not subcontracting it out. That’s all

I’m saying.

Mr. PATTIZ. I don’t know about those, but I supply them with a

lot of programming.

Mr. SHAYS. Would this be fair to say that—staff is saying Voice

of America strove to be balanced; Radio Free was considered more

a propaganda broadcaster?

Mr. TOMLINSON. No. I served on the board of Radio Free Europe

for 8 years.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. So he said it, not me.

Mr. TOMLINSON. But the difference is——

Mr. SHAYS. What a coward. I take full credit for that comment.

I am really embarrassed, blaming the staffer.

Mr. PATTIZ. Just give him a good recommendation for his next

job.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m sorry, sir.

Mr. TOMLINSON. I was just about to say, Radio Free Europe,

much like Radio Free Asia today, covers the local news with much

more scholarly research, with much more focus on totalitarian societies, what’s actually going on in totalitarian societies. And because

of that, Radio Free Europe was frequently viewed as more aggressive and also much more of a threat to totalitarians because it was

Radio Free Europe that was staffed to research what was actually

going on, whereas Voice of America gave news, but was not always

able to go inside societies.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Let me just ask this last question here. To what

extent do you perceive duplication of effort and expenditure with

both the Iraqi media network and the Middle East television network operation in Iraq?

Mr. PATTIZ. We have two different missions. Our mission is the

same as it’s always been in international broadcasting: to promote

and sustain freedom and democracy through the free flow of accurate, reliable, and credible news and information about America

and the world to audiences overseas. That is a long-term, continuing, sustaining mission. Their mission, as I understand it, and

I’m—but as I understand it, and I think I’m right about this, is to

create an indigenous Iraqi media, kind of like their own public

broadcasting, which will eventually be turned over to the Iraqis,

and I think that may be soon to run themselves.

Mr. TOMLINSON. I would like to pay tribute to Chairman Frank

Wolf, who returned from Iraq saying people in Iraq need what the

BBG is doing; I’m going to put money in this appropriations bill so

that there will be an Iraq stream to Middle East broadcasting. In

fact, in 2 months the BBG will have an Iraqi stream flowing there.

Mr. SHAYS. Frank Wolf has been a real hero on this and so many

other issues that he doesn’t get credit for, so I’m happy you are

putting that in the record.

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Mr. Pachios, do you want to make any comments?

Mr. PACHIOS. I have no further comment, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me do this. Is there any question that we should

have asked you or any question that should have come out? Any

question we asked the previous panel that you would have liked to

have answered before we go to the next?

All three of you have been terrific witnesses. Thank you.

Mr. PACHIOS. No; thank you.

Mr. TOMLINSON. We just appreciate you focusing on this issue because I think one of the problems is public diplomacy’s always been

off to the side in this town. And I think, by focusing on what we

need to do in public diplomacy, you will stimulate us all to do good,

because people should be ashamed that here we are going up at

this time when we should have been before.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. PATTIZ. Mr. Chairman, my only comment would be that

there are a lot of groups looking at public diplomacy today and who

are unhappy with the job of public diplomacy as a whole. My point

would be don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. In the last

3 years, we put Radio Sawa on the air as well as Radio Farda,

which is a similar type of formatted radio broadcasting to Iran in

the Farsi language, which is having great success. We are about to

launch the Middle East television network Alhurra where we will

be—and this may very well be because we are the last television

network that was built—the most technologically advanced television network in the world.

So when people are talking about the way to deal with public diplomacy, I think the BBG—and it’s not just because I’m on it, because, you know, we are all part-time board members, and we come

from the private sector, so we don’t fit in a lot of the boxes that

a lot of people like to put us in, in government: You should report

to this guy, and this guy reports to that guy, and then there is, you

know, a nice comfortable little chart. The BBG has functioned extremely well. I think it continues to function extremely well, and

I would hope that we can continue to function that way in the configuration that we have now existing.

Mr. TOMLINSON. And don’t forget the success of Persian television. There were people who said that the Voice of America

couldn’t do television, and this Persian television service has been

a terrific success. We have had to change the way we dealt with

calling back from Prague to Voice of America headquarters to say

we found the money for Persian television, we can go on the air,

let’s get on the air 7 days a week; and on the other end of the line,

someone said, well, we were actually planning 5 days a week. And

I said, well, what happens if the revolution occurs on the 6th day

or the 7th day? And, by the way, let’s launch it next Sunday. We’ve

got to get on the air. Events are coming down in Iran that need

to be covered. And, says, well, Sunday, Sunday is a day we don’t

like to do a lot of work around here. And I said, for God’s sake,

we have to go on Sunday. And we did, and it’s been wonderful to

see the enthusiastic response of people in the trenches at the Voice

of America. They want to do the job, they just have to be faced with

the challenge.

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Mr. SHAYS. Gentlemen, you have been wonderful witnesses. We

appreciate your service to your country and to our society and to

the world community. Thank you very much.

Our last panel is Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and

Trade, General Accounting Office; Stephen Johnson, senior policy

analyst, the Heritage Foundation; David E. Morey, president and

CEO of DMG, Inc., and member of the Council on Foreign Relations Public Diplomacy Task Forcel; and Dr. Stephen P. Cohen,

president, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, and

member of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab

and Muslim World.

Gentlemen, I am going to have you stand. Are we missing anyone? OK. I’m going to wait then. Why don’t you just sit a second,

because I am going to swear you in all at once. We will wait for

our panelist.

Gentlemen, you can have a seat for a second because I’m going

to wait. We will just be in a slight recess here until our panelist

is here.

You know what I will do? I will swear the three of you in, then

we can just get started, and then I will swear him in before he

speaks. If you would stand, raising your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record all three have responded affirmatively. We will swear in our fourth witness in a second.

We will start with you, Mr. Ford. And thank you, Mr. Ford.

Sometimes we have you go first in the first panel, and sometimes

we have you come in the second, and sometimes you are in the

third. You are very flexible. It’s a good thing. Thank you. Mr. Ford,

we are going to have you start. I’m feeling pretty good, so I hope

you guys make me feel good by the end of your testimony. I have

hope.

Mr. FORD. I’m sure we will.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

STATEMENTS OF JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS AND TRADE, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; STEPHEN JOHNSON, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, THE HERITAGE

FOUNDATION; DAVID E. MOREY, PRESIDENT AND CEO, DMG,

INC., AND MEMBER, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS PUBLIC DIPLOMACY TASK FORCE; AND STEPHEN P. COHEN,

PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT, AND MEMBER, ADVISORY GROUP ON PUBLIC

DIPLOMACY FOR THE ARAB AND MUSLIM WORLD

Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, members of this subcommittee, I am

pleased to be here today to discuss issues surrounding U.S. public

diplomacy particularly in the Middle East.

The terrorist attacks of September 11th were a dramatic reminder of the importance of our need to cultivate a better public

opinion of the United States abroad. Yet recent public research indicates that foreign publics, especially in countries with large Muslim populations, view the United States unfavorably.

Last September we reported for the House International Relations Committee on the State Department’s public diplomacy efforts. Earlier in July of last year we also issued a report for the

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same committee on the progress that the BBG, the agency responsible for nonmilitary U.S. international broadcasting, has made in

developing a new strategic approach aimed at reversing declining

audience trends in supporting U.S. strategic objectives such as the

war on terrorism.

The State Department and the BBG share an annual budget of more than $1 billion for public diplomacy activities. Although neither of our reports focused exclusively on the Middle East, each

identified systematic problems which would apply for public diplomacy activities there.

Mr. Chairman, you asked us to discuss our conclusions and recommendations from those reports and, where possible, to cite specific examples of public diplomacy actions and issues observed during our field work in the Middle East. Today I am going to talk a

little bit about the changes in public diplomacy that have occurred

since September 11th, the government strategies for public diplomacy programs, and how it measures their effectiveness and the

challenges that remain in executing U.S. foreign policy efforts.

Since September 11th, both the State Department and the Board

of Broadcast Governors have expanded their public diplomacy efforts in Muslim majority countries considered to be of strategic importance in the war on terrorism. In the two fiscal years since the

terrorist attacks, the State Department has increased its public diplomacy funding and staffing and expanded its programs in the

two regions with significant Muslim populations, South Asia and

Near East.

Among other efforts, the State Department is emphasizing exchange programs targeted at young and diverse audiences, including high school students. The State is also expanding its American

Corners program, which provides information about the United

States to foreign audiences through partnerships between U.S. embassies and local institutions. In addition, the Broadcasting Board

of Governors has initiated several new programs focusing on larger

audience in priority markets including Radio Sawa, the TV network that they are going to start this weekend, and Radio Farda

in Iran. Estimated startup and recurring costs for these three

projects for fiscal year 2003 total about $116 million.

Although State and the BBG have increased their efforts to support the war on terrorism, we reported that the State Department

had not developed a comprehensive strategy that integrates all of

its diverse public diplomacy activities and directs them toward

common objectives, and that neither State nor the BBG has focused

on measuring progress toward long-term goals. The absence of an

integrated strategy may hinder the State Department’s ability to

channel its multifaceted programs toward concrete measurable

progress. In comparison, the Broadcasting Board of Governors

issued a strategic—5-year strategic plan in July 2001 called

Marrying the Mission to the Market, which emphasizes the need

to reach large audiences by applying modern broadcast technologies and strategically allocating resources to focus on high-priority broadcast markets such as the Middle East.

Since the State Department and the BBG and other entities in

the U.S. Government conducting public diplomacy have different

roles and missions, it is important to note that there is currently

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no interagency public diplomacy strategy setting forth the messages and means for governmentwide communication to overseas

audiences. According to State Department officials, without such a

strategy the risk of making communication mistakes that are damaging to U.S. public diplomacy efforts could be high. In addition to

strategy deficiencies, we found that the State Department and the

Board for Broadcast Governors was not systemically and comprehensively managing progress toward goals reaching broader audiences and increasing public understanding of the United States.

Since our reports have been issued, both agencies have taken a

number of steps to address recommendations we have made in

these areas.

In addition to weaknesses in planning and performance measurement, the State Department and the BBG face a number of internal problems. According to public affairs officers at the State Department, these challenges include insufficient resources to effectively conduct public diplomacy and a lack of public diplomacy officers with foreign language proficiency.

More than 40 percent of the Public Affairs officers we surveyed

said the amount of time available to devote exclusively to executing

public diplomacy tasks was insufficient. More than 50 percent reported that a number of Foreign Service officers available to perform these tasks was inadequate. Another 20 percent posted overseas lacked the language capabilities necessary to carry out their

tasks.

The Board of Governors also faces a number of media market organizational resource challenges that may hamper its efforts to

generate large audiences in priority markets. These challenges include better programming, targeting audiences, addressing transmission quality and managing disparate structure consisting of

seven separate broadcast entities.

Mr. Chairman, we made several recommendations to the State

Department and the BBG to correct and to improve on all of these

deficiencies. I would be happy to discuss these in further detail in

the question and answer period. That concludes my statement.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Johnson. Move that mic over there.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished

members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to share

my views on America’s public diplomacy efforts toward the Middle

East. I commend you for undertaking this important review of the

U.S. public diplomacy process and for your efforts to improve it. I

also commend the efforts of the leaders in the Bush administration,

career officers, retirees, Members of Congress and their staffs, particularly those of Senator Richard Lugar, Representative Henry

Hyde and Representative Frank Wolf. I also acknowledge the

thoughtful suggestions of leaders and researchers in my foreign

policy community to which I belong and whose experience in many

cases far exceeds my own.

Public diplomacy began losing substantial resources and effectiveness in the early 1990’s. In 1999, the tightly managed U.S. Information Agency was folded into a more bureaucratically oriented

U.S. Department of State and foreign broadcasting operations were

spun off under a newly independent Broadcasting Board of Governors. Today, efforts to reorganize U.S. public diplomacy in the

State Department still have yet to gel. The U.S. military and

Broadcasting Board of Governors have become the lead communications agencies in the Middle East and cooperation between all

these agencies awaits marching orders from the White House.

Although it made economic sense, the merger of USIA into the

State Department created some disarray and negotiators unfamiliar with its proactive mission carved up the agency and placed various parts under the authority of State’s geographical bureaus,

functional bureaus and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. A

small staff remained and a new under secretariat to handle cultural affairs, news dissemination and policy. The under secretary

had no reporting or budgetary authority over public diplomacy officers and State’s geographical bureaus or embassies. As a result,

public diplomacy offices have integrated into some bureaus and not

others, where as the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs has a

proactive diplomacy program, the Bureaus of European Affairs and

Near Eastern Affairs have resisted accepting public diplomacy into

their routines. Today the Near East Bureau is considering replacing its public diplomacy office with a $129 million civil society initiative more suitable for the National Endowment for Democracy.

Lacking a guiding doctrine, consistent strategies and a set of priorities, the Department of State is not yet a major player in Middle

East public diplomacy, at least not like the Broadcasting Board of

Governors or the Pentagon.

Six months after the attacks on New York and Washington, the

Broadcasting Board of Governors aggressively launched Radio

Sawa and its new Middle Eastern Radio Network. Radio Farda

beamed to Iran in 2003, and in 2004 the Middle Eastern Television

Network, as we have just learned, is starting up in Virginia. In

Iraq, the Department of Defense is disseminating information from

the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqi people and at the

same time trying to develop independent media using private U.S.

contractors.

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While State is still worrying how to do its job, both of these agencies are proactively pursuing the mission before them, although not

perfectly. The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors is still meeting its challenges despite a congressionally mandated makeshift

structure of broadcasting entities, Federal agencies and grantees

directed by part-time Governors. And sadly, core Voice of America

language services to Eastern Europe and Latin America have suffered cuts to free up resources for the Middle East. Such reallocations ignore the Voice’s unique role in explaining U.S. policies and

the need to reach regions where democracy and free markets are

barely getting started.

As for the Pentagon in Iraq, military civic action teams have a

legitimate combat role in distributing information from command

authorities. But turning that into free media is not a military affair, rather it is a political and social enterprise that involves establishing a regulatory framework and encouraging local entrepreneurs to develop outlets for news and opinions. To my knowledge, that has not been done. More tax dollars will not help unless

they are carefully earmarked, which I don’t recommend, or unless

public diplomacy is better organized.

Toward that end, I would say that the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy must have more authority over her personnel from

Washington to the field. Our military should refocus its communication activities more appropriately on combat-related objectives.

USAID should fund media development in civil society projects

through the National Endowment for Democracy. A streamlined

Broadcasting Board of Governors should provide a more balanced

menu of policy versus entertainment programming to the Middle

East and to the rest of the world. And finally the White House

must ask Cabinet agencies who now operate in separate universes

to cooperate with each other. Perhaps then U.S. public diplomacy

will get back on track.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. We could have rotated that over. Did you

have anything more that you wanted to say?

Mr. JOHNSON. I would yield to the more in-depth testimony that

is printed up.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for your thoughtful statement.

Mr. Morey.

Mr. MOREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be here.

I am a cochair of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on

Public Diplomacy and founder of DMG, a company that was borne

from our work advising a number of international Presidential

campaigns around the world, Corazon Aquino’s in the Philippines,

Kim Dae Jung’s in Korea, Vincente Fox’s in Mexico. Over the last

15 years, we have transferred that knowledge and experience to

the corporate battlefield working with Microsoft, Coke, Nike, and

a number of superb marketing and branding companies, advising

them on communications. And we have learned a lot because we

operate inside the context of the information revolution, which has

changed everything. We have learned all the rules have changed

for these entities, including the rules by which the United States

must play by to communicate effectively in terms of public diplomacy around the world.

For example, the velocity at which communication moves today,

the degree to which government-directed communications are not

as credible as they used to be, and the degree to which negatives

can become entrenched. We see this from the task force appointed

by Secretary of State Powell that found a shocking, I am quoting,

level of hostility toward the United States. We all know those numbers. So our task force therefore concludes public diplomacy is in

a state of crisis, a crisis by which we can’t do anything less than

revolutionizing, reenergizing and reforming and rethinking the way

we go about the task. There are two traps, one, that it doesn’t matter; two, that we fixed it. We argue that you can’t step into either;

that both statements are completely untrue.

Let me briefly summarize what we recommend in dealing with

this crisis and within this context of the information revolution.

Three things: Prioritizing public diplomacy; finding ways to revolutionize the way it operates; and looking at ways to privatize some

of the functions. And let me detail each very briefly.

In terms of prioritization, we recommend a new Presidential directive. We recommend that specifically to encapture—to capture

what Edward R. Murrow said, public diplomacy has to be involved

at the takeoff, not just the crash landing; to bring it, if you will,

into the center of the policy process, particularly at the White

House. And there has been a very good step last year in the creation of the Office of Global Communications, but it’s just a step,

to form a public diplomacy coordinating structure, to institute a

number of State Department reforms, which are detailed in the testimony. For example, the creation of a Quadrennial Public Diplomacy Review, modeled after the Quadrennial Defense Review,

which elevates the role of strategic planning and which helps to

create and empower a culture of measurement. We think that’s

very important, all those things in terms of prioritizing, upgrading

the efforts of public diplomacy.

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Second, we recommend looking at ways to revolutionize the way

we think about public diplomacy, emphasizing two-way and not

just one-way communication. For example, upgrading research efforts. The U.S. Government through the State Department spends

approximately $7 million on foreign public opinion research. We

have worked on political campaigns that have spent a lot more.

U.S. corporations today spend over $6 billion on foreign public

opinion research. We have to get in that game and upgrade and

make more sophisticated those efforts; training, exchanges. Mr.

Chairman, your experience with the Peace Corps by some calculations, since 1993, exchanges have been reduced in terms of moneys

by an inflation-adjusted figure of 40 percent. We have to do more

in terms of the television network and radio network that were testified about on the previous panel, specifically in terms of the Internet, which we can’t ignore; admittedly it is only 2 percent penetration with respect to the region we are dealing with today, but think

of the future and think how powerful—we call them in corporate

strategic terms, early adopters and influential end users are in that

mix, so that has to be rethought.

And just a word about money and I will stop. Money isn’t the answer. Of the hundreds of recommendations we offer, most of them

can be done without spending more money. But in fact, for every

dollar of military spending today, 7 cents is spent on diplomacy and

a quarter of a penny on public diplomacy.

A final point which we can come to in questions and answers: We

finally recommend exploring ways to privatize, specifically to act as

a magnet, to attract private sector talent, tools, resources, some of

the best practices from the private sector that can take us to a new

level in public diplomacy, not to compete with public diplomacy

funding that is already out there today, not to cost taxpayers more

money, but rather to take advantage of all the outside private sector talent and help that wants to come to bear on this problem.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Morey follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much. I enjoyed reading all of your

resumes and this is going to be a fun panel to ask questions of. Dr.

Cohen, good try. I already said there is one person I haven’t sworn

in and that was Senator Byrd and you, sir, are no Senator Byrd.

I have no fear in swearing you in.

[Dr. Cohen sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. I am very impressed. If it is all true in your biography, I am very impressed with the people you have brought together over your lifetime.

Dr. COHEN. It is an honor to appear before your important subcommittee on this subject, which is the highest importance to

American national security. The highly negative attitude of much

of the Arab world and Muslim world toward the United States in

the last few years represents an underlying source of threats to

American national security, which is often referred to only by its

overt manifestation in the war on terrorism. This widespread animosity must become a special target of our international relations

foreign policy efforts, not only a focused target of our armed forces

and intelligence agencies.

I want to say to you that it is not hard to imagine a more positive attitude toward the United States than presently exists. It was

not so long ago after World War I when the United States was the

most preferred foreign country in many parts of the world that now

exhibit this great animosity toward us. When President Woodrow

Wilson articulated the 14 points on which the United States entered World War I and when he came to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the United States was greatly admired and loved

as a new kind of force in world politics and a great source of hope

for the still unfree peoples of the Ottoman Empire and other parts

of this world. Our values and leadership were so much admired,

there was as yet no experience nor propaganda that spelled out

what is presently the widespread damaging theory that America

has good universal values, but that we practice those values only

for ourselves and violate them with determined hypocrisy when we

act abroad, especially in relationship to Arabs and Muslims. These

hostile theories must be addressed and public diplomacy must address them or else we are leaving the basic source of threat to our

national security unchanged.

Now the Working Group on Public Diplomacy on which I was

proud to serve, which was headed by Ambassador Edward

Djerejian, traveled to many countries in the Muslim and Arab

world and we learned several things. There was one thing we

learned above all, focus on the young people, the younger generation of Arabs and Muslims, millions of young men and women in

this part of the world who presently have no realistic prospect of

ever receiving a modern education, ever holding a good job or ever

earning a decent income. This lack of hope is the critical issue we

must address through our public diplomacy.

Hating us is a decidedly second choice for most of these young

people in the Arab and Muslim world. They would prefer and they

hope for a good or at least decent life. Many of these people, these

young people, see American and Americanstyle education as the

key to their ever having a different future. Their present education

is most likely to be rogue learning with inadequate preparation in

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the basic skills necessary for a competitive chance at employment

in the world economy today. They learn nothing about critical

thinking, but only rogue education. We found in many of the countries we visited young men and women, not even at the age when

you call them men and women, but still boys and girls, dreaming

of learning English, getting a chance to study, even temporarily, in

American universities and playing a role through their lives and

peacefully changing their own societies so that their own peers will

have a future to look forward to.

The amazing thing is that we in America hold a key to this door

of hope and opportunity. We need to learn to use that key more effectively, more widely and in a more targeted manner for these

young men and women from the Arab and Muslim world, and that

key is the aberration of our educational system, our universities

and our form of education to produce critical thinking and an open

mind. Let us learn to use that key. It is not important only that

we communicate in a public dramatic way through the media of television and radio. That is very important as well. But it is also

very important and we must do as dramatic a change as we have

made in creating Middle East television. We must create a major

effort at reaching those young men and women.

The second thing we learned everywhere and in no uncertain

terms, and which is too often pretended not to be the case here in

Washington, was that we have to focus on solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem. This issue has penetrated deeply into the consciousness of young people and old every where in these countries

as a basic point of departure for hostility toward the United States,

never mind Israel, and is an issue of intellectual and emotional

centrality. We cannot afford to pretend otherwise. Even those who

see that the conflict is a diversion for more pressing domestic problems in these societies must recognize how much this issue colors

the perception of the United States, how much it prevents them

from seeing the United States as anything but an impediment to

the improvement of their own lives in the Arab and Muslim world.

We need not be afraid to discuss this issue openly and we need to

be forthright in expressing our concerns in identification with

Israel together with our commitment to a dignified two-state solution. But most of all we need to be able to show that we are constantly day in and day out working toward a peaceful solution and

we will make this a core purpose of our foreign policy.

The third thing that I think we learned——

Mr. SHAYS. You have about 21⁄2 minutes left. How many points

do you have?

Dr. COHEN. I am planning to finish in 2 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. This is magnificent. I want to make sure we don’t

lose any of your points.

Dr. COHEN. I won’t be able to do everything I have in my written

testimony, but I will get through what I can.

The third thing that we learned was that, as I said earlier, there

has to be a mix of public media and mass communication on the

one hand and the most intimate and intensive exchange programs

on the other. The possibility of intensive exchange programs penetrates into the most important sectors of these societies. It is true

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er the legal profession, which has organized boycotts against the

idea of normalization in Jordan or Egypt, whether it is the media,

people in journalism, editors and so on, or as I said, especially

young people who are about to enter college or who are seniors in

high school and early stages in college education.

I would also emphasize that we should do this with people who

are training to be clergy in the Arab and Muslim world. We too

much run away from the religious dimension of this problem. And

I do believe we would do something very important if we had a focused program in which we brought young students who are learning to be clergy in the Muslim world in their early years to meet

with counterparts in the United States and to talk about how to

advocate religious conviction in your society without ethnocentrism

and without adding the element of contempt for the other monotheistic religions. I believe we could play a very important role in

this, and what I would like to report to you is that people in these

institutions are now willing to contemplate such exchange and contact with our people.

Too much of the time and in too many contexts, we, the United

States and Americans, are simply outside the conversation that is

taking place within these societies, even the conversation about us.

We need to learn to hear those conversations, to speak clearly,

forthrightly and emphatically within the conversation, and most of

all we need to learn to hear and to get to be heard in those conversations. Showing up is the first principle.

My last point in this section is to emphasize the importance of

bringing Arab Americans into the conversation and into our public

diplomacy as well as bringing American Jews into greater and

more frequent contact with the Arab and Muslim world. The

strong, hostile stereotype of Jewish control of America so widely

held in the Arab and Muslim world is something that we can only

counter by real contact with Jews in the United States in all their

variety and diversity and for them to learn about the real role of

Jews in America as a minority, not as a controlling element.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Cohen follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Dr. Cohen, we will stop right

there. And let me first ask you, Mr. Morey, I am always fascinated

when Americans tell people in other countries how to win elections.

And there has to be some basic principles that exist that allow you

to be able to go into a country where the culture is different—and

I mean you were in some places where the culture was different.

How do you have confidence that you can be—make a thoughtful

contribution? Obviously, you have but how do you have the confidence?

Mr. MOREY. That’s a good question and it relates to public diplomacy. We found the strategic denominators of campaigns in countries are more alike than they are unalike. We have a saying that

every campaign is the same. Every campaign is different. But you

can take the common denominators of a political campaign, a marketing campaign, in fact a public diplomacy campaign that has a

penchant for playing offense, if you will, going on the attack, to

control the dialog, to use strategy as the guiding principle. I think

if there was one point I would make at the end of all of these excellent testimonies it is to elevate the role of strategic planning in the

process of public diplomacy. We all know to the degree people have

had campaign experience they have won or lost on strategy. And

public diplomacy is so challenged today in this complicated world

with enemies propagandizing against the United States, if we don’t

have a smart strategy we are in big trouble. And strategy doesn’t

cost money. Great strategy makes better use of existing resources.

So that’s probably the central lesson we have learned in advising

political campaigns around the world, taking an outside strategic

perspective that works on the ground.

Mr. SHAYS. It’s just the culture—isn’t there sometimes you go

there and say I don’t know what I’m talking about in the sense

that a firm handshake in one society is appreciated, a firm handshake in another society is considered aggressive and distasteful?

Mr. MOREY. You have to be extremely careful about making that

kind of mistake. You have to have many interpreters on the

ground. You have to get smart very quickly about a country’s culture and unique aspects of that. But what you bring to the mix is

the strategic lessons you have learned across many campaigns and

they tend to be very similar across many cultures that have any

kind of democratized aspect to them. Things that work in campaigns in one country tend to work in another country, as long as

they are adjusted and as long as they are sort of refined in terms

of the local realities and cultural aspects of that country. Again, we

have learned essentially that strategy has many common denominators. Successful strategy has many common denominators across

those experiences.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Johnson, when you were speaking, I was thinking where he is going to come from coming from Heritage. And I

was thinking, my gosh, I hope he sees the value in public diplomacy and clearly you do. The message I’m getting from you, I

think, and I wanted to be corrected if I’m wrong, is that there’s so

much we should be doing that we are not doing, that we—I mean,

frankly, was it my own Republican Congress that shortchanged

public diplomacy? You say 1990’s. Was it like 1995, thereafter?

Mr. JOHNSON. I think the blame for——

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Mr. SHAYS. What I am wondering is, Republicans sometimes

don’t like the National Endowment for the Arts and you know the

government doesn’t have a role to play there, and Heritage would

probably be down on that side of the spectrum. And yet I don’t

hear you saying that when it comes to public diplomacy the government does have a role. I think I’m hearing you saying that.

Mr. JOHNSON. Not necessarily. It depends on how these bureaucracies are used and if they are used in a way that fits in our democracy and conservative principles. In the case of the National

Endowment for Democracy, it’s done yeoman’s service. In years

past and over 2 decades, it has, through its daughter organizations,

the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, done fine service in helping to birth democracies in

Latin America and Africa and in Asia and other parts of the world.

So they do this job very well. The question is whether you coordinate with them, whether you work with them, whether you look at

the various missions that they have and try to leverage these efforts in the best way that you can. I think what David was saying

a little bit earlier about the need for strategy is very important, because when you look at the way we have handled it so far since

September 11 it doesn’t look like there’s a guiding light there or

strategy, and you have a lot of players in this. Not only do you

have the BBG, State Department, but you also have USAID, the

National Endowment for Democracy, which hasn’t been utilized

very well in Iraq. And you also have the Department of Defense in

its role in creating what is known as an ‘‘information warfare’’ or

‘‘information operations’’ capability that may transcend or overstep

some of these boundaries that we now recognize between the BBG

and State and other government agencies and even the private sector. And whether this has all been fleshed out and directed toward

solving some of the problems we have in communicating with other

cultures, I’m not sure has been done in a coherent way. It worries

me a little bit because there is also the potential of waste in there,

but there’s also the potential of misusing some of these very valuable tools that we have.

Mr. SHAYS. By the way, if I ask one individual a question and

someone else wants to jump in, I am happy to have anybody else

jump in.

Dr. Cohen, one thing is pretty—there are a number of points—

and I did want to make sure you did get through your four points,

because I thought they were very important for us to think about,

but focusing in on the young, I am struck by the fact that in most

Arab communities there are a heck of a lot of young. And I’m told

that the young don’t think ill of us like we think they may. But

I’m also told that the young don’t see in some cases any hope of

a better life. I mean I am admittedly talking somewhat in stereotypes. Particularly in Saudi Arabia, the wealthy who come to the

United States, they tell their society how to live one way. They

come to the United States and do it differently. But for those who

are in Saudi Arabia that is the way they have to live and don’t

have the flexibility of going somewhere else. Is it your opinion that

the young in general—let me back up and say, I went to—I voted

to go—to allow force to be used in Iraq. I had a committee meeting

and my constituents said you haven’t interacted much with the

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Palestinian community. And I thought about it. I have been to

Israel so many times, but only met with the Palestinian leaders a

few times and much more with the Israelis. So I spent 5 days. And

I went to Jericho and Hebron and Ramallah and Gaza each different day. And I met with school kids the whole time and I asked

them—it was really thrilling. I asked them their happiest moment

and their saddest moment. I kicked the teachers out, the administrators, so it was just the students and one or two people to translate. The thing that I was struck by—I will just mention the thing

that touched me was that at one point there was all this buzz and

then they said, Congressman, they are very impressed that you are

here today because it happened to be Easter Sunday and that you

had honored them on a day that would be most special to you. And

I thought, you know, how easy it is to have a positive impact on

people by just some gesture, which wasn’t planned. It just happened to be the day I was there. And I think someone like—President Kennedy had his picture taken in African huts all around Africa because he did something that was so simple and so remarkable. When the head of the African States came to visit, instead of

having a ceremony in the East Room or the West Room, he brought

them up to his own personal quarters. In their society—he brought

them up to the third floor. That electrified Africa. That one little

gesture had so much impact over so many people. I am getting into

a little bit of a digression.

Dr. COHEN. I don’t think it is a digression, Mr. Congressman, because I think you are putting your finger on a very important part

of what creates the image of America, which is are we really showing presence in the lives of these young people. And are we giving

them an indication that we respect them, that we are not only trying to control them. When our public diplomacy commission went

into classrooms, talked to teachers, talked in young sports clubs, it

made a huge difference to their feeling that we were taking them

seriously, that we were coming to hear what they had to say, that

they mattered to us. And I think we shouldn’t underestimate how

much that basic human sense that they matter to us is going to

make a difference in bringing about the readiness for change.

I am not trying to underestimate the importance of policy, but

I do believe taking people seriously, treating them with respect,

showing some dignity is a critical aspect of what’s going to have to

change.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there any question that any of you wanted to answer—any of the four of you want to answer of what was asked of

the first panel or the second panel?

Dr. COHEN. There is a question that you asked on the second

panel, you and one of the other Congressmen that was here then,

that I would like to make a comment on. You asked about with

Radio Sawa and the new Middle East television network about

their evaluation of their audience and how their audience responds

to them. And I just want to suggest to you, I think it is a wonderful

thing that the U.S. Congress has decided to make a major investment in trying to communicate in the Arab world through these

radio and TV networks. But I think it’s only appropriate that the

evaluation of their impact be independent. And I think that it

would be a terrible thing if after we invested all of these tens of

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millions of dollars, we did not have a serious independent evaluation of what they are achieving. And I think that many of the

issues that separated my group on public diplomacy from the

present effort would be dealt with if there was a serious independent, evaluative mechanism.

Mr. SHAYS. Any other questions that were asked before that any

of you would like to respond to?

Mr. MOREY. I would like to respond to one that wasn’t quite

asked, very briefly.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there any question you want to ask yourself?

Mr. MOREY. Exactly. I just want to make a point. The question

is how do you involve the private sector that wants to be involved

constructively? And it’s the argument of this Council Task Force

that this job is so big that government alone can’t do it. And since

September 11, there are so many private sector people—there is

money, talent and resources that want to help, but there is no

place for them to help. We ought to study hard how to draw in

those best practices. Innovation is hard, as you know, Mr. Chairman, to generate inside government. It tends to happen in the private sector out in the periphery. To pull it in, I mean, research,

segmentation, campaign planning, grass roots communication,

training, recruiting, all of those things. Creating some kind of entity, studying the construction of it, the commission of it over the

next couple of months. We think it is very important because we

think, again, this is not to take more taxpayer’s money, but to

make more efficient use of what we got.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I would make one comment, I commend Ambassador Tutwiler for her testimony and her frankness in

talking with your committee. I would take issue with the point that

in order to change things in State that you need ‘‘buy-in’’ from the

field. It is not necessarily the field you have to get buy-in from, but

it is the senior culture in the organization. And oftentimes the senior culture is the most resistant to these kinds of changes. One of

the problems that State has had for many, many years comes from

its diplomatic mission. It does not welcome public communication.

It has never welcomed public communication with the American

public. It has had a weak Public Affairs Bureau for many years

and public diplomacy——

Mr. SHAYS. When you say public communication, you mean

what?

Mr. JOHNSON. Talking with the public, communicating its mission.

Mr. SHAYS. To the United States public?

Mr. JOHNSON. To the U.S. public. Those two goals have been subsumed in the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, those two missions. USIA and the Bureau of Public Affairs

and State now are together. But the Department of State and its

culture have to learn to be more open, to learn to utilize the tools

of communication to communicate its mission and also in public diplomacy to do a better job of communicating policies overseas, and

it may end up being dragged kicking and screaming to do this. I

know Ambassador Tutwiler put a good face on this, on what’s going

on over there in some of the reforms she has been able to make

since she’s arrived there. But the Department itself has got to come

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around to becoming more aggressive in communicating openly with

the American public.

Mr. SHAYS. This may be a little bit off the subject, but some of

the most impressive people I have met have been people who work

in the State Department, particularly the people that will go into

Gaza City, the person who will accompany me from the State Department. And they’re really sharp, energetic, opinionated people,

but there is something that happens when you get higher up in

rank or what is it?

Mr. JOHNSON. My own opinion, when you move through the

ranks you go along to get along. And what happens is that because

of the diplomatic nature of the mission—in terms of communicating

with people in a diplomatic way, which is usually in private and

massaging things and obeying the needs of stakeholders—that

what happens is that you apply that behavior to your management

principles and then it becomes core culture. But you can’t manage

an organization in secret, at least an open bureaucracy or a government organization in this country today or even in the world today.

It just is impossible.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Ford, any observation?

Mr. FORD. I just want to comment on the State Department, the

view that the field needs to take the lead. We did a survey on our

public diplomacy work and we actually had an 80 percent response

rate. We sent it to 160 relatively senior Public Affairs officers overseas and we were struck by some of the results that showed that,

for example, 60 percent of them said they didn’t feel like they had

a clear sense of direction coming out of Washington in terms of

what their duties were. A large percent of them claimed they didn’t

have enough time to go out and conduct their basic job, which is

to go and interact with the public they are supposed to serve in

those countries. Many of them complained about a lot of bureaucratic procedures they had to go through. An example I recall is a

case where they wanted to hire a TV crew to go out and take pictures of an AID project so they could communicate that to the local

community. And to make a long story short, they had to cancel it

because they couldn’t get the bureaucratic rules about procuring

services and everything else taken care of in a timely fashion to go

out and do that.

It’s clear to me that Ambassador Tutwiler, who we did meet on

that project, is going to have her hands full because the key people,

the senior people, there is clearly some frustration on their part of

being able to carry out what they perceive to be their basic job.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you want to make a comment?

Dr. COHEN. I find that my colleagues on this panel and on other

panels are very reluctant to raise the issue of money. And I think

it’s very important for us to recognize that the ratio of money spent

on the American military presence in the Middle East compared

with our public diplomacy presence in the Middle East is ridiculous. And we must recognize that the national security problem

that we face is first of all, a problem in the minds and hearts of

the people of the region and that the 100 and more million young

people who are now easily recruited to hate us could be changed

before they become a problem if we devoted the adequate resources

to this rather than to sending our young people into danger in

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order to kill those who have already turned against us. And I don’t

think that we should be afraid to say that because we are devoting

now a huge amount of our national security resources to thinking

about the Arab world and the Muslim world, and we need to go to

the root of that, which is communicating to these people, helping

to change their education and their public media and the way they

think about themselves, about their future and, in that context,

about us as well.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to have Tom Costa ask a question. But

I want to make sure I ask this so I don’t leave wondering if I am

being naive here. Is it naive to think that our eventual effort on

satellite TV, if presented in an honest and open way, will have a

positive impact on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya as well? Is it naive

to think that? I will ask you, Mr. Morey, first.

Mr. MOREY. I don’t think it is naive to think that. Let’s be honest. And I think the previous panel acknowledges that we face significant obstacles and challenges—it is hard to take viewers from

all the other media outlets. But in my judgment, we have to try,

because it is going to make some difference over the course of the

effort. I don’t think it is naive, but I think it’s a very long-term

challenge.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Cohen, when we do have an appraisal of how

they are doing, we have to give them a little time?

Dr. COHEN. Yes, but we got to do it independently.

Mr. SHAYS. Tom.

Mr. COSTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a basic question

just to bring us back a bit. Why has the message of Osama bin

Laden, a man ambassador Holbrooke termed a man in a cave, resonated so much more strongly in the Arab world than the message

being projected by us? If you could briefly say, in your opinion what

is it about Osama’s message and his way of communicating versus

what we are doing, and what can we learn from that?

Mr. SHAYS. Whoever has an answer first, answer. Dr. Cohen.

Mr. JOHNSON. I will be real quick. Because bin Laden is one of

them. That is one thing. And the other is because people can see

in that one person their lives being changed or the personification

of some of their dreams, though they may be misinformed. They

look at something like the United States, of which they’re not a

part, as a very different matter. You have the same problem with

Fidel Castro. He is not a very nice person and he does a lot of bad

things, but there are a lot of people around the world, even in this

country, today that are fascinated by his personality and the things

that he does. I think it is in some measure a challenge of psychology. But in second measure, it means that we have to use multimodal means of communicating and not necessarily arm’s-length

communication, which is broadcasting, as good as it is, but also exchanges. Face-to-face contact, as Dr. Cohen suggests, is very important in having people get to know us in a personal way.

Mr. MOREY. I agree. One of the more shocking statistics we saw

over a year ago, before the invasion of Iraq, found that 88 percent

of Jordanians polled, and 82 percent of Saudi Arabians polled, had

a favorable view of Osama bin Laden, which was quite shocking.

And Iagree with the points Mr. Johnson made. I think it is a challenge. There are a lot of reasons why it has happened: Feelings of

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humiliation and the fact that the United States wasn’t in this

game, as we learned from the last panel. The challenge, it seems

to me, is to separate the extremists who are receptive to that message from this next generation of sort of undecided soft supporters

about this issue—and we have to think very aggressively about

that kind of segmentation, as if it is a political campaign.

Dr. COHEN. I want to say two things. One is to remember that

there was a time when it was an American President who was just

about the most popular person in that whole part of the world. So

it has a lot to do with message, and that’s the second thing. We

need to take more seriously an analysis of what was the message

that was delivered by Osama bin Laden and by his main intellectual development person, Ayman Zawahiri. And that has a lot to

do with the fact that they are much more conscious of the history

of their decline than we are conscious of what has happened in the

last 100 years. I would give the best example of that is for us in

America learning about World War I is a very low priority. And the

sense that World War I can be understood by America’s entry into

the war compared to the implications for these people of the loss

of their hopes for independence as a result of what happened after

World War I with the occupation of Iraq and Syria and Palestine

by the great powers. And by the end of the dream of independence,

we are simply not aware of that history which has changed their

perspective about the West and us and how we went from being

so popular to being so reviled by many people. We just don’t have

it in our consciousness. And I think that’s an important part of it,

is that when we think about preparing ourselves for public diplomacy we have to be thinking about how we not only talk to them,

but also how we prepare Americans to be aware of the fact that

they are having a big impact by what they say here on what is

heard there. Statements made in the United States can be replayed

again and again in the Arab world long after they have no importance here and are completely forgotten here, but can be quoted to

you as indications of what we supposedly believe when they are actually the belief of a small minority of people. And that can have

an enormous effect. A good example of that is people in America

who have spoken disparagingly of Islam and the prophet

Muhammed. These remarks made in America don’t last a day in

the American press, but they are quoted for months and even years

and they are attributed not only to the person who spoke them, but

as if they are the views of the majority of Americans and certainly

the majority of American Christians and American Jews. And I

think we must be aware of the fact that we are communicating

even when we are inadvertently communicating our attitude of respect or disrespect to those millions of people who now matter to

us in a way that they didn’t before.

Mr. FORD. I think that the comment that was made I believe in

one of the earlier panels is part of this process and that is from

our perspective what our target audience has been over the years.

I think that many of our public diplomacy programs were geared

for elite audiences. And that frankly, I don’t think we paid a lot

of attention to mass audiences and what the potential consequences of what we say here in this country and what we communicated abroad, how that could be impacted on people’s attiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Jun 24, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00115 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94158.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tudes. I think we heard this morning we are now going to pay attention to the mass audience because we are more concerned about

how people view us overall.

This gets back to the point that several members talked about.

We need to have some sense of a coherent strategy on what we

want to convey to foreign audiences and it may require us to

rethink some of the things in the past we tried to do because the

world has changed since 9/11. And it’s not clear to me, at least in

the work we have done, everybody clearly understands what we are

trying to achieve. I think part of the reason people are reacting the

way they are is that we may not have focused on some of those

issues in the past.

Mr. COSTA. What should our strategy be, and how do we coordinate that strategy among all the various agencies involved? Mr.

Ford, do you want to start again?

Mr. FORD. I am going to repeat what I said in my testimony, is

that we have several different Federal agencies that are involved

in conducting public diplomacy activities, but there doesn’t seem to

be a broad focus on what each of them should be achieving. And

we have examples where from our work that we have shown where

they don’t always know what each other is doing. It seems to me

we need to have something that provides some focus to our overall

efforts, because we are investing, at least on the State Department

and BBG side, $1 billion. So I think that, you know—we don’t

know what that policy ought to be, but we certainly believe it ought

to be better articulated.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is a two-prong strategy. I would think that it

has, first of all, the intent of communicating what our policies are

in trying to engineer some consensus for those policies in the world

community. The second thing is to let people in other countries

know who we are and get to know us in a long-term effort to build

friends and bridges of understanding with them, and also to listen

to them to know what their concerns are so we can tailor some of

our policies and our messages to them to build tighter bonds. I

think key to doing that, though, is doing something that David’s organization mentioned earlier on and certainly the Center for the

Study of the Presidency, and that is develop some sense of coordination. That has to happen in the White House. President Bush

created the Office of Global Communications ostensibly to craft and

disseminate messages intended for overseas audiences. But still

someone needs to coordinate public diplomacy activities between

various agencies. That office could do it, but it’s not doing it right

now. Somebody needs to do that job.

Mr. MOREY. It’s too good and complicated a question to answer

briefly and a lot of it is in the testimony in terms of prioritizing,

revolutionizing, even privatizing some of this. I would just flag one

point in terms of what the strategy ought to be. The strategy, front

and center, and back to political campaign experience, ought to be

doable, something we can actually do in terms of its objective. It

is undoable, certainly in the short term, for the U.S. public diplomacy efforts to get the rest of the—or this part of the world to love

us. It is doable and it is a hard mission to drive a wedge between

the extremists, the Osama bin Ladens, and the moderate, young

next generation of Muslims around the world—to separate the hard

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opposition, if you will, from other parts of the segmentation, the attitudes they have about the United States. That ought to be a front

and center priority within our strategy, particularly among the

next generation.

Dr. COHEN. I think there are two parts of the answer that I

would like to mention. One is that we need to get the President of

the United States to understand that in the present world that he

is not only the commander in chief but he is the public spokesman

of the United States to the world in chief and that when he speaks,

he speaks to the whole world, not only to the American people. And

I think that that’s why it’s necessary that the strategy be centered

in the White House and be an important part of the way the President thinks about the way he’s formulating his foreign policy, his

security policy, his operations within the world.

The second thing I would say is we need to focus on the people

of the region, not only the regimes of the region. And in focusing

on the people of the region, I think it will teach us to put a lot of

our emphasis on the fact that there is a huge population. So we are

dealing with a part of the world where over 50 percent of the people are under the age of 25. And in some cases, we are dealing with

populations which are 50 percent in their teens and younger, and

we need to reach out and affect that group.

Mr. COSTA. Thank you, Dr. Cohen.

Mr. SHAYS. I think we are going to conclude here. Just asking,

is there any point that you want to put on the record before we adjourn? Any comments here? You have been a wonderful panel and

I am just very grateful that you took the time to participate. Thank

you so very much. With that, we will hold this hearing up.

[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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