U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

81–880 PDF 2002

S. HRG. 107–692

AMERICA’S GLOBAL DIALOG: SHARING AMERICAN

VALUES AND THE WAY AHEAD FOR PUBLIC

DIPLOMACY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 11, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

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

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware, Chairman

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

BARBARA BOXER, California

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

BILL NELSON, Florida

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JESSE HELMS, North Carolina

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Staff Director

PATRICIA A. MCNERNEY, Republican Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Beers, Hon. Charlotte, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and

Public Affairs, Department of State, Washington, DC ..................................... 7

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11

Responses to additional questions for the record ........................................... 61

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared statement . 4

Feingold, Hon. Russell D., U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, prepared statement .. 64

Gingrich, Hon. Newt, former Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives; senior

fellow, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC .................................. 33

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36

Ginsberg, Hon. Marc, former Ambassador to Morocco; CEO and managing

director, Northstar Equity Group, Washington, DC ......................................... 39

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42

Hoffman, David, president, Internews, Arcata, CA .............................................. 45

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 48

Keith, Amb. Kenton W., chair, Alliance for International Education and Cultural Exchange and senior vice president, Meridian International Center,

statement submitted for the record .................................................................... 73

Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, prepared statement and a series of letters in support of the Cultural Bridges Act of

2002 ....................................................................................................................... 65

Pattiz, Hon. Norman J., Governor, Broadcasting Board of Governors, Washington, DC ............................................................................................................. 13

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16

Surroi, Veton, chairman, KOHA Media Group, Pristina, Kosovo ........................ 50

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53

(III)

(1)

AMERICA’S GLOBAL DIALOG: SHARING AMERICAN VALUES AND THE WAY AHEAD FOR

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2002

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:55 a.m., in room

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

(chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Biden, Dodd, Boxer, Bill Nelson, Lugar, Hagel,

Chafee and Brownback.

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. As I just explained to our first panel and I will say to the audience, we apologize for getting started late. The Foreign Relations Committee had

a private meeting with Prime Minister Sharon and it ran a little

late, but in fact what we are about to speak to today quite frankly

will have some serious impact on how well we do on many various

issues we discussed with Prime Minister Sharon today.

As we consider public diplomacy in the 21st century, we are very

mindful that our voice competes amidst the cacophony of voices

shaping global opinion in a way that has never occurred before.

Today, with the Internet, satellite, radio and TV networks providing instantaneous and often unfiltered and selectively unfiltered

information, public diplomacy is more important and more difficult

than it has ever been before, in my view. No matter how powerful

our military, we will not be able to achieve all of our foreign policy

objectives if we lose the war of ideas. In public diplomacy we must

use our most powerful tool, truth. Truth, credibility and openness.

As the legendary journalist and former USIA Director Edward R.

Murrow said, and I quote, ‘‘truth is the best propaganda, and lies

the worst.’’ I cannot emphasize that enough. What we are about

here today, what we have been about, and what the Secretary has

been about, is not about trying to shape an incorrect image of our

views or ideas and our people, but the truth, openness, and credibility which will flow from the former truth and openness.

We are going to have to reach out to people in their own language and in their own terms, and we must foster the free flow of

ideas, even if it is sometimes critical for the United States of America. We do not expect anyone to like us, or everyone to like us, I

should say, but there is no good reason for us to be so misrepresented and misunderstood. We are one of the most advanced centers of communication in the world. We should be more successful

2

when we reach out. We should be better able to get the facts out,

and if we do a better job, those who question our motives and reinterpret the facts will have a much tougher time getting traction in

public opinion in other parts of the world. Today, I hope to explore

what we can do to explain ourselves better and promote understanding, and I hope we will learn what more we can do, and how

we should organize to do it.

All we want is a real chance for the facts to come before the people of the world, particularly, I would say at this moment, the Muslim world, 1.2 billion people, and let them make up their own mind.

I am not asking to be loved. I am not asking to be embraced. I am

just asking that we have a fair chance to be understood.

There are countless examples of where we do this well. I know

the State Department’s Web site, for example, offers content in

Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French, Russian, in addition to English.

It gets more than 4 million hits a month, I am told. After 9/11, the

United States and our allies set up coalition information centers in

London, Islamabad, and Washington to coordinate messages, combat misinformation, and to stay ahead of the 24-hour global news

cycle.

USAID worked with NGOs like Open Society Institute to support

the development of independent media organizations in the former

Yugoslavia in the Milosevic regime, which I am now happy to say

he is in jail and being tried. The now-famous Radio B–2 in Belgrade played a critical role in forming the opposition to and the

eventual ouster of and arrest of Milosevic. The U.S. Government’s

assistance to the American NGOs search for common ground

helped create multi-ethnic versions of Sesame Street that has promoted tolerance between the children of Macedonia and Cyprus.

Despite these successful programs and others I could mention,

the hard work of people like Under Secretary Beers and her predecessor, Evelyn Lieberman, America’s public diplomacy still falls

short of where it needs to be. Four years ago, this committee led

the way in devising a merger of the former U.S. Information Agency into the Department of State. The goal of this reorganization

was to integrate the policymakers and public diplomacy specialists.

The merger of two different cultures has taken time, and is not yet

complete.

Public diplomacy considerations are still not, in my view, fully incorporated into the public formulation process. There is still not

adequate interagency coordination, although it is much better, and

we still do not have a national information strategy providing the

long-term vision of where the American public diplomacy needs to

be, and we are still doing public diplomacy on the cheap, with funding cuts half what it was in 1994 and today. As I always say, if

you want to know what we value, follow the money. Take a look

at the budget.

Today’s hearing will look at what the State Department and

other agencies are doing and should be doing to promote our public

diplomacy agenda. We consider developments in U.S. international

broadcasting, particularly the Middle East Radio Network, the

brainchild of one of our witnesses today, and the Broadcasting

Board of Governors. It is an FM and AM digital satellite network

that spans the Arabic-speaking world, targeting young audiences

3

with innovative programming. Early indications are that it is going

swimmingly well and impressively gaining adherence and customers who want to listen.

We have two people before us, by the way, who in their private

lives have demonstrated they know how to get people to listen.

They know how to make it work, and Norm Pattiz has made a

moderately good living at knowing how to do that.

Should this radio model be replicated elsewhere, is one of the

questions we want to talk about today. Should we establish a companion U.S. satellite television network?

We will also examine what the United States can do to encourage the development of indigenous independent media where it

does not exist today. As we have learned, for better or worse, people tend to trust local sources of news and information more than

they do foreign sources. Without a free, fair, and open flow of information in these societies, propaganda and misinformation are able

to flourish. It is in our interests to have professional journalism

abroad promoting the internal dialog that serves their interests as

well. Public diplomacy is not just about what we say. It is about

promoting an environment in which multiple voices, including our

own, can be heard.

We will hear today from two panels of witnesses to advise us on

these issues. Our first panel includes Under Secretary of State for

Public Diplomacy, Charlotte Beers, and in full disclosure my personal friend Norm Pattiz, representing the Broadcasting Board of

Governors. Under Secretary Beers has served as CEO for two of

the world’s largest advertising agencies, J. Walter Thompson, and

Ogilvy and Mather. Norm Pattiz is the founder and chairman of

Westwood One, America’s largest radio network company, and

some other interests as well.

Our second panel includes Ambassador Marc Ginsberg, a former

Ambassador to Morocco and now CEO and managing director of

Northstar Equity Group. We will be joined by a man who, to use

the old cliche, needs no introduction in this town, the former

Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and we are happy to have

the Speaker here. Speaker Gingrich is now the CEO of Gingrich

Group, an Atlanta-based communications and management consulting firm, and serves as senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and I would like him disseminating information

abroad and not in Delaware for a long time. I wish him well. I

would like to have him go full-time on dealing with other countries.

But welcome, Mr. Speaker. We love you in Delaware, but they

love you too much in Delaware.

David Hoffman, the president of Internews Network, a global

nonprofit organization that supports open media worldwide, will be

our next witness, and he will be followed by a man for whom I

have great respect and I have met numerous times during our efforts in the Balkans, Veton Surroi, chairman of KOHA Media

Group in Kosovo and a leading advocate for democracy and independent media in Kosovo, and a man who I could go on for a long

time to talk about. Had we listened to his advice, in my view, in

1994, we would have made progress even faster in the region.

4

I would also now like to invite Senator Lugar to make any opening comments he has, and then we will proceed with the witnesses.

Again, I say welcome to all the witnesses.

[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.

As we consider public diplomacy in the 21st century, we are mindful that our

voice competes amidst the cacophony of voices shaping global opinion.

Today, with the Internet, satellite radio and TV networks providing instantaneous

and often unfiltered information, public diplomacy is more important and more difficult than ever before.

No matter how powerful our military, we will not be able to achieve all our foreign policy objectives if we lose the war of ideas.

In public diplomacy, we must use our most powerful tools: Truth, credibility, and

openness. We must reach out to people in their own language and in their own

terms. And we must foster the free flow of ideas, even if it’s critical of the United

States.

We don’t expect everyone to like us, but there’s no good reason for us to be so

misrepresented and misunderstood.

We’re one of the most advanced centers of communications in the world. We

should be more successful when we reach out. We should be better able to get the

facts out. If we do a better job, those who question our motives or misrepresent the

facts will have a much tougher time getting traction with public opinion.

Today I hope we will explore what we can do to explain ourselves better and promote understanding. And I hope we’ll learn what more we can do, and how we

should organize to do it.

All we want is a real chance for the facts to come before the people of the world.

And let them make up their minds.

There are countless examples of where we do this well. I know the State Department’s Web site offers content in Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French and Russian in

addition to English. It gets more than four million hits a month.

After 9-11, the United States and our allies set up Coalition Information Centers

in London, Islamabad, and Washington to coordinate messages, combat misinformation, and stay ahead of the 24 hour global news cycle.

USAID worked with NGOs like the Open Society Institute to support the development of independent media organizations in the former Yugoslavia under the

Milosevic regime. The now famous Radio B-92 in Belgrade played a critical role in

fomenting the opposition to, and the eventual ouster of, Milosevic.

With U.S. government assistance, the American NGO Search for Common Ground

helped create multi-ethnic versions of Sesame Street that have promoted tolerance

among children in Macedonia and Cyprus.

Despite these successful programs and the hard work of people like Under Secretary Beers, and her predecessor Evelyn Lieberman, American public diplomacy

falls far short of where it needs to be.

Four years ago, this committee led the way in devising the merger of the former

U.S. Information Agency into the Department of State. The goal of this reorganization was to integrate the policy makers and public diplomacy specialists. The merger

of two different cultures has taken time, and is not complete.

Public diplomacy considerations are still not fully incorporated into the policy formulation process. There is still no adequate interagency coordination.

We still don’t have a national information strategy providing a long-term vision

of where American public diplomacy needs to be. And, we’re still doing public diplomacy on the cheap, with funding cut in half between 1994 and today. As I always

say, follow the money.

Today’s hearing will look at what the State Department and other agencies ARE

doing and SHOULD be doing to promote our public diplomacy agenda.

We’ll consider developments in U.S. international broadcasting, particularly the

Middle East Radio Network, the brainchild of Norm Pattiz and the Broadcasting

Board of Governors. It’s an FM, AM, and digital satellite network that spans the

Arabic-speaking world targeting a young audience with innovative programming.

Early indications are that it’s going swimmingly, and gaining an impressively large

audience in the region.Should this radio model be replicated elsewhere? Should we

establish a companion U.S. satellite television network?

We’ll also examine what the United States can do to encourage the development

of indigenous, independent media where it does not exist today.

5

As we’ve learned, for better or worse, people tend to trust local sources of news

and information more than foreign sources.

Without a free, fair, and open flow of information within these societies, propaganda and misinformation flourish.

It’s in our interest to have professional journalism abroad promoting a healthy internal dialogue that serves their interest.

Public diplomacy is not just about what we say, it’s about promoting an environment in which multiple voices, including our own, can be heard.

We will hear today from two panels of witnesses to advise us on these issues. Our

first panel includes Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Charlotte Beers

and my friend Norm Pattiz, representing the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Under Secretary Beers has served as the CEO of two of the world’s largest advertising agencies—J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather. Norm Pattiz is the

founder and chairman of Westwood One, America’s largest radio network company.

Our second panel will include Ambassador Marc Ginsberg, the former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco and now the CEO and managing director of the Northstar Equity Group.

He will be joined by a man who, to use the old cliche, needs no introduction in

this town, the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Speaker Gingrich is

now the CEO of the Gingrich Group, an Atlanta-based communications and management consulting firm, and serves as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

David Hoffman, the president of Internews Network, a global non-profit organization that supports open media worldwide will be our next witness. He will be followed by Veton Surroi, chairman of the KOHA Media Group in Kosovo, and a leading advocate for democracy and independent media in Kosovo.

Senator BOXER. Mr. Chairman, could I ask if it would be possible

to have 60 seconds to speak, because of our delay. I have an 11:30

appointment. I just want to make one point, if I could just speak

for a minute.

The CHAIRMAN. After Senator Lugar.

Senator BOXER. Of course.

Senator LUGAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your calling the hearing, and your very strong and comprehensive statement, which really covers the territory so well. As

all of us will observe, the war on terrorism has brought the importance and the value of effective public diplomacy to the fore. I am

not the only American who is dismayed at the level of disenchantment and in some cases outright hatred voiced by many in the

world toward the United States.

Recently, there has been much discussion of the so-called Arab

Street, strong opposition to American policies toward terrorism and

the Middle East peace process. However, it would appear this is

simply the tip of the iceberg. Clearly, many in the Middle East oppose American policies, but we now read the people of the Philippines on occasion are distrustful of American counterterrorism

trainers and advisors sent there to assist in tracking the Abu

Sayyef terrorist group.

In Indonesia, opposition from the local population continues to

confound attempts to improve security cooperation. Elsewhere, Europeans believe the United States is retreating from the international scene and entering an isolationist cocoon. No matter

where we turn, the people of the world are either not well-informed

about American policies and intentions, or recede to the anti-American messages that are more powerful or effective than our own.

These revelations must serve as a wake-up call to our government. Our policies may be well-intentioned, but still find little receptivity with local populations. The United States must radically

6

improve its public diplomacy efforts. We must explain and broadcast American views and values much more effectively. Responsibility rests with both the executive and legislative branches of government. We have permitted these critical foreign policy tools to

languish and to decay, and as a government we must take more

time, pay more attention, and apply more resources to fostering our

public diplomacy.

The first step must be a revitalization of the organization, the

people, the tools, and the content of our public diplomacy. Obviously, there is no single answer to the challenge we face. It is more

likely that the problems are systemic. We must question and analyze the basic tenets that form the foundation of our policies in this

area. Our goal must be not simply to identify and implement shortterm fixes, but to address the root causes of the inadequacies and

shortcomings in our policies and our outreach programs.

A number of different proposals have been put forward to address the public diplomacy challenges at the State Department.

One of the most interesting suggestions calls for reorganizing the

public diplomacy apparatus by placing resources, budgets, personnel, and staff under the direct control of Under Secretary Beers.

I would be interested in hearing her views on this, as well as her

thoughts on funding public diplomacy. I am hopeful that Ms. Beers

and other witnesses will provide the committee with useful recommendations with which to engage the administration in formulating an effective strategy.

Mr. Chairman, I recommend we use today’s hearing as the basis

for the construction of a bill, of legislation to revitalize American

public diplomacy. I know many members of this committee have

been giving a lot of thought to this issue, and I propose it is time

to get to work.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I could not agree with you more, Senator.

Senator Boxer.

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much for your courtesy. I wanted

to thank Charlotte Beers for keeping me so well-informed on her

efforts, because you promised to do that in a hearing, and you are

sending me things like this, and it matters to me and I thank you.

I also wanted to welcome one of my star constituents who I am

forced to share with the rest of the country, Norm Pattiz, and to

say that his vision for this Middle East Radio was right on target.

One of your colleagues on the Board of Governors said the following, ‘‘broadcasting services such as Middle East Radio Network

are the best high-yield, low-cost weapon in our arsenal. They are

the most cost-effective way of reaching the outside world.’’ This is something that our chairman and ranking member I

know believe, and in closing I just wanted to read a couple of emails that went to your station from the people who we are trying

to impact. One says, ‘‘Hi, I am from Abu Dhabi, UAE. Actually I

listen to your channel every day because I am crazy about music,

both Arabic and English, and I really appreciate your efforts to

make us happy all day.’’

And another says, ‘‘hello people, I am a Palestinian who lives between Amman and Kuwait. I can here Sawa in Amman and in Kuwait as well. All I want to say is, I am so proud of you guys, and

7

very happy to hear this station. You can hear it everywhere, especially in Amman in the shopping malls and in the coffee shops. All

the guys’ and girls,’ mothers and fathers, are very amused by

Sawa. Keep up the good work, guys.’’ And then here is what I wanted to make sure you heard. ‘‘P.S.,

I have a question. What is the nationality of this station, and who

is the owner,’’ and I think what that says is, the way you are putting forward the information makes sense.

Another says, ‘‘your music is good, the news is not biased. I think

it is not biased,’’ and then I love this, ‘‘I want to ask you to play

me two songs, Don’t Let Me Get Me, by Pink, and an Arabic song

called Gogali, and it is by Guitara, and I hope you play both.’’ Anyway, I think that this shows, Mr. Chairman, that the wonderful results we are having, and not that it is a panacea, but in

a very tough world and a tough challenge, it is something we must

do, and I commend both of you. Thank you, and I commend my

chairman and the ranking member for caring about this and letting

me speak. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. We are very commendable.

Madam Secretary, the floor is yours.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLOTTE BEERS, UNDER SECRETARY

OF STATE FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS,

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC

Ms. BEERS. Chairman Biden, distinguished members——

The CHAIRMAN. I hate to ask you to do this. What is going to

happen is, these microphones—as the Senator from South Carolina

says, ‘‘these machines are quite old.’’ We are going to one day modernize the Senate—but you have to hold it very close to your

mouth, I apologize, so people in the back can hear you. I am sorry.

Ms. BEERS. Well then, I had better start with my illustrious address again. Chairman Biden and distinguished members of the

committee, it is a great honor to be in this room. This is exactly

where I was sworn in on October 11, and it does not exactly seem

like a few days ago, but the time has sped by. I put in my statement for the record a good report on how I think we have done in

the current response and the immediacy that was required of us all

to answer the war on terrorism. What I want to do in the short

time that I have with you here is, in fact, take you to longer-term

priorities that I hope we can all address.

As President Bush says, this will be a long war. I believe we

have to enter the turbulent and faster-moving information revolution aggressively to build a larger presence, and I would call it,

from my background in the advertising and marketing world, a

larger share of voice. We have to continue to strengthen and defend

that business which we do well, which is our ability to speak with

government officials and elites, but at the same time we really

must enlarge our communication with the mainstream of young

adults, significantly in the Middle East and South and Southeast

Asia, and even those young adults outside of cities. We have to

meet this expanded audience as, in fact, you said, Chairman Biden,

on their own terms and in their own channels of distribution.

So what about those who are even younger and under 20? I think

we must develop plans, resources, and teams to seek the help of

8

the huge multinational companies and also the foreign students

from U.S. universities to activate them to talk about our common

values and to demonstrate the democratization in some form and

answer the final questions, what is in it for me, where can I go,

where can I get a job?

We had a number of discussions with these kinds of constituencies, and the willingness is there. These commitments will require a change in skill structure and allocation of resources in public diplomacy. We have to go beyond polling, as it is called here,

to include diagnostic research that evaluates not just what they

think, but why, so that we can use this research to lead us to improved programs. We have already hired an outside consultant,

and it is changing a lot about the way we ask these questions, and

we are just fielding a major study with a more sophisticated view

of what we are going to do with the data.

We also want to significantly expand our training and public diplomacy officers, not only in depth and scope of training, which

frankly has been thin, but to also include the most modern marketing and communication skills, because we are going to ask these

officers to operate in a very different kind of universe.

Both Secretary Powell and I are addressing the public diplomacy

structure in this our third year of consolidation. Our inquiry will

examine how we can maximize communication to more people, encourage innovation, and also accountability within the public diplomacy family as well as the status at the table of policy development.

So where do we get the programs for this better-trained and bigger public diplomacy team who is now going to be asked to expand

their reach to even larger audiences? Well, I want you to know that

we have one program that provides nothing less than a complete

transformation. Let me illustrate. We just had a brave woman, a

Saudi novelist and journalist, who dared the rejection and anxiety

that surrounded her when she said she was coming to the United

States on an exchange visit. Listen to what she said when she returned to Saudi Arabia:

‘‘Everyone says Westerners are bad and mean, but it is not true.

People here are telling a bunch of lies about the West. You know,

the people I met are nice. They are friendly, they smile. Nobody

stares at you or follows you around. They do not waste money.

They do not leave food around. They respect limits. Their customs

are nice.

‘‘In America, men and women cooperate together to make their

lives better. They help each other. They are organized, and they

can plan for their future. They like to have real dialogs on many

subjects. The women are strong. Older people are active and engaged. In this house in which I lived there were three generations

there, and they have been close to their neighbors for years. Why

do we get told these stories about how the family is broken in the

West?’’

Believe me, we have countless stories of these transformations,

so here is the question: How can we magnify the 25,000 exchanges

we do a year, which is what our resources allow, into something

10 times that? That is the question. Some of the ways that we can

do this we have been working on now as pilot studies. We can actiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
9

vate the 700,000 exchange visitors we have had over the years. You

know, we do not even have a data bank as good as a local car dealer. We do not know where these people are in some cases, and we

have not been able to follow-up on them.

We have got an alumni data bank in the works now, and what

we hope is, for those who are willing to join us and participate in

this, they will be able to be more successful in creating a more balanced picture of the United States by simply talking about their experience. We are designing something wonderful called, An American Room, that will use virtual reality to depict and try to approximate the experience of being in America.

We might have the Gettysburg Address when you hit a button.

We might be able to see a scene from Oklahoma. We will have computers linked to data banks. We will be able to reproduce a street

in a typical American city, and the viewer standing there can tap

another button and find someone like them in the United States,

and the wonder of this is the design team we have and the unlimited potential of technology.

And here is the exciting thing. We hope to place these rooms in

universities, in libraries, and malls, and traveling even by bus to

smaller towns, and we have done enough exploring with potential

universities and libraries in the Middle East and so on to know

they are interested, and we expect this kind of thing to act as a

catalyst for more open dialog. The secret to communication is not

what you say, but what they can hear, and it is very important for

us to put it on those terms. We know we can greatly and productively increase visits from journalists, newspaper writers, and producers, because now we follow them, and we can prove that when

they go home they publish from a totally different perspective.

We need to establish a regional media center to train Muslim

journalists and reporters in order to help them get a better perspective, better equipment, and more direct access to U.S. officials

and people. We can even turn the proven practice of teaching

English into a story of values and beliefs with the use of pictures

and music. We can ask our third parties who are already authentic

in the universe of the Middle East and Southeast and who wish to

participate to help carry out our messages, like the Muslim-Americans that we have just been working with and have talked to over

a great period of time. They have just formed a group called

CAMU, and they are going to put speaker groups in their countries

and here and make exchanges and conferences and forums.

We can even offer to aid the leading satellite television stations,

NBC Lebanese, Al Jazeera, and Future, who say they are very

keen for new programming and assure us that they are open to

new material. Hollywood, PBS, and Discovery have offered to help

us acquire such programs.

We can, in fact, create completely new programs, like an Arabic

magazine for young adults, and Internet programs that include not

just the chat room but the training and the equipment, which I

think is probably the most efficient way to make sure there is a

two-way conversation, because one of the burning questions out

there in the Middle East and Southeast Asia is, can you hear us,

so we cannot afford to be in a one-way dialog.

10

You know, we already have a number of proofs against the frequently repeated distortion that we are a materialistic and greedy

society. It is called USAID programs, and it bothers me immensely

that these stories are virtually unsung, because there is no mandate in the U.S. programs to talk about what we have done, who

benefits, and how these stories unfold. I think we have many

uncelebrated stories of victory in the democratic process where we

have transformed families, we have made jobs, we have created an

enterprise, with the help of the people in many countries around

the world. These stories are not out there. If they were, the reputation and image we have, I think, would be different.

Even at this moment when it is really quite popular to dislike

the United States, we have found in some studies that we have

more in common. We have common values between the Middle

East and Southeast Asia and the United States in four main areas,

and they are significant. One is, we both rank in the top six faith,

generosity and giving and taking care of others, and love of family.

An interesting insight in that is that we have more in common

with these groups of people than, say, our partners in the European Union. Even those who rail against us one minute will immediately turn and admit they would love to study American science

and technology, so to me the picture is actually promising, but we

do need to get about the business of preparing, testing, and fielding

these new programs. They are necessarily long term, and they

must be consistently supported to bear fruit, and we cannot neglect

our dialog with the rest of the world in order to shore up what has

been way too much silence between us and these communities, and

that is why this moment with you is so crucial to ask you to support importantly these longer term priorities as we move every day

to prove to you that they have merit.

Among our three strategic goals which I detailed in my written

remarks are representing America’s values and beliefs, demonstrating clearly opportunities that can result from the forms of

democratization that each of these countries can take on, and the

third is education to the young. If you ask me to prioritize these,

I would say there is no contest. It has to be education to the young.

Ultimately it is the key, to educate these huge majority populations

of young men and women can save them from fanatical interpretations of this beautiful religion of Islam and give them access to

science, technology, books, and basically a new world view, and

that is a lot to ask.

Every experience we have tell us they will not settle for limitations, biases, or hatred, and I have learned one other thing as I

have spent this time in public diplomacy. The young will lead us.

Last Saturday, I heard an eloquent address from Ehud Barak

about his journey as Prime Minister of Israel. He referred to a signature moment when his great friend fighting by his side 30 years

ago was shot by an Egyptian soldier. A young graduate student in

the audience from Egypt, a woman, addressed this question to the

former Prime Minister. My two friends were seeking to marry and

they went to their two parents, and they were told they could not

marry because they had a feud between these two families 30 years

ago, and therefore they recommended and refused permission to

marry.

11

The couple decided to go against this counsel. They did marry.

They are very happy. They have two small children, and they just

bought a very small new home. Her question is, ‘‘why can’t we,

rather than destroy homes, build them?’’ Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Beers follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLOTTE BEERS, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR

DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Chairman Biden and distinguished members of the committee,

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. As you are well aware,

today is the nine-month anniversary of September 11th, a day that opened all our

eyes to the horrific consequences of hatred that some groups have for our country;

a hatred bred in ignorance, misperception and misrepresentation. There are many

lessons that we are still learning from that day, and certainly one of the most important is that we can and should do more to educate, and influence the attitudes

of, foreign audiences toward our country. No longer is it acceptable to let others define America, our beliefs, tenets, and values. It is in our collective national security

interest that we do a better job defining ourselves to the world. This is our mission

in the post-September 11th world, and it is a mission that must succeed.

In late February, Gallup released a poll of almost 10,000 people in nine predominately Muslim countries and found that, by a margin of two to one, residents of

these nations had an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. Some of the specific results

of the poll were not surprising in places like Iran, but in Kuwait for instance only

28 percent of those residents polled had a favorable opinion of the U.S. This in a

country that was liberated by the U.S. and our allies only a decade ago. In Morocco

the favorable number was only 22 percent, and in Saudi Arabia, one of our strongest

allies in the region, only 18 percent expressed a favorable opinion of the U.S.

These numbers are roughly consistent with other external and internal polling of

the region. They illuminate the challenge we have before us, a challenge to communicate our policies and values to the world more effectively. In some regions, such

as Muslim majority areas in the Middle East and South Asia for example, the challenge is obviously greater. In these places it is imperative that we reach out, inform,

educate, and persuade populations that we are a society that is based on certain

shared values, values that resonate within the Muslim world, values such as peace,

acceptance, faith, and love of family.

To do this, we must continue our traditional public diplomacy programs, such as

international information activities and educational and cultural exchanges, as well

as international broadcasting. However, we need to focus these activities on broader

and younger populations, while simultaneously enhancing them to reach our desired

audiences more rapidly and effectively. Since September 11th, and since my confirmation in October, we have striven to do just that. This is evident in such initiatives as The Network of Terrorism, a publication that has become the most widely

disseminated public diplomacy document ever produced by the U.S. Government.

The publication features dramatic visuals, including a map showing the 81 countries

that lost citizens in the World Trade Center. Since its release last November, Network has been translated into 36 languages, and we’ve published over 1.3 million

copies. We had Network distributed—as an insert in the Arabic edition of Newsweek,

and major excerpts appeared in other Arab and world publications. Since publication, we have maintained a constantly updated Internet version as well.

In addition to the Network publication, we have had success with our Television

Co-operatives, in which we sponsor the visits of foreign production teams to the U.S.

There have been 21 television programs since September 11th dealing with the Islamic community in America, as well as the campaign against terrorism.

Our exhibit of the stunning photographs of Joel Meyerowitz, capturing the human

and material dimensions of Ground Zero, has now opened in 32 different countries

and will be presented in an additional ten countries by the end of the year, reaching

audiencesin the hundreds of thousands.

Our web sites dealing with the Middle East have consistently topped Internet

search engines since 9/11, and, thanks to our multilingual advertisements, our Rewards for Justice program has received some 30,000 pieces of information since the

attacks. We have produced This is Islam in America, a publication that was distributed to 500 Middle Eastern Imams at an April conference, as well as Islam in America, which was distributed through our American Corners network throughout Russia, and through our embassies in Almaty, Ashgabat, Baku, Bishkek, Dushanbe,

and Tashkent.

12

These initiatives highlight some of our successes, but there is clearly room for us

to improve, to do more, much more. Right now, the Middle East and the greater

Islamic world are awash with new media and new ideas and ideologies. We must

compete on a crowded playing field for the attention of these audiences. I will defer

to Governor Norm Pattiz to talk about the success of Radio Sawa, but it is evident

that we have work to do to make our television services effective and relevant. Television is the medium of today and the future, as is evident in the growth and influence of Middle East television satellite and regular television broadcasting. Existing

channels are hungry for programming, and we need to direct resources to production, acquisition, and distribution of compelling, quality programs. I am hesitant to

endorse the concept of a greatly expanded direct broadcasting capacity until a great

deal more research on how best to approach this market has been done. This is particularly true given the experience of BBC’s expensive experiment in Arabic TV

broadcasting.

There is room for dialogue and exchange, but the onus is on us to make our voice

heard. There is common ground on which we can build the foundation for this dialogue. Let me illustrate this through the story of a young Arab woman. She is a

composite of Arab women I met recently. I was overseas at an-Arab capital, and this

woman started telling me of the anger and frustration that she and others feel

about our Middle East policy. She is a professor, but not at the American University, whose name she feels would taint her. Her anger was so great that, initially,

she expressed doubt that Bin Laden was the ringleader of the World Trade Center

and Pentagon attacks. As we spent more time together, she began to ask me about

what she understood to be the bad treatment of Muslims in the U.S. I was able to

tell her that there are between three and six million Muslims in this country, where

they are free to worship fully in over 1,200 mosques, and where their children can

attend Muslim schools. I told her about the Nobel Prize winner who is Muslim, the

soccer player, our basketball star whose father is an Imam, the schoolteachers, and

even President Bush’s new Director of the National Institutes of Health. As I did

this, a door began to open between us. Eventually, she admitted that, while she believed Bin Ladin had masterminded the attacks of September 11th, she could not

defend her conviction to her colleagues. By the end of our conversation, she had

asked whether her university could add a U.S. studies program and even whether

she could travel to the U.S. with a group of teachers to study science and technology.

There is also the story of a Fulbright alumnus who is leader of Muhammadiyah,

Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization, with 30-40 million members. He recently told the Jakarta Post that his educational experience in the U.S. had caused

him to abandon the idea of establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia. He cited his

degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago, as a tool that helped him

gain a more accurate understanding of religious teachings. He also asserted that

‘‘fewer and fewer Muslims now want to establish an Islamic state.’’

This is the kind of ‘‘share of mind’’ toward which we are working. Shared ideas

and values are our building blocks to better understanding, better relationships, and

good will with the Islamic world. To help focus our public diplomacy efforts and

sharpen our ability to address the challenge before us, we have developed three

strategic themes under which our activities and efforts will be shaped. Under President Bush and Secretary Powell’s leadership, we are pursuing the following broad

areas in our public diplomacy efforts:

• The first theme is shared values. In many countries, especially in Muslim majority states, people carry a distorted and negative view of U.S. values. They

believe that we are a faithless and decadent country. To counter these false impressions, we are initially focusing on freedom of religion and tolerance as reflected in the experience of Muslims in America. We have already created a web

site and are developing video products and speakers’ programs to disseminate

this message overseas.

• The second theme is the opportunity for Democratization. It is my belief that

democracy is the best path toward lasting peace and prosperity. Where good

governance and open opportunity exist, inspiring stories of entrepreneurial and

free market successes abound. Many U.S. government and private sector programs already address this objective, and we need to better highlight their efforts. We must also encourage those who seek more open societies, economic opportunity through open-markets, and the chance to achieve prosperity in the

unique context of their own cultural and historical experience.

• The third theme is Education, through an initiative called ‘‘Partnership for

Learning.’’ One of the universal values is that we all love our children and want

a better future for them. We also know that a lack of social and economic opporVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
13

tunity is one of the key factors driving the recruitment of terrorists. U.S. educational and other assistance programs already underway are working to provide children around the world with the tools needed for effective participation

in modern life. This focus will allow us to create new partnerships with the private sector, here and abroad, dramatically increasing the resources devoted to

the education of children in countries where these options are limited.

These three themes create the backbone under which our public diplomacy programs and activities are taking shape thanks to the creative and dedicated efforts

of the public diplomacy professionals in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Bureau of Public Affairs, and the Office of International Information Programs, as well as our regional and function bureaus and our officers in the field.

We are also working to engage the private sector, which is our natural ally in this

fight to inform and influence the hearts and minds of the people of the world. Those

corporations with a large international presence, in many instances, have better outreach to certain countries and population segments than we do. We want to work

with them to create partnerships that serve our mutual interests. For its part, the

private sector stands at the ready as never before to aid our Public Diplomacy efforts. We must continue to actively garner its support for our overall strategies, harness its creative collective will, and ask it to organize for action.

Now, more than ever, the spotlight is on public diplomacy, on our ability and aptitude in communicating with the people of the world. I thank the committee for its

continued support of public diplomacy, and for allowing me to testify before you

today. I am happy to answer any of your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary.

Mr. Pattiz.

STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN J. PATTIZ, GOVERNOR,

BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. PATTIZ. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee. I am Norm Pattiz of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. On behalf of the BBG I want to thank you very much for

giving me the opportunity to talk about U.S. International Broadcasting, and specifically our new Middle East Radio Network

[MERN], which is fast becoming a key part of U.S. public diplomacy efforts in this very, very turbulent region.

I also want to thank you for giving us the resources to accomplish our mission, which is quite simply to promote freedom and

democracy through the free flow of accurate, reliable, and credible

news and information about America and the world to audiences

overseas. I am pleased to appear with Under Secretary Charlotte

Beers who, along with Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage and others in the State Department have been so supportive of MERN.

I would also like to introduce my fellow Governor, Tom

Korologos, who is in the audience. Tom has been a primary supporter of the MERN project, making more than one trip to Cyprus

to talk with his friends, such as the President, to make sure we got

a very important transmission facility in Cyprus to help us reach

the region.

When I am not working for the BBG, I am chairman of

Westwood One, America’s largest radio network. We own, manage,

or distribute the NBC Radio Network, CBS Radio Network, Fox

Radio News, and we also supply over 7,500 U.S. radio stations with

not only news but sports, talk, information programming, and just

about anything else you can think of.

When I was appointed to the BBG in November 2000 I was the

only radio broadcaster on the Board. Chairman Marc Nathanson

asked me to serve as the cochair of the Language Review Committee, which manages the congressionally mandated process of deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
14

termining on an annual basis how effectively our resources are

being deployed across the over 60 languages we broadcast in worldwide.

I quickly noticed our efforts in the Middle East were almost totally ineffective. We were broadcasting 7 hours a day in the Arabic

language in a one-size-fits-all approach to the entire region, for 7

hours a day, as I mentioned before, on short wave, which almost

no one listens to, and out of a very weak medium wave signal out

of Rhodes. The fact was that over 98 percent of the audience in the

region were not listening to the Voice of America.

After reporting this back to the Board, I was asked to serve as

the chairman of the Middle East Committee. Shortly thereafter—

I think it was in February 2000, well before the events of 9/11—

I visited the region to determine what possibilities existed to provide a 21st century broadcast operation to the region. During the

trip, I learned a number of things. First of all, I learned that there

is, in fact, a media war going on in the region, and the weapons

of that war are incitement to violence, disinformation, hate radio,

government censorship, and journalistic self-censorship, and sadly

the United States did not have a horse in this race.

On the plus side, many of the moderate Arab governments were

willing to offer AM and FM frequencies and digital satellite frequencies which would be necessary to create a state-of-the-art

broadcasting system. I felt that, by using proven American broadcasting techniques that have been effective wherever they have

been used throughout the world, the opportunity existed to create

a service that would attract the largest possible audience and ultimately deliver that audience to our message of public diplomacy.

What techniques am I talking about? Using radio in the way it

is most effective in today’s media environment. Radio is a medium

of formats—music, news, sports, talk, et cetera—designed to reach

a particular audience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a consistent style that connects with our listeners.

In the case of MERN, which we call Radio Sawa, the Arabic word

for ‘‘together,’’ the format we have chosen is targeted at listeners

30 and under, representing well over 60 percent of the region’s population. Sawa is music-driven, with 5 and 10-minute newscasts

twice every hour, 24 hours day.

But rather than describing to you in words what Sawa is, let me

play for you an English-language condensed version of what a 1⁄2-

hour of our Arabic programming sounds like. It runs about 31⁄2

minutes, so you will not hear any full music tracks, and you will

not hear any full newscasts, but it will give you a quick idea of

what this programming sounds like.

The CHAIRMAN. Before you play that, I want to point out that I

was so impressed with this disk that I made sure I requested that

Norm make it available to every Member of the U.S. Senate, every

Member of the House, and I hope, if any staff is listening, if you

have gotten it, make sure your boss just takes 5 minutes to listen

to it, play it for your boss, because I am telling you, it is—well, you

will hear.

Mr. PATTIZ. Well, this, as I say, is a condensed version of the 12-

minute version that you are talking about, so we are trying to give

15

you an example of what it sounds like within the parameters of the

time that I have to speak, so if you would play that, please.

[A CD was played.]

Mr. PATTIZ. What you just heard is a combination of proven commercial know-how and modern broadcasting techniques, heavily researched, so we know before we ever play our first song or broadcast our first feature or news program who our audience is, what

they like to hear, what type of news presentation features and production values appeal to them. We also take into consideration

what is already available in the marketplace, and what has the

best chance of delivering the largest possible target audience to

hear our message. We call it ‘‘marrying the mission to the market,’’ and it is working.

We are now broadcasting on FM stations in Amman, reaching

Jordan, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, in FM in Kuwait, Abu

Dhabi and Dubai, we are on medium wave or AM out of Kuwait

covering Iraq, as well as in Rhodes and, soon, Cyprus, which will

cover Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, plus FM is coming online within

the next couple of weeks in Bahrain and Qatar. We are on threedigital audio satellite transmissions similar to our own DirecTV,

with audio channels including Nilesat, Arabsat, and Eutelsat

Hotbird.

As you know by the impact of Al Jazeera and other TV services,

there are millions of satellite dishes throughout the region, and

now our message can be received on them. This is just the beginning. We will be expanding our reach on FMs and AMs in the coming months, but the anecdotal information that we are receiving on

the impact of Sawa since its March 23 launch has been nothing

less than amazing. Let me give you some examples from our own

embassies and bureaus throughout the region.

From our bureau chief in Amman, who was formerly the director

of our Arabic Service, the VOA Arabic Service: ‘‘It is time for me

to say it. MERN leadership has been able to accomplish in the span

of a few months what two generations of VOA broadcasters have

failed to accomplish in more than 50 years. All indications are that

Radio Sawa is the most popular FM station in Jordan. Congratulations. I am proud to be a member of the MERN team.’’ And our

Ambassador in Jordan proclaimed; ‘‘MERN is an instant hit among

Jordan’s young.’’

But it is not just insiders who are taking notice. Joshua

Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute writes that MERN

is, ‘‘good news, because it promises to repair many of the defects

of our current operation.’’ And the New Republic’s Lawrence

Kaplan calls Radio Sawa ‘‘a sober and effective public diplomacy

initiative.’’

From our listeners, some of which you heard when Senator Boxer

read a couple of those e-mails, we have received literally thousands

of overwhelmingly positive e-mails, some of which are in packets

that we have prepared for you. Dan Rather told us he heard Radio

Sawa in an outdoor cafe in Amman. Tom Brokaw’s producer told

us that Tom listened to Sawa on his trip to the region.

We are planning on doing full-out extensive audience research

and measurement before we move into our state-of-the-art broadcast center in Dubai Media City. Our network will then be broadVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
16

casting in five targeted programming streams directed at specific

areas within the region in the colloquial dialects.

Mr. Chairman, when you and others on the committee asked,

after the events of 9/11, what are we doing to combat hatred and

anti-Americanism in the Middle East, we said, we are going to

launch a unique new network, unlike anything else you have heard

in U.S. international broadcasting, designed to attract the largest

possible audience, and this is it. The Middle East Radio Network

is like a wedding cake to which we are constantly adding layers.

Today, we are broadcasting music and news twice an hour, in 5

and 15-minute blocks, 24-hours-a-day, every day we are providing

coverage of major events like President Bush’s speech on April 4

on the Middle East from start to finish in Arabic, plus complete

coverage of Secretary of State Powell’s recent trip to the region

with the kind of immediacy that was rarely possible to us in the

past.

When President Bush, in his October 2001 speech to the Nation

after the tragic events of 9/11, asked, in so many words, why do

they hate us, I believe one answer is because they do not know us.

All they hear about America and Americans is what comes from

sources that are invested in not presenting a truthful picture of the

United States to the world. Radio Sawa is the first step in presenting our policies, our people, accurately from our own lips. Soon,

we will be broadcasting programs on policy, editorials, questions of

the day, and reviews and critiques of Arab press reports. We will

try to pinpoint and refute misinformation of state-controlled media,

and down the line we are looking at more interactive programming

on health, science, education, and other topical issues.

So when the taxpayers ask, what is the United States doing to

reach the Middle East and hopefully decrease regional tensions, we

can say, building a Middle East Radio Network. MERN is a prototype of the international broadcasting of the future and, as a cornerstone of public diplomacy, U.S. international broadcasting and

MERN are a formidable means of getting America’s message across

to the Islamic world and elsewhere.

I very much appreciate your time and would be happy to answer

any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pattiz follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN J. PATTIZ, GOVERNOR, BROADCASTING

BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I’m Norm Pattiz

of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

On behalf of the BBG, I want to thank you very much for having me here to talk

about U.S. international broadcasting and specifically our new Middle East Radio

Network, which is fast becoming a key part of the U.S. public diplomacy effort in

this turbulent region. I also want to thank you for giving us the resources to accomplish our mission, which is, quite simply, to promote freedom and democracy

through the dissemination of accurate, reliable and credible news and information

about America and the world to audiences overseas.

When I’m not working for the BBG, I’m the Chairman of Westwood One, America’s largest radio network. Westwood One owns, manages or distributes the NBC

Radio Network, CBS Radio Network, CNN Radio News and Fox Radio News. We

supply over 7,500 U.S. radio stations with not only news, but sports, entertainment,

talk radio and informational programming.

When I was appointed to the BBG in November of 2000, I was the only radio

broadcaster on the Board. Chairman Marc Nathanson asked me to serve as the CoChair of the Language Service Review Committee, which manages the CongressionVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
17

ally mandated process of determining, on an annual basis, how effectively our resources are being deployed across the over 60 languages that we broadcast worldwide. I quickly noticed that our efforts in the Middle East were almost totally ineffective. We were broadcasting seven hours a day of Arabic language programming

in a one-size-fits-all approach to the entire region on shortwave and a very weak

medium wave signal from Rhodes. Over 98 percent of the audience of the region had

never listened to the Voice of America.

After reporting this back to the Board, I was asked to serve as the Chairman of

the Middle East Committee. Shortly thereafter I visited the region to determine

what possibilities existed for building a 21st Century Arabic language broadcast operation. During the trip I learned a number of things. First of all, there’s a media

war going on and the weapons of that war include disinformation, incitement to violence, hate radio, Government censorship and journalistic self-censorship, and the

United States didn’t have a horse in this race.

On the plus side, many moderate Arab governments were willing to offer FM and

AM frequencies and digital audio transmission, which would be necessary to create

a state-of-the-art distribution system. I felt that by using proven American broadcasting techniques that have been successful all over the world, the opportunity existed to create a radio service that would attract the largest possible audience and,

ultimately, deliver that audience for our public diplomacy mission. What techniques

am I talking about? Using radio the way it is most effective in today’s media environment. Radio today is a medium of formats—music, news, sports, talk, etc.—designed to reach a particular audience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a consistent style that connects with its listeners. In the case of MERN, which we call

Radio Sawa—the Arabic word for ‘‘together’’—the format we’ve chosen is targeted

at listeners 30 and under, representing well over 60 percent of the region’s population, which is music-driven with 5 and 10 minute newscasts every hour, 24 hours

a day.

Radio Sawa is an example of combining proven commercial knowhow and modern

broadcasting techniques, heavily researched so we know, well before we ever play

our first song or broadcast our first feature or news program, who our audience is;

what they like to hear; what type of news presentations, features and production

values appeal to them. We also take into consideration what is already available in

the marketplace and what has the best chance of delivering the largest possible target audience to hear our message, We call this marrying the mission to the market,

and it’s working.

We are now broadcasting on FM stations in Amman, reaching Jordan, the West

Bank and Jerusalem, and FMs in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. We’re on Medium

Wave out of Kuwait, covering Iraq, Rhodes and soon Cyprus to Egypt, Lebanon and

Syria. We are on 3 digital audio satellite transmissions, similar to our own DirecTV

with audio channels, including Nilesat, Arabsat and Eutelsat. As you know by the

impact of Al Jazeera and other satellite TV services, there are millions of satellite

dishes throughout the region and now our message can be received on them.

This is just the beginning. We will be expanding our reach on FMs and AMs in

the coming months, but the anecdotal information that we are receiving on the impact of Radio Sawa, since it’s March 23rd launch, has been nothing less than amazing. Let me give you some examples from some of our own Embassies and Bureaus

in the region:

From our Bureau Chief in Amman:

It is time for me to say it: The MERN leadership has been able to accomplish in a span of a few months what two generations of VOA Arabic broadcasters have failed to accomplish in more than fifty years. All indications

show that Radio Sawa is the most popular FM station in Jordan. Congratulations . . . I am proud to be part of the MERN team.

Best regards.

Mahmoud Zawawi

And our Ambassador in Jordan proclaimed MERN an ‘‘instant hit among Jordan’s

young.’’ But it’s not just insiders who are taking notice. Joshua Muravchik of the

American Enterprise Institute writes that MERN is, ‘‘good news,’’ because it ‘‘promises to repair many of the defects of our current operation.’’ And the New Republic’s

Lawrence Kaplan calls Radio Sawa a ‘‘sober and effective public diplomacy initiative.’’

From our listeners we have received literally thousands of overwhelmingly positive e-mails, some of which are in the packets that we have prepared for you. Dan

Rather told us he heard Radio Sawa in an outdoor cafe in Amman. Tom Brokaw’s

producer told us that Tom listened to Sawa on his trip to the region.

18

We are planning on doing full-out extensive audience research and measurement

before we move into our state-of-the-art broadcast center in Dubai Media Center.

Our network will be broadcast in five targeted programming streams in local dialects, directed at specific areas in the region.

Mr. Chairman, when you and others on the Committee asked, after the events

of 9/11, what are you going to do to combat hatred and anti-Americanism in the

Middle East, we said we were going to launch a unique, new radio network, unlike

anything you’ve heard from U.S. international broadcasting, designed to attract the

largest possible audience—and this is it. The Middle East Radio Network is like a

wedding cake to which we are constantly adding layers. Today we are broadcasting

music with news twice an hour, in 5 and 10 minute blocks, 24 hours a day, every

day, plus coverage of major events like President Bush’s April 4th speech on the

Middle East from start to finish, in Arabic, plus complete coverage of Secretary of

State Powell’s recent trip to the region, with a kind of immediacy rarely possible

in the past.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, when President Bush, in his October 2001 speech to the Nation, after the tragic events of 9/11, asked in so many

words why do they hate us, I believe the answer is because they don’t know us. All

they hear about America and Americans comes from sources that are invested in

not presenting a truthful picture of the United States—and the world. Radio Sawa

is the first step, presenting our people and policies accurately from our own lips.

In the not too distant future, we’ll begin broadcasting policy programs, editorials,

questions of the day and reviews and critiques of Arab press reports. We’ll try to

pinpoint—and refute—misinformation in the state-controlled media. And down the

line, we’re looking at more interactive programs that feature health, science, education and other topical issues.

So when taxpayers ask what is the United States doing to reach people in the

Middle East, and to, hopefully, decrease regional tensions, we can say: Building a

Middle East Radio Network. The BBG’s FY 2003 budget request includes funding

for the second year costs of the network.

We appreciate the support we’ve received from Congress in getting the Middle

East Radio Network up and running, and in funding surge broadcasts in times of

crisis. We look forward to working closely with you in the future as we, through our

broadcasts, talk directly to people around the world about who America is, and for

what it stands.

MERN is a prototype of the international broadcasting of the future. And as a cornerstone of public diplomacy, U. S. international broadcasting—and MERN—are formidable means of getting America’s message to the Islamic world and elsewhere.

I appreciate your time and I’d be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. I am delighted that the

press got to hear that very truncated example of the format of

Sawa, and I recall when I met with you privately about this you,

paraphrasing, basically made the point, you have got to get them

to like listening to the station. You have got to make it popular if

they are going to listen to the news, and I am assuming that this

is going to do something more than promote Britney Spears’

records in Amman.

One of the things that did surprise me, and I am embarrassed

to say this, but I suspect I am not unique among Americans, or

even American Senators, and that is how popular rock stars are,

including indigenous rock stars, in the countries that we are trying

to have our voice heard, and you gave me an example.

I wish you would repeat it, because I do not want to get it wrong.

Even before you got Sawa up and running there was an Egyptian,

I believe you said, and maybe a Jordanian rock star that were performing in Los Angeles. They were on tour, and you indicated to

me you had the idea of being able to go send your folks over to

interview them and then replay what they had to say about America in their words back in Egypt and in Jordan. Would you mind

repeating that very truncated version again of that story for the

folks here?

19

Mr. PATTIZ. Sure, absolutely. There were two Arab artists who

were touring the United States, Hakkim and Khaled, and we not

only interviewed them and the Arabic-speaking people in the audience who were at the performance in Los Angeles, we recorded the

entire concert, so that we will be able to take that concert that was

performed in Los Angeles and broadcast it back to the region with

comments from Hakkim and Khaled and many of the people who

attended the concert about their impressions of America—in the

case of the artist, what it is like to tour America, what the difference in the audiences between Los Angeles and New York might

be like—to really create, if you will, a cultural exchange on the

radio.

And of course, knowing the importance of music artists to a

music-driven format, music is a tool to attract an audience. We are

very, very conscious of what our mission is, but the music attracts

the 30-and-under, and specifically 25-and-under audience that we

are really going after. So what we are doing right now in the region

in our bureaus is having music personalities and stars doing liners

and promos—you are listening to radio Sawa, this is whomever— to really connect with our audience. Because the first thing we

have to do, of course, as you said before, Senator, we have got to

get them to listen to us, and we have got to get them to like us,

and on this level I think we are succeeding.

The CHAIRMAN. One of the things you had indicated to me is that

you were not surprised, but that others were surprised at—your

interviewer asked these Egyptian and Jordanian rock stars what

their impressions of America were, and they did what Secretary

Beers had said in another context, is that they were saying things

like, I was told they were not going to like us, and people would

look at us funny, and that people didn’t like Muslims, and you

know, I went to a mosque and there are people here, et cetera. Am

I accurately portraying——

Mr. PATTIZ. Absolutely, because I think it is really important to

be able to use stars from the region to talk about their positive experiences about the United States and America and Americans and

broadcast those back into the region. It is a very important tool.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, I will ask one last question and yield here.

I have so many, but others do as well. One of the things that is

being discussed, and is being discussed among us, Senator Lugar

and others have a piece of legislation on this, I have a piece, the

House has passed a piece of legislation relating to public diplomacy, and one of the things we are going to get into fairly quickly

will be in effect my words, not either of yours, the next stage, what

do we do with that other medium, television, and do we attempt

to compete there, and I may be mistaken, but based on your written testimony I think there may be a slight difference in your

views about that. I do not know that for certain.

Now, Madam Secretary, in your statement you say, and I quote, ‘‘television is the medium of today and the future, as is evident in

the growth and influence of Middle East television satellites and

regular television broadcasting. Existing channels are hungry for

programming, and we need to direct resources to production, acquisition, and distribution of compelling quality programs. I am hesitant to endorse the concept of a greatly expanded direct broadVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
20

casting capacity without a great deal more research on how best to

approach it as this market has done. This is particularly true given

the experience of the BBC’s expensive experiment with Arabic TV

broadcasting.’’ And Norm, you had indicated to me, and I cannot find the statement now, but you had indicated to me personally that you thought

this held a great deal of promise, and that it is a place we should

be moving, as I understood you, more rapidly than it appears,

Madam Secretary, you think we should. Can you explain—and that

will be my last question—explain more about the experience of the

BBC and how you think we should proceed, and then you, Mr.

Pattiz, and then I will yield to Senator Lugar.

Ms. BEERS. Well, I think that the message from the attempt of

BBC to do a successful Arabic television channel is simply that it

is very difficult to pull off well, and even VOA’s television efforts

have sometimes been less than productive, so it is a big boy’s game,

and we already have very aggressive and a widespread satellite television in very good band positions with the four top Arab networks. However, I do agree that television is extremely intrusive,

and a very important and growing, actually, medium in this crucial

part of the world.

I also agree with the initiatives, the 9/11 initiatives that talk

about spreading the word and getting it out. The model on the

MERN is very impressive. I mean, Norm has followed all of the sophisticated techniques we use in marketing and modern communication to make this launch of MERN a significant success, but for

me it comes down to allocation of resources and I am really concerned about all of the work we do in the State Department that

has to do with long term transformation exchanges as well as getting the word out and getting the word back in, and so I refer to

those programs with which we have had great success, and I just

want to be sure that we can support these and magnify them.

So to me, it is the tension—no one here is surprised about the

budget and how we allocate resources.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is a logical concern, because if you

look back—and I will not bore the committee with it now, but if

you look back at the total amount of money we spent on public diplomacy 15 years ago, it is more than we are spending now.

Ms. BEERS. And we have many more countries and fewer people,

and the dilution of resources is a shocking issue.

The CHAIRMAN. I for one parenthetically think we are going to

have to significantly increase the resources we devote to this. I

think we have our priorities wrong, but at any rate, Norm, would

you respond to the television piece?

Mr. PATTIZ. Yes, I would be happy to. First, let me say that if

it turns out to be the will of the Congress or the administration

and all the powers that be that the Broadcasting Board of Governors initiate a satellite Arabic language television station in the

region, I can assure you that it will be a first class operation. Radio

and television do different things. MERN is designed to focus on

a target audience that really is not the primary television listener,

the 25-and-under adult, basically probably between 15 and 25, and

engage them in a way that reaches them where they live on the

radio. As I said, radio is a medium of formats.

21

Television is a medium of programs. Radio says a lot about who

its listeners are. I dare say if I stepped into any one of your vehicles and took a look at the settings on the radio, the buttons that

you have preset, that I could tell a lot about who you are just by

taking a look at those settings. It is like walking into somebody’s

house and looking at the magazines that are on the coffee table.

If there is a magazine about tennis, you can be pretty sure that is

probably one of their key interests. That is what radio is.

Television is completely different. People are not loyal to a television network or a television station. They watch programs, and

they turn the dial all the time, which gives us the opportunity to

be more hard-hitting in our approach. If we wind up saying things

that are hard-hitting on a television program it is probably not

going to turn the audience off from watching that channel or keep

them from going back to programming that they like to watch, and

quite coincidentally going back to the controversial programming

as well.

The BBC example is a good example of a situation that did not

work. But let me tell you why it did not work, which I think bodes

well for the way we would do it. The reason that it did not work

was, it was a co-venture with Orbit, a satellite company that is basically a Saudi company, where the BBC was providing programming and Orbit was putting up the money and the distribution.

Well, for an operation like the BBC, who needs to have its own editorial integrity, that kind of a situation I think was doomed to failure, because they started putting programming on that service

which was objectionable to the Saudi Government and the service

went away.

What we are talking about doing is putting up our own satellite

channel so that what we put on that satellite channel we program

from start to finish, whether it is 18 hours a day, or 24 hours a

day. What we really do in television right now is, we are a syndication company. We produce a program, and then we go to local providers and ask them to carry that program.

Well, believe me, the hard-hitting stuff is never going to see the

light of day on local media. They are not going to carry it. And we

can’t control the other things that they put on the air. We have the

example of the Secretary of State having his comments aired on Al

Jazeera, immediately followed by people who tear apart everything

he just said.

We need to control what the programming is before the program

and after the program. In television there is a concept called audience flow. Even though television is a medium of programs that are

not necessarily the same from hour to hour, television tries to appeal to a particular audience and then carry that audience through

to the next program.

For instance, you start on the morning show—and believe me,

this is right off the top of my head—if we were going to do something, it might be likely that we start with a morning show, followed by a CNN or Fox type news programming period going into

the midday, where you might want to go to more entertainmentoriented programming that was more family oriented, because

there are kids and mothers and people around in that time period,

moving back into in the late afternoon and early evening with more

22

hard-hitting traditional news type programming, and following up

with entertainment programming after that.

Let me just say this, in conclusion—— The CHAIRMAN. That is all right. This is very important. Do not

worry about your time.

Mr. PATTIZ. If we were going to do a project like this, if we were

given the go-ahead to do a project like this, rest assured that it

would be completely researched the same way we did MERN, extensively researched, so we knew who we were talking to and what

our chances for success were program by program. We would put

together a blue ribbon panel of advisors, many of whom I have informally talked with about this already, including the heads of

major communications companies and movie studios who I believe

would be very helpful, at least in terms of the entertainment programming in providing programming for us in a way that would

show their patriotism. Let me also say that in the House bill I

think there is $135 million in that bill for new broadcasting initiatives, about $65 million of which is for an Arabic satellite TV channel.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much. There is a vote on. I am

going to yield to you, Senator Lugar, now, as I should anyway, and

I am going to go vote, and maybe we can continue to keep this

going. Thank you.

Senator LUGAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Pattiz, I think the statement that you just made, your description, really, of the skill of American broadcasters and television broadcasters is tremendously important. I hope it is not inappropriate, I would suggest that C–SPAN cover this and make life

easier for us so that there is a constituency in our own country that

understands the genius of American broadcasting and how things

happen, how they are put together, and why the plan you have

suggested has I think every hope of being a much better one than

past efforts.

My first question, and I will try to encapsulate all of them so

that both of you can comment on them. I am just intrigued by how

much development there has been in the methodology of polling, or

of marketing surveys or whatever you want to call them in these

countries.

Clearly, if you are able to gain data, it is important it is used

to make certain that the radio or the television efforts are successful. The acquisition of data and information to guide our efforts is

extremely important. An understanding of the attitudes and perceptions the world has toward our country, our values, our policies

is extremely important. The purpose of our public diplomacy must

be to make certain not only that we have listenership and in fact

people are paying some attention, but in the course of time that we

are engaging ideas.

Now, likewise, the other side of the coin is what kind of public

diplomacy responsibility we have to bring some support of independent media that arise, indigenous media from these countries,

that is important, too. In addition to our ambitious, sometimes

even aggressive efforts in public diplomacy, we must also be mindful that the freedom of expression must really come from the heart

of these countries, and that is a more delicate operation.

23

Now, the National Endowment for Democracy supports independent media with modest grants to various entities. That was

true throughout the cold war in Eastern Europe and Southeast

Asia, but these have been very, very modest and are often in danger of obliteration by congressional lack of appropriation. I am curious as to how we can coordinate both of these situations. That is,

to find out really what people are thinking so that we are successful in our broadcasting and overall objectives and how we can help

develop independent media in those countries.

And finally, who will be in charge of it? Does this come with

Under Secretary Beers, or with the Broadcasting Board of Governors or with the State Department, USAID? In other words, I am

not certain I have been able to trace what I think is sometimes described as a fragmented authority. Can you respond to any of that?

I would like to hear from both of you, if I might.

Mr. PATTIZ. Let me respond to the last question first. In terms

of who would be in charge, I think this is clearly a job for the

Broadcasting Board of Governors, and I think one of the primary

reasons that the Broadcasting Board of Governors exists and is effective is because Congress in its wisdom created the Broadcasting

Board of Governors to serve as a firewall between the independence of its journalists and the pressures that would come from outside influences, maybe places like this, or the State Department, or

the administration, what-have-you. If we do not have credibility,

we are lost, especially in a region where you have to do a real Kabuki dance to get the information across and get them to listen.

I always loved what Secretary Beers said when she said, ‘‘it is

not what you say, it is what they hear.’’ So if we were to go out

and do something, and this were to be under the purview of a government agency other than the BBG, I would be concerned about

being able to protect the independence of our journalists.

On the research question, there are places where we can do very

sophisticated research and there are places where we can do nothing more than anecdotal research. In the places where we can do

sophisticated research, which is a large part of the Middle East, we

utilize Western research companies. In our case, we go out and find

companies that do research for radio and television, the kinds of

things we are interested in putting on the air. They put together

the methodology and subcontract with local research entities in the

region who actually go out and conduct the surveys.

Does it tell us anything about local attitudes? Absolutely, it does.

The first question we asked in our research for Radio Sawa was,

‘‘Would you listen to a radio station that was brought to you by the

United States of America?’’ Forty percent of the people we interviewed said no, but that means 60 percent said yes, and my personal feeling was that of that 40 percent who said no, probably half

of them were going to listen to it anyway but did not want to say

it to an interviewer.

So we also know that, although there is a clear lack of support

for U.S. policies in the Middle East, American values of democracy

and freedom of choice and self-expression definitely resonate with

the Arab street, so that kind of information is very much available.

I can go on and talk about the indigenous media if you like, but

maybe Charlotte would like to comment.

24

Senator LUGAR. Let me ask quickly, do we have enough people

involved in this who understand the languages, the idioms, and

what-have-you? You mentioned you have five dialects on one of

your radio programs, but the thing we heard today, does this appear in many languages so that essentially people would understand what you had to say?

Mr. PATTIZ. Absolutely. The service, Radio Sawa, is an Arabic

service, but there is the Arabic that is spoken in the gulf, there is

the Arabic that is spoken in Iraq, there is the Arabic that is spoken

in Egypt, which is a more classical style. One of the reasons why

we want to have five directed programming streams is, since radio

is such a personal medium and relates so directly to the listening

audience, it is very important that they are listening to someone

who is speaking to them in their own language with their own idioms.

We have a very talented news director who we have hired, a gentleman by the name of Mouafac Harb, who was formerly the Washington bureau chief for Al Hayat, managed the Lebanese radio and

television network, and was the Middle East correspondent for

Newsweek. He is very talented, is an Arab-American, who understands the dialects, and we have been able to surround him with

a team of professionals who understand exactly what you are talking about.

Senator LUGAR. Secretary Beers.

Ms. BEERS. I think your question about research is very insightful, because I just noticed a new poll recently that said how much

Muslim youth like America, in complete contrast to what we have

been hearing, so how you ask the question is, in fact, an art form.

We just prepared some messages that are like minidocumentaries

on Muslim life in America as a way of opening the door to a dialog

on faith. If we went out and said, look how faithful we are, we

would not have any listeners, so we talk about this amazing story

of Muslim life in our country as a way of opening the door.

These documentaries will run in Middle East television satellite

stations, and we have a media program ready to go. Importantly,

though, we use those messages as a stimulus to do consumer research, which is not typically done in any of our organizations.

That is why Norm and I like to share the research we get in, and

one of the things we learned is how to talk about it. For example,

in every case they came back and said, show us pictures of our people in the company of other Americans. Well, we did not have that

in the visuals. It is a very important indicator of self-esteem. Am

I part of the group? Are you accepting me?

So every time we do these pieces of research we come back with

a data bank we are collecting on what causes the attitude? Can you

get past the policy issues into long-term attitudes? We just feel

that a news study in all the Muslim countries, it is much more ambitious in terms of asking about attitudes and feelings. If we cannot pull out the feelings we really cannot properly address the programs.

The interesting thing was, people predicted that they would not

like to see all of these overt messages from the United States and

the general response back was, tell me more, and then we learned

we have to do this research from Indonesia, where we started some

25

of the studies in Jakarta. In each case we learned how much emphasis to put on faith. We are doing a soccer player, we are doing

a TV documentary on the Egyptian Nobel Prize-winner, we are

doing Iman and his family, and we have all of these fantastic crosspopulations in the United States.

The same thing in a way is what we find about independent

media. I find when the media becomes freer and more independent

we are much closer to being able to describe the process of law, the

rule of law, the democracy. We just saw something amazing happen in Kosovo, which is just beginning to have a lot of media that

is free to experiment. They did their own series on rule of law and

democratic process, but that can be deadly dull.

In fact, they brought in local actors, they produced something

like a soap opera within the embassy and their people and the local

actors, so that you could not only see and hear what the process

is about, but because of the independent media—this was a small

television station. Its success was so clear that the big, state-owned

media people bought the program, so it is not just independent

media, it is training them, giving them program content, and

teaching them how to do something that attracts the audience.

The last thing was about who is in charge. I think the structure

we now have at the State Department is clearly responsible for any

and every articulation of editorial policy, and as a member of the

board of BBG I get to wear both those hats, and it is very constructive. I think our collaboration is first-rate. I know we have all

worked on it, importantly, but for example, Radio Sawa now has

its next obstacle path, which I think I am very comfortable with

the approach in this of producing editorials and more U.S. advocacy

in such a way that these audiences can hear it, as opposed to turn

away in distrust and cynicism.

Senator LUGAR. Let me intervene at this point, because I am advised there is a minute-and-a-half left in the first vote, and Senator

Dodd and I will want to vote and return. We are going to have another vote immediately following this one, so the chairman has

asked that I temporarily recess the hearing.

Senator DODD. Before you do that, and I will recess it for you,

but I just wanted to commend both of you here for this effort. I

hope people hear what you had to say. I talked to Charlotte I think

a couple of months ago when the former Ambassador from Pakistan called me with the suggestion of doing this, and that is inviting some of the very people who are most talented in producing

and putting together programming, to invite them, and it is not

new. You go back and look at the era of Franklin Roosevelt, what

he did with Bill Paley and CBS in Latin America, what he did with

the Disney companies.

There are plenty of historical examples historically where people

understood symbols in programming to be able to have some influence on the younger generation, so it is very exciting to have you

here. I regret I cannot come back after this to hear more of the testimony, but I thank both of you, and really I like the idea of putting up our own satellite. I have got to tell you, I think that is the

only way you are going to guarantee that we have some real influence in penetrating these markets. In the absence of doing that, I

26

think it is going to be very difficult in a lot of ways. The money

goes down the drain.

So I like that concept you are working on, and the invitation of

independent production companies even in this country to be able

to have access to these markets is a way also of having some influence, and so with that, we thank both of you, and I apologize again.

We will stand in recess until the chairman comes back.

[Recess.]

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come back to order. I thank the

panel and the other witnesses for their patience. As Senator Hagel

just said, we just had a minor vote on raising the debt limit so we

would not default for the first time since Hamilton on the debt. It

was a very painful exercise to watch some of my colleagues do this.

I am already in the tank anyway, so I have been voting responsibly

for 30 years, but not popularly on that issue, but at any rate, so

we may have a chance to get you more money because we may actually pay our debts.

But all kidding aside, Senator Hagel.

Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I am grateful, as we

all are, for your time this morning and preparation, and most of

all what you do for our country, especially at this historic, challenging time in the world. I wanted to go back to a couple of points

that you each made, and Norm, I would start with you. We have

had some opportunities to visit previously about what you are

doing, and I have not had an opportunity to hear the update which

you have provided this morning, which is most encouraging, and it

is about what you had framed and defined when we last met as to

what your objectives were and your intentions, and so I congratulate you and your colleagues, and even though you have a heavy

burden to carry, and Tom Korologos, nonetheless you have managed to do well, so please extend our congratulations to your colleagues, your team for the job they have done.

And Secretary Beers, we will talk in just a minute here, but I

wanted to ask one question of you, Norm. In your conversations

with us this morning, you recited your observations after the trip

that you took and you documented that, and you talked about the

media war that was going on. Would you define in a little more detail the competition that is out there? What are we facing here?

You mentioned it in general terms, but define it a little more

clearly. What is it that we are up against as far as—we understand

Secretary Beers approach, some of this as well, but the kind of resources and the technologies and the sophistication of the other

side of this that you are having to deal with, not just the underlying philosophy, but the assets on the other side?

Mr. PATTIZ. Sure. I have to say I just recently returned from a

trip to the region, where I spent a good deal of time in the gulf in

places like Doha and Manama in Bahrain, and also in Dubai, and

I had never spent that kind of time in the region. I had only been

in Doha before that, and I was very much impressed with what I

saw. Doha is, of course, the home of Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is the

Arab satellite station that is most well-known by Americans, most

likely because of the joint agreements that it has had with CNN

and others over here.

27

But Al Jazeera is not the most-listened-to satellite TV service or

media outlet in the region. There are significantly larger outlets,

and what you have throughout the region is very sophisticated

technology. When I went to Abu Dhabi and saw that, it is like Emerald City. I mean, it is like a brand-new city. People who think

that is like walking through Amman or Cairo, forget it. The things

they have, and the new media center and high technology centers

they are building in those regions are incredible. We are going to

locate our Middle East Broadcast Center in the Media City in

Dubai, and there are a whole lot of other international broadcasters that are doing the same thing.

So they have the resources, and they definitely have the support

of their governments, because in the case of a place like Qatar, for

instance, Al Jazeera has really put them on the map. Without Al

Jazeera most people would not know how to pronounce it, how to

spell it, anything about it.

Al Jazeera, positioned itself as the Arab CNN. It is not. It is kind

of, CNN meets Jerry Springer. You know, they have news presentation which is CNN-style, and then they have talk shows that are

inflammatory and inciteful and what have you, and that is not

unique. That kind of programming exists throughout the region.

The CHAIRMAN. It exists here in the United States.

Mr. PATTIZ. But that is somebody else’s problem right now, and

I do not want to talk about that, because some of that might be

mine.

But anyway, to be serious, there are tremendous resources available, and there are multiple media channels available, and when

you get down to it, there are some radio stations, some of them

that are licensed and some of them that are not licensed, clandestine radio stations that literally preach hate 24 hours a day, and

part of that has to do with us and what we stand for and what we

believe in.

So it is an incredibly challenging area, but I have to say that we

received very good cooperation from some of the moderate Arab

governments. I believe that it was a fairly—well, it was a pretty

easy way to show support after 9/11 for our war on terrorism for

some of our Arab friends, when some other activities we might

have requested would have been a little more difficult.

Senator HAGEL. Thanks, Norm.

Ms. BEERS. I want to comment on that before we leave it. These

organizations are always at the State Department looking for interviews and creating a dialog, and Chris Ross, my deputy and I, meet

with them, and they are undergoing the same kind of budget

crunch and profit issues that many organizations will go through,

especially television, and I think their number one problem coming

up is going to be programming. Like, the audience participation

and interest in Al Jazeera drops dramatically every time they lose

a bin Laden tape.

You also have to remember, some of their programming is actually helpful to us. For example, that last tape, which we did not

honor with a lot of response and dialog, included the confession of

one of the 19 hijackers. It had a profound effect on the media newspaper journalists in that area, because they no longer attempted

any more to say that this was not bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which

28

they actually could hitch onto for a while, and so we have got to

deal with the fact that they can be uneven in their coverage and

sometimes positive.

And the other thing that is left out of this discussion is what

could happen if we help support independent news facilities at the

time that the government might show an opening or a welcoming

to that, as we just discussed for Kosovo and the power of that independent medium, and those are variables in the mix.

Mr. PATTIZ. If I can give you one concrete example, since our tech

is sitting over there, what I would like to do, and this is very quick.

I do not even think it is 30 seconds of material. Let me play you

a lead-in to one of our newscasts in Arabic, and then I will translate what comes right after that in English so that you can hear

the kind of information we are putting out. Story is about an Arabic newspaper that is reacting to Radio Sawa. Can you just hit

that?

[A CD was played.]

Mr. PATTIZ. Now, I listen to this every day, and there are a number of stories that are going on, but I want to read you one of the

things it is reporting on, because it comes out of the Arab press,

as a matter of fact. It says, the danger of——

The CHAIRMAN. Are you reading to us what we just heard in Arabic?

Mr. PATTIZ. I’m reading to you a commentary in the indigenous

press about that broadcast. ‘‘The danger, of course, is not in the

music, it is in the news that usually begins with a moderate, neutral tone that shifts gradually toward the terminology that serves

the United States’ interest in the area.’’

Radio Sawa’s Web site refers to a long-term U.S. interest. Longterm means slow osmosis of terminology from one generation to another. This technology does not serve our national interest, and

does not reflect our views of things. In the midst of the Church of

Nativity crisis, I used to hear phrases on Radio Sawa referring to

armed Palestinians trapped inside the church. This is not correct.

In truth, Israelis were the ones who were armed on the outside,

where the ones on the inside were unarmed.

Radio Sawa uses phrases like, parties to the Middle East conflict.

This is a very dangerous phrase that transforms the Zionist occupation of Palestinian lands to a broader conflict between two neighboring countries and, by default, denies the Arab cause and right

to retain the holy shrines important to Muslims.

This is the kind of stuff that goes on in the indigenous press that

we attempt to debunk in news reports that we put on the air pointing out the inaccuracies of many of those things, and I think that

relates directly to your question.

Senator HAGEL. It does, and I appreciate it, and it is helpful to

give us, as I said earlier, some definition of what generally you

were referring to.

Secretary Beers, may I ask you a question? Before I do, let me

express my gratitude to you and to your team as well for the work

you are doing. You said something to the effect, and I guess you

asked it in a rhetorical question type way, what about those under

20. I think that is the essence of everything we are about, or

should be about.

29

The military option is but one part of this war, an important one,

but only one part of it. Where you are focused and concentrated is

absolutely critical for the future of this country, the future of the

world, and I do not think I overstate that, and I am a strong supporter of what you are doing here.

Something else you talked about, common denominator values,

love of family and faith, we need to do a far better job of connecting

that, and that is what you of course are doing, and Norm and others, and we will work, as the chairman said here, to provide the

kind of resources you need, but you should know that you have a

lot of support up here, and that we need to go much further and

deeper and wider than we ever have here.

We are losing a war across the globe that we need not lose, we

should not lose it, and I think of Iran and the great debate we are

having in some of these areas among my colleagues up here. I

mean, here is a country of 70 million people where most of those

people were born after 1979. Now, why would we needlessly push

away an entire generation by a foolish policy, and that is why we

look to you and the educational gap and the cultural and information gap that you are trying to fill, and through what Norm is

doing and his team, it works.

So I make that statement because I suspect occasionally you both

wonder if anybody is paying attention. We are paying attention,

and we are grateful for what you are doing.

Now, let me ask a question. You mentioned in your testimony,

Madam Secretary, the point about working with the private sector,

and by the way, I think we are all pleased that we are finally being

able to bring together the talent from the private sector and the

governmental sector, the State Department, other professionals

who have been at this, along with some creative touch that the private sector brings, not that the government does not, but it is a

waste of resources when we do not do that, and this is a very good

example of how we are doing that, and we are doing it very well

and in the interests of this country.

But your point about—you say we are also working to engage the

private sector. Could you give us some examples how you are doing

that?

Ms. BEERS. Yes. I think that what is important is that none of

this effort at the moment is funded in terms of people ask, well,

if they are going to do it, why do we have to have any funding. Because of the sheer machinery of making contacts, building teams,

organizing dialog, making sure that the affinity for the embassy

and for the work that happens in the field is in sync, and it is complex, but the good news is, I am often asked to give speeches, and

I choose those that have a large number of CEO’s in the room. I

grew up with a lot of these people, and the basic response back is,

guide us, we will do this, and as you spend more time with the

multinational heads they tell you about the number of invitations

or requests they have, so part of what we have to do is coordinate

our efforts, which I think you have asked us about in the past.

The other thing we have to do is guide them somewhat by giving

them the kind of information you have been asking us about, which

is, why do they feel this way, and also what are the universal values that we can safely discuss. For instance, somebody used the

30

word, freedom, but that is one of the loaded words in terms of communicating with the Middle East and the Muslim population, so we

have to tap into our sophistication in our bureaus, and then guide

the outside world, the CEO and the multinationals.

But what is encouraging is, I had a meeting with, the head of

Johnson & Johnson who said, we have 4,000 people in the Middle

East. What shall we ask them to do? And Procter & Gamble and

Unilever and these companies make a point of hiring locals, and

they talk all the time about how their locals would ask to take

part.

Now, it is delicate, because you cannot send them out as missionaries, or ask them to be speakers on the road, but you can equip

them with, say, a wonderful discourse on the music of the United

States. You can show them—we can provide them with materials

and cultural insights, and speakers if they choose to activate them,

but the point is, they are the ones that have the resources to take

on the huge job of the very young, and that has a lot to do with

education and curriculum, and the things the State Department

and many other agencies are working on, but they have employees

and depth, and great understanding and daily dialog, and I think

we have to harness those assets.

Senator HAGEL. Well, thank you again. Mr. Chairman, thank

you.

The CHAIRMAN. I have many more questions of both of you. This

has been, and I am sure will continue to be, one of the best hearings we have had in a long while. I think the point that Senator

Hagel makes, particularly to you, Secretary Beers, you have a lot

of friends up here. You are going to have the problem of us trying

to give you more resources, and maybe your outfit will not say, we

should give you those resources.

Ms. BEERS. I have noticed that problem.

The CHAIRMAN. But all kidding aside, and we have great respect

for you, you come from the private sector, and you come from a

high-powered portion of the private sector, and it has been an

asset, and we appreciate it.

I also want the record to show that you oversee a lot more than

just what we have talked about here today. There are many other

aspects of your responsibility, including a quarter-billion a year in

direct appropriations for the Exchange Bureau, including another

$150 million for the SEED Act and a lot of other things we are

spending money on that I want to ask you about, but I am going

to submit the questions to you in writing.

I am not doing this cavalierly. I would very much like some detailed answers to these questions, because part of the legislation,

for example, that Senator Lugar has with Senator Kennedy, and I

support the notion, is this issue of, do we vastly increase our exchange programs with this area of the world? We necessarily and

successfully for 50 years made a significant investment in Eastern

Europe and Russia, and Europe generally, and I would argue it

paid off.

Dick and Chuck and I travel the world in our responsibilities.

Dick and I have been chairman or the subcommittee chairman of

Europe for years and years. I bet you 70 percent of the people who

are heads of state now, or people in positions of significant authorVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
31

ity are people who have been educated here in the United States

of America.

Ms. BEERS. One hundred fifty percent of the Worldwide Coalition

were all exchange students, and the number is much higher if you

just take down their second-level people, but one of the things that

was fascinating was the Freedom Support Act, and the fact that I

can go there and look at the capacity of the public diplomacy when

it was in a high support system, and the results are very impressive, and you can walk into a town in a new emerging democracy

and find an information center, a library, a dialog going.

The CHAIRMAN. There was a fellow named John Ritch who used

to be assistant staff director up here. I get credit for having written

the so-called SEED Act, which was followed by the Freedom Support Act. It was John Ritch’s idea, and that was the biggest thing

Dick and I fought for those centers, just having the physical capability of somebody being able to walk in.

It is kind of like what is happening now in every major corporation. They are building chat rooms—for example, there is ING,

which is a large banking system. I met with them in Delaware yesterday. They are building these chat rooms. The chat rooms are not

really chat rooms. What they do is, they have coffee shops with the

high-speed computers there where you can do banking online with

them and other things while you are sitting there having a cup of

coffee.

Well, these are very important things, and I just want you to

know, we know, and the public should know, your portfolio far extends beyond what we are talking about now, and I have a series

of questions, about a dozen, that relate to that aspect of your portfolio. I do not want you to think because we are not getting to

them, it is not because they have an equal interest and consequence here.

I would also point out, and I do not say this cavalierly, and I do

not say this because he is a personal friend, but Tom Korologos has

been involved in this for a long, long time, and had we the time

I would ask Tom to come up, but we have a long list of witnesses

to go here. Tom is one of the leading Republicans in this town, and

has been for years and years. This is not a partisan thing.

My former AA of 25 years and Tom, a guy named Ted Kauffman

and Tom have been friends for years. They both serve on the

Board. This is something that spans, and everyone should know

this, that spans the ideological divide, as we will sure see in a moment with Speaker Gingrich, who is incredibly articulate on this

subject.

So I just want you to know that I think it matters a lot. We have

a tendency to say, this is a historic hearing, and this is—you know,

we are self-important, but the truth is, I think this is one of the

most important hearings that we have had in a long time here, and

I want to particularly thank you, Norm, for doing what we have

a tendency in government not to do very well.

I always say to my staff, you have got to tell a story. You have

got to tell a story to the people back home. You cannot just give

them all the facts. You have got to tell a true story, and I know

you and I met for a long time over lunch, and you kind of looked

at me quizzically when I said, come and tell a story, play the disk,

32

connect the dots, a phrase that is becoming very popular here, but

what you did today to anybody listening to this is, they now picture

it. They now understand what they mean.

I do not have to say now to everybody as I push this, you know,

when you fly across the country and you put on the head set and

you listen to preprogrammed music, well, that is a guy named

Pattiz, and what does he do? He does things like, play the music

you like, and interview the artist, and the artists tell their story,

and you get into this whole thing. I said, that is programming.

That is what these guys and women are doing now on a much

broader scale, and people would look at me and say, I think I got

it.

But by playing that 31⁄2 minute CD, you cut through here—in my

view you cut through a layer of confusion, a fog that now, when I

go home and say, look, I want to spend more money on this—I introduced a bill that would have given you guys, and you helped

write it, about $1⁄4 billion dollars in terms of being able to—for

hard asset, and another $1⁄4 billion a year to make it run.

The President was enamored with it, and I guess at the last

minute he concluded that maybe we should go slower, and I am not

being critical. But the point is, we have got to make the public understand. This is a two-way communication. We have got to explain

to our folks back home why we are asking their very hard-earned

tax dollars to be spent on a radio station or a television station or

an exchange program with 1.2 billion, hopefully, eventually, now

much less, just focusing on the Arab portion of the Muslim world.

So I cannot thank you enough, and we are going to be calling you

back. Obviously, Charlotte, you will be back a lot. You are a critical

component here, but we are going to ask you and the Board to

come back. I have questions to you as well, in writing, on the relationship—and it is not meant to be pejorative, but the relationship

between the Board as Senator Helms and I and Senator Lugar and

others envisioned it when we did this reorganization and the State

Department. How is that working? But really and truly, what do

we do to make it better or worse? How can we help?

The last point I want to make, I want the record to show that

notwithstanding what my 21-year-old daughter might think, I do

not want to go down as a footnote in the history of this committee

as being the first chairman to bring rock and roll to the Foreign

Relations Committee. I hope I will be known for something beyond

that, but I cannot think of a time I walked out, one of the people

outside said, I have never heard rock and roll or Britney Spears

played in the Foreign Relations Committee room, so I think it is

a first.

We appreciate it very much. We look forward to having you back.

Thank you for great work, and we are going to be trying to see if

we can—that old bad joke, we are from the Federal Government,

we are here to help. We are going to try to see that you have the

assets and resources that you need. Thank you very, very much.

Mr. PATTIZ. Thank you.

Ms. BEERS. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next panel is the former Ambassador to Morocco, and executive director and CEO of Northstar Equity Group,

Hon. Marc Ginsberg, the former Speaker of the House, Newt GingVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
33

rich, Mr. David Hoffman, president of Internews from Arcata, California, and Veton Surroi, a very distinguished journalist from

Pristina, Kosovo, so we would ask all of those to come forward if

they can make it up here, and thank them for their patience.

Welcome. It is good to see you Mr. Surroi. Last time I met with

you we were in a different circumstance.

Let me suggest, notwithstanding the fact that a former Ambassador is of higher rank, where I come from no one outranks the

Speaker of the House of Representatives, so we are going to start,

with all due respect to the rest of the panel, with former Speaker

Gingrich. Mr. Speaker.

STATEMENT OF HON. NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER,

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. GINGRICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

thank you and Senator Lugar for holding a hearing on what I think

is in some ways one of the two or three most important topics

about America’s role in the world and America’s survival. I think

this is really important. I thought the first two panelists you had

were tremendous, and did a very good job in explaining the initial

steps that the Bush administration has taken, and I commend you

for encouraging further steps.

If I could try to summarize fairly quickly, as you well know we

live in an information age, and from television to the Internet to

radio and other mechanisms of public information, are actually decisive in shaping public opinion and informing the public, and as

societies grow freer, the impact of public opinion grows more important. I think traditional state to state diplomacy was the key to the

agrarian and industrial ages, but it is clearly inadequate in the information age.

If we in the United States cannot communicate with the people

of countries we care about, we cannot sustain government-to-government relations. When a people turn decisively against America,

their government will be increasingly at risk if it does not acknowledge the views of their people. Thus, for example, in the 1981–1982

fight in Europe over matching the Soviet Union by fielding mobile

missiles, there had to be a very strong public information campaign

that sustained the diplomatic initiatives at the government level.

When we are faced with an organized, ruthless minority that is

gaining ground through dishonest propaganda and through violence, we have to both meet its security challenge and its information challenge. In the late 1940s, a significant American education

and information campaign in France, Italy, Greece, and other countries played a major role in the survival of freedom and the defeat

of Communist tyranny.

When we win militarily, we also have to be prepared to win culturally, educationally, informationally, and economically. People everywhere want to be safe, healthy, prosperous, and free. To the degree they see America as their ally in that quest, they will be

strongly in favor of allying with America. We have to have fulfillment campaigns in Afghanistan and other countries after we defeat

the extremist wing of Islam.

34

One of my strongest messages in the Pentagon has been, forget

exit strategies. They do not exist. They are nonsense. They are not

going to happen. Instead, think about fulfillment strategies that

enable governments like that headed by Mr. Karzai to create safety, which is the precursor to health, prosperity, and freedom, but

I recognize that we care about all four.

Let me also emphasize, we have been successful at doing this.

Germany, Italy and Japan after World War II became profoundly

different countries. South Korea after the Korean war was nurtured for many, many years by the United States from an authoritarian and to a dramatically open and democratic society. If we

apply the same techniques and the same investment of capital, values, and education we can succeed again today.

This requires a five-pronged continuing American effort against

extremist Islam, against those Islamic dictators who would acquire

weapons of mass destruction, against disorder and barbarism, and

genocide, and in favor of health, safety, prosperity, and freedom for

all people, and I want to emphasize I think it is a mistake to not

be clear that there is an extremist fanatic faction of Islam which

is prepared to impose tyranny on its own people and is prepared

to kill others, and unless you are willing to confront this and win

this argument, it is very hard to distinguished all of the decent,

honorable, hard-working people in Islam, many millions of whom,

6 million of whom now live in America, and live full lives pursuing

freedom and happiness within a religious framework which also

recognizes the rights of others.

I think there are five stages. First, that where necessary the

United States and its allies have to be the guarantor of physical

safety against the terrorists, the murderers, and the committers of

genocide. This is particularly a challenge, I think, in the IsraeliPalestinian situation, but it is a challenge anywhere, that you have

a totalitarian regime or a terrorist movement that will kill those

who seek moderation and who seek freedom.

Second, having established safety, the United States and its allies have to implement strategies of wealth creation based on private property rights, the rule of law, and a rewarded work ethic.

That is, if you go to work, you end up being rewarded for it. Information age technological infrastructure, for example, mobile phones

and the Internet, modern systems of health and health care, and

the culture of freedom and self-government.

I want to emphasize, this is only partially a resource issue. I

hope this committee will look carefully at how AID is structured,

will look carefully at the World Bank and at the IMF. The fact is,

if you took all the money spent over the last 40 years on the poor

parts of the world, you have to raise the profound question of why

it has not worked, and whether that is a question of strategies as

much as it is a question of resources. I think most of the failures

of development in the last four decades have been failures to exploit the ideas which underpin wealth creation, and that is largely

a function of public diplomacy, or public information operations.

Third, when we are confronted with a coherent ideological opponent such as Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism, communism, or

the extremist fanaticism wing of Islam, it is necessary to develop

a countervailing intellectual communications effort on behalf of

35

freedom, modernity, and individual rights. Young people growing

up have to be given the choice between hatred, violence, and tyranny, and the alternative of peace, opportunity, and freedom. Only

a systematic educational and public information campaign can really give them a choice. In our current conflict, the madrasas of extremism have to be replaced with schools that educate young men

and women into productive modern lives that are the basis of prosperity and integration into the modern world.

Fourth, in order to sustain these first three efforts, there has to

be a strategic public information campaign that explains to our

own people, our allies in Europe and around the world, the nonfanatic, nonextremist elements in Islam, and others, of our efforts,

our sincerity, and our idealistic goals. This campaign has to be run

within a framework acceptable to the White House, but the White

House cannot run it.

The single key figure, probably Secretary Beers in the State Department, should be empowered to coordinate all American public

information operations on a daily basis, coordinating with the

White House. To the degree possible, our allies in nongovernmental

institutions, including celebrities, should be recruited and included

and involved in a broad public information strategy and campaign.

I might note, for example, that Disney invented both a Brazilian

character and a Mexican character during the Second World War

who were very popular. These were cartoon characters interacting

with Mickey, proving that Mickey Mouse, the American, could work

with local folks. While that may seem simple, it was a very powerful and very subtle kind of cultural outreach that used celebrity

status.

Finally, the White House has to lead the daily and public information effort, because the President is so decisively the primary

communicator of the American system. The White House should

shape and direct the first four stages, but it should implement only

the fifth stage.

And let me commend you for this hearing, because we are frankly unprepared to engage in the scale of a public information campaign and the sophistication that it needs to be to create safety in

the 21st century. I commend on the other side of the building

Chairman Henry Hyde for his important leadership in introducing

and passing out of committee the Freedom Promotion Act of 2002.

I know you have a similar initiative, which I want to commend you

and hope that in the short legislative schedule left, that it will be

able to move through the Senate and move ultimately into law.

Let me just close with this thought. The ultimate scale of resources needed to defeat the extremist fanatic wing of Islam will

resemble the resources we used to defeat communism. The combination of educational efforts, communications campaigns, covert

activities, economic assistance, and aggressive efforts to communicate our view of reality were the underpinnings for the nearly 50-

year containment of Soviet communism.

Creating a stable, safe world requires a public information capability and a public diplomacy capability far beyond anything we

have to date. I just want to suggest, Mr. Chairman, you were much

closer to right in the scale of resourcing we are going to need, and

folks ought to go back and look in constant dollars at what we inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
36

vested to save Europe in the forties and fifties and recognize that,

if we are serious about helping those people, the overwhelming majority in the Islamic world who want to have a better future, that

we have to be prepared to make the same scale of commitment,

starting in Afghanistan, but extending across the Islamic world. If

we do, we will succeed. If we do not, I do not care how many terrorists we kill, the conditions will simply create new waves of terrorism.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gingrich follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES

Thank you, Mr. Chairman (Senator Biden), and thank you, Mr. Chairman (Senator Helms) for the opportunity to appear before you today.

As we are all aware, we live in an information age. Television, the Internet, radio

and other mechanisms of public information are decisive in shaping pubic opinion

and informing the public.

As societies grow freer the impact of public opinion grows more important. Where

state-to-state diplomacy was appropriate to the agrarian and industrial ages, it is

clearly inadequate in the information age. If we cannot communicate with the people of countries we care about, we cannot sustain government-to-government relations. When a people turn decisively against us their government will be at increasing risk if it does not acknowledge their people’s views. Thus, the 1981–82 fight in

Europe over matching the Soviet Union by fielding mobile missiles required a strong

public information campaign to sustain the diplomatic initiatives.

When we are faced with an organized ruthless minority that is gaining ground

through dishonest propaganda and through violence, we have to both meet its security challenge and its information challenge. In the late 1940s a significant American education and information campaign in France, Italy, Greece and other countries played a major role in the survival of freedom and the defeat of communist

tyranny.

When we win militarily we also have to be prepared to win culturally, educationally, informationally and economically. People everywhere want to be safe, healthy,

prosperous, and free. To the degree they see America as their ally in that quest,

they will be strongly in favor of allying with America. We have to have fulfillment

campaigns in Afghanistan and other countries after we defeat the extremist wing

of Islam. Instead of exit strategies we have to create fulfillment strategies that enable governments like that headed by Mr. Karzai to create safety, health, prosperity

and freedom for its citizens.

We have been successful in the past and in Germany, Italy and Japan after World

War II, South Korea after the Korean War. If we apply the same techniques and

the same investment of capital, values and education we can succeed again today.

This requires a five pronged continuing American effort against the extremist fanatical wing of Islam against those Islamic dictators who would acquire weapons

of mass destruction, against disorder and barbarism and genocide and in favor of

safety, health, prosperity, and freedom for all people.

a. Where necessary, the United States and its allies have to be the guarantor

of its physical safety against the terrorists, the murderers, and the committers

of genocide.

b. Having established safety, the United States and its allies must implement

strategies of wealth creation based on private property rights, the rule of law,

and a rewarded work ethic, information age technological infrastructure, (e.g.

mobile phones and the internet) modern systems of health and healthcare and

the culture of freedom and self-government. This is only partially a resource

issue. Most of the failures of development in the last four decades have been

failures to export the ideas which underpin wealth creation and that is largely

a function of public diplomacy or publicinformation operations.

c. When confronted with a coherent ideological opponent such as Nazism, Fascism, Japanese Militarism, Communism or the extremist fanaticism of Islam it

is necessary to develop a countervailing intellectual communications effort on

behalf of freedom, modernity and individual rights. Young people growing up

have to be given the choice between hatred, violence and tyranny and the alternative of peace, opportunity, and freedom. Only a systematic educational and

public information campaign can truly give them a choice. In our current conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
37

flict, the madrasas of extremism have to be replaced with schools that educate

young men and women into productive modern lives that are the basis of prosperity and integration into the modern world.

d. In order to sustain these first three efforts there has to be a strategic public information campaign that explains to our own people, our allies in Europe

and around the world, the non-fanatic non-extremist elements in Islamic world

and others of our efforts, our sincerity and our idealistic goals. This campaign

has to be run within a framework acceptable to the White House but the White

House cannot run it. A single key figure, probably in the State Department,

should be empowered to coordinate all American public information operations

on a daily basis with the White House. To the degree possible our allies, in nongovernmental organizations, including celebrities, should be recruited and included and involved in a broad public information strategy and campaign.

e. The White House has to lead the daily public information effort because

the President is so decisively the primary communicator of the American system. The White House should shape and direct the first four stages but it

should implement only the fifth stage.

The United States is today unprepared to engage in a public information campaign on the scale needed to create safety in the 21st century. I commend Chairman

Henry Hyde for his important leadership in introducing and passing out of Committee the Freedom Promotion Act of 2002. This important initiative provides for

a significant increase in our efforts of public diplomacy. While more must be done

this act is an essential first step and I urge the Senate to join in passing something

along those lines.

The ultimate scale of resources needed to defeat the extremist fanatic wing of

Islam will resemble the resources we used to defeat Communism. The combination

of educational efforts, communications campaigns, covert activities, economic assistance and aggressive efforts to communicate our view of reality were the

underpinnings for the nearly 50-year containment of Soviet Communism.

Creating a stable safe world requires a public information capability and a public

diplomacy capability far beyond anything we have developed to date. The new

emerging information-age has new requirements for tactical information on a daily

basis and complex requirements for the Internet, cell phones, satellite television,

radio and long-term educational efforts. These activities can often be implemented

by non-governmental organizations but the resourcing and the general strategies

and systems implementation require government leadership.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Speaker, our usual practice is to go down

and have everyone speak, but Senator Lugar is going to have to

leave. Let me just say one thing to you. First of all, I literally— and I am not going to make any humorous comment about this— truly agree with everything you have said, especially your phrase,

fulfillment strategy.

If I can make an analogy, and I hope you will not be offended

by it, Senator Helms in the courageous step he took to help us

thread the needle of support for the United Nations by dealing

with our debt at the United Nations, had a dramatic impact on the

attitude and potential utility to us of the United Nations, not in

merely that it paid the debt, but that by Senator Helms standing

up, he essentially de-demonized the notion that we would participate at all in the United Nations. It was a gigantic, gigantic step,

and I would have been prepared to yield even more just to get him

to do that, and he did not need my convincing.

You are the single most articulate voice on the right, in my view.

I mean that sincerely, my word, and the fact that you would use

the words, fulfillment strategy, I think is the single most significant contribution you can make, because as you know, I think the

President shares your view, but there are many on the right and

left who view it only in terms of exit strategy.

They are not willing to—I had a debate with my very close

friend, a Democrat, and one senior Republican at the White House

38

on Bosnia, and the point that had to be raised was, I said, what

would we have done if you guys had prevailed in 1955 or 1960 or

Senator Mansfield had prevailed in 1961 or 1962 or 1963, and

withdrawn American troops from Europe. This is a long-haul deal.

Your stature, your significance, your ability to articulate is, I think,

maybe one of the greatest contributions you can make at this moment, because until we move, in my view, to this notion of a fulfillment strategy, we are going to be in real trouble.

So I want you to know this forum is available to you any time

you want it. I mean this sincerely. You and I have been, not in a

personal sense but in a political sense at odds with one another on

many things over our careers, but I have great respect for you. I

am not being solicitous. I have great respect for you, and I think

the contribution you are making on this subject is even more consequential than the contribution that Senator Helms made relative

to the United Nations, and I just wanted to say that while Senator

Lugar was here, and I apologize to the rest of the panel for interrupting.

Mr. GINGRICH. Let me just say—and as you know, I have to

leave, but I want to say to both of you, I know how many years

both of you have spent criss-crossing the world and criss-crossing

the House and Senate trying to explain the world you have seen.

We are at one of the great turning points equal to the period 1947

to 1952, when we finally came to grips with our role in the world.

September 11—and I cannot overstate the importance of the President’s own process, I think, of thinking this through.

September 11 said to the American people, either we are going

to learn to lead the world toward safety, prosperity, health, and

freedom, or the world will in the end tear us down because it will

not be able to stand the jealousy of thinking that only Americans

have those things. That has to be a cultural, educational communications strategy with a military component, not the reverse, and

one of the first big tests has to be in Afghanistan and, if I might,

to just take advantage of your very generous and, frankly, very

humbling comments, Senator Biden, I am very touched that you

would say what you did.

I believe if we could take the African initiative and rethink it as

a sub-Saharan initiative, and take Africa seriously enough to not

accept pouring money into the failed bureaucracies, but from the

ground up to design a genuine strategy—and I would love to come

back and chat with the two of you and Senator Helms, and maybe

at some point ask that we might have a hearing on this topic conceptually, I think doing the right things in the Islamic world and

the right things in sub-Saharan Africa, change who we are in the

world, changes the world’s understanding of us, and gives our

grandchildren a much safer and freer planet to live on, and I think

that is the goal. At least now that I have two grandchildren I am

more worried about their future than mine. That is the kind of

world I would like to live in.

So I would like to extend, if I might as a private citizen, come

and visit with you all and then maybe to later consider that prospect.

39

The CHAIRMAN. I guarantee you, within the next couple of days

we will set up a time. I am anxious to do that. I know Senator

Lugar has to leave, and I apologize.

Mr. Ambassador, the floor is yours.

STATEMENT OF HON. MARC C. GINSBERG, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO; CEO AND MANAGING DIRECTOR,

NORTHSTAR EQUITY GROUP, WASHINGTON, DC

Ambassador GINSBERG. Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, it is a

great honor to be here. My testimony, which I will summarize, is

focusing more on the ground war rather than on the air war.

Following September 11, I undertook as a private citizen several

initiatives to help both the U.S. Government and the private sector

focus additional effort and resources to recalibrate and improve our

public diplomacy initiatives in the Middle East. Mr. Chairman, I

was raised in the Middle East and have worked extensively in the

region, and I had the privilege of serving our country as Ambassador to Morocco, and travel still extensively around this country

and the region to explain the history of Islam and the fight that

we are up against, to Americans as well as to others, but to rebuild

our power to persuade and to win that important war of diplomacy,

and public diplomacy in the war on terrorism, the United States

has got to understand why the Middle East sees us so differently

than how we see ourselves, and determine what resources we must

mobilize to turn the tide of anti-Americanism against us.

We can begin by opening up lines of communication that have

until now been off-limits and out-of-bounds by our diplomats. In an

article I offered in the Washington Post in October, I proposed the

creation of a new public-private sector United States Middle East

Policy Engagement Commission to promote two-way dialog and to

bring together under one roof the Nation’s leading Middle East experts.

This initiative, Mr. Chairman, led to the formation of an ad hoc

group of Middle East experts I helped convene to explore how the

private sector could support America’s public diplomacy initiatives

in the region and to assess what needed to be done to engage the

private sector in this effort. This steering committee has been

working throughout the spring to focus on three specific short-term

objectives, a media exchange program, the development of a dialog

Web site, and a plan to enlist and support entertainers respected

and admired in the Arab world.

I also serve on the Council on Foreign Relations Public Diplomacy Task Force under the chairmanship of Pete Peterson. This

task force, which includes over 60 experts, has devoted many

months of time and effort to develop a comprehensive blueprint for

improving U.S. public diplomacy, indeed, Mr. Chairman, to revolutionize our public diplomacy functions. This report, which will be

issued shortly, will unveil many important recommendations for reorganizing the public diplomacy functions within the U.S. Government under a new Presidential directive.

It is clear to those like myself who have worked extensively in

the United States and abroad that the State Department, the

White House, and our embassies all need to be working more closely together to fix a system that is simply not working well enough

40

to win the war of public diplomacy in the Middle East and beyond.

Despite the integration of the USIA into the Department of State,

public diplomacy and policy formulation are almost two ships passing in the night. The council’s report will address these issues, and

I am confident, Mr. Chairman, you will find it an extremely important contribution to your efforts to improve America’s public diplomacy programs.

I listened very carefully to what Norm had to say about television media efforts that he and others are planning to do. I was

recently asked to serve on the board of directors of a new private

sector initiative known as Al-Haqiqa, otherwise, in English, ‘‘the

truth,’’ an effort to develop a new U.S.-private sector satellite television station and program content for the Arab world.

Al-Haqiqa is currently planning, as its initial objective, to develop American-style Arabic language news-oriented programming

to be broadcast on existing Arabic cable and satellite systems in

the Middle East. This effort has the bipartisan support of a very

distinguished group of American leaders, and is chaired by former

President George Bush. I hope Congress will encourage the media

program development efforts of this enterprise, and for the government to proceed quickly to make a final determination whether the

U.S. Government or the private sector will launch its own Middle

East satellite or cable broadcasting initiative, a decision that cannot afford to be postponed much longer.

Mr. Chairman, during my tour of duty in Morocco, I tried to undertake several unprecedented public diplomacy initiatives, because I understood, even at the height of the Middle East peace

process, at the very moment when we began realizing that there

was hope for peace in the Middle East, we were under verbal assault from overly opinionated journalists and religious demagogues.

They were aided by Islamic extremists and their underground network throughout the region, and that is a fact that we still must

take into account, because that network of hatred is still there.

Unfortunately, the more effective public diplomacy will only mitigate this hatred. We also have to look at the policy problems that

we face in the region as well, but we surely can do a great deal

to lessen the misunderstanding and to arm our friends in the region with the tools necessary to take on our enemies more effectively. Our embassy undertook a series of unprecedented public policy and diplomacy initiatives which I explained in my testimony.

The velocity and frequency of unanswered attacks against America from mosques to media have taken their toll, undoubtedly, as

you know, on our image, yet our public diplomacy programs in the

Middle East and our embassy resources allocated to public diplomacy are simply not up to the challenge. Mr. Chairman, whatever

we do here in Washington, whether it is with radio as well as with

Under Secretary Beers’ office, we have got to understand that it is

our diplomats and our people in the field who are on the front line

in this ground war, and it is they who must be trained and

equipped to redress the public diplomacy imbalance, and it is they

who must be supported by battle-tested and highly mobile and mobilized public diplomacy apparatus.

The President can offer some of the leadership that is essential

to ensure that public diplomacy is accorded its proper role in the

41

formulation of foreign policy, that the two have to go hand-in-hand.

Public diplomacy has got to be, Mr. Chairman, in the take-offs and

not just on the crash-landings. In this regard, there must be better

public diplomacy coordination between Washington and its diplomats stationed abroad.

There exists a short-circuit, Mr. Chairman, in the illogical wiring

diagram between the short-staffed Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and her ability to direct U.S.-funded public diplomacy programs and to charge and to assess what is going on in the field.

Bureau public affairs officers since the reorganization have no authority to task officers in the field and, in turn, officers in the field

are largely being ignored.

Let me add, Mr. Chairman, that the components of an effective

public diplomacy campaign must involve all the assets of the U.S.

Government to muster and to persuade. We have a better story to

tell than we realize. It involves not only policy communications, but

reminding our audiences that we have done a great deal to help

their countries in the region. Far too few Arabs understand the

work of our Peace Corps or our foreign assistance programs, or the

magnitude of American private generosity.

Second, our diplomats, starting with our Chief of Missions, have

to reengineer our embassies, Mr. Chairman, and I recommended

this in our Council on Foreign Relations report. I outlined a new

mission program plan that would help or reengineer our embassies

to deal more effectively with public diplomacy programs.

The Internet era’s 24–7 news cycle will require an end to the 9-

to-5 syndrome prevalent in our embassies, and our Diplomatic

Corps must be motivated to reverse long-held beliefs about how

they are to work and act with host country governments and opinion leaders.

This, Mr. Chairman, is not what diplomats have been trained to

do. They are not trained to confront. They are not trained to engage in dialog with peoples and groups that are not necessarily

part of the mainstream of diplomatic activity at the top echelons

of society. They are not rewarded for making waves. They are not

trained how to use media technologies and to experiment with new

ideas, and many do not believe they can afford to be part of some

political campaign centered on ideas, and as part of the Council on

Foreign Relations Task Force I am sure that you will see that some

of these issues have been addressed.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, our budget for public diplomacy is inadequate, and our apparatus for training our diplomats has got to be

improved. Most officers, as I said, have never received media training, and hesitate to appear on local radio and television shows,

mostly because of deficiencies in foreign languages, and because of

their inadequate training.

Throughout the Middle East, U.S. cultural centers have been

closed, consulates have been ordered shut, there is no representation for public diplomacy, and if we have no fixed assets on the

ground, Mr. Chairman, on the front line in this effort, how, may

I ask, are we going to accomplish our objectives?

Mr. Chairman, as a private citizen, in closing I want to assure

you that the private sector can lend a better hand to help train our

diplomats. The range of support that can be mustered from public

42

affairs, public relations, communications, and media and advertising industries is staggering, and I look forward to working with

the committee and with Under Secretary Beers and with Norm and

the others to bring these resources to bear to make this a truly effective effort in the war on terrorism.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Ginsberg follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MARC CHARLES GINSBERG, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO

MOROCCO

Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify regarding the status of U.S.

public diplomacy and its role in the War on Terrorism, particularly as it relates to

our challenges in the Middle East. I want to commend you and the Committee for

examining the new challenges facing U.S. public diplomacy programs—mindful that

our public diplomacy strategy and the level of commitment to its success by the U.S.

Government represent crucial weapons in our War on Terrorism.

Following September 11th, I volunteered to undertake several initiatives to help

both the U.S. Government and the private sector focus additional effort and resources to recalibrate and improve our public diplomacy initiatives in the Middle

East. I was raised in the Middle East and have worked extensively in the region.

I have had the privilege of serving as U.S. Ambassador to Morocco and continue to

address audiences throughout the Arab world as a former diplomat and as a businessman during frequent appearances on Al Jazeera, CNN International and Fox

News Channel. I am deeply committed to the economic and social development of

the Middle East as a strategic objective of U.S. foreign policy. And I am confident,

even in the face of the propaganda onslaught against the U.S. throughout the Middle East, that we can turn the tide in the war of ideas, however challenging that

may seem to us right now. But to rebuild our power to persuade and to win that

important front in the War on Terrorism, the United States must first understand

why the Middle East sees us so differently than how we see ourselves and determine resources must be mobilized to turn the tide of anti-Americanism against us.

We can begin by opening up lines of communication that have until now been off

limits and out of bounds by our diplomats.

In an article I authored in the Washington Post dated October 23, 2001, I proposed the creation of a new public/private sector U.S. Middle East Policy Engagement Commission to promote two-way dialogue and to bring together under one roof

the nation’s leading Middle East experts to serve as a resource for our public diplomacy in the Middle East. This initiative led to the formation of an ad hoc group

of Middle East experts I helped convene with my co-chair Prof. Shibley Telhami, in

December 2001, under the auspices of Search for Common Ground and the Woodrow

Wilson Center for Strategic International Studies. We came together to explore how

the private sector could support America’s public diplomacy initiatives in the region

and to assess what needed to be done to better engage the private sector in this

effort.

A Steering Committee of this ad hoc group has been meeting throughout the

Spring to develop several short term public diplomacy initiatives including: 1) a

media exchange program; 2) the development of a ‘‘dialogue website’’; and 3) a plan

to enlist the support of entertainers respected and admired in the Arab world to

participate in public diplomacy outreach. We hope to meet shortly with Under Secretary of State Charlotte Beers to share with her our recommendations and to offer

our expertise to help our Government achieve its objectives in the war of ideas now

being waged in the Middle East.

I also serve on the Council on Foreign Relations Public Diplomacy Task Force

under the Chairmanship of Peter Peterson. This Task Force, which includes over

60 experts, has devoted months of time and effort to develop a comprehensive blueprint for improving U.S. public diplomacy—indeed to revolutionize our public diplomacy functions. The quality of the effort and the scope of the Council’s Report will

surely warrant the attention of this Committee, Congress and the Executive Branch

as it considers reforms to America’s public diplomacy functions and budget. The Report will unveil many important recommendations for reorganizing the public diplomacy functions within the U.S. Government under a new Presidential Directive. It

is clear to those like myself who have worked in the State Department, the White

House and at embassies abroad that there is urgent need to fix a system that is

simply not working well enough to meet the challenges of a new war.

43

Despite the integration of USIA into the Department of State, public diplomacy

and policy formulation are almost two ships passing in the night. The Council’s Report directly addresses this challenge and explores new ways to improve the coordination of foreign policy formulation and public diplomacy functions in Washington

and in our missions abroad. The Report will also propose a new way to budget public diplomacy programs, recommend new training programs and opinion research

skills for public diplomacy professionals, and outline new programmatic initiatives

that would greatly expand exchanges. It will also recommend the creation of a new

entity to encourage universities, foundations and NGOs to make public diplomacy

a central priority.

I am confident you and the Committee will find it an extraordinarily important

contribution to your efforts to improve America’s public diplomacy programs.

I also serve on the Board of Directors of a new private sector initiative known

as Al-Haqiqa (the Truth)—an effort to develop a U.S. private sector satellite television station and program content for the Arab world, which has been launched by

one of America’s distinguished former diplomats Ambassador Richard Fairbanks, a

Special Middle East Negotiator under President Reagan. Al-Haqiqa is currently

planning as its initial objective to develop Americanstyle Arabic language news-oriented programming to be broadcast on existing Arabic cable and satellite systems

in the Middle East. This effort has the bi-partisan support for a very distinguished

group of American leaders and statesmen, including former President George Bush,

James Baker, Sandy Berger, Lee Hamilton, George Shultz and Richard Allen, just

to name a few. But any American effort to compete with Al Jazeera and other Arab

media will require private sector resources and talent to develop content programming. I hope Congress will encourage the media program development efforts of AlHaqiqa pending a final determination whether the U.S. Government itself intends

to launch its own Middle East satellite or cable broadcasting initiative—a decision

that cannot afford to be postponed much longer.

During my tour of duty in Morocco—a country which by all accounts is a truly

great friend of America, I recall that at the most favorable junction in the Middle

East Peace Process, America, its policies, and its leaders were nevertheless under

verbal assault from overly opinionated journalists and religious haters, cynics and

doubters. They found it spiritually and materially rewarding and politically correct

to run roughshod over the truth about America. They were aided by the Islamic extremists and their underground network next door in Algeria whose government

was waging an important struggle against Islamic extremism largely out of sight

of America. Why the anger and disillusionment seemed to surface at such a moment

of promise is subject to much debate. Certainly, our foreign policies both in the Middle East and around the world contributed to this resentment—a fact that must be

taken into account if we are to develop adequate public diplomacy initiatives in the

region. Unfortunately, more effective public diplomacy will not completely reverse

the resentment and mistrust of America that have taken root in the Middle East

without changes in our policies. But we surely can do a great deal to lessen the misunderstanding, and arm our friends in the region with the tools necessary to take

on our enemies more effectively than we can do alone.

Indeed, under the rubric that ‘‘no good deed shall go unpunished’’ every fault facing the region is being laid at our doorstep even though we have done so much to

greatly improve the lives of ordinary citizens from Casablanca to Cairo and beyond.

Too many Islamic clerics have a favorite anti-American sermon—each one more diabolical and disturbing than the one preceding it. They do not make great bedtime

reading. Too many journalists (many of whom are on the payrolls of governments

which are recipients of American taxpayer assistance) lavish derision on our motives

and our culture. We could do nothing right then and certainly that attitude has

worsened in recent months. It was clear to me then as it is so clear to me now that

something had to be done to take on this growing deluge of criticism and hatred.

Without any need for direction from Washington our embassy undertook a series

of unprecedented public diplomacy initiatives to open up lines of communication

with journalists, Islamic clerics and university faculty and students—in other words

the opinion elites in the Middle East. These encounters were at times difficult and

emotional. I recall once when I took New York Times columnist Tom Friedman into

one of these sessions he told me afterwards that he felt he had just attended a 60s

version of an Arab League meeting. I urged my colleagues in other posts to do the

same and an informal network of ambassadorial exchanges soon commenced in

order to begin sharing information about the challenges we were facing—not an

easy task since most embassies are not on the receiving end of other embassy cable

traffic back to Washington.

The velocity and frequency of unanswered attacks against America and Americans

from mosques to media have taken their toll on our image in the region and has

44

helped fuel anger and resentment that is directly responsible for the success of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. If we are to turn the tide in the War on Terror,

we ignore this cascade of hatred at our peril. Yet, our public diplomacy programs

in the Middle East and our embassy resources allocated to public diplomacy are simply not up to the challenge ahead of us.

Whatever we do in Washington to reverse the tide we must understand that our

diplomats are on the frontline in this war of words and it is they who need to be

trained and equipped to redress the public diplomacy imbalance. And it is they who

must be supported by a battle-tested and highly mobile and mobilized public diplomacy apparatus in the U.S. Government that is not consumed by traditional bureaucratic inertia and shopworn artificial distinctions between public diplomacy and

hard-core policy formulation.

What can be done?

First, Presidential leadership is essential to ensure that public diplomacy is accorded its proper role in the policy formulation and implementation process—preferably within the White House under the National Security Council—that would establish a public diplomacy component as well as serve as a coordinating structure

that links all of the policy and public diplomacy components of the government. A

Presidential Determination should make clear that public diplomacy is a strategic

component of U.S. foreign policy and that it represents a crucial component of our

diplomats’ duties and responsibilities that can no longer be marginalized. To be effective, public diplomacy must be in on the ‘‘take offs’’ and not just the ‘‘crash landings’’ and there must be a process in place to regularly assess its effectiveness and

to shift priorities and resources as needed.

In this regard, there must be better public diplomacy coordination between Washington and its diplomats stationed abroad. For example, it is clear that there exists

a shortcircuit in the illogical wiring diagram between the short-staffed Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and its ability to direct U.S. funded public diplomacy

programs and the public affairs officers operating in our posts abroad. Bureau public affairs officers have no authority to task public affairs officers in the field. In

turn, officers in the field are being ignored because their reporting is not integrated

into a process that can swiftly act on the advice they are sending in from the field.

In fact, they do not even report to the Under Secretary of Public Affairs, but to the

regional assistant secretaries. It makes absolutely no sense to see public diplomacy

on the periphery of policy development—almost as an afterthought to those who

think that mainstream policy formulation can somehow be undertaken without a

plan to ensure its receptivity.

I had hoped that the integration of USIA into the Department of State would herald a closer relationship between public diplomacy and the development and execution of foreign policy. I am afraid that this has not been the case. We are going to

have to redefine the role of U.S. public diplomacy such that it is an integral part

of policy formulation from its very inception and launch—rather than an afterthought relegated to non-mainstream diplomats.

Mr. Chairman, let me add that the components of an effective public diplomacy

campaign should involve all assets that the U.S. Government can muster to persuade and influence. We do have a great story to tell. It involves not only policy

and communications, but reminding our targeted audiences of the efforts Americans

have made to help their countries. Far too few Arabs know of the wonderful work

of our Peace Corps operating in their countries. Far too few know how much foreign

assistance has been given to help their nations. Far too few appreciate the magnitude of American private generosity through non-governmental organizations and

charities that operate in their countries.

Second, U.S. diplomats, starting with Chiefs of Mission and the Deputy Chiefs of

Mission must be mandated through each embassy’s ‘‘Mission Program Plan’’ or

‘‘MPP’’ and promotion precepts to integrate public diplomacy functions into each

MPP. The Internet era’s ‘‘24/7’’ news cycle will require an end to the ‘‘9-5’’ syndrome

prevalent at our embassies so that we can better and more rapidly respond to the

media attacks on us. Until September 11, public diplomacy duties had been largely

relegated to press attaches who are not fully integrated into the embassy’s political

operations. Our diplomatic corps must be motivated to reverse long held beliefs

about how they are to work and act with host country governments and opinion

leaders and penalized if they resist. They will have to be better sensitized to the

fact that no matter how justified a particular foreign policy may be to us, without

an effective complimentary public diplomacy program all of that hard policy work

may ultimately fail.

This is not what diplomats are trained to do. They are not trained to confront and

to open dialogue with peoples and groups that are not necessarily part of the mainstream of diplomatic activity or at the top echelons of society. They are not reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
45

warded for making waves with host governments or detractors. They are not trained

how to use media technologies or to experiment with new ideas. They do not believe

they can afford to be part of a ‘‘political campaign’’ centered on ideas. Yet, opening

up channels of communication with our detractors is more important than ever before.

As part of my work for the Council on Foreign Relations Public Diplomacy Task

Force I drafted a model Mission Program Plan for Public Diplomacy and I am hopeful that it will be integrated into the Council’s Report. This draft model would require each Ambassador to establish a mission Public Diplomacy Task Force, chaired

by either the Ambassador or his Deputy Chief of Mission, which would be responsible for and coordinate all agency public diplomacy initiatives and spell out mandated public diplomacy functions for each embassy’s officer, including officers from

other agencies. The MPP would also compel each embassy to provide the Department and the White House feedback and analysis on the effectiveness of public diplomacy programs. Additional budget resources will need to be increased to meet

program objectives including funding for new media streaming fees to local media

outlets, new website improvements and exchange and outreach initiatives. This will

require Ambassadors to:

• Complete an assessment of what key policy and message elements need to be

promoted to different audiences in a host country.

• Assess how best to mobilize Post resources to accomplish key public diplomacy

objectives.

• Determine ways to measure the impact and capacity of his or her team to recalibrate public diplomacy initiatives.

• Identify, by priority order, key public opinion targets and determine whether

Department or private sector resources are needed to reach these targets.

• Determine how the embassy can best help the White House facilitate public diplomacy considerations into policies that affect policy to the host country.

Third, our budget for public diplomacy is inadequate and our apparatus for training our diplomats in public diplomacy is virtually non-existent. Other than Public

Affairs Officers, most officers have never received media training and often hesitate

to appear on local radio and television shows, mostly because of local language deficiencies and inadequate training. Throughout the Middle East, U.S. cultural and

cultural centers have been closed. Consulates have been ordered shut. There is no

representation budget for public diplomacy. If we have fixed assets on the front line

in this effort how, may I ask, are we going to accomplish our objectives?

Our private sector can lend a hand to help better train our diplomats at the newly

named George Schultz Foreign Affairs Training Center. The range of support that

could be mustered from the public affairs, public relations, communications, media

and advertising industries is staggering and it has indeed been offered if we can

help the U.S. Government accept these offers from the private sector. In this regard

junior, mid-level and senior officers should be required to fulfill fundamental public

diplomacy training as part of their promotion requirements and the private sector

can help train our officers. That training could include a variety of disciplines such

as public speaking; media and opinion analysis, how to use media for message delivery and how to integrate public diplomacy into policy functions.

Mr. Chairman, in summary, I believe that the War on Terror compels us to reexamine, replenish, and reform our public diplomacy functions both in Washington

and in the field. I look forward to helping this Committee and the Congress in accomplishing this vital war objective. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hoffman.

STATEMENT OF DAVID HOFFMAN, PRESIDENT, INTERNEWS,

ARCATA, CA

Mr. HOFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am president of

Internews, a nonprofit organization that supports open media. I

think you will agree with me that media is one of the most important and powerful forces for social change in the world today, and

I have been in the business for 20 years, and I have been astounded that we carry on so much of our foreign policy without

paying attention to media, so I compliment the chairman for putting the attention on this very important issue.

46

Clearly, 9/11 has put this in front of us. We recognize that terrorism has been born in societies that have very closed media, and

we are kind of astounded to see that there is such virulent antiAmerican propaganda happening on state-controlled media from

governments that are our allies. The things we have been reading

are in Tom Friedman’s articles, quotes from Egyptian newspapers,

or newspapers in which the editors are appointed by President Mubarak, and this is happening across the board, and we have to look

at this.

We also are aware, as has been said today, that there is not an

infrastructure of local media where moderate voices can answer

some of the extremist Islamist propaganda that is coming across

state-controlled media. The good news is that the great majority of

Muslims around the world want a free media.

There is no better example for that, no better proof for that than

Iran, where 80 percent of the people have voted in a relatively free

election for a reformist President where the major issue is freedom

of the press. Now, they have not been able to get that freedom of

the press, but it is very clear that in an Islamist country like Iran

the people demand that, and will eventually get that.

The concept of local media which Senator Lugar was referring to

earlier when he was asking about indigenous local media, the concept of local broadcast media is a relatively new phenomenon, even

in Western Europe. We began U.S. Government assistance for independent broadcast media in the former Soviet Union around 10

years ago. In that time we have spent approximately $250 million,

no small amount, on it, but it has been pretty much an untold

story. It is one of the great success stories in American foreign aid.

I will speak just for my own organization, Internews.

We have supported 2,000 independent broadcasters, mostly television, some radio. Broadcasts produced or coordinated by

Internews reach over 300 million people. Most of those stations are

on 24 hours a day. In those 10 years of broadcasting we have not

received a single complaint from a U.S. Embassy or a U.S. Government agency that any of those stations are broadcasting anything

that is considered anti-American. We have raised the standards—

I think there has been general agreement that we have raised the

journalistic standards of those independent broadcasters. It is effective, it is working, and it can work in the Muslim world as well,

as we have proven recently in Indonesia, I think.

There are the great examples, of course, such as the overthrow

of Milosevic and the role of B–92. Just recently one of the stations

we have supported, Rustovi–2 in Georgia, broadcast revelations of

corruption. After going through a training program on investigative

journalism they took it very seriously and investigated the corruption of government officials. When they broadcast that the Ministry

of the Interior sent militiamen to close down the station. They put

the cameras on live. Thousands of people took the streets, and

Shevardnadze was forced to dismiss his entire government.

There are many, many examples—as you will hear about Kosovo,

there are many examples where independent media has played a

critical role in the transformation of societies that were previously

under dictatorships to democracy.

47

We live in a different world. We live in a world of proliferation

of information that is coming from all sources, including from satellites and Internet. The boundaries that existed before are

breached by this new technology every day. We have to be able to

meet that.

We put a lot of attention on Al Jazeera, and it is natural that

we would think that we should compete with Al Jazeera with Arabic language satellite television, but I do not believe that any

amount of foreign broadcasting is going to change the sense of powerlessness and Western domination that Arabs today feel. The only

thing that is going to change the feelings that they have is to

change their societies, to help them democratize, to help them modernize, and the best way to do that is to support local media. It is

far more cost-effective.

We are spending $20 to $25 million a year, and we are reaching

300 million people every single day. I think that is a compliment

to the traditional foreign broadcasting strategies that we should

look at very carefully.

Local broadcasting is always more credible than foreign broadcasting. Tom Friedman a couple of days ago wrote, he said that the

Bush team wants to spend money on TV or advertisements to

broadcast our message in Arabic to the Arab world. Frankly, there

is no modern, progressive message we could broadcast in Arabic

that would begin to compare and influence the one that would

come from Egypt, and I would say to one that would come from any

local country, so it is not a matter of choosing between these two.

It is a matter of seeing them as complimentary.

But in pursuing our foreign broadcasting, let me recommend, if

I can, that the greater the degree of editorial independence you can

give broadcasters the more effective they are going to be. On the

other hand, if they are fully editorially independent, then what you

are really competing with is not Al Jazeera, you are competing

with the other commercial American broadcasters that are already

out there, and so the question is raised, to what degree is there

really value added to that?

If they are not editorially independent, these foreign broadcasts

lose credibility to the extent they are seen that way, and you

should never underestimate your audience. The people we are trying to reach have spent their lifetime being propagandized. They

are experts at it. They can tell a mile away what is propaganda

and what is good news.

Finally, I would like to say that in a lot of these countries the

State Department and our embassies have had a kind of benign neglect about independent media, and the media regimes in these

countries. This is particularly true in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt, and

a great deal more pressure needs to come from our State Department to demand that these countries institute media reform. It is

coming. Pakistan just completely liberalized their broadcast media

with private television and radio just a few months ago. There is

pressure from the satellite companies for all these locals to open up

their media because otherwise they are going to lose their audience, but we also need pressure from the State Department.

The President in Monterrey talked about conditionality and our

foreign aid in general. I think there should be specific benchmarks

48

that should be listed by our State Department, by the Secretary,

that would be conditions that countries would need to meet in

order to get other forms of foreign assistance.

There are moderates out there who are not getting on the airwaves. We should support those moderate Muslim voices. They are

out there. If we build it, they will come. If we help the Muslim

world with the resources that we have given to, say, the former Soviet Union, we will find that the attitudes of the populations there

will change very rapidly once the moderates there are empowered.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hoffman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID HOFFMAN, PRESIDENT, INTERNEWS

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee: thank you for inviting me to testify

on the issue of independent media and public diplomacy. The Chairman should be

congratulated for consideration of US government support for independent media,

which is a relatively new phenomenon in our foreign assistance portfolio.

Since September 11th, the United States Government has given increased attention to the broad question of public diplomacy and the role of information in shaping

public opinion around the world. A clear articulation of American policies and values is central to the success of our overall foreign policy agenda. But as we seek

to shape our message to foreign audiences, we should also keep in mind the critical

role of indigenous independent media as a complement to our traditional public diplomacy strategies. Simply put, we need to look not only at what we say to other

countries, but how other countries disseminate information locally and how that affects their views of America.

Media is the most powerful force for social and political change in the world

today. Radio, television, print, and the Internet are information vehicles through

which citizens from every country form their opinions of the world. And where these

information vehicles are used to propagate misinformation, misperceptions and erroneous reporting overseas, our national security is endangered.

In many countries in the Middle East, the media remain state-controlled or heavily influenced by the government. In some cases the government-run media is consciously used as a safety valve to deflect anger and frustration that arises from domestic problems. In other cases, journalists are subjected to draconian media laws

compounded by self-censorship fueled by fear and uncertainty about the arbitrary

ways in which the laws could be applied.

Nevertheless, in several countries with predominantly young Muslim populations

like Pakistan or Indonesia, where much of ‘‘the street’’ are still susceptible to negative and hostile propaganda directed against the United States, there are new and

hopeful signs of media liberalization and privatization.

U.S. government sponsored overseas broadcasting and traditional public diplomacy, alone, will not reverse this growing anti-American sentiment and inflammatory opinion that pervades the Arab and Muslim world in particular. Although

overseas broadcasting has the advantage of being able to control the message and

is vital in closed societies that have no other access to Western news reporting, it

is not a long-term solution to the endemic repression of independent sources of local

media. Foreign broadcasts do not contribute to the building of democratic media institutions in these countries. As long as local media remains suppressed, democracy

cannot grow. Local media is the oxygen of democracy.

The State Department should therefore make it a high priority to reform media

law and policy in predominantly Muslim countries in order to open their societies

to a diversity of opinion and models of fact-based journalism. For too long we have

turned our heads and tolerated government repression of local media in many of

these countries as long as their governments continued to meet our fossil fuel needs

and support our foreign policy goals. But since September we have learned how dangerous it can be to ignore the information culture of ‘‘the street.’’ The State Department should be encouraged to make the establishment and growth of free and independent media in countries with predominantly Muslim populations a priority for

U.S. foreign policy and assistance strategies in the region. In line with the President’s statement in Monterrey, Mexico about the conditionality of American aid tied

to improvements in human rights and democracy, the Secretary of State should establish benchmarks for acceptable standards of freedom of expression and the rights

of independent media.

49

To help countries achieve open media, we must provide legal advice and assistance, journalistic training in ethics and reporting, help to media owners and managers in the financing and management of independent media companies. We need

to provide funding for equipment, production and programming that will help independent media outlets compete with state-run media. And we must provide this

training, not directly from the U.S. government, but through qualified non-profit organizations that have proven track records and credibility in the region.

This last point is a sensitive issue but extremely important. America has always

been the leader in the development of independent, nongovernmental media. Nongovernmental, commercial broadcasting is still a relatively new phenomenon in the

world, even in Western Europe. But the world is rapidly recognizing the vitality and

importance of nongovernmental electronic media. As we provide assistance to independent media in countries transitioning to democracy, we must be especially careful to respect the editorial independence of the recipients. This is the point at which

traditional public diplomacy must give pause and have faith in the play of democracy and the free press, which have made our own country strong.

Providing resources and expertise to local independent media through qualified

American non-profit media organizations has successfully addressed the dilemma of

government assistance to non-governmental media. There is always some risk that

independent media companies, which are recipients of US government assistance,

will broadcast news reports that are hostile to America. But it is interesting to note

that after a decade of support to more than two thousand independent broadcasters,

Internews has received virtually no complaints from any US Embassies or government agencies about any anti-American reports on these channels. On the contrary,

our training programs and support have been universally acclaimed to have raised

professional standards and contributed to a far greater degree of objective, factbased reporting from these stations.

It is an approach that has worked successfully in the past throughout the former

Soviet Union, in Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Indonesia and East Timor. When Congress,

in its wisdom, began to give modest amounts of foreign aid to independent media

in the former Soviet Union, the results were astonishing in the speed and effectiveness with which a multiplicity of voices emerged. At least 2000 independent broadcasters and 30,000 journalists and media professionals have benefited from U.S.

sponsored training and technical assistance programs in the former Soviet Union

and Eastern Europe. U.S.-assisted independent media played a critical role in overthrowing the dictatorship of President Slobodan Milosivic in Yugoslavia, and recently in exposing corruption in the Republic of Georgia. In Indonesia, US funds

supported the first radio program for women in a Muslim country where it quickly

became the most popular show in the country. In all these cases, US support for

indigenous local media succeeded in creating a culture of Western-style news reporting that goes beyond packaging America’s story.

And the results of supporting open and independent media are concrete and measurable. According to the World Bank’s ‘‘World Development Report 2002,’’ countries

with privately owned, local, independent media outlets had less corruption, more

transparent economies, and higher indices of education and health. A free press facilitates multiparty elections, freedom of expression, transparency of both government and business, improved human rights, and better treatment for women and

disenfranchised minorities.

None of this is to suggest that there is not a role and an important need for traditional public diplomacy, especially the cultural exchange programs, which give foreign nationals a first-hand experience of America, something no media program can

ever match. Overseas broadcasting can be a lifeline to people who live in totally

closed societies. U.S. governmental programs like Radio Sawa, which provides young

people with Western and Arabic news and music through the Middle East Radio

Network appear to be gaining audience and should continue.

But before spending vast sums of money on an expensive satellite television network for the Islamic world in order to beam our messages directly into these societies, we should question whether it is far more cost-effective to expend resources

on developing local media. Given the limits on resources for overseas media, I would

encourage us to focus on individual countries like Egypt, Pakistan and others where

we can significantly alter the local media landscape through media assistance and

training. It is unlikely that a U.S. government produced satellite channel can outperform American and European commercial news and entertainment media companies, which already are competing for these audiences. Rather than devote enormous resources to expensive technological satellite equipment, we should be examining media law and regulatory reform which are essential ingredients in the creation of an ‘‘enabling environment,’’ in which independent media can compete fairly

with state-run media.

50

In the end, limits on freedom of the media will hinder even the most vigorous and

sustained public diplomacy campaign. Populations lacking access to free and open

media and a plurality of news sources are susceptible to negative and hostile propaganda directed against the United States. Support for terrorism is greatest in countries where the public has little access to outside information or free and independent news media. Free and independent media will not automatically guarantee

moderation, but it does open new space for moderate voices that can combat antiWestern propaganda.

And so it is in the national interests of the United States to support the growth

of free and open media around the world as an extension of our public diplomacy

work. In the final analysis support for free and vibrant local media are the best investment we can make in building a safe, secure and democratic world. I have no

doubt that the extension of American values of pluralism, tolerance and freedom of

expression will follow from this investment in local, independent open media.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Our last witness, who

probably is the single most appropriate witness we could have after

that, is Veton Surroi, who is one of those people we are talking

about. Are we kidding ourselves, Veton? Are we playing a game

here, or are we really able to impact positively and truthfully on

what is going on around the world, and the attitude toward us?

The floor is yours.

STATEMENT OF VETON SURROI, CHAIRMAN, KOHA MEDIA

GROUP, PRISTINA, KOSOVO

Mr. SURROI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let us just judge from

what happened 9 months ago on this date. While the United States

was being attacked, I was sitting in my office saying in despair,

what can I do, and so I wrote an editorial and I said, let us go out

to the streets tomorrow at the same time as we used to do in the

Milosevic times, and let us protest against this attack, and let us

also express some solidarity about it. Well, on September 12 at 3

p.m. you had hundreds of thousands of Kosovars in all of our cities

protesting against terrorism and expressing solidarity with America.

Now, of course, this happens not only because of an editorial, we

all know that. It happens because Kosovo is probably the most proAmerican place in Europe today and is obviously thankful for a

very diligent U.S. policy to which you have personally contributed

as well for many years, but it happens because in our society,

media have a role of civil society, and media can mobilize positively—they can mobilize negatively, but certainly positively, and

they can mobilize for the right cause.

Now, how did that happen? That credibility was built over years,

because that is paper, and the other media outlets were built in

times of repression, so the media actually became—the newspaper,

the editorial became a symbol of resistance against an oppressive

society, against Milosevic, and therefore its credibility was actually

one of participating in liberation.

This is a contribution, certainly, which could not have existed,

these conditions, without a concerted effort, a contribution from the

international community, from the United States, from the European donors, and from private donors, and all of this, of course,

with a clear view in having a self-sustained media after a period

of time.

Now, for me, it is rather challenging to find some parallels, not

because Kosovo is a majority Muslim background, because the

51

Kosovars are basically identified as Albanians in their majority,

and not with their religious background, but it is challenging in a

sense to find parallels between what we have gone through and

what the Muslim societies in the Arab world are going through

right now, and the question is actually first of all the extremism

of an ideology.

Milosevic misused ethnicity and brought his people to that position, and the Taliban and al-Qaeda are misusing Islam and bringing their own people and the societies surrounding them to destruction, so we are dealing with the extreme forms, or manifestations

of these totalitarian ideologies, which unfortunately have to be

fought by force. But underneath those ideologies are a vast group

of people and many regimes who are actually, to a certain extent,

by being closed are contributing to the extremism.

So what we are talking about now, today, I think, is about opening of closed societies in the Muslim world. It is a more challenging

task, I think, than simply broadcasting a message here and there

about what the American position is. It is about opening those societies, opening those regimes, and it is not about opening a dictatorial regime. It is not about opening Iraq, because we cannot do it

at this stage with these means, but it is about opening those societies where America has a leverage, about opening those societies

that consider themselves American allies, but nevertheless do not

allow freedom of expression the way we know, and I am glad to say

we know it, we the Americans and the Kosovars do. What a day.

So it is about free reformed societies, and you ask, how do you

act in those societies? Well, our experience is the following. First

of all, you get effective dissemination of information, and certainly

what we have heard today about the radio stations, and that Radio

Sawa will help in many of these societies. Nevertheless, what is

certainly more needed, and this has been our experience with VOA

and BBC, is the more local input into these organizations, the better, the more local stringers, the better.

The second, and I think of utmost importance, is amplification of

indigenous voices. You cannot have a successful campaign of opening societies if local papers, local stations do not do that, and it is

certainly not about projecting this media and international network. It is the importance of the local newspaper that can do that.

Now, the local newspaper cannot do it unless it is also being supported in terms of newsprint, or in terms of a printing press, or in

terms of setting up a distribution system. A local journalist is being

confronted with an authoritarian system, and that authoritarian

system controls airwaves, frequencies, printing presses, ways of import of news print. It also controls the ways of distribution of the

newspapers. It is a rather ample fight, but once you start fighting

it, you see the satisfaction of winning, actually, that war.

There is no other way in which these independent media can be

developed in that region without direct support. It is not a question

of only supporting it politically. It is a question of supporting it also

financially. Certainly it is about, as you said, drawing up also

forms of conditionality that will protect the journalist. There are

many courageous people everywhere in every authoritarian society,

but those courageous people will amplify, there will be more of

them only if a powerful country like the United States actually

52

starts protecting, the journalist actually starts telling the closed regimes, or semi-closed regimes that they cannot go on arresting

journalists.

Now, we have to be, of course, inventive in that support, and we

have to use all the technologies. You have in many countries inventive people. Serbia was a good example. Radio B–92 was a very

good example. The downfall of Milosevic could not have happened

in that fashion if B–92, a very courageous station, had not continued, despite being closed, trying to broadcast on the Internet, trying to do it on the satellite and get news out.

The fourth and, I think, critical point that is being debated as

I have seen it in parts of this society here in the United States is

whether the support to the independent media will actually create

more extremist voices in the region. Now, I think the debate is

false in the sense of, if you support the media you will simply find

many pro-American media in that region. I think you should not

expect that.

The independent media in the Balkans in our region, in our crisis were sometimes critical. We are the most pro-American society

in the region. We were critical of the U.S. policy on Bosnia, on inactivity on Bosnia. We were critical for what we saw were flaws in

U.S. policy, but we nevertheless considered that only an open and

critical media can also deliver on its credibility on the one hand,

and on the other hand, only a critical and open debate—a critical

and open debate is possible only with friends.

The CHAIRMAN. And the virtue of being correct, I would remind

you.

Mr. SURROI. I do not think anybody should be afraid of support

of a media that will be critical of the United States. It is not a

question of whether it is critical or not critical. The real debate is

between the existing media that created conspiracy theory that this

whole thing of the United States is a Zionist, a Vatican and whathave-you conspiracy against Islam, which we used to hear from

Milosevic all the time. That is not the point. The point is actually

to bring them to a rational debate, and see what the pros and cons

of each and every policy.

The end result actually ought to be, the ideal end result would

be a paper in Amman or in Cairo or somewhere that publishes the

pros and cons of America’s position, that gets Senator Biden to

write about this or that segment of the policy, and has an intellectual debate with somebody else on the other side who will say,

well, we need—this or that problem.

And the fifth is the question of opening the debate within the society. The media in the Arab world I think in this pre-reform state

of the Arab world will play an important role in creating a debating

space in the society. When you do not have a functioning parliament the way the Western world knows it, when you do not have

a public control over expenditures, when you do not have that

space to debate about all of these things, you have the media actually to create the space to be a parliamentary force, and that is

part of the deal.

The second is to create pluralism in the Arab society. Not all

Arab societies are the same. Arab covers a very wide space as we

know it.

53

The third is to create a debate between, in this case, in the Middle Eastern case, between the Arabs or the Palestinians and the

Israelis. I think that the media will not resolve the PalestinianIsraeli conflict, but without the media to open up the debate within

the Palestinian society and within the Israeli society, and to reach

a standard by which these societies can be critical to each other

within each other’s society, I do not see a way that it is going to

be resolved either.

I think—and with this I will finish, Mr. Chairman. I think the

end result of U.S. public diplomacy ought not to be the expectation

that after an effort the Arab world, or particular parts of the Arab

world will love you, but I think the immediate result that is needed

is that hate speech in that part of the world is for the first time

confronted with rational speech, and I think that ought to be the

aim.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Surroi follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF VETON SURROI, CHAIRMAN, KOHA MEDIA GROUP

Members of the Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Nine months ago on this date I was sitting in my office in Prishtina, gathering

information on what was going to be known as a new way of waging war against

the United States, and indeed, war against democratic society as a whole. Being a

Kosovar, coming from a society that has gone through a very long period of violence

including a genocidal war, there was no need for detailed explanations of the shock,

the pain, and the sense of loss that we were seeing directly on TV that day of September 11.

Also, being a Kosovar, coming from a society that has been liberated thanks to

American leadership—an effort that for many years was waged by a bipartisan

group of Members of Congress, especially Senators Biden and Lugar of this distinguished Committee—the September 11 attack against the United States was clearly

understood as an attack against Kosova as well. On that day, I could not do much

more than write an editorial, explaining to my fellow Kosovars why all of us should

be out on the streets of our cities, the way we protested before against the Milosevic

regime, now expressing our full solidarity with the American people and our condemnation of terrorism. On September 12th, hundreds of thousands of people all

over Kosova were out on the streets with a simple message: ‘‘America we are with

you.’’

As chairman of an independent media group, comprised of a leading television

station and the biggest newspaper in Kosova, I have experienced the power of the

freely expressed word. So to me it was not surprising at all to see this gathering

of the people of Kosova, assembled by their own will, without any governmental or

party direction, on September 12th.

Civil society, with the independent media at its heart, played a crucial role in resistance against the Milosevic regime over the past decade. First the weekly KOHA,

and then the daily newspaper KOHA Ditore, emerged as critical voices during the

long years of oppression. These and other indigenous media voices, independent

from the political parties, bridged the gap between the dark reality of those years

and the democracy our people are now building. This vital role of the free media,

of course, would not have been possible without the sustained political and material

support of the United States, as well as European and private donor organizations,

among which the most prominent was the Soros foundation. That support was not,

and was not intended to be, endless: KOHA developed a policy of self-sustainability

and was the first newspaper in the region to achieve that status only three months

after the war. I believe that our independence and standards will allow us to play

an important role in democracy and state-building in Kosova for decades to come.

In transitional countries, there is continuous conflict between the forces that want

to expand the freedom of the individual and society, and the forces that want to

deny that freedom. And this conflict is not only about authoritarian rule vs. democracy, as was the clear-cut case of Milosevic vs. all of us. This struggle also continues

in many post-authoritarian societies that are trying to build democracy, where the

authorities undermine the economic foundations of independent media so that official policies and messages can go unexamined and uncriticized.

54

In my homeland, we have gone through all phases of repression, terror, and conflict. Journalists and media were prime targets for the Milosevic regime, as they always are for such regimes around the world. But no matter what the cost, our journalists remained close to the center of Kosova’s story. And we learned some lessons

from this ordeal:

• There is no alternative to indigenous, independent journalism. A message from

international broadcasters, however good it is, and even when delivered in the

local language, still lacks full credibility within the society. A message from

journalists within the society has much more credibility and respect.

• Set professional standards of journalism. Bad policies in a country also derive

from bad journalism. Bad journalism is the best ally of the authoritarian mind

set.

• Persevere in your work and get international support. Authoritarian rulers in

this interconnected new world can still get away with imprisoning many people,

but they think twice about imprisoning a journalist.

• If you persevere, you might get support, but if you don’t get support it will be

much harder to persevere. The more pressure the regime puts on you, the more

international and indigenous support you will need.

• As you struggle to open up a closed society, be professionally critical not only

towards the repressive regime, but also towards your own society. Credibility

is raised not only through your critical attitude towards a ‘‘natural foe’’ (as in

the Milosevic case) but also by a fair and critical attitude towards your collective self.

• An independent media needs to be independent in terms of infrastructure as

well. Authoritarian regimes control independent media not only through open

repression, but through the control of printing presses, availability of newsprint,

radio and TV frequencies, broadcasting equipment, financial and legal repression, and other means.

In the post-conflict period, after liberation by NATO forces, we also learned important lessons:

• An independent media is crucial to building democratic institutions where there

were none. An independent media is a precursor and precondition for those

democratic institutions.

• The absence of authoritarian rule does not automatically bring freedom of the

media. In the Kosovar case, a combination of weak democratic institutions and

bad international policies have brought major new threats to the independent

media. This is clearly evident in the case of Bosnia and Kosova, where the

international administration’s overwhelming support for a ‘‘public broadcasting’’

monopoly risks re-creating the state television dominance of the past, instead

of creating the level playing field needed to assure the pluralism of healthy private and public broadcasting.

I do think that some lessons we learned in Kosova can be applied in the Middle

East, Central and South Asia. However, my recommendations for U.S. media policy

in the Muslim world are based not so much on Kosova’s having a majority population with a Muslim religious background. Kosovar society is identified more by

ethnicity than by religion. Our experience of transition from communism to democracy, and from oppression to statehood, is actually more relevant. We know how to

operate within a repressive system and what kind of support is needed.

It is political Islam that has the clearest parallel to the adversary the the United

States did so much to defeat in the Balkans. The Taliban/Al Qaeda, from my perspective, are no different than the Milosevic ideology. Milosevic used ethnicity to

create a fascist movement the same way the Taliban used religion to create its own

version of totalitarian rule. In the end, ethnic chauvinism and religious fundamentalism create the same result: destruction of their own society and surrounding societies. The extreme manifestations of these ideologies, as we have seen both in the

case of Milosevic and the Taliban, are to be fought by force. And just as major U.S.

and international support has been essential for the substantial effort to transform

Balkan societies—before and after departure of authoritarian regimes—the same is

true in those parts of the Muslim world where political Islam prevails or is a threat.

SOME SPECIFIC STEPS ARE NEEDED FOR THIS LONG-TERM STRUGGLE:

One: More effective dissemination of information. We who have lived in closed societies know the value of a radio transistor that receives VOA or BBC broadcasts in

our mother tongue. And these broadcasts ought to be done as a concerted effort.

Nevertheless, this is also the age of satellite dishes and the Internet: there is more

55

space and more competition for information. A transistor receiving an external

broadcaster in Arabic is insufficient. The key is the indigenous talent that reports

from the region and helps bring professional standards back home, providing unbiased information from within the society.

Two: Amplify indigenous voices. External broadcasting services and international

commercial newscasts are not sufficient. The people of closed societies also need to

get verification of those messages and information from indigenous media. The content of the message is important, but so is the form of it: once there are independent, indigenous journalists it is a sign of contradiction not only of the messages

of authoritarian rule but of the very nature of that rule. Authoritarian rule is based

on an image of invincibility. Independent media can contradict that. In every closed

society there is a group of journalists who question that society. The key is to identify and support them with whatever can help amplify their voices.

Three: Direct support for independent media. The indigenous independent media

are confronted with an official system, and that system has structures of print

media, distribution of press, allocation of frequencies, transmission systems, etc. Establishing independent media means establishing competing systems. Wherever possible, this means establishing independent printing presses, Internet-based or terrestrial transmitters, alternative distribution organizations for media products. It

also means competing with the authoritarian regime in terms of technology and information systems. In Kosova, the independent media could not have survived had

there not been an independent printing press, alternative distribution of the newspapers, and independent Internet capacity. Similarly, the independent media in Serbia, which were crucial to the defeat of Milosevic, could not have done their job had

there not been alternative ways of broadcasting Radio B92, for example, via the

internet and satellite.

Four: Independent media and pluralism. Independent media voices by definition

will be critical voices. But the concern that opening up the media in the Muslim

world, and international support for this effort, will fuel anti-American criticism ignores the longterm and even medium-term strategic benefits. The independent journalism that could be supported today in the Muslim world may be critical of American policy in the Middle East. However, state-controlled media in many of these

countries are already full of harsh criticism of U.S. policies. Independent media will

be critical of everything around them, including the lack of reform and transparency

at home. What the Muslim world certainly needs is a healthy debate—both within

and between its different societies—and part of that debate will be about American

policy. Nevertheless, it will be in a context in which those societies will analyze

themselves, a vital function which has been mostly lacking until now.

The Balkans may serve as an example. We in Kosova, however pro-American,

have had criticisms of some American policies now and then, especially in the initial

stages of the Bosnian war. But the independent media helped build the culture of

free expression into our society, creating the foundation for a healthy democracy.

The independent media in Serbia criticized U.S. policies in the Balkans even more,

but these media were a key part of the effort that pushed Milosevic out, and are

now helping push reform forward in Serbia.

The choice in the Muslim world is between the present dominant media which are

by definition anti-American (pushing a prejudiced message of a great ‘‘Zionist-American-Vatican’’ conspiracy against the Muslims, quite similar to the propaganda message of the Milosevic era), or the at barely existing independent media which if supported will bring badly-needed pluralism on all issues. In the long run, American

foreign policy will be more successful if it can be debated with pro-and-con articles

in the editorial pages of competing newspapers and local broadcasters in Cairo, Damascus or Teheran, rather than only through ‘‘Death to America’’ slogans being

chanted in the streets of those cities. If Muslim societies cannot benefit from the

growth of independent media (which has begun in Afghanistan since its liberation

from the Taliban), then they are uniquely different from all other societies we know.

Five: Independent media and pragmatism. There is also a crucial need for the

media to be bridges within a conflict, and bridges in the post-conflict period. If one

looks only at the Palestinian problem, there is a need for both the Israelis and their

neighbors to understand each others’ societies through a similar professional level

of journalism. Throughout the conflict in ex-Yugoslavia, independent media on different sides of the conflict have kept continuous communication. And now in the

post-conflict period, they are the first ones in a position to build bridges of communication between our different societies which must co-exist and define long-term

common interests. Independent media by nature are much more flexible and pragmatic than the state- and mullah-controlled media that now dominate in so much

of the Muslim world.

56

Most of the Muslim societies today are in a pre-reform state. The U.S. and its coalition of European and private media donors have succeeded, in Europe and elsewhere, in opening up many closed societies. Some of these techniques cannot be

automatically applied, but much in the experience can be adapted to new conditions.

The important thing, I believe, is to make a political decision not to leave these societies to transform themselves alone. For many of us who have lived and still live

in transition societies, any success would have been impossible without a concerted,

sustained international support effort.

Since America’s first years of democracy, when Jefferson said he would rather

have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers,

transition societies around the world have depended on free media. The United

States should lead the way in recognizing that the same facts of life are true for

the Muslim world as well. When the U.S. came to this conclusion about the Balkans,

it was a key component in assuring the freedom and peace that my homeland enjoys

today. I hope and I expect that a similar decision by America toward the Muslim

world will help open up the societies from which terror now targets your homeland.

And opening up those societies to their own voices will help bring the more normal,

productive and stable lives that their citizens want most of all. Opening up more

Muslim societies to their own mainstream forces can only be good for the common

security, as it has been for so many years of American leadership in so many places.

Thank you for the honor of addressing the Committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Veton. Speaking for myself, I think

it is very important that we have realistic expectations. I have been

a Senator for along time, and the one thing I have always tried not

to do, not because I like to think myself honest, but for very practical political reasons, is never over-promise.

For the last 30 years as the architect of most of the criminal justice policy on the Democratic side of the equation at least, I do not

talk about wars on drugs because there is always going to be the

problem of drugs out there, and to offer the notion that you are

going to eradicate all drug abuse is not realistic. To fundamentally

alter it is possible.

In this area what I do not want to do is be part of advertising

to the American public if they just increase expenditures what is

going to happen is we are going to be embraced by the Muslim

world as their savior, as the nation they love. Americans, I try to

explain to Europeans—and we had this discussion in your office,

Veton, and I think my son, when he was stationed in Pristina, got

to meet with you as well—is that most Americans, we think ourselves—the average American is a decent, honorable person. They

truly are confused as to why people do not like us. They do not understand why Biden says send troops to Bosnia and Kosovo, and

why Biden says send troops to Afghanistan, and they acquiesce in

doing that, send their sons and daughters, and people do not like

us for doing that.

They do not understand why, when my motivation, Veton, and

you know it better than anyone, back in the early nineties, when

I started the drum beat to get involved in the Balkans, was because of the genocidal activities against Muslims, yet no one in the

Arab world understands that, that we went to Bosnia, we went to

Kosovo, those who were there in the very beginning, because Muslims primarily were being destroyed, not just—not merely—it was

a lot of people, but it was the death camps in Bosnia. They were

about Muslims. The rape camps were about Muslims. They were

Bosniaks, but they were Muslims because of their religion, and nobody knows that. Nobody knows that, or at least if they know it,

it has not gotten through.

57

You mentioned the Middle East, all three of you. I have had a

number of discussions, not all fruitful, not any fruitful, probably,

alone with Mr. Arafat in his compound in the West Bank and here,

and when I asked him why Taba was not a possibility he said, well,

we have not prepared our public sufficiently. There was no effort

to prepare the public, none, zero, none. None at all, and that is why

I have been somewhat critical of our Saudi friends and our Egyptian friends, that if they want to be treated like mature nations,

they have to act like mature leaders.

You cannot on the one hand run editorials in the state-controlled

papers saying that the pastries that are going to be prepared for

a religious holiday in Judaism have to be made from the blood of

non-Jews as an essential ingredient and run that as news in a

state-controlled paper and expect me to believe you have any interest in being a positive force in the region, so all of what each of

you have said makes a great deal of sense.

I have a couple of very specific questions, and again, back to

where I began with this. Veton, your, I think, very practical expectation that we should be offering to the American people here

about if our efforts succeed, what impact they will have, what is

the measure of success here, because we will be measured. As you

know, Mr. Ambassador, we will be measured a year and two and

three from now as, what has happened, what is happening.

Now, the issue of independence for indigenous independent press

and U.S. aid, how do you thread that needle? How do you thread

the needle where we, quote-unquote, the American taxpayers, pay

for a printing press, pay for supplies, pay for salaries, even of staff,

because those are the kinds of things—it is not merely saying, as

you said that one time, you cannot just say it is enough to tell governments that are our friends that there is conditionality here, but

there is also the need to literally have the money to buy the ink,

figuratively speaking—it is not ink any more—to buy the paper, to

have a studio, to have a roof. How do you square that circle? Yes,

Mr. Hoffman.

Mr. HOFFMAN. This is one of the key issues that you point your

finger at, the key paradox. We are trying to teach people about the

benefits of nongovernmental independent media, and we are doing

it with governmental money, so we are confronted by this question

all the time. I think that there are mechanisms that could be put

in place that could increase the sense of independence that we have

on the ground, but so far I must say I do have to say parenthetically USAID has done a really good job in keeping its hands off and

not interfering editorially, and so that practice certainly helps, but

it is something we have to overcome all the time.

Our strategy in dealing with this has been to support the development of local NGOs. In every country where we work there is a

local Internews or a local media NGO that we support.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, let me make sure, because I do not think

most people listening to this will understand what a local NGO

press person is. In other words, people think of NGOs as Catholic

charities, Irish relief workers, whatever. NGOs are nongovernmental organizations. Now, are there NGOs that are also newspapers, or are also radio stations? What do you mean?

58

Mr. HOFFMAN. What I mean is, there are media assistance

NGOs, so in Russia there is—Internews Russia is an all-Russian

organization of 100 people, with lawyers and producers and whatnot that basically support the hundreds of local broadcasters that

are commercial operations.

The CHAIRMAN. Very important. I just wanted for the record to

make sure what we are talking about. We are talking about, these

NGOs are to the media what the NGOs that are teaching people

how to set up accounting systems in corporations that never existed in the former Soviet Union are. I mean, they provide an expertise. They provide the legal framework. They provide other

means by which they assist private organizations.

Mr. HOFFMAN. There are really two key points I would like to

make. One is a need to support those local NGOs, but also for the

U.S. Government to give all its assistance through international

NGOs or American NGOs. There was an attempt back in 1989 or

1990 to create the international media fund, you may remember,

after Secretary Baker called for it in his Charles University speech,

and frankly that did not work, because it was seen as too closely

tied to the U.S. Government, whereas other efforts of the U.S.

State Department and USAID working through American and

international NGOs to give that assistance works much better.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ambassador, you know the Arab world quite

well. You are one of the most qualified people we have ever had

in place when you were Ambassador. Before he became the guy

who runs this operation, the staff director of the Foreign Relations

Committee, Tony Blinken wrote an article in which he said, ‘‘now

the United States has global interests and no ideological rival

whose vices remind the world of its virtues,’’ meaning our virtues.

In other words, in the past, and Veton kind of alluded to this,

when Milosevic was around, you had opposition newspapers, underground newspapers. Part of their very legitimacy was, they were

stacked up against this very bad guy out there. We were able to,

I would argue, one of the reasons why Radio Free Europe and

Radio Liberty were such an incredible success, there was a known

ideology called communism pursued and pushed by a totalitarian

government in Moscow that everything that we said or did was

measured against.

Now, we do not have an ideology that we are confronting around

the world. There is all other ideologies as it relates to the way the

marketplace works. The way the world economies function have basically been concluded to be more or less bankrupt, although there

is great doubt about this fear of unfettered capitalism and free

markets, but there is no ideology to replace that yet. I mean, no

ideology to replace it. We have a different dilemma now. How much

of our problem in having, if you will, the truth filter through the

societies, both the good and bad about us, how much of the difficulty of that truth filtering through relates to not having a counterpoint against whom we are measured?

When you are sitting in Baghdad or you are sitting in Cairo, or

you are sitting in Amman, or you are sitting in Indonesia, or various places in Indonesia, and the debate is between these two superpowers, the American choice does not seem to be as pernicious

or as dangerous or as counterintuitive to accept, even in the MusVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
59

lim world, I would argue. Now that is gone. What is this new thing

we have to—and I am not being very articulate.

Ambassador GINSBERG. Mr. Chairman, the dilemma we face

since the end of the cold war in the Middle East is that the very

underground press that should be most interested, at least in our

judgment, of promoting democracy and freedom and ideals is actually the Islamic extremist express. It is the sermons that are being

put on cassettes that are attacking the local governments. It is the

underground newspapers. Indeed, most Arabs in the region understand the difference between reading a newspaper that is controlled by the government and a newspaper that they know is

being put together by forces of that are opposed to the government.

My thesis in this is that we Americans do not realize at times

that we are caught up in a civil war in the Middle East, that what

we face between those governments that use incitement as a way

of deflecting attention from their shortcomings, and the more extremist elements that are battling those very governments, is the

sense that we somehow have stumbled in between the two and are

being used by both as a way of deflecting the war that was already

taking place on the ground between them, and all of a sudden we

became the target.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, in Egypt, the war that ultimately

led to the creation of al-Qaeda and its operational arms was being

waged by extremists against the government for years, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were harmed and injured. The war

in Algeria killed hundreds of thousands of Algerians in the name

of Islamic extremism.

What these countries are facing is that their populations are dissatisfied with their leadership and blame us for in effect appearing

to protect them and doing very little to change them, and if I can

go down into the ground, and to say to myself, what do we do with

the newspaper reporters who put the venom out and who keep

writing the most incredible vitriol against the United States, this

is all due, in fact, to the belief that we Americans fail to appreciate

and understand their unhappiness and their concerns and their

lack of hope and the despair on the ground about what we have

failed to stand for.

Mr. Chairman, this is not something that just happened overnight. On the other hand, as I said, at the height of the peace process, when we had the great hope and expectations that we were on

the verge of a breakthrough when Prime Minister Rabin was alive,

that hatred was still very much part and parcel of the region. The

attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 by the forerunner of alQaeda was essentially trying to cutoff the umbilical cord between

us and Egypt, and we have got to understand that that is what we

are facing in order to deal more effectively with the challenge before us. I am not sure if that gets to your question.

The CHAIRMAN. No, it does get to it. Veton, and then I apologize,

I am going to have to end this. I have taken you 2 hours beyond

what I told you you would get, and I am supposed to be, an hour

ago at a Democratic Caucus, but anyway, please.

Mr. SURROI. Combining both of your questions, I think an important element is actually to establish a coalition. It is important in

terms of, to your previous question of how do you support. I think

60

what we have seen in the Balkans from 1995 onwards was that the

form of support in which the U.S., the E.U., and the private institutions helped develop is the best way to deal with this, and there

are many very good people who have worked in direct assistance

who have experience in dealing with this issue.

Second, it is important to develop this coalition also, because the

other missing power, as you have said, is being developed, and the

missing ideology is being developed, which is political Islam, and

political Islam is actually trying to be the substitute for reform and

for opposition in closed societies, and that is a real danger, because

political Islam is basing itself on ethnicity in the Palestinian case,

it is basing itself on poverty all over the Arab world, and on oppression.

In many of these societies we still have a feudal mentality, and

that is why the coalition-building actually is important and especially the coalition-building that will try to undermine these three

areas which the political Islam is basing itself on.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we have a good deal of work to do, to state

the obvious, but I really think for the first time in the last 5

years—and let me end by telling you a question I was asked between the time I voted and walked back here by a very competent

foreign policy reporter. He asked me, what did I think about the

prospects for foreign aid genuinely increasing in the United States

on the part of the U.S. Government, and I use this hearing as an

example.

I think, to use a phrase that was new when I started in public

life during the struggle for women in the women’s movement was,

sensitivity sessions they used to talk about, how do you sensitize

the public to the plight of women in the sixties. That was a phrase

that was very much in vogue.

I think there has kind of been a national sensitivity session that

is sort of taking place here, and the realization on the part of the

average American, to use a—he has been quoted several times

today—a Tom Friedman phrase that maybe he did not originate,

I do not know, but it is one I associate with him, which was, if you

do not visit the bad neighborhood, the bad neighborhood will visit

you.

I think there is a growing awareness on the part of the average

American that we have to rethink how we make our case in a more

complicated world so that all of the natural tendencies of human

nature are that you, as I tell people, when you go home and your

dad has just been laid off because his plant has closed down, and

the next-door-neighbor drives in at the same time with a new

Lexus, you do not sit at your dinner table saying, isn’t it wonderful

our neighbor has got a new Lexus. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?

If your neighbor is smart, the neighbor will put the new Lexus

in the garage once they have learned that their friend next door

has lost his job. Nations are not able to be that sensitive, I do not

suspect, but there is this notion out there on the part of the American public that a lot of this has to do with how we communicate.

They would not call it public diplomacy. They would say, how do

we tell our side of the story? How do we get involved?

And foreign aid is going to have easier sledding here now, because the American public understands you cannot have 3 to 5 bilVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
61

lion people living on $2 a day in the world and not have a problem

eventually. People are pretty smart. Just like the people in

Amman, or excuse me, in Riyadh know the difference between the

state-owned press and press they get that is not state-owned, people here understand these basic fundamental things as well,

So I really do think, with your help, and I am not being solicitous, with your help and the help of others that testified today and

some that have not, that we really can begin to build something

that is solid and substantial that will not only benefit the United

States but benefit—and I think this is one of those—we always

thought during the cold war that it is a zero-sum game. This is a

win-win situation, if we are smart about it, and I am going to

rely—Congress is going to rely on the three of you and others to

help us figure out the formula.

But I do think—maybe I am, you know, being an optimist is an

occupational requirement. Maybe I am being a little too optimistic,

but I do think we are on the cusp of some real progress in dealing

with this notion of public diplomacy and how we interact in the

world, and I look forward to working with all three of you, as others do here, as we do that. We have the draft report. We look forward to the final report from the Council, and we welcome any suggestions you have as we go on.

I have a couple of questions for each of you, if you would be willing, to submit them to you in writing. I do not want to make work

for you, but I do appreciate your being here.

Veton, welcome, and thank you for the hospitality and the willingness to speak to me 6, 8 years ago and ever since. You were a

rational voice in a sea of chaos when I was in your office, and I

appreciate that, and I want to publicly say I admire your persona,

courage, your personal courage that you showed. Over here, a press

person takes a risk, he or she may get fired, and if they are overseas I might note more media people have been killed covering

these things than a lot of other people, but in your country at the

time you were speaking out the penalty for doing the wrong editorial might have been getting shot, so it is a very different deal.

I admire your personal courage.

And I admire your input, all three of you. I thank you very

much. This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene

subject to the call of the Chair.]

RESPONSES TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

RESPONSES OF HON. CHARLOTTE BEERS, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC

DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

SUBMITTED BY THE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE

Question. What is the Department of State doing to ensure adequate interagency

coordination on public diplomacy issues? What impact will the White House Office

of Communications’ apparent efforts to fulfill this function have on the Department

of State and its leadership in the field of public diplomacy?

Answer. The most important element in coordinating our messages overseas is the

coordination of communications within the Administration. At present, the White

House, the State Department, the Defense Department, and the NSC staff are working to create more formal mechanisms for interagency coordination on two levels.

A Policy Coordination Committee (PCC) on Public Diplomacy is under consideration,

which would set strategy and focus the use of resources by the several federal agenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
62

cies that conduct public diplomacy activities abroad. The White House is meanwhile

considering the establishment of an Office of Global Communications to represent

the President’s priorities and offer the President’s voice to our public diplomacy efforts. While the precise relationship between these two levels has not yet been defined, the public diplomacy practitioners at both the White House and the State Department enjoy very close working relations in which State’s role as the lead agency

in public diplomacy is clearly recognized.

Question. What are you and your colleagues doing to realize the spirit of Presidential Decision Directive 68 (issued by President Clinton)? Have any presidential

directives on public diplomacy been issued by President Bush?

Answer. The Bush Administration recognized the value of a unified message to

the rest of the world by retaining a forum for interagency coordination on public

diplomacy. After the emergency created by the terrorist attacks of September 11,

the White House Coalition Information Centers brought assertive, day-to-day leadership to the task. At this time, we at the State Department are in consultation

with the White House, the National Security Council and the Defense Department

to establish more permanent structures. We want to assure a unified message and

to bring together the assets and capabilities of the foreign affairs agencies of government to project it in the most effective manner.

Question. Do we need a national information strategy? What can we do to make

sure that our public diplomacy and international information professionals from

State, the Department of Defense, USAID, and other agencies are coordinating to

develop national, international, and regional international information plans?

Answer. Yes, a national information strategy would help the U.S. to carry out

public diplomacy more effectively in a world of cross-cutting national and

transnational issues influenced by international and national media, NGOs, corporations, international organizations, and other outside groups.

This strategy would provide direction and a unified voice for the different international communications vehicles within the U.S. government. Such a ‘‘deliberate

planning’’ exercise, parallel to the Administration’s National Security Strategy,

would enable the U.S. to speak with one voice and to respond to contingencies in

a quicker, more effective fashion. White House leadership would be essential with

such a plan. Because government operational strategy cannot be run effectively by

committee, it is important to affirm the State Department’s leadership role in government-wide public diplomacy activities.

We coordinated with our allies through the Coalition Information Centers. It was

primarily the British, but the Canadians, Germans, Spanish and others were

brought in for closer consultations as they became more heavily engaged. We do not

normally coordinate with the UN, though we do consult with them through our U.S.

Mission in New York. The most important thing is that we’ve developed a mechanism to coordinate a task-force like operation like the CIC. We also know that even

if we aren’t in a situation that would require a CIC operation, the White House can

coordinate messages through a number of mechanisms with other USG agencies as

well as other countries.

Question. Former USIA Director Edward R. Murrow used to say that public diplomacy needed to be incorporated into U.S. policy-making at the lift off as well as the

crash landing. As you know, one of the goals of the merger of USIA into the State

Department was to make public diplomacy an even more central part of American

diplomacy in general. This is particularly important in light of the changes wrought

by the information and communications revolutions. Is the culture of the State Department changing to better incorporate public diplomacy perspectives? What more

needs to be done to encourage this critical transformation in the culture of our foreign policy institutions?

Answer. Public diplomacy has been strengthened since the merger of the U.S. Information Agency with the Department by bringing public diplomacy insights into

play sooner as foreign policy is developed, rather than after the fact. Moreover, the

Department requested an increase in our programs for FY 2003—the first program

increase for public diplomacy programs in ten years—and public diplomacy staffing

is being increased by 56 positions above attrition levels this year. An additional 28

positions are planned in the Department’s Diplomatic Readiness request for 2003.

In addition, the Department’s leadership has fully supported public diplomacy strategies and themes to focus and augment our traditional programs.

While we continue to work within the Department to improve the effectiveness

and coordination of these programs, the Department is currently evaluating the cohesion and structure of the public diplomacy organizational structure.

63

Question. At present the Department of State only budgets about five million dollars a year for foreign public opinion polling. Is this enough? Is enough reliable information about foreign public opinion being brought into the policymaking process?

What more can be done to address this apparent shortfall? Do we need to allocate

more money for polling and focus groups, and how can this type of market analysis

best be integrated into U.S. government public diplomacy efforts?

Answer. Polling is an essential tool in understanding the trends of public opinion

in foreign countries and regions. Since September 11, we have gained valuable information from a variety of polling sources, including our own polling in the State Department. As a result, we have, for example, ample data on attitudes about America

and Osama Bin Ladin. This data has been integrated into our overall public diplomacy strategies and our tactical planning and outreach in certain market segments.

We are now working to supplement our data on what people believe about the

United States and Bin Ladin with information on why and to what degree they hold

their beliefs. This will increase our ability to determine the most effective strategies

and tactics for public diplomacy. To the extent possible, we are seeking to do this

within existing resources.

Question. How can the United States make better use of the Islamic-American

community in our international public diplomacy efforts?

Answer. We are reaching out to the Muslim community in the United States, not

only to gain valuable information from them about the Islamic faith and belief system, but also to articulate to them the ways in which we are seeking to communicate to the Muslim world. By educating, informing, and consulting these groups,

we are actually reaching out overseas, as they communicate to their friends and

neighbors living abroad.

We are very encouraged by the amount of interest Muslims in America have

shown in helping to articulate the common values and shared beliefs Americans

have with other cultures. Recently, we confirmed that there is a newly formed group

called the Council of American Muslims for Understanding, which is seeking as its

mission to educate both Americans and people outside the United States about the

many important achievements of Muslims in America and throughout history. To

achieve these goals, the Council will host and sponsor seminars, speaking engagements, engage in media relationships, produce and distribute its own work, and organize cultural and educational exchange programs.

These kinds of organizations, which are more flexible and often more credible

than government bodies, will be indispensable in telling our story and forming an

active dialogue. Dialogue demands two-way communication. If such organizations

can provide a framework for non-Americans to speak to Americans, that answers

an important need, which is for us to be seen as listeners, not just talkers.

Question. What is the degree to which U.S. Ambassadors are provided with public

diplomacy training prior to deployment?

Answer. I meet with the Ambassadors-designate individually as well as during

the Ambassadorial Seminar where we have a collective exchange of views regarding

public diplomacy and its central role in American diplomacy. Also included in the

Seminar program are:

1. A 45 minute interactive discussion on the importance of Public Affairs/Public Diplomacy with one or more of my senior Public Diplomacy officers.

2. Two days of intensive media skills training with a professional media trainer.

3. A session with a representative of the State Department Press Office to respond to specific concerns of Ambassadors regarding State Department rules

and practices for dealing with the media (e.g., what they can say prior to Senate

confirmation, prior to presentation of credentials in the host country, and coordination of their activities and messages overseas with Washington).

The Public Diplomacy Training Division of the Foreign Service Institute can, as

a standard practice, coordinate with the respective bureau Public Diplomacy offices

and Public Affairs Offices in the Ambassador’s country of assignment to create a

profile of public diplomacy activities being carried out at the post.

In addition, during consultations in Washington, most ambassadors meet with

Public Diplomacy officers in their respective bureaus to gain greater familiarity with

the types of public diplomacy activities being undertaken in their countries of assignment.

Question. Has any aspect of the Smith-Mundt or Zorinsky restrictions on dissemination of public diplomacy materials interfered with your ability to engage effectively in public diplomacy overseas or to garner American support for public diplomacy efforts?

64

Answer. These laws have not affected our public diplomacy effort. Since USIA’s

consolidation into the State Department, it has been a challenge to respect these

restrictions while facilitating the integration of public diplomacy programs and expertise into State’s mainstream foreign policy process. We have been able to accomplish this successfully, though admittedly the active use of the internet to carry out

our public diplomacy mission overseas poses particular challenges.

The continued applicability of both section 501 of Smith-Mundt and the Zorinsky

Amendment was discussed during consolidation and affirmed in the Foreign Affairs

Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, as amended. The continued applicability of

these restrictions on domestic dissemination of public diplomacy materials enables

us to continue to focus effectively on one of our core missions—to inform and influence foreign audiences.

Question. How can we measure success in our public diplomacy efforts, and how

can we sell this success to the American people?

Answer. We do not ‘‘sell’’ our successes to the American people. Rather, through

periodic congressional hearings, speeches before interested audiences, and media activities, we inform the American people and their elected representatives about

what we are doing.

The success of our outreach to the Muslim world and all PD efforts is defined,

as it has been in the past, by the successful completion of individual programs, such

as the educational exchanges, International Visitors programs, speakers and journalist tours, and television co-ops and broadcast vignettes. All of these efforts offer

international audiences a look inside the U.S., and highlight the long-term contributions these programs make to establishing a world of democracies.

We show continuous progress toward these goals through specific examples of how

public diplomacy has helped to effect change in the international policy arena and

contributed to successful practices throughout the world—for example, of heads of

state of countries joining the Coalition Against Terrorism, 50 percent were International Visitors through State Department public diplomacy programs; this exposure to the U.S. at a critical stage in the political education of these leaders had

a real impact on how they conduct their relations with the U.S. today.

Another example of how we measure results is through the alumni of the Department’s educational exchange programs, who have been very active in their countries

talking about their experiences in the U.S. and helping to bridge the perception gap

that exists between different cultures. We are going to develop a database to keep

up with individuals who have participated in our educational exchange programs.

As we follow their careers and continue to reach out to these alumni, we will see

the results of their visits time and again over the course of their lives.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, U.S. SENATOR FROM

WISCONSIN

I am particularly pleased to welcome Under Secretary Beers, who has been leading an impressive State Department effort to improve our public diplomacy in the

aftermath of the attacks of September 11. I am also pleased that Governor Pattiz

of the Broadcasting Board of Governors will be joining us today to discuss our nation’s efforts to promote our values and objectives through broadcasts in local languages in communities across the globe. The perspectives on the second panel today

should also help clarify our efforts to support reliable independent media efforts in

other countries.

At the hearing today, I will also join many of my colleagues in recognizing that

we must take steps, as a priority, to reach out to Muslim and Arab communities

around the world to counter unfortunate misunderstandings about American policy

or American objectives in the campaign against global terrorism. By reaching out

to these Muslim communities, we also have an important opportunity to demonstrate that the Islamic world is not unified in opposition to our country or our

way of life.

As Chair of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, I have been particularly active

in urging the Secretary of State to reach out to Muslim leaders in Africa. And I am

pleased to have had an opportunity to travel this year to several African nations

that have important Muslim communities. Through those travels, I have sought to

initiate a direct dialogue with Muslim leaders. As a nation, we must continue to

make such public diplomacy a priority. And I am particularly pleased to support legVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
65

islation that is now pending in Congress to expand public diplomacy in predominantly Muslim countries, including in countries across Africa and Asia.

But we must also recognize that effective public diplomacy must always build on

and reinforce our core values as a society. Those values include a commitment to

accurate and reliable information on United States policy and on the vibrant diversity of opinions and beliefs that makes us such a strong and prosperous democracy.

Our public outreach must also reinforce our core commitment to human rights principles. In particular, we must ensure that our friends and allies understand that we

will not ignore human rights in the interest of building an immediate anti-terrorism

coalition.

I look forward to considering how we can build on the efforts that are already underway to improve our ability to communicate our nation’s core beliefs to other

countries and communities. This hearing today offers an important opportunity to

initiate that discussion.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY, U.S. SENATOR FROM

MASSACHUSETTS

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding this hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the important issue of public diplomacy. I welcome the opportunity to submit testimony.

One of the clear lessons of September 11th is that our country needs to do more

to ensure that future generations in the Islamic world understand American values

and culture. Nearly 1.5 billion people live in the Islamic world. If we ignore the antiAmerican attitudes so prevalent in those countries, we do so at our own peril.

If we address the problem directly, by teaching American values to young people

from the Islamic world, we have a chance, in the long run, of changing negative attitudes. It’s a long process, but September 11th has taught us that we must begin

it now.

There are many ways to share America’s values with others, and this important

hearing will highlight many of them. Among the most effective public diplomacy actions at our disposal are international educational exchange programs. There are no

better ambassadors for American values than Americans themselves. Student exchange programs have proven to be effective in reaching out to the next generation

of leaders. As Secretary Powell said in his August 2001 Statement on International

Education Week, ‘‘I can think of no more valuable asset to our country than the

friendship of future world leaders who have been educated here.’’

On May 10, Senators Lugar, Leahy, Chafee, Dodd, Hagel, Gordon Smith, Cochran,

Brownback, Jeffords, Durbin, Feingold, and Landrieu joined me in introducing the

Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. Our legislation, S. 2505, seeks to increase funding for

student and other exchanges between Americans and visitors from the Islamic

world. It would also create a new high school exchange program for students from

the Islamic world.

The Cultural Bridges Act would authorize $75 million above current appropriations in fiscal years 2003 through 2007 to expand the activities of the State Department’s existing educational and cultural programs in the Islamic world. It would

also authorize $20 million in fiscal years 2003 through 2007 for the Department to

establish a new high school student exchange program to enable competitively selected students from the Islamic world to study in the United States at a public high

school for an academic year.

The State Department currently manages a number of international student educational and cultural exchange programs that have helped foster mutual respect and

understanding in many countries worldwide. These programs enable approximately

5,000 Americans to travel abroad and 20,000 foreign visitors to travel to the United

States annually to study, teach, and engage in people-to-people programs. They

have been successful in promoting American values and cultural tolerance.

Unfortunately, visitors and students from the Islamic world are significantly

underrepresented in many of these programs. Individuals in the Islamic world represent approximately 25 percent of the world’s 6.2 billion people. However, in fiscal

year 2000, less than 10 percent of the participants in State Department cultural and

educational exchange programs were from the Islamic countries covered under our

legislation, and less than 12 percent of the budget was spent on these countries. According to the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, funding for exchanges has fallen by almost a third since 1993 when adjusted for inflation.

The additional $75 million our legislation authorizes for existing programs to be

expanded in the Islamic world is essential to the objective of promoting greater unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
66

derstanding of American values and ideals. Existing programs provide the essential

building blocks for an expanded and sustained effort to reach more broadly into

these societies, to foster mutual respect, and to counter the hatred that can lead to

acts of terrorism.

Last October, President Bush spoke eloquently about the need to reach out in

friendship to the Islamic world. In a speech to students at Thurgood Marshall Extended Elementary School in Washington DC, the President said that America is

‘‘determined to build ties of trust and friendship with people all around the world— particularly with children and people in the Islamic world.’’ To facilitate the President’s goal of reaching children, our legislation would also

create a new program for high school students from the Islamic world to study in

the United States. No federal program currently exists to facilitate such student exchanges with the ever-increasing number of youths in the Islamic world.

There are many benefits to reaching out to students while they are young and

openminded to enhance cultural understanding and tolerance. Today’s high school

students are tomorrow’s leaders, and we need to begin working with them now to

inform them about our country.

In an January 20, 2002 article in the Washington Post, a former Fulbright scholarship recipient from Egypt expressed concern that his university in Egypt was and

continues to be fertile ground for recruiters from terrorist or extremist organizations. Our challenge is to provide young students with the opportunity to learn

about America, participate in all aspects of American family life, and understand

our values before they reach that stage.

The high school student exchange program authorized in our legislation is modeled on the State Department’s highly successful Future Leaders Exchange Program

(FLEX), which brings approximately 1,000 students ages 15–17 from the nations of

the former Soviet Union to the United States each year to attend an American high

school for a year and live with an American family.

The FLEX program has been effective in shaping attitudes among the students

selected to participate from those nations. A 1998 U.S. government study, which

compared Russian FLEX alumni with other Russian youth of the same age, found

that the FLEX alumni are more open to and accepting of Western values and democratic ideals. They are more likely to want to become leaders in and to make a contribution to their society. They tend to be more optimistic than other Russian youths

about the future of their country—especially its evolution to a more democratic,

rule-of-law society.

Importantly, the FLEX program has been successful in the six predominantly Islamic countries of those nations—Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,

Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. More than 1,500 students from those Muslim countries have studied and lived in the United States since the program began. FLEX

alumni in Azerbaijan and Turkinenistan are teaching English in their home countries, and alumni in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have been involved in activities to

develop democratic practices. Given the track record in these countries, there is

every reason to believe that a high school student exchange program would succeed

throughout the Islamic world.

Like the existing FLEX program, our legislation requires participating students

in high school exchanges from the Islamic world to be selected competitively and

in a manner that ensures geographic, gender, and socio-economic diversity. To qualify, students must be tested extensively and interviewed under State Department

guidelines. As with the FLEX program, the State Department will work with experienced American non-governmental organizations to recruit, select, and place students, and will remain in close contact with the public high school, the American

host family, and American non-governmental organizations while the students are

in the United States.

All students and visitors participating in programs authorized in the legislation

must be admissible under all our immigration laws and procedures. Legislation recently signed into law will improve our ability to screen foreign students by requiring increased communication among the State Department, the INS, and the schools

enrolling foreign students, and by closing gaps in the existing foreign student monitoring program.

Our legislation has been endorsed by the Alliance for International Education and

Cultural Exchange, AMIDEAST, AFS, the Academy for Educational Development,

the American Councils for International Education, the American Institute for Foreign Study, the Institute of International Education, the National Council for International Visitors, Sister Cities International, World Learning, and World Study

Group.

As the Director of the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, a coalition of 65 organizations with chapters in all 50 states, former AmbasVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
67

sador Kenton Keith, wrote: ‘‘Winning the war on terrorism will demand more than

just our military prowess. It will require us to engage the peoples of the Islamic

world about our society and values if we are to forge the mutual understanding and

respect that will be the basis of peaceful productive relationships. The exchanges

authorized in your bill are the most cost-effective way to encourage the positive personal and institutional relationships that will enhance our long-term national security.’’ I ask the committee to include copies of this letter and other endorsement letters in the hearing record.

America must respond to the terrorist threat on many levels. We need to ensure

that our defenses are strong, our borders are secure, and our relationships with allies are vibrant. We also need to do more in the area of public diplomacy.

It is clearly in America’s national security interest to promote more people-to-people contacts throughout the Muslim world. In a May 3rd address to the World Affairs Council in California, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spoke about

the need to reach out and strengthen voices of moderation in the Islamic world and

to bridge the ‘‘dangerous gap’’ between the West and the Muslim world. He said

America must ‘begin now . . . the gap is wide and there is no time for delay.’’

After September 11, many of the Muslim countries condemned those attacks and

pledged to help the United States fight terrorism. As we have seen in Afghanistan,

Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, some individuals and factions within

a country support terrorists and terrorist organizations, while others seek to resolve

issues peacefully. America can reduce support for terrorism by reaching out more

effectively in friendship to all nations in the Islamic world.

Building bridges of understanding and tolerance across cultures will help ensure

that Americans and people of the Islamic world will truly understand and know

each another. Clearly, international educational and cultural exchanges can play a

significant role in America’s public diplomacy efforts in the Islamic world.

I understand the Chairman intends to propose legislation to address these and

other important public diplomacy issues in the near future. I welcome this leadership, and I urge the committee to include the Cultural Bridges Act in public diplomacy legislation.

[Letters in support of the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002 follow:]

WORLD STUDY GROUP,

SAN FRANCISCO, CA,

April 2, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: On behalf, of the World Study

Group, I write to thank you for your leadership in introducing the Cultural Bridges

Act of 2002. The World Study Group and its affiliated J–1 visa programs are dedicated to increasing understanding and trust between people through international

cultural exchange.

Building productive ties with the Muslim world will require a sustained and serious commitment that reaches well beyond our current efforts. The exchanges authorized in your bill are the most cost-effective way to encourage the positive personal and institutional relationships that will enhance our long-term national security goals. Breaking down misunderstanding requires that our peoples know each

other better.

Congressional leadership will be crucial to this endeavor. Student exchanges from

the Muslim world are among the lowest of any region, and significant new resources

will be required to jump-start this effort. Moreover, a clear federal commitment will

leverage private sector support and will immediately engage the American people

directly in the conduct of this high priority foreign policy initiative.

Your legislation is the right bill at the right time. On behalf of AYUSA,

AuPairCare, and Intrax Inc., we thank you. You have the gratitude and support of

our staff and field representatives throughout the United States.

Sincerly,

JOHN WILHELM,

President.

68

WORLD LEARNING,

WASHINGTON, DC,

April 1, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: Thank you for your leadership

in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. Enactment of this legislation will

make possible increased opportunities to bring current and future leaders from the

Islamic world to the United States and to send Americans to Muslim countries to

teach and study.

Expanded opportunities for citizen exchange between the United States and the

Islamic world will help to engender increased respect, understanding and trust between our peoples. Building this mutual understanding will enhance our national

security by broadening the range of productive interactions between the United

States and Muslim countries.

Currently, student and other exchange flows with Muslim countries are lower

than with other regions of the world. The programs which the Cultural Bridges Act

authorizes would provide for significant increases at this crucial time for our nation.

Thank you again for your leadership in working to strengthen these important programs.

Sincerely yours,

ROBERT CHASE,

Vice President.

SISTER CITIES INTERNATIONAL,

WASHINGTON, DC,

April 1, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: On behalf of Sister Cities International and the 700 U.S. cities joined in cooperative sister city partnerships with

1,500 international cities in 121 countries, I applaud your leadership in introducing

the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. The Cultural Bridges Act of 2002 will be a vital

tool in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy in response to new

challenges facing the United States.

The need for increased international understanding and cooperation has never

been more imperative than in the aftermath of September 11. International education and exchange programs are critical elements in advancing U.S. foreign policy

and national security, as they build understanding and cooperation between Americans and future foreign leaders. Nearly 150 present and past foreign heads of state

made their first visits to the United States on exchange programs. This powerful

tool for building productive, positive relationships has served the United States extraordinarily well over the years, and has included visits from world leaders such

as Anwar Sadat and Indira Gandhi, French Premier Lionel Jospin and British

Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Perhaps most importantly, the Cultural Bridges Act boldly leads the way for the

federal government to encourage sustainable, cooperative relationships between the

United States and the Islamic world. In the fight against terrorism and efforts to

improve our national security, there can be no doubt that fostering international exchanges will help diminish negative stereotypes and build an environment of mutual

understanding and respect for differences. Furthermore, the Cultural Bridges Act

will help foster citizen diplomacy initiatives that will promote the involvement of

local citizens in international engagement. Now more than ever, the federal government must invest in capacity building at the community level to promote citizen diplomacy, particularly with regard to the Islamic world. As we know, resources allotted for these activities are drastically insufficient in the current climate, and we

hope the introduction of the Cultural Bridges Act will move our nation in the right

direction of enhanced cooperation.

Thank you again for your leadership on this pressing issue.

69

Sincerely,

TIM HONEY,

Executive Director,

Sister Cities International.

NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR INTERNATIONAL VISITORS,

WASHINGTON, DC,

April 1, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: On behalf of the Board and members of the National Council for International Visitors (NCIV), we thank you for

your initiative in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. NCIV members— nonprofit program agencies and 95 community organizations across the United

States—organize professional programs, home visits, and cultural activities for participants in the State Department’s International Visitor Program and other exchanges. More than 80,000 volunteers are involved in NCIV member activities each

year, including WorldBoston, International Center of Indianapolis, and the World

Affairs Council of Rhode Island.

NCIV members promote citizen diplomacy—the idea that the individual citizen

has the right, even the responsibility, to help shape U.S. foreign relations ‘‘one handshake at a time’’ through exchanges. We are grateful for your leadership in introducing this legislation that will make more of these handshakes possible with

participants from underserved areas of the world.

Sincerely,

ALAN KUMAMOTO,

Chair, Board of Directors.

SHERRY L. MULLER, PH.D.,

President.

INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION,

NEW YORK, NY,

April 2, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: On behalf of the Institute of

International Education, including our Trustees and volunteers across the country,

please accept IIE’s thanks and appreciation for the leadership you are showing by

introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. Your initiative could not be more relevant and timely.

As always, the leadership of Congress in international educational exchange is

critical. Now, in vulnerable areas of the world where peace, understanding and

progress through education are vitally needed to insure that terrorism and intolerance are eliminated, your legislation addresses key areas where we can work to

build shared values.

Exchanges of high school and college students, graduate students and young professionals, as well as others, who can help create the climate we need where progressive democratic developments flourish are sorely needed in Africa, the Near

East, Central and South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The focus of your Cultural

Bridges Act of 2002 on members of the Organization of Islamic Conference includes

virtually every nation we need to reach if we are serious about making people to

people diplomacy work for youth. As you know, the Institute has always regarded

the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchanges Act of 1961 as one of the most important of all this nation’s foreign policy documents. By directing the Department

of State to establish new initiatives through the authority of the 1961 Act you will

assure that the philanthropic and higher education sectors not only support your

efforts but help you leverage government resources for important common purposes.

70

Please let me know if there is anything the Institute can do to assist you in this

critically important endeavor at a time of great national need.

Sincerely,

—— —— ——,

Institute of International Education.

AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR FOREIGN STUDY,

STAMFORD, CT,

April 2, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: As a member of the Alliance for

International Educational and Cultural Exchange, I write to thank you for your

leadership in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002.

Winning the war on terrorism will demand more than just our military prowess.

It will require us to engage the peoples of the Islamic world about our society and

values if we are to forge the mutual understanding and respect that will be the

basis of peaceful, productive relationships. As September 11 and its aftermath make

clear, our public diplomacy has fallen short.

Building productive ties will require a sustained and serious commitment that

reaches well beyond our current efforts. The exchanges authorized in your bill are

the most cost-effective way to encourage the positive personal and institutional relationships that will enhance our long-term national security.

Congressional leadership will be crucial to this endeavor. Student and exchange

flows from the Muslim world are among the lowest of any region, and significant

new resources will be required to jump-start this effort. Moreover, a clear federal

commitment will leverage private sector support from universities, schools, businesses, and communities across the U.S. This initiative will engage the American

people directly in the conduct of the highest priority foreign policy.

Your legislation is the right bill at the right time. You have the gratitude and

support of members of the exchange community throughout the United States.

Sincerely,

ROBERT J. BRENNAN,

President.

ACADEMY FOR EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT,

WASHINGTON, DC,

April 2, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: On behalf of the Academy for

Educational Development, a non-profit organization serving people in more than 160

countries, I want to thank you for your leadership in introducing the Cultural

Bridges Act of 2002.

International exchange programs are a critical component of the war on terrorism.

Exchange programs enhance mutual understanding and build long-term bridges

with individuals in other countries. Expanding the flow of people, ideas and information will promote greater understanding of the United States and will advance

our foreign policy objectives.

The International Visitor Program has been particularly effective at reaching future foreign leaders and at advancing key foreign policy objectives. For example, a

recent leadership development program brought student leaders from the Middle

East and North Africa for exchanges with student leaders across the United States.

Another program on the role of religion in the United States brought administrators

from religious educational institutions, or ‘‘madrassahs,’’ in Pakistan to meet with

civic and religious leaders in several cities. Programs such as these that target key

issues and leaders should be significantly expanded in the Islamic world.

71

Although the world’s attention has been focused on the Muslim world, exchange

programs from countries with large Islamic populations are underrepresented in

U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs. Your bill will significantly enhance

the capacity to reach out to individuals in these countries through people-to-people

exchanges that are among our best tools of diplomacy.

We thank you for your leadership, vision and commitment in introducing this critical piece of legislation.

Sincerely,

STEPHEN F. MOSELEY,

President and Chief Executive Officer.

AFS–USA, INC.,

NEW YORK, NY,

April 1, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: I am writing on behalf of our

staff, volunteers, and board members located in all 50 states to express our pleasure

and thanks for initiating the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002.

AFS is the oldest, largest, and most diverse high school exchange program in the

United States and in the world. We understand and appreciate the leadership you

have demonstrated in sponsoring this bill. Public diplomacy in the Islamic world requires the focus and funding contained in your bill. Our 54 years of experience in

the field of exchange tells us that a serious commitment, sustained over a number

of years, will be needed to defeat terrorism at its roots by increasing understanding

and tolerance among people of different countries, beliefs and values. AFS exchanged students from Germany and Japan with the U.S. almost immediately after

World War II. Today those countries are our allies. Democratic principles, respect

for others, and individual freedom are our values, and they can be powerful when

seen through daily interaction with our families and students.

You are doing the right thing. We stand ready to support you in any way we can.

Thank you for your pursuit of peace and freedom.

Sincerely,

ALEX J. PLINIO,

President.

ALLIANCE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE,

NEW YORK, NY,

April 2, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: On behalf of the 65 member

NGOs of the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, I write

to thank you for your leadership in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002.

Winning the war on terrorism will demand more than just our military prowess.

It will require us to engage the peoples of the Islamic world about our society and

values if we are to forge the mutual understanding and respect that will be the

basis of peaceful, productive relationships. As September 11 and its aftermath make

clear, our public diplomacy has fallen short.

Building productive ties will require a sustained and serious commitment that

reaches well beyond our current efforts. The exchanges authorized in your bill are

the most cost-effective way to encourage the positive personal and institutional relationships that will enhance our long-term national security.

Congressional leadership will be crucial to this endeavor. Student and exchange

flows from the Muslim world are among the lowest of any region, and significant

new resources will be required to jump-start this effort. Moreover, a clear federal

commitment will leverage private sector support from universities, schools, busiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
72

nesses, and communities across the U.S. This initiative will engage the American

people directly in the conduct of the highest priority foreign policy.

Your legislation is the right bill at the right time. You have the gratitude and

support of members of the exchange community throughout the United States.

Sincerely,

KENTON W. KEITH,

U.S. Ambassador (retired),

Chair, Board of Directors.

AMERICAN COUNCILS FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION,

WASHINGTON, DC,

April 2, 2002.

Hon. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Hon. RICHARD LUGAR,

and Hon. LINCOLN CHAFEE,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATORS KENNEDY, LUGAR, AND CHAFEE: I write to commend you for your

leadership in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002, a legislative initiative

designed to engage the diverse Islamic populations around the world through international exchange programs. I particular want to thank you for focusing on high

school exchanges as a highly effective mechanism for introducing the United States

to this audience, and them to our fellow Americans.

While our country’s public diplomacy efforts—which include exchange programs—

have earned us many friends in parts of the world, the dramatic events of September 11th and our examination of our standing with key populations in the Islamic world since those terrorist attacks have revealed that we have neglected a

critical world population stretching from West Africa to Southeast Asia. This arc

crosses the Arab Middle East, through Southeastern Europe and Central Asia to

Indochina approximately 1.4 billion people populate the countries along this arc.

Your initiative would make it our national policy to reach out to the peoples of these

countries to build mutual understanding.

The Cultural Bridges Act of 2002 would capitalize on our nation’s capacity to educate and inform by bringing individuals to the United States to learn about our culture, language, and aspirations—all while studying in school, mastering their chosen profession, or doing research. It provides a highly effective (and low cost) way

to positively influence foreign populations through citizen diplomacy, something

we’ve done well with post-war Europe and Japan, Latin America, and most recently

with the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.

My own organization has utilized academic and youth exchanges for more than

25 years with the former Soviet Union. Among our many successes in fostering understanding of the United States in that region, some of the most impressive results

result from exchange programs involving youth, like the Future Leaders Exchange

Program, and secondary school teachers, like the Excellence in Teaching Awards Exchange Program—both funded through an earlier congressional initiative, the

FREEDOM Support Act. The Cultural Bridges Act that you are introducing in the

Senate would facilitate similar successes in the Islamic World.

The American Councils has experience with working in the Muslim communities

of the NIS—communities that exist throughout the 12 countries of the old Soviet

Union. Some of the most dynamic needs for expanded exchange opportunities in the

NIS are apparent in the predominately Islamic countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,

Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—countries that are critical

to addressing our urgent security concerns in Central Asia and all of which would

be eligible to benefit from your legislation.

Your exchanges initiative is both an effective bulwark against ignorance of the

United States and a proactive measure for securing the peace we hope to achieve

through our current military campaign. I applaud your leadership in introducing

this bill, and look forward to its enactment.

Sincerely,

DAN E. DAVIDSON, PH.D.,

President.

73

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMB. KENTON W. KEITH, CHAIR, ALLIANCE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,

MERIDIAN INTERNATIONAL CENTER

Good morning. I’m Kenton Keith, senior vice president of the Meridian International Center and chair of the board of directors of the Alliance for International

Educational and Cultural Exchange. The Alliance is an association of 65 U.S.-based

exchange organizations, and as you know, Mr. Chairman, we have worked closely

with this committee over the years on a variety of issues. MIC is a nonprofit organization that promotes international understanding through exchanges of people,

ideas, and the arts.

Prior to taking up my current positions, I was a Foreign Service Officer with the

United States Information Agency. Much of my career was spent in the Middle East,

including my appointment by President Bush in 1992 to be U.S. Ambassador to

Qatar. Following that assignment, I headed USIA’s area office that supervised all

the agency’s operations in the Near East and South Asia. More recently, I took on

a temporary assignment for the State Department during which I established and

directed the Coalition Information Center in Islamabad.

Mr. Chairman, both in my present capacities and based on my past experiences,

I welcome the opportunity to provide this statement for the record about the importance of public diplomacy, especially in the wake of the horrific events of September

11 and in support of our national campaign to rid the world of terrorism.

To win the war on terrorism, the United States will need more than the might

and skill of our armed forces, To ultimately defeat terrorism, we must also engage

the Muslim world in the realm of ideas, values, and beliefs. No previous foreign affairs crisis has been so deeply rooted in cultural misunderstanding, and we must

address this gulf of misunderstanding if we are to succeed.

Policy disagreements alone cannot account for the fact that many in Islamic countries regard the United States, the greatest force for good in human history, as a

source of evil. As a nation, we have not done an adequate job of explaining ourselves

to the world, or of building the personal and institutional connections with these

countries that support healthy bilateral relationships.

As a long-term solution to the profound problems of cultural misunderstanding,

there will be no substitute for public diplomacy. It must be a key component of our

long-term effort to eradicate terrorism. We applaud your leadership, Mr. Chairman,

and that of your committee in focusing attention on what must be a critical element

in our successful anti-terrorism strategy.

People-to-people ties are an essential part of our public diplomacy. As Ambassador

Arthur Burns once said, ‘‘The achievement . . . of true understanding between any

two governments depends fundamentally on the kind of relationship that exists between the peoples, rather than on the foreign ministers and ambassadors.’’

In the Islamic world, we dearly have not done an adequate job of fostering relationships between our peoples. A February Gallup poll reports that 61 percent of

Muslims believe that the attack on the United States was a riot carried out by

Arabs. Mr. Chairman, that statistic alone speaks somber volumes about our failure

to project our values and ideals effectively in Islamic nations.

We must recognize that we begin this effort in a very unfavorable position.

Changing minds—or merely opening them—is a long, painstaking process. There

are no quick fixes. And if we are truly to win the war on terrorism, there will be

no avoiding the need to build bridges between the American people and the people

of the Muslim world. Mr. Chairman, we must begin this process now.

This effort will require us to be creative, disciplined, and patient as we try to

reach audiences whose attitudes towards us range from profoundly skeptical to

openly hostile. We will not succeed in opening every mind, but we do not need to

do so. What we must succeed in doing is challenging and changing a climate of opinion that unjustly paints the United States as a source of evil. Improving the relationships that exist between our peoples is the best way to do that. And if we succeed, terrorists will find it much more difficult to gain support or sympathy, either

from governments or from general publics.

Increasing the State Department’s exchanges with the Islamic world will give us

the means to build a range of productive, positive relationships based on shared interests. Such an initiative will engage the American public—in our communities,

schools, and universities—in this effort to project American values. We will find no

better or more convincing representatives of our way of life.

And the engagement of the American public will leverage significant additional

resources to support this effort.

74

Under such an initiative, the United States could undertake a broad range of exchange activities that would enhance U.S. national security. These programs could

include:

• Greater numbers of Fulbright students and scholars working together on issues

such as public health, cultural studies, conflict resolution, and economic development;

• More American universities with linkages to institutions in the Muslim world

in fields like journalism, American studies, and business;

• Increased numbers of emerging leaders from Islamic countries meeting their

American professional counterparts and visiting American homes and communities as part of the International Visitor program and other citizen exchange

programs;

• More young people from the Islamic world encountering the U.S., its people,

and its culture through long and short-term exchange programs, school-to-school

projects. or by learning English from an American teacher;

• Exchanges of teachers between the U.S. and Muslim countries exposing students on both sides to differing perspectives and more balanced, objective curricula.

This will require a major effort, requiring us to engage a very broad range of

countries, in an area reaching from Africa to the Middle East, stretching further

eastward from Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia. Addressing so many countries and cultures will demand thoughtfully differentiated approaches to public diplomacy. In some countries, significant increases in our traditional exchanges, such as the Fulbright and International Visitor programs, will be

appropriate, welcome, and effective. In other countries, such an approach may be

seen as threatening. Particularly in those cases, we must be creative in finding ways

of reaching more skeptical publics, such as journalists and religious communities.

This initiative will also require significant new resources. The scope of the task

is too great, and its importance to our national security too critical, to be able to

accomplish our goals by simply shifting money from other regions of the world. The

importance of maintaining a broad, worldwide coalition to combat terrorism suggests strongly that shortchanging one area of the world in order to temporarily emphasize another will be an ineffective strategy. To do this job right will require new

funding.

Reductions in public diplomacy over time have limited out reach: we have closed

posts and cultural centers, reduced numbers of public diplomacy positions in our

embassies, and steeply reduced the number of exchange participants. As populations

in significant Muslim countries have increased by approximately 15 percent over the

past 10 years, the numbers of exchange participants from key countries such as

Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey have declined by approximately 25 percent.

In the face of those reductions, Mr. Chairman, it is important for us to recognize

the dedication, hard work, and effectiveness of the State Department’s corps of public diplomacy officers. Faced with diminishing resources and a major reorganization

that abolished USIA and moved their function and careers into State, these professionals have performed in their typical fashion: professionally and effectively.

Mr. Chairman, a meaningful and effective Islamic exchange initiative will require

$95 million above the current appropriation for State exchanges. We recognize that

this is a significant amount of money. We believe, however, that this funding level

is necessary and appropriate, given the expanse of the Muslim world and the urgency and importance of the task at hand. Moreover, this amount of money to be

spent on promoting our ideas and values is very small when compared to the sums

we will expend on military hardware, but is no less crucial to our success.

Mr. Chairman, we welcome the opportunity to discuss this proposal with you and

your staff, and we have found broad bipartisan support for an Islamic exchange initiative in both chambers. As you know, Senators Kennedy and Lugar have recently

introduced the ‘‘Cultural Bridges Act,’’ calling for an additional $95 million annually

for exchanges with the Muslim world. Their bill has already attracted twelve additional cosponsors, drawn from both sides of the aisle. In the House, International

Relations Committee Chairman Hyde’s ‘‘Freedom Promotion Act’’ also authorizes

new funds for exchanges with the Muslim world. The Hyde bill has been marked

up by the Committee and has been reported to the House for its consideration. This

level of support from senior members of both parties and both chambers underscores

the timeliness and importance of this initiative. This is a moment when our national

interests require Congressional leadership to build these cultural bridges. The U.S.

exchange community stands ready to assist you in this effort, and is grateful for

your support.

75

In addition to his Alliance testimony, Kenton Keith submits to the Committee an additional statement based more directly on his Foreign Service

experience. The text of that addendum follows:

Mr. Chairman, it is indeed timely for the committee to examine our public diplomacy assets in the wake of the attacks on our nation. I would like to draw your

attention to problems that handicap the dedicated individuals who carry out public

diplomacy in Washington and in the field. Structural problems stemming from the

amalgamation of USIA into the Department of State have had the unintentional effect of diminishing the thrust of our public diplomacy efforts.

I also would like to comment briefly on the new regional broadcasting initiative

launched by the Voice of America.

Structural Faults: An Opportunity Deferred

I served as the USIA representative on the Planning Committee. In the months

of our deliberations it was clear to me that the disappearance of the USIA Area Offices would be the biggest challenge to the effective linkage of Washington to the

field operations. The Area Offices, which corresponded to the State Department regional bureaus, had tremendous clout. They were headed by the Agency’s seniormost career officers, they controlled field budgets, they had direct and regular access

to the Agency’s Directors and the political appointees who headed the Information

and Educational and Cultural Exchange bureaus, and they shared with Ambassadors abroad the performance evaluations of our PAOs, the public diplomacy directors in the field. In other words, PAOs were accountable to both their ambassadors

and their area directors.

In almost every case, Area Directors sat in on the meetings of State Department

regional Assistant Secretaries. Indeed, it was most often the case that they had long

professional relations with those Assistant Secretaries from shared field assignments, and there was a mutual respect and trust built over time. Thus, it was natural that they were aware of the short- and medium-range policy concerns of any

given period. They were also the custodians of the long-range public diplomacy effort

to create better understanding by foreign audiences of American culture, institutions and values.

In discussions of the foreign affairs reorganization, the interagency planning team

was unable to reach a consensus on how to replace these vital functions, and the

final report went forward with ‘‘bracketed language,’’ indicating this disagreement.

In the event, the amalgamated Area Offices were reduced in size and power. Area

Directors were replaced by office directors within the State regional bureaus. Also,

some public diplomacy officers, usually even more junior, were assigned to functional bureaus. Moreover, budget control for field operations was moved to the Executive Officers in the regional bureaus in Washington, and to State administrative

officers in the field.

What Was Lost?

• Coordination. USIA Area Directors had the power to intercede with the Bureau

of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Information Bureau (and to some

extent with the VOA and television producers) to shape products for field use

and to ensure that they were integrated into a well-managed public diplomacy

operation in the field posts. This made it possible to mount a region-wide public

diplomacy effort to meet emerging needs.

• Accountability. PAOs were accountable to their ambassadors, of course, as they

are today, but they were also accountable to the Area Directors. With this arrangement, PAOs not only responded to the ‘‘brush fire’’ public diplomacy issues

at the mission, but also to the longer range challenge of building understanding

and trust through exchange programs, libraries, English language teaching and

cultural exchanges.

• Flexibility. Once PAOs lost their status as representatives of an independent

agency, they lost their independent administrative infrastructure. The idea was

to eliminate redundancy and save money. The result has been that PAOs have

become mired in the bureaucratic complexities of the Department’s operations,

and have had to spend time with added forms and reports when they should

be out engaging with audiences. Over the years, USIA had developed procedures, including grant management and flexibility in raising money from the

private sector for joint programs, that took account of the fact that it was a programming agency. This was new to State, and the loss of these tools has hampered public diplomacy operations.

Under the current structure, which I believe to be fundamentally flawed, the primary purveyors of public diplomacy resources—the Under Secretary for Public DiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:31 Oct 15, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 81880 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
76

plomacy and Public Affairs, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the

Office of International Information Programs—have no formal bureaucratic connection with the public diplomacy sections in our embassies. The Department’s senior

official responsible for the conduct of our public diplomacy (the Under Secretary) has

no authority over the field operations that perform that mission.

This anomalous structure runs the risk of marginalizing public diplomacy within

State, and already has diminished its effectiveness. Those senior officials with responsibility for public diplomacy do not control field resources; those with a direct

connection to the field resources are mid-ranking office directors, and do not have

the clout to take bold action. The structural flaw already is manifesting itself in a

diminished focus, uncoordinated activities, and reduced field resources.

Mr. Chairman, I believe the prescription for change would include the following

elements:

Each regional bureau should have a Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) charged

with overseeing its public diplomacy activities. Only by providing senior leadership

will public diplomacy succeed at State.

Establishing a DAS in each regional bureau would ensure that public diplomacy

is actively represented in senior-level meetings and thus an integral component in

our approach to every foreign policy issue. A senior officer with these responsibilities

could effectively coordinate public diplomacy activities across the region, make the

case for additional resources when needed, and play an active role in relevant personnel matters. The DAS’s would coordinate closely with the Under Secretary for

Public Diplomacy, who would have input into their annual personnel evaluations.

Creating and maintaining DAS positions would be a critical first step in changing

the Department’s culture, and would send an unmistakable message to those who

work at State: that public diplomacy matters, and matters enough to require senior

leadership.

Second, a formal link should exist between the regional DAS for Public Diplomacy, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the Assistant

Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the Coordinator for International Information Programs. In USIA the close coordination with the Director,

the Counselor and the Area Directors facilitated broad public diplomacy responses

to any given challenge. At present, the only persons within the Department who

have the authority to launch public diplomacy initiatives across regional bureaus

are the Secretary of State and his Deputy.

A New Voice of America

Mr. Chairman, the Voice of America has launched the Middle East Radio Network, which provides FM broadcasting to Arab audiences with substantial programming of local news and features voiced by speakers of the principal regional dialects,

with a centrally produced world news program in modern standard Arabic. In my

judgment as someone who has served in the region for substantial portions of my

career, this is an ambitious experiment that deserves the full support of Congress.

For too long we have clung to short wave broadcasting with a diminishing audience, or we have used FM signals that were too weak to be heard. But just as important as having the right signal is the need for content that speaks to the audiences we seek to reach. This requires the kind of research and production effort that

costs money, but will pay great dividends. Middle East Radio Network is a very

promising concept, and one that has the potential to play a critical role in our longterm public diplomacy strategy.

Æ