Modern U.S. government-funded international broadcasting began during World War II with the creation of the Voice of America, and continued throughout the Cold War period with Radio Free Europe broadcasting behind the Iron Curtain, and Radio Liberty targeting populations in the former Soviet Union. Over the decades, VOA expanded its broadcasting and language services into other regions of the world, including the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Later, new services for Cuba and East Asia were initiated. Most recently, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, significant new resources and services were introduced to reach the peoples of the Middle East and Central and South Asia. For almost as long as these services have been in existence, debates over the effectiveness, strategic direction, and necessity of U.S. international broadcasting have persisted. Since the creation of the Broadcasting Board of Governors in the 1990s, and its establishment as an independent government agency in 1999, arguments over its structure, as a government agency headed by a nine-member bi-partisan Board, have only added to these debates. Many observers perceive flaws in the BBG's structure that create (1) weak leadership from the Board and overreaching interference by Governors in day-to-day operations; (2) overlapping management structures amongst the BBG, elements of the federal international broadcasting bureaucracy, and five separate international broadcasters; (3) duplicative programming and language services and a lack of focus on individual broadcaster missions; and (4) inefficient administrative and personnel management of the agency. Current legislation in the 113 th Congress is intended, in large part, to address these perceived shortcomings. In addition, a number of issues concerning the BBG and U.S. international broadcasting continue to spark debate, including problems with Board operations and the possible need to create a new position for executive leadership; recommendations for the strategic direction and allocation of resources in U.S. international broadcasting; the effect of shifts in information communication technologies, especially the importance of the Internet and digital media, on U.S. international broadcasters; proposals for improving the efficiency of U.S. international broadcasting, including possible consolidation of the several U.S. international broadcast entities; continuing disagreements over the role of U.S. international broadcasting in advancing U.S. foreign policy goals and promoting democracy; and assessment and improvement of U.S. international broadcasting effectiveness. The structure, purposes, and aims of U.S. government-funded broadcasting to foreign countries have evolved over seven decades, spanning World War II, the Cold War, the fall of communist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the response to the threat of terrorism after the September 11 attacks on the United States. Paralleling these global political shifts, the technology and delivery mechanisms of broadcasting to local, regional, and global audiences have also evolved, requiring U.S. international broadcasting to adapt and innovate to effectively deliver programming and inform audiences. The modern structure of U.S. international broadcasting had its beginnings in World War II. At the start of U.S. involvement in the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established an agency for foreign intelligence and propaganda that operated at first without congressional authorization. This agency's Foreign Information Service broadcast news and propaganda to Europe. In 1942, the agency was formally created as the Office of War Information, which established the Voice of America (VOA) as well as overseas operations constituted by a United States Information Service (USIS). VOA broadcast to Europe throughout the war, with a mission to provide accurate news to foreign publics that could not otherwise obtain it. Although some called for VOA to cease operations after the end of World War II, VOA was preserved along with other U.S. government information programs, and transferred to the Department of State. From 1945 to 1953 VOA was housed under variously named offices at the State Department, including Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs, the Office of International Information and Educational Exchange, and the International Information Administration. In 1953, President Eisenhower created the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), within which VOA remained until 1999, when USIA was abolished. In 1946, the U.S. government established Radio in the American Sector (RIAS), based in West Berlin and broadcasting at first to Germans in West Berlin and later to all of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). For most of its existence, RIAS operated as a partnership between the U.S. government and the government of the former Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), providing radio and, beginning in the late 1980s, television programming to large audiences in Berlin and East Germany. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and German reunification in 1990, the U.S. government ceased funding for RIAS and the service was ended in the early 1990s. While VOA was established as an official U.S. government broadcaster, the U.S. government also began support for Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL), two radio services that started broadcasting to Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, respectively, in the early 1950s. RFE originally broadcast to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Albania, Romania, and Bulgaria in 1950, while RL started broadcasting to the Soviet Union in 1953. RFE and RL were technically independent services, each overseen by a private U.S. corporation, the National Committee for a Free Europe, and the American Committee for Freedom of the Peoples of the U.S.S.R. (later Radio Liberty Committee). Both were conceived, however, by the State Department, and from their beginning received substantial funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). RFE and RL initially broadcast programming to encourage the liberation of the populations of the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe from communist, totalitarian government rule. These broadcasts responded to propaganda from the Soviet and other communist governments. Both RFE and RL utilized émigré broadcasting professionals from the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, and provided programming that concerned the domestic matters of each country, providing a surrogate "home service" that was intended to replace the communist government's news media. By the late 1950s, as the Cold War continued and the Iron Curtain threatened to remain in place for the coming decades, however, RFE and RL transformed their programming focus from liberation to the encouragement of the gradual liberalization and democratization of the communist systems of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. RFE and RL also developed internal research departments that provided intelligence and analysis of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union based on media sources from the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc as well as Western Europe, and archives of Soviet and Central and Eastern European documents and other materials. The CIA ended its funding for RFE and RL in 1971. In 1973, Congress formally created the Board of International Broadcasting (BIB) to oversee and fund both RFE and RL under the International Broadcasting Act of 1973 ( P.L. 93-129 ). The President appointed the nine members of the independent bipartisan board. The term "BIB" also referred to the independent federal agency created to administer and provide federal funding to RFE and RL. RFE and RL combined to form a single independent corporation, RFE/RL, Inc., in 1976. During this period, RFE/RL adapted its programming to its Soviet and European target audiences. RFE/RL had been characterized by critics as broadcasting one-sided propaganda to combat Soviet and Communist Bloc media. These services now transitioned more fully to the role of a surrogate broadcaster, providing an example of an independent broadcaster promoting journalistic integrity and democratic principles of a free media. In 1963, USIA began producing television programming for the first time, combining it with its longstanding film service. With the advent of satellite television technologies, USIA created its WORLDNET satellite television service in 1983. WORLDNET transmitted its television programming through USIS posts and U.S. embassies, as well as over foreign television and cable networks. In 2004, WORLDNET was merged into VOA. In the early 1980s, Congress authorized the creation of separate services from VOA's Spanish language programming that specifically targeted the population of Cuba. In 1983, Radio Martí began broadcasting to Cuba, and was joined in 1988 by TV Martí. These services were organized under the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), within the organization of USIA's Bureau of Broadcasting, which also oversaw VOA and WORLDNET broadcasting. Although Congress created the Martís as part of USIA with close links to VOA and not as an independent grantee organization like RFE/RL, the Martís were established to act as surrogate broadcasters in Cuba, similar to the surrogate role of RFE/RL in Europe and the Soviet Union. With the enactment of the United States International Broadcasting Act of 1994 (Title III of P.L. 103-236 ; USIB Act), Congress abolished the BIB and reorganized all existing U.S. international broadcasting services under a new Broadcasting Board of Governors within USIA. The USIB Act established BBG to be composed of nine presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed members, with the Secretary of State serving as a voting member ex officio and providing foreign policy information and guidance to the Board. By ensuring broadcasting independence while at the same time institutionalizing guidance from the Secretary of State, the USIB Act aimed to produce U.S. international broadcasting that is both credible and supportive of U.S. foreign policy objectives. Recognizing that several of the most repressive regimes in the world ruled in East Asia, many observers and Members of Congress argued for several years for increased broadcasting to that region. Congress eventually authorized creation of Radio Free Asia (RFA) in 1994, and it began broadcasting in 1996, with a core mission to "provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press."