Since 1981, USIA's leadership managed to alienate key constituencies for its programs, including the university and educational exchange communities, the advocates of radio broadcasting, and those concerned simply with effective use of taxpayer dollars. As a result, few came to USIA's defense when the consolidation was put forward. If anything, Joe Duffey's competent and low-key management helped depoliticize USIA, making it less of a lightning rod than it had been under his predecessors. There was also a strong substantive argument for AID's continuation as a separate agency under the general authority of the secretary of State. What AID does is different from what the State Department does, and there is no reason to believe that the department has the necessary expertise to master the intricacies of AID contracting.
Few things are as fatal in Washington as becoming an object of fun.
Early in the administration, Wick alienated the educational community first by proposing to slash the Fulbright academic exchange program and then by directing exchange monies to fund far-right advocacy groups. The danger of moving the exchanges to the State Department is that a future secretary of State will want to use them to support some controversial short-term policy goal, and thus diminish the Fulbright program s reputation. Wick also ignored USIA's overseas operations. Sadly the decline in overseas presence has continued. The agency now operates on the principle that it will minimally staff overseas missions while investing resources in Washington-based products that can be speedily deployed to the field at the request of the mission.