95. Letter From the Director of the United States Information Agency (Reinhardt) to all USIA Public Affairs Officers1
In July I issued by telegram program guidelines for Country Plan and project activities.2 Since then, it has become clear that the guidelines have at best resulted in some confusion. I regret that we were not more skillful drafters. Since the guidelines constitute one of the most basic building blocks that we intend to put in place, clarity at the outset is essential.
The misinterpretation which most concerns me accords a secondary place to our legislative mandate to project American society and a primary place to our mandate to explain U.S. official policies.
That is simply not the case, nor the intention. Our two legislative mandates are of equal importance. My initial emphasis (in meetings with colleagues in Washington) on explaining U.S. policies was meant to ensure equality of treatment to this function, which, I believe, has come to be taken for granted. Programs and projects in support of this purpose are sometimes difficult to design. That they may require more effort does not absolve us of our responsibility.
At the same time, programs to project American society are somewhat easier to design. It is for this reason that I chose to emphasize the foreign policy mandate. I did not and do not intend to accord the two mandates different priorities. To repeat—they are of equal importance.
The guidelines deliberately state that all programs must be demonstrably relevant to U.S. objectives under one mandate or the other; and also state that the country program is contingent on an analysis of the points of communication tension between the U.S. and the host country. Clearly, these tensions differ from country to country and thus our Country Plans will differ from country to country. Therefore, the balance between the programs under the two mandates will [Page 273] also differ. It is the analysis of the tensions that will determine how much programming is done under each of the mandates.
But for the Agency as a whole, the two are equal in importance. Any other interpretation can only be misleading.
It is the PAO’s responsibility to determine what policies need explaining and which aspects of American society need projecting and where, in the context of the local communication environment, the balance lies. But to assume, at the beginning of the analytical process, a different priority for the two mandates would be erroneous.
I trust this clarifies our intent.
Sincerely,
Director
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, Office of the Director, Executive Secretariat, Secretariat Staff, Correspondence Files, 1973–1980, Entry P–104, Box 140, 7704100–7704109. No classification marking. Distributed to all heads of offices and services and overseas supervisory level employees. Alan Carter sent the letter to Reinhardt through Schneidman under an October 3 cover memorandum. In it, Carter explained that the letter “is the draft of the first of the two PAO letters for the Director’s signature” noting that it “is an attempt to clarify the intent of the Country Plan guidelines.” (Ibid.)↩
- See Document 77.↩